International women's day special: an early medieval mother's advice to her son (back to solid Carolingian content again)

Happy International Women's Day

After my wild excursion into the history of post-Roman Britain, that ended up becoming a monster post that went into some at once very exciting yet uncomfortably speculative territory, I can now say we're back in more familiar territory for me. It is of course, now, International Women's day. It is thus on this day that I want to celebrate and express my gratitude towards all the amazing women in my life, past and present. 

First and foremost among them, however, would be my mother. Besides providing all the parental love one could possibly desire for the past 22 years, it suffices to say that, without her advice, encouragement and support, I would not be the historian I am now and I wouldn't be on such a successful path as I am currently on. As someone who studied Litterae Humaniores at Oxford (1986 - 1990) and has taught Latin and Greek for over thirty years, I owe to her my love of the ancient world, almost as enduring as my (obviously greater) love of the Middle Ages, and if it weren't for that a lot of my interests would be very different. I probably wouldn't be at all fixated on the Carolingians and classical reception in the Middle Ages if I hadn't been so into ancient Rome as a kid, which was very much thanks to my mother introducing me to classical mythology and history and taking me round so many ancient sites from as early as I can remember. Through all the conversations we have had, mostly on our weekend runs together, she has provided me with immeasurable intellectual stimulation, and lots of constructive criticism of my ideas from her learned and intellectually-engaged outsider's perspective. It is also thanks to her that the very idea of this blog came into being, though it would take another year for me to finally get that one going. And without her providing me with lots of informal teaching, I wouldn't be nearly as confident with my Latin.

She's not the only one who has made me the historian I am now, though. I would love to give a shout out to my Granny (on my mum's side), who studied history at Oxford (1956 - 1959) and is a published historian and translator in her own right, though sadly she was never able to have an academic career for two very specific reasons which I shall not go into. I've had many immensely enjoyable historical discussions with her, and she's been very supportive of me going down the medievalist route, which was what she would have taken herself had she been able to do a PhD, and she provides me with an exemplar of how you can remain committed to historical scholarship even if your academic career never takes off - which is the overall likelihood for me. I would also like to thank one of my closest friends (if you're reading this, you'll know who you are) who works on the period just before mine, late antiquity (though I guess we both share the fifth century AD). She's helped me embrace who I am, including all my nerdy eccentricities that do much to fuel my work, more than most people. And our historical conversations are absolutely legendary, being both stimulating and downright hilarious. The one we had back in July about when did the (Western) Roman Empire really fall, is one I always look back on with a smile and a glow of nostalgia. Her influence has also probably been a contributing factor in me making the jump from late medievalist to early medievalist, especially in embracing the fact that less really is more in terms of sources.

Meeting Dhuoda

 It is in honour of my mother and all the amazing advice she has given me, and continues to do so to this day, that I chose to write about Dhuoda and her Liber Manualis. There are so many colourful, courageous and creative women who made history, albeit in circumstances very much not of their choosing, across the period I loosely specialise in (400 - 1200 AD) which I could have chosen from - from Galla Placidia and Clotilda to Heloise, Hildegard of Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Yet I chose Dhuoda, a Frankish noblewoman from roughly the very middle of my period. I did so not because she's one of the more famous and consequential figures of this period, but because she's a rare example of an early medieval woman whose own authentic voice survives to us this day, in the form of an advice manual she wrote for her son. Its a very rich and wonderful text, as we'll soon see.

Firstly, a bit about Dhuoda's life. As is very typical with early medieval people generally, even the most well known ones (historians still argue over whether Charlemagne was born in 742 or 748), we do not know when Dhuoda was born. Most historians think she was born c.803, but that's only a rough guess. We don't actually know her family background, though its generally presumed that they were high nobility. What little we can say about childhood and upbringing is also a matter of educated guesswork. Modern scholars can't make their minds up about which part of the Frankish Empire she grew up in, and whether she spoke a Romance language or some Old High German dialect as her mother tongue - there's tentative evidence for both propositions. She definitely received some kind of literate education as a girl, but whether it was in a convent, from a private tutor or indeed from her own mother, we simply do not know. 

We do know, from Dhuoda's own testimony no less, that on 29 June 824, in the imperial palace chapel at Aachen, she married Bernard of Septimania (795 - 844). Bernard was a prominent courtier and the son of the great William of Gellone (755 - 812), duke of Toulouse, who would later be canonised as a saint by Pope Alexander II in 1066 (the year of Hastings) and become the subject of one of the earliest chivalric romances, the chanson de Guillaume (1140). In 826, her husband was appointed Count of Barcelona and military governor of the Spanish March by Emperor Louis the Pious, and Dhuoda accompanied Bernard on his early campaigns against the Muslims on the frontier. On 29 November 826, again according to Dhuoda's own writings, she gave birth to her son William - the recipient of the Liber Manualis. By 829, Bernard was becoming such a rising star on the Spanish March that Emperor Louis decided to make him the royal chamberlain at Aachen. This led to Bernard sending his wife to stay at Uzes, near Nimes, having assigned the administration of his counties of Barcelona, Toulouse and Carcasonne to his brother Guacelm, who became the new military governor of the Spanish March. Why he decided to do this, rather than taking his wife to court with him, we can only speculate about. Some use this to support the theory that Dhuoda was a native Romance speaker from what is now Southern France - it is thought that Bernard did this so that Dhuoda could use her local connections to help consolidate his political influence in Septimania (the region between the river Rhone and the Pyrenees that includes the southern French cities of Nimes and Narbonne). Others suggest something else was Bernard's mind on the basis of what happened next. 

In 830, Bernard of Septimania was accused of adultery with none other than Empress Judith, the second wife of Emperor Louis. We can only guess how Dhuoda herself felt about these rumours, but we know very well how the imperial court reacted. Thegan the Astronomer, who wrote a biography (Gesta) of Emperor Louis, believed these rumours to be malicious lies. Its quite revealing that when Bernard offered to prove his innocence in the eyes of God through trial by combat, none of his accusers came forward. The consequences of this were nonetheless explosive. Bernard of Septimania was forced to leave the imperial court and had his county of Autun, in Burgundy, confiscated. Emperor Louis' three sons (Pepin, Lothar and Louis) from his first marriage, to Ermengarde, who resented the influence of their stepmother at court anyway, were incited to rebel against their father, and the final decade of Louis' reign was filled with on and off civil wars between him and his sons. 

Almost immediately after Emperor Louis died in June 840, Dhuoda was visited again by Bernard in Uzes and become pregnant with his second child. Bernard took part in the fresh bout of civil war that followed, which I've covered in a previous post, in which he sided with Lothar and Pepin II of Aquitaine (Lothar's nephew and son of the previous Pepin), who wanted to keep the Empire united, against Lothar's brother Louis and half-brother Charles (son of Empress Judith), who wanted it to be divided up. Bernard was present at the extremely bloody and traumatic battle of Fontenoy in 841, on the losing side. As a show of good faith to his new royal master, Bernard sent William as a hostage to Charles. Dhuoda was thus caught up in the high political dramas of the ninth century Carolingian realm, It was in this context that, later on in 841, that Dhuoda sat down to write the Liber Manualis.

The Stuttgart Psalter (c.820), Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, folio 33v. While this does not depict Dhuoda, Bernard and William, the three figures here from left to right might as well stand in for them, as no contemporary image (or indeed from any subsequent period) of any of them exists. 

The Liber Manualis

Dhuoda begins the preface of the Liber Manualis with an a brief account of her marriage to Bernard of Septimania - this itself is quite remarkable as we otherwise have barely any autobiographical writings by women (however brief) between the late Roman period (Perpetua and Egeria) and the twelfth century (Heloise). She shows a remarkable capacity for remembering precise dates - it is, after all, from her that we know when she married Bernard of Septimania and when William and his unnamed younger brother were born. 

Dhuoda then introduces the purpose of her decision to write the Liber:

But since I have been parted from you for a long time and am living, on the orders of my lord, in this city where I now rejoice in [Bernard's] struggles, I have taken the trouble, because of my love for both of you, to have this little book (its size in keeping with my intelligence) copied and sent to you. Although I am beset with many difficulties, nevertheless let this one thing happen according to the will of God, if he so wishes, that I might look upon your face once. Indeed I would wish for this, if the power [to do so] was given to me by God, but because salvation is far away from me as a sinner, I [can only] wish for it, and in this wishing my determination grows weaker.

I have heard that your father, Bernard, has commended you into the hands of the lord, King Charles [the Bald]. I urge you to do your dignified duty in this business to the best of your will. All the same, as the Scriptures say, "Seek the kingdom of God in all things and other things will then be given" (Matthew 6:33), those things which are necessary for you to enjoy your soul and body.

I don't have access to the whole text, nor can I give you a convenient summary here. Instead I'll take you through some of the highlights. In Book Ten, she provides a poem titled "Concerning your times"

You have finished now four times four years.

If my second child were to reach the same age,

I would copy out another little book for his person.

And if you were to reach the age of 36,

And if I were to see you again,

I would with more words urge upon you even stronger things.

But because the time of my end hastens towards me,

And sickness everywhere wears my body out,

I have rushed to put this book together for the use of you and your brother.

Knowing that I shall not live another twenty years.

I urge you to savour this book as though it were a pleasant drink

And honey-laced food meant for your lips.

For the date when I married your father

And the date you were born occurred on the

[same Kalends] of [different] months, as I told you above.

Know that, from the first verse of this little book,

Until its last syllable,

Everything has been designed for the purpose of your salvation.

That you may more easily follow what is written there,

Read the acrostic verses.

The little verses written above and below, and everything else,

I myself have composed for the benefit of your soul and body,

And I do not cease even now urging you to read them and keep them close to your heart.

A subsequent poem in the Liber, in the original Latin, has the first letters of each of the seventeenth stanzas spell out Versi ad Wilhelmum (verses for William): 

That you might be strong and thrive, O best of sons, 

Do not be reluctant to read the words that I have composed and sent to you and may you effortlessly discover things that please you.

The word of God is alive; look for it diligently and learn its sacred teaching,
For then your mind will be stuffed with
great joy forever.

May the immense and powerful King, be radiant and kind,
Care to cultivate your mind in all things,

Young man, and to guard and defend you
Every minute of every day.

Be humble in mind and chaste in body,
Be ready to give proper service,
Show yourself constantly kind to all people,
Both the great and the not so great.

Above all, fear and love the Lord God,
With your full heart and soul and expend all your strength,

Next fear and love your father in all things.

Do not regret continually serving,
The glorious offspring [Charles the Bald] of [that Carolingian] race,

With its line of ancestors, for he shines,

With the great.

Esteem magnates and respect those of high rank at court;
Be humble with the low;
Associate yourself with the well-intentioned; be sure not to
Submit to the proud and imprudent.

Always honour the true ministers
Of the sacred rites, the worthy bishops,
Always commit yourself simply and with outstretched hands,

To the custodians of the altars.

Frequently give assistance to widows and orphans,
Give food and drink to pilgrims;
Offer hospitality; stretch out your hands
With apparel to the naked.

Be a strong and fair judge in legal disputes;
Never take a bribe
Never oppress anyone, for the great Giver will repay you.

Be generous with gifts, but always vigilant and modest,
Make a sincere effort to get along with everyone,
Rejoice in humble things, for the image of this will
Stay with you.

There is One who weighs up everything,
A bestower who grants to each according to merit,
Assigning for [good] words and works the greatest of gifts:
The constellations of the heavenly stars.

Thus, my noble son, you should take care
And seek constantly to obtain
The great advantages [of heaven], and spurn
The fires of pitch-black wood.

Although, at sixteen, you are in the very flower
Of your youth, your delicate limbs
Age [along with you] step by step
As you proceed through life.

I long to see your face,
But the prospect seems distant to me.
Even if the power should be given to me,

Yet I still do not deserve this.

Would that you might live for Him who shaped you,

May you enter into, with gentle spirit, a fitting association
With his servants; may you with joy rise up again when your
Life is done.

My mind surely turns to thoughts of death,
But still I want you to read carefully the pages of this book,
As I have written them [for you], and keep them constantly
Foremost in your mind.

These verses, with the help of God, are now done

As you finish your sixteen years
At the start of December, on the Feast of Saint Andrew [30 November],
And the Advent of the Word.

Christine de Pizan (1364 - 1431) advises her son, Jean, before he goes to live in the Earl of Salisbury's household. British Library, Harley 4431 folio. 261v. Dhuoda was far from unique among medieval mothers in giving her son wise advice and caring for his well-being even when he was going to be absent from her for an indefinite period of time - some would say that motherly instincts never change.

Later on in the text, Dhuoda returns to talking about herself and her personal anxieties and shortcomings. She laments the frailty of her body, her slothfulness in failing to pray the seven canonical hours every day (this would become a major feature of lay piety in the later middle ages with the popularity of Books of Hours), sinning in thought and speech and taking on too many debts from Christian and Jewish creditors. Above all, she is gravely uncertain over whether she merits salvation.  She requests that William, maintain a spiritual link with her even if they can never have a physical one again:

While you see that I am [still] alive in this world, alertly attempt in your heart to exert yourself so that, not only through vigils and prayers, but also by giving charity to the poor, I might deserve, when finally seized from my body and from the chains of my sinning, to be received kindly in every way by our kind Judge.

At the end of the book, Dhuoda composes her own epitaph, in which she reflects on the transience and insignificance of the physical body, and requests that whoever looks upon her tomb pray for her soul.

Source for the text: Carolingian Civilisation: A Reader, edited and translated by Paul Edward Dutton, Toronto University Press (2009), pp 336 - 343

Thoughts and analysis

The Liber Manualis is a beautiful, intelligently written, moving and deeply humane text, that in itself is a fitting monument to its author and her intellect and personality. A lot of early twentieth scholars, no doubt motivated by sexism to at least some degree, were remarkably rude about it, especially its Latinity. But as Peter Dronke has argued in a highly sympathetic defence of Dhuoda, while her Latin style was orthodox and incorrect, both by Classical or Carolingian standards, and is often difficult to translate, that is because she was trying to express thoughts that were very much her own and which she could only express her own unique way. Unlike a lot of correspondance in this period, there is nothing that could have been ripped straight from, say, Cicero or Ambrose of Milan, and the only literary trope she really uses is that of personal unworthiness, which is to be found in just about every Carolingian writer - Einhard is full of it in his Life of Charlemagne and personal letters. Indeed, like Einhard and a number of other Carolingian authors, Dhuoda really stands out as someone who saw herself as a unique somebody and wanted to express it, which very much goes against what we've been taught to expect of early medieval people, and early medieval women in particular. 

For all that many historians may caution us that we cannot access the real thoughts and feelings of medieval people through literary texts, Dhuoda’s here, which were so complex and authentic she struggled to put them into learned Latin,  feel as real as those in any text of any age - her love and concern for her son, her sadness at being parted from him and the uncertainty of whether she’ll ever see him again and her anxiety for the fate of her soul. 

For all that Dhuoda laments her physical and spiritual weakness, things very much associated with femininity, she does manage exert a distinct kind of authority that the patriarchal society of Carolingian Francia can nonetheless afford to her, that of a mother. As Janet Nelson reminds us, Carolingian patriarchy depended on mothers as much as fathers and they were owed respect and obligations. And this is another respect in which Dhuoda nonetheless manages to stand out as a unique individual - while mothers may have advised their sons all the time in this period, none put it down into writing, nor for that matter did fathers. As Nelson points out, Dhuoda is unique among Carolingian moralists in standing on a parental platform - all the others were either celibate monks and clerics (Alcuin, Jonas of Orleans, Hincmar etc) or lay noblemen who, so far as we can tell, had no biological children of their own (Einhard and Nithard). 

The content of what Dhuoda writes reflects a wealth of not only personal wisdom but also knowledge of ancient and contemporary texts, including the Bible, the late Roman grammarian Donatus, the works of the Church Fathers like Augustine and Gregory the Great, the Rule of St Benedict, Charlemagne's General Admonition of 789 and Rabanus Maurus' treatise on Computation. This is testament to the depth and richness of learning that at least certain lay women were capable of achieving in this period.

Given her familiarity with all these texts, it is not surprising that what Dhuoda writes resonates so much with the aims and rhetoric of the Carolingian reform programme, which tried to create a moral lay elite and which concerned itself as much with inward spiritucal disposition as with outward public display of good morals - very apparent from Dhuoda's work. Indeed, her Liber Manualis is demonstrative that this reform effort didn't fall on deaf ears amongst the Carolingian aristocracy, even if the results across the board were very mixed to put it bluntly. It also shows how women could play a role in reinforcing it and not just in a family context - more than three copies of the Liber survive, more than do for a lot of later medieval moralistic texts like the Livre de Chevalerie of the fourteenth century knight Geoffroi de Charny (one of the texts I read for my undergraduate thesis). In a sense, Dhuoda wrote not just as a mother advising her son but as a public intellectual, and it does seem she had a public impact. Whether or not women in general had a Carolingian Renaissance (an inevitable play on feminist historian Joan Kelly’s famous article “did women have a Renaissance?”), and I think they did, if not quite the same as that of men, Dhuoda truly was a Carolingian Renaissance woman. 

As is clear throughout the text, Dhuoda wrote this when she was suffering from some kind of long term illness. If she lived much longer past 841, and we really don’t know if she did, her life, which had already been filled with much drama and misfortune, wasn’t going to get anymore uplifting for her. In 844, Bernard of Septimania was executed by Charles the Bald for switching sides too many times in the various civil wars and most recently having sided with Pepin II of Aquitaine in revolt against Charles the Bald. In 850, William, who managed to get awarded some of his fathers counties after his death, was judicially murdered by Charles’ partisans as part of the ongoing political turmoil in the South - ninth century Carolingian politics is depressing like that!

Dhuoda’s story is demonstrative of why the Carolingian period is so fascinating relevant to us today. It may not quite deliver what we, living in a post-Game of Thrones world, think we want from medieval history - the Carolingians want to limit violence, sex, and political corruption and scheming in favour of high mindedness  and building a better world, yet fail because various reasons and that hits too close to home and leaves a bitter taste in our mouths. Yet it does show us how intellectuals, male and female,  clerical and lay, reflected on themselves as unique individuals and on the human condition, and sought creative solutions to their own personal challenges and those facing society more generally. They remind us how deeply human and indivisible people in the medieval past really were, something that us moderns have often been minded to forget, and how they struggled and did their best to cope with a chaotic world, which is very much what we are confronted with now. 

Theodulf of Orleans (c.755 - 821): Charlemagne's ferociously witty courtier and why medieval Latin poetry needs a lil' bit of love

 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. 

The oratory at Germigny des Pres, 806 (exterior)

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.

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.