Isidore succeeded his brother Leander
as bishop of Seville
about 600.
Their sister Florentiana supervised
more than a thousand
nuns in forty convents.
Isidore presided over the second council
at Seville in 619
and probably at the fourth council of Toledo
in 633.
Isidore had dedicated his History of the Kings of the
Goths,
Vandals, and Suevi to King Suinthila (r. 621-631) for
his
royal virtues and generosity to the poor; but after Suinthila
was deposed, Isidore withdrew his praise and supported
King Sisenand,
who may have been the first Western
monarch in the middle ages
to be anointed by bishops.
The 633 Toledo council in its Canon
75 called for
"the strengthening of our kings
and the stability
of the Gothic people."1
The Toledo council of 636 prohibited
kings from confiscating
property lawfully acquired by their predecessors
and made the king elected by the Gothic nobility.
Isidore wrote
many books and was working on the
Etymologies when he died
in 636.
Isidore helped to keep alive classical learning in an
age that
believed philosophy without religion is of little value.
Even his moral judgments come out mostly
in his discussion of
angels and demons.
Most of the education that did go on in Europe
in the
middle
ages came through those in the Church and its monasteries.
Isidore based his Three Books of Sentences on morals
and
theology mostly on the works of Augustine
and Pope Gregory.
He believed that the life of the body is brief and limited
compared
to the Spirit.
In his Sentences he wrote,
Holy men desire to spurn the world and devote
the activity of their minds to things above,
in order to convey themselves back to the place
from which they have come, and withdraw from
the place into which they have been cast.2
Isidore's encyclopedic Etymologies became a basic text
book
for the middle ages; only the Bible was more widely
read in
western Europe for the next nine centuries.
Isidore was
concerned that ignorance, which nourishes vice
and is the mother
of all errors,
would increase without good education.
His disciples
founded schools in Toledo, Mérida,
Zaragoza, and Palencia.
In addition to the seven traditional liberal arts of grammar,
rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy,
he
also discussed the important professions of law and
medicine,
wrote a book on times, and three books on theology.
Law, medicine,
and theology would become important curricula
in the medieval
universities founded several centuries later.
In the book on logic or dialectic Isidore defined philosophy
as "the knowledge of things human and divine,
united with
a zeal for right living."3
He interpreted the four classical
virtues:
wisdom distinguishes good from evil;
courage endures
adversity with calmness;
temperance bridles lust and desire;
and
justice by right judgment renders each one's due.
He observed
that philosophy as meditating upon death is
most suitable to Christians,
who trample on worldly ambitions
and live to learn for a future
realm.
Practical philosophy deals with moral customs,
economics
or domestic affairs, and the civil state.
Isidore differentiated
the human species
as the only one that laughs.
In addition to
an etymological dictionary of a thousand terms
Isidore also used
his etymological approach in discussing such
diverse topics as
languages, races, empires, war, government,
family, animals, geography,
architecture, minerals,
agriculture, and amusements.
He condemned
the cruel spectacles popular in Spain
that had replaced gladiatorial
games with tournaments
between warriors and the ancient Iberian
sport of bull-fighting.
The most influential book in Isidore's Etymologies
was
the one on law.
He wrote that natural law is common to all people
by natural instinct rather than by statutes.
Examples of natural
law include
the union of a man and woman,
educating children and
their right of inheritance,
payment of debts, defense against
aggression,
communal property, and equal freedom for all.
Isidore
believed that private property
and slavery resulted from sin.
Without sin there would be no need
for private property nor for
government.
What people enact he called civil law, and the interactions
between states developed the law of nations
and wars military
law.
Laws of commerce on the seas were
named after the island
of Rhodes.
Laws are made to protect the innocent from the wicked
and should be drawn up for the common good of all citizens.
Kings
are obligated to promote justice, and one who
does not rule correctly
is not really
a king and should lose his throne.
Suinthila (r. 621-631) established a Visigothic kingdom in
Spain
by driving out the Byzantines, while the bishops meeting
in
councils endeavored to promulgate canon laws,
and dukes and
counts governed local regions.
Khindaswinth (r. 642-653) seized
the throne after a civil war.
Bishops at the sixth council of
Toledo in 638 had passed a
resolution not allowing Jews to violate
the Catholic faith,
and the 653 Visigothic law code influenced
by Roman traditions
promulgated by Reccesvinth (r. 653-672) forbade
Jews
from testifying against Christians.
The Visigothic noble
Fructuosus (d. 667) founded
monasteries near Astorga and in Galicia.
Bishop Braulio helped make Zaragoza an intellectual center,
and
Toledo thrived under the teaching
of Bishop Julian (d. 690).
King
Wamba (r. 672-680) tried to reform the military
but was deposed.
His successors blamed the Jews and tried to convert them
to Christianity
or reduce them to slavery.
When Wittiza (r. 700-710) died, Baetica
duke Roderick
(r. 710-711) overthrew his son but was soon overwhelmed
and killed by the invading Muslims.
By 718 they had taken over
most of the Iberian peninsula
except the north, where Pelayo (r.
718-737)
established the Asturian kingdom.
His son-in-law Alfonso
I (r. 739-757) brought the
Cantabrians into the struggle against
the Muslims and
extended Asturian territory south of the Duero
River.
Fruela I (r. 757-768) was called the cruel
and founded his capital at Oviedo in Leon;
his raiding ended when he was murdered.
Fruela's son Alfonso II (r. 791-842) was an infant,
and four kings
supported by Galicians intervened before
a major defeat by the
Muslims led to Alfonso's succession,
as his predecessor Vermudo
retired into a monastery.
Charlemagne's Franks had failed to take
Zaragoza in 778
but successfully invaded Catalonia and took Barcelona
in 801.
Iñigo Arista (d. 851) became the first king of
Pamplona
by defeating the Franks at Roncesvalles in 824
and Muslims
to unite ancient Navarre.
An Arab adventurer named Mahmud ibn
'Abd al-Djabbar
fled from Amir 'Abd al-Rahman II to Asturia,
but
after seven years he was destroyed
by Alfonso's army in 840.
The nephew of Alfonso II was also overthrown by Galicians,
who backed Vermudo's son Ramiro I (r. 842-850).
A Muslim army
from Cordoba sacked Leon in 846.
Ramiro's son Ordoño (r.
850-866) invaded the Muslims in 854
but was defeated, though Toledo
continued to revolt until 859,
when Ordoño's forces defeated
the
independent Muslim Musa Ibn Musa.
Alfonso III (r. 866-910)
built castles in what was so named
Castile and secured an alliance
with Basques
by marrying Count Iñiguez's daughter Jimena.
A conspiracy resulted in Asturia, Leon, and Galicia
being divided
among Alfonso's three sons in 910.
Barcelona count Wifred (r.
873-898) asserted independence
from the Frank empire, founding
a dynasty
that would rule Catalonia for the next five centuries.
By the reign of Agilulf (590-615) the Lombards were well
established
in the Italian peninsula with a capital in the north
at Pavia
and strong duchies in Spoleto,
Tuscany, and Beneventum.
The monk
Secundus counseled Queen Theodelinda and
tutored prince Adaloald
(r. 615-624), the first Lombard king
baptized by the Catholic
rite.
After Ariold (r. 624-636), Rothari (r. 636-643) published
his edicts in Latin with key terms explained in German.
Rothari's
son Rodwald was assassinated in 652.
Aripert I (r. 653-661) ended
the Arianism at the Pavia court.
Monasteries were established
at Monza, Milan, and Pavia.
Aripert divided the Lombard kingdom
between his two sons;
however, Beneventum duke Grimwald (r. 662-671)
entered Pavia to help Godebert but killed him, causing his
older
brother Perctarit at Milan to flee to the Avars.
Under Grimwald
the Lombards successfully
fought the Franks and the Byzantines.
When Friuli duke Lupus refused to swear allegiance,
the king got
the Avar khagan to attack him in 663.
The invading Avars
refused to leave,
and Grimwald had to go to war to force them
out.
At Grimwald's death Perctarit (r. 671-686)
recaptured
the throne and associated his son
Cuninebert (r. 686-700) in his government.
Cuninebert was driven out of Pavia after a protracted war
with
rebellious Alahis of Trent until Alahis was killed
near Como,
and Cuninebert returned.
After a civil war over the succession, Raginbert's son
Aripert
II (r. 700-712) emerged as king of the Lombards
and tried to rule
justly
while Duke Ansprand plotted to gain power.
When Ansprand
raised a force, Aripert's army mutinied;
Aripert fled Pavia but
was dragged down
by the gold he was carrying and drowned.
Ansprand
died three months later,
and his son Liutprand (r. 712-744) became
king.
Liutprand took Narnia from the Byzantines
and plundered
Classis, the port of Ravenna.
In 731 Liutprand intervened in Beneventum
to install as duke
his nephew Gregory, who was killed seven years
later.
Then Godeschalk was duke there for three years until
Liutprand
subjugated Spoleto and attacked Beneventum,
appointing his grand-nephew
Gisulf II.
Liutprand also conquered four cities in Roman territory
in order to gain access to Spoleto
when the Pope would not surrender
rebelling vassals.
In 739 Pope Gregory III (731-741) wrote two
letters to
the
Frank Charles Martel, asking for help against the
Lombards.
Roman troops helped Spoleto duke Transamund II
recapture his duchy by murdering Hilderic,
whom Liutprand had appointed.
Pope Gregory was succeeded by Zacharias (741-752),
who asked for
the four towns back in exchange for
Transamund being consigned
to a cloister.
Thus Liutprand made peace with Rome
and consolidated
the Lombard kingdom.
Liutprand was succeeded by his grandson Hildebrand,
but after
seven months he was replaced as Lombard king
by Friuli duke Ratchis
(r. 744-749),
who went to war with Rome.
Ratchis retired to a
monastery and was succeeded by his
brother Aistulf (r. 749-756),
who drove out the Byzantine
exarch Eutychius in 752 before marching
on Rome.
Zacharias died, but Pope Stephen II negotiated a delay.
Stephen went to Ponthion to meet Pippin and anointed him
Frank
king in 754; the next year Pippin declared war on
the Lombards
in order to reinstate the Pope.
Aistulf granted Stephen safe conduct
and came
to a peace agreement with the invading Franks;
but the
next year Aistulf attacked Roman territory
again and besieged
Rome.
Once again the Franks invaded and burned Italy
until Aistulf
was required to pay a third
of his royal treasure for peace.
After
Aistulf died hunting, Desiderius (r. 756-774)
gained the support
of the Pope,
but he was the last independent Lombard king.
Charlemagne
became sole Frank king in 771;
but after Desiderius backed a Frank
faction against him,
he repudiated his Lombard wife and sided
with Pope Adrian.
Charlemagne's Franks routed the Lombard army,
besieged Pavia, and forced Desiderius
to swear an oath of fealty
and go into exile in 774.
After Brunhild
was killed in 613, Chlotar II united the Frank
kingdoms of Burgundy
and Austrasia with Neustria,
where he was king since 584.
He made
his capital at Paris and in 614 increased the powers
of the church
at a council, appointing Arnulf bishop of Metz.
Chlotar II made
the first Pippin of Landen
mayor of the palace of Austrasia.
His
oldest son Dagobert I (r. 629-639) succeeded him,
and his second
son Charibert was made duke of Aquitane.
Arnulf and Pippin got
Dagobert to order Chrodoald killed.
Dagobert had been tutored
by Pippin, whom he summoned
to Neustria, making his three-year-old
son
Sigebert II (r. 629-656) king of Austrasia, which was to be
run by Adalgesil and Cologne archbishop Cunibert.
In 633 Slavs
attacked Thuringia, and the Franks,
though assisted by the Lombards
and Bavarians, had to remit
the tribute the Saxons had been paying
the Franks since 536;
the Thuringians became independent in 640.
When Dagobert died, the Frank kingdom was divided
between his
sons Sigebert II in Austrasia while Neustria
and Burgundy went
to six-year-old Clovis II (r. 639-657).
The powerful Pippin brought
part of the treasury
to Metz but died the next year.
The Columbanian
convert Amandus preached in Gaul
and in 640 established a monastery
at Nivelles,
where Pippin's widow Itta was replaced in 652 as
abbess
by her daughter Gertrude, who sent to Rome and Ireland
for books and ruled a double monastery of men and women
with Columbanian
principles until she died in 659.
When Thuringian duke Radulf
rebelled,
Pippin's son Grimoald intervened
and helped save Sigebert's
life.
Grimoald then had the royal tutor and palace mayor Otto
assassinated so that he could become mayor of the palace
and put
his son on the throne as Childebert the Adopted;
but Clovis II
had them put to death and was succeeded
by his son Chlotar III
(r. 657-673), whose Anglo-Saxon
mother Balthild was a capable
administrator and withdrew
into the monastery she founded at Chelles
in 664.
The Austrasians became independent by putting
Chlotar's
brother Childeric II (r. 662-675) on that throne.
When Chlotar III died, Ebroin, his mayor of the palace
in Neustria,
tried to rule on behalf of a third brother named
Theuderic III
(r. 673, 675-690), but they were sent to a
monastery when conspirators
gave the
Neustrian crown to Childeric II of Austrasia.
After having
a noble whipped, Childeric, his queen,
and son were assassinated
by another conspiracy.
Ebroin and Theuderic III came back to rule
Neustria
while Dagobert II (r. 676-679) returned from Ireland,
where he had been taught by York bishop Wilfrid,
to reign over
Austrasia.
Dagobert II and Martin, brother of the second Pippin
of Herstal, were killed by the ambitious intrigues of Ebroin,
who was murdered himself, probably in 681.
This allowed Pippin
II to gain power by defeating Neustria
at the battle of Tertry
in 687, unifying Austrasia and Neustria.
Though Merovingians continued
to sit on thrones,
power was now in the hands of Pippin.
Frisian king Aldgisl allowed the Anglo-Saxon missionaries
Wilfrid
of York, Wigbert, and Willibrord
to preach in his country.
The
pagan chieftain Radbod refused conversion, because
he preferred
to join his ancestors in the next world.
Pippin II defeated Radbod
and invited Willibrord
to go to Rome to be consecrated archbishop
of the Frisians by Pope Sergius I.
Thuringian dukes Theobald and
Heden gave Willibrord
land grants in Kitzingen.
The Anglo-Saxons
Hewald the White and Hewald the Black
became martyrs attempting
to convert the Saxons.
In 697 Pippin drove the Frisians north
of the Rhine,
and he also regained Frank sovereignty over the
Alemanni after Gottfried died in 709.
Pippin supported the founding
of several new monasteries
and kept abbots under his patronage.
In the last year of his life when Pippin was ill,
conspirators
murdered his son Grimoald,
Neustrian mayor of the palace;
but
Pippin recovered and gained revenge.
When Pippin II died in 714, his wife Plectrude tried to rule
with her grandson Theodoald and had Pippin's son
Charles (Martel)
by Alpaid imprisoned.
Neustrian nobles rejected Theodoald and
elected Ragamfred
mayor of the palace, and with Frisians led by
Radbod
they defeated the Pippin family led by Charles,
who had
escaped from prison, and in 716 they forced
Plectrude to give
up treasure from Cologne.
By 717 Charles had raised enough forces
to defeat the
Neustrians at Vinchy and move back to Cologne
to
oust Plectrude and secure the treasury
and his position as mayor.
The next year he defeated Radbod,
and the Frisians withdrew after
Radbod died in 719.
Charles fought against Ragamfred
and Aquitane
duke Eudo, who both fled.
Charles won again at Soissons in 719
and now controlled Neustria as well as Austrasia.
He appointed
his relatives and noble supporters
to ecclesiastical as well as
secular positions.
The term "vassal" now appeared in
the laws of the
Alemanni and Bavarians for those who were
dependent
on lords for protection and swore to serve them.
Some bishops, such as Savaric of Auxerre, enhanced their
power
by military means; in 714 and 715 he subjugated
Orleans, Nevers,
Avallon, and Tonnerre,
and he was marching on Lyons when he died
of a stroke.
In 719 the Anglo-Saxon Winfrith, later called Boniface,
went to Rome as a pilgrim and was sent by
Pope Gregory II (715-731)
into Germany to convert pagans.
Four years later Charles ordered
all his agents to protect
Boniface, and the next year he supported
a monastic
settlement by Pirmin on Reichenau in Lake Constance.
Irish monks had been established at Honau in the Rhine River
in
722 by Eticho's son Adalbert.
Pirmin was driven off Reichenau
in 727 but was entrusted
with the monastery at Murbach that
Adalbert's
son Eberhard founded that year.
These efforts by Pirmin and his
disciples helped
Charles gain control of the eastern provinces.
Muslim invasions, which began taking over Spain in 711,
were
spreading across the Pyrenees,
but in 721 Toulouse was successfully
defended by Aguitane duke Eudo.
In 725 Muslims raiding in Burgundy
sacked Autun.
Duke Eudo married his daughter to a Berber chieftain,
who was defeated and killed
by the Muslim leader Abdul Rahman.
With perhaps about 70,000 fighting men Abdul Rahman
took Bordeaux
by assault.
Aguitane duke Eudo appealed to Charles,
and an army
of Franks, Burgundians, Gallo-Romans,
and Germans met the Muslims
between Tours and Poitiers
in 732, defeating them and killing
Abdul Rahman.
This battle is considered a turning point that stopped
the
Islamic advance into western Europe and earned Charles
the
name of Hammer or Martel, conferred by later historians.
The same
year Charles took over Burgundy
by driving out his former ally
Eucherius.
The next year Charles regained Lyons, Vienne, and Valence.
After Eudo died in 735, Charles took over
the Garonne valley
and Bordeaux.
While Charles went back to fight the Frisians, Provence
duke
Maurontus joined with Abdul Rahman's son Yussuf and helped
the Muslims conquer much of Provence in the next three years;
but in 737 Charles returned to cross the Rhone,
march on Narbonne,
and drive
the Muslims out of Septimania (Languedoc).
Charles then
laid waste to Provence,
trying to burn down Roman arenas.
After
fighting the Saxons in the north, Charles returned
again in 739
to drive the Muslims completely
out of Provence through Marseilles
and Arles.
In 739 Pope Gregory III appealed to Charles Martel
for help
against the Lombards, and the Pope declared Charles the
Roman patricius, as the Catholic church, discontent with
the
Byzantines, turned toward the growing power of the Franks.
When Charles died in 741, he gave his eldest son
Carloman Austrasia,
Alemannia, and Thuringia while leaving
Burgundy, Neustria, and
Provence to his son Pippin.
Charles' son Grifo by the Bavarian
Sunnichild
got little and made trouble.
The new mayors' elder
sister Chiltrude fled
and married Bavarian duke Odilo.
Alemanni,
Bavarians, Slavs, and Saxons struggled for
independence in the
east, but Carloman and Pippin forced
Swabian duke Theobald to
swear allegiance and give hostages.
In the west revolting Aquitane
duke Hunoald took Bourges;
but in 745 Hunoald was forced to deliver
hostages
and pledge fealty before retiring into
a monastery on
the isle of Ré.
In 742 Pippin named Chrodegang bishop of Metz,
and Boniface
founded the monastery of Fulda in Hesse in 744.
The Irish cleric
Virgil visited Pippin for two years
and was consecrated bishop
of Salzburg.
Carloman finally defeated the Alemanni at Canstatt
in 746 and
was reported to have put several thousand people to
death.
The next year Carloman abdicated so that
he could retire
to a monastery near Rome.
Pippin released Grifo, who fled to the
Saxons and then Bavaria.
Pippin re-captured Grifo and gave him
some lands between
the Seine and the Loire, but Grifo fled to
Aquitane duke
Waiofar and was not killed until 753 on his way
to Italy.
In 748 Duke Odilo died, but Pippin quashed the Saxons
with his army and imposed an annual tribute of 500 cattle.
Efforts to reform the church began in 742 when Carloman
convened
the Germanic Council of bishops and priests.
The next year Pope
Zacharias held a Lateran council to
condemn clerical immorality,
and in 744 Pippin gathered 23 bishops at Soissons.
Straying clerics
and deacons were deprived of their status.
Those in the church
were no longer to bear arms
or accompany the army except as chaplains.
Hunting was forbidden,
and clerics were not to live with a woman.
Monks guilty of fornication would be imprisoned,
and fallen nuns
would have their heads shaved.
The Rule
of Benedict became the monastic guide and the
basis of
the Rule for Canons; bishops were given jurisdiction
over clerics to prevent them from wandering.
Carloman and Pippin also
condemned pagan practices.
Carloman was going to return ecclesiastical
funds
but then decided that the church's wealth was needed
to
support the army, because fealty would be lost
if church lands
were taken away from the nobles.
A system of precarial tenure
was devised that confirmed
the property rights of the church but
allowed lords
to give their vassals lifetime tenure of benefices
in exchange
for rents to the churches and monasteries on those
lands.
Fulrad, for example, owned ten domains in Alsace,
and in
749 Pippin made him abbot at St. Denis.
Pippin sent Fulrad and bishop Burchard to ask
Pope Zacharias
about kingship to prepare the way for
Pippin to be anointed by
bishops king of the Franks in 751,
replacing the last Merovingian,
Childeric III,
who was sent to a monastery.
Boniface went back
to convert more pagan Saxons
but was killed by marauding Frisians
in 754.
Pope Stephen II came to visit King Pippin to ask his help
against the Lombards and anointed him in 754.
Stephen gave Metz
bishop Chrodegang the pallium,
making him his papal representative
in Francia.
Frank liturgical forms were increasingly Romanized.
Lombard king Aistulf sent Carloman from his monastery
to negotiate
with his brother Pippin,
who imprisoned him in a monastery until
his death.
Pippin invaded Italy the next year, captured Pavia,
and made Aistulf promise to return Ravenna;
but as soon as the
Frank army had departed,
the Lombards attacked Rome again.
After
another Frank invasion, Pippin demanded more
hostages from Aistulf
and gave the lands claimed by the
Byzantine
empire to the Pope as the "Republic of St. Peter."
When Lombard king Desiderius did not fulfill the treaty,
Pope
Paul I, who succeeded Stephen II in 757,
wrote to Pippin as the
"new David."
Pippin fought the Saxons in 753 and 758.
In 759 the Franks captured Septimania
and took Narbonne back from
the Muslims.
Pippin led annual campaigns against Aquitane starting
in 760
and just about had it conquered by the time he died in
768.
At Pippin's death in 768 the Frank kingdom was divided
between
his sons Charles (known as Charlemagne),
who was probably 21,
and Carloman, 17.
Charlemagne marched south to put down a revolt
in Aquitane led by Hunold, but his brother
Carloman refused to
join the fight.
Their mother Bertrada tried to form an alliance
with the
Lombards by marrying her daughter Gisela to a son of
Desiderius while Charlemagne married the Lombard king's
daughter
Desiderata even though
he already had a son by Himilitrude.
When
Carloman died in December 771, his widow
Gerberga fled to Desiderius
with her two young sons.
Charlemagne sent Desiderata back to Pavia,
breaking off relations with the Lombards,
as he married the Swabian
Hildegard.
To end the marauding of the Saxons in 772 Charlemagne
began a 32-year war by sacking their pagan shrines at Irminsul.
Then he crossed the Alps and besieged Pavia in October 773.
During
the siege Charlemagne visited Rome
at Easter and confirmed the
donation of the Papal state.
Pavia fell in June 774, and Charlemagne
claimed the
Lombard treasury, proclaiming himself king of the
Lombards
and allowing them to live under their previous laws.
After Friuli duke Rodgaud tried to claim the Lombard crown,
he
was defeated and killed in 776.
Meanwhile the Saxons ravaged Hesse in 774, stimulating
another
Frank campaign the following summer and again in 776.
Mass baptisms
of Saxons were performed.
The next year Saxons submitted at a
diet in Paderborn,
where Muslim emissaries appealed to the Franks
after
Suleiman of Barcelona had revolted
against the Umayyad rulers
in Spain.
There Pamplona surrendered to the Franks,
who failed
to take Zaragoza.
Charlemagne gained a buffer territory called
the Spanish March;
but on the return march in 778 he ordered Pamplona
razed
so that it could not revolt, and the Franks were ambushed
at Roncevaux by Basque guerrillas,
who killed Breton Count Roland,
later made famous by the epic Song of Roland.
That year
Widukind led another Saxon rebellion,
but Charlemagne's forces
defeated him in 779 at Bochult.
The Frank king now sent missionaries
led by the
Anglo-Saxon Willihad along the lower Weser
and Liudger
to East Frisia.
In 782 Charlemagne appointed Saxon nobles as counts;
but as
soon as he left, Widukind destroyed
the churches and drove out
the missionaries.
In revenge for Frank losses Charlemagne ordered
4,500 Saxon prisoners decapitated in one day at Verdun,
and in
785 he established capital punishment for violating a
church,
refusing to fast during Lent, using pagan funeral rituals,
refusing
the Christian sacrament,
and failing to abide by loyalty to the
king.
Pope Adrian congratulated Charlemagne, but Alcuin
warned that levying fines and tithes before teaching
the faith was hardly
the gentle way of Christ.
Willihad returned as bishop of Bremen
in 789
and remained there until he died in 804.
Eventually Widukind
was given amnesty,
converted to Christianity, and was made Duke
of Saxony.
In 781 Charlemagne visited Rome so that Pope Adrian
could crown
his son Pippin as king of Italy
and his son Louis king of Aquitane.
In Bavaria Charlemagne demanded that his cousin Tassilo
renew
the pledges he had made Pippin in 757;
after failing to get the
Pope to take his side, Tassilo finally
had to capitulate to the
Frank army in 787, and the next year
the king spared his life
and sent him to a monastery.
Bavaria thus was annexed to the Frank
empire.
Meanwhile Thuringian counts had rebelled in 786,
and relations
with Byzantine empress Irene deteriorated
after the Franks invaded
southern Italy in 787.
Charlemagne crossed the Elbe with local allies to campaign
against the Wilzi and the Linoni in 789,
moving toward the Baltic
Sea.
In 791 after the army fasted and prayed for three days,
the
Frank king punished the Avars for siding with Tassilo
by invading
the Danube region
and taking over Ratisbon (Regensburg).
In 792
an attempt to enthrone the hunchback Pippin,
son of Charlemagne
by Himilitrude, failed;
the rebelling nobles were condemned,
but
Pippin was sent to a monastery.
Massive efforts to link the Danube
to the Rhine
with a canal failed; but in 796 the Franks seized
the
immense Avar treasures, destroying their Ring capital.
In
799 Bavarian governor Gerold and Friuli duke Eric
were killed
in an Avar revolt, but by 805 the Avar khagan
had been
baptized and pledged fealty, though many Avars
migrated into the
Slavic kingdom
of the Bulgarian khagan Krum (r. 803-814).
The Saxon war continued, and 7,000 were deported in 794.
Charlemagne
spent the winter there in 797-8, deporting every
third Saxon family,
and the following year
1600 leaders were expelled.
Pope Leo III
was attacked by personal enemies in 799,
and his face was cut.
Charlemagne's envoys, Stablo abbot Wirund and Spoletium
duke Winichis,
took the Pope to Spoletium to recover.
Then he was escorted to
the Frank court
and eventually back to Rome.
Before going to Rome
himself, Charlemagne sent his
son Pippin to pillage Beneventum,
where Duke Grimoald was revolting.
Since Irene had removed and
blinded her son in order to
rule the Byzantine empire, Alcuin
argued that the Roman
emperor had been deposed and that only
Charlemagne
could save the churches of Christ.
The Pope agreed that they should
not be dominated
by a woman, and Charlemagne was crowned
Emperor
by Leo III on Christmas day in 800.
In the south Louis invaded the Muslims in 797,
and Barcelona
fell to the Franks in 801
after a two-year blockade.
The Christian
kingdom of Asturia under Alfonso I
became allied to the Frank
empire.
Charlemagne had his somewhat
Christianized laws put in
writing in 802.
Murders persuaded by the devil were to be settled
by paying
compensation to the victims' family, and those relatives
in turn
were forbidden to continue the evil but must make peace.
Finally in 804 he ended the Saxon war by deporting
10,000 families
and distributing their land to his followers
and allies, the Slavic
Abodrites.
In 805 the king sent his son Charles to invade Bohemia.
Frank ambassadors were sent to Harun al-Rashid at Baghdad
in
797 and 807, the year Harun's envoys arrived at
Charlemagne's
court of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle).
A two-year war with the Danes
ended
when their leader Godfred was murdered in 810.
That year
Charlemagne made peace treaties with Byzantine
emperor Nicephorus
I, Cordoba emir Al-Hakim,
and Dane king Hemming.
In the
west although Wido defeated the Bretons in 799,
causing them to
pledge fidelity to the Frank king,
they were still fighting for
independence in 811.
That year the Frank Emperor instituted an
inquiry
into the increasing desertion problem.
The poor complained
that they were being deprived
of their property by bishops, abbots
and officials
as well as by military counts.
Many serfs must have
been unhappy,
because there were strict laws against aiding runaways.
No one was allowed to ignore a summons to war by the
Lord Emperor,
impede his commands,
nor refuse to pay his taxes.
Byzantine emperor
Michael I recognized Charlemagne
as Western Emperor in 812, and
the next year
Charlemagne crowned his son Louis, who inherited
his entire kingdom of more than a million square kilometers
after
Charlemagne died of pleurisy in 814.
According to Einhard, who knew him from 791
to the end of his
life, Charlemagne sought wisdom
even though he never learned to
write.
The king studied grammar with Peter the Deacon of Pisa
and was taught rhetoric, dialectic, and astrology by Alcuin.
Charlemagne
went to church in the morning and evening,
and he gave large amounts
to charity, even helping those
in Syria, Egypt, Africa, Jerusalem,
Alexandria, and Carthage.
His will distributed most of his wealth
to charity,
and his favorite book was Augustine's
City of God,
which he apparently tried to manifest
in his own forceful way.
A monk called Notker the Stammerer (d.
912) also wrote
a biography of Charlemagne with numerous anecdotes.
A court jester moved Charlemagne to tears by noting that
Uodalric
had lost all his lands, which the king then restored.
Charlemagne
often made fun of bishops whom he felt
were overly covetous, parsimonious,
or extravagant.
Criticized for eating early during Lent, Charlemagne
made
the commenting bishop eat after all the others
so that he
could understand why the king did that.
Charlemagne's desire to
increase learning in his empire
that led to what is called the
Carolingian renaissance
can be seen from the letter he wrote to
Fulda abbot Baugulf,
which advises supplementing the
Rule
of Benedict with literary education:
Be it known, therefore, to your devotion pleasing
to God, that we, together with our faithful,
have considered it to be useful that the bishoprics
and monasteries, entrusted by the favor of Christ
to our control, in addition to the order of monastic
life and the intercourse of holy religion, in the
culture of letters also ought to be zealous in teaching
those who by the gift of God are able to learn,
according to the capacity of each individual,
so that just as the observance of the rule imparts
order and grace to honesty of morals, so also zeal
in teaching and learning may do the same for
sentences, so that those who desire to please God
by living rightly should not neglect to please him
also by speaking correctly....
For we desire you to be, as it is fitting that
soldiers of the church should be, devout in mind,
learned in discourse, chaste in conduct and
eloquent in speech, so that whosoever shall
seek to see you out of reverence of God,
or on account of your reputation for holy conduct,
just as he is edified by your appearance,
may also be instructed by your wisdom,
which he has learned from your reading and singing,
and may go away joyfully
giving thanks to omnipotent God.4
Numerous campaigns had pacified rebels and pagans,
greatly
expanding and consolidating the
Frank kingdom by military force.
Depending mostly on well equipped heavy cavalry
provided by one
out of four free men, the others
were allowed to supervise farming
by serfs.
Efforts were made to keep the powerful iron weapons
of the Franks out of their enemies' hands.
Charlemagne ordered
oaths of allegiance throughout his
kingdom in 789, 792, and again
after he was crowned
emperor in 800, when every man over 12 years
old
had to swear allegiance.
These were administered by pairs
of missi dominici,
a priest and a layman, who also conveyed
royal edicts to provincial assemblies.
The royal vassals then
parceled out land to their vassal clients,
making this feudal
vassal system widespread in this era.
Charlemagne appointed counts
to govern counties
and preside over a public judicial assembly.
Local courts were conducted by seven
scabini jurymen elected
for life.
Each year the Frank king convened an assembly of nobles,
bishops, and military officers before his summer campaigns.
Charlemagne
ordered that clergy should not wander abroad,
strive to make money,
plunder, fornicate,
quarrel, blaspheme, get drunk, nor kill.
Alcuin was born in Northumbria
about the time Bede died in
735.
He was taught in the cathedral community of York by Aelberht,
whom Alcuin replaced as master of the school in 767
when Aelberht
became bishop.
Alcuin accompanied Aelberht on visits to Francia
and Rome,
bringing back enough books to make their library
founded
by York archbishop Egbert (732-766) the best in England.
Alcuin
wrote the historical poem
The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of
York about 781.
Most of the poem is based on works by Bede,
but he also praised the learning and saintly life of Aelberht.
That year Alcuin went to Rome to receive the archbishop's
pallium
from Pope Adrian for Aelberht's successor Eanbald.
At Parma Charlemagne
invited Alcuin to join his court
in order to promote educational
reforms.
Except for two visits to England, Alcuin moved around
with the Frank king's itinerant court from 782
until they settled
at Aachen in 794.
At about that time Alcuin wrote a book on rhetoric
that is
based mostly on De Inventione by Cicero
and partly on Julius Victor's Ars Rhetorica
from the fourth
century.
In this dialog between Charlemagne and Alcuin the king
tells Alcuin what he wants to know, asking him questions,
and
Alcuin provides the answers.
For example, Alcuin distinguishes
the
four principals in a trial as the following:
The judge must be armed with the scepter of justice,
the plaintive with the dagger of ill-will, the defendant
with the shield of piety, and the witnesses
with the trumpet of truth.5
After Alcuin discusses the various aspects of rhetoric
all
the way to training for delivery, the king suggests that
integrity
is most important in discourse,
because speech reveals one's character.
Probably the most original part of Alciun's work on rhetoric
is his interpretation of the four classical virtues
from a Christian
perspective.
Alcuin recommends temperance as one of the four virtues
from which grows elevation of mind, propriety, integrity,
and
superior training.
After discussing the Greek idea of nothing
excessive,
Alcuin mentions as most important
virtue, knowledge,
truth, and love of good.
He describes virtue as having a perfect
mind,
a dignified character, a reasonable life, and excellent
habits.
The four aspects of virtue are prudence, justice, courage,
and temperance.
Prudence is knowledge and includes
memory, intelligence,
and foresight.
Justice is a mental disposition to render what
is due
and includes the worship of God, the laws of humanity,
and the principle of equity.
Being disposed to justice in nature
means religion, duty,
gratitude, retribution, respect, and truthfulness,
and in human conventions it involves
contracts, equity, judicial
decisions, and law.
Courage is able to endure danger and hardship
with
an undaunted spirit, and it consists of high-mindedness,
confidence, forbearance, and perseverance.
Temperance is firm
and moderate rule by reason of
our desires and wayward passions,
and its attributes are restraint, clemency, and moderation.
Next Charlemagne asks Alcuin to relate these
classical virtues
to the Christian religion.
Alcuin suggests that prudence is
knowing
God as far as the human mind can.
Justice means loving and keeping
God's commandments.
Courage conquers the "ancient enemy"
and bears the world's trials.
Temperance governs lust, controls
greed,
and calms all the passions.
The goal is to love God and
our neighbor.
Charlemagne concludes the dialog by hoping that
Alcuin's attitude will benefit the learned
if they are not envious
of him.
Also in 794 Alcuin, though only a deacon, attended the council
at Frankfort convened by Charlemagne and spoke against
the worship
of images and Adoptionism.
The latter was considered heretical,
because it assumed the
Nestorian idea that Christ had separate
divine and human
natures and then concluded that the man born
of Mary
was the adopted son of God, though they believed
his divine nature is the true son of God.
These beliefs developed
in Spain, where they were
championed by Elipandus and Urgel bishop
Felix,
and Alcuin wrote several books against each of them.
In
799 Alcuin debated Felix, who recanted on Adoptionism.
This controversy
stimulated Alcuin and Paulinus to institute the
practice of chanting
the creed in the mass in Frank churches.
This custom originally
came from the East and was
taken up in Spain and Ireland before
the Franks spread it to the Roman church.
Alcuin objected to bishops being employed in military actions,
to capital punishment, to surrendering persons who have taken
refuge in a church, and to priests being involved in secular work.
Alcuin suggested that money often spent on pilgrimages
should
be given to the poor.
He counseled against wearing amulets and
suggested that
it is better to imitate saints in one's heart
than
to carry their bones in bags.
He recommended studying the Bible
and revised
the latest copies of the Latin Vulgate.
Alcuin criticized
the force his king used to make Saxons
and Avars submit to baptism,
and he warned that
the results would be disastrous.
He believed
that Christians are not made by violence
but by preaching with
love.
In 799 he wrote to Charlemagne:
If possible, let peace be made with that
unspeakable people.
Leave threats for a little while, lest they
harden their hearts and flee from you.
Be content to hold fast what you have,
lest in pursuing the lesser gain,
you lose the greater....
Would that at last Divine grace might set you free
from that unmentionable Saxon people—
to travel, to govern, to do justice,
to renew the churches, to correct the people,
to defend the oppressed, to draw up laws.6
When Charlemagne's son Pippin was invading Beneventum
to subdue
Duke Grimoald, Alcuin advised that policy
could do more than open
war
because vengeance should be left to God.
Yet Alcuin expected
his king to protect the Pope,
punish his assailants, and defend
the churches and the rule of justice.
Alcuin favored a strong
ruler imposing God's will,
because he had little faith in the
common people,
believing that the crowd is always near madness.
In 796 the king made Alcuin the abbot of St. Martin's at Tours,
where he supervised 20,000 serfs on the land
and students in the
school.
Alcuin died there on the day of Pentecost in 804.
When Charlemagne appointed his son Louis (r. 814-840)
his sole
heir as emperor in 813, he advised him to love God,
govern and
defend God's churches,
be merciful to all his relatives, appoint
loyal servants
who will not take bribes, and do not dismiss anyone
from his honor without good grounds.
Louis the Pious began by
driving the prostitutes out of
Aachen and sending his sisters
to the
monasteries given them by their father.
His cousins Adalhard
and Wala withdrew as Louis
surrounded himself mostly with counselors
he had known while ruling Aquitane.
Monks were ordered to follow
the Rule of Benedict
and cathedral clergy Chrodegang's Rule for Canons,
while
special statutes addressed the needs of nuns.
After a beam nearly
fell on him in 817, Louis crowned
his oldest son Lothar co-emperor
and made his other
sons Pippin king of Aquitane and Louis king
of Bavaria.
Lyons archbishop Agobard wrote,
dreaming of a spiritual
empire in Europe
where there is neither gentile nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision,
barbarian nor Scythian,
Aquitanian nor Lombard,
Burgundian nor Aleman, slave nor freeman,
but where Christ is all, and in all.7
Fearing that he might lose the kingdom in Italy if Louis died,
his nephew Bernard was encouraged to revolt by his advisors.
When
his father marched against him, Bernard had to submit.
He was
blinded along with the lay leaders
and died two days later; clergy
involved in the revolt
were deposed and sent to monasteries.
Louis
then had his half-brothers
Drogo, Hugh, and Theuderic sent to
monasteries.
After his wife Ermengard died in 817, Louis married
the
beautiful Swabian Judith; in 823 she gave birth to Charles.
In 828 Louis had sent Hugh of Tours and Matfrid of Orleans
to
help Bernard of Septimania fight the Muslims;
but they delayed
so long that the Emperor
removed them from office, as Wala pleaded
to save their lives.
Victorious Bernard came to court and became
a close advisor of Louis and friend of Judith.
The next year Judith
persuaded Louis to give young Charles
land in Alemannia, send
Wala to the Corbie abbey,
and make Bernard chamberlain.
In 829
Lyons bishop Agobard and two other bishops
wrote a letter to the
Emperor
against the danger of favoring Jews.
Finding them useful
in commerce, both Charlemagne
and Louis the Pious treated Jews
well
and even appointed Eberard as master of the Jews for advice.
Agobard's mistreatment of Jews was probably
a factor in his eventual
deposition.
Wala spread rumors that the Empress Judith and Bernard
were
guilty of adultery and sorcery, which led
Aquitane king Pippin
and the disgruntled
counts Hugh and Matfrid to join with Bavaria
king Louis
to free the Emperor from these evil influences.
Louis
sent Bernard to Barcelona
and surrendered himself at Compiegne.
Lothar then arrived as Co-emperor
and urged his father to retire
to a monastery.
Lothar had Bernard's brother Heribert blinded
and sent Judith and her brothers to monasteries
while keeping
his father Louis at St. Denis.
Louis refused to submit and promised
his sons
Pippin and Louis (the German) larger kingdoms,
enabling
him to regain his power a few months later in 830
at a meeting
attended by Saxon and German nobles.
Lothar returned to Italy
while his brothers Pippin, Louis,
and Charles (the Bald) were
given larger kingdoms.
Bernard of Septimania induced Pippin to
revolt;
so in 833 Emperor Louis gave Pippin's kingdom to Charles.
Louis of Bavaria, assisted by Slavs, tried to invade
Alemannia
and was also put down
by his father's imperial forces.
Lothar joined with his brothers Pippin and Louis the German,
and he got Pope Gregory IV
to support
their cause of imperial
unity.
They all met in Alsace at what was
later called the "Field
of Lies."
In the face of this united effort, the supporters
of
Emperor Louis went over to the other side.
Archbishops Agobard
and Ebbo of Rheims made
Louis the Pious do penance for sacrilege,
the death of Bernard,
breaking the peace, and violating the church.
The next year Fulda abbot Hrabanus Maurus complained
in a treatise
about sons revolting against their father
and subjects against
their sovereign.
Bernard of Septimania got Pippin to revolt against
Lothar,
and they were joined by Louis of Bavaria and Louis the
Pious,
who again regained his authority in early 834.
All this
maneuvering turned to violence when Lothar
captured Chalon and
executed several nobles;
but he was overwhelmed by the coalition
and agreed to return to Italy and stay there.
The next year Louis
the Pious was crowned again,
this time at Metz by his half-brother
Drogo before 44 bishops,
while Ebbo and Agobard were deposed.
In 826 Danish chieftain Harald Klak and 400 followers
came
to Ingelheim, were baptized,
and pledged fealty to the Frank Emperor.
The missionary Anskar accompanied them back to Denmark;
but the
next year Harald Klak was driven out
by their other king, Godfred's
son Horik.
In 829 Anskar moved on to visit Swedish king Bjorn
at Birka,
where he converted the prefect Hergeir, who built a
church.
In 831 Anskar was consecrated archbishop at Hamburg
for
the northern region, and three years later Louis the Pious
endowed
a rich monastery in West Flanders.
From 834 Viking raids of Frisia
became more frequent,
and the port of Dorestad was plundered four
times.
In 838 Dane king Horik claimed sovereignty there,
and a
treaty was made the next year.
In 837 Judith got Emperor Louis
to give more territory to Charles.
The next year when Pippin died, his heirs were ignored,
and in
839 the empire was divided at the Meuse River,
giving Charles
the west and Lothar the east,
while Louis the German was confined
to Bavaria.
Before Louis the Pious died in 840, he proclaimed
Lothar emperor and commended
Charles and Judith to his protection.
Lothar announced he would take over the empire
promised him in
817 and demanded
that fealty be sworn to him.
Young Pippin with
Aquitanian nobles revolted
against Charles and joined with Lothar.
Charles the Bald and Louis the German combined their
forces at
Auxerre and confronted Lothar and Pippin II
one year after their
father's death in June, 841
in a bloody battle said to have involved
300,000 men that left 40,000 dead.
Lothar was defeated and fled
to Aachen.
The following February at Salzburg Charles and Louis
swore they would defend each other's rights;
Charles the Bald
and his men spoke in a Romance language,
and Louis the German
and his followers
swore in a Germanic one.
The two brothers marched
on Aachen,
which Lothar abandoned after taking its treasury.
In December 842 Charles married Orleans count Odo's
daughter
Ermentrude, allying himself
with the powerful seneschal Adalhard.
Louis was occupied crushing with executions and mutilations
a
league of rebellious Saxon peasants called the Stellinga,
who had been allied with Lothar.
After much negotiation the historic
Treaty of Verdun was made in 843.
Each remained king over his
base—
Charles of Aquitane, Lothar of Lombardy,
and Louis of Bavaria, while Francia was shared among them,
giving Charles the west, Louis the east,
and Lothar a narrow strip from Italy to the Frisian
coast.
The main consideration was to include those benefices
of
vassals loyal to each of them.
Yet the result would eventually
be the nations of France
and Germany separated by Italy, Switzerland,
Belgium, and Netherlands.
The next year the three brothers met
at Yutz with
Metz bishop Drogo and promised each other
fraternal
cooperation and assistance against external enemies,
and they
continued to meet at regular intervals for a few years.
Vikings raided Toulouse in 844, Paris and Hamburg in 845,
Bordeaux
in 848, and Orleans in 853.
In 846 the see of Bremen was united
with Hamburg,
stimulating Anskar to return in 849 to Denmark, where
King Horik let him build a church at Hedeby in Schleswig.
Anskar also returned to Birka, where Swedish king Olaf
was persuaded
by an old Swede that
the Christian god is stronger than Thor.
In 850 Horik had to share power with his two nephews,
and the
Younger Horik closed the church;
but after Horik I was killed
in the civil war of 854,
it was re-opened.
Lothar in 850 had allowed his son Louis II to be crowned
emperor
by Pope Leo IV (847-855), who promised Christians
a heavenly reward
if they died fighting Muslim raiders.
Louis II restored the Aurelian
walls around Rome.
In southern Italy independent Capua had been
destroyed
by Muslims in 840; but it was rebuilt and defended
against Benevento and Salerno by counts
Lando (840-863) and Landulf (863-879).
Bari was captured by Muslims in 841,
and Louis II failed to retake
it in 851.
When Louis the German refused to meet his brothers
Charles the Bald and Lothar at Liege in 854,
they allied against
him; but Lothar died in 855,
and his middle kingdom was divided
for his three sons.
Louis II inherited the imperial title but
only Italy.
Lothar II ruled over a kingdom
named after himself
Lotharingia in the north.
Charles was too young to rule over his
Provence and Lyons,
which were governed by his tutor, Vienne count
Gerard II,
who drove off Northmen from the Rhone delta in 860 and
managed to keep Charles the Bald from invading Provence.
When
young Charles died in 863,
Louis II gained Provence, but Lyons
went to Lothar II.
In 866 Louis II conscripted all the wealthy
men
into the army for a year,
and Bari was finally recaptured
in 871.
Yet that year Louis II was imprisoned and released
by
Benevento's Adalgisus, and the next year Pope Adrian II
recrowned
Louis and absolved him
of his promise of non-interference.
Even though he had a son Hugh by his mistress Waldrada,
Lothar
II was married in 855 to Theutberga.
She bore no children, and
in 860 he accused her of incest
with her brother Hubert; but Pope
Nicholas (858-867)
refused to authorize the divorce even though
Lothar had already married Waldrada in 862.
To assert the hierarchical
authority of the Pope and bishops
over civil powers Nicholas quoted
decretals from early
bishops of Rome and the "donation of
Constantine."
Yet most scholars agree that all of these documents
referred to as the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals were
forged only
a few years before Nicholas became Pope,
though at the time not
even Hincmar, who challenged
their validity,
questioned their
authenticity.
In 863 Nicholas convened a local synod of Italian
prelates
in order to depose Cologne archbishop Gunther
and Treves
archbishop Theutgaud and to declare
the decisions of the 862 Metz
synod void.
Pope Nicholas even went so far as to threaten with
anathema
anyone who condemned any of his measures.
The deposed
prelates appealed to Lothar's brother Louis II,
who marched on
Rome but could not budge Nicholas
from his sanctuary in the church
of St. Peter.
Nicholas also took on Byzantine emperor Michael
III
in the Photius controversy.
This was the last time a pope
would interfere
officially with the Eastern church.
While Charles the Bald was busy fighting Viking raiders
and
an Aquitanian revolt, Louis of Bavaria invaded
western Francia
in 858, winning most nobles to his side
except for Sens archbishop
Wenilo (Ganelon).
Hincmar, Rheims archbishop (845-882), led clergy
that remained loyal to Charles and condemned Louis,
who withdrew
back to the east.
The two brothers met and once again swore in
their
respective languages to defend each other's rights.
Hubert
ruled the upper Rhone valley of Burgundy
with banditry but was
defeated
and killed by Welf Conrad II in 864.
When Lothar II died
in 869,
his illegitimate son Hugh could not succeed him.
In the east Saxon duke Liudolf had helped Louis the German
crush the Stellinga and established a monastery
at Brunhausen
that was moved to Gandersheim in 858.
Louis' sparsely populated
region was governed mostly
by
abbeys such as Fulda, St. Gall,
Reichenau, and Niederalteich.
In 846 Louis helped the Moravian
Christian Rastislav
overthrow his pagan uncle Mojmir;
but in 861
Carloman, the oldest son of Louis,
helped the revolt of Rastislav,
who the next year appealed to the Byzantines.
By using Slavic language for his missionary work Constantine
of
Thessalonica and his brother Methodius were more
successful in
that region than missionaries using Latin.
Westphalian poets did
translate the Gospel story of the Savior
into Old Saxon in the Heliand, and about 860
an Alsatian monk named Otfrid wrote
a poetic life of Christ
in 15,000 rhymed lines of the Krist.
In the west Charles the Bald was unfortunate with his children.
Judith married Ethelwulf of Wessex; but he died in 858,
and her
next husband, his successor Ethelbald,
died two years later.
Judith
returned to Francia as a queen but eloped with
Count Baldwin of
Flanders in 862.
Charles eventually was reconciled with Baldwin,
who helped fight the Northmen until he died in 879.
Charles' oldest
son Louis stuttered and was easily influenced.
Another Charles
suffered brain damage from a hunt in 864
and died two years later.
Another Lothar was crippled and so entered a religious life.
Carloman,
the youngest, also became a priest and acquired
abbacies at Soissons,
Auxerre, St. Amand, St. Riquier,
Lobbes, and at Metz before he
revolted in 870
to become a robber baron;
three years later Carloman
was captured, blinded,
and put in a monastery until his death
in 876.
Charles the Bald also found trouble in Aquitane led by
Bernard
of Septimania and Pippin II.
After seeing 111 Frank prisoners
hanged across the river,
Charles had paid the Viking Ragnar 7,000
pounds of silver
to leave Paris in 845.
Another large ransom was
paid to Northmen
for his chaplain Louis in 858.
The next year
peasants between the Seine and the Loire
took up arms to defend
themselves against Danish attacks;
but local nobles, fearing disorder,
killed the peasants.
Brittany remained fairly independent as Salomon
assassinated his cousin Erispoe in 857, replacing him as duke.
Charles the Bald's wife Ermentrude
was crowned queen in 866;
but
her brother William revolted,
and Charles had him beheaded.
Within
a month after Lothar II died in 869,
Charles the Bald had himself
crowned at Metz;
but the next year in the treaty of Meersen Charles
gave up
Metz and Aachen to his brother Louis the German
to gain
Lyons, though he had to fight Count Gerard for Vienne.
Pope John
VIII crowned Charles Emperor
on Christmas day 875, while Louis
was in western Francia
at Attigny, though he was soon driven out
by the nobles and Archbishop Hincmar.
Louis the German died the
following summer.
John VIII asked Charles to defend Italy
from
Muslim invasions, and Louis the Stammerer
was left as regent in
June 877;
but his father Charles died in October.
The aged Rheims archbishop Hincmar sent prudent advice
to Louis
for avoiding civil war.
Louis the Stammerer was anointed king
at Compiegne
in December 877, but he died sixteen months later.
The next year 16-year-old Louis III took over Neustria
while his
13-year-old brother Carloman
was given Aquitane and Burgundy.
Also in 879 Boso of Provence claimed to be king of Italy;
but
he was defeated when Louis III and Carloman
united with Louis
the German's sons,
Charles the Fat and Louis the Younger.
Charles
the Fat had been king of Alemannia since 876,
and he was crowned
emperor in 881.
He organized an army against the Northmen but
then made
a treaty allowing them to settle in Frisia;
their chief
Godofrid was baptized
and married Lothar II's daughter Gisela.
New Viking raids began in 879, but Louis III won a victory
against them in 881 at Saucourt that was
celebrated in the poem Ludwigslied.
However, Louis III died after a riding accident
the next year.
That year Hincmar had to flee Rheims from raiders
and died.
According to the Annals of St. Bertin for the
year 882,
Charles the Fat paid Sigfrid and Gorm several thousand
pounds of silver and gold taken from the treasury
of St. Stephen at Metz and other saintly places.
Carloman got rid of the Northmen
for a while
by giving them 1200 pounds of silver in 884,
but he
too died after a hunting accident later that year.
The last remaining
son of Louis the Stammerer,
Charles the Simple, was only five
years old.
So Charles the Fat was invited to rule western Francia,
briefly reintegrating the Carolingian empire.
Later in 885 Norse
raiders besieged Paris,
and its young count Odo asked the Emperor
for help.
The diplomatic Charles responded by giving the Vikings
700 pounds of silver, but his letting them winter
in Burgundy
resulted in more pillaging.
Charles the Fat was suffering such
bad headaches that
he submitted to surgery and agreed to abdicate
in 887,
a few months before he died.
His nephew Arnulf became
king of Germany,
as the empire quickly broke into
regional governments
by nobles and clergy.
The heroic Paris count Odo was anointed king
at Compiegne in
888, but within a month
Wido was crowned in Burgundy.
At the same
time at Pavia nobles led by the Supponids
elected Friuli marquis
Berengar king; but he was driven
into northeastern Italy by Spoleto's
Guido II.
Also in 888 the Welf Rudolph was elected
king of Upper
Burgundy.
In 890 Boso's son Louis was crowned king of Provence.
Guido was crowned Emperor by Pope Stephen V in 891.
Arnulf went
to war against the Moravians in 892
and even called on the Magyars
for aid;
three years later the Bohemians did homage.
Rheims archbishop
Fulk anointed Charles the Simple in 893;
but in spite of an alliance
with Arnulf,
Odo forced Charles to renounce his crown and live
in Laon.
In 894 Guido blocked invading German king Arnulf
from entering
Rome; but Guido died later that year.
Arnulf welcomed the advice
of bishops and abbots
at his assemblies, and in 895 at Frankfurt
26 bishops
promulgated a program of reforms that allowed bishops
to hold markets, exact customs dues, and even gave them
military
responsibilities and the right to create their own
vassals in
the increasingly feudal system.
Arnulf returned to Italy, overcame
Guido's son Lambert,
and was crowned Emperor by Pope Formosus
in 896;
but Arnulf became ill and abandoned Italy,
allowing Lambert
to re-assert his authority.
The next year Pope Stephen VI convened
a synod
that declared void all the acts of Formosus
and even mutilated
his corpse; this caused a mob
to depose Stephen, resulting in
a few months of confusion.
Then Pope John IX, working with Lambert,
restored the acts and ordinations of Formosus in 898.
After young
Lambert died in a hunting accident that year,
Berengar ruled the
entire kingdom of Italy.
Odo also died in 898, and Charles the
Simple was
once again elected king of western Francia.
Arnulf
had bitter conflicts with nobles.
When he died in 899, he left
his six-year-old son Louis
with a feud between the Babenbergers
and the Conradins.
Edwin had been expelled from Northumbria by Aethelfrith;
but
he was protected by East Angle king Raedwald,
who refused to give
him up to Aethelfrith.
Instead in 616 Raedwald attacked Northumbria,
defeating and killing Aethelfrith.
Edwin became king of Northumbria
and was known for his
administration of justice and influence
over other kingdoms.
Edwin married Aethelburh, daughter of Kent
king Aethelbert.
She brought the bishop Paulinus, who was able
to convert Edwin to Christianity in 627.
The East Angles killed
their king Raedwald and offere
the throne to Edwin; but Edwin,
in gratitude to his benefactor,
let Raedwald's son Earpwold rule
under his protection.
Earpwold was succeeded by his brother Sigbert,
who was so pious that he gave up his throne
to his kinsman Egric
in order to become a monk.
A pilgrim from Ireland named Fursey
established a
monastery in East Anglia, and he had a vision warning
against falsehood, coveting, discord, and cruelty.
Expecting pagan
attacks, Fursey traveled on to Gaul to visit
the court of King
Clovis II and built a monastery there too.
When Mercia king Penda
attacked, the East Angles
compelled Sigbert to lead their army;
but he would only carry
a stick and was killed along with Egric,
as their army scattered.
After ruling seventeen years 48-year-old Edwin quarreled
with
Cadwallon and defeated his Britons in battle.
Edwin then subjected
Demecia, Venedocia, and Menevia,
burning their cities and farms.
Cadwallon fled to Ireland and Brittany before returning with
10,000
men to attack Mercia, whose Penda was captured
and swore allegiance
to Cadwallon.
Together they invaded Northumbria;
Edwin and his
son Osric were killed in 633
as many men and women were slaughtered.
Edwin's son Eadfrith surrendered and was eventually
put to death
in breach of the oath made by warrior king Penda,
who ruled Mercia
633-655.
Northumbria was divided by Aethelfrith's sons and returned
to paganism, but Eanfrith was killed
when he went to Cadwallon
to ask for peace.
The next year Edwin's nephew Oswald (r. 634-642)
reunited Northumbria and restored Christianity.
Bede credited
Oswald's diplomacy for uniting
the provinces of Deira and Bernicia.
The Christian Scots sent the saintly Aidan to Northumbria,
and
in 635 King Oswald granted the island
of Lindisfarne as his episcopal
see.
Mercia's Penda had to recognize Northumbrian overlordship,
but in 642 he defeated and killed Northumbria's king Oswald,
who
after his death was revered as a saint.
Wessex was ruled by King Cynegils (r. 611-642),
who accepted
Christianity in 635.
Penda had won a victory at Cirencester in
628
and annexed some West Saxon people.
Cenwalh, son of Cynegils,
put away his wife,
Penda's sister, and took another wife.
This
caused Penda to drive him out of Wessex,
and Cenwalh took refuge
in East Anglia from 645 to 648.
Penda made his son Peada king
over Middle Anglia in 653.
The next year Penda attacked East Anglia
king Anna an
destroyed him with his army.
Peada wanted to marry
Oswiu's daughter
but had to convert and be baptized to do so.
Penda tolerated this and Christian preaching
but despised hypocrites.
In 655 he invaded Northumbria but was defeated
and killed by Oswiu
(r. 655-670), who took his kingdom
and sponsored Christianity
by giving lands
for churches and monasteries.
Deira king Alcfrith
promoted Roman Catholic practices.
When Eata and Cuthbert refused
to give up Celtic usages,
they left Ripon, and Wilfrid was appointed
abbot about 661,
introducing the Rule
of Benedict.
Mercia revolted and enthroned
Penda's son Wulfhere (r. 658-675).
The army of Wessex pushed the Britons back to the
Parret River
in 658, but the Mercian army of Wulfhere
encroached on West Saxon
territory.
At the synod of Whitby in 664 Oswiu accepted
Roman
Catholic doctrine, and he cooperated with the
southern kingdoms
he had lost in order to spread Christianity.
Pope Vitalian consecrated
a monk from Tarsus named
Theodore as a bishop, and he was sent
to Britain
with Hadrian; Theodore became archbishop of Canterbury,
and Hadrian assisted with the teaching
as abbot of the monastery.
Bishops met at Hertford in 672 and agreed on the Roman
determination
of Easter and canon laws forbidding monks
to leave their monasteries
without their abbot's approval;
bishops were not allowed to take
property from monasteries.
Separate convents did not exist for
nuns;
but there were many double monasteries for monks and nuns,
and they were usually headed by an abbess,
such as Hild of Whitby.
In 673 Mercia king Wulfhere tried to unite the southern
peoples
in an attack on Northumbria's Ecgfrith,
but he was defeated and
soon died.
Ecgfrith had married Etheldreda,
who refused to consummate
the marriage.
Wilfrid, bishop of York, helped her become a nun,
and so
King Ecgfrith had him deposed and replaced by three bishops.
Wilfrid became the first English cleric
to appeal his case to
the Pope in Rome.
Ecgfrith took Lindsey but lost it to Mercia's
Aethelred (r. 675-704) at the battle of Trent in 678.
Ecgfrith's
younger brother Elfwin was killed,
and more war was likely; but
Archbishop Theodor
arranged for compensation to be paid to Ecgfrith,
and peace was restored.
In 679 a Lateran synod in Rome affirmed
Wilfrid's position;
but when he returned,
Ecgfrith had him imprisoned
for nine months.
Then Wilfrid converted pagans in Sussex,
where
he freed 250 slaves.
King Ecgfrith provided land for a monastery
at Jarrow in 682.
Northumbria became busy fighting the Picts in
the north,
and Ecgfrith was killed by them in 685.
The Picts became
the dominant northern power during the
reign of King Strathclyde's
son Buide mac Beli (r. 672-693).
According to Bede, the Northumbrian
king Aldfrith (r. 686-705), son of Oswiu,
rebuilt the kingdom, though within narrower boundaries.
Aethelbert's son Eadbald reigned over Kent 616-640.
As a pagan
he outraged Christians by marrying his father's
widow; but he
was converted and repudiated this wife.
His sister married Northumbria's
Edwin,
and Eadbald's second wife was a Frank princess.
Their son
Eorcenberht became king of Kent in 640.
According to Bede, he
was the first English king
to order idols destroyed throughout
his realm.
Eorcenberht died during a plague in 664 and was succeeded
by his eldest son Ecgberht (r. 664-673), who extended
his
sovereignty
over Surrey and founded the Chertsey monastery.
After Ecgberht,
Kent was divided and invaded by Mercia's
Aethelred in 676; but
Ecgberht's brother Hlothere (r. 673-685)
reunited the kingdom
of Kent in 684, though the next year
a Sussex army invaded, and
Hlothhere died of his wounds.
Ecgberht's eldest son Eadric had
conspired with the invaders,
but he died in 686.
Kent was divided
between Essex and Wessex's Caedwalla,
but it was unified by Eadric's
brother Wihtred (r. 690-725),
who gained independence and issued
a revised code of Kent laws in 695.
Christian influence now punished
unlawful marriages,
pagan practices, and the neglecting of religious
holidays;
the church was exempted from taxation,
and the oaths
of bishops were declared
as incontrovertible as the king's.
Centwine (r. 676-685) became king of Wessex and was
praised
by Aldhelm of Malmsbury for endowing churches
and winning three
great battles.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that
in 682
Centwine drove the Britons to the sea.
In 685 Caedwalla
organized an army
that killed Sussex king Aethalwalh.
For three
years his forces fought wars in Wessex and Kent;
then Caedwalla
left England
and was baptized in Rome on Easter 689.
Ine (r. 689-726)
became king of Wessex, and his father
Cenred helped promulgate
a code of laws in 694.
The same year Ine forced Kentishmen to
pay compensation
for burning Caedwalla's brother Mul.
Ine attacked
Welsh king Gerent in 709 and defeated him.
In the same year Northumbrians
fought the Picts
to avenge the killing of King Ecgfrith.
In 721
Ine killed Cynewulf, and in 725
he invaded Sussex in order to
kill Ealdberht.
The next year Ine abdicated so that he could die
at Rome.
During the 8th century several kings in Northumbria were
murdered
in their struggles for power, while Mercia
dominated the kingdoms
south of the Humber River.
Aldfrith's son Osred (r. 705-716) was
king of Northumbria
as a boy and was only 19 when he was assassinated
after killing many of his enemies.
Bede praised Northumbrian king
Ceolwulf (r. 729-737)
for his religious tradition but doubted
his political ability.
While Eadbhert (r. 737-758) was off fighting
the Picts,
Mercia's Aethelbald invaded Northumbria.
In 750 Eadberht
vanquished Kyle
and parts of the Britons' Strathclyde.
Then in
756 Eadberht joined with the Picts
to capture the Britons' capital
at Alcluith.
After Eadberht died, a revolution overthrew his son Oswulf
and put Aethelwald Moll (r. 758-765) on the throne.
Alhred (r.
765-774) sent Willehad as a missionary to Bremen
in Frisia; but
nobles replaced him with Aethelwald
Moll's son Aethelred (r. 774-778,
790-796).
He ordered four of his enemies killed but was banished
himself by Oswulf's son Aelfwald (r. 778-788), who was
considered a just king but was killed by a conspiracy.
Alhred's son Osred
(r. 788-790) was driven out
when Aethelred came back from his
exile.
The famous scholar Alcuin criticized Aethelred and considered
the Northmen's sack of Lindisfarne in 793 the beginning
of retribution
on Northumbria for its
violence, injustice, and bad rulers.
When
Aethelred was murdered by conspirators in 796,
he was replaced
by Eardwulf; but Northumbria degenerated
into anarchy until Eardwulf
was restored about 806.
Eardwulf made an alliance with Charlemagne
but was
driven out of his kingdom in 808 and went to Rome
to gain
the Pope's support.
Eardwulf returned to end the series of revolutions
and pass
on a more peaceful kingdom to his son Eanred (r. 810-840).
Little is known of this period except that the
Northumbrians submitted
to Wessex's Ecgberht in 829.
By about 730 Mercia king Aethelbald (r. 716-757) had
subjected
all the provinces south of the Humber
and was calling himself
king of Britannia.
Wessex king Aethelheard (r. 726-740) lost Somerton
to
Aethelbald in 733.
Wessex's Cuthred (r. 740-756) revolted from
Mercia in 752
and was probably independent for four years;
but
his successor Sigeberht was deposed within a year,
and Cynewulf
(r. 757-786) showed his respect
by appearing at the court of Aethelbald.
About 746 the missionary Boniface wrote a letter to
Aethelbald
commending his generosity to the poor and
orderly kingdom but
reprimanding him for violating
ecclesiastical privilege
and for
misbehavior with religious women.
Three years later Aethelbald
freed churches from public
burdens except that they had to repair
bridges and maintain fortresses.
In 757 Aethelbald was murdered, and in a civil war
Offa (r.
757-796) drove Beornred into exile.
Mercia was reduced to its
own borders;
but after Kent's Aethelberht died in 762,
Mercia
soon regained power over Kent
and the archbishop of Canterbury.
Offa subdued Sussex by defeating Hastings men in 771.
Offa's Mercian
forces conquered those of Wessex king
Cynewulf in 779 at Bensington.
Seven years later Cynewulf was attacked by
Sigebehrt's brother
Cyneheard, and both were killed,
a battle soon celebrated as a
saga.
Offa intervened in the civil war to help put
Brihtric (r.
786-802) on the throne of Wessex.
Mercia's Offa also dominated
East Anglia and had
Aethelberht beheaded in 794, making him a
martyr.
After fighting the Welsh in 760, 778, and 784,
Offa had
a long dyke built,
and he invaded Dyfed again in 796, the year
he died.
Offa had gained an archbishop in Lichfield
and got papal
approval in 788.
The next year three Viking ships arrived on the
southern shore and killed the king's men from Dorchester
who went
to trade with them.
In 793 Vikings raided the Northumbrian coast
and slaughtered monks at Lindisfarne.
Charlemagne and Offa negotiated
marriages of their daughters;
but a quarrel stopped trade for
three years before
they established the first known
commercial
treaty in English history in 796.
Offa had anointed his son Ecgfrith king of Mercia back in 787
when a papal legation visited; but Ecgfrith died five months
after
his father and was succeeded by Cenwulf (r. 796-821).
Mercian
influence over Northumbria ended when
Offa's son-in-law Aethelred
died also in 796.
A revolt in Kent lasted two years; then Cenwulf
appointed his
brother Cuthred to be king of Kent until he died
in 807,
when Kent returned to being a Mercian province.
Wessex
king Brihtric married Offa's daughter, who poisoned
him accidentally
while trying to kill a noble youth.
Ecgberht (r. 802-839) came
out of exile to claim an
independent throne and would later expand
his sovereignty.
Ecgberht conquered Cornwall for Wessex in 809.
Under Cenwulf Mercia dominated Sussex, Essex,
and East Anglia
in addition to Kent.
In 816 Mercians raided the Welsh, and two
years later
Cenwulf attacked Britons of Dyfed again.
Cenwulf's
successor Ceolwulf conquered the kingdom
of Powys in 822 but was
deposed the next year.
Mercia king Beornwulf (r. 823-825) was defeated
by the Wessex
army of Ecgberht
in the famous battle at Ellendum in 825.
Ecgberht
sent his brother Aethelwulf with a large army
to take Kent away
from Baldred.
Essex, Surrey, and Sussex submitted to Ecgberht,
while the East Angles revolted against Mercia with protection
from Ecgberht and killed Beornwulf.
Mercia itself was conquered
by Wessex in 829;
but the next year Wiglaf (r. 827-840) came out
of exile
and regained Mercian independence.
The first known Danish
raid attacked Sheppey in 835.
Ecgberht defeated Vikings that had
joined with Britons
at Cornwall in 838, and he was succeeded as
king of Wessex
by his son Aethelwulf (r. 839-856),
who also had
to deal with Viking raids.
An army of Danes killed many people
at Canterbury and London
in 842.
A new king Raedwulf in Northumbria
was killed by invaders
in 844.
Danes returned and spent their first winter in 851,
making
the forces of Mercia king Berhtwulf flee;
but the invaders were
defeated by the West Saxons
led by Aethelwulf and his son Aethelbald.
Two years later Mercia king Burgred got Aethelwulf's aid
against
the Britons of Wales and then married his daughter.
Aethelwulf
went to Rome and married
Charles the Bald's daughter Judith in
856.
Upon returning he avoided a civil war
by giving his son Aethelbald
Wessex.
Aethelwulf passed Kent and the southeast to his second
son
Aethelberht when he died in 858; after Aethelbald died in
860,
the West Saxon kingdom was reunited under Aethelberht.
He
was succeeded by his brother Aethelred in 865,
the year a large
army of Danes landed in East Anglia.
The Old English epic Beowulf was probably composed
in
the 8th century about three centuries
after the legendary era
it depicts.
Its religious view suggests that people are rewarded
and
punished for their deeds in life and after death,
though the
only Biblical references are to the Old Testament.
At Dane
king Hrothgar's mead hall for twelve years the
monster Grendel
has been abducting
sleeping warriors and devouring them.
Beowulf,
nephew of Geat king Hygelac in southern Sweden,
sails with fourteen
men to Denmark and banquets with Hrothgar.
At night Grendel comes
in and kills a Geat;
but the strong Beowulf pulls off the arm
of the monster,
mortally wounding him.
The next day Beowulf is
honored at a feast
as a poet recites the song of Finn.
When they
are asleep, Grendel's mother carries off
Hrothgar's chief counselor
in revenge.
Beowulf and his men track her to a lake,
where Beowulf
kills her underwater and
takes the head off Grendel's corpse.
Again they celebrate at a banquet,
and King Hrothgar offers the
warrior hero this advice:
It is a wonder to say how in His great spirit mighty
God gives wisdom to mankind, land and earlship—
He possesses power over all things.
At times He lets the thought of a man of high lineage
move in delight, gives him joy of earth in his
homeland, a stronghold of men to rule over,
makes regions of the world so subject to him,
wide kingdoms, that in his unwisdom
he may not himself have mind of his end.
He lives in plenty; illness and age in no way
grieve him, neither does dread care
darken his heart, nor does enmity bare sword-hate,
for the world turns to his will—
he knows nothing worse—
until his portion of pride increases and flourishes
within him; then the watcher sleeps, the soul's
guardian; that sleep is too sound, bound in its
own cares, and the slayer most near
whose bow shoots treacherously.
Then is he hit in the heart, beneath his armor,
with the bitter arrow-he cannot protect himself—
with the crooked dark commands
of the accursed spirit.
What he has long held seems to him too little,
angry-hearted he covets, no plated rings does
he give in men's honor, and then he forgets and
regards not his destiny because of what God,
Wielder of Heaven, has given him before,
his portion of glories.
In the end it happens in turn that the loaned body
weakens, falls doomed; another takes the earl's
ancient treasure, one who recklessly gives
precious gifts, does not fearfully guard them.
Keep yourself against that wickedness,
beloved Beowulf, best of men,
and choose better-eternal gains.
Have no care of pride, great warrior.
Now for a time there is glory in your might:
yet soon it shall be that sickness or sword will
diminish your strength, or fire's fangs,
or flood's surge, or sword's swing, or spear's flight,
or appalling age; brightness of eyes will fail
and grow dark; then it shall b
that death will overcome you, warrior.8
Hrothgar thanks Beowulf for the peace between the Geats
and
the Danes, and Beowulf returns home, loyally
supporting the succession
of Hygelac's son Heardred
and wars against the Swedes and Franks.
Then Beowulf becomes king of the Geats and rules them
for fifty
years until a fugitive slave finds a dragon's treasure.
After
Beowulf is given a golden goblet, the hoard is ransacked,
causing
the angry dragon to devastate the land.
Beowulf sets out with
eleven men; but during the fight
all abandon Beowulf except Wiglaf,
who helps Beowulf kill the dragon.
However, the heroic Beowulf
has been badly wounded and dies.
The messenger prophesies that
the Swedes and Franks
will take revenge now that the Danes' strong
hero is dead,
and the poem concludes
with the funeral and eulogy
of Beowulf.
Irish myths and sagas of this era are rather violent,
many
of them focused on cattle raids.
In "The Destruction of Da
Derga's Hostel" the bands of
Ingcel Caech and Eccell, two
grandsons of Conmac of Bretain,
are about to engage each other
on the sea; but Ingcel suggests
that they make peace so that they
can help each other plunder.
Eccell has been cast out of Eriu
(Ireland),
and Ingcel has been ejected from Albu and Bretain.
So Ingcel helps Eccel to destroy Eriu,
even killing his own parents,
seven brothers and the
king of his country; then together with
the help of Fer Rogain
they destroy the hostel of Da Derga,
the
royal hospitaller of Eriu.
The greatest of these raiders was Cu
Chulaind,
who kills large numbers with his spear.
In "The
Wasting Sickness of Cu Chulaind" three vats of
cold water
are heated up by the irate Cu Chulaind's
body in an effort to
extinguish his rage.
Poets, artisans, and Druids of Ulaid are
sent to calm down
Cu Chulaind, who tries to kill the artisans
before the Druids
finally bring him to his senses by singing spells
over him.
In "Bricriu's Feast" Conchubar and the Ulaid
chieftains
are reluctant to accept Bricriu's invitation, because
they fear
he will incite them to violence until Bricriu threatens
to
incite every form of violence among them
if they do not attend
his feast.
The chieftains in council decide to ask hostages from
Bricriu,
who still plots to incite them.
In the seventh century the Ui Neill dynasty referred to their
king
as the ruler of Ireland, and in 642 and 703 annalists called
them
rex Hiberniae (king of the Hibernians).
Having been
Christian since the mission of Patrick in the
fifth century, the
Irish had a strong monastic tradition
and adopted the Old Testament
concept of kingship
from the book of Samuel.
King Finnachta
in 681 abolished the cow-tribute of Leinster
at the urging of
the Christian Moling, and in 697 Iona abbot
Adaman got women exempted
from military service.
Ui Briuin became prominent in Connacht
in the seventh century
and were in control by 725.
Munster king
Cathal and King Aed Alaind (r. 733-742)
agreed to regulate tribute
to the church
according to the see of Armagh.
In 743 the Clann
Cholmain took the kingship of Tara
away from the southern Ui Neill.
Kingship of the northern Ui Neill alternated between the
Cenel
Conaill and Cenel Eogain, but after 789 the latter
dominated while
alternating in the over-all
rulership with the Clann Cholmain.
In Leinster, which contained the Kildare monastery
and treasury, Ui Chennselaig took the kingship in the early
seventh century; but Tara king Donnchadh Midi
defeated them in 780, sacking their
lands and churches.
The next Tara king of the northern Ui Neill,
Aed Oirnide,
attacked Leinster in 804 and 805, deposing its king,
though complaints and advice by the priest Fothud made
Aed Oirnide
exempt clergy from fighting.
Abbots of the monasteries rivaled
the power of kings,
and their increasing wealth even led to monastic
wars
between Clonmacnoise and Birr in 760, Clonmacnoise
and Durrow
in 764, Cork and Clonfert in 807,
and Kildare and Tallaght in
824.
Bishops of Seir and Lusk were murdered in 744;
killings occurred
at Armagh in 759; and the community
of Clonard fought the king
of Tara in 775.
Irish society was ruled by kings, nobles,
and
free commoners, exploiting landless serfs and slaves.
Nobles gave
their clients fiefs in exchange
for a portion of their labor's
harvest.
Law was more by family than individuals
though women
had rights, and divorce was common.
Norse raids began in 795 and for forty years
were hit-and-run
raids by small groups.
In 836 more Vikings sacked Clonmore
and
took many prisoners to sell as slaves.
By 841 large fleets were
arriving,
and Vikings were staying the winter at Dublin.
The Norwegian
Turgeis took advantage of a civil war instigated
by the priest-king
of Munster to plunder Armagh and much of
Ulster; but in 845 Turgeis
was captured by Meath
king Mael Seachlainn and drowned.
The Irish
had put down the Norwegians, but Danes arrived
about 850 at Carlingford
Lough and took over Dublin
the next year, capturing treasure and
women.
In 852 the Norwegians attacked the Danish fleet at Carlingford,
and only a few of them survived.
Norwegians returned the next
year led by Prince Olaf.
The Danes left for England, and Olaf
settled in Dublin,
ruling it until 871, when he was succeeded
by his brother Ivar, lord of Limerick.
Danes from neighboring
Deira attack Ivar at Dublin in 877.
The attack failed, and Halfdan
was killed at Strangford Lough.
The Norse turned more toward Iceland,
and in 902 Cearbhall, the Irish king of Leinster,
took Dublin away from the invaders
and ruled it peacefully for a dozen years.
Little is known about the life of John Scotus Erigena;
but
his name implies that he was from Ireland.
About 845 he came to
the court of Charles the Bald,
who appointed him head of his palace
school.
In 851 John Scotus was asked to comment on the controversial
views of the monk Gottschalk, who believed that God had
pre-destined
the elect and thus others to be damned.
John Scotus argued that
since God is good, one, and all,
the ultimate destination of all
can only be to good and holiness.
Since all things come out of
God, all things go back to God.
Most decided against Gottschalk,
though the libertarian views
of John Scotus brought charges of
heresy.
John Scotus had an excellent command of Greek,
and in 858 Charles
the Bald asked him to translate
into Latin the Neo-Platonist writings
attributed to Dionysius
the Areopagite, which had been given to
Louis the Pious
in 827 by Byzantine emperor Michael Balbus.
John
Scotus also translated works
by Gregory
of Nyssa and Maximus.
Between 862 and 866 he wrote his
On the Division of Nature, the first systematic treatise to
attempt to synthesize Greek philosophy
with Christian theology.
He probably died about the same time
as Charles the Bald died in 877.
The work of John Scotus had little
influence until the
Cathars and Albigensians appealed to it.
Then
a Paris council ordered On the Division of Nature
burned
in 1210, as did Pope Honorius III in 1225.
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
mentioned it as
an esoteric work that should be kept away
from
those incapable of understanding it.
John Scotus has been accused
of being a pantheist;
but in my opinion he is really a pan-entheist,
because he believed that God is not only in all
but is also transcendent
of all.
On the Division of Nature (Periphyseon) is a dialog
between a teacher and his student.
John Scotus as an idealist
considered the highest division
between what has being and what
does not as what
can be known by the mind and what can not.
He
divided Nature (all) into the following four stages:
1) what creates
and is not created;
2) what is created and creates;
3) what is
created and does not create; and
4) what neither creates nor is
created.
The first is God the Creator, the uncaused cause,
who
creates all from nothing.
Second are the primordial ideas or archetypes
or exemplary causes that exist in the divine mind
as the Logos
and also create the world.
Third is the physical world that is
created but does not
create anything itself; it is created from
nothing by God
and manifests the hidden as bodies.
Fourth is the
mysterious nature that does not create
nor is it created; in reality
this is also God
and does not differ from God the Creator
except
in human reason, which defines it
as the end of the creative process.
In describing the divine essence of God the Creator
John Scotus
noted that even the contrary of goodness,
wickedness, which corrupts
and destroys, still cannot make
everything perish except by perishing
itself.
In the second book the teacher explains that the primordial
causes are the Platonic ideas or forms which mediate
between the
invisible spiritual reality and the visible world.
They are God's
creative ideas and exist in God's mind
but are not identical with
God.
The human intellect can also recreate all that is in the
universe
in the human mind, and that too is part of this mental
world.
The third stage is the creation of the world
as God's self-creation,
and in the third book the teacher gives his allegorical
interpretation
of God's creation described in Genesis.
In the fourth book he describes humanity as a microcosm
that understands
like an angel, reasons like a person,
senses like an animal, and
lives like a plant.
Everything created naturally in man necessarily
remains eternally whole and uncorrupted.
For it did not seem good to Divine Justice for
anything that It had created to perish, especially
because sin was not committed by nature itself,
but by perverse will which is irrationally set in
motion against rational nature.
There is a very cogent proof of this point.
If man naturally has an inherent loathing of death,
how could he fail to have a natural loathing
for the cause of death, namely sin?
It is common to all animals to avoid
and fear death and its causes.
Therefore, as no wise man wishes to make a mistake,
so human nature did not wish to sin;
and hence its Creator, since He is just, did not wish
to punish it but wished to add to it something
in which sin, which had resulted from perverse will
and the persuasion of the serpent, could be
cleansed so as not always to cling to it.
For although rational and intellectual nature did not
wish to be deceived, it was able to be beguiled,
especially since it had not yet received the perfection
of its form which it was to receive as a reward for
obedience, namely deification.
We should therefore not judge human nature
according to what appears to the corporeal senses.
As a punishment for transgression, it is born in this
world in time and corruptibly like irrational animals
through union of the sexes; and its end is death.
But we should rather judge it according to its
creation in God's image before it sinned.
This human nature, in accord with its ineffable
dignity, cannot be grasped but eludes
all corporeal sense and all mortal thought.9
For John Scotus, humans fall because reason and intellect are
deceived by the appearance of good or beauty to the senses.
Thus
evil has no real substance but is merely a perversion of
the will
based on this delusion by the corporeal senses.
Ultimately divine
nature is not created,
because it is the prime cause of all.
Humans
cannot destroy this nature, because it is made
in the image of
God and so is incorruptible.
Being and living eternally are common
to all,
both good and evil; but well-being and bliss are proper
only to those perfect in action and knowledge.
In the fifth and last book of On the Division of Nature
the teacher explains how the passions
can be changed into natural
virtues.
Desire brings about movement of the intellect in the
longing
of those who reach for God.
Pleasure becomes harmless
joy of the soul's nutritive operation.
Fear arouses care which
protects
against future retribution for faults.
Sadness evokes
penance so that
present evils may be corrected.
Pride is changed
in the good to love of heavenly
excellence and scorn for earthly
weakness.
Thus every vice can be transformed into virtue
by the
operation of divine grace.
So goodness comes from evil, for its
power consumes
its opposite; but the ugliness of evil
cannot taint
the beauty of goodness.
The teacher concludes, then, that lower
natures
can be transformed into higher natures.
All rational beings
seek the highest good, which is God,
as it is contrary to nature
to desire evil, though individuals
may make mistakes and be deceived
by wrong paths to their good goal.
When the irrational motions
are corrected,
the soul moves to enter paradise.
The soul always
seeks and eventually finds God
even though the totality of God
is beyond human comprehension.
John Scotus argued that evil is not substantial, because God,
the Creator of all substances, would not make it.
What people
call corruption is not substantial but a privation
of good or
a natural decay of mutable things.
The teacher explains that the
torments of hell are not physical
but only exist in the perverse
motions of evil wills, in corrupted
consciences, in repentance,
and in the inability to do evil.
John Scotus believed that the
greatest torture one can undergo
is to desire evil but be unable
to accomplish it.
The evil will cannot defile the good, and therefore
its torment
does not affect its natural subject, the soul,
which
is always free of sin and the penalty of sin.
Only the faults
and wrongdoings committed are punished
by the just Judge, Creator
of the spiritual nature.
Sin is voluntary but not spiritually
natural.
Its causes in the evil will, such as pride,
are ultimately
not real but defects of virtues.
For both just and unjust, the
spiritual nature is the same
and equally beautiful and eternal
when purified of animality.
The ugliness of evil, misery, and punishment look different
and even beautiful when they are seen as part of the whole.
The
teacher explains that the
Greek word for hell Hades means
sadness.
Those burning with desire for what they cannot have are
sad;
but this is a good to those who repent of their sins just
as pain
is a benefit to those moving toward blessedness.
The perverse
will of a rational creature is really just illicit desire,
and
this is punished not by death of the body
but by fantasies in
the memory.
Ultimately everything is ordered justly and harmoniously
by providence without discord
just as sweet music is blended by
different voices.
Just punishments are good, and rewards are good
because
they come from a grace beyond what is earned.
Freedom
is given by God,
and human obedience is not coerced.
Illicit perversions
of the irrational are corrected by divine justice,
and it is divine
mercy that such are so recalled to obedience.
If one is inflated
by pride and persists in perverse motions,
they will continue;
but the desires will never be attained,
and this becomes the punishment.
Vices are not completely evil but illicit;
otherwise they could
not be transformed into virtues.
The effects of sins are mourning, groaning, sadness,
repentance that is too late, insatiable desire,
the putrefaction of wrongdoing,
and the obscurity of ignorance.
These eventually will debilitate
until they are turned into virtues.
The effects of merit are happiness,
joy, peace, bliss, glory,
equality with angels, and ultimately
deification.
Those suffering the weakness of perverse wills will
suffer
retributions worthy of their works so that eventually
they
can be healed, enlightened, and be led back to paradise.
The eternal
spiritual nature is capable of withstanding the
fantasies caused
by guilt in order to atone for the wrongdoing.
Free will does
make sin possible, though it is not itself
the cause of sin, for
the free judgment of the will
is part of the spiritual nature.
The higher natural virtues such as wisdom, intellect,
and reason
cannot be corrupted,
but the middle and lower goods of nature,
such as the corporeal sense, may be perverted and abused.
Thus
it is better to speak of lustful appetite
rather than evil will
as the cause of punishment.
John Scotus believed that all humanity
will eventually return
to its spiritual nature in which we were
first created,
though he added that not all will be transformed
by deification,
which transcends all nature and paradise.
The Danish invasion of England was led by Ragnar Lothbrok's
sons Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan, who landed with a large
army
in 865 in East Anglia,
where they were supplied with horses.
The
next year they advanced into York and occupied the city
for four
months before they were attacked by Northumbrians,
who stopped
a civil war to unite
between rival kings Osberht and Aella.
Both
these kings and eight ealdormen were killed;
but peace was made,
and the Danes installed
Egbert as a tributary king.
After spending
another year in York, the Dane army attacked
and defeated the
East Anglians led by their king Edmund,
who was killed and revered
as a martyr.
When the Danish army moved into Reading,
they were
attacked by Wessex king Aethelred
and his brother Alfred.
Although
one Danish king and five earls were killed,
Aethelred and Alfred
were defeated.
When Aethelred died in April 871, his younger brother
Alfred
was chosen king at the age of 23.
The English were attacked while
Alfred was attending
Aethelred's funeral, and Alfred's forces
were defeated again at Wilton.
The West Saxons made peace with
the Danes, and Alfred's
raising of funds from the church to pay
the tribute was
later criticized by Pope John VIII in his letter
to Canterbury
archbishop Aethelred.
Mercia king Burgred had also
capitulated,
and the Danish army spent the winter in London.
Northumbrians
revolted against Egbert,
causing him and York archbishop Wulfhere
to flee to Burgred.
Ricsige became king and ruled Northumbria
for three years.
When Burgred went to Rome, the Danes made
Ceolwulf
II (r. 874-879) king of Mercia.
That year the Dane army was split
in half.
Halfdan divided eastern England into three parts
while
attacking the Picts and Britons of Strathclyde.
Kings Guthrum,
Oscytel, and Anund stayed a year
in Cambridge and then attacked
Wessex, which defended
itself and then made a treaty with the
Danes at Wareham,
paying tribute while taking hostages.
The Danes
had promised to leave Wessex but did not do so
until August 877
after making another treaty at Exeter.
A reinforcing Viking fleet
lost 120 ships
in a storm off Swanage in 877.
In the winter of 878 a Dane army led by Guthrum occupied
Chippenham,
and King Alfred retreated west of Selwood;
but his forces continued
to fight Danish raiders.
Alfred led men from Somerset, Wiltshire,
and Hampshire
and at Edington defeated the Danes, who accepted
his terms.
Guthrum and thirty Dane nobles agreed to be baptized,
and godfather Alfred named Guthrum Athelstan.
The Danes moved
on to Cirencester in Mercia, and the
following year they occupied
East Anglia again.
Another Dane army crossed the channel in 879
to Ghent.
They returned to attack Kent in 884, but Alfred's forces
relieved the siege of Rochester,
and some of the Danes crossed
the sea again.
Alfred sent a fleet of ships against the Danes
in East Anglia
that captured sixteen Viking ships
before they
were defeated by a larger force.
In 886 the West Saxons occupied
London, repaired its walls,
and Alfred became a rallying cry
for
the English wanting to resist the Danes.
Alfred made a treaty
on equal terms with Guthrum,
who agreed not to discriminate against
English subjects in his territory.
Alfred did not annex London
into Wessex but appointe
to govern it the Mercian ealdorman Athelred,
who married Alfred's eldest daughter Aethelflaed in 889.
In 892 Danes, who had been defeated by Arnulf,
crossed from
Bourne back to Kent.
A large company of 250 ships fortified themselves
at Appledore,
while Danes in 80 ships led by Haesten occupied
Milton.
Alfred asked the Danes in Northumbria and East Anglia
to
keep the peace because of their hostages, and he tried to blunt
the Viking edge at sea by constructing some warships.
He managed
to get peasants to fight by allowing
half the eligible men to
remain at home.
Alfred placed his army between the two invading
forces
and was able to make a treaty with Haesten,
who went to
Essex, where his two sons were baptized.
In 893 the larger Dane
army raided Hampshire and Berkshire;
but they were defeated by
West Saxons
led by Alfred's oldest son Edward.
While Alfred was
busy defending Exeter from the Danes
of Northumbria and East Anglia,
Edward drove the Danes back across the Thames.
Danish ships concentrated
in Exeter, but a Wessex army
captured their camp while Haesten
was raiding in Mercia.
After gathering at Shoebury the Danes raided
the
Thames valley and the Severn River; but forces led by Mercia
ealdorman Aethelred and ealdormen from Wiltshire and
Somerset
aided by Welsh princes besieged them on an island in
the Severn, though the Danes managed to retreat to Shoebury.
When the Danes occupied Chester, the English starved them
out
by destroying their own wheat and cattle in the area.
So the Danes
went to Wales for nearly a year
until the summer of 894.
Then
they returned to their ships in the Thames but were
driven from
there in 895 by Alfred's forces
intent on protecting the harvest.
The next year the Danes dispersed to join their compatriots
in Northumbria and East Anglia while those without property
left
England for other lands.
When crews from two marauding Viking
ships were found
shipwrecked on the Sussex coast, Alfred ordered
them hanged.
Meanwhile eastern England was
being governed by the
Danelaw.
Northumbrian king Guthfrith was a Christian and died
in 895.
Raids from Northumbria were occurring again in 899,
the
year King Alfred died.
According to a biography of Alfred by the Welsh bishop Asser
written in 893, the future king visited Rome as a child
but did
not learn to read until he was twelve.
Alfred woke early to pray
in church about his lust, and in 868
he married Ealhswith, the
daughter of a Mercian ealdorman.
In the mid-880s Alfred began
gathering some learned men
around him, including Worcester bishop
Werferth, Canterbury
archbishop Plegmund, and also from Mercia
the priests Athelstan and Werwulf.
He wrote to Rheims archbishop
Fulco, who sent him
Grimbald and a Saxon priest named John.
At
this time Asser agreed to spend part of his time in Wales
and
the rest with King Alfred.
Asser noted that all the districts
of Wales recognized the
lordship of Alfred and were glad to have
his protection.
Asser believed that all the Angles and Saxons
not subjected
to the Vikings submitted willingly to Alfred's lordship,
whom he referred to as the king of the Anglo-Saxons.
Alfred ordered many fortresses built throughout the land,
and
two monasteries were constructed
and opened to all nationalities.
He appointed his daughter Aethelgifu as abbess at Shaftesbury.
The king tried to reduce judicial malpractice because of bias
or even bribes by commanding judges to either relinquish
their
offices or pursue wisdom.
Asser marveled that nearly all the ealdormen,
reeves,
and thegns applied themselves to learning how to read
so they would not lose their offices.
To those not making progress
Alfred ordered that a son
or other relative, a freeman or even
a slave
read aloud to them in English.
Alfred not only devoted himself to scholarship so that
he could
rule more wisely, he also sponsored the publication
of translations
of important works into English.
His preface to Werferth's translation
of the Dialogs
by Pope
Gregory I began as follows:
I, Alfred, honored with the dignity of kingship
through Christ's gift, have clearly perceived and
frequently heard from statements in holy books
that for us, to whom God has granted such a lofty
station of worldly office, there is the most urgent
necessity occasionally to calm our minds amidst earthly
anxieties and direct them to divine and spiritual law.
And therefore I sought and petitioned my true friends
that they should write down for me from God's books
the following teaching concerning the virtues and
miracles of holy men, so that, strengthened through
the exhortations and love they contain,
I might occasionally reflect in my mind on heavenly
things amidst these earthly tribulations.10
Next Alfred himself translated Gregory's
book on Pastoral Care.
In that preface he noted that learning
had so declined
in England that very few men could translate Latin
into English
and that when he became king he did not know of
a
single one south of the Thames.
He lamented that they were Christians
in name alone,
and books provided little benefit
because they
could not understand their language.
Thus he planned to have the
most valuable books translated
into English, and he encouraged
those wanting to advance
in holy orders and teach to learn Latin.
All free-born youth, who could be supported to do so,
should attend
school until they could read English.
Those wanting to become
priests should also learn Latin.
Alfred also made his own translation of
The
Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
though he
made some modifications, changing it to a dialog between
the author's mind and a personification of wisdom.
In his version
of Augustine's Soliloquies he expounded
on the immortality
of the soul and its knowledge after death.
As a Christian king
fighting against pagan enemies,
Alfred particularly identified
with David's Psalms
and translated the first fifty before
he died.
History was given a Christian perspective with the
translation of Histories Against the Pagans by Orosius
and Bede's Ecclesiastical History.
Recent events were recounted
in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
that was compiled in 892.
Eighty simple cures could be found in Bald's Leechbook,
and about two hundred saints were described
in the 9th-century Martyrology.
Alfred also published a work on laws that starts with the
commandments
of Moses and how they were modified
for Christians by a letter
from the apostles in Acts 15.
The Golden Rule is affirmed
from Matthew
7:12.
By modifying the laws of Ine of Wessex, Offa of Mercia,
and Aethelberht of Kent, Alfred implied that
his laws applied
to all those realms.
Appended after Alfred's laws were the laws
of Ine.
New provisions protected the weak in society from
oppression, and attempts were made to limit blood feuds.
If a pledge was right
and not fulfilled,
one must surrender one's weapons and be
imprisoned at a king's estate for forty days.
Those plotting against the
king or harboring those
who did could lose their lives and all
their possessions.
Fines still varied depending on the social
status of the victim.
Anyone disturbing a public meeting by drawing
a sword
must pay a fine of 120 shillings.
One may fight for one's
lord, or a lord may fight
for his man without incurring a feud.
One may also fight for a kinsman but not if it is against his
lord.
If a man finds another man behind closed doors
with his
lawful wife, legitimate daughter or sister or mother,
he may fight
without incurring a feud.
All his royal estates went to his successor
Edward,
but Alfred left a detailed will distributing the
rest
of his possessions to his other relatives.
1. Linehan, Peter, History and the Historians of Medieval
Spain, p. 40.
2. Isidore, Sentences 3:16:5 quoted in Brehaut, Ernest,
An Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville,
p. 70.
3. Etymologies 2:24 quoted in Brehaut, Ernest,
An Encyclopedist
of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville, p. 116.
4. The Middle Ages, Volume 1 ed. Brian Tierney, p. 113-114.
5. The Rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne 463-465 tr.
Wilbur Samuel Howell, p. 97.
6. Alcuin, Epistulae IV, 289, 293
quoted in Duckett, Alcuin,
Friend of Charlemagne, p. 220.
7. Quoted in Riché, Pierre, The Carolingians tr.
Michael Idomir Allen, p. 148.
8. Beowulf 24-25 tr. E. Talbot Donaldson, p. 30-31.
9. John the Scot, Periphyseon On the Division of Nature
tr. Myra L. Uhlfelder, 4:6, p. 229-230.
10. Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred
and other
contemporary sources tr. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge,
p. 123.
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