From the sources 5: Peasants and power

Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel (770 – 840), a Visigothic immigrant from Spain (like Theodulf of Orleans, friend of this blog, whom he knew personally) that became abbot of a monastery in what is now Lorraine in eastern France, wrote a commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict. If an elite man (potens) were to approach the monastery gate, he should pound on the gate with his fist or staff, and the gatekeeper would greet him humbly and ask for a blessing. But if a poor or low status man (pauper) approached, he should cry out humbly and the monastery gatekeeper would respond with a reassuring “Thanks be to God.” This should not be news, but Carolingian Francia was not a democracy, nor did it make any claim to being egalitarian. It was clear to everyone that kings, bishops and a landowning aristocratic elite, some of whom were tonsured and some of whom wore sword-belts, were in charge and that it was the duty of the common people to respect and obey them. The same principle of course applied for husbands and wives, fathers and sons and masters and slaves. Only the spiritual sphere did egalitarianism apply – the Bible had made it clear everyone had an equal chance of getting into Heaven.

Sourced from Chris Wickham "The Inheritance of Rome: A history of Europe from 400 - 1000." The hierarchical, walled structure of this ninth century Tuscan peasant village encapsulates the direction of travel of social change in the ninth century - the upper walled enclosure is probably an estate centre occupied by the landlord's agents.

This was however, not a caste society. People could and did rise above their station. As we saw in the Marseille polyptych, a few peasant boys left their homes to attend school. Those who did could join the clergy and rise high in society. The best example of this phenomenon is Archbishop Ebbo of Rheims, the son of an unfree goatherd from northern Germany, who gained the favour of Charlemagne and was educated at his court. Yet the likes of Ebbo could not leave their backgrounds completely behind and faced snobbery at court – an official once said to Ebbo “[the emperor] made you free, not noble, which is impossible.” 

St Mark from the Gospel Book of Ebbo of Rheims (now kept in the municipal library of Epernay in Champagne, France), one of the most beautiful examples of Carolingian painting out there

Likewise, peasants could still serve in the royal army and win lands and other riches on the expanding frontier, at least until the end of Charlemagne’s reign, and as we saw in the Edict of Pitres, kings doubled down on their right to have all free men provide military service during the Viking invasions. And peasants (including the unfree) could also become warriors in the retinues of churchmen and aristocrats. Nonetheless, warfare was becoming an increasingly elite occupation in the ninth century, especially with the slow shift towards heavy cavalry warfare, which was expensive to equip oneself for. The idea that it was the right and duty of all free Frankish men to carry weapons and serve king and country in war was slowly dying out, as this repugnant incident (infamous amongst Carolingianists) from the Annals of Saint Bertin recounts:

859. The Danes ravaged the places beyond the Scheldt. Some of the common people [vulgus] living between the Seine and Loire formed a sworn association [coniuratio] amongst themselves, and fought bravely against the Danes on the Seine. But because their association had not been made without due consideration [incaute], they were easily slain by our more powerful people.

(The Annals of Saint Bertin, edited and translated by Janet Nelson, Manchester University Press (1992), quoted in Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 – 1000, Penguin (2009) p 529)

In the modern historiography, the ninth century is seen as a crucial period in the growth of aristocratic power in the Frankish lands, which meant the ebbing away of the relative freedom and autonomy that the peasantry had enjoyed in the three centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The work of Chris Wickham, who I’ve just cited, and “Reframing the Feudal Revolution” by Charles West are instructive here. To what extent were the peasantry completely passive players in all of this? And could the church and the state be of any avail to them. This is what we will investigate in the final part of our “from the sources” mini-series on Carolingian peasants.

Our first source takes the form of a record of a judgement issued in 828 by the royal court of King Pippin I of Aquitaine, one of the middle sons of Emperor Louis the Pious who was given a sub-kingdom to rule in his father’s lifetime. It concerns a dispute between the Abbey of Saint-Paul de Cormery in the Loire Valley and some of its free tenants from an estate in Poitou. Let’s have a read:

A silver denarius of Pippin I of Aquitaine (d.838)

Pepin by the Grace of God king of Aquitaine. When we in God’s name, on a Tuesday, in our palace at the villa of Chasseneuil in the county of Poitou near the River Clain, were sitting to hear the cases of many persons and to determine just judgements, there came certain men, named Aganbert, Aganfred, Frotfar, and Martin, they as well as their fellows (pares) being coloni of Saint Paul from the villa of Antoigne belonging to the monastery of Cormery and its abbot Jacob. There they brought a complaint against the abbot and his advocate, named Agenus, on the grounds that the abbot and his officers had demanded and exacted from them more in rent and renders than they ought to pay and hand over, and more than their predecessors for a long time before them had handed over, and that they [the abbot and his officers] were not keeping for them such law as their predecessors had had.

Agenus the advocate and Magenar the provost of the monastery were present, and made a statement rebutting that claim as follows: neither the abbot nor themselves had exacted, or ordered to be exacted, any dues or renders other than those their predecessors had paid to the monastery’s representatives for thirty years. They forthwith presented an estate survey (descriptio) to be read out, wherein it was detailed how, in the time of Alcuin’s abbacy, the coloni of that villa who were there present, and also their fellows, had declared on oath that what they owed in renders, and what was still to pay, for each manse on that estate. That survey was dated to the thirty-fourth year of Charles’ reign [802].

The coloni there present were then asked if they had declared [the statements in] that survey and actually paid the renders stated in that survey for a period of years, and if that survey had been true and good, or did they wish to say anything against it or object to it, or not? They said and acknowledged that the survey was true and good, and they were quite unable to deny that they had paid the render for a period of years, or that they themselves, or their predecessors, had declared [the statements in] that survey.

Therefore we, together with our faithful men, namely Count Haimo [and twenty-three named men ending with John, count of the palace] and many others, have seen fit to judge that, since those coloni themselves gave the acknowledgement as stated above that the survey was as they had declared it, and as it was written down in that document there before them, and that they had paid the said renders for a period of years, so also must they pay and hand over the same each year and every year to the representatives of that house of God.

Therefore we order that, since we have seen the case thus heard and concluded, the above Agenus the advocate and Magenar [sic] the provost should on behalf of the house of God receive a record of it, showing that it has been done in this way and at this time.

I Deotimus, deputising for John count of the palace, have recognised and subscribed.

Given on 9 June in the fifteenth year of our lord Louis the serene emperor. Nectarius wrote out and subscribed it.

(Adapted from Carolingian Civilisation: A Reader, edited and translated by Paul Edward Dutton, University of Toronto Press (2009), pp 229 – 230)

What we can see here is a case of Frankish free peasants, albeit ones in a dependent relationship to a monastic landlord, using their right as free men to use the public law courts. In their case, they chose not to go through the local county court (placitum or mallum publicum) but go instead to the second highest court in the land, that of their regional sub-king. The only one higher than that would be the emperor’s court, and they weren’t exactly going to trek all the way to Aachen or Ingelheim. As the source subsequently recounts, they lost the case. Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising. The peasants were at a huge disadvantage. The text tells us quite clearly that they didn’t have the written records to back up their claims. Meanwhile the monastery had its survey (descriptio) from a generation earlier (the time of Charlemagne and Alcuin), which it was able to use to demonstrate that the rents and other exactions it imposed on the peasantry weren’t any more burdensome than in the time of their fathers. Linking back to earlier posts, this reminds us why the polyptychs were created – they were documents designed to defend the rights of landlords in disputes with their tenants just like this by carefully recording what each peasant family owed in rents and services. This very document would give them more archival ammunition. The peasants themselves, however, could only rely on the vagueness of individual/ collective memory and testifying in good faith. The fact that the jury of Pippin of Aquitaine’s palace officials were all landlords themselves probably didn’t work in the peasants’ favour either. Finally, though we have no indication of this, Agenus the advocate and Magenar the provost were almost certainly better public speakers than the peasants, and as had been well-known in the Roman Empire, the better rhetoricians always won the case.

At the same time, the fact the peasants still bothered to argue their case in the law courts is still significant. And they weren’t alone in this. We have similar cases from northern Francia, Septimania (Languedoc) and Italy in the ninth century, in which peasants appealed to public law courts at county or kingdom level over personal legal status, rent or seized lands. In most, but not all, cases they lost. But it didn’t matter. Even if the judicial system was run by the aristocracy, to a greater extent than it had been in the seventh and early eighth centuries, when the county court had been a bottom-up assembly of local free men, the peasants still believed that it worked for them and that they could get justice like anyone else. After 900, peasants attending public law courts become much rarer, and by the mid-eleventh century local justice had become completely privatised by territorial lords in most of the former Carolingian Empire – Germany differed somewhat.

But now on to our next source. It takes the form of an extract from a collection of miracle stories written in 878 by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, who I’ve mentioned here many times before. Hincmar was a very enthusiastic promoter of the cult of his see’s patron saint, Remigius (who we’ve also met before), And he wasn’t afraid to make a few things up to that end – his claim that Clovis was anointed with a chalice of holy oils carried down to Saint Remigius from by a dove heaven had no pre-existing foundation (Merovingian kings were notanointed, remember!) Thus, some might want to approach the following story with extreme scepticism as just a bishop doing some PR. Traditionally, that’s how historians saw miracle stories and saint’s lives. But now, historians have come to realise that the stories in this genre (hagiography) does significantly reflect popular culture. While they’re not a direct window on to the peasant world, they do more to tell us about the lives and beliefs of ordinary people than any other kind of narrative source from the early Middle Ages. So, let’s have a read:

Rheims Cathedral (author's own photograph) looking nothing like how Hincmar would have known it, but magnificent all the same - its one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever visited.

The abbey of Saint Remigius of Rheims (author's own photograph). Again, none of the Carolingian building survives - what's there is from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.

In our age a peasant from the village of the episcopate of Rheims which is called Plumbea Fontana lived next to the royal estate which is called Rozoy-[sur-Serre], but he was not able to use his land peacefully either for harvest or for grazing because of the harassment of the residents on the royal estates. He frequently sought justice from the royal officials, but he was not able to obtain it. Then he took for himself some beneficial counsel. He cooked loaves and meat and he placed beer into jars, as much as he was able. All these he placed into a container which is called in the vernacular a benna, and he placed it upon a cart. Hitching up his oxen, he hurried with a candle in his hand to the basilica of Saint Remi. When he arrived, he presently surprised the poor with the bread, meat, and beer; he placed a candle at the sepulchre of the saint; he placed a candle at the sepulchre of the saint and beseeched him for help against the men of the royal estate who were harassing him. He also gathered the dust from the floor of the church, as much as he was able, tied it in a cloth, and placed it in the same container. He placed a shroud above it, as is usually put upon the corpse of a dead person. With his cart he returned home. Persons he met on the way inquired what he was bringing on the cart, and he responded that he was bringing Saint Remi. They all wondered at his words and deed, and thought that he had lost his mind. He called on Saint Remi to help him against his oppressors. The bulls and cows began with the loudest bellows to attack one another with their horns, and the he-goats to attack the she-goats with their horns, the pigs to fight with the pigs, the rams with the ewes, and the herdsmen dealt each other blows with sticks and arms. As the riot grew greater, both the screaming herdsmen and the animals according to their type began to flee towards Rozoy with the loudest noise and racket, as if a huge multitude of pursuers were beating them with sticks. The men of the royal estate, when they saw and heard these things, were struck with great terror and believed that they had no more than an hour to live. Thus reprehended for their arrogance, they abandoned the harassment of this poor man of St-Remi, and thereafter the poor man held his belongings in peace and without disturbance. And since he lived near the Serre River in a muddy place, he put up with a great bother in his dwelling from snakes. Taking the dust, which he had brought with him from the floor of the church of Saint Remi, he sprinkled it throughout his house, and thereafter a snake did not appear in those places, where the dust had been scattered. By the evidence of miracles, we can accept as certainly proved that, if firm in the faith, we ask from the heart for the help of Saint Remi, we shall be freed from the attacks of the angels of Satan, who as a serpent deceived the mother of the human race in addressing her; and by merit and intercession of Saint Remi we shall be freed from the wicked deeds of bad men.

(From Carolingian Civilisation: A Reader (Second Edition), edited and translated by Paul Edward Dutton, University of Toronto Press (2009), pp 484 – 485)

A modern status of Saint Remigius in Rheims (author's own photograph) commemorating the 1500th anniversary of the baptism of Clovis in 1996.

Scepticism of the supernatural and Hincmar’s motives aside, this story does nonetheless reflect beliefs and practices that Frankish peasants could have held, and there are plenty of other stories like it. The story reflects a widely held view that if one was pious, charitable and lived a good Christian life, as the peasant in the story was by feeding the beggars at the church with his spare food, and venerated the saints, one could gain their protection against oppression from the powerful. This kind of attitudes would find their ultimate fruition in the post-Carolingian period, with the Peace and Truce of God movement, which we’ll explore another time once I’ve finally translated the relevant bits of Adhemar of Chabannes. Likewise, Hincmar’s sympathetic attitude to the plight of peasants on the lands of Saint-Remi shows that ecclesiastical landlords weren’t always inimical to the interests of their tenants.

To wrap things up, it is worth noting that there were virtually no peasants’ revolts in the Carolingian era. One exception is the Saxon Stellinga of 841, yet there are many reasons why Saxony was atypical of the rest of the Carolingian Empire and some historians doubt whether the Stellingahad a genuinely lower-class character. Now there are many other reasons why peasants’ revolts were almost completely absent from the Carolingian era and were essentially a late medieval/ early modern phenomenon. But we must not ignore the possibility that one of them was that the majority of peasants viewed the social and political system as just and legitimate. Partly that would have been due to lack of alternative set-ups, except in Saxony which had until a time in living memory been a loose confederation of pagan tribal societies. But clearly there were various ways in which the state, as we saw with the first source, and the Church, as we saw in the second, could at least in theory be made to work for them in the face of oppression and exploitation from certain elite individuals and institutions. Frankish peasants were not passive victims and broad acceptance of the status quo didn’t mean constantly tugging the proverbial forelock even in the face of maltreatment.