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Bachrach notes, there is ample evidence for the ‘militarization of the civilian population for local defense [sic]’ under the Carolingians. 6 The king was very definitely the commander-in-chief of the army, and military command was seen as an essential attribute of the monarchy. 7 Learning skill with weapons was part of the education of the young. In Ermold the Black's verse biography of Louis the Pious, the three-year-old Charles the
forged – and the ongoing claims of both factions. 45 The monks of Saint-Calais first complained of the bishop’s oppression at the councils of Bonneuil (855) and Pîtres (862). 46 As defence, they presented genuine Frankish immunities from Pippin the Short, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald. 47 Ignoring the conciliar decisions, however, the bishops of Le Mans did not easily cede their jurisdictional rights over the monastery. 48 In countering the monastery’s claims, in fact, they drew on their own written evidence ( legitima
unclear category). 90 A capitulary issued by Louis the Pious mentions them in a list: ‘praepositus, advocatus, centenarius vel qualibet alia dignitate praedita libera persona’, where centenarii and other office holders are presented as free men invested with a certain honour ( dignitas ). 91 A capitulary issued in Aachen in 809 mentions the ‘appointment’ of centenarii and other office holders involved in legal proceedings but only in a passive clause: they ‘should be appointed to fulfil their duties’. From the perspective of the Carolingian court, qualification
profoundly thoughtful study of the reigns of Charlemagne and his successor Louis the Pious published in Switzerland in 1949, identified the problems that Charlemagne worked hard to solve, but in the end left un solved: his inability to ‘find men with enough of the public spirit that was implied in the concept of fidelity’, or to obtain ‘change in personnel – the basic condition of all reform’. 41 F. L. Ganshof (1895–1980), a Belgian medievalist influenced by Pirenne, published a collection of essays in 1971, but mostly dating from the post-war years, about government in
. Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814 – 840 (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 166–8; M. Innes, ‘Charlemagne, Justice and Written Law’, in A. Rio (ed.), Law, Custom and Justice (London, 2011), 155–203, p. 168. 37 362 Jinty Nelson no one doing service for God involve himself in secular affairs’; 2 Tim. 2.4). Eventually Charlemagne would ask bishops acutissime how their duties to God and the earthly kingdom could be reconciled.40 In the big book of capitularies, the next big text after Herstal is the Admonitio generalis of March 789. It opened in the form of a
’ – taking counsel, protecting the church, defending widows. But how was the shift away from the late 980s to be presented? Not as repentance. Æthelred was to be no Louis the Pious, though the actions from which he was now turning were less serious than those which prompted Attigny. 71 Instead Æthelred (or his spokesmen) invoked the metaphor of the human body and its life-cycle, a process of natural change and development. Such a metaphor had special relevance in a decade when royal family inheritance and the emergence of the king’s sons had brought royal youth back to
Louis the Pious and Judith in 834. Walahfrid repeatedly praises his bravery and especially his loyalty to his domini . Such behaviour merits earthly fame and heavenly reward: Just as the man aware of his treachery wastes away, his breast racked by its poison, so, or rather much more, may those who have
much to stimulate was able to read of his glorious accomplishments – the new Christian Caesar. When the Capetians replaced the Carolingians as rulers of France in 987, they insisted they were merely continuing Charlemagne’s work and many of them married Carolingians to legitimize their link with the past. Einhard’s Life of Munitions_03_Chap4-10 59 4/11/03, 8:26 Propaganda in the Middle Ages 60 Charlemagne was written in about 850 to provide a model of how kingship should work just at the time when Louis the Pious’ reign was going wrong. In fact
rivers. Following negotiation with the rulers, these merchants settled with their families. There are extant documents of privilege granted to the Jews as early as the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious between 814 and 825, and thereafter, during the period of the emperors Otto. Otto I (962–73), and Otto II (973–83), developed the cities along the length of the River Rhine, placing at their heads bishops whom they made branches of their rule.15 Thus, by the end of the eleventh century, Magdeburg and Merseburg on the Elbe, Mainz, Cologne, Worms, and Speyer on the Rhine
every five hides was bound to go to war in the event of a royal expedition. 43 We cannot be sure that such norms were always applied in practice, but rulers and their courts had an interest in enforcing their demands, since gathering armies was not always easy. 44 Louis the Pious was forced to postpone an expedition to Brittany in 824 because of a famine – a real threat to a ruler’s military capabilities. 45 Frankish central power sometimes became obsessed with details at the local level, as is visible in a normative text from 829: here, so-called missi dominici