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to be produced over the centuries. This body of material provides a quite fascinating illustration of the transformation of history into legend as writing about the bishop became more and more distant from the events in which he took part. We shall look first at how the oldest text of the Passio Leudegarii can be reconstructed and then turn to the context of the work. This will allow us to
This book provides a collection of documents in translation which brings together the seminal sources for the late Merovingian Frankish kingdom. The collection of documents in translation includes Liber Historiae Francorum, Vita Domnae Balthidis, Vita Audoini Episcopi Rotomagensis, Acta Aunemundi, Passio Leudegarii, Passio Praejecti, and Vita Sanctae Geretrudis and the Additamentum Nivialense de Fuilano. The Liber Historiae Francorum was written while a Merovingian king still ruled over the Franks and by someone geographically very close to the political centre of that realm. Late Merovingian hagiography tends to emphasise miracles which heal and eliminate the maladies of the life, and the Vita Audoini follows the pattern. The Vita Sanctae Geretrudis makes no mention at all of Columbanus and his mission among the Franks, a strange omission if the Irish were all one group. The Passio Praejecti provides information on the relationship between the politics of the locality and the politics of the centre, for a land dispute between Praejectus and Hector, the ruler of Marseilles, was heard at the royal court at Autun at Easter 675. The Passio Leudegarii has an overt peace-making element, although the issue of who was on which side is much clouded by the complexity of the political narrative.
in this case a strong bias in our major source about Ebroin, the Passio Leudegarii ( The Suffering of Leudegar ) we cannot see these events very clearly. It may have been that Ebroin was already beginning to excercise a degree of political control which overstepped the acceptable bounds. He certainly did so later. By the 670s he was preventing Burgundian magnates from coming to court unless
the framework, so to speak, which allows us to see how many of the people and events which appear in the hagiographical sources fit together. Without the help of the LHF the vitae would not yield very much historical insight, especially when their contents concern political matters. For instance, the important chapter 25 of the Passio Leudegarii would make no sense at all without the
was even more candid about the problems his or her hero faced than was Leudegar’s. Whereas the author of the Passio Leudegarii could show from his local standpoint that outsiders like Ebroin, Childeric, Bobbo and Diddo were to blame for Leudegar’s demise, Praejectus’s problems clearly began and ended in his native community. The frank details of the Passio Praejecti , therefore, afford us a unique
provenance and with a more certain line of development where we can see a similar process of redaction. In these we can observe the preservation of an original narrative outline which functioned as the framework for later embellishment and adaption. 15 In this volume the Passio Leudegarii provides the best example of a text which developed in this way. Its development shows us clearly how later generations
seventh-century Merovingian royal politics is a lesson learned from the LHF , the Passio Leudegarii , the Vita Audoini and other souces in this volume. We should err if were were to seek the key to Balthild’s power in some abstract concept concerning the position of women detached from the importance of whatever family she represented. Balthild owed her later powerful position to her connections
more likely meaning. 42 J. Jarnut, ‘Untersuchungen zur Herkunft Swanahilds, der Gattin Karl Martells’, Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte , 40 (1977), 254–9. 43 On Swanahild and Charles, Fouracre, Age of Charles Martel , pp. 161–7. 44 In 673 the powerful mayor of the palace Ebroin was deposed when the magnates met to raise up a new king. The incident is described in detail in the near-contemporary Passio Leudegarii , ed. B. Krusch, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum V (Hanover, 1910), pp. 282–322, trans. with
the Passio Leudegarii , above, p. 000. 17 Below, pp. 350–1. 18 Below, p. 352. 19 Below, p. 351. 20
. 124 As in the Passio Leudegarii , ch. 26, above, p. 242, the word patricius is usually used to describe the Merovingian governor of Provence and Marseilles, not the mayor of the palace as here. 125 The Latin is ambiguous, making it difficult to decide who is the subject of the sentence. If it is