Gestures and Comportment at the
Carolingian Court: Between Practice
and Perception

Philippe Depreux

It is well known that certain gestures had a particular juridical value in the
middle ages, such as, for example, tearing out the tongue to exclude an indi-
vidual,

1

or placing the fingers in a particular position to make a renunciation,

as revealed by a notice copied into the cartulary of the abbey of St Michael of
Bamberg. This tells how, in October 1027, at Tribur, on the orders of the
emperor Conrad II,

2

a count renounced for money all right in a property:

with his son, ‘he renounced . . . first with bended fingers, according to the
custom of the Saxons. These are the Saxons who saw and heard this [there
follow the names of ten persons, including four counts]. Then he renounced
with hand and straw (festuca), in the manner of the Franks. These are the
eastern Franks who saw and heard this [there follow the names of twenty-five
persons, including five counts]’.

3

This is not the only reference to the per-

formance of a judicial act by a gesture with the fingers,

4

but the distinction it

1

Robert Jacob, ‘Bannissement et rite de la langue tire´e au Moyen Age. Du lien des lois et de
sa rupture’, Annales HSS, 55 (2000), 1039–79.

2

‘iubente et consiliante piissimo imperatore Cuonrado’.

3

Die Urkunden Konrads II., ed. Harry Bresslau et al. (Hanover, 1909) (MGH, Diplomata
regum et imperatorum Germaniae, 4), 154 (no. 111): ‘fecit abnegationem . . . primo
incurvatis digitis secundum morem Saxonicum. Isti sunt Saxones qui hoc viderunt et audi-
erunt . . . Et deinde abnegationem fecit cum manu et festuca more Francorum. Isti sunt
orientales Franci qui hoc viderunt et audierunt.’ For this act, see Harry Bresslau, Jahrbu¨cher
des deutschen Reichs unter Konrad II., vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1879), 237. This text is reproduced
in various anthologies of diplomatic documents: Marcel Thevenin, Textes Relatifs aux
Institutions Prive´es et Publiques aux Epoques Me´rovingienne et Carolingienne. Institutions
Prive´es (Paris, 1887), 216 (no. 148); Hugo Loersch and Richard Schro¨der, Urkunden zur
Geschichte des deutschen Privatrechtes fu¨r den Gebrauch bei Vorlesungen und U

¨ bungen, 3rd

edn revised and augmented by Richard Schro¨der and Leopold Perels (Bonn, 1912), 61
(no. 78[83]).

4

See, e.g., Thevenin, Textes Relatifs aux Institutions Prive´es, 226 (no. 159, act of 1049):
‘investituram eiusdem traditionis statim illi cum digito suo, sicut mos est, promittens’.

Past and Present (2009), Supplement 4

ß The Past and Present Society

draws between the various customs, and the repetition of the act according to
the witnesses, seem to be exceptional.

5

The interpretation of such gestures is

today being reassessed, especially in the context of works that draw on the
methods of legal anthropology.

6

Similarly, the historiographical revival in the

5

The existence of customs specific to a particular people is not in itself particularly
remarkable; what is, however, is the on-the-spot perception and the detailed description
of these differences, which medieval authors were certainly aware served as criteria for
distinguishing between peoples: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX,
ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), vol. 2, 329 (XIX, 23, 6): ‘Dinoscuntur et gentes ita
habitu sicut et lingua discordes’; Regino of Pru¨m, Chronicon cum continuatione Treverensi,
ed. F. Kurze (Hanover, 1890) (MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, 50), p. XX (letter
to archbishop Hatto): ‘diversae nationes popularum inter se discrepant genere, moribus,
lingua, legibus.’ Pope Leo III is said to have observed with astonishment the variety of
the peoples assembled at Paderborn in 799 to welcome him: they differed in behaviour,
language, clothing, and weapons: De Karolo rege et Leone papa, ed. and trans. F. Brunho¨lzl
(Paderborn, 1999), supplement to W. Hentze (ed.) De Karolo rege et Leone papa.
Der Bericht u¨ber die Zusammenkunft Karls des Grosen mit Papst Leo III. in Paderborn
799 in einem Epos fu¨r Karl den Kaiser (Paderborn, 1999) (Studien und Quellen zur
Westfa¨lischen Geschichte, 36), vv. 495–6, 44: ‘Quam varias habitu, linguis, tam vestis et
armis/Miratur gentes diversis partibus orbis’. The ethnic distinctions—to which people
seem to have been more sensitive in the Carolingian period than in preceding centuries—
were nevertheless fairly limited in scope: Patrick Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity as a Situational
Construct in the Early Middle Ages’, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in
Wien, 113 (1983), 15–26; Walter Pohl, ‘Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity’,
in Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds), Strategies of Distinction. The Construction of
Ethnic Communities, 300–800 (Leiden, 1998), 7–69, at 45; Philippe Depreux, ‘Princes,
princesses et nobles e´trangers a` la cour des rois Me´rovingiens et Carolingiens: allie´s, hoˆtes
ou otages?’, in L’e´tranger au Moyen Age. XXXe Congre`s de la S.H.M.E.S. (Go¨ttingen, Juin
1999) (Paris, 2000), 133–54.

6

Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘Geba¨rden’, in Handwo¨rterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte,
vol. 1 (Berlin, 1971), cols 1411–19; Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘Geba¨rdensprache im mit-
telalterlichen Recht’, Fru¨hmittelalterliche Studien, 16 (1982), 363–79. For linguistic
expressions based on gestures, see Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘Mit Hand und Mund.
Sprachgeba¨rden aus dem mittelalterlichen Rechtsleben’, Fru¨hmittelalterliche Studien,
25 (1991), 283–99; Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘Sprachgeba¨rden aus dem mittelalterlichen
Rechtsleben. Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung’, in Martin Kintzinger, Wolfgang
Stu¨rner and Johannes Zahlten (eds), Das Andere Wahrnehmen. Beitra¨ge zur europa¨ischen
Geschichte. August Nitschke zum 65. Geburstag gewidmet (Cologne, 1991), 233–49.
For the literary approach to the phenomenon, see Martin J. Schubert, Zur Theorie
des Gebarens im Mittelalter: Analyse von nichtsprachlicher A¨usserung in mittelhoch-
deutscher Epik: Rolandslied, Eneasroman, Tristan (Cologne, 1991) (Ko¨lner germanis-
tische Studien, 31).

58

Philippe Depreux

study of feelings and their expression

7

should lead to a more general re-

reading of the sources in order to discover descriptions of comportment
and analyse their meanings and significance.

8

My aim in this article is to

propose a re-reading of some sources from the Carolingian world (ninth
and early tenth centuries). I will first discuss the role of gesture in social
relations at the Carolingian court, then examine the relative value of men-
tions of customary gestures of courtly etiquette in the sources; lastly, I will
look more closely at two versions of an anecdote which reveals the degrees of
respect that could be marked by gestures and words.

One of the major difficulties facing the medieval historian is establishing

a distinction between gesture, or presentation of the self, and ritual. The
boundary between the two is fairly porous, and the labelling of a gesture as
‘ritual’ depends both on the context (especially its repetitive and obligatory
character)

9

and on the way it is read by the historian. Let us look at an example

from a source essential for such a study, the Elegiacum carmen in honour of
Louis the Pious by Ermold the Black. Ermold was a member of the entourage
of King Pepin I of Aquitaine who had been exiled to Strasbourg and who, in
the years 826–8, composed this long poem in the emperor’s honour in the
hope of regaining his favour. According to Ermold, when Charlemagne
wanted to reward Bego, the messenger sent by his son Louis the Pious to
announce the capture of Barcelona, the emperor handed him the cup from
which he was drinking: ‘Caesar laetus ei pateram, qua forte biberat,/ Porrigit.’

10

This way of honouring Bego is attested elsewhere. At banquets, notably, the
cup was passed round according to a well-established order of precedence,

11

7

Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, 2006);
Piroska Nagy, ‘Les e´motions et l’historien: de nouveaux paradigmes’, Critique. Revue
ge´ne´rale des publications franc¸aises et e´trange`res, 63, nos. 716–717 (2007), 10–22. It should
be noted that by reducing ‘emotion’ to the stronger and more short-term ‘e´motion’, there
is a tendency for francophone historians to be deceived by a false friend.

8

Jean-Claude Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’Occident me´die´val (Paris, 1990).

9

Frank Rexroth, ‘Rituale und Ritualismus in der historischen Mittelalterforschung. Eine
Skizze’, in Hans-Werner Goetz and Jo¨rg Jarnut (eds) Media¨vistik im 21. Jahrhundert.
Stand und Perspektiven der internationalen und interdisziplina¨ren Mittelalterforschung
(Munich, 2003) (MittelalterStudien, 1), 391–406, at 393; Olof Sundqvist, ‘Rituale’, in
Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 25 (Berlin, 2003), 32–47, at 32.

10

Ermold le Noir, Poe`me sur Louis le Pieux et e´pıˆtres au roi Pe´pin, ed. Edmond Faral (Paris,
1932) (Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au Moyen Age), 50 (I, vv. 642–3).

11

There is no shortage of anecdotes illustrating the extent to which meals were—
and remain—an occasion for demonstrating the social hierarchy, whether through
the order in which each person was supposed to dine at Charlemagne’s court
(Notker der Stammler, Gesta Karoli magni imperatoris. Taten Kaiser Karls des Grossen,

The Politics of Gesture

59

illustrated by the famous episode of the banquet given by King Hrothgar, in
Beowulf, when queen Wealhtheow has the cup passed from guest to guest. In
Beowulf the scene can be seen as a rite of hospitality, even a ritual of social
cohesion,

12

whereas in Ermold it is simply a gesture, although one that is

significant: it expressed favour.

13

In the present article, I will discuss gesture

and comportment (that is, attitudes expressed by a gesture or series of ges-
tures), but not rituals as such. The semantic field of the word ‘ritual’ is so
large

14

that it seems impossible to come up with a generally accepted def-

inition.

15

Here I will consider ‘ritual’ as ‘Aktionsform des Symbols’,

16

a means

of symbolic action serving to demonstrate or render tangible, in a codified
manner, a condition or, above all, a change of condition.

17

Gestures and

ed. Hans F. Haefele [Berlin, 1959] [new revised and corrected edn Munich, 1980] [MGH,
Scriptores rerum Germanicarum. Nova series, 12], 16 [I, 11]) or through the service of
the king at table as part of court etiquette: Die Sachsengeschichte des Widukind von Korvei,
ed. P. Hirsch (Hanover, 1935) (MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, 60), 67 (II, 2);
see also Hagen Keller, ‘Widukinds Bericht u¨ber die Aachener Wahl und Kro¨nung Ottos
I.’, Fru¨hmittelalterliche Studien, 29 (1995), 390–453, re-ed. in Hagen Keller, Ottonische
Ko¨nigsherrschaft. Organisation und Legitimation ko¨niglicher Macht (Darmstadt, 2002), 91–
130. For customs at table, see Martin Aurell, Olivier Dumoulin and Franc¸oise Thelamon
(eds), La sociabilite´a` table. Commensalite´et convivialite´a` travers les aˆges (Rouen, 1992); Alban
Gautier, Le Festin dans l’Angleterre anglo-saxonne (V

e

–XI

e

sie`cle) (Rennes, 2006).

12

Michael J. Enright, ‘Lady With a Mead-Cup. Ritual, Group Cohesion and Hierarchy in
the Germanic Warband’, Fru¨hmittelalterliche Studien, 22 (1988), 170–203.

13

For the forms of demonstrating royal favour, see Gerd Althoff, ‘(Royal) Favor. A Central
Concept in Early Medieval Hierarchical Relations’, in Bernhard Jussen (ed.), Ordering
Medieval Society. Perspectives on Intellectual and Practical Modes of Shaping Social
Relations (Philadelphia, 2001), 243–69.

14

See the list proposed by Michael B. Aune and Valerie DeMarinis (eds), Religious and
Social Ritual. Interdisciplinary Explorations (New York, 1996), 1: ‘a certain kind of sym-
bolic action, a form of stylized behavior, a self-contained dramatic frame, or a distinctive
sort of cultural practice’.

15

See the epistemological panorama proposed by Christopher Wulf and Jo¨rg Zirfas,
‘Performative Welten. Einfu¨hrung in die historischen, systematischen und methodischen
Dimensionen des Rituals’, in Christopher Wulf and Jo¨rg Zirfas (eds), Die Kultur des
Rituals. Inszenierungen, Praktiken, Symbole (Munich, 2004), 7–45, especially 9ff.

16

Hans-Georg Soeffner, ‘Protosoziologische U

¨ berlegungen zur Soziologie des Symbols und

des Rituals’, in Rudolf Schlo¨gel, Bernhard Giesen and Ju¨rgen Osterhammel (eds), Die
Wirklichkeit der Symbole. Grundlagen der Kommunikation in historischen und gegenwa¨rti-
gen Gesellschaften (Constance, 2004), 41–72, at 61, who speaks also of the ‘ordnungs-
stiftende Kra¨fte’ of the rituals (ibid.).

17

Jean-Marie Moeglin, ‘ ‘‘Performative turn’’, ‘‘communication politique’’ et rituels au
Moyen Age. A propos de deux ouvrages re´cents’, Le Moyen Age, 113 (2007), 393–406,

60

Philippe Depreux

comportment, on the other hand, whether codified or not, seem rather to
express physically, to convey or betray, an opinion or recognition of an
established fact. This is why I will include, for example, kissing the feet of
the king as a sign of submission, but not homage, a ritual which makes the one
who offers his hands a vassal. It is made more difficult to argue from the
mention, or absence of mention, of gestures and rituals in the sources by the
fact that it may not be their performance in general, but the refusal to perform
them, or their performance in particular circumstances, that attracted atten-
tion and so led to them being referred to in the sources. We need in every case
to consider the intentions of the author.

Independently of any protocol or juridical value, it is in any case probable

that the people of the early middle ages, in certain situations, communicated
by signs. Yet evidence of this is rare. That of Thegan, chorbishop of Trier, who
wrote a powerful defence of the current regime in the years following the
deposition of Louis the Pious, and that of Ermold the Black are all the more
precious. Thegan describes in a particularly lively way the visit made by the
envoys of Louis the German to Louis the Pious during the latter’s captivity, in
January 834; he tells how they abandoned words and resorted to sign language
in order to outsmart those charged with supervising their meeting:

After the sacred day of Epiphany young Louis again sent his
legates . . . to his father. They came to Aachen and Lothar agreed
that they might see his father in the presence of his spies . . . . The
legates, coming into Louis’ view, prostrated themselves humbly at
his feet. Then they gave him the greeting of his namesake son. They
did not wish to speak secret words to him on account of the spies
who were present, but by a certain movement of signals they made
him understand that his namesake did not consent to this punish-
ment of his father.

18

And when Ermold describes that military exploit, the taking of Barcelona by
the son of Charlemagne, he says, in connection with the capture of the
Saracen chief Zado, that the latter was led by the Franks before the walls of

at 401: ‘[Rituals] are gestures which one performs because one wishes to transform, to
create a reality—to restore the wounded honour of an individual or a group, for
example—and not to signify.’ (My trans.)

18

Thegan, Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs, ed. Ernst Tremp (Hanover, 1995) (MGH, Scriptores
rerum Germanicarum, 64), 240 (c. 47); trans. in Carolingian Civilization. A Reader, ed.
Paul Edward Dutton (2nd edn, Peterborough, 2004), 172. For the political context, see
Eric J. Goldberg, Struggle for Empire. Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–
876 (Ithaca, 2006), 71.

The Politics of Gesture

61

the town so that he would exhort his men to surrender, although he had urged
them to fight to the end when he had still been among them:

Now, holding out his hand [towards the ramparts], he shouted to
his friends: ‘Open these gates, that you have so long defended’. At
the same time, by artifice, he curled his fingers and his nails into the
palm of his hand; it was a trick; the gesture signified that the defence
must be continued and that he had shouted ‘Open!’ only under
duress. William observed this, was angered, and struck him with
his fist: he was not playing tricks!

19

It would certainly be possible to draw on a handful of examples to study
various gestures of everyday life, in particular the marks of politeness and
respect (for example, not serving oneself first,

20

or removing one’s hat in

church),

21

but, sadly, the aridity of the sources for the early middle ages

and the sporadic nature of the anecdotes recording these routine gestures
would make it impossible to get very far. The customs of the court, on the
other hand, lend themselves much better to such a study. This is why I pro-
pose here to offer a re-reading of a few classic texts from the Carolingian
period which count among the main sources for life at court and court life.

His concern for detail makes Ermold the Black worthy of particular atten-

tion. Of course, not everything in his Elegiacum carmen is credible. The text
conformed to the rules of the genre. Certain formulas are stereotypical and he
sometimes refers to attributes whose presence, in the heat of the moment,
seems improbable (it was with ‘sceptre in hand’,

22

for example, that Louis the

Pious allegedly put new heart for the fight into his troops during the siege of
Barcelona). Nevertheless, this poem is valuable because of the attention its
author paid to gestures, which is by no means common in the sources for the
period. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the sort of detail Ermold
provides. King Louis the Pious, at the assembly at which the campaign against
Barcelona was decided, demonstrated his familiarity with Count William of
Toulouse by leaning on his shoulder.

23

When he describes the meeting

between Louis the Pious and Pope Stephen IV at Rheims, in October 816,

19

Ermold, Poe`me, 42 (vv. 518–25): ‘Tum manus adtendens vocitabat amicos:/ ‘‘Pandite jam,
socii, claustra vetata diu!’’ / Ingeniosus item digitos curvebat et ungues/ Figebat palmis, haec
simulanter agens;/ Hoc autem inditio signabat castra tenenda,/ Sed tamen invitus
‘‘Pandite!’’ voce vocat’.

20

Notker, Gesta Karoli, 16 (I, c. 12).

21

Ibid., 23, lines 9–10 (I, c. 18).

22

Ermold, Poe`me, 36 (I, v. 421): ‘sceptra manu gestans’.

23

Ibid., 20 (vv. 206–7).

62

Philippe Depreux

Ermold meticulously records the details of what can be seen as a rite of
welcome: they exchanged kisses ‘on the eyes, on the lips, on the forehead,
on the breast, on the neck’

24

before proceeding into the town ‘hand in hand,

fingers interlaced’.

25

The various parts of the body mentioned by Ermold in

his description of the kisses exchanged by Louis and Stephen IV perhaps
correspond to a liturgical ceremony (an impression strengthened by the
triple proskynesis of Louis—mentioned by Thegan

26

—which preceded

the kiss of peace).

27

However the avalanche of kisses which the wife of

the Breton king Murman showers on her husband to distract him from the
fine words of the envoy of the emperor Louis the Pious belong more to the
sphere of wheedling and seductive trickery: ‘she kissed his knees, kissed his
neck, kissed his beard, kissed his face and his hands’.

28

Though it is far from

clear how to interpret Murman’s gesture when he is admonished by the
emperor’s envoy (anger? contempt?), we cannot but be impressed by the
vividness of the scene when the poet describes the king, his face lowered,
striking the ground with his crook.

29

The Elegiacum carmen in honour of Louis the Pious is an important docu-

ment for the subject of rituals (one thinks, in particular, of the scene where the
poet describes the Danish prince Harald Klak kneeling before Louis the Pious
to commend himself by doing homage ‘with hands joined’,

30

a key text for

the study of the genesis of vassal homage).

31

However I will confine my

24

Ibid., 68–70 (II, vv. 876–7): ‘Nunc oculos, nunc ora, caput nunc, pectora, colla/ Basiat
alterutri rexque sacerque pius’.

25

Ibid., 70 (II, vv. 878–9): ‘Tum manibus palmas, digitos digitisque tenentes,/ Caesar cum
Stephano candida tecta petit’. For the ceremonies of adventus, see Peter Willmes, Der
Herrscher-‘Adventus’ im Kloster des Fru¨hmittelalters (Munich, 1976) (Mu¨nstersche
Mittelalter-Schriften, 22).

26

Thegan, 196 (c. 16): ‘. . . et princeps prosternens se cum omni corpore in terra tribus vicibus
ante pedes sancti pontificis’.

27

Ibid., 196–8 (c. 16): ‘Amplexantes enim se et osculantes pacifice, perrexerunt ad ecclesiam’.

28

Ermold, Poe`me, 110 (III, vv. 1420–1): ‘Oscula prima genu libabat et oscula collo,/ Oscula
dat barbis, basiat ora, manus’.

29

Ibid., 108 (III, vv. 1414–15): ‘Ille solo vultus jam dudum intentus et ora/ Fixa tenet, terram
percutit atque pedo’.

30

Ibid., 186–90 (III, vv. 2454–2503), especially vv. 2482–3: ‘Mox manibus junctis regi se
tradidit ultro/ Et secum regnum, quod sibi jure fuit’.

31

Jacques Le Goff, ‘Les gestes symboliques dans la vie sociale. Les gestes de la vassalite´’, in
Simboli e simbologia nell’alto medioevo, vol. 2 (Spoleto, 1976) (Settimane di studio del
Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 23), 679–779, at 686–7, repr. in Jacques Le
Goff, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago-
London, 1980), 237–87, at 241. Susan Reynolds has expressed doubts as to the reality of

The Politics of Gesture

63

discussion here to gestures and to the significance that some of them could
assume at the court. Issues of protocol and etiquette were of particular
importance in court circles, certainly, but I will not deal with them as such.
It will be enough, in this connection, to recall two things, a generality and an
anecdote: the insistence with which Carolingian authors refer to ordo, to the
necessity of placing individuals and of making them act ‘in order, in accord-
ance with order’,

32

leaves no doubt as to the importance they attached to

respect for precedence, or the touchiness that might be revealed when this
order was not respected. An anecdote related by the monk Richer of Rheims
illustrates this by suggesting that a levelling of the hierarchy might be taken as
an insult. His story concerns the denunciation of the friendship which the
king, Charles the Simple, felt for his favourite, Hagano, a noble Lotharingian,
the denigration of whose ancestry seems more a rejection of his influence in
Francia occidentalis than a reflection of reality.

33

The incident is supposed to

have occurred at Soissons, in 920:

Great men flocked from the whole of Gaul; an enthusiastic crowd of
people of lesser condition also arrived. Robert imagined he had
more credit than they with the king, who had given him command
of the Celtic province; now the king, when sitting in session in the
palace, made the duke sit on his right and Hagano on his left, on the
same level. Robert fumed silently that a person of inferior condition
should be treated on an equal footing with him and placed above the
great men. But he suppressed his anger, concealed his feelings and
addressed scarcely a word to the king. Then he rapidly rose and
consulted his men. After this meeting, he sent word to the king that
he could not tolerate seeing Hagano put on the same footing as him
and preferred to princes: ‘The liaison of this man with the king’, he

the gestures mentioned in the sources, and does not exclude the possibility that they
were sometimes metaphors: Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals. The Medieval Evidence
Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994), 29. However the way Ermold describes the homage of
Harald Klak (see note 30 above: ‘with hands joined’) seems to invalidate this hypothesis.

32

See for example Olivier Guillot, ‘Une ordinatio me´connue: le capitulaire de 823–825’, in
Peter Godman and Roger Collins (eds), Charlemagne’s Heir. New Perspectives on the
Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840) (Oxford, 1990), 455–86, repr. in Olivier Guillot,
Arcana imperii [IV

e

–XI

e

sie`cle]. Recueil d’articles (Limoges, 2003) (Cahiers de l’Institut

d’Anthropologie Juridique, 10), 371–408.

33

Philippe Depreux, ‘Le comte Haganon, favori de Charles le Simple, et l’aristocratie
d’entre Loire et Rhin’, in Miche`le Gaillard and Michel Margue (eds), De la Mer du
Nord a` la Me´diterrane´e: Francia Media, une re´gion au coeur de l’Europe (Actes du collo-
ques de Metz-Luxembourg-Tre`ves, fe´vrier 2006) (forthcoming).

64

Philippe Depreux

declared, ‘and the distance at which the most noble men of France
are kept is a shameful thing. If Charles does not put him back in his
place, the duke will have him hanged without pity.’ The king, not
tolerating this insult to his favourite, replied that he would more
readily forgo his relations with all the others than his friendship with
him. This reply exasperated Robert, who, without order, reached
Neustria with the majority of the aristocracy and withdrew to
Tours.

34

In fact the members of Carolingian court society were not only members of
the aristocratic elite,

35

but also, mutatis mutandis, courtiers obsessed with

their rank like the rest.

36

It hardly matters whether this anecdote is true, or

others such as the forced proskynesis of the son of Count Herbert of
Vermandois before Charles the Simple (described by Raoul Glaber in the
second quarter of the eleventh century),

37

or the tumble of this same king,

34

Richer, Histoire de France (888–995), ed. and trans. R. Latouche (Paris, 1993) (Les
Classiques de l’histoire de France au Moyen Age), vol. 1, 38–41 (c. 16). On this text,
see Jason Glenn, Politics and History in the Tenth Century. The Work and World of Richer
of Reims (Cambridge, 2004), (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought,
4th series, 60).

35

For the historiographical debates, see the acts of the conference on L’historiographie des
e´lites dans le haut Moyen Age (universite´s de Marne-la-Valle´e et Paris I, 28–29 novembre
2003), published online: http://lamop.univ-Paris1.fr/lamopLAMOP/elites/index.html;
Joseph Morsel, L’aristocratie me´die´vale. La domination sociale en Occident, V

e

–XV

e

sie`cle (Paris, 2004).

36

By way of comparison, see the classic work by Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans.
Edmund Jephcott [1969] (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), repr. ed. Stephen Mennel (Dublin,
2006), (The Collected Works of Norbert Elias, 2).

37

Rodulfus Glaber, Opera, ed. J. France, N. Bulst and P. Reynolds (Oxford, 1989), 12 (I, 5).
To mollify Charles, whom the chronicler calls ‘Simple-minded’ (Hebes) (for the variant
pejoratives of the surname Simplex, see Auguste Eckel, Charles le Simple [Paris, 1899],
140–4) and attract to his home the king, whose counsellors had warned him to mistrust
him, Herbert of Vermandois simulated submission: ‘One day Herbert and his son, with-
out much trouble, managed to get into the royal palace. As the king rose to embrace him,
Herbert prostrated himself before him and received the kiss [of peace]. When the son had
been kissed he remained standing; although privy to the trap he was as yet new to
treachery and did not think to kneel before the king. His father, who was standing
close by, saw this and gave him a cuff on the neck. ‘‘You had better learn’’, he said,
‘‘that you must not remain standing when you receive the embrace of your lord and
king’’: Glaber, Opera, 13. It seems to me that the translation of the words put into the
mouth of Herbert (‘Seniorem’, inquiens, ‘et regem erecto corpore osculaturum non debere
suscipere quandoque scito’), though classic (it is similar in Mathieu Arnoux, Raoul Glaber,

The Politics of Gesture

65

when a Norman acting in the name of his leader, Rollo, original ancestor of
the ducal family of Normandy, was obliged to kiss his feet as a sign of homage
by delegation (as told by Dudo of Saint-Quentin a generation earlier);

38

what

matters is the value attached to them in the system of representations of the
period in which they were written down.

39

Having made these critical observations on the documents, I will now

present an analysis of court customs in the work of Ermold the Black and
his contemporaries, keeping always in mind the need to allow for the criteria
of style and literary genre.

The ‘performative’ value of gestures made in public is today the subject of

much debate.

40

For the early middle ages (especially the Ottonian period),

historians have concentrated on the narrative sources,

41

which lessens the

value of the conclusions that can be formulated on this basis;

42

the debate

needs to encompass the whole documentary production. We may, in par-
ticular, question the value of the testimony of the sources in the case of a
gesture which, according to the authors, seems recurrent (does this necessar-
ily make it banal?) or, on the contrary, relatively rare (is it the—selective—
mention which gives it value, a value that is wholly relative?), for example, the
act of bowing or prostrating oneself before the sovereign. For the purpose of

Histoires (Turnhout, 1996), 49) misses some of the piquancy of the anecdote, because the
man who was about to seize the person of the king said, in fact, that ‘the man who is on the
point of being embraced should not receive his lord and king standing’; this was no less
than a prediction of what was about to happen (in fact Herbert was to receive the king in
his gaols), which only points up the stupidity of Charles, who failed to detect any malice!

38

Dudonis Sancti Quintini de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, ed. J. Lair
(Caen, 1865), 169 (II, 29); see below, p. 70–1.

39

For the history of representations, see Hans-Werner Goetz, Vorstellungsgeschichte.
Gesammelte Schriften zu Wahrnehmungen, Deutungen und Vorstellungen im Mittelalter
(Bochum, 2007).

40

See Ju¨rgen Martschukat and Steffen Patzold (eds), Geschichtswissenschaft und
‘Performative Turn’. Ritual, Inszenierung und Performanz vom Mittelalter bis zur
Neuzeit (Cologne, 2003).

41

Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde
(Darmstadt, 1997); Gerd Althoff, Inszenierte Herrschaft. Geschichtsschreibung und poli-
tisches Handeln im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 2003); Gerd Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale.
Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 2003).

42

Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific
Theory (Princeton, 2001); Hanna Vollrath, ‘Haben Rituale Macht? Anmerkungen zu dem
Buch von Gerd Althoff: Die Macht der Rituale. Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter’,
Historische Zeitschrift, 284 (2007), 385–400.

66

Philippe Depreux

my argument, I will first concentrate here on a detail which is frequently
mentioned by Ermold the Black, that is, the kiss planted by the subject on
the feet or the knees of Louis the Pious.

The diversity of the use of the kiss during the middle ages is well known. It

happened in the context of civilities, to welcome a visitor (for example, even
though he mistrusted Witchaire, the envoy of the emperor Louis the Pious,
the Breton king Murman welcomed his guest ‘according to custom’, by
kissing him).

43

Also well known is the liturgical function of the ‘kiss of

peace’.

44

The kiss had the value of a commitment in various types of contract

(in marriage and feudal law, but also in certain transactions).

45

The kiss sealed

the agreement: thus when William of Toulouse advised him to launch an
attack on Barcelona, ‘smiling, the king clasped this good servant in his arms,
exchanged kisses with him’, and thanked him in the name of his father,
Charlemagne.

46

Kissing the feet, as a sign of deference or submission,

47

is regularly men-

tioned by Ermold the Black, and in a letter to Pepin I of Aquitaine, the poet
describes the king’s reception of his muse, at Angeac, in this way:

At this busy court there will certainly be a friend who will be ready to
present you to the king. When your good fortune has taken you into
his presence, you will say to him: ‘Venerable king, three times I greet
you!’ Then, prostrating yourself, respectfully kiss his feet.

48

43

Ermold, Poe`me, 106 (III, v. 1363): ‘Oscula more dedit’. The kiss was also a part of the
ceremonial greetings between sovereigns: Ingrid Voss, Herrschertreffen im fru¨hen und
hohen Mittelalter. Untersuchungen zu den Begegnungen der ostfra¨nkischen und westfra¨n-
kischen Herrscher im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert sowie der deutschen und franzo¨sischen Ko¨nige
vom 11. bis 13. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1987), 138–45.

44

DACL 2/1 cols 117–130 (s. v. ‘Baiser’); LMA 5 cols 1590–2 (s. v. ‘Kuss’);

3

LThK 4 cols

142–3 (s. v. ‘Friedensritus, Friedenskuss’).

45

Emile Chenon, ‘Le roˆle juridique de l’osculum dans l’ancien droit franc¸ais’, Me´moires de
la Socie´te´ nationale des antiquaires de France (8th series, vol. 6) (Paris, 1924), 124–55;
Yannick Carre´, Le baiser sur la bouche au Moyen Age. Rites, symboles, mentalite´s, a` travers
les textes et les images, XI

e

–XV

e

sie`cles (Paris, 1993).

46

Ermold, Poe`me, 20 (I, vv. 192–3): ‘Tunc rex adridens verbis ita fatur amicis,/ Amplectens
famulum, oscula datque capit’.

47

For which, see Matthias Becher, ‘Die subjiectio principum. Zum Charakter der Huldigung
im Franken- und Ostfrankenreich bis zum Beginn des 11. Jahrhunderts’, in Stuart Airlie,
Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds), Staat im fru¨hen Mittelalter (Wien, 2006)
(Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 11), 163–78, at 171.

48

Ermold, Poe`me, 206 (Epıˆtre I, v. 57): ‘Mox prostrata solo celsis da basia plantis’.

The Politics of Gesture

67

At an assembly, William of Toulouse bowed and kissed the feet of Louis
the Pious before he spoke: Duxque Tolosana fatur Vilhelmus ab urbe,/
Poplite flexato lambitat ore pedes

49

(this verse has been compared with one

of Venantius Fortunatus, where the poet reports the lament of Queen Gois-
winth on the departure of her daughter Galswinth for Gaul, beyond the
Pyrenees).

50

Similarly, the other great men ‘kissed the feet of their venerated

king’: Hoc dicto, proceres vario sermone fremebant,/ Almificis pedibus basia
stricta dabant

51

(here Ermold seems to be drawing on the poet Angilbert,

52

who lived at Charlemagne’s court). Before speaking to Charlemagne, Bego,
the messenger of Louis the Pious, kissed the emperor’s feet.

53

When Charle-

magne consulted his great men as to whether he should associate Louis the
Pious in the Empire, ‘Einhard, who then enjoyed [his] favour, a man of
wisdom and courage, fell at the emperor’s feet, kissed them, and, wise coun-
sellor, gave his opinion first’.

54

When Lambert wished to make his report on

the Bretons to Louis the Pious, he ‘answered loyally, after bowing down and
kissing the knees of the emperor’.

55

Similarly, at the banquet given in honour

of the Danish prince Harald Klak, the empress Judith kissed the knees of her
husband when he sat down at table and made him take a place at her side.

56

Ermold the Black seems to be unusual in the frequency with which he

mentions the kissing of the knees or the feet of the sovereign. Yet this singu-
larity is only relative: other authors now and again mention the kiss among
demonstrations of respect for the ruler. When, for example, he tells how
Charlemagne congratulated a bishop on the quality of the welcome provided
as part of his duty of hospitality, the monk Notker the Stammerer says that the
bishop bowed low and kissed the hand (the undefeated right hand!) of
the emperor before speaking to him.

57

Similarly, as a sign of gratitude, the

49

Ibid., 18 (I, vv. 172–3).

50

Ibid., 236; see also Venantius Fortunatus, 63 (VI, 5, v. 70): ‘lambiat ore caput’. For this
poem, see Judith W. George, Venantius Fortunatus. A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul
(Oxford, 1992), 96–101.

51

Ermold, Poe`me, 20 (I, vv. 212–13).

52

Ibid., 236–7; see also Angilbert, Eglogue, 77: ‘pedum digitis dat basia’.

53

Ermold, Poe`me, 46 (I, v. 582): ‘Bigo vocatus adest, plantis dat basia celsis’.

54

Ibid., 18 (II, v. 684): ‘Hic cadit ante pedes, vestigia basiat alma’.

55

Ibid., 100 (III, vv. 1294–5): ‘Olli respondit fido de pectore Lantpreht,/ Caesareum adclinis
basiat ore genu’.

56

Ibid., 180 (III, vv. 2354–5): ‘Discubuit laetus, lateri Judith quoque pulcra/ Jussa, sed et regis
basiat ore genu’.

57

Notker, Gesta Karoli, 18, lines 9–10 (I, c. 14): ‘conquiniscens et invictam dexteram com-
plexus deosculans’. Unlike Lewis Thorpe, who translates conquiniscens faithfully as ‘bowed
low’ (Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne, trans. with

68

Philippe Depreux

reforming abbot Benedict of Aniane threw himself at the feet of Louis the
Pious when the emperor involved him in his plans to found the monastery of
Inden (though in this case there was no kiss): Hic sacer auditis, pedibus
revolutus amicis,/ Laudat honore Deum Caesaris atque fidem.

58

Prostration,

so frequently referred to by Ermold the Black, was not particularly special and
its ‘performative’ power in obtaining a favour is debatable, as is suggested by
Gerd Althoff in the case of a (fictitious)

59

example he is fond of citing—that of

a request presented by the monks of St Gall to Otto II, in 971, at Speyer,

60

which is described by the monk Ekkehard IV in his Casus sancti Galli (chapter
128), written during the first half of the eleventh century: ‘Die Bitte um Hilfe,
die der Fu¨rsprecher vorbrachte, wurde also durch den Fussfall der Monche
performativ unterstu¨tzt. Die geste der Selbsterniedrigung unterstrich die
Eindringlichkeit der Bitte und machte es dem so Gebeten schwer, sich zu verwei-
gern’.

61

Although access to the sovereign, which was screened, could some-

times seem a success in itself,

62

a proskynesis did not automatically mean that

the request was granted, and we need to abandon any magic systematism in
the performance of public gestures.

63

In fact prostrating oneself at the feet of

the king can be seen as a normal element of protocol, on which only mention
of the success of a request seems to confer, in a text taken out of context and
treated as exemplary, a particular ‘performative’ value.

64

introduction by Lewis Thorpe [London, 1969], 107), Reinhold Rau translates conquinis-
cens as ‘fiel auf die Knie’: Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, vol. 3, ed. Reinhold
Rau (Darmstadt, 1960), 341. Either way, it is the kiss that matters here.

58

Ermold, Poe`me, 96 (II, vv. 1234–5).

59

If we go by purely documentary criticism based on the Regesten (see n. 60 below).
However, it may be objected, having regard to the lateness of the source, that it is its
plausibility for audiences contemporary with Conrad II or Henry III that matters here.

60

According to Ekkehard IV, Notker, the new abbot, who had just been elected by the
monks of St Gall, was sent to Speyer, where Otto I and his son then were, to seek con-
firmation of his election; however this visit to the emperor, supposed to have taken place
in a Rhineland town, happened during Otto I’s third military expedition into Italy, where
his son Otto II also was.

61

Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale, 121.

62

Philippe Depreux, ‘Hie´rarchie et ordre au sein du palais: l’acce`s au prince’, in Franc¸ois
Bougard, Dominique Iogna-Prat, and Re´gine Le Jan (eds), Hie´rarchie et stratification sociale
dans l’Occident me´die´val (400–1100) (Turnhout, 2008) (Haut Moyen Age, 6), 305–23.

63

Vollrath, ‘Haben Rituale Macht?’.

64

The status of the persons (the one who bowed and the one who was honoured) is here
crucial as regards the value of the gesture, as is emphasized by Hermann Kamp, ‘Die
Macht der Zeichen und Gesten. Offentliches Verhalten bei Dudo von Saint-Quentin’, in
Gerd Althoff (ed.), Formen und Funktionen o¨ffentlicher Kommunikation im Mittelalter

The Politics of Gesture

69

It would be possible to quote more examples from the Carolingian period

of greetings similar to that described by Ermold: they occur both in Thegan

65

and in the anonymous biographer of Louis the Pious known as the Astron-
omer.

66

These authors only report them, admittedly, in connection with

particularly fraught situations, to add further emphasis to the submission
to the emperor of a potential or avowed enemy. It is here that notions of style,
intention and literary genre come into play: some authors pay virtually no
attention to gestures (this is particularly true of Einhard, in his Vita Karoli),
others give them great prominence, all the more so since the narrative genre
lends itself to this. The author of a History is more likely to recount an
anecdote with many a detail than the author writing as an annalist; thus it
is Richer of Rheims, not Flodoard, who makes great play with the fact that
Hagano, as the king’s favourite, behaves in too familiar a manner towards
Charles the Simple. According to the monk of St Remi, the latter’s preference
for Hagano was so marked that he (Hagano) ‘remained alone by the side of
the king while all the grandees were kept at a distance, and he even dared to
take off his hat and ostentatiously do his hair. These manners did great harm
to the king.’

67

Further, the passage of time was certainly favourable to the

development of colourful anecdotes that would entertain an audience while
at the same time suggesting an analysis of political significance.

68

Dudo of

Saint-Quentin achieved this when he told how Rollo, at the time of the treaty
of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911), refused to kiss the feet of Charles the Simple
after receiving Normandy from him:

69

urged on by the prayers of the Franks, he ordered one of the warriors
to kiss the king’s foot. And the man immediately grasped the king’s

(Stuttgart, 2001), 125–55, at 140–4 (although the discussion of the request presented by
Herluin de Montreuil is not wholly convincing).

65

Thegan, 240 (c. 47): ‘Venientes legati ad conspectum principis, humiliter se prosternentes
pedibus suis, post hec salutaverunt eum ab equivoco filio suo’.

66

Astronomer, 382 (c. 29): ‘At Berhardus cum se cerneret viribus inparem et ad coepta
inefficacem, utpote a quo plurimi suorum cotidie deficerent, desperatis rebus ad imperatorem
venit armisque depositis pedibus se eius prostravit, confessus perperam se egisse’.

67

Richer, Histoire de France, vol. 1, 38–9 (c. 15).

68

Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor. Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval
France (Ithaca, 1992), 153: ‘The story about Rollo and Charles is . . . more than a good tale.
Because for Dudo prostration was the correct way to manifest subjection to a lord, it is
also Dudo’s way of describing the egalitarian virtues of the pagan Normans.’

69

According to Felice Lifshitz (‘Translating ‘‘Feudal’’ Vocabulary: Dudo of Saint-Quentin’,
The Haskins Society Journal, 9 [1997], 39–56, at 53), Rollo must have been expressing his
gratitude, not his submission, to the king. In fact the one does not exclude the other.

70

Philippe Depreux

foot and raised it to his mouth and planted a kiss on it while he
remained standing, and laid the king flat on his back.

70

Similarly, and in contrast to austere writers like Thegan and the Astronomer,
Notker the Stammerer, author of a Gesta of Charlemagne written for the
edification and pleasure of Charles the Fat,

71

who had stayed in his abbey

of St Gall in December 883, liked to tell how those who had been introduced
into Charlemagne’s presence threw themselves at his feet to give an account of
some affair,

72

or to obtain a favour

73

or pardon for an offence.

74

The story

might take a comical turn:

75

Notker obviously got great pleasure out of

describing (or more likely imagining) the reception of some Byzantine
ambassadors who had to endure the unpleasant welcome saved in the past
for a Frankish embassy. Lacking the flair demonstrated by Joan of Arc at
Chinon, they prostrated themselves before each group of paladins in turn,
error piled on error, until they reached the emperor, who, with his back to the
light, welcomed them in all his splendour.

76

No complicated mechanism

involving roaring lions, as described by Liutprand of Cremona at the court
of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus,

77

but a clever piece of staging neverthe-

less, and perhaps also a denunciation of Byzantine customs. Notker had
ridiculed these a little earlier in his story, when he had described the difficul-
ties of the Frankish ambassador at the court of Nikephoras I: during a ban-
quet, Charlemagne’s envoy had dared, in all innocence, to return the fish he

70

Dudo of Saint-Quentin, History of the Normans, trans. Eric Christiansen (Woodbridge,
1998), 49 (II, 29). For the literary afterlife of this episode, see Hans Hattenhauer, Die
Aufnahme der Normannen in das westfra¨nkische Reich—Saint-Clair-sur-Epte AD 911
(Hamburg, 1990), 25–6. On this anecdote, see also Pierre Bauduin, ‘Autour d’un rituel
discute´: le baisement du pied de Charles le Simple au moment du traite´ de Saint-Clair-
sur-Epte’ in Elisabeth Lalou, Bruno Lepeuple and Jean-Louis Roch (eds), Des chaˆteaux et
des sources. Arche´ologie et histoire dans la Normandie me´die´vale. Me´lanes en l’honneur
d’Anne-Marie Flambard He´richer (Mont-Saint-Aignon, 2008), 29–47.

71

Simon Maclean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century. Charles the Fat and the
End of the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge, 2003), 199–229.

72

Gesta Karoli, 24, line 26 (I, c. 18): ‘procidentes ad pedes eius dixerunt’; ibid., 72, lines 21–2
(II, c. 12).

73

Ibid., 5, line 20 (I, c. 4): ‘cecidit ad pedes eius et dixit’; ibid., 61, lines 12–13 (II, c. 8).

74

Ibid., 21, lines 6–7 (I, c. 16): ‘ad pedes eius corruens veniam pro commisso precabatur’.

75

David Ganz, ‘Humour as History in Notker’s Gesta Karoli magni’, in Edward B. King,
Jacqueline T. Schaefer and William B. Wadley (eds), Monks, Nuns, and Friars in Medieval
Society (Sewanee, 1989) (Sewanee Medieval Studies, 4), 171–83.

76

Notker, Gesta Karoli, 55–7 (II, c. 6).

77

Liutprandi Cremonensis opera omnia, ed. Paolo Chiesa (Turnhout, 1998) (Corpus
Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 156), 147 (Antapodosis, VI, c. 5).

The Politics of Gesture

71

had been served; he had as a result been deemed to have so seriously wronged
the imperial majesty as to incur the death penalty, but he had been astute
enough to emerge victorious from this ordeal.

78

Recent works have brought out the importance attached to light in the

middle ages and, for the Carolingian period, the long tradition of evoking
light in the rhetoric of power and of associating the sovereign with the source
of light.

79

As we have seen, according to Ermold the Black, when William of

Toulouse advised Louis the Pious to launch an attack on Barcelona, ‘smiling
(adridens), the king clasped this good servant in his arms, exchanged kisses
with him’, and thanked him in the name of his father, Charlemagne.

80

We

should note that Ermold here refers to the smile of Louis the Pious. We know,
thanks to his biographer Thegan, that this king, so deeply imbued with the
monastic ideal, never laughed enough to let his white teeth show.

81

Although

the laugh was considered a specifically human characteristic, it was also, in
ascetic and monastic circles, equated with a loss of self-control, unlike the
smile, which was a reflection of heavenly beauty.

82

Some authors of the

Carolingian period also took an interest in the language of the eyes. Chief
among these was Notker the Stammerer, both to express favour and anger.
When he tells the story of an ignorant clerk who intoned a verse, on
Charlemagne’s orders, in the absence of the one who had been appointed
to do it, but had failed to reach the church in time to take part in the service
after a drunken night spent celebrating his nomination to a bishopric, the

78

Gesta Karoli, 54–5 (II, c. 6). Notker’s story started a literary tradition: Johannes
Schneider, ‘Die Geschichte vom gewendeten Fisch. Beobachtungen zur mittellatei-
nischen Tradition eines literarischen Motivs’, in Johanne Autenrieth and Franz
Brunho¨lzl (eds), Festschrift Bernhard Bischoff zu seinem 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von
Freunden, Kollegen und Schu¨lern (Stuttgart, 1971), 218–25.

79

Genevie`ve Bu¨hrer-Thierry, ‘Lumie`re et pouvoir dans le Haut Moyen Age occidental.
Ce´le´bration du pouvoir et me´taphores lumineuses’, Me´langes de l’Ecole franc¸aise de
Rome. Moyen Age, 116 (2004), 521–56.

80

Ermold, Poe`me, 20 (I, vv. 192–3).

81

Thegan, 204 (c. 19).

82

Gerhard Schmitz, ‘ . . . quod rident homines, plorandum est. Der ‘‘Unwert’’ des Lachens in
monastisch gepra¨gten Vorstellungen der Spa¨tantike und des fru¨hen Mittelalters’, in
Franz Quarthal and Wilfried Setzler (eds), Stadtverfassung, Verfassungsstaat, Pressepoli-
tik. Festschrift fu¨r Eberhard Naujoks zum 65. Geburtstag (Sigmaringen, 1980), 3–15. It is
this very self-control, proof of an aptitude for government, that Thegan seems to have
wished to demonstrate: Matthew Innes, ‘ ‘‘He never even allowed his white teeth to be
bared in laughter’’: the politics of humour in the Carolingian renaissance’, in Guy Halsall
(ed.), Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 2002), 131–56.

72

Philippe Depreux

monk of St Gall describes Charlemagne being won over to this clerk, to whom
he eventually awarded the bishopric; the emperor revealed that he was in the
process of changing his mind by gradually smiling at the wretched clerk who
was terrified by his liturgical boldness: sensim arridens illi.

83

Charlemagne

finally spoke, but to make his decision known to the princes. In contrast,
when a bishop dared to criticize the style of chanting of one of his relatives, the
emperor looked daggers at him, and the culprit fell to the ground (to beg
pardon).

84

I want now to discuss another anecdote at greater length, because it makes

it possible to pose the question of respect for customs, transgression of the
rules, and the limits within which disrespect was tolerated. Specifically, I will
look both at the use of gesture (bowing, rising, or remaining seated) and that
of words (a verbal greeting or remaining silent). According to both the
anonymous author of the Life of Alcuin (probably a monk from the abbey
of Ferrie`res, who wrote between 821 and 829) and to the poet, Ermold the
Black, who was writing at the same period, the succession of Charlemagne
(who died in 814) was the subject of a prophesy. The two accounts do not
tally: in the former, it is Alcuin who tells the emperor that his younger son,
Louis [the Pious], will succeed him; in Ermold, it is Paulinus, archbishop of
Aquileia, who predicts correctly. Neither the veracity of the facts or the prob-
ably legendary nature of this anecdote, supposed to have been recounted by
Charlemagne himself only to a few close friends, matter very much here.
What is relevant to us is what the two authors say about gesture and com-
portment. The author of the Life of Alcuin locates the episode at St Martin of
Tours, to which the emperor had gone on pilgrimage, accompanied by his
three sons, Charles (the eldest), Pepin (king of Italy), and Louis—it is known
that Charlemagne, still king, went to Tours in the spring of 800. Near the
tomb of St Martin, we are told, Charlemagne asked Alcuin, in a low voice and
holding his hand, to indicate his successor. The abbot pointed to Louis, the
humblest of his sons. In fact when, a little later, he administered communion
to them, Alcuin received from Louis a mark of deference which, on the part of
a prince (indeed a king—of Aquitaine), proved a demonstration of humility:

Necnon cum post communionem corporis Christi et sanguinis manu
propria eis misceret, isdem Hludowicus humilitate clarissimus prae
omnibus patri sancto se inclinans, eius osculatus est manum. Tunc vir

83

Gesta Karoli, 91 (I, c. 5).

84

Ibid., 25 (I, c. 19): ‘Ad quod improbissimum responsum fulmineas in eum acies imperator
intorques attonitum terrae prostravit’.

The Politics of Gesture

73

Domini adsistenti sibi ait Sigulfo: ‘Omnis qui se exaltat humiliabitur,
et qui se humiliat exaltabitur. Certe istum post patrem Francia gau-
debit habere imperatorem.’

85

Louis the Pious bowed before Alcuin and kissed his hand. In so doing, he
inverted the normal order of things, which Alcuin remarked on to his disciple,
Sigulf, who became abbot of Ferrie`res on the death of his master in 804. The
quotation from the Gospels provides the key to interpreting this passage:
having forbidden his disciples to let themselves be called ‘Rabbi’ in the fashion
of the Pharisees, Jesus told them that ‘whosoever shall exalt himself shall be
humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted’ (Matthew, 23,
12). Alcuin was not a priest, but a deacon, so it was not as officiant that he gave
communion to the sons of Charlemagne, but as abbot. It should be noted,
therefore, that Louis humbled himself particularly by kissing the hand of a
clerk who was in almost the lowest of the main orders. The king of Aquitaine
engaged in a double humiliation: first by bowing, before a person low down in
the hierarchy of power, then by kissing Alcuin on the hand (the kiss on the
mouth was a sign of alliance, of equality in friendship).

86

This text clearly had

an exemplary value: like a mirror, it instructed the prince in the true hierarchy
of values—specifically, that respect for the men of God enhanced the stature
of the king.

According to Ermold, it was when Paulinus of Aquileia was staying at the

palace that he expressed the wish that Louis would succeed his father. The
scene is quite different: the poet, whose aim was to celebrate the pietas of Louis
in the hope of obtaining his favour,

87

describes not his humility but the

fervour with which he prayed as he wept.

88

In this case the comportment

of the prelate is of as much interest to us as that of the king:

It is told that the patriarch Paulinus, invited by the king, came long
ago out of friendship to his palace. One day, when he was in the

85

MGH, Scriptores, 15/1, pp. 192–3 (c.15). For this text, see Clavis des auteurs latins du
Moyen Age. Territoire Franc¸ais, 735–987, vol.2: Alcuin, ed. Marie-He´le`ne Jullien and
Franc¸oise Perelman (Turnhout, 1999), 7–8.

86

Carre´, Le baiser sur la bouche.

87

Philippe Depreux, ‘La pietas comme principe de gouvernement d’apre`s le Poe`me sur Louis
le Pieux d’Ermold le Noir’, in Joyce Hill and Mary Swan (eds), The Community, the Family
and the Saint: Patterns of Power in Early Medieval Europe. Selected Proceedings of the
International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 4–7 July 1994, 10–13 July 1995
(Turnhout, 1998), 201–24.

88

Piroska Nagy, Le don des larmes au Moyen Age. Un instrument spirituel en queˆte d’institu-
tion (V

e

–XIII

e

sie`cle) (Paris, 2000).

74

Philippe Depreux

church, reverently singing psalms in honour of Christ, it happened
that Charles, illustrious son of the emperor, went there, in order to
pray, followed by a splendid retinue; he walked boldly up to the altar
where the priest was officiating: Paulinus asked who this personage
was; when a servant told him, he broke off his chanting, and Charles
passed by and left (Ille ut cognovit primam, sobolem hunc fore regis/
Conticuit; coeptum ille peragat iter). After a short space of time,
prince Pepin arrived, surrounded by mighty lords, and Paulinus
enquired of the same servant, who told him who it was: hearing who
he was, the prelate bowed his head before the king, and the latter
proceeded on his way without stopping (Praesul ut agnovit nomen
regique recordans/ Mox caput inclinans; pergit at ille celer). Last of all
came Louis, who kissed the altar as a supplicant, prostrated himself
and, with tears in his eyes, implored the aid of Christ who reigns in
heaven. Seeing this, the patriarch rose eagerly to greet such a devout
prince, whereas, when Pepin and Charles had passed by, he had
remained seated and said nothing (Hoc sacer aspiciens, sella se sus-
tulit ardens/ Conpellare sacrum cum pietate virum;/ Antea nam,
Pippin Caroloque abeunte, sedili/ Haeserat et nullus vocibus orsa
dabat). Louis reverently prostrated himself at the feet of the prelate;
but he raised him up (Denique rex vatem prostrato corpore adorat:/
Paulinus regem suscipit ecce pium) and addressed him with these
sweet words, which were full of meaning: ‘Attain the rank of
Charles; your piety makes one wish for this. Adieu!’ As soon as
the holy personage saw the emperor, he related the episode to
him in detail: ‘If God’, he said, ‘wishes to give the Franks a king
from your family, it is Louis who should take your place.’ This is
what Charles, the wise emperor, told to a few close friends, whom he
trusted and loved.

89

Knowing Charlemagne’s relative distrust for his heir, whom he had to resign
himself to associating formally with the throne in September 813, after the
sudden deaths of Pepin (in 810) and Charles (in 811), it is difficult to believe
the poet: it was probably to flatter the emperor and draw a veil over the
tension between father and son

90

that Ermold makes Charlemagne himself

disclose what Paulinus had confided in him. (After this passage, the poet

89

Ermold, Poe`me, 48–50.

90

For the last years of Charlemagne’s reign and his relations with his sons, see Egon Boshof,
Ludwig der Fromme (Darmstadt, 1996), 83–90.

The Politics of Gesture

75

rapidly concludes the story with the announcement to Charlemagne of the
seizure of Barcelona by his son Louis, in 801; Book 2 then opens with a eulogy
of the king of Aquitaine, on the occasion of the imperial coronation of 813).

In this extract, the humility of Louis is once again evoked, expressed even

more strongly in this case by the proskynesis: the king adorat the patriarch,
who raised him (by describing Louis as rex, the poet heightens the paradox).
Even more informative, however, is the description of the attitude of the
patriarch of Aquileia to the two other sons of Charlemagne. We observe a
gradation in the disdain or esteem which is expressed by the selective recourse
to speech and by gesture: when the eldest son, described as the most arrogant,
appears, Paulinus remains seated and says nothing (conticuit); in other words,
he pretends not to know him. On the arrival of Pepin, his own king (he had
ruled Italy since 781), the patriarch merely bows his head (mox caput incli-
nans); in other words, Paulinus keeps his marks of esteem to the bare min-
imum this side of what might lay him open to the accusation of insub-
ordination. We have here a clue to the protocol: for the poet, Charles the
Younger and Pepin of Italy were undoubtedly much of a muchness; the dif-
ference in the way the prelate behaved towards them is probably to be
explained solely by the nature of their institutional relations—non-existent
in the case of the elder, hierarchical in the case of the younger. Thus Ermold
suggests that it was possible, at the Carolingian court, to convey disdain while
still respecting etiquette. When Louis the Pious appears and engages in
numerous gestures of humility and devotion, Paulinus shows his respect
for him by rising to his feet and addressing him, using words of exhortation
as befitted a bishop.

Notker the Stammerer and Richer of Rheims were certainly monks. This

may also have been the case with Ermold the Black,

91

who is angrily addressed

by King Pepin as frater.

92

Conversely, Thegan was a chorbishop and Einhard,

who is known to have married, had only received—perhaps—minor orders at
most;

93

the Astronomer was a palace clerk whose identity, hence status, are

still a matter of debate.

94

It may be that monastic authors were more inclined

than others to pay attention to gestures, as a result of the liturgical

91

Ermold, Poe`me, VI: ‘In condition, he was a clerk or a monk’.

92

Ibid., 154 (IV, v. 2019).

93

Philippe Depreux, Prosopographie de l’entourage de Louis le Pieux (781–840)
(Sigmaringen, 1997) (Instrumenta 1), 178.

94

Ibid., 113–14; Matthias M. Tischler suggests he might be Bishop Jonas of Orleans:
Einharts Vita Karoli. Studien zur Entstehung, U

¨ berlieferung und Rezeption (Hanover,

2001) (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Schriften, 48), vol. 2, 1109–11.

76

Philippe Depreux

codification of their observances. However, caution is needed as, while there
is nothing to prevent us from believing that finger movements were already
used as a way of communicating, while observing silence, as early as the
Carolingian period, sign language is only attested, sporadically, in monastic
circles in the tenth century (Cluny playing a decisive role in the spread of this
practice).

95

In any case, the examples discussed above would seem to confirm the thesis

that medievalists should focus their research less on the gesture itself than
on the attention paid to it.

96

In a period of relative documentary penury,

accounts concentrating on political life dominate the sources. It is possible,
therefore, to make a partial study of court customs, so as to consider the value
of the gestures and the representativeness of the authors who describe or refer
to them, without it being possible to settle the question of whether the sources
are the construction of a model or a reflection of practice. It has been claimed
that, during the course of the early middle ages, the actors in political life
gradually learned to express their actions through rituals, according to a
‘Lernprozess’ which can first be traced in the eighth century and spread in
the tenth and eleventh centuries.

97

To be wholly convincing, Gerd Althoff’s

thesis, which is essentially based on sources of only a single type and relatively
few in number, would need, among other things, to be based on a wider
statistical foundation; given the nature of the documentation and, above
all, the type of analysis that would be necessary, such a project seems unreal-
isable and we have to fall back on such carefully chosen formulas as ‘if the
sources do not deceive’.

98

In any case, when analysing gestures and rituals, it is

always useful to distinguish carefully between what derives from visual tes-
timony and what depends on a representation one has of a scene on the basis

95

Anselme Davril, ‘Le langage par signes chez les moines. Un catalogue des signes de
l’abbaye de Fleury’, in Sous la re`gle de saint Benoıˆt. Structures monastiques et socie´te´s
en France du Moyen Age a` l’e´poque moderne (Geneva, 1982), 51–74; Scott G. Bruce,
Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism. The Cluniac Tradition c. 900–1200
(Cambridge, 2007) (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth
Series, 68).

96

This is what I have tried to show in the case of investitures; until the forthcoming pub-
lication of my the`se d’habilitation, see Philippe Depreux, ‘Investitura per anulum et bacu-
lum. Ring und Stab als Zeichen der Investitur bis zum Investiturstreit’, in Jo¨rg Jarnut and
Matthias Wemhoff (eds), Vom Umbruch zur Erneuerung? Das 11. und beginnende 12.
Jahrhundert—Positionen der Forschung (Munich, 2006) (Mittelalter Studien, 13),
169–95.

97

Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale (the term ‘Lernprozess’ is used on p. 53).

98

Ibid., 197: ‘Wenn die U

¨ berlieferung nicht sehr tru¨gt’.

The Politics of Gesture

77

of third party or later testimony.

99

Apart from the fact that certain rituals

seem to have been well established by the date of their first appearances,
and in spite of their relative rarity in the sources,

100

a close analysis of certain

major texts has thus shown, by way of example, the importance that contem-
poraries of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Fat attached to
gestures; and also that there existed—which is hardly surprising—a code of
behaviour at court, an etiquette, even though attempts to commit to writing
court customs and the composition of the palace were as yet only sporadic
(the first descriptions of the medieval western court date from the ninth
century,

101

occasionally in normative form;

102

it is then not until the twelfth

century that we find anything similar, with the Constitutio domus regis,

103

written between 1135 and 1139 to instruct Stephen of Blois in the practice of
the court under Henry I) We need to search the sources more systematically
for references to behaviour, codified or not, so as to return to the description
of certain gestures and rituals their exemplary value in an account, even
changes in the significance of their performance, in court circles, as a result
of changes in the relations between the king and the aristocracy.

104

Such an

99

It should be noted, for example, that the authors most inclined to describe the court were
not necessarily those who were most familiar with it: Depreux, ‘Hie´rarchie et ordre au
sein du palais’, 312.

100

See, e.g., Jean-Marie Moeglin, ‘Harmiscara—Harmschar—Hache´e. Le dossier des
rituels d’humiliation et de soumission au Moyen Age’. Archivum Latinitatis Medii
Aevi, 54 (1996), 11–65.

101

The principal source is the admonitio addressed to King Carloman by Archbishop
Hincmar of Rheims (d. 882), which claims to be inspired by an older treatise, that of
Adalhard of Corbie (d. 826): Hinkmar von Reims, De ordine palatii, ed. T. Gross and R.
Schieffer (Hanover, 1980) (MGH, Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum
separatim editi, 3). For the implicit or explicit criticism of the court that might be
concealed in descriptions of it, see Rolf Ko¨hn, ‘ ‘‘ Militia curialis’’. Die Kritik am geis-
tlichen Hofdienst bei Peter von Blois und in der lateinischen Literatur des 9.-12.
Jahrhunderts’, in Albert Zimmermann (ed.), Soziale Ordnungen im Selbstversta¨ndnis
des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1979) (Miscellanea mediaevalia, 12/1), 227–57.

102

Notably the Capitulare de disciplina palatii Aquisgranensis: Capitularia regum
Francorum, ed. A. Boretius (Hanover, 1883) (MGH, Capitularia regum Francorum,
1), 297–8 (no. 146).

103

This text is published in Richard Fitz Nigel, Dialogus de Scaccario. The Course of the
Exchequer, and Constitutio Domus regis. The Establishment of the Royal Household, ed.
C. Johnson (Oxford, 1983), 129–35.

104

As emphasized by Jean-Marie Moeglin (‘ ‘‘Performative turn’’ ’, 398), the thesis of Gerd
Althoff is based on the idea that ‘ritual communication is substituted for an impotent
State which is the mark of the middle ages, or at least of the larger part of the middle ages’
(my trans.).

78

Philippe Depreux

investigation, which needs, if it is to be useful, to be conducted without
teleological presuppositions, remains to be undertaken. We can still conclude
that there existed, in the early middle ages, a grammar of gestures that was
apparently understood by all (or at least by all who frequented the court),
deliberately used or misused (in reality or in the fiction of the construction of
a past adapted to the needs of the present), and that gradations in the expres-
sion of respect could be expressed in tiny details. Refinement was not the
province only of a few artists and poets.

105

105

See for example, Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and
Innovation (Cambridge, 1994); Marie-Pierre Lafitte and Charlotte Denoe¨l (eds),
Tre´sors carolingiens. Livres manuscrits de Charlemagne a` Charles le Chauve (Paris, 2007).

The Politics of Gesture

79