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Parents, Children, and the Church in the Earlier Middle Ages*(Presidential Address)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Janet L. Nelson
Janet L. Nelson*
Affiliation:
King’s CollegeLondon
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Extract

The titles of Ecclesiastical History Society conferences have sometimes presented the Church as part of a pair that carries more than a hint of contradiction: the Church and War; the Church and Wealth. Well now: the Church and Childhood? Ecclesiastical Historians and Childhood? I can’t help recalling Heloise’s rhetorical question: ‘What harmony can there be between pupils and nursemaids, desks and cradles?’ Last year we reminded ourselves that the blood of the martyrs is the life of the Church: this year and, more fortunately placed than Heloise, I’m confident that we’ll show the multifarious ways in which flesh-and-blood children have been part of that life. ‘The Church’ is shorthand: not only do we have to speak of many churches, but of many varieties of ecclesiastical attitude, of conflicts of ecclesiastical interest, of juxtapositions and negotiations between clerical and lay (for parents, too, are members of the Church), and, in all the above, of change. Equally subject to change and variety is the other element in this year’s pair. Although the stages of a child’s development are biological, physiological, perhaps psychological givens, and genetically programmed, childhood itself is a construct, culturally determined. As historians, it’s our job to historicize it: identify the phases and modes and variations in its construction, its adaptation, and its lived experience.

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Studies in Church History , Volume 31: The Church and Childhood , 1994 , pp. 81 - 114
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Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1994

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Footnotes

*

For a generous supply of references and helpful suggestions on themes dealt with in this paper 1 should like to thank Andrew Louth, Michelle Lucey, Jane Martindale, Rob Meens, Julia Smith, and, especially, Mayke de Jong.

References

1 Heloise, as reported by Abelard, Historia Calamitatum, tr. Radice, B., The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Harmondsworth, 1974), p. 71.Google Scholar

2 Ariès, P., L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’ancien régime (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar, tr. Boldick, R., Centuries of Childhood (Harmondsworth, 1973).Google Scholar

3 See Biller, P. P. A., ‘Marriage patterns and women’s lives’, in Goldberg, P. J. P., ed., Woman is a Worthy Wight. Women in English Society c.1200-1500 (Stroud, 1992), pp. 60–107 Google Scholar, at p. 65; R. Samuel, ‘Reading the signs: II. Fact-grubbers and mind-readers’, History Workshop Journal, 33 (1992), pp. 220-51, at pp. 220-31; also K. Arnold, Kind und Gesellschaft in Mittelalter und Renaissance (Paderborn and Munich, 1980); S. Wilson, ‘The myth of motherhood a myth: the historical view of European child-rearing’, Social History, 9 (1984), pp. 181-98, and D. Alexandre-Bidon and M. Closson, L’Enfant à l’ombre des cathédrales (Paris, 1985), pp. 234-5; and. with further references, S. Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1990), pp. 1-6 and p. 260 at n. 7. Like all the above, the fine paper of M. McLaughlin, ‘Survivors and surrogates: parents and children from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries’, in L. de Mause, The History of Childhood (London, 1976), pp. 101-82, is most valuable on the eleventh century, or later.

4 Sacramentary of Angoulâme, ed. P. Saint-Roch. Liber Sacramentorum Engolismensis. Manuscrit B.N. Lat. 816. Le Sacramentaire Gélasien d’Angoulème, CChr. SL, 159 (1987), p. 117.

5 Matt. 18.3-6.

6 Gelasian Sacramentary, ed. L. C. Mohlberg, Liber sacramentorum romanae aecclesiae ordinis anni circuii = Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta. Series Maior, Fontes i (Rome, 1960), no. 284, p. 42. The elements of this rite are datable to the sixth and seventh centuries: A. Chavasse, Le Sacramentaire Gélasien (Tournai, 1959), pp. 155-76.

7 Sacramentary of Gellone, ed. A. Dumas and J. Deshusses, Liber Sacramentorum Gellonensis, CChr. SL, 159 (1981), nos 406, 407, 408, pp. 411-17.

8 Gelasian Sacramentary, ed. Mohlberg, no. 294, p. 44; Ordo Romanus XI, ed. M. Andrieu, Les ordines romani du haut moyen âge, 5 vols, Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense. Etudes et documents, 11, 23, 24, 28, 29 (Louvain, 1931-61), 2 (1948), p. 422. See H. Kelly, The Devil at Baptism. Ritual, Theology, and Drama (Cornell, 1985), ch. 12. For the dating of Ordo Romanus XI, see below, p. 102, n. 91.

9 Hrabanus Maurus, De clericorum institutione, 1, 27, PL 107, cols 311-12. For exorcized infants as symbolic demoniacs, see Kelly, The Devil at Baptism, p. 151.

10 Felix’s Life of Guthlac, ch. 12, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956), p. 78 (the translation is mine).

11 Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, ch. 1. tr. B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge, 1940), p. 154 (my translation), with reference to 1 Sam. 3.7. The levitas of youthful play is castigated further on in the same chapter, p. 156; cf. the even more critical comments on children’s scurilitas, especially with reference to hand-stands, in Bede’s source, the Anonymous Life of Cuthbert, ch. 3, ibid., p. 64.

12 Augustine, Confessions, 1, chs viii-x, tr. H. Chadwick (Oxford, 1991), pp. 11-12. Sec Shaw, B., ‘The family in Late Antiquity: the experience of Augustine’, Pap, 115 (1987), pp. 3–51.Google Scholar

13 Augustine, Confessions, 1, ch. xi, p. 9.

14 Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo (London, 1967), pp. 365–6 Google Scholar, and ‘Late Antiquity’, in Veyne, P., cd., A History of Private Life, I (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1987), pp. 292–311.Google Scholar

15 Cf. Rob Meens’s contribution to the present volume, above pp. 53-65; and for ordinary children perceived as wicked, see J. Leclercq, ‘Pédagogie et formation spirituelle du Ve au XIe siècle’, Settimane di Studio di Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 19 (1972), pp. 255-90, at p. 283.

16 P. Brown, The Body and Society (New York, 1988) is silent on this subject.

17 Rule of Benedict, ed. and tr. J. McCann (London, 1969), chs 30, 45, pp. 80, 106.

18 Liutprandi Leges (731), ch. 120, ed. F. Beyerle, Leges Langobardorum 643-866, 2nd edn (Witzen-hausen, 1962), p. 157, tr. K. F. Drew, The Lombard Laws (Philadelphia, 1973), p. 197; Radice, Letters of Abelard and Heloise, p. 67. For beating in secular and monastic contexts, see e.g. below, pp. 95, 113.

19 ‘If a boy under twelve commits a crime, no fine is required from him’, Lex Salica, 34, MGH.LNG, IV, 2, ed. K. A. Eckhardt (Hanover, 1969), p. 72. But a capitulary of Louis the Pious in 819, MGH.Cap, I, ed. A. Boretius (Hanover, 1883), no. 142, p. 293, clarifies this: an infans who steals someone else’s property (res) must appear in court before the count, and though not liable to a fine, must pay compensation.

20 MGH. Cap, 1, no. 22, ch. 64, p. 58 (rationabiiis aetas), cf. no. 28, ch. 45, p. 77.

21 The secular legal notion of majority was gendered: women did not swear oaths of fidelity. By contrast, canon law on consent, whether for entry into religious life or for marriage, was gender-blind.

22 Isidore, Etymologies, XI, 2, 10, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols (Oxford, 1911), 2 (unpaginated); Quaestiones XL, 54, PL 83, col. 207: ‘non laesus meminit; non perseverat in ira; non delectatur pulchra femina; non aliud cogitat vel aliud loquitur’. The latter passage (note that all four virtues are negative ones) was quoted by Bede and many others. For its patristic source, see Gillian Clark, above, p. 22.

23 Dialogues, IV, 18, ed. A. de Vogüé, 3 vols, SC, 251, 265 and 266 (1978-80), 3, p. 72.

24 Theodore, Penitential, II, v. 7, ed., Finsterwalder, P. W., Die Canones Theodori Cantuariensis und ihre Uberlieferungsformen (Weimar, 1929), p. 319.Google Scholar

25 Bede, Epistola ad Ecgbertum, ch. 15, cd. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896), p. 419, tr. D. Farmer, Bede, Ecclesiastical History and Letter to Egbert (Harmondsworth, 1990), p. 348.

26 Rule of Benedict, ch. 3. p. 24: ‘Saepe iuniori Dominus revelat quod melius est’. Cf. also P. Riché, ‘L’enfant dans la société monastique au XIIe siècle’, in Rich’, Instruction et vie religieuse dans le Haut Moyen Age (London, 1981), ch. 19. On monastic views of childlike innocence, see the forthcoming book of Mayke de Jong.

27 Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, Miracula, ch. 11, ed. B. Krusch, MCH.SRM, II (Hanover, 1888), p. 470, tr. J. A. McNamara and J. Halborg, eds, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham, NC and London, 1992), pp. 233-4; Vita Austrebertae, ch. 16, ActaSS, 10 Feb., p. 422, tr. McNamara and Halborg, pp. 315-16.

28 Courcelle, P., ‘L’enfant et les sorts bibliques’, Vigiliae Christianae, 7 (1953), pp. 194–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Lex Frisionum, 14, 1, MGH.LNG, III, ed. K. von Richthofen (Hanover, 1863), p. 667. Courcelle, ‘L’enfant’, p. 200, n. 21 discerns ‘a newly-Christianized ancient Indo-European custom’.

30 Vita Sancii Aniani III, ch. 2, ed. A. Theiner, Saint Aignan et le siège d’Orléans par Attila (Paris, 1832), p. 34, cited in Courcelle, ‘L’enfant’, p. 202, n. 28. T. Head, Hagiography and the Cult of the Saints. The Diocese of Orleans, 800-1200 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 35–7, in a careful discussion, assigns this Life to the (late) ninth century.

31 Vita Cadoci, ch. 16, ed. A. W. Wade-Evans, Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae (Cardiff, 1944), p. 60: ‘parvulis pueris virginibus cum mulieribus haut coinquinatis’. For this reference, I am very grateful to Wendy Davies, who comments that this text probably incorporates earlier material.

32 On the puer-senex in Christian hagiography, see E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. W. R. Trask (London, 1952), pp. 98-105, noting the contrast between classical (positive) and Christian (negative) constructions of childhood. Shahar, Childhood, p. 16, points out that hagiographers using this topos ‘implicitly rejected’ young children.

33 Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, ch. 1, ed. Colgrave, pp. 156, 158, citing Ps. 8.3.

34 Vita Sancti Goaris, ch. 7, ed. B. Krusch, MGH.SRM, 4 (Hanover. 1902), p. 418. For this motif, see W. Berschin, Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter, 3 (Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 71–4.

35 Vita Stephani Obazinensis, ed. M. Aubrun (Clermont-Ferrand, 1970), ch. 16, 47-9, pp. 68, 170-3 (with citation of I Cor. 14.20).

36 See the thought-provoking discussion of R. I. Moore, The Origins of European Dissent (London, 1977). pp. 99-101. Orthodox views on original sin were well established in the earlier Middle Ages: see J. Gross, Geschichte des Erbsundendogmas. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Problems von Ursprung des Ubels, 4 vols (Munich, Basle, 1960-72), 1.

37 ‘Parvi… actualiter non peccaverunt, cum sint infra annos rationales’: from the account by the monk William of his debate with Henry, ed. R. Manselli, ‘Il monaco Enrico e la sua eresia’, Bulletino dell’Istituto storico Italiano per il medio evo, 65 (1953), pp. 36-62, at p. 48.

38 Ibid., p. 50: ‘Baptizantur autem parvi fide baptizantium vel in fide parentum, immo generaliter in fide totius ecclesie. In fide autem alterius posse salvari, si bene voles intelligere, ex multis auctoritatibus habes evangelii… Fidem parentum liberis similter prodesse, mulieris chananee testimonium, que fide sua, sicut ait Evangelista, filiam suam sanan meruit evidenter ostendit.’

39 Augustine, Epistola ad Bonifacium, Ep. 98, 5, ed. A. Goldbacher, CSEL, 34 (1895), p. 526. See further B. Jussen, Patenschaft und Adoption im frühen Mittelalter. Künstliche Verwantschaft als soziate Praxis (Göttingen, 1991), p. 147.

40 See Nelson, J. L., ‘Les femmes et l’évangélisation au IXe siècle’. Revue du Nord, 68 (1986), pp. 471–85 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 480-1; and ‘Women and the Word’, SCH, 27 (1989), pp. 53-78, at pp. 67-8.

41 Cf. Schmidt, J.-C., Le saint lévrier. Guinefort, guérisseur d’enfants depuis le XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1979).Google Scholar

42 Theodulf of Orleans, Second Set qf Capitula, X, 31, ed. Brommer, P., MGH. Capitula Episcoporum, I (Hanover, 1984), pp. 182–3.Google Scholar

43 Paul the Deacon, Gesta Episcoporum Mettensium, ed. G.H. Pertz, MCH.SS, II (Hanover, 1829), p. 267. I am very grateful to Guy Halsall for allowing me to use his unpublished translation. For other examples of the commemoration of children who had died in infancy, see epitaphs by Sedulius Scottus and Milo of St-Amand, ed. L. Traube, MGH.PL III (Berlin, 1896), pp. 201, 677-8; cf. also G. Tellenbach, ‘Uber die ältesten Welfen im West- und Ostfrankenreich’, in Tellenbach, ed., Studien und Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte des grossfräSnkische Adels (Freibach, 1957), pp. 335-40; R. Louis, Girard, comte de Vienne, 3 vols (Auxerre, 1946), i, pp. 49-5o. For royal child-saints, see D. Rollason, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1989), pp. 118-19; and, in comparative context, G. Klaniczay, The Uses of Supernatural Power (London, 1990), pp. 79-94.

44 Vita Karoli, ch. 19, ed. G. Waitz, MGH.SRC (Hanover, 1911), p. 24.

45 Wulfad, Pastoral Letter, ed. Dümmler, E., MCH.Ep, VI (Berlin, 1902), pp. 188–92 Google Scholar, at p. 191.

46 Coleman, E., ‘Infanticide in the early Middle Ages’, in Stuard, S. M., ed., Women in Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 1976), pp. 47–71 Google Scholar, at p. 60. Cf. also D. Herlihy, Medieval Households (London, 1985), pp. 64-8.

47 Vita Liudgeri, I, chs. 6-7, ed. Pertz, G. H., MGH.SS, 11 (Hanover, 1829), p. 406.Google Scholar

48 Schmitz, G., ‘Schuld und Strafe. Eine unbekannte Stellungnahme des Rathramnus von Corbie zur Kindestötung’, Deutsches Archiv, 38 (1982), pp. 363–87 Google Scholar; Payer, P. J., ‘The humanism of the Penitentials’, MS, 46 (1984), pp. 340–54.Google Scholar

49 McNeill, T. H. and Gamer, H., Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York, 1939), p. 294 Google Scholar; and cf. ibid, indicating that ‘excessive’ mourning over kin (parentes) occasioned particular concern.

50 Platelle, H., ‘Le thème de la conversion à travers les oeuvres hagiographiques d’Hucbald de Saint-Amand’, Revue du Nord, 68 (1986), pp. 510–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 PL 132, ch. 13, cols 8xx-x; tr. McNamara and Halborg, Sainted Women, pp. 210-11.

52 Dhuoda, Manuel, 1, 7, ed. P. Riché, Dhuoda, Manuel pour mon fils, SC, 225 (197s), p. 116.

53 Ibid., Riché, Introduction, p. 49.

54 Ibid., pp. 128-9, with Riché’s n. 5.

55 Jonas of Orleans, De institutions laicali, ii, chs 14, 16, PL 106, cols 192-5, 197; Council of Meaux-Paris (845), ch. 77, ed. W. Hartmann, MGH.Conc, III (Hanover, 1984), p. 124.

56 Dhuoda, Manuel, 1, 7, p. 114.

57 Ibid., 111, 1-3, pp. 134-49; cf. Riché, Introduction, p. 27.

58 Theodulf of Orleans, Capitula 1, 33, MCH.Capitula Episcoporum, I, ed. P. Brommer (Hanover, 1984), p. 131; Radulf of Bourges, Capitula, ch. 23, ibid. p. 251; Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali, 11, eh. 14, PL 106, cols 192-5.

59 PL 131, col. 20—the unique reference to girls at school is a prohibition!

60 Hildebrandt, M., The External School in Carolingian Society (Leiden, 1992).Google Scholar

61 Ibid., pp. 80-5, 144-5; cf., for a different interpretation, R. McKitterick, ‘Town and monastery in the Carolingian period’, SCH, 16 (1978), p. 101. Scola here means ‘troup’, not ‘school’.

62 Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum, x, 1, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison. MGH-SRM, 1 (Hanover, 1951). pp. 480-1.

63 McCormick, M., Eternal Victory (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 370, 373 Google Scholar; cf. p. 149.

64 Alcuin, Ep. in, MGH.Ep, IV, ed. E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1895), pp. 159-62. Alcuin disapproved, however, of forced conversion.

65 Trexler, R. C., ‘From the mouths of babes: Christianization by children in sixteenth-century New Spain’, in Davis, J., ed., Religious Organization and Religious Experience = Association of Social Anthropologists Monograph, 21 (London, 1982), pp. 115–36.Google Scholar

66 See Bartlett, R., The Making of Europe (Harmondsworth, 1993), p. 290.Google Scholar

67 Godman, P., Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), pp. 344–5 Google Scholar, lines 687-94. For the Fulda community, see below, pp. 110-11.

68 Nelson, J. L., ‘La famille de Charlemagne’, Byzantion, 61 (1991), pp. 194–212.Google Scholar

69 MCH.Cap, 1, no. 71, p. 161.

70 Keefe, S. A., ‘Carolingian baptismal expositions’, in Blumenthal, U.-R., ed., Carolingian Essays (Washington, 1983), pp. 169–237 Google Scholar and Bullough, D. A., ‘Alcuin and the Kingdom of Heaven’, ibid., pp. 1-69, reprinted in Bullough’s collection of papers, Carolingian Renewal (Manchester, 1991), pp. 161–240.Google Scholar

71 Hrabanus Maurus, Liber de oblatione puerorum, PL 107, col. 432.

72 Sacramentary of Angoulême, no. 2057, p. 313.

73 See R. Bartlett, ‘Symbolic meanings of hair in the Middle Ages’, TRHS, ser. 6, 4 (1994), forthcoming.

74 Though for an interesting gender-difFerence, see Kelly, The Devil at Baptism, pp. 208-9: where the exorcism, Audi maledicte (above, p. 83) is said over the boys, for the girls there is ‘simply a petition that God may free them as he did Susannah from the crime falsely charged against her’.

75 Angenendt, A., ‘Bonifatius und das Sacramentum initiations. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Firmung’, Romische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte, 72 (1977), pp. 133—83 Google Scholar; Lynch, J., Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1986), pp. 210–13.Google Scholar

76 This is implied, for instance, in the Vita Eptadii presbyteri Cervidunensis, ch. 3, ed. B. Krusch, MGH.SRM, III (Hanover, 1896), col. 187: the Saint’s parents started to arrange a marriage for him when he was twenty. Krusch dated this Life (of a sixth-century bishop of Auxerre) to the eighth century, but it may be older.

77 Nelson, J. L., ‘Ninth-century knighthood: the evidence of Nithard’, in Harper-Bill, C., Holdsworth, C. and Nelson, J. L., eds, Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 255–66 Google Scholar, esp. pp. 263-4.

78 Narratio de monacho Cenomanensi, PL 129, col. 1266: see below, p. 113. Cf. Council of Aachen (816), ch. 135, MGH. Conc. II, ii., ed. A. Werminghoff (Hanover, 1908), p. 143, on recruits to canonical life: ‘nihil incertius quam vita adolescentium’. Cf. IV Council of Toledo (633), ch. 24, PL 84, col. 374.

79 >R. Schieffer, ‘Väter und Söhne im Karolingerhause’, in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Regnum Francorum, Beihefte der Francia, 22 (Paris, 1990), pp. 149-64.

80 Above, p. 95.

81 For what follows, I am much indebted to two fine recent studies: Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, and Jussen, Patenschaft und Adoption.

82 Dialogues, iv, 33, ed. de Vogué, iii, p. 110. On the problem of female vulnerability in tenth-century Saxon noble households, see K. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottonian Saxony (London, 1979), p. 64.

83 For similar points in the context of modern Mediterranean societies, see J. Pitt-Rivers, ‘The Kith and the Kin’, in J. Goody, ed., The Character of Kinship (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 89-105, at p. 102, and The fate of Shechem or the Politics of Sex. Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge, 1977), ch. 3.

84 Dhuoda, Manuel, viii, 15, pp. 320-3: Dhuoda tells her son to pray for, and to offer Masses and alms to the poor, for his uncle Theuderic ‘qui te, ex meis suscipiens brachiis, per lavacrum regenerationis filium adoptavit in Christo’.

85 Nelson, J. L., Charles the Bald (London, 1992)Google Scholar, see Index, under ‘spiritual kinship’.

86 Pitt-Rivers, ‘The Kith and the Kin’, pp. 96-8, 101-3.

87 Pirmin, Dicta de singulis libris canonicis scarapsus, ch. 32, ed. U. Engelmann, Der heilige Pirmin und sein Pastoralbüchlein (Sigmaringen, 1976), p. 76. (Note, again, the close association of teaching and castigating.) Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, p. 189, comments on the influence here of Caesarius of Arles.

88 Ghaerbald of Liège, Second Set of Capitula, ch. 3, ed. Brommer, MGH. Capitula Episcoporum, i, p. 26, with references at n. 4 to numerous other ninth-century examples of similar episcopal insistence. Herard of Tours, PL 121, col. 768, told priests to ensure that godparents ‘have the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed by heart, in their own language, and understand them too’. See also Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali, i, 6, PL 106, col. 133.

89 Amalar, Epistola ad Carolum imperatorem de scrutinio et baptismo, ch. 40, ed. Hanssens, J. M., Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, 1 = Studi e testi, 138 (Vatican City, 1948), p. 246.Google Scholar

90 Confession formulae: ed. E. von Steinmeyer, Die kleineren althochdeutschen Sprachdenkmaler (Berlin, 1916), pp. 309-64; Exhortatio, eds K. Muellenhoff and W. Scherer, Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem VHI-XII Jhdt, I (Berlin, 1892), pp. 200-1. For the cultural context, see C. Edwards, ‘German vernacular literature: a survey’, in R. McKitterick, ed., Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 141-70, esp. pp. 145-6.

91 See Fisher, J. D. C., Christian Initiation: Baptism in the Medieval West (London, 1965), pp. 58–69 Google Scholar. Ordo Romanus XI, dated by Andrieu to c. 600, has been convincingly re-assigned-to the eighth century: see Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, pp. 171 and 290.

92 Ordo Romanus XI, chs. 12, 17, 20, 23, 98, ed. Andrieu, pp. 420, 421, 422, 423 and 446.

93 Ibid., ch. 34, p. 425.

94 Ibid. chs. 7-16, pp. 419-21; ch. 24, p. 423.

95 Ibid., ch. 98, p. 446: ‘et sunt parati qui eos suscepturi sunt cum linteis in manibus eorum’.

96 Ordo Romanus L, ed. Andrieu, 5 (Louvain, 1961), no. 99, ch. 337, p. 93. See Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, pp. 301-2, 304.

97 Etymologies, vi, xix, 56.

98 Pontificale Romano-Germanicum, Ordo ad baptizandum infantes, ch. 38, ed. C. Vogel and R. Elze = Studi e testi, 227 (Vatican City, 1963), pp. 163-4: ‘maiores vero pedem ponunt super pedem patrini sui.’

99 See Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, pp. 193-4, 218. Jussen, Patenschaft und Adoption, p. 281, is rightly critical of the suggestion of opposed ‘popular’ and ‘clerical’ cultures here, but perhaps exaggerates Lynch’s commitment to such a model.

100 Codex Carolinus 14, MGH. Ep, 111, ed. W. Gundlach (Berlin, 1892), p. 511. (A literal raising from the font was not necessary—the rite could be performed by proxy.) For this relationship in the eighth century, see Angenendt, ‘Das geistliche Bündnis der Päpste mit den Karolingern (754-796)’, Historisches Jahrbuch, II (1980), pp. 1-94.

101 Nelson, , ‘The Problem of Alfred’s royal anointing’, JEH, 18 (1967), pp. 145–63 Google Scholar, repr. in Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), and ‘The Franks and the English in the Ninth Century revisited’, in P. Szarmach and J. T. Rosenthal, eds. The Preservation and Transmission of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Binghampton, NY, 1994), forthcoming.

102 So, Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, p. 214, commenting on the so-called Canones Theodori, ii, 4, 8, ed. P. Finsterwalder, Die Canones Theodori Cantuariensis und ihre Überlieferungsformen (Weimar, 1929), p. 317.

103 Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali, i, 6, PL 106, col. 133.

104 Agnellus of Ravenna, Liber Pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, ch. 30, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH.SRL (Hanover, 1878), p. 294, cited by Jussen, Patenschaft und Adoption, pp. 26, 296-7. Jussen may well be right in surmising that ‘Kaufleute’ made this foedus, though Agnellus does not make this explicit.

105 Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, pp. 195–6, n. 118, citing H. G. Nutini and B. Bell, Ritual Kinship: the Structure and Historical Development of the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala, 2 vols (Princeton, 1980-4)—though Lynch himself, pp. 72-4, registers caution about the use medieval historians might make of this and other anthropological work. See also the important methodological contribution of Jussen, ‘Le parrainage à la fin du moyen âge: savoir public, attentes théologiques et usages sociaux’, Annales ESC, mars-avril 1992, pp. 467-502.

106 Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, p. 193.

107 Council of Châlons (813), MGH. Conc, ii (Hanover, 1906), i. p. 279.

108 Goetz, H.-W., ‘Zur Namengebung in der alamannischen Grundbesitzerschicht der Karolingerzeit. Ein Beitrag zur Familienforschung’, Zeitschriftfur die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 133 (1985), pp. 1—40 Google Scholar; and Leben im Mittelalter (Munich, 1986), pp. 37-8. The nature of early medieval documentation scarcely ever permits inferences about possible naming after godparents.

109 I borrow, and enlarge, the label from one who knows the period best: K. Schmid, ‘Unerforschte Quellen aus quellenarmen Zeit: Zur amicitia zwischen Heinrich I und dem westfrânkischen König Robert im Jahre 923’, Fracina, 12 (1984), pp. 119-47.

110 Asser, De rebus gestis AElfredi, ch. 75, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), p. 58. (Note the present tense: Asser was writing in 893.)

111 Einhard, Vita Karoli, ch. 19, p. 23: ‘first’, all of them learned liberalia studia, ‘then’ they proceeded to gendered pursuits, the sons to riding and martial exercise, and daughters to textile work.

112 Astronomer, Vita Hludowici Imperatoris, ch., 4, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH. SS, ii (Hanover, 1829), p. 607.

113 Ermold le Noir, In Honorent Hludowici Pii, ed. E. Faral, Poème sur Louis le Pieux (Paris, 1932), lines 2300-1, p. 176.

114 King Alfred’s Old English Version of the Consolations of Boethius, tr. W. J. Sedgefield (Oxford, 1900), p. 124.

115 Nelson, Politics and Ritual, chs 10 and 12.

116 Nelson, ‘A tale of two princes: politics, text, and ideology in a Carolingian annal’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 10 (1988), pp. 105-41, at pp. 108-10, and ‘The Franks and the English’, forthcoming.

117 J. Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers. The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Harmondsworth, 1988); see also ‘Expositio and Oblatio. The abandonment of children and the ancient and medieval family’, AHR, 89 (1984), pp. 10-33.

118 See Lynch, J. H., Simonaical Entry into Religious Life (Columbus, Ohio, 1976)Google Scholar; C. Bouchard, Sword, Miter and Cloister: Nobility And the Church in Burgundy (980–1198) (Ithaca, 1987); P. Quinn, Better than the Sons of Kings: Boys and Monks in the Early Middle Ages (New York, 1989). See further M. Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade (Oxford, 1993), esp. pp. 116-25; and above all, the forthcoming English translation (1994) of M. de Jong, Kind en Klooster in de Vroege Middeleeuwen (Amsterdam, 1986).

119 Stratmann, M., Hinkmar von Reims ah Verwalter von Bistum una Kirchenprovinz = Quellen und Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter, 6 (Sigmaringen, 1991), pp. 72–8 Google Scholar, with oblation-formula at p. 73, n. 7.

120 Hildemar, Expositio in regulam sancii Benedicti, eh. 59, ed. M. Mittermuller (Regensburg, 1980), p. 549. Sec M. de Jong, ‘In Samuel’s image. Child oblation and the Rule of St Benedict in the early Middle Ages (600-900)’, Regulae Benedilli Studia, 16 (1987), pp. 69-79.

121 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, ii, 9, ed. Plummer, p. 99, tr. Farmer, p. 119.

122 Leyser, Rule and Conflict, pp. 89-90.

123 Cf. Angenendt, Das Frühmittelalter. Die abendlandische Christenheit von 400 bis 900 (Stuttgart-Berling-Koln, 1990), pp. 43-5. I am very grateful to Arnold Angenendt, and other participants, for exploring this question at the colloquium on ‘Religion and Power in the Early Middle Ages’, held at Wassenaar, Netherlands, in October 1993. Mayke de Jong put all of us in her debt by organizing the colloquium and contributing very substantially to the fruitfulness of our discussions.

124 See Douglas, M., Natural Symbols, 2nd ed (London, 1973).Google Scholar

125 Hrabanus, De procinctu romanae militiae, ch. 3, ed. E. Dümmler, Zeitschrift Jür deutsches Alterthum, 15 (1872), pp. 443-51, at p. 444. (Hrabanus’ work draws heavily on Vegetius.)

126 As pointed out by H. Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Sodai Orders, tr. P.J. Geary (Chicago, 1991), pp. 114–15.

127 See esp. Rosenwein, B., To be the Neighbour of Saint Peter (Ithaca, 1989)Google Scholar; and also J. B. W. Nightingale, ‘Monasteries and their patrons in the Dioceses of Trier, Metz and Toul, 850-1000’ (Oxford D. Phil, thesis, 1988).

128 Freise, E., ‘Studien zum Einzugsbereich der Klostergemeinschaft Fulda’, in K. Schmid et al., Die Klostergemeinschaft von Fulda im früheren Mittelalter, vol. 2.3 (Munich, 1978), pp. 1003–1269.Google Scholar

129 Ibid., pp. 1086-8.

130 Annales de Saint Bertin, s.a. 839, eds F. Grat, J. Vielliard and S. Clémencet (Paris, 1964), p. 29.

131 Freisc, ‘Studien’, pp. 1021-9; and, especially, de Jong, ‘In Samuel’s image’.

132 Liber de oblatione puerorum, PL 107, col. 428 (my translation). Cf. the translation of substantial extracts of this text by Boswell, Kindness of Strangers, pp. 438-44, at p. 443.

133 Ibid., col. 425. Cf. Boswell’s translation, p. 441.

134 Council of Mainz (829), MGH. Conc, ii, 2 (Hanover, 1908), 50, p. 602: ‘neminem debere invitum fieri monachum’. See the comments of Boswell, Kindness of Strangers, p. 246.

135 Council of Worms (868), ch. 22, Mansi, 14, col. 873, cited by Boswell, Kindness of Strangers, p. 248.

136 For these changes in the High Middle Ages, see N. Berend, ‘Une invisible subversion: la disparition de l’oblation irrévocable des enfants’, in Médiévales (1994), forthcoming. My thanks are due to Nora Berend for kindly letting me read this illuminating paper in advance of publication.

137 Narratio de monacho Cenomanensi ad canonkam vitam et habitum converso, PL 129, cok 1263-8. I am grateful to David Ganz who some years ago drew attention to this neglected text in a paper read to the Anglo-American Conference of Historians in London. The dating problem must be left for future consideration.

138 Ekkehard (iv), Casus Sancii Galli, ch. 3, ed. D. I. von Arx, MGH. SS, ii (Hanover, 1829), pp. 99-100.

139 H. F. Hacfele, ‘Wolo cecidit. Zur Deutung einer Ekkehard-Erzahlung’, Deutsehes Archiv, 35 (1979), pp. 17-32; sec also M. Borgolte, ‘Conversado cottidiana. Zeugnisse vom Alltag in frühmittelalter-licher Überlieferung’, in H. U. Nuber et al., Archäologie und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends in Südwestdeutsckland = Freiburger Forschungen zum ersten Jahrtausend in Südwestdeutschland, 1 (Sigmaringen, 1990), pp. 295-385, at pp. 327-9.