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The Franks, the Martyrology of Usuard, and the Martyrs of Cordoba

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Janet L. Nelson*
Affiliation:
King’s collegeLondon

Extract

The bodies of holy martyrs, which the Romans buried with fire, and mutilated by the sword, and tore apart by throwing them to wild beasts: these bodies the Franks have found, and enclosed in gold and precious stones.

For the author of the longer prologue to Lex Salica, writing in 763–4 in the reign of Pippin I, the first king of the Carolingian dynasty, the Franks’ devotion to the martyrs was the secret of their success. It proved the strength of their Christian faith; it was at once the manifestation and the explanation of special divine favour. Vivit qui Francos diligit Christus….

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1993

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References

1 ‘Christ lives who loves the Franks…’, Salica, Lex, 100-Titel Text, prologue, MGH.LNG, IV, 2, ed. Eckhardt, K. A. (Hanover, 1969), pp. 68.Google Scholar

2 In gloria martyrum [and other hagiographical works], ed. Krusch, B., MGH.SRM, 1, ii (Hanover, 1885)Google Scholar, Eng. tr. Dam, R van (Liverpool, 1988), with an excellent introduction, esp. pp. 1115 Google Scholar, on Gregory’s placing of martyrdom ‘in the context of the ecclesiastical community’. For Gregory and his work in general, see de Nie, G., Views from a Many-windowed Tower (Amster dam, 1987)Google Scholar, and Goffart, W., Narrators of Barbarian History (Princeton, 1988), ch. 3.Google Scholar

3 In gloria martyrum, c.63, p. 81, tr. van Dam, p. 87, ‘… mos namque erat hominum rusticorum ut sanctos dei quorum agones relegunt attendus venerentur.’ On ways of hearing such stories and making spiritual use of them, see Brown, , The Cult of the Saints (London, 1981), pp. 7984.Google Scholar

4 For seventh-century passiones and their context, see Fouracre, P.J.Merovingian history and Merovingian hagiography’, PaP, 127 (1990), pp. 338.Google Scholar

5 See Brown, P.Relics and social status in the age of Gregory of Tours’, in his collected essays, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (London, 1982), pp. 22250.Google Scholar

6 Libri Historiarum X, ed. Krusch, B. and Levison, W., MGH.SRM, 1, 2nd edn (Hanover, 1937—51), III, c.29, pp. 1256.Google Scholar

7 Ed. Rossi, G. and Duchesne, L., Acta Sanctorum Bollandiana, Nov. 2, 1 (Paris, 1894)Google Scholar. Against Duchesne’s attribution to Auxerre and the late sixth century, see Krusch, B.Nochmals die Afralegende und das Martyrologium Hieronymianum’, Mittheilungen des Instituts für oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung, 21 (1900), pp. 127, at pp. 927 Google Scholar. Dubois, J., Les Martyrologes du Moyen Age latin (Turnhout, 1978), p. 33 Google Scholar, holds to Duchesne’s views, but without mentioning the arguments of Krusch.

8 On these, see Wattenbach, W. rev. Levison, W., Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter [hereafter Wattenbach-Levison], I (Weimar, 1952), pp. 601 Google Scholar; Dubois, , La Martyrologes, pp. 3745 Google Scholar; McCulloh, J. M.Historical Martyrologies in the Benedictine Cultural Tradition’, in Lourdaux, W. and Verhelst, D. eds, Benedictine Culture 750–1050 (Louvain, 1983), pp. 11431.Google Scholar

9 Löwe, H. in Wattenbach-Levison, 3 (Weimar, 1957), pp. 3289.Google Scholar

10 Geary, P. J., Furta Sacra. Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978, rev. edn, 1990)Google Scholar. Cf. also Heinzelmann, M., Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes (Turnhout, 1979), pp. 3142, 949 Google Scholar; and the useful list of no fewer than 74 items assembled by Fros, H.Liste des translations et inventions de l’époque carolingienne’, AnBoll, 104 (1986), pp. 4279.Google Scholar

11 See Laporte, J.Reliques du Haut Moyen Age à Chelles’, Revue d’art et d’histoire de la Brie et du pays de Meaux, 37 (1986), pp. 4558.Google Scholar

12 MGH.L, 3, Concilia, II, p. 272.

13 See Fried, J.Ludwig der Fromme, das Papsttum und die fränkische Kirche’, in Godman, P. and Collins, R., eds, Charlemagne’s Heir. New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (Oxford, 1990), pp. 23173, at p. 263.Google Scholar

14 Dubois, J., Le Martyrologe d’Usuard (Brussels, 1965), p. 14 Google Scholar; cf. ibid., p. 5, where Dubois stresses that Usuard’s work was the ‘essential link in the chain of martyrologies’ leading from the Early Church to modern times. The Roman Martyrology produced in 1583, declared official by the pope in 1584, and (after successive revisions) still in use, was based on Usuard’s Martyrology. See also for a concise account of Usuard’s work, Dubois, Les Martyrologes, pp. 45–56.

15 See Dubois, Martyrologe, p. 101; and for Usuard as abbreviator, pp. 105–10.

16 Dubois, Martyrologe, p. 144, ‘… ut sciretur non me in hoc usum levitatis conamine, sed pocius vestris, ut erat dignum, paruisse imperils catholicorum fidelium solito consultentibus utilitari.’

17 Dubois, Martyrologe, p. 38. Cf. the characteristically measured response of Riche, P., Instruction st vie religieuse dans le Haut Moyen Age (London, 1981), ch. 12, p. 41 Google Scholar: ‘ce jugement me paraît sévère.’

18 Dubois, Martyrologe, pp. 17–18.

19 I do not share Dubois’ view, Martyrologe, pp. 118–19, that Usuard’s treatment of St Denis, namely, the provision of two distinct feasts for the bishop of Athens (3 Oct.) and the bishop of Paris (9 Oct.), thus flouting the identification between the two made by Hilduin, argues against Charles as primary sponsor of the Martyrology’s production and diffusion. As Dubois acknowledges, Saint-Germian and Saint-Denis were rival establishments (hence Usuard’s implicit rejection of new claims for St Denis). Charles successfully sought the benefits, and the services, of both—and celebrated Denis’s feast on 9 October. Dubois’ research on the manuscripts of the Martyrology shows that, in addition to the copy (plus dedication) presented to Charles, Usuard’s ‘original’, Paris, BN, MS. lat. 13745 (without dedication), was kept at Saint-Germain, where revisions were entered (probably by Usuard himself) throughout the 860s. Dubois’ argument that Usuard was already interested in martyrologies (and necrologies), and had been preparing materials for years before the late 850s seems very plausible, but strengthens, in my view, rather than weakens, the case for a royal commission to complete the work.

20 For further references on Charles’s piety, see Nelson, J. L., Charles the Bald (London, 1992), pp. 15,85.Google Scholar

21 Dubois, Martyrologe, pp. 139–40.

22 See McKitterick, R.Charles the Bald and his library: the patronage of learning’, EHR, 95 (1980), pp. 2847 Google Scholar; The Carolingias and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 60, 23940, 2469 Google Scholar. Also Riché, Instruction, chs 7 and 8.

23 Annales de St Berlin, ed. Grat, F., Vielliard, J., and Clémencet, S. (Paris, 1964), p. 53 Google Scholar, tr. Nelson, J. L., The Annals of Si-Bertin (Manchester, 1991), p. 64 Google Scholar. For the Banu Kasi, see Collins, R.J. H., Early Medieval Spain, Unity in Diversity (London, 1983), pp. 1902, 2334 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Musa ibn Musa, the essential study is Sanchez Albornoz, C.El tercer rey de España’, Cuadernos de Historia de España, 49-50 (1969), pp. 549.Google Scholar

24 See Nelson, Charles the Bald, p. 161. A key source on these events is a letter written by the Cordobán priest Eulogius to the bishop of Pamplona, ed. in Gil, J., Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum [hereafter CSM], 2 vols (Madrid, 1973)Google Scholar, 2, Ep. iii, pp. 497–503.

25 Eulogius, , Memoriale Sanctorum, ed. Gil, CSM, 2, pp. 366459 Google Scholar: Book i includes theological justification (aimed probably against local sceptics) for the cult of confessors and martyrs who ‘were not dragged violently to martyrdom but came of their own accord’ in protest at, for instance, the harsh treatment of church property; books ii and iii consist largely of the martyr acts proper. In the Liber apologeticus martyrum, ed. Gil, CSM, 2, pp. 475–95, written near the end of his life, Eulogius returned to the problem of voluntary martyrdom. For his Documentum Martyriale, see below, n. 28. Colbert, E. P., The Martyrs of Cordoba (Washington, 1962)Google Scholar, offers an excellent discussion of the texts. See now also the remarkable study of Wolf, R. B., Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

26 Collins, Early Medieval Spain, p. 213.

27 Cutler, A.The ninth-century Spanish Martyrs’ Movement and the origins of Western Christian missions to the Muslims’, Muslim World, 55 (1965), pp. 32139 Google Scholar, interestingly brings out eschatological aspects, and draws parallels with thirteenth-century Franciscans’ ideas of mission. For a survey of the historiography and reflections on the martyrs’ religious motives, see Wolf, Christian Martyrs, chs 3 and 9.

28 Eulogius’ Documentum Martyriale, ed. Gil, CSM, 2, pp. 459–75, was a treatise of encourage ment specifically written for two women who sought martyrdom. It needs further study for what it suggests of the gender dimension to martyrdom and martyrology. Wolf, Christian Martyrs, pp. 65–7, cites relevant material, but neglects the dimension. It is not neglected, in the case of the rich later medieval evidence, by Miri Rubin, below, pp. 153–83.

29 In the Vita written by his friend Paul Alvar soon after Eulogius’ own martyrdom in 859, he is called fauctor [sic] anelantissimus martirum, c. 13, ed. Gil, CSM, 1, p. 338. Wolf, Christian Martyrs, pp. 77–104, rightly stresses the differences between the situation of the martyrs of Cordoba and those of the Early Church, and convincingly explains these in terms of divisions within the Cordoban Christian community: there was no collective sense of persecution to generate a receptive Christian ‘audience’. (Cf. below, p. 76, and n. 44.) Wolfs concluding argument (pp. 107–19) that the Cordoban martyrdoms were provoked by profound anxieties about the preservation of Christian religious identify within Muslim society, is interestingly developed but at bottom less radical than he seems to claim. Less convincing (and unnecessary to that argument) is his contention that Eulogius, and the martyrs whose literary memorial he produced, had very different concerns. The Documentum is relevant here: see above, n. 28.

30 Ep. iii, cc. 1, 6, ed. Gil, CSM, 2, pp. 497, 499–500. See also Paul Alvar, Vita Eulogit, c. 9, ed. Gil, CSM, 1, p. 335.

31 Nelson, Charles lite Bald, p. 162.

32 Aimoin, Translatio SS. Georgii, Aurelii et Nathaliae, PL 115, cols 939–60. Aimoin, a monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, was Usuard’s former teacher; Löwe, in Wattenbach-Levison, 4 (Weimar, 1974), p. 579.

33 According to the slightly different version of this story by the same author, Aimoin, in the Translatio Beati Vincentii, PL 126, cols 1014–26, an Aquitanian monk’s vision ensured that Vincent’s relics were identified: they ended up in Aquitaine, at Castres (dep. Tarn): see Geary, Furta Sacra, pp. 61–2.

34 See above, n. 30.

35 de Gaiffìer, B.Les Notices hispaniques dans le Martyrologe d’Usuard’, AnBoll, 55 (1937), pp. 26883 Google Scholar; Dubois, Martyrologe, pp. 93–6, 128-32.

36 Translatio, c. 1, PL 115, col. 941, and for the rest of the journey, see cc. 2–15, cols. 941–8.

37 On Hunfrid’s career, see further below, p. 79.

38 Eulogius, Memoriale Sanctorum, II, c. x, ed. Gil, CSM, 2, pp. 416–30, describes these martyr doms at length (Natalie, Aurelius’ stalwart wife, is here called Sabigotho).

39 PL 115, c. 11, col. 946, ‘… sub assignatione Karoli regis’.

40 Usuard’s return is noted as a final entry under 858 in the Annales de St Benin, ed. Grat, p. 79, tr. Nelson, p. 89.

41 Miracula (book iii of the Translatio), c. xxviii, PL 115, col. 957. Maneio witnessed two fresh martyrdoms in Cordoba.

42 I accept the identification with the Maneio who was one of the comrades of Radbod, future bishop of Utrecht, Vita Radbodi Traiectensis episcopi, MGH.SS, XV, p. 569. Here Maneio is said to have been the future bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne (893-908): see McKitterick, R.The palace school of Charles the Bald’, in Gibson, M. T. and Nelson, J. L., eds, Charles the Bald. Court and Kingdom, 2nd edn rev. (London, 1990), pp. 32639, at p. 329 Google Scholar. For Maneio as notary, see Tessier, G., Receuil des actes de Charles H, le Chauve, 3 vols (Paris, 1943–55), 3, pp. 789.Google Scholar

43 Annates de St Benin, 863, 865, ed. Grar, pp. 102, 124, tr. Nelson, pp. no, 129:’camels carrying couches and canopies’.

44 Eulogius, Memoriale Sanctorum, III, cc. iv, v, pp. 441–3: ‘Even the amir’s concubines, so they say, hate him. … He also cut the soldiers’ pay.’ Eulogius saves his fiercest denunciations, though, for the Christian tax-farmers recruited by the amir: a significant comment on the prevalence of collaborationist attitudes among the local Christian elite. For Christians in the Cordobán bureaucracy, see Wolf, Christian Martyrs, pp. 11–14.

45 The instability of the Cordoban regime in the ninth century is now penetratingly discussed by Wolf, Christian Martyrs, pp. 15–20, and by Fletcher, R., Moorish Spain (London, 1992), ch. 3. Though Wolf, p. 18 Google Scholar, discusses the implications of an alliance between Toledans (perhaps including Christians and muwallads) and the Christian king of Asturias, Ordoño I, against Cordoba in 852–4, Frankish contacts are unmentioned in this context.

46 Ep. iii, c. 9, ed. Gil, CSM, 2, p. 501. for the kingdom of Pamplona in the ninth century, see Collins, Early Medieval Spain, pp. 249–51.

47 Louis’ letter, curiously neglected in recent historiography, was preserved among Einhard’s letters in a unique manuscript, ed. Hampe, K., MGH.Ep, V, i (Berlin, 1898), pp. 11516 Google Scholar. Though the editor dates it ‘830 in?’ Colbert, Martyrs, p. 134, more plausibly dates it to 826, and also notes that while Hampe rightly accepted the manuscript’s ‘Menda’, earlier editors, incredulous at the idea of Frankish intervention in south-western Spain, emended to ‘Zaragoza’.

48 See above, n. 16.

49 Hincmar, Third Treatise on Predestination, PL 125, col. 386.

50 Ratramnus, On Predestination, PL 121, col. 13. The key srudy is Ganz, D.The Debate on Predestination’, in Gibson, and Nelson, , eds, Charles the Bald, pp. 283302.Google Scholar

51 Cf. Annales de St Berlin, 843, ed. Grat, p. 45, tr. Nelson, p. 56: Charles’s kingdom extended ‘usque ad Hispaniam’.

52 Annales de St Bertin, 847, ed. Grat, p. 54, tr. Nelson, p. 64, with n. I (where, however, it is wrongly suggested that the Cordoban marryr movement was already under way at this date).

53 Annales de St Benin, 839, ed. Grat, pp. 27–8, cr. Nelson, p. 42. Bodo’s ability to influence Cordoba is taken seriously by Löwe, H.Die Apostasie des Pfalzdiakons Bodo (838) und das Judentum der Chasaren’, in Althoff, G. et al., eds, Person und Gemeinschaft im Mittelaher. Karl Schmid zum fünfundseclizigsten Geburtstag (Sigmaringen, 1988), pp. 15769 Google Scholar, who points, illuminaringly, to a wider universe of relations between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, spanning the Black Sea (the Jewish kingdom of the Chasars) and the Mediterranean, within which Bodo’s influence at Cordoba could become credible.

54 The process whereby martyrs are recognized and appropriated is illuminadngly discussed in the contribution of Miri Rubin to the present volume, below, pp. 153–83, while Stuart Hall, above, pp. 2–3, points out the Early Church’s difficulty in controlling living martyrs (but cf. Eulogius’ Documentimi, above, n. 28—were women easier, or less easy, than men for (male) ‘namers’ to control?).

55 Usuard left Cordoba on 11 May 858, and finally arrived back to Esmans (where the community of Saint-Germain was in temporary residence) on 20 October 858; Aimoin, Translation. 11, Miracula, III, c. 28, PL 115, cols 947, 957. See also above, n. 40.

56 The date is given by Alvar, Paul, Vita Eulogii, c. 15, ed. Gil, CSM, I, p. 340 Google Scholar. Oddly, Eulogius’ name is entered ‘sur grattage’ in Usuard’s manuscript at 20 September: Dubois, Martyrologe, p. 306. Dubois, p. 96, discusses this discrepancy without finding any explanation. Could 20 September have been the date on which Usuard received the news?

57 On the events of 858–9, see Nelson, Charles the Bald, pp. 185–93; and for Charles’s political ideas, see Nelson, ‘Translating images of authority: the Christian Roman emperors in the Carolingian world’, in Mackenzie, M. M. and Roueché, C., eds, Images of Authority. Papers presented to Joyce Reynolds on the Occasion of her 70th Birthday (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 194205.Google Scholar

58 As suggested by Dubois, Martyrologe, pp. 97–8, 121; and ‘Le Martyrologe d’Usuard et le manuscrit de Fécamp’, AnBoll, 985 (1977. 43–71. at pp. 48–9, 57. This suggestion is strengthened by evidence recently signalled by Ludwig, U. and Schmid, K., ‘Hunfrid, Witagowo und Heimo in einem neuentdeckten Eintrag des Evangeliars von Cividale’, in Hàrtel, R., ed., Geschichte und Hire Quellen. Festschrift für F. Hausmann (Munich, 1987), pp. 8592, at pp. 902 Google Scholar. (I am very grateful to Stuart Airlie for this reference.) Ludwig and Schmid follow Dubois in dating Hunfrid’s ‘contribution’ to Usuard after 864, when Hunfrid, who had joined a rebellion against Charles, was expelled from the Spanish March and went to Italy (Annales de Saint Benin, 804, ed. Grat, p. 112, tr. Nelson, p. 118). It seems to me more likely that Hunfrid supplied Usuard with the list of Italian martyrs in the early 860s as a gesture of devotion to Charles, thus as an expression of political ties through liturgical ones, before falling from favour. Hunfrid’s Italian connections clearly pre-existed 864 and explain his flight to Italy rather than (or as well as) vice versa.

59 Dubois, Martyrologe, p. 93.

60 See above, n. 56.

61 Dubois, Martyrologe, p. 246. The date was 853. Cf. Eulogius, Memoriale Sanctorum, ed. Gii, CSM, 2, pp. 444–5. See Wolf, Christian Martyrs, pp. 30, 115.

62 For gesta Dei per Francos, and for Urban II at Clermont allegedly appealing to his audience to emulate Charlemagne and Louis the Pious and the Franks, see Riley-Smith, J., The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), p. 25.Google Scholar

63 For tales of Charlemagne and his paladins in the age of the Crusades and long after, see now Fentress, J. and Wickham, C., Social Memory (Oxford, 1992), pp. 15462,Google Scholar with the thought-provoking observation (among many), at p. 160, n. 11, that Ademar of Chabannes, writing in early eleventh-century south-western France, claimed that Charlemagne ‘ruled Spain as far as Cordoba, which has a Rolandian ring to it’. The origins of the ideas of Crusade and Reconquista remain fruitful areas of research, not least because of their continuing resonance: see C. Morris’s fine paper in the present volume, below, pp. 93–104, and Fernández-Armesto, F.The survival of the notion of Reconquista in late tenth and eleventh-century León’, in Reuter, T., ed., Warriors and Churchmen in the High Middle Ages. Essays Presented to Krai Leyster (London, 1992), pp. 12344.Google Scholar