Buc, Ritual and interpretation

Ritual and interpretation:

the early medieval case

Philippe Buc

In dealing with early medieval `rituals' (whatever this category may

mean), historians have to take into account that they were written about,

staged, and participated in by members of a culture that was steeped in

interpretation, and especially by the exegetical dialectic between letter

and spirit. The consequences for narrative techniques, and therefore for

our approach to the sources depicting `rituals' are plural. The narratives

can heighten or de-emphasize the `ritualness' of an event, as well as

heighten or hide conflict (or consensus) within the ritual event, regardless

of what actually happened. Rituals in texts, therefore, should seldom be

taken at face value. Such techniques suggest that often enough the textual

rendition (or even imagination) of a solemnity had more political impact

than its performance.

For the sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing at the very beginning of this

century, for Karl Marx before him, and for many social scientists since

him, religious beliefs and rituals all have a function. This function is most

often hidden to the very natives who entertain these beliefs and perform

these rituals, but it is accessible to the specialist of society:

When all we do is consider the formulas literally, these religious beliefs

and practices appear disconcerting, and our inclination might be to

To advance this speci®c argument (the importance of interpretation), I have chosen to employ

the broad and vague term `ritual' even though other lines of inquiry lead me to question the

appropriateness of the concept. For an explanation of this stance, see P. Buc, `Political Ritual:

Medieval and Modern Interpretations', in H.-W. Goetz (ed.), Die AktualitaÈt des Mittelalters

(Bochum, in press); idem, `Political Rituals and Political Imagination in the Medieval West,

4th±11th Centuries', in J. Nelson and P. Linehan (eds.), The Medieval World (London, in

press); idem, The Dangers of Ritual (Princeton, NJ, forthcoming). See as well J. Goody,

`Against Ritual: Loosely Structured Thoughts on a Loosely De®ned Topic', in S.F. Moore and

B.G. Meyerhoff (eds.), Secular Ritual (Assen, 1977), pp. 25±35. The study closest to my current

viewpoint may be D.A. Warner, `Thietmar of Merseburg on Rituals of Kingship', Viator 26

(1995), pp. 56±76. Timothy Reuter discusses with great sensitivity some of the issues analyzed

here in his `Pre-Gregorian Mentalities', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45:3 (1994), pp. 465±74,

at pp. 470±4.

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Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

write them off to some sort of inborn aberration. But we must know

how to reach beneath the symbol to grasp the true reality it represents

and that gives the symbol its true meaning. The most bizarre and

barbarous rites and the strangest myths translate some human need

and some aspect of life, whether social or individual. The reason the

faithful settle for in justifying those rites and myths may be mistaken,

and most often are; but the true reasons exist nonetheless, and it is the

business of science to uncover them.

Durkheim was familiar with Marx, who expressed even more strongly

that for the analysis of past societies, their self-conceptions constituted the

worst starting point.

Marx and his colleague Engels berated earlier

thinkers for having `share[d] the illusion each speci®c era' had enter-

tained about itself. This had led to a radical mistake: `The ``conceit'' or

``self-image'' of these speci®c human beings is transformed into the

sole determining active force that governs and determines the praxis of

these humans'.

Hence, `To arrive at the ¯esh-and-blood human being,

one shall not start out from what humans say, conceive, represent

themselves, or from the human being spoken about, thought about,

conceived, represented'.

Social reality lay hidden behind, and obfus-

cated by, native culture, political ideology and religion.

Despite convergences, Durkheim had not borrowed from Marx. Their

common position stood ®rmly rooted in a stratum of European intel-

lectual history deeper than the nineteenth century. Durkheim's state-

ment, especially, can be seen as the social-scienti®c rephrasing and

conceptualization of a basic notion shared by the religious specialists of

E. Durkheim, Formes eÂleÂmentaires de la vie religieuse (Paris, 1912), p. 3, English trans.

K.E. Fields, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York, 1995), p. 2.

This is axiomatic for twentieth-century Marxist anthropology and the historians who use it,

see, e.g., E. Flaig, `Repenser le politique dans la ReÂpublique romaine', Actes de la recherche en

sciences sociales 105 (1994), pp. 13±25, at pp. 13±14. The analogies between Marxist and

functionalist understandings of religion have been pointed out by many, e.g., R. Firth, `The

Sceptical Anthropologist? Social Anthropology and Marxist Views on Society', in M. Bloch

(ed.), Marxist Analyses and Social Anthropology (London, 1975), pp. 29±60 at pp. 31±2.

K. Marx and F. Engels, Die deutsche Ideologie. [Kritik der neuesten deutschen Philosophie] # 1.25

(Marx-Engels Gesamtsausgabe 1.5, Berlin, 1932), pp. 28±9: `... die Geschichtsauffassung ... hat

daher in die Geschichte nur politische Haupt- und Staatsaktionen und religioÈse und

uÈberhaupt theotherische KaÈmpfe sehen koÈnnen, und speziell bei jeder geschichtlichen Epoche

die Illusion dieser Epoche teilen muÈssen ... Die ``Einbildung'', die ``Vorstellung'' dieser

bestimmten Menschen uÈber ihre wirkliche Praxis wird in die einzig bestimmende und aktive

Macht verwandelt, welche die Praxis dieser Menschen beherrscht und bestimmt'. Translation

mine; but cf. K. Marx and F. Engels, Feuerbach. [Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist

Outlooks], 2nd. edn (Moscow, 1976), p. 52.

Die deutsche Ideologie # 1.5b, p. 15: `Es wird nicht ausgegangen von dem, was die Menschen

sagen, sich einbilden, sich vorstellen, auch nicht von den gesagten, gedachten, eingebildeten,

vorgestellten Menschen, um davon aus bei den leibhaftigen Menschen anzukommen'. Trans-

lation mine; cf. Feuerbach, p. 31.

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Christian Europe. Behind the letter of the Old Testament, and especially

behind its apparently irrational ceremonies there is a spirit ± identified

with the really real, res or veritas. It is the task and duty of the Christian

exegete to decipher this mysterium.

This notion was widely shared in

late antiquity. Writing at the beginning of the third century, Hippolytus

of Rome inveighed against a Gnostic group, the Naassenes, that they

had `invented a new art of grammar' (teÂchneÃ grammatikeÂ) allowing them

to see how Greek Poets like Homer and the Christian Holy Scriptures

darkly told of their own Gnostic truth. For the Naassenes, all deeds and

words, even a play at the theatre, presented a truth invisible to the eyes

of the common audience, but endowed with a pneumatic or spiritual

meaning. For this reason, they gladly attended religious solemnities such

as the Great Mysteries of Magna Mater, `thinking that by means of what

is enacted there, they perceive their [own] whole mystery'.

Hippolytus mocked the Naassenes, but his Christian contemporaries

could watch Roman civic rituals through similar lenses. The late antique

understanding of the relationship between letter and spirit shared by

all factions of the Christian movement allowed the hijacking, actual or

imaginary, of the Ancient World's most potent symbolic practices. The

Acts of the Martyrs can be seen as a Christian appropriation through

interpretation of a Roman civic ritual, the execution of criminals. The

death of a condemned Christian in the arena, a theatre, or an amphi-

theatre, was transformed into a new ritual, speaking of the Christian

mystery, and serving the formation of a Christian community.

Interpretation, thus, was and is about authority and power, in the

present the authority of the social scientist over the cultures he or she

studies, in late antiquity the power of the marginal religious group, be it

mainstream Christian or gnostic, over the broader community in which

it was embedded. To be able to impose one's reading on a ritual endows

one with power or authority. Hippolytus' polemical description of the

Naassenes shows that the `natives' themselves understood well this rule.

What does this mean for the student of early medieval political

culture, a culture that emerged from the matrix of late antiquity? First, it

G. Caspary, Politics and Exegesis (Berkeley, CA, 1979), pp. 12±19 and 40±71.

Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 5.9.7 and 5.8.1, ed. M. Marcovich, Patristische Texte

und Studien 25 (Berlin, 1986), pp. 154:1±4 and 166:33±9.

See P. Buc, `Martyre et ritualiteÂ dans l'AntiquiteÂ Tardive. Horizons de l'eÂcriture meÂdieÂvale des

rituels', Annales 48:1 (1997), pp. 63±92, as well as J. Salisbury, Perpetua's Passion: the Death and

Memory of a Young Roman Woman (New York, 1997).

The link between late antique theology and early sociology will be explored in my Dangers of

Rituals. J. Assmann, `Aegypten als Argument. Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit und

Religionskritik im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert', Historische Zeitschrift 264 (1997), pp. 561±85, has

already shown the hold of the idea of a double message (with socially stabilizing functions) in

early modern sciences of Religion.

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means that there is some validity to what some recent studies have

claimed: that a political ritual can make visibly present an eternal,

invisible order, which in turn legitimizes (in a Durkheimian vein) the

worldly-order.

But it means much more than that. And what it means

over and above this first consequence effectively renders problematic the

functions of legitimation and social stabilization that this first model

attributes to ritual. It means that medieval political rituals, once per-

formed (or even already at the moment of their performance), were

subjected actively to interpretations. Observer, participant, and audience

of oral or written reports searched behind appearances, asking what kind

of spirit had animated the event, and whether it pointed to a mysterium.

The participants, steeped in a religious universe, believed that a liturgical

or para-liturgical practice (that is, one which called on God and His

saints) would be effective, they also thought that its impact would

depend not so much on performance but on interpretation, and acted

accordingly. Thus, if we consider narrative texts, it means that the rituals

we find in them usually come to us conditioned by, and within, an

interpretative strategy. It means as well that many of these texts owe

their existence to purposeful attempts to guide towards the right

interpretation of a political event that involved a ritual.

Here the criticism of the functionalist and Marxist traditions in

anthropology borrows a leaf from other anthropologists' observation

that societies with religious specialists (including interpreters of rituals)

deal with rituals differently than societies in which this social role does

not exist. Dan Sperber warned us almost a quarter of a century ago that

we should distinguish between three kinds of societies: societies without

exegetical lore concerning their rituals, societies with experts in such

lore, and societies where not only is there a lore but also a tendency for

this lore to be contested. It is critical as well to be aware that some

societies have beliefs concerning, for example, symbolism, and that `this

indigenous theory in turn reacts on symbolic practices'.

To illustrate the importance of interpretation, and to suggest some of

its effects, I shall look at a number of cases showing ®rstly the ways in

which authors deny the existence of a transcendental meaning to the

See G. Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor. Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France

(Ithaca, NY, 1992), and H. Keller, `Die Investitur. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der

``Staatssymbolik'' im Hochmittelalter', FruÈhmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993), pp. 51±86, both

drawing on the `model of and model for' notion of C. Geertz, `Religion as a Cultural System',

repr. in his The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays (New York, 1973), pp. 87±125, at

pp. 93±4, who in this aspect of his thought is quite Durkheimian. While Koziol, in his

ecclectic ®nal chapter, distances himself from attributing a legitimizing function to ritual, the

bulk of his book presupposes it (see, e.g., pp. 305±7 and 23).

D. Sperber, Du symbolisme en geÂneÂral (Paris, 1974), pp. 29±32 and 60±1.

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rituals of a community they oppose or want to disempower; secondly

the inverse strategy, of insistence on the presence of a mysterium in

ritual; thirdly the struggle over a ritual's specific interpretation; and

finally the desire to paper over and hide the presence of such struggles.

I shall conclude that while rituals were understood to point to a reality

beyond themselves, this by no means led to a legitimation of the existing

order.

Firstly, at one extreme of the logical spectrum, we ®nd two almost

equivalent strategies: denying to the rituals of the groups one opposes or

tries to subordinate any transcendental meaning, or even avoiding the

mention of these groups' rituals. Gregory of Tours was extremely

reluctant to mention royal Merovingian rituals, even though some of his

own lapses and the poetry of his friend Venantius Fortunatus testify to

their existence.

Hincmar of Reims, who, according to Karl F. Morrison,

in an Augustinian vein did not assign a spiritual reading to secular events

in his Annals of St Bertin, also rarely emphasized royal liturgy, at least

after an initial honeymoon with his king, Charles the Bald, was over.

The clearest exception after 861±2 is found in 869, when king and

archbishop found themselves at one concerning the annexation of

Lotharingia. Then, Hincmar gives full details. He was after all the main

of®ciant at the coronation that sought to ®nalize this Anschluss, and a

bene®ciary of the new ecclesiastical map.

Yet other authors resolutely

avoided informing their narratives with sacrality.

Thus Hincmar's

contemporary, Erchempert, a Monte Cassino monk: in his Short history

of the Lombards dwelling in Benevento, completed shortly after 889,

Erchempert avoided all institutional sacrality. God was, in his text,

present solely to give providential meaningfulness to the ambient

political disorder. He described political ceremonies only when they

were manipulated, the arch-villain being the bishop-duke of Naples. In

Erchempert's Ystoriola, this Athanasius II (reigned 875-98), eager to

I discuss this in ch. 3 of Dangers of Ritual. But see already B. Brennan, `The Image of the

Frankish Kings in the Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus', Journal of Medieval History 10:1 (1984),

pp. 1±11.

K.F. Morrison, `Unum ex Multis: Hincmar of Rheims' Medical and Aesthetic Rationales

for Uni®cation', repr. in his Holiness and Politics in Early Medieval Thought (London, 1985),

pp. 583±712, at p. 633: `(...) only in the City of God did events signify something beyond their

own temporal present. Those in the city of man signi®ed nothing beyond themselves'.

Compare J.L. Nelson, `Hincmar of Reims on King-making: The Evidence of the Annals of

St Bertin, 861±882', in J. BaÂk (ed.), Coronations. Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual

(Berkeley, CA, 1990), pp. 16±34, esp. pp. 22±6. For Hincmar's potential gains, see eadem,

Charles the Bald (London, 1992), p. 218.

For the Augustinian understanding of sacred history, see R. A. Markus, ``Saeculum''. History

and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine 2nd. edn. (Cambridge, 1988); for its modi®cations,

see R.W. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Britain. From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth

(New York, 1966), esp. pp. 1±43.

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acquire neighboring Capua, engineers alliances with, or plots against,

each of the comital branches in power there, leading to much pro-

fanation of sworn oaths, blood-links, and the sacrality of holy days.

But this was a partisan choice. Contemporary Napolitan hagiography

(which Erchempert probably had access to) presents Athanasius in a

very different light, in the exalting narrative framework of relic

translations.

Secondly, I shall give three examples of the opposite attitude, two

short, from the tenth century, the last from the ninth. The ®rst one is

from the Annals of Lobbes, ad annum 961:

Our lord Otto, his father's namesake, is made to share in the paternal

kingship, and is given the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit in the

palace of Aachen, seven weeks from Easter, on the day of Pentecost

and at the hour on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the

disciples, on the seventh of the Calends of June, and on the seventh

moon, when Otto was in his seventh year of age.

Here the link is to the Apostolic age ± perhaps owing to the Ottonian

kings' self-understanding as bringers of Christianity to the gentes.

The

numerology hammers in the presence of the Holy Spirit at the

coronation. That such a vertical axis linking up a ritual and the Heavens

was critical is attested in another contemporary text bearing on a

princely accession. In southern Italy, the anonymous author of the

Chronicon Salernitanum told how Duke Arichis, founder of Salerno,

had been pre-elected by the Spirit. When still a young man, he had

See, e.g., Erchempert, Ystoriola 50, 53, 57, ed. G. Waitz, MGH Scriptores Rerum

Langobardicarum (Hanover, 1878), pp. 256: ll. 3±14, 257: ll. 32±11, 257: ll. 42±258: l. 4.

16Cf. the Translatio Athanasii episcopi [primi], MGH SRL, pp. 449±452, especially

p. 451: ll. 24±38. See N. Cilento, `La storiogra®a nell'Italia meridionale', in La storiogra®a

altomedievale, Settimane di studio 17, 2 vols. (Spoleto, 1970), II, pp. 521±56, at p. 545.

Annales Lobienses ad an. 961, in MGH, SS 13 (Hanover, 1881), pp. 234: ll. 26±9: Dominus noster

Otto, aequivocus patris, consors paterni regni asciscitur, et septiforma gratia Spiritus sancti

donatur in palatio Aquensi, septem hebdomatibus a pascha transactis, die pentecosten et hora qua

Spiritus sanctus super discipulos venit 7. Kalend. Iun., luna 7, anno aetatis suae 7 [26 May 961].

The general tone of these Annals is highly pro monarchic, see ad an. 924, MGH, SS 13,

p. 233: ll. 28±9, where Charles the Simple is made a merkwuÈrdiger Martyr, or ad an. 901,

MGH SS 13, p. 233: ll. 6±9, where Zwentibold's death, even if owed to his dissolute habits, is

miraculously avenged. Remark as well from 969 to 982 the yearly mention of where the king

celebrates Christmas and Easter. See H. Seibert, `Lobbes', Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich±

Zurich, 1991), V, cols. 2061±2, and Wilhelm Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen,

vol. 1 (Berlin, 1893), p. 381.

The Continuatio Reginonis ad an. 961, ed. F. Kurze, MGH, SRG, 50 (Hanover, 1890), p. 70,

places the occasion close to the anointing of Adalbert (the author?), a monk of St Maximin, to

be missionary bishop to the Rugi ± but this is weak evidence. For the Ottonians and `mission',

see H. Beumann and H. Buttner's twinned essays, re-edited in Beumann and BuÈttner, Das

Kaisertum Ottos des Grossen. Zwei VortraÈge (VortraÈge und Forschungen Sonderband 1,

Sigmaringen 1963).

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entered St Stephens of Capua to pray. When he reached the words

`Spiritus principalis con®rma me', all of a sudden he felt his sword

vibrate. As the wisest of his companions explained, it was the Holy

Spirit's in¯uence, and a prophecy that `You shall not depart from this

life (...) before the Lord leads you to the of®ce of prince'. And indeed

after Duke Liutprand's death all unanimously acclaimed him; `all,

gathered in one (even though not by their own agency but by that of He

Who said, ``Where two or three gather, I shall be at their center''

[Matthew XVIII.20]), raised him up to be their prince'.

The early-ninth-century Chronicle of Moissac gives a third example

of the purposeful insistence on the presence of a mysterium in ritual.

The Chronicle of Moissac paralleled, on the one hand, for the year 813,

Charlemagne's coronation of his son Louis, and for the year 817, Louis'

coronation of his own eldest son Lothar, with, on the other hand, the

royal accession rituals of the Ancient Law of the Old Testament, in an

effort to underline what this self-same source, for 817, calls the mysterium

consilii of the king.

Speci®cally, the text makes the ritual into an image

of Solomon's accession: the people shout Vivat rex and rejoice;

Charlemagne (and Louis) thanks the Lord in David's words, saying,

`Blessed be you, o Lord God, who gave me today to see with my own

eyes someone sitting on my throne.' The father teaches the son to obey

the Law and transmits to him the law of the kingdom ± a collage of the

prescriptions in Deuteronomy and of the narratives of the accessions of

Saul, Solomon, and Joas in Kings and Chronicles. But the Moissac

Chronicle exempli®es as well the strategy of de-emphasizing a ritual's

charge in meaning. The dense clustering of vertical referents for these

two coronations contrasts with the same chronicle's account of the

meeting between Louis and Pope Stephen in 816 in Reims:

In these days the apostolic lord Leo, pope of the city of Rome,

departed from this world. Lord Stephen succeeded him in the

ponti®cate, and this very year this apostolic Stephen came to the lord

emperor Louis in Francia. He found him in the city of Reims and

Chronicon Salernitanum 19, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS 3 (Hanover, 1839), pp. 481±2, or ed.

U. Westerbergh, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia 3 (Stockholm-Lund, 1956), pp. 23±4: `Cunctis

uno agmine coactis, licet non a se set ab illo qui dixit, Ubi duo vel tres congregati fuerint, ibi

sum in medio illorum, illum principem sublimarunt'. I translate in medio as it was understood

in exegesis; see P. Buc, L'ambiguõÈteÂ du Livre: Prince, pouvoir, et peuple dans les commentaires de

la Bible au Moyen Age, TheÂologie historique 95 (Paris, 1994), pp. 335±8.

I discuss this text as well in `Political Rituals and Political Imagination'.

Chronicle of Moissac ad an. 813 and 817, ed. G. Pertz (based on two rather different

manuscripts), MGH, SS 1 (Hanover, 1826), pp. 280±313, at pp. 310±12, which probably does

not postdate by much 818. The Solomonic parallels were already noticed by B. de Simson,

JahrbuÈcher des fraÈnkischen Reichs unter LuÈdwig dem Frommen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1874±6),

I, pp. 3±5. See the appendix for the exact text of the Moissac chronicle unencumbered by

corrections taken from the Aniane version.

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brought him a gold crown. The emperor received him with great

honor. Stephen blessed the emperor and put on his head the gold

crown he had brought. The lord emperor gave him in return many

presents, and thus he returned to Rome and his see.

Here, there is no biblical referent and no marked ritualization of the

event. In the 817 narrative, Louis will order a three-day fast and litanies

before electing and crowning his son. For 816, the Chronicle hints at

liturgical aspects only ¯eetingly, with the word `benedixit'. Stephen's

visit looks like the journey of a new faithful to his lawful lord with a

costly present, given in sign of recognition of his authority. But all

narratives of the event, and especially ones written in the 830s, did not

deny a liturgical charge to 816. MarieÈlle Hageman has recently compared

with one another three divergent accounts of this same event in Louis

the Pious' three biographies (Ermold Nigellus, Thegan, the Astronomer),

written at a progressively greater distance from 816. She argues convin-

cingly that as the emperor's power weakened, the narratives came to

insist more and more on the pope's presence. Louis' humility before

Stephen became for his partisans a mark of his election. It also signalled

papal approval in an era when popes had begun to intervene in the

Carolingian civil wars.

Were we to try to know what actually happened

in 816, the authenticity and dating of two diplomata, preserved only in

the usually reliable tenth-century historian Flodoard of Reims, would be

critical. In the one, Louis praises the church of Reims `in which we

received the imperial insignia through the laying-on-hands of Lord

Stephen, highest Roman pontiff'. In the other, the Carolingian mentions

Clovis' anointing in the same basilica, where `we ourselves deserved,

thanks to God's benignity, to be crowned and obtain the imperial of®ce

and power by the hand of Lord Stephen, highest Roman pontiff'.

Chronicle of Moissac ad an. 816 (edited in the appendix).

M. Hageman, `Louis the Pious Meets the Pope. Different Sources, Different Rituals', Text

and Identities Conference I (Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, Wassenaar,

12 October, 1997).

See Flodoard, Historia remensis Ecclesiae 2.19, ed. M. Stratmann, MGH, SS 36 (Hanover,

1998), p. 181: ll. 11±12, p. 180: ll. 6±7. The whole chapter is framed around Reims' eternal

privilege regem vel imperatorem constituendi; it begins with a description of a public

iconographic rendition of 816: `Huius ecclesie pinnaculum talem videtur praemonstrare

titulum, personis etiam vel imaginibus Stephani papae, ac Ludovici imperatoris insignitum:

Ludovicus Caesar factus coronante Stephano / Hac in sede papa magno ...' (p. 467: ll. 22±5).

M. Sot, Un historien et son eÂglise. Flodoard de Reims (Paris, 1993), does not discuss the issue of

potential forgeries. J.F. BoÈhmer and E. MuÈhlbacher, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs ... 751±918

(2nd edn., Innsbruck, 1899), # 835±6 and 801, consider the one interpolated, the other they

date to 828 owing to the existence of a forgery that seems to have employed it. But see

M. Stratmann, `Die KoÈnigs- und Privaturkunden fuÈr die Reimser Kirche bis gegen 900',

Deutsches Archiv 52:1 (1996), pp. 1±55, at p. 16, and P. Depreux, `Zur Echtheit einer Urkunde

Kaiser Ludwigs des Frommen fuÈr die Reimser Kirche (BM

801)', Deutsches Archiv 48:1 (1992),

pp. 1±16.

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If these diplomata are authentic, they may indicate that Louis agreed to

publicize the version that necessity had forced his partisans to weave. Yet

one does not have to know what actually happened to extract political

information from our Chronicle of Moissac. The text was composed well

before the Field of Lies or even Attigny ± the inception of troubles for

the emperor. Its author seems to have wanted to highlight a non-Roman

conception of empire and downplay the papal role in Frankish politics.

This hypothesis finds confirmation in the Chronicle's account of the

754 meeting between Stephen II and Pippin at Ponthion. The Liber

Pontificalis puts most demonstrations of abeisance (especially prostra-

tions but also honorific reception within the ceremony of the adventus)

on the Frankish side; the Moissac narrative on the papal side.

The

different degrees to which the liturgy was emphasized or even simply

made present in 816 and 813/17 respectively point to a continuing

struggle, in 818-19, over the nature of the imperial office.

The examples just discussed show how, when authors considered that

a king (or kingship) belonged to the ecclesia, they insisted on rituals'

providential meaning; when they wanted to keep a king (or kingship)

within the mundus, they removed all reference to sacred meaning or

sacred history.

They employed the same technique to give (or deny)

meaning and authority to an event, such as 813/17 (or 816). In exegetical

terms, authors either connected rituals to a spirit or mysterium, or kept

them to the realm of pure ¯esh, carnality without spirit. One sees this

very clearly in Liudprand's Antapodosis, a tenth-century text that

combines a strategy of denial of mysterium (for enemies) and strategy of

emphasis on mysterium (for patrons).

Here, rituals centering on Otto

the Great's rivals for the Italian crown lose all sacrality and become

instead ideological shams; on the other hand, Ottonian rituals are

systematically tied to a mysterium through references to the Scriptures.

Many of the preceding examples have concerned coronations. In the

Antapodosis, the Saxon dynasty's accessions are liturgi®ed; those of their

rivals rejected in the realm of violence, naked power, or manipulation.

Chronicle of Moissac ad an. 754, ed. G. Pertz, MGH, SS 1 (Hanover, 1826), pp. 292: ll. 43±293:

l. 9. See T.F.-X. Noble, The Republic of Saint Peter. The Birth of the Papal State, 680±825

(Philadelphia, 1984), p. 80, who notes the contrast with the Liber Ponti®calis, ed.

L. Duchesne, 3 vols. (re-ed. Paris, 1955), I, p. 447: ll. 10±15. Admittedly this information

comes from the Chronicle of Aniane, a text closely related to the Chronicle of Moissac. The

Moissac manuscript lost the folios covering the years 717±77.

On ecclesia and mundus, see the key study by G.B. Ladner, `The Concepts of Ecclesia and

Christianitas and their Relation to the Idea of Papal plenitudo potestatis from Gregory VII to

Boniface VIII', Miscellanea historiae Ponti®ciae 18 (1954), pp. 49±77.

For this and the following, see P. Buc, `Writing Ottonian Hegemony: Good Rituals and Bad

Rituals in Liutprand of Cremona', Maiestas 4 (1996), pp. 3±38.

See as well G. Gandino, Il vocabolario politico e sociale di Liutprando di Cremona (Rome,

1995), pp. 72±6.

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Liudprand himself made clear the relationship between providential

event, liturgi®cation and mysterium. The central chapter, which recounts

the battle of Birten in 939, hinges around a liturgi®ed prayer by Otto for

his warriors' victory ± like Moses against Amalech. This ritual is itself

linked in Liudprand's narrative to a lengthy reference to the Scriptures,

the story of St Thomas touching Christ, the Spirit made Flesh. The

pericope had been linked by the Apostle Paul to a contrast between the

Ancient Law and the New Law, between letter and spirit, between truth

written darkly on stone and truth written on ¯esh. The Pauline exegesis

could miniaturize itself in stone, as shown by an ivory plate now in

Trier, and produced in the last decade of the Ottonian century.

In the

case of Liudprand, the pericope pointed out explicitly that something

was to be sought under the letter of his text. Interestingly, Hincmar of

Reims had invoked the ®gure of Thomas to justify the trial by ordeal.

Birten was such a trial, but by battle. Just as in touching the visible ¯esh

Thomas had been able to see the invisible divinity in Christ, the ordeal

made visible in this carnal world God's eternal justice, the normally

invisible justice that would manifest itself fully at the Last Judgement.

But one social actor or author's interpretation of a ritual was always

open to contention. It is in fact because rituals, by themselves, are not

univocal, that interpretation was critical. One may have known what, for

example, coronations are supposed to effect in general, but disagreed

about a speci®c performance's shape and meaning.

Nor should we be

latter-day functionalists. A ritual's performance in and of itself did not

shape political society one way or another; the way in which the

performance was `read' did or might. Here we come to the third point ±

the issue of struggles over interpretations. A lengthy episode in the

eleventh-century Casus Sancti Galli suggests their existence. It depicts

two sets of characters, the parties to a tenth-century political dispute,

who posture within a ritual in order to in¯uence the manner in which it

will be read by its immediate and secondly, mediated, audience (the

people who will hear or read reports of the event). The story is essentially

a ®ction, yet read, for heuristic purposes, `as if it had happened', it

See the catalogue Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen, 2 vols. (Hildesheim,

1993), # IV±35, II, pp. 191±3; see Paul, II Cor. III.3±8.

Hincmar of Reims, De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, ed. L. BoÈhringer, MGH

Concilia 4, suppl. 1 (Berlin, 1992), p. 159: ll. 20±8, excerpted in idem, Letter 25 to Hildegar of

Meaux, PL 126, cols. 161c±71d, drawing on Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia 2.6.9,

PL 76, col. 1202a. I see however no direct connection between Hincmar and Liudprand, and

as far as I can count, all the formulas for the ordeal collected in K. Zeumer, Formulae

merowingici et karolini aevi, MGH, Leges 5 (Hanover, 1886), invoke Thomas only once.

One should distinguish as well between `new' rituals, as the royal anointing in 751±4 or the

imperial coronation in 800±17, and rituals once routinized.

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conveys that a struggle over meaning could be imagined and how such a

struggle might be fought out. The tentative conclusions of this naive

reading are confirmed by other evidence; as we shall see later, one can

find texts which depict a single historical solemnity but disagree over its

interpretation.

Ekkehard IV of St Gall's imaginative narrative may have been based

on actual fact. In an entry redacted between 912 and 918, the Annales

Alamannici report polemically an event, which other annalistic sources

also mention, but often more neutrally. Anno domini 916: `Erchanger,

Berthold and Liutfrid are killed by treachery' (Erchanger, Peratholt et

Liutfrid occiduntur dolose).

Two brothers, Counts Erchampert and

Berthold, in charge of the royal ®sc in Swabia, had come into con¯ict

with King Conrad I and his Chancellor Salomo III, Bishop of Constance

and Abbot of St Gall.

They were backed by their nephew Liutfrid. One

mid-eleventh-century Reichenau source develops the treachery so lacon-

ically mentioned in the Annales Alamannici.

Hoping to achieve a

reconciliation, the counts agreed to undergo a ritual of surrender

(deditio), but were beheaded at the king's orders.

For Gerd Althoff and Timothy Reuter, this story is an exception that

tellingly reveals the rigid `rules' of the ritual of surrender.

We owe to

Annales Alamanici ad an. 916, MGH, SS 1, p. 56, or ed. W. Lendi, Untersuchungen zur

fruÈhalemannischen Annalistik (Freiburg, 1971), p. 190 (see also ad. ann. 913±14, noting a

discordia between King Conrad and Erchanger, Salomo's capture by Erchanger, and the king's

capture of Erchanger who is then exiled). The Annales Alamannici were produced in or

around St Gall (see W. Wattenbach, R. Holtzmann and F.J.Schmale, Deutschlands

Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Die Zeit der Sachsen und Salier 1.1 (Darmstadt, 1967),

pp. 226±7, and Lendi, Untersuchungen, for the date of the scribal strata).

All the sources are gathered by U. Zeller, Bischof Salomo III von Konstanz, Abt von St. Gallen

(Leipzig, 1910), p. 93, n. 3 (whose speculations about the actual guilty party we don't need to

follow). To wit, Annales Alamannici ad an. 916 (as in the preceding note); Annals of Reichenau

ad an. 917, MGH, SS 1, p. 68, Erchanger et Perahtolt decollati sunt; Annals of St Gall ad an.

916, MGH, SS 1, p. 77, Erchanger et frater eius Perehtold et Liutfrid capti et occisi sunt. On this,

see T. Reuter, `Unruhestiftung, Fehde, Rebellion, Widerstand: Gewalt und Frieden in der

Politik der Salierzeit', in S. Weinfurter et al., Die Salier und das Reich, 3 vols. (Sigmaringen,

1991), III, pp. 297±325, at pp. 320±1.

The Annales Sangallenses maiores ad an. 925 (of one hand until 956), MGH, SS 1, p. 78, also

laconically attribute to dolus the death of Duke Burchard of Swabia in Italy: Burchardus dux

in Italia dolo occiditur. In Liudprand of Cremona's no doubt much romanced narrative, it

consisted as well in a manipulation of rituals, this time of friendship, and this by an

archbishop. See Antapodosis 3.14±15, ed. P. Chiesa, Liudprandi Cremonensis Opera Omnia,

CCCM 156 (Turnhout, 1998), p. 74, with Buc, `Writing Ottonian Hegemony', pp. 12±13.

Hermann Contractus (Reichenau, c. 1049±54) ad an. 917, MGH, SS 5 (Hanover, 1844), p. 110,

`Erchanger, qui ducatum Alamanniae invaserat, cum fratre Bertholdo regi Counrado

rebellantes, eique tandem ad deditionem spe pactionis venientes, ipso iubente apud villam

Aldingam decollantur 12 Kal. Febr' [21 Jan. 917].

See Reuter, `Unruhestiftung', p. 321 (an exception that highlights the rule), and G. Althoff,

Spielregeln [der Politik. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde] (Darmstadt, 1997), pp. 16±17

(a case representing practices that antedate the Ottonian rules for deditio).

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these two historians, and to Janet Nelson, Geoffrey Koziol, Hagen Keller

and Karl Leyser,

a wonderful mapping of rituals in early medieval

political culture, but their notion of Spielregeln is problematic. There are

just too many manipulated, failed, or broken rituals in the sources to

categorize them as revealing exceptions to a rule. Any rule has to

encompass, and account for, phenomena which were this frequent (and

therefore non-exceptional). If one is willing to employ medieval

narratives of rituals as trustworthy summaries of what actually

happened, as Althoff does, it is tempting to call on Bourdieu's `logic

of practice' or `praxeology' to explicate frequent deviations from (what

seem to be) norms, as Stephen D. White has in his analysis of the ordeal.

The `rules of the game' then can be understood as one among several

strategic resources that social agents call upon and manipulate to reach

their ends.

But this approach ultimately leads to another, very different

stumbling block. Simply put, one cannot apply a praxeological approach

to a medieval narrative. For Bourdieu, texts systematically obfuscate the

practices they claim to depict, as well as their micro-local context.

Praxeological analysis, while taking into account the social agents'

subjective renditions of reality as an integral component of `the logic of

practice' (and indeed as a practice itself ), necessitates direct ethnological

observation that can uncover the unspoken and often unconsciously

dissimulated reasons why they act as they do.

Yet let us accept, provisionally and for a heuristic purpose, the false

premise that an early medieval narrative is not too different from an

ethnographer's log. It will still lead to conclusions that complicate

Althoff's model. Even read as `what actually happened', the Casus Sancti

Galli version of the 916 events suggests that there was constant conten-

tion over the meaning of a given ritual, with two consequences. Firstly,

there must have been enormous tension when a ritual was performed,

and the constant fear that the opposing party would not play by `the

rules'. Secondly, contention over meaning expressed itself both when

acting out the ceremony and later on when recounting it. Althoff rightly

underlines that when some participants disagreed too much with the

See most recently Althoff, Spielregeln; T. Reuter, `Ottonian Ruler Representation in

Synchronic and Diachronic Comparison', in G. Althoff and E. Schubert (eds.),

HerrschaftsrepraÈsentation im ottonischen Sachsen, VortraÈge und Forschungen 46 (Sigmaringen,

1998), pp. 366±80; H. Keller, `Die Investitur'; G. Koziol, `England, France, and the Problem

of Sacrality in Twelfth-Century Ritual', in T.N. Bisson (ed.), Cultures of Power: Lordship,

Status and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 124±48; J.L. Nelson,

Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986); K.J. Leyser, `Ritual, Ceremony

and Gesture: Ottonian Germany', ed. and trans. T. Reuter in Leyser, Communications and

Power in Medieval Europe, 2 vols. (London, 1994), I, pp. 189±213.

S.D. White, `Proposing the Ordeal and Avoiding It: Strategy and Power in Western French

Litigation, 1050±1110', in T.N. Bisson (ed.), Cultures of Power (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 89±123.

See P. Bourdieu, Le sens pratique (Paris, 1980), pp. 34±5, 135±42 and 162±3.

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meaning that seemed to be imposing itself univocally in the performance

of a ritual, an obvious solution was either to withdraw or break the

ritual.

But the fact, that rituals could be reinterpreted also needs to

be taken into account: indeed, interpretation could alter the social effects

of a ritual. A ritual could be performed with an eye to potential

reinterpretation. The unwritten `rules of the game', then, must be con-

ceptualized in a way that takes into account the pressure to create

polysemy that such foresight entailed.

Ekkehard's Casus Sancti Galli is much more favourable to Salomo

than are the Annales Alamannici. The latter text actually hints that a few

other Swabian nobles of the greatest rank owed their death to Salomo's

politicking.

In Ekkehard's rendition of the events, however, the counts'

death constitutes the endpoint of a lengthy narrative segment. It

recounts long-standing con¯icts and rituals involving Salomo and the

three noble relatives. A ®rst brush had led King Arnulf to condemn the

two brothers for maiestas , but Salomo mercifully intervened in secret,

and convinced the monarch to reinstate them in their of®ces. Still, they

had to prostrate themselves in public at the bishop's feet ± an act that

left them humiliated. After this, the bishop invited the counts ad

convivia et munera, for banquets and gifts, a festive get-together that

turned bad. Somewhat later, Salomo duped them into taking their hats

off before unfree shepherds belonging to St Gall. Then the relatives

countered by capturing the abbot-bishop and forcing him to lick

swinesherds' feet. It is the second episode, the banquet and the attendent

gift-giving, that I want to focus on here. Salomo had intended a

reconciliation, so he honoured his guests Berthold and Erchempert with

costly foods served in the most wondrous of precious dishes. But then

the Abbot-Bishop got carried away and began to boast, ®rst that he had

in St Gall an oven large enough to bake in one go enough bread to feed

the two men for a year, and ®nally that he had shepherds so worthy that

the counts would take their hats off to them. Erchempert and Berthold

had borne patiently all of Salomo's boasts to this point, but now had to

protest themselves. It was time for them to leave. Salomo then brought

in and proferred the gifts ± two glass vases that the counts had greatly

admired during the banquet. Simultaneously, to demonstrate scorn for

their irritating host, the two men dropped the vases, which broke into

shards. Salomo chided them: `They were yours to do what you wanted',

Althoff, Spielregeln, pp. 291±2 and passim; as already noticed by A. Borst, Lebensformen im

Mittelalter (Frankfurt, 1973), p. 486: `Jeder meint was er tut [in rituals], und wer es nicht tun

will, bleibt fern'.

Under the year 911, they note that the comes et princeps Alamannorum Burchard was executed

iniusto iudicio, and that his brother Adalbert nutu episcopi Salomonis et quorundam aliorum

interemptus. They do not however attribute directly Erchempert's death to Salomo.

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he said, `but you should have sold them and given the product to the

poor for your soul's salvation'. Erchempert and Berthold retorted with a

proverb: `One gives gifts of glass to friends made of glass. Since we are

not men of glass, we could not accept them'.

What happened here? The Casus presents what we may want to call

an aggressive ritual, capped with a gift. The two counts sought to

demonstrate disagreement by breaking the offerings. Salomo then

changed the cultural register with a reference to the vertical, providential

axis of salvation, and tried to impose his interpretation of the ritual and

therefore win. The two counts countered with another change of register

and another interpretation.

The Casus Sancti Galli is not an ethnographer's log. The actual events

remain clouded in the distance separating Ekkehard's days, in the late

eleventh century, from the second decade of the tenth century, clouded

as well in the distance separating St Gall's understanding of its dif®cult,

but ultimately accepted, abbot, from the Annales Alamannici's negative

portrait of the same man. In fact, the incident's own meaning for

Ekkehard is to be sought by mapping the full episode. It pairs this

disrupted ritual with a good ritual, also a banquet, which projects an

image of harmony between the highest aristocrat ± the king ± and the

monastic community. Here as often the role of ritual in the economy of

the text is to dramatize (literally) bad and good relationships, placed in

the past but exemplary for the eleventh-century interaction between the

monastery of St Gall and its lay aristocratic neighbours.

Yet the narrower incident itself demonstrates the cultural possibility,

at least in the eleventh century when Ekkehard wrote, of a struggle over

a ritual's meaning. At the very least, Ekkehard imagines such a con¯ict

over interpretation. However, such struggles do not belong merely to

the realm of the imaginary, as a ninth-century case shows. Here, an

The rituals have their function, a narrative function, to underline the age-old bond between

the kings and the monastery and hallow the latter's property and judicial rights. Conrad visits

St Gall, is greeted with new laudes, con®rms the monastery's immunity, showers it with gifts,

acknowledges his ancestors' guilt (and those of eleventh-century Welfs) in persecuting

St Otmar, establishes a commemorative meal for himself, and obtains to be made frater

conscriptus (on which see K. Schmid, `Von den fratres conscripti in Ekkeharts St. Gallen

Klostergeschichte', FruÈhmittelalterliche Studien 25 [1991], pp. 109±22). The contrast between

the counts and the king revolves around contrasting banquets, the one just described marked

by competition, the king's marked by gentle joking and brotherhood. Cf. Casus c. 14, ed.

H.F. Haefele (Darmstadt, 1980), p. 42: Rediit igitur ad suos, Salomoni et omnibus nunquam se

laetius convivatum gloriatus, and c. 16, p. 44, where the joyful feast is characterized as `love ...

lawfully spurning [monastic] discipline'. The two stories are made to be contrasted: they

intertwine since Conrad meets the two counts, disgruntled at Salomo's latest joke, during his

visit, and since the king's gift to the monastery of ®scal goods heretofore under the counts'

management triggers a renewal of hostilities between them and Salomo. Cf. G. Althoff,

Verwandte, Freunde und Getreue (Darmstadt, 1990), p. 207.

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attempted humiliation of the saints, aiming at mustering public

opinion, was painted in dark colors by the opposite party. It is

documented in the Annals of Fulda's account of the struggles over the

imperial crown opened up by Charles the Bald's death:

Lambert son of Wido [margrave of Spoleto] and Adalbert son of

Boniface [margrave of Tuscany his brother-in-law] entered Rome

with a strong band of armed men. They put John, the Roman pontiff,

under guard, and forced the leaders of the Romans to swear an oath

of ®delity to Karlmann. Once they had left Rome, the pontiff entered

St Peter's church and transported all the treasures he found there to

the Lateran. He covered the altar of St Peter with a hair-shirt and

closed all this same church's doors. And no service pertaining to

God's cult was celebrated there for several days, and, dreadful to say,

entry was denied to all those who came from everywhere in order to

pray there. And everything was turned upside down there.

John's own letter-collection con®rms ± up to a point ± the Fulda

Annalist's report. Early in 878, he had written to `his beloved son count

Lambert' to announce that he would in no way receive in Rome his

`manifest enemy' Adalbert. In the same letter, the pope had warned

Lambert that he would gladly grant him an occursus (honori®ce recipere)

as long as the margrave did not come to Rome with the intention of

restoring the enemies of the pope (who were accused of in®delitas) to

their positions and possessions.

By Spring 878, several papal letters

indicate that the `beloved son' had con®rmed his spiritual father's worst

fears. John had received with suitable pomp (honori®ce) Lambert in

St Peter, but the margrave had treacherously seized the gates of Rome

and prevented the movement of food and people. He and the pope's

manifestus in omnibus inimicus Adalbert then `troubled and evilly

dispersed by beating them with sticks' monks and clergy who were going

to the basilica singing `hymns, spiritual canticles, and the holy litanies'.

These evil men would not let them sacri®ce to God in St Peter. The

pope's sole recourse was to demonstrate his grief and to weep, `for

during these days neither was there any cloth (vestis) covering St Peter's

altar nor was any day or night of®ce solemnly (ex more) celebrated there'.

This paragraph duplicates a segment in ch. 2 of my Dangers of Ritual, at nn. 91±5.

Annales Fuldenses ad an. 878, ed. F. Kurze, MGH, SRG 7 (Hanover, 1891), pp. 91±2,

translation mine ± see as well T. Reuter's, The Annals of Fulda (Manchester, 1992), p. 84.

Cf. the master narrative in E. DuÈmmler, Geschichte des OstfraÈnkischen Reiches, 3 vols. (Leipzig,

1887±8), III, pp. 72f.

Ep. 83, ed. E. Caspar in P. Kehr, MGH Epistolae Karolingici Aevi 5 (Berlin, 1928), p. 79,

ll. 2±4, 7±10 and 16±18.

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John leaves unclear whether the stripping of the altar and the cessation

of offices directly resulted from the marquesses' blockade or (as in the

Annals of Fulda ) were elements in a liturgical protest.

By May 878, he

may even have decided that it was better to claim that the cessation of

offices was owed to the evil marquesses' blockade rather than admit the

failure of his clamor: `(...) They did not fear to surround in arms (...)

blessed Peter's church (...) for thirty days, with the result that no one was

allowed to light any lamp or give praise to God'.

Note here the importance of written propaganda in the struggle

against Adalbert and Lambert. Litanies would reach God, Who would

react according to His hidden purposes. But given Rome's excentric

geographical position vis-aÁ-vis the human audience that mattered

(Carolingian princes situated North of the Alp) the pope could not rely

on the performance of liturgy alone to in¯uence key players on this

earth. Some of the letters John wrote to inform princes and prelates of

the marquesses' behaviour mention `another little work directed to the

attention of all Christians' that recounted in full the misdeeds.

Further, the pope informed the 878 Synod of Troyes that Lambert and

Adalbert's excommunication was written on the walls of St Peter `so that

those who come in and out may read it and grieve, and consider them

under sentence of anathema'. The text presumably detailed the

sanction's causes, including lack of respect for the litanies and the

liturgy of protest. Clearly, John hoped to inform visitors, gain their

backing, and pro®t from their spreading the news.

John's ritual, and the propaganda work that went along with it, may

have failed even in the West Frankish kingdom, where at the time the

Cf. Epp. 73±4, 87±8, 96 and 107, esp. Ep. 73, pp. 67±9, at p. 68: ll. 15±22: `... venerabiles item

episcopos, presbyteros atque diaconos et religiosos monachos cum ymnis et canticis

spiritalibus sacrisque letaniis ad ecclesiam principis apostolorum venientes, heu pro dolor!

more paganorum conturbaverunt et fustibus cedentes nequiter disperserunt, non sinentes illos

exire debitumque deo sacri®cium offerre'. Further, pp. 68: ll. 30±69: ll. 1: `... ut nequaquam

nobis aliud agere nisi ¯ere liceret; nam ipsis diebus nec vestis fuit super altare sancti Petri nec

aliquod ibi nocturnum vel diurnum of®cium ex more celebratum'. Ep. 74, p. 70: ll. 13±17

reports the same misdeeds and complains that Lambert's blockade resulted in the pope's loss

of urbis Romae potestatem. Like the Annales Fuldenses, John's Ep. 87, pp. 82:39±83:1, to Louis

the Stammerer, mentions forced oaths.

Ep. 107, p. 99: ll. 30±3: `... beati Petri... ecclesiam ... armis triginta diebus circumdatam tenere

non formidaverint, ita ut nec ibi aliquam alicui lucernam illuminare nec laudes deo conferre

liceret...'

Ep. 87 (to Louis the Stammerer), ed. Caspar, p. 83: ll. 4±7; cf. Ep. 89, p. 85: ll. 23±9.

Mansi, vol. 17, col. 348ab: `Quodque decretum in praedicta beati Petri ecclesia scriptum, ut

ingredientes et exeuntes legant et doleant, eosque [Lambert, Adalbert, and their followers]

anathematizatos teneant, posuimus.' On this practice, see, e.g., A. Grabar, L'iconoclasme

byzantin (Paris, 1957), pp. 55±8. For pilgrims as agents in the publicization of a clamor, see

P.J. Geary, `Humiliation of Saints' (1983), repr. in his Living with the Dead in Medieval Europe

(Ithaca, NY, 1994), p. 106.

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pope had his friendliest contacts. None of the West Frankish sources

mention this clamor.

It certainly failed in the East, where Lambert's

allies were. The Annals of Fulda interpreted the pope's stripping of

St Peter's altars as a bad, manipulative ritual. Under a closer reading, the

functionalist model of ritual clamores or humiliations dissolves to reveal

a plurality of strategic moves and re-interpretations.

Contemporaries

did not deceive themselves. It was understood that liturgical clamores

and humiliations could be instrumentalized for nakedly competitive

urges ± as the Visigothic episcopate already knew when it attempted to

legislate and monopolize them.

Interpretation was critical for any ritual. It would remain so beyond

the period under study here. In the early modern era, concerns that a

ceremony would be misinterpreted could be voiced, and measures one

hoped to be appropriate, taken.

Indeed, faster diffusion of writing

owing both to the newer medium of the printing press, and to dense

Annals of St Vaast ad an. 878, ed. B. de Simson, Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, MGH,

SRG 12 (Hanover, 1909), p. 43: ll. 1±3: Iohannes papa ab Lamberto duce Spolitanorum iniuriatus

Franciam venit; Hincmar, Annals of St Bertin ad an 878, ed. F. Grat et al. (Paris, 1967),

pp. 222±7, gives in detail the proceedings of the Synod of Troyes which, led by the pope,

con®rmed his excommunication of Lambert and Adalbert (pp. 223±4), but neither his

narrative nor the acts mention the liturgical clamor.

I am of course thinking of Patrick Geary's early articles, now re-edited in his Living with

the Dead, a scholar to whom my generation of historians should be grateful for having

brought such phenomena to light, and proposed a model with which later scholars could

build or debate, in the wake of Heinrich Fichtenau's pioneering `Zum Reliquienwesen im

fruÈheren Mittelalter', Mitteilungen des Instituts fuÈr OÈsterreichische Geschichtsforschung 60 (1952),

pp. 60±89.

Toledo XIII (683), c. 7, ed. J. Vives, Concilios visigoÂticos e hispano-romanos (Barcelona, 1963),

pp. 423±4, condemning to deposition and enslavement `those men who, troubled by their

obstinate mind's deceitfulness, when they feel damaged by some quarrel with their brethrens,

are immediatly seized by an insane temerity, strip the altars, take off the sacred vestments, take

away the luminaries, and impelled by their evil-mindedness withdraw the cult of divine

sacri®ces. Thus, unable to avenge themselves on human beings, they [instead] impinge against

God's rights, which is worse (...)'. The council also condemns those clerics who would `cover

the sacred altar with any other vestment of lugubrious nature'. Compare Carolingian

legislation trying to forbid a strategic, extra-judicial usage of the ordeal, as noticed by

H. Nottarp, Gottesurteilstudien, Bamberger Abhandlungen und Forschungen (Munich, 1956),

p. 110. Charlemagne in a capitulare missorum of 803, c. 11, forbade ut nullus praesumat

hominem in iuditio mittere nisi iudicatum ®at (MGH Capitularia Regum Francorium, eds.

A. Boretius and V. Krause I, p. 115); cf. already the Novella legis Salica 2, c. 4: `Si quis alterum

ad calidam provocaverit preter evisionem dominicam, 600 dinarios qui faciunt solidos 15

culpabilis iudicetur'.

See the Recebiemento que la Imperial ciudad de Toledo hizo a ... dona Ysabel .... (Toledo, 1561),

f. 3. The author of this libretto recounting Isabelle of Valois' entry into Toledo (1560) explains

that he writes it to correct the false interpretations that have already been published about

them. Cited by C.A. Mardsen, `EntreÂes et feÃtes espagnoles au XVIe sieÁcle', in J. Jacquot (ed.),

Les feÃtes de la Renaissance, vol. 2: FeÃtes et ceÂreÂmonies au temps de Charles Quint (Paris, 1960),

pp. 389±411, at p. 400. See as well Le double et copie d'unes lettres envoyees d'Orleans a ung abbeÂ

de Picardie contenant ... le triomphe faict audit lieu d'Orleans a l'entree et reception de L'empereur

(Paris, 21/01/1539 [modern 1540]), p. Aiiii (preserved in Paris, BibliotheÁque Nationale, ReÂserve

Lb30 83), cited by J. Jacquot, `Panorama des feÃtes et des ceÂreÂmonies du reÁgne. Evolution des

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interpersonal networks still beholden to ink-and-quill, ensured that the

competition between versions of a single event, some libellous, some

official, was acute.

But already in the early middle ages, the key

importance of interpretation meant that interested parties sought to

impose their reading on any ceremony, and present this reading as

uncontested ± especially by participants in the ritual, since the Spirit's

presence attested itself through unanimity, unity of spirit. And

contention existed. We find hostile renderings of rituals and their

implicit or explicit message in texts, as in the Annals of Fulda. We also

have texts that hint that disruptions of rituals could happen (as in the

Casus Sancti Galli ). Other sources suggest that the impresarios of rituals

sought to avoid either such disruptions or hostile interpretations that

contended that such disruptions had occurred. One last text allows

examination of this fourth and last strategy.

The memorandum drawn up in Reims for Philip I's 1059 anointing

and coronation is famous for being a rare intermediary form between a

liturgical coronation order and a narrative.

It follows in broad outline

the prescriptions of an Ordo, but reports which bishops, abbots, and lay

aristocrats were present. It even purports to give a rendering of speeches

± the young king's oaths and Gervase of Reims' exhortations. The

memorandum's form is explained by its purpose. It was meant to

enshrine the archbishop of Reims' prerogative to direct the coronation

ceremony and crown the king, as well as the archiepiscopal see's terri-

torial and jurisdictional rights. It ends by noting that the event took

place without any disturbance or challenge (facta sunt hec omnia cum

omni devotione et alacritate quam maxima, sine omni disturbatione et

nullatenus alicuius contradictione vel aliquo rei publice dampno) ± without

any challenge to the king-making, which would have constituted eo ipso

a challenge to the archiepiscopal privileges which Gervase sought to

theÁmes et des styles', in ibid., pp. 413±91, at p. 435. The author explains why there were no

inscriptions on the triumphal arches and portals erected for Charles V's entry into OrleÂans:

`Et est a noter qu'il n'y avoit aulcunes devises, seulement y avoit Antiquailles. Car lesdictz

habitans qui toujours de sont conduitz par prudence, et bonne pollice, ne voulurent y mectre

alcunz escriptz, ne devises, pource que lung ou laultre des Princes, ou de leurs subiectz eussent

peu sur icelles gloser, ou deviner choses, ou lung, ou laultre des Princes neust prins plaisir.

Dont ilz misrent seulement Armoyries de lung, et de laultre desdictz Princes en unions. Qui

signifioit leur amitie simplement, dont ils scavoient sagement user et sans que leurs subiectz en

entrassent en disputes'.

See A. Bellany, `Libels in Action: Ritual, Subversion and the English Literary Underground,

1603±1642', in T. Harris (ed.) Politics of the Excluded (New York, forthcoming), as well as

B.S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge,

MA., 1999).

Ed. R.A. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae I: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of

Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 217±32.

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enshrine in the 1059 ceremony.

Not only did Gervase and his suffragans

want to make the ritual the medium of a very specific message, they also

wanted to impose the idea that this interpretation had been uncontested

during the ritual performance itself.

Some historians have underlined the iconicity of kingship. By this

they mean that a royal ritual made present an eternal order that in turn

legitimized the this-wordly order.

This is indeed what rituals (and/or

authors describing them) could seek to attain. But Gervaise of Reims'

memorandum points to the fundamentally contentious nature of this

desire. When we ®nd, then, a text seamlessly structured by the

exemplary mirroring of the heavenly order by the this-worldly order

(which has been called an Urbild-Abbild dialectic),

we are free to

suspect that it masks a struggle for authority. Conversely, narratives

depicting a disrupted ritual do not necessarily point to a dysfunctional

society. They are ®rst and foremost the product of an author's desire to

attack a precise facet of power arrangements. In other words, because of

the widespread medieval awareness that ritual found its ef®cacy in

interpretation, the medievalist should avoid positing too simple a

relationship between descriptions of ritual and the political order.*

Department of History, Stanford University

Appendix

Appendix: diplomatic transcription of Paris, BNF, Latin 4886, 52v±54v,

the so-called Chronicle of Moissac for the years AD 913±918.

For an authoritative discussion, see W. Levison and H. LoÈwe,

Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Vorzeit und Karolinger 2

(Weimar, 1953), pp. 265±6. G. H. Pertz edited the so-called Chronicle of

SteÂphane Lebecq reminds me that contradictio could mean a `legal challenge'. The af®nity

between ritual challenges and legal challenges is the obverse of that observed between

liturgical and legal sanctions, and a general consequence of the coinherence of religion and

law in the societies that emerged from the matrix of Roman culture; cf. J. Bowman, `Do Neo-

Romans Curse?', Viator 28 (1997), pp. 1±32, at pp. 6±7 and passim.

Keller, `Die Investitur'; Koziol, Begging. The notion of `iconicity' derives from C. Geertz,

Negara. The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. (Princeton, NJ, 1980), pp. 130, 131 and

136.

Cf. H. Hofmann, RepraÈsentation. Studien zur Wort- und Begriffsgeschichte von der Antike bis in

19. Jahrhundert, Schriften zur Verfassungsgeschichte 22 (Berlin, 1974).

* I presented versions of this text to audiences in MuÈnster, Wassenaar and Nice during 1997±8. My

thanks to them for suggestions and comments, and especially to Gerd Althoff, Arnold Angenendt, Rosa

Maria DessõÁ, Luc Ferrier, Igor Gorevich, Mayke de Jong, Hagen Keller, Michel Lauwers, Stephane

Lebecq, ReÂgine Le Jan, Kathryn A. Miller, Janet Nelson, Danuta Shanzer and Patricia, most of whom

disagree with me on this or that theory or textual interpretation. I thank as well the Netherlands Institute

for Advanced Studies, under whose generous auspices this article was conceived and written.

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Moissac mixed with a closely related text, the twelfth-century Chronicle of

Aniane (Paris, BNF, Latin 5941, ffos. 2r±37r) in MGH, SS 1 (Hanover,

1826), pp. 280±313. He then retranscribed and corrected it for the years

AD 804±13 in MGH, SS 2, pp. 257±9. Patrick Geary edited in 1978 a

short fragment from yet a third related Parisian manuscript, and more

than a century ago LeÂopold Delisle underlined the genre to which this

text belongs ± continuations of Bede's Chronica.

The Chronicle of Aniane was composed to serve the property and

libertas claims of the southern French monastery of Aniane. It did not shy

from interpolating into its Urtext diplomata in favour of the institution,

and insert a whole chunk of Einhard's Vita Karoli for the purpose of

claiming the emperor as a founder ± and making Aniane a key bene®ciary

of Charles' Testament. Most of BNF, Latin 5941's signi®cant variations

from BNF, Latin 4886 are dictated by a desire either to amplify the text or

(more often) to exalt Aniane and its other founders, the saintly Witiza-

Benedict and William of Orange.

The Chronicle should be called,

according to its incipit, `Genealogia ortus sive Vita Karoli gloriosi atque

piissimi imperatoris.' Given the focus of my article, and the fear of

adducing evidence tainted by Aniane's twelfth-century agenda, I have

chosen maximum prudence. I resort to Paris, BNF, Latin 5941 only to

clarify, in the footnotes, Paris, BNF, 4886's Latin. Paris, BNF, 4886

seems closer to the (now lost) Carolingian original on many of grounds,

including its archaisms and its identity as a self-conscious continuation of

Bede's Chronica.

The so-called Chronicle of Moissac is preserved in only one manuscript,

from the eleventh century, Paris, BNF, Latin 4886. On its ®rst folio, a

®fteenth-century note indicates that the codex belonged to a monk of

Moissac, the prior of Rabastens (an institution not attested to before the

thirteenth century). This is not (as Geary and others have pointed out) a

ground to place the manuscript in Moissac before the 1400s or Rabastens

before the mid-thirteenth. Luc Ferrier kindly informs me that Americ

de Peyrat, abbot of Moissac (1377±1406), did not use this or any closely

related text for his Chronicle (Paris, BNF, Latin 4991A), but drew (along

with many other sources) on the Annales regni Francorum and Einhard.

Still, we shall keep the name `Chronicle of Moissac' for convenience's

sake. The dating of the manuscript to the eleventh century is generally

accepted on the basis of the list of popes on fo. 67v, that ends with

Alexander II (d. 1073).

The computational considerations framing the

See as well P.J. Geary, `Un fragment recemment deÂcouvert du Chronicon Moissiacense',

BibliotheÁque de l'Ecole des chartes 136 (1978), pp. 69±73, who called for a critical edition of the

Moissac Chronicle.

See A.G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past. Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval

Southern France (Ithaca, NY, 1995), pp. 74±5, 276ff. and 310.

As pointed out by J. Dufour, La bibliotheÁque et le scriptorium de Moissac (Geneva, 1972), p. 139.

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whole chronicle (it continues Bede seemlessly and ends by returning to

Bede's discussion of the novissima) show that it cannot be a truncated

text, and that the ninth-century original was therefore redacted very

soon after 818, the last year whose events the text recounts.

Paris, BNF, Latin 4886 begins with Bede's Chronica, speci®cally with

the end of the preface (since the ®rst folio is missing), ed. PL 90, col. 296a,

or ed. T. Mommsen, MGH, AA 13 (Berlin, 1898), p. 247 (...insinues.

At ubi ordinate ac rationabiliter ... iura custodit), followed immediately

by `De sex huius seculi etatibus Bede Presbyter' (PL 90, col. 520c;

Mommsen, p. 247). The author or authors wove into Bede's text Frankish

informations, borrowed especially from the Liber historiae Francorum

(ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM 2, Hanover, 1888). One shall compare, e.g.,

BNF, Latin 4886, fos. 44v±45v with Bede (PL 90, cols. 569c±71b; or

Mommsen, pp. 317±20) and LHF 49±52 (Krusch, pp. 323±6). After Bede,

it followed other sources, repertoried in MGH, SS 1, p. 281. The events

the Moissac Chronicle recounts end in 918, at which point Bede's text

picks up again.

The manuscript lost folios here and there: the ®rst

(which one should number 0 since the ®rst surviving folio is numbered 1),

then folios between 45v and 46r, then between 55v and 56r.

One will note on the last folio, 71v, the copy of consiliar decisions

against the Jews and lapsed converts from Judaism, which a modern

hand later identi®ed as Visigothic in origin. Luc Ferrier, who kindly

checked my transcription, generously brought to my attention that

many of the idiosyncrasies of the Moissac manuscript could be due to a

now lost original abbreviated in the Visigothic manner that the evidently

not highly literate Moissac scribe failed to understand when he re-

expanded them. The heavy reliance in Visigothic writing on consonants

explains the scribe's errors in vowels; radical Visigothic abbreviations

of endings (with tildes and bars above the letters) explain mistakes in

endings. This dovetails with Geary's belief in a Septimanian origin of

the archetype. The many archaic features of the Moissac manuscript

suggest great proximity to this original ± even if its abreviations seem to

have been misunderstood by the eleventh-century scribe.

It is dif®cult to determine the precise relationship of two witnesses,

particularly when the sample of variants available is limited. But the

following observations can be made about Moissac (M) and Aniane

(An). Ferrier noticed their almost identical punctuation: in the text

covering the years 813±18, An has all of M's signs but four. This might

For these citations from Bede, Dufour refers to A.-D. von den Brincken, Studien zur

lateinischen Weltchronistik bis in das Zeitalter Ottos von Freising (DuÈsseldorf, 1957), pp. 115±16.

Continuations of Bede in such a format are not rare; see L. Delisle, `Note sur un manuscrit

interpoleÂ de la Chronique de BeÁde conserveÂ aÁ BesancËon', BibliotheÁque de l'Ecole des chartes 56

(1895), pp. 528±36, and the manuscript as described in the Catalogue geÂneÂral des bibliotheÁques

publiques de France, DeÂpartements 32 (Paris, 1897), p. 128.

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indicate that the two texts were copied from the same exemplar or that

one is derived from the other. An, however, does not seem to be simply

a corrected copy of M, even though An often has grammatically correct

readings against evident errors in M. There is an omission in M, sub

A.D. 815, starting at Clotarium: M has et constituit duos ®lios suos reges

Pipinum et Clotarium super Bagoaria against An's more complete et

constituit duos ®lios suos reges . Pipinum . et Clotarium . Pipinum super

Aquitaniam et Uuasconiam . Clotarium super Baioariam. This informa-

tion, missing in M but present in An, shows that An is not a pure apo-

graph. Although the interpolation is in conformity with the substance of

the Annales Regni Francorum ad an. 814, it is not identical to it (the

Annales Regni Francorum does not mention Gascony); hence An cannot

have simply borrowed from the Annales in a hypothetical rewriting of

M. Finally, it is unlikely that M copied An or An's exemplar. First, M's

format as a continuation of Bede's Chronica, is more archaic than An's.

It is unlikely that M recast An's information into this characteristically

late Merovingian and Carolingian genre. Second, M's chronology is

more in conformity to what one can reconstruct of the 810s than An's.

An's dates are off by a few years. The author possibly wanted to ®t into

the historical materials available to him, which ended in 818, data on

Benedict of Aniane from the year 821, the attested year of Benedict's

death (see historical note l).

This is merely a diplomatic transcription of years 813±18 in the

Moissac manuscript. A full analysis of the relationship between Paris,

BNF, Latin 4886 (`Moissac') and 5941 (Aniane) remains to be done;

it may lead to the reconstruction of their common archetype. Yet I

indicate in the footnotes the apparently correct reading when the

Chronicle of Aniane gives it. This is meant only as an admittedly

imperfect help to the modern reader. Furthermore, I have avoided

giving a historical apparatus, which can easily be drawn from

J.F. BoÈhmer and E. MuÈhlbacher, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs ... 751±918,

2nd edn (Innsbruck, 1899). Finally, I have capitalized proper names,

Deus, Dominus, as well as place-names, and letters highlighted in red in

the manuscript (they usually come after a punctuation mark).

Chronique de Moissac (M), Paris, BNF, Latin 4886, ff. 52v±54v:

52v: (...) Anno dcccxiii . Hoc anno sedit piissimus Karolus imperator

apud Aquis palatium et habuit ibi consilium magnum cum Francis . et

decrevit quatuor synodos ®eri ; id est ad Magoncia civitateË

unum .

alterum in Remis . Tercium Turonis . Quartum Arelato civitate .

mandavitque ut quidquid in unum quemquem synodum de®nissent ad

An: Magonciam civitatem.

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placitum constituti

imperatori renunciassent .

quod ita factum est .

Et in ipso anno mense septimbrio

iamdictus imperator Karolus fecit

conventum magnum populi apud Aquis palatium de omni regno vel

imperio suo .

* Et convenerunt ad eum episcopi abbates comites et

senatus Francorum ad imperatorem in Aquis . et ibidem constituerunt

capitula numero

xlvi . de causis queË in <53r> necessarieË

eËcclesieË Dei

et christiano populo .

Post heËc consilium cum praefatis episcopis

et abbatibus et comitibus et maiores natu Francorum . ut constitueret

®lium suum Lodovicum regem . ymperatorem . Qui omnes pariter

consenserunt dicentes hoc dignum esse . omnique populo placuit . Et

cum consensu et adclamatione omnium populorum . Lodovicum ®lium

suum constituit imperatorem secum . ac per coronam auream tradidit

illi imperium . populis aclamantibus et dicentibus . vivat imperator

Lodovicus .

et facta est leËticia magna in populo

in illa die. Nam et

ipse imperator Karolus benedixit Dominum dicens . Benedictus es

Domine Deus qui dedisti hodieË sedentem in solio meo videntibus occulis

meis .

Docuit autem eum pater ut in omnibus preceptum Domini

custodiret .

72,c

Tradiditque ei ius regni .

commendavitque ei ®lios suos

. Drocone . Theuderico . et Hugone .

Et cum omnia perfecisset .

dimisit unumque ut haberet

in locum suum . Ipse autem resedit in

Aquis palatium . Exierunt autem Nortmani ipso anno cum navibus in

Frisia et fecerunt ibi grande malum . capuerunt

viros et mulieres et

preda magna .

77,d

Postea venerunt ®lii Gotafredi cum exercito

expuleruntque Beraldum et Reganfredum atque Amingum de regno

ipsorum . et illi fugierunt usque ad Abdriti .

inde per milicia

domni

imperatoris Karoli . accepit ab eo dona multa et remisit eum cum

* Alphabetical footnotes on page 210.

An: constitutum.

An: nunciassent.

An: februario.

nomero M ante correctionem numeru M post correctionem [Mpc].

An: que necessaria erant.

Cf. I Reg. X.24: et clamavit cunctus populus et ait vivat rex; III Reg. I.39: et dixit omnis populus

vivat rex Salomon; IV Reg. XI.12: et plaudentes manu dixerunt vivat rex; II Par. XXIII.11.

Cf. III Reg. I.40: et populus canentium tibiis et laetantium gaudio magno.

3 Reg. I.48.

Cf. III Reg. II.1±3: praecepitque Salomoni ®lio suos dicens ... et observas custodias Domini Dei tui

... et custodia caerimonias eius et precepta eius ...

An: tradiditque ei regnum. Cf. I Reg. VIII.10: hoc erit ius regis qui imperaturus est vobis; 1 Reg.

X.25: locutus est autem Samuhel ad populum legem regni; II Par. XXIII.11: dederuntque in manu

eius tenendam legem.

An: Drogonem . Theodericum . et HugoneË.

An: unumquemque ut habiret. Lege: abiret.

An: capierunt. Lege: ceperunt.

Lege: predam magnam.

Lege: Abodritos.

Lege: pro milicia? See the historical note.

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honore adiutorio ad fratrem suum ut iterum adquirerent regnum

ipsorum .

In illo anno obiit beateË memorieË Karolus imperator magnus

et paci®cus xv Kal. Feb. . et sepelierunt eum in Aquis grandi

palatio

seniore in eËcclesia quam ipse fabricare iusserat .

Regnavitque annis xlvii

. Lodovicus autem ®lius eius . sedit super tronum patris sui Karoli .

acceptis thesauris illius fecit elemosinam magnam pro patreË ;

divisitque

inter eËcclesias monasteria et pauperes. Secundum Hebreos anni . iiii.dcccx

. Secundum lxx ; vi . xii . anni. Lodovicus imperator regnavit .

Anno dcccxiiii . Lodovicus imperator resedit apud Aquis palacium et

ibi celebravit pascha . Et in ipso anno venerunt ad eum episcopi abbates

et comites et duces .

et locutus est cum eis de causis necessariis et

utilitatem

sancteË eËcclesieË .

et venit ad eum Barnardus ®lius Pipini rex

Langobardorum . suscepitque eum benigniter domnus imperator

Lodovicus hac

remunerato remisit ad propria . Disposuit autem et

marchas suas undique . nam et presidia posuit in litore maris ubi necesse

fuit . Et ipso anno apud Aquis hiemavit .

Anno dcccxv . Ludovicus imperator apud Aquis palatium celebravit

pascha . Et in ipso eËstateË

collecto magno exercito

Francorum . et

Burgundionum . Alamannorum . et Bagoariorum <53v> et introitur

Saxonia

et venit ad partes Bruna .

Et ibi venit ad eum Barnardus rex

Langobardorum cum exercito .

et habuit ibi imperator placitum

magnum . et misit sacras

suas ubi necesse fuit per marcas . et presidia

per litora maris et post heËc reversus est in Francia ad Aquis palacium . Et

iii Kal. Aug. habuit consilium magnum in Aquis . et constituit duos

®lios suos reges Pipinum et Clotarium super Bagoaria .

et decrevit in

ipso synodo domnus imperator Ludovicus ut in universo regno suo

monachi regulariter viverent secundum regulam . et canonici secundum

canonum auctoritateË .

Mandavit etiam

missis et comitibus suis ut

iusticias facerent in regno ipsius . Et si aliqui homines iniusteË

privati

fuissent de hereditate parentum per cupiditatum

comitum aut divitum

Lege: Aquisgrani.

Cf. III Reg. II.12: Salomon autem sedit super thronum David patris sui.

An: patre.

An: de utilitate.

An: ac.

An: ipsa eËstate.

An: exercitu.

An: Baioariorum . introvit in Saxoniam.

An: Brunna [for Paderborn; an accusative is in order here].

An: exercitu.

An: scarras (German: Scharen).

An: Clotarium . Pipinum super Aquitaniam et Vuasconiam . Clotarium super Baioariam.

An: auctoritatem.

Add. interl. An: m. etiam.

An: iniuste.

An: cupiditate. Lege: cupiditatem.

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ut reddere facerent . Nec non et si aliqui homines iniusteË in servituteË

redacti erant . ut iterum acciperent libertatem . Eodem anno Vuascones

revellant contra imperatore .

Anno dcccxvi. Piissimus imperator Ludovicus apud Aquis palatio

celebravit pascha . Et estatis tempore venit ad eum Barnardus rex

Langobardorum . His diebus domnus apostolicus Leo papa urbis RomeË

migravit a seculo . Successitque illi

in sacerdocium domnus Stephanus

. et

in ipso anno ipse

100

apostolicus Stephanus

101

venit ad domnum

102

imperatorem Ludovicum in Francia . Invenitque eum apud Remis

civitatem et

103

adtulit illi coronam auream . suscepitque eum imperator

cum magno honore . Benedixitque ipsum imperatorem . et inposuit

illi

104

coronam auream quam adtulerat

105

in capite .

106

remuneravitque

eum domnus imperator muneribus multis . et sic rediit Romam

107

sedem suam . Imperator vero piissimus Ludovicus de Remis habiit

108

Conpendio palatio et ibi habuit consilium cum episcopis abbatibus et

comitibus suis . deinde reversus est ad Aquis palatium sedem regiam .

ibique hiemavit . Prefatus autem Stephanus papa . cum redisset Romam

. in ipso anno migravit a seculo . Successitque illi Paschalis in sacerdocio

. Vuascones autem rebelles Garsiamuci .

109,j

super se in principem

eËlegunt ;

110

sed in secundo anno vitam cum principato

111

amisit . quo

112

fraude usurpatum tenebat .

Anno dcccxvii .

Ludovicus imperator apud Aquis palatium celebravit

pascha . Et in

ipso eËstateË

113

iussit esse ibi conventum populi de omne

regno vel imperio suo apud Aquis sedem regiam . id est episcopos abbates

sive comites et maiores natum

114

<54r> Francorum et manifestavit eis

misterium consilii sui quod cogitaverat . ut constitueret unum de ®liis

suis imperatorem . Habebat enim tres ®lios ex uxore Ermengarda

regina . nomen uni

115

Clotarius . nomen secundi . Pipinus . nomen tercii

An: iniuste in servitute.

An: rebellaverunt contra imperatorem.

An: deest.

100

An: deest.

101

An: anno papa Stephanus.

102

An: deest.

103

An: deest.

104

An: deest.

105

An: quam adtulerat deest.

106

An: super caput eius.

107

An: Rome.

108

An: sic. Lege: abiit.

109

An: Garciammuci.

110

An: eligunt.

111

An: principatu.

112

Lege: quem.

113

An: ipsa eËstate.

114

An: natu.

115

Lege: unius.

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Lodovicus . Tunc omni populo placuit ut ipso se viventem

116

constitueret unum ex ®liis suis imperare

117

sicut Karolus pater eius

fecerat ipsum . Tunc tribus diebus ieiunatum est ab omni populo .

Hac

118

leËtanieË facteË .

119

post heËc iam dictus imperator Clotarium qui erat

maior natum .

120

ymperatorem elegit . Hac per coronam auream tradidit

illi imperium . populis

121

acclamantibus et dicentibus vivat imperator

Clotarius . Facta est autem leticia magna in populo in die illo . et ipse

imperator benedixit Deum dicens . Benedictus es Domine Deus meus

qui dedisti hodie ex semine meo consedentem in solio meo videntibus

occulis meis .

122

Quartum vero ®lium habuit ex concubina . nomine

Arnulfum . Cui pater Senonas civitatem in comitatum dedit . Audiens

autem Barnardus ®lius Pipini regis rex ItalieË quod factum erat ; cogitavit

consilium pessimum . voluitque in imperatorem et in ®lios eius insurgere .

et per tyrannidem ymperium usurpare . Quo conperto . imperator misit

confestim nuncios per universum regnum et imperium suum . ut pariter

conglobati occuparent omnes additos ItalieË . quod ita factum est .

Barnardus autem cum heËc audisset . terruit eum Dominus . ipsum et

omnes qui ei consenserant . Et conprehensi sunt ab exercitu quod

imperator miserat ante faciem suam . et conprehensos cum ipso rege

adduxerunt ad imperatorem qui erat tunc apud Cavalonno

123

qui

124

est

super Sagonna ¯umen . Tunc sub custodiam

125

missus est praefatus rex

cum Achiteo comite qui auctor consilii maligni fuerat . et aliis qui

illis consenserant . et ducti sunt Aquis . Post heËc ipse imperator fecit

conventum Francorum . et retulit eis hanc causam ut videret quid

iudicarent Franci vel

126

®deles eo

127

vel de his qui consenserant ut

insurgerent contra imperatorem . Tunc pariter iudicaverunt eos omnes

dignos ad mortem . Sed piissimus imperator pepercit viteË illorum .

iussitque ipsi regi Barnardo occulos erui . Sed cum factum fuisset die

tercio mortuus est . Achiteo vero similiter occulos erui et ceteris sociis

128

eius . Teudulfum vero episcopum Auriliense

129

qui et ipse aucto

130

predicti maligni consilii fuit . synodo facto episcoporum vel abbatum nec

116

An: ipse se vivente.

117

An: imperatorem.

118

An: ac.

119

An: letania facta.

120

An: natu.

121

An: ac coronam auream t. illi populis.

122

An: b. Dominum [sic] d. B. D. D. m. q. dedit h. in solio meo sedentem v. o. m.

123

An: Cavalonem.

124

An: que.

125

An: custodia.

126

An: Franci vel deest An.

127

An: fideles sui de eo.

128

sociis Mpc.

129

An: Teulfum vero episcopum Aurelianensem.

130

An: auctor.

208

Philippe Buc

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

non et aliorum sacerdotum iudicaverunt tam ipsum quam omnes de

ordine <54v> eËcclesiastico episcopos abbates vel ceterum clerum qui de

hoc maligno consilio conscii venerant

131

a proprio deciderent gradu .

quod ita factum est . Nonnulli etiam in exilio missi sunt . Fratres vero

suos ex concubinis natos . id est Drogone Theuderico et Ugone

132

quos ei

pater commendaverat clericos ®eri iussit . et per singulos misit

monasterios .

133

et regnum quievit imperator

134

ab ira .

Anno dcccxviii . Lodovicus imperator apud Aquis celebravit pascha .

Et eËstivo

135

tempore introiit cum exercitum

136

magno in Britania . et

occiso regem

137

terreË illius venerunt maiores natu Britanorum

138

tradiderunt se illi . et acceptos obsides . reversus est prospere . cum

triumpho victorieË ad propria . In ipso iter Ermengarda regina obiit .

139

Nam et exercitus eius quem miserat partibus orientis . cum triumpho

reversus est et ipse ad imperatore .

140

Similiter et tercius exercius

exercicus

141

quem miserat super Vuascones revelles cum triumpho

victorieË reversi sunt ad imperatore . occisos tyrannos et terra quievit.

142

DE RELIQUIS SEXTEË ETATIS

143

Haec de cursu praeteriti saeculi ex Ebraica veritateË prout potuimus

elucubrareË curavimus . Aequum rati ut sicut Greci . lxx translatorum

eËdicione utentes de ea sibi suisque . temporum libros condidere . Ita et

nos qui per beati interpretis Hieronimi industriam puro EËbraice veritatis

fonte potamur . Temporum

144

quoque rationem iuxta hanc scire

queamus . quod si qui laborem hunc nomen culpaverint esse super¯uum

. Accipient hii quicumque sunt iustum salva karitateË responsum (...)

131

An: consilii socii fuerant.

132

An: Drogonem Theodericum et Ugonem. Mpc: HugoneË.

133

An: singulos monasterios corr. singula m. monasteria.

134

An: imperatoris.

135

An: estivo.

136

An: introivit cum exercitu.

137

An: rege.

138

An: Britaniorum.

139

This sentence is missing from An. Lege: itinere pro iter.

140

An: imperatorem.

141

Word struck out ± the wrong one. Lege: exercitus.

142

This sentence is missing in An, 37r, which closes by jumping to Louis' death: `Anno dccc

Imperii vero prephati imperatoris anno xx

vii

obiit Ludovicus piissimus imperator . xii

Kalendis Iulii . indictione tercia . Regnaveruntque filii sui post eum cum magna gloria . Amen.'

143

The Moissac manuscript returns to the text of Bede's Chronica, PL 90, cols. 571d±3d, or ed.

Mommsen, pp. 321±3. Bede's last sections were not copied, i.e., 69±71, `De temporibus

Antichristi, De die Iudicii, De septima et octava aetate saeculi futuri.' The text is glossed

between the lines with simple word explanations (not reproduced here).

144

Moissac: Tempor corrected into temporeË with addition of final eË.

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Remarks on major variants and cursory historical notes

September is the right month according to Bohmer±MuÈhlbacher, Regesten, pp. 216±17, and

B. [de] Simson, JahrbuÈcher des fraÈnkischen Reichs unter Ludwig dem Frommen, vol. 1 (Leipzig,

1874), p. 4, n. 2.

Here An diverges in a major way, as Pertz, p. 310:20±56, noticed.

For a near contemporary understanding of Old Testament accessions, see Wigbod, Paris,

BNF, Latin NAL 762, fo. 124r, on IV Reg. XI.12: `Posuit super caput eius diadema et

testimonium. id est legem . vel laminam sanctam ubi quatuor littere erant sculpte (...) Pepigit

fedus . id est . constituit legem inter Deum et homines'. The same on I Reg. XI.15, fos. 110v±111r:

`Et fecerunt ibi regem Saul, id est paraverunt sibi optimam <111> sedem . et vestierunt Saul

regalibus vestimentis . et tunc adoraverunt eum pro rege . et humiliati sunt coram illo.'

Here An, fos. 31v±34v, cuts, clearly uninterested in Norman/Danish and northern matters.

It ampli®es instead Charlemagne's death, funerals, and will. Cf. Pertz, p. 310.

The text is unclear. Perhaps one should read: `inde pro milicia domni imperatoris Karoli .

accepit ab eo [Amingo or Karolo?] dona multa et [Karolus] remisit eum [Amingum] cum

honore [et or in] adiutorio' (in return for entering Lord emperor Charles' ®delity he received

from him many gifts and he [Charles] sent him back with honour and help [for his brother?]).

The suggested pro milicia would indicate that Aming became Charlemagne's ®delis (as Hariold

later Louis's). The Annales regni Francorum ad an. 812±13, ed. F. Kurze (Hanover, 1895),

pp. 137±9, propose the reverse sequence of events: Charlemagne returns Hemming to his

brothers Hariold (here Berald) and Reginfred; after having received Hemming (here Amming)

they are expelled from the Danish kingship by Godfrid's sons.

That is, in the main church (senior ecclesia) of the palatial compounds at Aachen. An, fos.

33v±34r, ampli®es Charlemagne's death through massive borrowings from Einhard's Vita

Karoli, themselves interpolated in Aniane's favour.

Here An inserts information on Smaragdus, Benedict of Aniane's disciple.

Here An has a striking et mulieres ac viduas [sic].

Here An has an equally striking . Et in ipso loco mandavit ut mulieres in servitute redactas [add

interl.: non] fuissent . et acciperent libertatem .

De Simson, JahrbuÈcher, pp. 65 and nn. 8±10, as well as p. 141 and n. 4 doubts whether or not

Garsiamuci is identical with the brother of Lupus Centulli Wasco, one Garsandus, whose

death is mentioned in Annales regni Francorum early ad an. 819, ed. Kurze, p. 150, but

Moissac's stated delay of two years between `usurpation' and death ®ts.

Here the text describes with some verbal convergences (in bold) events also recounted by

Louis' own Ordinatio of 817, ed. A. Boretius, MGH, Capitularia 1 (Hanover, 1883), pp. 270±1.

In the Ordinatio, p. 270: ll. 34±5, Louis himself speaks of a God-sent decision: ... subito divina

inspiratione actum est, ut nos ®deles nostri ammonerent ...

An inserts between pascha and in the mention and date of Benedict of Aniane's death: In ipso

anno obiit beate memorie Benedictus Vuiteza abbas religiosus . monasterii Anianensis . III

Id.

Februarii . Anno . viii

. regnante Ludovico piissimo imperatore . Et in ipsa ... An gives the day

and month (rightly) as 7 February and the year (rightly) as 821 (cf. Bohmer±MuÈhlbacher,

p. 295), but in the process, here as in 815 and 816, An distorts the chronology of the Moissac

Chronicle and of its exemplar. Perhaps the author of An felt the need to stretch the chronology

of his original to insert dated events relating to Aniane.

210

Philippe Buc

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

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