If you were asked to name three great medieval poets (European, 450 - 1500), who would you name? If you're just a well-educated, well-read man/ woman/ non-binary person of culture, not a "fanatical medievalist" (as I have been called once by a certain expert on the legal and intellectual history of Norman England), you'll probably go for those who undoubtedly hold a much deserved place in the hall of fame of world literature - the likes of Chretien de Troyes (c.1135 - 1185), Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170 - 1220), Snorri Sturluson (1179 - 1241), Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), Giovanni Bocaccio (1313 - 1375), Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340 - 1400) and Sir Thomas Malory (1415 - 1471). Of course, here its worth noting that we don't actually know the identity of many of the most celebrated works of medieval literature - this is true of such famous epics as "Beowulf" (which could have been written any time between 604 and 1000), "The Song of Roland" (written sometime between 1040 and 1129), "The Poem of the Cid" (written sometime between 1140 and 1210), "The Nibelungenlied" (written c.1200) and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (written c.1400). If you're hardcore medieval literary scholar you might go for someone not well-known at all outside medievalist circles, like Aneirin (6th century), Caedmon (d.684), Giraut de Bornelh (1138 - 1215), Ulrich von Liechtenstein (1199 - 1275), Jean de Meun (1240 - 1305), Guido Cavalcanti (1255 - 1300), Richard Rolle (c.1300 - 1349) or James I of Scotland (1394 - 1437). Or, if you're a hardcore medieval literary scholar and your feminist conscience (if you have one, that is) is telling you that it ought not to be a sausage fest, and that the literary accomplishments of medieval women deserve better recognition, you might pick Marie de France (fl.1160 - 1215), Hadewijch (c.1200 - 1250), Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207 - 1294), Christine de Pizan (1360 - 1430), probably the most famous medieval woman writer with a valid (if somewhat disputed) claim to being the first feminist author in the western tradition, or Gwerful Mechain (fl.1460 - 1502). The latter is getting a lot of attention now as Gwerful's poems include an invective against domestic abusers, an ode to the vagina and other things that really speak volumes to the issues women still face in the twenty-first century. Now, hands up if you picked Theodulf of Orleans as one of your three. One of two things will happen. Either the room will just go deathly silent, or the Carolingianists (people like me, in other words) will be outed.
Now you might have been noticing a theme in most of the names I've mentioned. You might have noticed that almost all of these authors are from the period 1150 - 1500, which is both symptom and cause of why that final third of the medieval millennium defines for most historically-aware people what medieval European civilisation was like - knights in shining armour, monumental stone castles, tournaments, trebuchets, soaring gothic cathedrals, monarchical popes proclaiming crusades and inquisitions, fat friars preaching compassion for the poor while enjoying the alms in food and drink they receive from the better off a bit too much, university students getting into fights with each other over arid scholastic debates like problem of nominalism and universalism or with the townsfolk over being sold poor quality alcohol for rip-off prices, craft guilds having fancy processions and stifling competition/ keeping at bay the dangerous forces of unfettered capitalism (depending on who you ask), courtly love, ladies in fine gowns and funny pointy hats, deluxe manuscripts with gothic script (Microsoft word's Blackletter font) and colourful marginalia that very often look straight out of a Monty Python film (they had to get the inspiration somewhere, after all), revolting peasants, the list goes on. The previous 650 years, especially the period up to the year 1000, doesn't register so much when people think of the Middle Ages, for various reasons that I don't need to go into here, but will do elsewhere.
For those of you who have some knowledge of the various names, including the less well-known ones, I've mentioned, you might have noticed another pattern. All of these authors wrote in the vernacular, which is itself closely linked to the previous pattern noted - with the exceptions of Wales, Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and a few Old High German poems, there's barely any vernacular literature from most parts of Europe before the twelfth century, and in some places not until quite sometime later (Albanian doesn't even attain written form until the fifteenth century, being the last Indo-European language to do so). We focus on the vernacular literature of the Middle Ages because many of the works written in it are undoubtedly pioneering masterpieces in and of themselves which have resonated throughout the ages (Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances, Dante's Divine Comedy and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are undoubtedly in that category), and in part out of a sense of patriotism and national pride. They represent the birth of English, French, German, Italian etc literature and in some cases signify even more than that. For example, since Italian Unification in the 1860s, Dante Alighieri has always been held as Italy's national poet in the singular and as a sort of prophet of Italian unification (indeed, the colours of the Italian flag - green, white and red, representing hope, faith and charity respectively - come from Beatrice's dress in the Paradiso). To the French, the Song of Roland and the Arthurian Romances of Chretien de Troyes demonstrate (like with the Abbey of Saint Denis and Gothic architecture) the leading role of France and the French in the development of medieval European civilisation, here specifically in the emergence of chivalry and courtly romance. Similarly, over here, Chaucer is seen as emblematic of a resurgent and self-confident English nation emerging phoenix-like from the Hundred Years War and the shaking off, at last, of the dominance of French language and culture since the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Meanwhile the vast corpus of Medieval Latin poetry and prose fiction - Latin was of course used as a literary language all over Western Christendom throughout the Middle Ages and into what we call the Renaissance or the Early Modern Period (when it becomes what modern scholars call Neo-Latin) - neither holds a widespread reputation for containing works of great literature, and certainly doesn't inspire any kind of patriotic or nationalistic feeling. Instead, in so far as its really taken notice of by anyone at all outside of hardcore medievalist circles, its presumed to be conservative, elitist and mostly religious (which is a big turn off for most people) given Latin's status as the language of the Church in the Middle Ages. Unlike most medieval vernacular literature, which is available in nice helpful user-friendly Penguin classics editions, most medieval Latin literature remains untranslated and in editions not safe for distribution to students. And to many classicists, who do have the relevant linguistic training, medieval Latin literature is automatically presumed to be second rate at best. This is because its been the opinion, going back to at least the Renaissance, that Classical Latin (the high literary Latin of the period 75 BC - 200 AD) represents the perfection of the Latin language, which is then presumed to have declined in quality thereafter, and that the literature of that period is the only Latin literature that's actually good and worthy of a place on school and university classics curricula. For poetry the six Latin authors considered great and worthy of study are Catullus (84 BC - 54 BC), Virgil (70 - 19 BC), Horace (65 - 8 BC), Ovid (43 BC - 18 AD), Martial (40 - 104 AD) and Juvenal (late first to early second century AD). The poets of the later Roman Empire like Ausonius (310 - 395), Prudentius (348 - 414), Paulinus of Nola (354 - 431), Claudian (370 - 404), Namatianus (5th century) and Sidonius Appolinaris (c.430 - 491) definitely don't make the cut - most classics graduates won't necessarily have even heard of them - and those of the Middle Ages even less so. Never mind that many medieval Latin poets (including Theodulf, as we'll soon see) had a very in-depth knowledge of the language, literary style and content of the Augustan poets (Virgil, Horace and Ovid). That only opens them to charges of imitation or being derivative - tiresome slurs so often levelled at medieval writers by modern scholars. Richard Ashdowne, an Oxford Classics professor and editor of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, really has a good sense of the problem in his excellent short introductory article to the Latin poetry of Medieval Britain. And among medievalist literary scholars, they overwhelmingly gravitate towards the vernacular, if in part for economic reasons - they simply join English, French, German, Spanish, Italian etc departments and many universities offer chairs in Old English/ Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Old Norse, whereas professorships in Medieval Latin simply don't exist. There are, however, a good number of medievalists who have fought against the marginalisation medieval Latin literature. Probably the most famous is the German philologist Ernst Robert Curtius (1886 - 1956), whose "European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages" (1948) earned the praise of TS Elliot, of all people, and is definitely to be regarded as a classic - indeed, Curtius can be credited with single-handedly introducing the technical term topos to modern literary criticism.
At the same time, to be more sympathetic to classicists, it really depends on why you want to read the texts. If you want to read texts that are timeless literary masterpieces, which have spoken equally to every subsequent era in the history of Western literature and are full to the brim with eternal themes and values, then obviously you read Horace's "Odes", Virgil's "Aeneid" or Ovid's "Metamorphoses." Meanwhile, you shouldn't bother with Prudentius' "Battle of the Spirits", Angilbert's "Lament for Fontenoy" or Joseph of Exeter's "The Trojan War." As Mary Beard said in conversation with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on my favourite podcast "there wasn't a day since 19 BC when Virgil's Aeneid wasn't being read somewhere" and that certainly can't be said of the latter three. And if what you want to write about, say, reading rape and sexual violence in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" as a woman in the age of #Metoo, then of course you can ignore the writings of the dead (implicitly white) male poets and scholars of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorian Age and beyond, though I must say that (proto) feminist readings of Ovid do go back to the Middle Ages, albeit a bit too late in the Middle Ages for me.
However, if you're a cultural historian interested in the long-term development of Western literature, rather than a pure literary scholar, then you ignore Late Antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages at your peril, not least because Late Antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages were what kept the classical literary tradition alive and those particular poets I mentioned so popular for it all to be passed on to the men (and women) of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorians and then us. If you're writing a history of the reception of Virgil or Ovid you can't just say something brief and vague about monks copying and preserving stuff (implying that they didn't actually engage much with the texts), give a token glance at Dante and Chaucer and then go straight to Quattrocento Italy or sixteenth century Europe - just as you shouldn't write about the reception of Suetonius without mentioning Einhard's "Life of Charlemagne" (I don't want to be that snotty Carolingianist, but I wasn't exactly happy to see neither Einhard nor Charlemagne mentioned once in the index to Mary Beard's exciting new release "Twelve Caesars"). to say this, Anthony Kaldellis has argued along much the same lines for the role of Byzantium in the Greek literary canon - see his article "Byzantium for Classicists" in his brilliant yet polemical booklet of essays "Byzantium Unbound" (2019) pp 55 - 74. I wouldn't go as far as him, though, in claiming that Classicists (especially those specialising in ancient Greece) are "bad Byzantinists", nor would I call Classicists who specialise in ancient Rome "bad Carolingianists", but he's essentially right that classicists don't realise that every time they stare at a great shelf of Loeb classical text volumes, they're staring at two medieval libraries - with the green cover volumes being the Byzantine library and the red cover volumes being the Carolingian library.
But enough pointless, self-indulgent, barely relevant introductory ranting about something I have a vested interest in (I've translated all 436 lines of the "Carmen ad Robertum Regem" by Adalbero of Laon) - there's a new year's resolution for me - lets get on to Theodulf of Orleans, the star of the show here.
Now, if you're not a Carolingianist or at least an early medievalist, you'll probably be wondering "who the *@#! is Theodulf of Orleans." Well, let me give you a little bit of background on him. Theodulf of Orleans was born sometime in the 750s, somewhere in the area around Zaragoza in Spain. Barely anything is known about his family background, though ethnically they would have been Visigoths. A couple of generations before Theodulf was born, the old Visigothic kingdom of Hispania (Spain) had been conquered by the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, which by c.720 stretched from modern day Portugal to Pakistan. The Visigothic kingdom fell very quickly (in less than a decade) and this kind of rapid, very total conquest has led to much debate among historians, - was the Visigothic kingdom a prodigiously centralised state that fell quickly after it became politically decapitated following the death of King Roderic at the battle of Guadalete in 711, or was it because of court factionalism and political divisions among an "overmighty" aristocracy. Such debates will certainly ring a bell to those familiar with the scholarship on the Norman Conquest of England, and 711 certainly is for Spain that great watershed moment that 1066 is seen as for England - indeed, in Spain and Portugal 711 is reckoned to be the beginning of the Middle Ages full stop, and the preceding Visigothic period is taught by classics and ancient history departments. The only part of Spain that was not conquered by the Muslims was the small mountainous region of Asturias in the far north, on the Atlantic coast. There's been a lot of debate among Spanish medievalists over whether it was in any way continuation of the Visigothic state, indeed to what extent the the Romans and Visigoths had ever set roots in Asturias or had even really controlled it politically except on paper. Some Marxist-leaning historians (Abilio Barbero and Pascual Vigil) have even suggested that the old Celtic tribal society that had existed there since the Iron Age had basically remained untouched by the Roman and Visigothic conquerors in Asturias, and that most of the kingdom's elites were actually some very ancient chiefs with deep roots in their communities. All of this has gotten really politicised. According to Chris Wickham, after the fall of the Franco regime in 1975, excavating a Roman villa in Asturias would often be decried as a right-wing political act (ironically, as Chris can easily confirm, most archaeologists in Southern Europe tend to be leftists).
As for elsewhere in the peninsula, we can infer from the sources that at least half of the Visigothic nobility decided to make peace with their conquerors, being allowed to keep their local political power in return for tribute. For example, in the Treaty of Orihuela (dated to 5 April 713, or 4 Recheb 94 AH in the Islamic Hegira calendar), which we have preserved in three later texts - including the thirteenth century history of Ibn Adari and a fourteenth century biographical dictionary - General Theodemir agreed with Emir Abd al-Aziz Ibn Musa that he could keep control of seven cities in the Carthaginensis region and all of the Christians living in the territories he governed could continue to practice their faith under the Dar al-Islam (Muslim rule) if they paid one dinar and four jugfuls of wheat, barley, grape juice and vinegar and two of honey and oil if they free and half of that if they were slaves. Some nobles even converted to Islam - the Banu Qasi, a powerful dynasty of frontier emirs (marcher lords) in northeastern Spain first appearing in the sources in 788, claimed to be descended from Count Cassius, a Visigothic nobleman (though with a name like that he was likely of Hispano-Roman aristocratic origins) who had converted to Islam earlier in the century. Similarly, Umar ibn Hafsun (850 - 917), a rebel emir, claimed to be descended from a Visigothic nobleman called Count Marcellus (again, probably of Roman ancestry originally). Some historians are sceptical of these claims, given that they originate the tenth century history of Ibn al-Qutiyya (d.977), who himself claimed to be descended from Sara the Goth, a granddaughter of King Witiza (d.710) no less, who had travelled to Damascus and married Isa ibn Muzahim, a prominent courtier at the court of Caliph Hisham, and together they had returned to al-Andalus. His cousins, the Banu Hajjaj, also based in Seville, also claimed descent from Visigothic royalty. Because sceptical historians gonna be sceptical, they argue that all these tenth century Muwallads (people in al-Andalus claiming mixed Arab and Gothic ancestry) were just engaging in spurious antiquarianism to bridge the gap in the records for much of the eighth century make their genealogies more exciting. The other options available to Visigothic nobles during the Conquest were to resist Muslim rule, which except in Asturias didn't exactly work out, or to become refugees and flee north to the Frankish kingdom.
Theodulf's parents, having hung around in Muslim Spain for the time being as Christians under Muslim protection, in the end decided to take the fourth option. Theodulf and his family went to live in Aquitaine, where he received his education, and he then enrolled at the monastery of Maguelonne as an adolescent in the 760s, which was in the territory of Count Aigulf of Maguelonne, a fellow Visigothic refugee in the service of the Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, and the father of the great monastic reformer Benedict of Aniane (747 - 821). Theodulf became a very well-educated man - as we shall later see, his eloquence and knowledge of literary techniques were very good, and (as will be revealed in a future post) his knowledge of Virgil and Ovid was phenomenal. In 786, Theodulf made a trip to Rome, which inspired him to be committed to the cause of making literate education more widely available. After his return, he wrote to many bishops and abbots, encouraging them to set up public schools. Theodulf would have no doubt been glowing inside, when, in 789, Charlemagne issued a royal edict called the General Admonition, where in clause 72 there is a line that says "and let schools be established in which boys may learn to read." This "Admonition" is one of the most memorable legacies of Charlemagne's kingship. Indeed, I've heard it said that French schoolchildren have traditionally remembered Charlemagne (whether they still do I cannot confirm) as "the guy who invented school."
Theodulf may have, in fact, been one of Charlemagne's advisers who helped suggest this edict. Yet putting such reforming legislation into practice required energetic men operating between the level of the court and that of the grassroots like Theodulf to pull it off. After Charlemagne appointed him bishop of Orleans in 798, Theodulf a significant part of his reformist efforst to the cause he'd always been passionate about - education. Chapter 20 of the episcopal statutes Theodulf issued for the priests of his diocese says:
Let the presbyters keep schools in the villages and hamlets, and if any of the faithful desires to entrust his small children to them to be taught their letters, let them not refuse to receive and teach them, but let them teach them with the greatest love, noticing what is written: "They, however, who shall be learned shall shine as the splendour of the firmament, and they who instruct many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:13)." When, therefore, they teach them, let them demand no fee for this instruction, nor take anything from them, except what the parents shall offer them freely through zeal for love."
(Source: "Theodulf of Orleans: Precepts for the priests of his diocese", edited and translated by Paul Edward Dutton in "Carolingian Civilization: A Reader", University of Toronto Press, 2009, p 110).
Theodulf of Orleans thus wanted instruction in reading and writing to be available to children of all social classes free of charge - rather, the reward that the teachers (who would all be priests) would receive would be the wisdom their students attained from becoming functionally literate. Theodulf's goals are are quite genuinely admirable, even if the ethos behind them (ensuring correct knowledge and practice of the Christian faith) may seem very distant to most of us living in twenty-first century Britain. And according to Rosamond McKitterick, we do have evidence to show that this episcopal statute was properly implemented and that similar projects were carried out by Theodulf's contemporaries elsewhere - the History of the Abbey of Saint Riquier, written in the eleventh century, recounts a liturgical procession held by Theodulf's contemporary, Angilbert of Saint-Riquier, which mentions boys of the lay school (presumably the type of elementary school in towns and villages mentioned by Theodulf) and of the abbey school participating. Theodulf also made a list of all the monastic schools (schools of the second type mentioned in the History of Saint-Riquier) in his diocese, which were open to "relatives of the clergy" though, as McKitterick suggests, this was not as socially-exclusive a category as one might think for a large cross-section of local society could claim to be "relatives of the clergy" (Rosamond McKitterick, "The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751 - 987", Longman, 1983, p 146).
As well as being a bishop and adviser to Charlemagne, Theodulf was also a missus dominicus - a type of itinerant provincial official (they would work in pairs, one a cleric, the other a layman) introduced by Charlemagne to supervise justice and local administration. This side of his career shall be explored in a subsequent post. As bishop, Theodulf built a splendid villa and oratory at Germigny-des-Pres, about a day's ride east of his episcopal seat at Orleans. It was designed by Odo of Metz, an Armenian by birth who was the architect of Charlemagne's famous palace at Aachen. Odo seems to have had knowledge of the first century Roman engineer Vitruvius' De Architectura, of which the earliest surviving manuscript copy dates to c.800 - yet another classical text that the Italian Renaissance did NOT rediscover. Construction begun after 806, not long after Odo had finished work on Aachen palace chapel. The villa itself, which unfortunately is no longer with us because it got destroyed by Viking raiders later in the ninth century, had elaborate fresco schemes of the Seven Liberal Arts (rhetoric, grammar, logic, mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy), the Four Seasons and the Mappa Mundi, and heated thermal baths. Yet the pagan Vikings for some reason decided that vandalising the oratory was too much even for them. Instead it would survive all the vicissitudes of the next millennium (the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of Religion, the French Revolution) only to get the treatment that would befall a lot of great French medieval monuments in the mid-nineteenth century - ignorant, overzealous and thoroughly botched "restoration." Indeed, much of the original interior decoration, including the furniture in white and coloured marble, the fabrics and the metalworks is lost forever thanks to the restoration work. But what does remain is very interesting. The internal structure of the building consists of many horseshoe arches, a prominent feature of Visigothic and Mozarabic (c.f. the famous eighth century Cordoba mosque/ cathedral) which is undoubtedly a nod to Theodulf's Spanish origins and the general plan may have been based on some exemplars from Spain, though potential Byzantine and Armenian influences have also been suggested - I get all this architectureal information from Kenneth J Conant, "Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800 - 1200" (1959) pp 51 - 52.
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| The oratory at Germigny des Pres, 806 (exterior) |
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| The interior with the wonderful horseshoe arches |
What's perhaps most notable about the oratory is that in its apse it contains one of only two (the other being the dome of Aachen palace chapel) surviving examples of early medieval (sixth to tenth century) mosaics from anywhere north of the Alps. The mosaic depicts two angels bringing down the Ark of the Covenant, something that rarely appears in early medieval art (what the significance of that might have been will be explored in another post), and below it is a Latin inscription in gold lettering, written by Theodulf himself, requesting that any visitors who gaze upon this mosaic pray for his soul.
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| Theodulf's Ark of the Covenant mosaic |
After Charlemagne's death, Theodulf's career would take a turn for the worse. Emperor Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's son and successor, faced the threat of rebellion in 817 - 818 from his nephew, Bernard of Italy, who wanted to rule Lombardy as his own independent kingdom. Louis the Pious quickly defeated Bernard and had him blinded and sent to a monastery, with Bernard dying shortly afterwards (we don't know the gruesome details but Bernard likely didn't get the medical attention he urgently needed after being mutilated). In the wake of Bernard's conspiracy, Louis proceeded to purge the court of all courtiers he suspected of disloyalty/ trying to obstruct his authority, and Theodulf's name was on the list. Theodulf was deposed from his bishopric and imprisoned in a monastery near Angers. Though he was released in 820, he would never reclaim his bishopric and died, most likely on his way to Orleans, in 821.
Theodulf therefore had multiple legacies, but where his talents shone most of all, and what concerns us most today, is in his literary legacy. Theodulf was a very accomplished poet and many of his poems survive for us today. Discussing all his poems would be too long for this post, and some will be discussed in future ones, so I thought I'd give you a selection of his short poems. They show him as a legendary wit, who could be ferociously provocative and deliver a scathing mockery of fellow courtiers to discredit them in the eyes of the Carolingian king-emperor and his court, but who could also be humorous in a much warmer and more light-hearted way. Above all, he reminds us that early medieval people were not the one dimensional figures we can sometimes be misled into thinking of them as.
Poem 1: About the Folly of Hypocrites and Fools who will not be swayed from their Depravity by Sound Exhortation
Neither wit nor wisdom corrects the hypocrite and the fool,
Teaching can not overcome the fool, nor wit the hypocrite,
It is worthless to apply learning to the fool's brain,
The more you teach him, the stupider he becomes.
Likewise, if anyone tries to wash a rough brick,
The more he washes, the dirtier he makes it.
How do fine words help, when there is no good will,
Why would one sow seeds among thorny weeds?
Why would one pour golden honey into a foul pond,
Why would one mix olive oil with excrement?
What use is a lyre, if it is played by a long-eared ass,
Or a trumpet, if it be blown skilfully for a horned bull?
As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice.
Poetry can accomplish much, but not everything,
Though both profane and sacred literature say that it can.
It is said that Circe transformed the friends of Ulysses
into various wild beasts through her skilful songs.
While poetry can accomplish much, it can not heal mange,
Nor can its gentle murmur cure one of worms.
As poetry is of no help to one who has a hernia,
And while they are sung the whole exercise is useless,
So that work will be useless to you, you infamous hypocrite,
If you attempt to slip in something good.
The wise king, [Christ], has said many things about this,
And by way of example I shall set down one:
"Though a stupid man be crushed in a mortar like a grain
Of Wheat, his indolence will not leave him (Proverbs 27:22)."
Thus the words of our Lord; now let me set down what
The rural folk often say so wisely about this kind of thing:
"You cannot by practice or by punishment make an owl into a hawk
That will attack cranes with its talons."
Nor can a vulture take up your place, falcon,
Because it is slow, given to gluttony, and ponderous in flight.
The hypocrite does not desire to learn good things, but only bad,
Do you want to know why? He is [also] a fool.
Being worse than Judas, he wants to seem better than you, [Saint] Peter;
Fate covers over many evils with a false dress.
He thinks small things to be important, and many evil things to be nothing:
While he wants to deceive others, the fool deceives himself.
(Source of translation: Carolingian Civilisation: A Reader (Second Edition), edited by Paul Edward Dutton, University of Toronto Press, 2009, pp 103 - 104)
Theodulf wrote this savage poem to discredit some anonymous courtier, presumably a fellow poet, at the court of Charlemagne, though his description of the hypocrite and fool could neatly fit Boris Johnson, whose first rate education has definitely not improved him intellectually or morally and who has,
in deceiving others, verily deceived himself.
Poem Number Two: Wide Wibod
Perhaps big-boned Wibod, our hero, may hear this poem,
And shake his thick head three or four times,
And gazing fiercely try to frighten with a look and a mutter,
And overwhelm me with his threats, even though I am not there.
If, however, the king in all his majesty should summon him,
Wibod would go with faltering step and knocking knees.
And his huge gut would go before him and his chest:
He would resemble Vulcan in his feet, Jove in his voice.
(Source of Translation: Carolingian Civilisation, p 106)
Before you start thinking "we need another Theodulf do justice to lampooning our current sorry lot of politicians", lets maybe consider the poem's significance. There has been much discussion by medieval and early modern historians about the concept of honour. Today we often think of honour as a quiet sense that one's conduct is principled, virtuous, self-sacrificing and guileless, though we might also say "its an honour" after having been treated like a VIP/ been in the presence of a VIP. The medieval and renaissance definition of honour was both and neither. Richard Kaeuper, an expert on (mainly Anglo-French) chivalry in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, following the approach of the eminent social anthropologist Julian Pitt-Rivers (1919 - 2001) laid out in his classic field study of Andalusian peasants in the 1950s, argues that honour was a social attribute first and foremost - it was about having your desired place in the "pecking order" recognised and given the respect and admiration due, and needing to vigorously defend it, by violence if necessary, from any attempt to slight or besmirch it (Idem, "Medieval Chivalry", Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp 40 - 42). Mervyn James, a historian specialising in the aristocracy of Tudor and Stuart England, takes much the same approach in "English Politics and the Concept of Honour, 1485 - 1642" (reprinted in Idem, "Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England", Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp 308 - 415) takes much the same approach. Both recognise the nuances, complexities and tensions that have to be made to this model when handling the late medieval and early modern sources - did honour come primarily from lineage, rank and social background, or from virtue and meritorious deeds. Both also argue that it could indeed entail values and behaviours that we can admire - loyalty, honesty and courage even in the face of great adversity and risk of death, and a strong degree of self-consciousness and determination, perhaps even leading to self-criticism and improvement. But they also agree at heart with Pitt-Rivers that "the ultimate vindication of honour lies in physical violence" through the vendetta or the duel.
Now you might be thinking - do these discussions of late medieval and early modern masculinity and aristocratic culture really matter to the Carolingianist? The answer is that Carolingianists are very divided on this question. Some think that such touchy notions of personal honour (and the culture of violent self-help that came with it) were already rife in eighth and ninth century Francia, its just that our sources, which are much fewer in number than for the twelfth to seventeenth centuries anyway, are in some kind of conspiracy of silence about it, either because of their genres, audiences, political and moral agendas or a combination thereof. They'll also argue that there's evidence of it from earlier sources. The ninth book of the Histories of Bishop Gregory of Tours (535 - 594) describes a sixth century Frankish aristocrat, Chramnesind, who goes to a feast at the house of his former enemy Sichar, who has murdered one of Chramnesind's relatives, and after Sichar drunkenly boasts at the feast about doing this, Chramnesind evocatively says "if I avenge not the death of my kinsman, I deserve to lose the name of man, and to be called a weak woman" and so proceeds to put the candles out before slicing into Sichar's head with his dagger. The Salic law, issued at the beginning of the sixth century, prescribes financial compensation for insults, which many take to mean that if compensation was not paid to the victim it would be in their rights to retaliate with violence. And then of course, if you want to play that venerable yet dubious game, there's the authority of Tacitus and his description of the ancient Germans to fall back on. Historians who take this view are also likely to take a very pessimistic view of the Carolingian monarchy and its ability to control violence and rein in the power of (in their view) a largely independent Frankish aristocracy, so that even a ruler like Charlemagne had to tread carefully.
Others would argue that Carolingian society had moved on from the norms of first century AD Germania and even sixth century Merovingian Gaul, and that the culture of touchy personal honour and violent self-help epitomised in later medieval and renaissance chivalry is not part of an unbroken line of continuity reaching back to the heroic ethos of the ancient Germans, but fundamentally a product of post-Carolingian (tenth and eleventh century) developments. They would also argue that the Carolingian aristocracy primarily derived its power from government office and royal service, and that strong kings like Pepin the Short (r.751 - 768), Charlemagne (r.768 - 814) and Louis the Pious (r.814 - 840) could make, break, reward and punish individual aristocrats through their vastly superior powers of patronage and coercion without much difficulty.
Its the latter position which I take, and the Wide Wibod poem would appear to support it. While Theodulf speaks of Wibod, a prominent aristocrat and count, getting enraged and threatening him to the point that he might "overwhelm me", it doesn't appear to be the case that he's actually afraid of getting beaten up by Wibod or his retinue. Its also apparent from the poem that Wibod is a royal servant who humbly obliges to his royal master's wishes without question, knowing that to incur his displeasure is bad for his position by being proud and insolent. Above all, the poem implicitly presupposes a culture in which its socially acceptable not to use violence against those who insult you. Rachel Stone, an expert on Carolingian court culture and masculinity, has argued along similar lines regarding Carolingian court poetry, and more broadly, using a range of different evidence, that touchy aristocratic honour and honour based violence was largely absent, or at least successfully reined in, under Charlemagne and his immediate successors and that Charlemagne was able to build new hierarchies at court based on competitive merit and good Christian behaviour.
Poem 3: About a stolen horse
Often cleverness supplies what strength cannot,
And often he who lacks power makes up for it with skill.
Listen to how a soldier using his brains recovered a horse,
Which was stolen in a military camp.
Sad over the loss of the horse, he yelled at the crossroads:
"Whoever has my horse should return it immediately.
Or I will be forced, because of this, to do
What my father once did while he was in Rome."
This statement frightened everyone, and the thief, being afraid
Of what would happen to him and the people, let the horse go.
When the owner regained his horse, he was extremely happy;
Those who had been afraid before, now congratulated him.
Then they asked him what he would have done if the horse had not been returned,
Or rather what his father had once done in Rome.
He answered, "My poor father tied the bridle and saddle
Together with his own neck and so weighed down by things, off he walked.
With nothing now to prod, he [still] wore spurs on his heels.
Thus once a rider, my father returned a walker.
You may believe me. I would have sadly done the same,
Had my horse not been returned to me [at once]."
(Source of translation: Carolingian Civilisation, pp 104 - 105)
All I can really say about this one is that Theodulf's wisdom and comedic genius shines through this triumph of simplicity Anyone who thinks Medieval Latin poetry is boring, trite, derivative or all about arcane and aetherial religious stuff should have their perceptions well and truly altered by this. In order to not like this, you'd have to be well and truly prejudiced against medieval culture for no good reason other than that its, well, from the Middle Ages and therefore must be second rate to anything the ancient or the early modern world produced - kind of like how the great German romantic Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe on his Italian tour of 1786 spent ten minutes in the great Gothic cathedral at Assisi, decorated by the frescoes of the legendary Trecento master Giotto di Bondone himself, yet spent hours staring at a church that incorporated the front of the old temple of Hercules (spoiler alert: the next post will be all about Hercules and the Carolingians).
Poem 4: Sign above a bar
May he who once changed water into the benefit of wine,
And he who made the likeness of water into wine.
Bless our cups with his kind touch,
And may he let us have a delightful day.
(Source of translation: Carolingian Civilisation, p 105)
This short witty poem, which plays around somewhat with metaphysical concepts in the first two lines, is absolutely golden. As someone who does bartending, I wish we could have this poem put up above the bar - rather than the highly misleading "Apothecary" sign that makes everyone think, wrongly, that our pub was once a Victorian medicine shop.
