Writing Early Medieval Biography

Author(s): Janet L. Nelson

Source: History Workshop Journal, No. 50 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 129-136
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 FEATURE:HISTORYAND
BIOGRAPHY
WritingEarlyMedievalBiography
by JanetL. Nelson

Biography is an ancient genre. You've only to think of Plutarch and

Suetonius,and the collections'On IllustriousMen' and even 'On Illustrious
Women'.Christianityhad its own particularformin hagiography.All these
works described exemplary lives. When Leslie Stephen conceived the
Dictionaryof NationalBiography(vol. 1 came out in 1885),he had in mind
somethingsimilarlymonumental.What he assembled,after huge labours
(he wrote a great many of the entries himself),were public lives, suitably
censored, mostly reverential, as exemplary,in their Victorian way, as
Plutarch's.In Eminent Victorians(1918), using biographyto expose the
private,Lytton Stracheywas reactingin self-consciousmodernityagainst
the DNB. VirginiaWoolf, Leslie Stephen'sdaughter,called biography'a
bastard,an impureart'.She unerringlyidentifiedthe biographer'sdilemma,
in doing 'two incompatiblethings'.

He is providingus with sterile and fertile. Thingsthat have no bearing

upon the life. But he has to provide them. He does not know what is
relevant.Nobody has decided.1

A life must be contextualized,yet how is the balanceto be struckbetween

the trulyrelevantand/orsignificantand mere scene-setting?
Just a decade before Woolf recorded these reflections,Eileen Power
wrote about two ninth-centurypeasants, Bodo and Ermentrude.What
Powerwrotewas not reallybiography- how couldit have been? But apply-
ing imaginationto the apparentlyunpromisingmaterial of a monastic
estate-survey,she reconstructedthe everydayexperienceof a couple:a day
in the workinglife.2NormanCantorrecentlytook the imaginativea large
step further,presentingsuch charactersas Eleanorof Aquitainein conver-
sation.3This is fiction,thoughit is controlledby the historian'sknowledge
of 'whatis relevant'to each life. VirginiaWoolftoo imagined,wonderingif
the voices of her childhoodwere somehowstill in existence,'andif so, will
it not be possible, in time, that some device will be inventedby whichwe
can tap them? ... I shall fit a plug into the wall, and listen in to the past. I
shall turnup August1890'.4
Is turningup August790 even wortha biographer'sfantasy?JeanFavier,
authorof a recent700-pagestudyof Charles,kingthenemperorof the Franks
(768-814),declaredat the outset that 'sincethe personageconstructedover

History Workshop Journal Issue 50 C History Workshop Journal 2000

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130 HistoryWorkshopJournal

the centuriesfor the most part overlaysthe man ... I have to say to my
reader:the word"biography" is not well suitedto a book on Charlemagne'.5
On offer in Favier's700 pages,then, is a series of linkedthematicstudiesof
a reign,on war,government,diplomaticrelations,patronageof the Church
and of learning.It is magnificentbut it is not biography.Nearly twelve-
hundredyears ago, Einhard,formercourtier,royalservant,and memberof
Charles'shousehold,set out to writeaboutthe vitaet conversatio,the life and
life-styleof his nutritor,his nurtureror patron.His book wouldcontain'the
memoryof a man',and his aim in writingwas 'thatthat memoryshouldnot
be lost'.6After describingin the firstpartof the Life how the king'protected,
extendedand adornedhis realm',and what 'mentalgifts,and steadfastness'
he showed, Einhardchangedkey in chapter18: 'henceforthI shall tell of
otherthingsthathaveto do withhis interioranddomesticlife'.7Worthstress-
ing is Einhard'srecognitionthat the king had an interiorlife. Thanks to
Einhard'sbook, and other information,it may be possible,in principle,to
recover somethingof Charles'sinteriority,and so, to producelife-writing
abouthim that situatesthe man againstwhatis relevantin his times.
What things,then, 'have a bearingupon the life' of this man? On what
criteriaof relevancecould the life-writerproceed?Woolf'simpliednotion
of the 'sterility'of material on the subject'shistoricalenvironmentcan
hardlyappealto a historian.Thatexternalandthe 'fertile'internalareinter-
connectedat multiplepoints;and an earlymedievalking'slife (perhapsany
ruler's) cannot be dismemberedinto public and private. Ninth-century
writersknew that distinction,but their life-writings,whethersecularbiog-
raphy or hagiography, embraced both. The vita interior has to be
approachedby the early medievalhistorianin much the same ways as the
modernhistorian,and with a similartentativeness.Once all due allowance
has been made for differences of period and huge discrepanciesin the
volume of available data, my entree to Charles's inner life resembles
HermioneLee's to VirginiaWoolf,or Peter Brown'sto Augustine.8I seek
information,as anecdotal as it may be, on my subject's childhood, his
immediatefamily,his sexual life, his spirituality.9Since his was a world in
which familialbonds embracedthe lives of lay people, and all politicswas
familyor dynasticpolitics,I look for evidence on his relationshipswith his
close kin, and other personalinvolvementsin that context.Sincehis was an
age when the beliefs and practicesof Latin Christianitystructuredlay as
well as ecclesiasticallives,I seek symptomsof his religiousexperience.Since
his was a long life, I expect signs of change and interiordevelopment.10
There is nothing mysteriousabout the historicalmethod, whateverprob-
lems arise from the scarcity of direct evidence of this early medieval
subject'sthoughtsand desires (and it may even be possible,for a few pro-
lific writers of this period, such as Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, or
Alfredof Wessex,to gain accessto theirevolvingthoughts,hopes andfears,
assertionsand evasions).11The real mysterylies elsewhere,in whatAugus-
tine saw as the unknowabilityof another human being.12The mystery

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 WritingEarlyMedievalBiography 131

remainseven for the biographerof a twentieth-centurypublic figure:it is

not disposedof by havinga real 'plugin the wall'.
The biographer,acknowledgingthe mystery,persistsin enquiring.Child-
hood, family,sex, spiritualityare all aspectsof Charles'slife on whichmore
or less contemporaryevidenceboth reveals and conceals- and both those
are grist to the life-writer'smill. Much of what is revealed is sufficiently
specificand distinctive(not to say bizarre)to seem plausible.The interpre-
tative problems that confront historians in the literary stereotypes of
hagiographycan be avoided here. In the case of Charles's childhood,
Einhard'ssilence arousesattention.

Nothinghas been recordedin writingabouthis birth,boyhood,or youth,

nor is there anyone still alive who claims any knowledge on these
things.'3

This is disingenuous.Einhardwas writing this within a decade, or little

more, of Charles'death in 814. True,Charleshad attainedthe age of sixty-
five, an old man for those times.Yet some of his contemporaries,including
his own cousin,were well knownto Einhard.14 Further,some writtendocu-
mentation of Charles' boyhood circulatedat the Frankishcourt in the
decadesaround800. Fromthese texts, Einhardcould have learnedthat the
five-yearold Charleshad riddenout nearly100miles to meet Pope Stephen
II whenhe fledfromRome to Franciain the winterof 753;15thatthe follow-
ing summer(?28 July 754) the pope had consecratedCharlesking, along
with his father and brother;16that Charleshad been given governmental
responsibilitiesin a potential future sub-kingdomfrom 760 onwards,and
campaignedwith his father in Aquitaine in 761, 762 and 767-8.17Both
Charlesandhis brotherenjoyeda finetrainingfor kingship.Not long before
his death in 768, Pippinhad arrangedmarriagesfor both his sons to noble
Frankishwomen.
Charles'srelationshipwithhis parentsseems to have been close andcon-
tinuous.Whereashis own fatherhad been broughtup at the monasteryof
St-Denis, Charlesseems to have remainedat court.Pope Paul in 764 sent
Charlesand his brotheradviceon rulership,remindingthem of theirgrand-
father CharlesMartel and their great-grandfatherPippin as role-models,
and also, more intimately,of their father,Pippin,and mother,Bertrada.18
Charles'seducationwas of the secularsort. Thoughapparentlyhe did not
learnto write,he read,and surelyheard,texts availablein the royalpalace:
above all laws and histories,both old and recent.The deeds of his grand-
father CharlesMartelwere probablycelebratedin song as they certainly
were in story.The boy's later keen interest in liturgicalperformancemay
well have been whetted by his father'stastes. He practisedpiouslylater in
life a religionwith which he had been imbued,Einhardsays, 'since child-
hood'.'9
Of Charles'srelationshipwith his mother Bertrada,Einhardremarks

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132 HistoryWorkshopJournal

that he was 'always devoted to her, and [treated her] with the greatest
respect, and there was never any discord between them ...'20 Once
widowed, Bertradaevidently took up residence with Charles,and Pope
Stephen III wrote to mother and son (in that order) together in 770 and
771.21The motherseems to have favouredher elder son over the younger,
now if not earlier:that was the clear implicationof her very active role in
arrangingfor Charlesa marriagewith a Lombardprincess(the Frankish
wife, thoughshe hadborne a son, was smartlyrepudiated),withthe evident
objectiveof encirclingCharles'sbrother'sterritory.After one brief period
of estrangementfrom her elder son, Bertrada 'grew old in [Charles's]
household,held in greathonour',livinglong enough'to see threegrandsons
and three granddaughtersin the house of her son'.22
Could it be said that Charles,as the elder son favouredby his mother,
had a secure childhood?Fraternalrivalrymust always have been on the
cards,accentuated,perhaps,by paternaleven-handedness.On his deathbed
Pippinhad dividedhis kingdomequallybetween his two sons.23Charles's
relationshipwith his youngerbrotherCarlomanwas tense as early as 769.
Accordingto Einhard,'concordbetween them remainedin place only with
the greatest difficulty',and when Carlomandied in December 771, his
widow,takingher sons with her, fled to Lombardy'spurningher brother-
in-lawand withoutany reasonsat all'.24At the same time, Charleshimself
reactedto his brother'sdeath by repudiatinghis Lombardwife (againstall
the Church'srules)in orderto marrya noble womanwhosefamilyhadlands
and supportersin the areasCarlomanhad ruled.25Charleswas determined
that the displacementof his brother'sline should be total. When Charles
invadedLombardyin autumn773, his rhetoricwas of defence of the pope's
territorialclaims in northernItaly, but the reality was that he needed to
remove his nephews from the protection of the Lombardking who, no
doubt in revenge for the dishonourdone him when his daughterwas sent
back home, had tried to persuadethe pope to consecrateCarloman'ssons
kingsof the Franks.26 Charles'sfirstmove in Italywasto seize his nephews,27
and afterhis conquestof the Lombardkingdomin June774, those nephews
are never heardof again.This was ruthlessnessexceptionaleven in an age
of bloody intra-familialconflict.
Among those who hadcontributedmost to the successfuloutcomeof the
Lombardcampaignwere Charles'skin. This set the scene for the whole
reign. Uncles and cousins were firmlyharnessedto the regime, servingas
advisers at court and also as diplomats and provincial governors.28
Repeated cases of exilings of royal kinsmen from court suggest endemic
friction,however.Maintainingconcordwithin the immediateroyal family
was a still toughertask. From the late 780s onwards,tensionsbetween his
sons, and between sons and their father, became a leitmotif of the reign.
Charles'seldest son rebelled in 792 with the aim of killing his father and
(half)-brothers.29It looks to me as if incipientrevolts of other sons were
avertedin 799 and 806. Royal women seem to have played a large part in

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 WritingEarlyMedievalBiography 133

keepingthe familyfirmafloat.Charles'sfive successivewives, his sisterthe

Abbess Gisele, and his female cousinthe nun Gundrada,providedmore or
less uncontentioussupportand counsel.Whatarousedsome contemporary
surpriseand even - though this was expressedonly retrospectively- dis-
approvalwas Charles'sdeterminedrelianceon his daughters.30 According
to Einhard,againa key witness,

it was odd that [the king]did not allow any of them to get marriedeither
to a man of his own people or to a foreigner.Insteadhe kept all of them
with him until his death, saying that he could not live without their
company.And on accountof this, he had to suffera numberof unpleas-
ant experiences ... But he never let on that he had heard of any sus-
picionsregardingtheir chastityor any rumoursabout them.31

Einhard is referringhere to the fact that at least two of the unmarried

daughtershad lovers and illegitimatechildren.The word Einharduses for
the relationshipbetweenfatherand daughtersis contubernium: a termwith
doubly suggestiveconnotationsin classicaland FrankishLatin (its literal
meaning is 'tent-sharing')of manly comradeshipand illicit sex. That the
sameword,andsimilarinsinuations,wereborrowedfromEinhardby others
after Charles'sdeath is backhandedtestimonyto the daughters'political
influenceat court duringhis lifetime. Smallwonder his sole survivingson
and successor,Louis, in 814 lost no time in 'expellingfrom the palace the
crowdof women,whichwas extremelylarge'.32
Incest,despitethe suspicionsof some modernhistorians,wasnot, I think,
the name of Charles'sgame,thoughhis successormaywell have foundsuch
canardsusefulin authorizinga cleansweep of the old regimeafterCharles's
death.In his lateryears,afterhis lastwife died in 800,Charleshad a number
of mistressesand illegitimateoffspring(Einhardlists as many of them as,
he says,he canremember).33 Yet it wasnotjust the old patriarch'sstill-lively
sex-drive, but his determinationto maintaincontrol over adult sons by
keeping them guessingabout his plans for the successionthat, duringthe
imperialyears,kept the palaceechoingto the chatterof little Carolingians.
After Charles'sdeath, there were allegationsthat his lustfulconductwhile
livingneeded to be expiatedby his undergoingtormentsin the otherworld.
A visionarymonk declaredthat he had seen Charlesin such a place of pur-
gation,his genitalsbeing constantlytorn at by a savagecreature.34
If family,family-politics,and sex were inseparablypart of Charles'slife
and regime, none of that precludedstrong urges towardspublic religious
reform and private piety. For all his youthful repudiationsof successive
wives, and for all the extra-maritalsex of his mature years, Charleswas
deeplydevout.He believedthat 'the sourceof the greatesthope of salvation
for all Christians'was 'the life and chastityof monks', and he wanted lay
people too, eachin his or herrespectiverankandstation,to live godlylives.35
Einhard,in reportingthe testamentCharleshad drawnup in 811, slips a

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134 HistoryWorkshopJournal

revealingphrasepast readers,to the effect that the old king and emperorat
this point was contemplatingthe possibilityof withdrawingfrom the world
into religiouslife.36This squareswith other strictlycontemporaryevidence,
for instance,in the form of two lists of legal-administrative measures,that
Charleswas demandinghigh standardsof introspectionand self-correction,
not only frommonksand clergybut fromlayfolktoo. The termconversatio,
whichtill the turnof the eighth/ninthcenturyhad tendedto be used only for
correctmonasticconduct,now acquiredan extendedrangeandwas applied,
forcefully,to secular clergy and lay people as well.37By precept, if not
entirelyby example,Charlesdroveforwarda reformagendawhichhadlong-
term effects on later-medievaland modern sensibilities.The makingof a
court society of sorts was the signal achievementof the latter years of
Charles'slife, when afterbeing crownedemperorby the pope on Christmas
Day 800,he presidedover an imperialcourtandcapitalat Aachen.The very
place, its name meaning'Waters',was a sign of cleansingand renewal;and
these were years in whichCharles,ponderingon Augustine'sCity of God,
rethought- and demandedthat his courtiersrethought- what it meant to
be 'trulychristian'.38 In so long a life, it's unsurprisingthat the natureof the
evidence does not remainhomogenous,but, for this forty-five-yearreign,
there is a sufficientlyeven spreadto allow a clearperceptionof an evolving
personalitywith changingprioritiesand desires.
However insuperablethe difficultiesin the way of reconstructing,even
recapturing,the interior lives of nearly all earlier medieval people and
especiallylay-people,in the case of Charlesa biographer'squest can yield
some dividends.Thisis onlypartlya matterof luck.As reformerandpatron,
especially in the imperial years, Charles himself urged the making and
keeping of written documentsand the copying of books.39His personal
virtues- great-heartednessanda gift for friendship- as well as his successes
in public life inspiredEinhardto write about him. His wealth and power
attractedliteraryclients and counsellorsand competent scribes.Immedi-
ately afterhis death,criticswere sharpeningtheirpens. The memoryof this
manwas preservedwartsandall, beforeselect aspectsof it were turnedinto
heroicmyth. If there is a Carolingianequivalentof the Woolf'splug in the
wall, Charleswas foremostin providingthe circuitryand the workmento
put it in place.

NOTESAND REFERENCES

1. Hermione Lee, VirginiaWoolf, London, 1997, p. 10, quoting Woolf's Notebooks,

October1934.Lee observesthat Woolfwas 'appalledat the gap betweenthe necessaryfacts
of a life-story,andits hiddentruth'.
2. Eileen Power,MedievalPeople(1924),10thedn London,1963,pp. 18-38.
3. Norman Cantor, Medieval Lives. Eight Charismatic Men and Women of the Middle
Ages,London,1994.Eleanorappearsat pp. 105-23,in a chapterentitled,'TheGloryof It All'.
4. Lee, Virginia Woolf, p. 98.

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 WritingEarlyMedievalBiography 135

5. Jean Favier,Charlemagne,Paris, 1999, p. 8. From here on, I refer to Charles,not

Charlemagne: the latter,later,namewasoriginallyusedto avoidconfusion,giventhe plurality
of Charlesesin this dynasty,but its distancingeffect is somethingto bewareof. I prefernot to
take for grantedany imputationof greatness,howeverconventional.
6. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, The Life of Charlemagne. The Latin Text with a New
EnglishTranslationby EvelynS. Firchowand EdwinH. Zeydel, Dudweiler,1985,Prologue,
transl.p. 30-3 (here andelsewhereI havetakenthe libertyof slightlyalteringthe translation).
I have learnedmuchaboutEinhardfrommy colleagueDavid Ganz.
7. Einhard,VitaKaroliMagni,chap.18, pp. 74-5.
8. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo. A Biography, London, 1967. Both Woolf and
Augustinewrotevoluminously,andwere self-consciouslybrilliantwriters.Charlemagnecan't
be identifiedas the authorof any text, but I thinkhe inspiredmanyand dictatedsome. See
below,p. 134.
9. I have not used Notker the Stammerer'sGesta Karolihere, but have drawnon its
anecdoteselsewhere ('Aachenas a place of power', in Mayke de Jong and FransTheuws
(eds), Places of Power in Early Medieval Europe, Leiden, 2001, forthcoming). For insights on
how Notker can profitablybe read, see MatthewInnes, 'Memory,oralityand literacyin an
early medievalsociety',Past and Present158, 1998,pp. 3-36, and David Ganz, 'Humouras
history in Notker's Gesta Karoli Magni',in EdwardB. King, JacquelineT. Schaeferand
William B. Wadley (eds), Monks, Nuns, and Friars in Medieval Society, Sewanee TE, 1989,
pp. 171-83.
10. See MatthiasBecher, 'Neue Uberlegungenzum GeburtsdatumKarlsdes Grossen',
Francia19, 1992,pp. 37-60, for a convincingargumentthat Charlemagne'sbirthdatewas 2
April,748 (not as traditionallybelieved,742). His death-datewas 28 January,814.
11. Not that this has been done: Jean Devisse's Hincmar archeveque de Reims, 845-882, 3
vols, Geneva,1975-6,is 1,585pageslongyet givesscarcelyanysenseof a life beinglived,while
recent studiesof Alfred have made curiouslylittle use of his own vernacularwritingsas an
entreeto his mind.ForHincmar,see R. Schieffer,'MoglichkeitenundGrenzenderBiographis-
chen Darstellungenfruhmittelalterlichen Personlichkeiten',HistorischeZeitschrift229, 1979,
pp. 85-95. For an attemptto get at the innerlives of Alfred and others,see Nelson, 'Monks,
secularmen, and masculinity,c.900',in Dawn Hadley (ed.), Masculinityin MedievalEurope,
London,1998,pp. 121-42.
12. Brown,Augustine,p. 172, quotingConfessionsvol. 4, xiv, 22 'Whocan map out the
variousforcesat playin one soul,the differentkindsof love .. .? Manis a greatdepth,0 Lord;
You numberhis hairs... but the hairsof his head are easierby far to countthanhis feelings,
the movementsof his heart.'See also Brown,'SaintAugustine',in BerylSmalley(ed.), Trends
in Medieval Political Thought, Oxford, 1969, reprinted in Brown, Religion and Society in the
Age of SaintAugustine,London,1972,pp. 25-45, at pp. 27-8; andBrown'sIntroduction,p. 21.
13. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.4, pp. 40-1.
14. I have Adalardin mind.BrigitteKasten,Adalhardvon Corbie,Die Biographieeines
karolingischen Politikers und Klostervorstehers, Dusseldorf, 1985, is excellent but brief: there
remainsmore to be said aboutthis intriguingandwell-documentedfigure.
15. Liber Pontificalis, Life of Stephen II, chap. 25, transl. Raymund Davis, The Lives of the
Eighth-CenturyPopes, Liverpool, 1992, p. 63; see also Continuator of Fredegar, chap. 36, transl.
JohnMichaelWallace-Hadrill,
London,1960,p. 104.
16. Life of Stephen II, chap. 27, transl. Davis, p. 64 and n. 64; Codex Carolinus (letters from
eighth-centurypopes to Frankishrulers),nos. 26, 29, 33, ed. WilhelmGundlach,Monumenta
GermaniaeHistorica,EpistolaeIII, Hannover,1892,pp. 530, 533,540.
17. The evidence, from chartersand annals,can be found acutelydiscussedin Brigitte
Kasten, Konigssohne und Konigsherrschaft. Untersuchungen zur Teilhabe am Reich in der
Merowinger- und Karolingerzeit, Hannover, 1997, pp. 127-35.
18. Codex Carolinus, no. 33, p. 540.
19. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.26, pp. 94-5.
20. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.18, pp. 76-7.
21. CodexCarolinus,nos. 46, 48, pp. 564,566.
22. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.18,pp. 76-7. Einhard'sreportcouldimplythatsuchample
experienceof grandmotherhood wasexceptional.It wascertainlynot sharedby anyof Charle-
magne'sown five successivewives, nor, as far as the evidencegoes, by any other highborn
womanof this period.
23. Codex Carolinus, no. 45, p. 561;Annales regni Francorum 768, trans.P. David King;

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136 HistoryWorkshopJournal

Charlemagne.TranslatedSources,Kendal, 1987, p. 74; Continuatorof Fredegar,chap. 53,

transl.King,p. 331.
24. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.3, pp. 38-9.
25. I discussthe evidence and argue for this reconstructionin 'Makinga differencein
eighth-centurypolitics:the daughtersof Desiderius',in AlexanderC. Murray(ed.), After
Rome'sFall: Narratorsand Sourcesof Early MedievalHistory:Essays Presentedto Walter
Goffart,Toronto,1998,pp. 171-90.Bertrada'sestrangementfromCharlesfollowedhis repudi-
ationof the daughterof Desiderius.
26. Life of PopeHadrian,chaps9, 23, transl.King,pp. 187,189.
27. Life of Pope Hadrian,chap.34, transl.King,p. 192.
28. Nelson, 'La famille de Charlemagne',Byzantion61, 1991, pp. 194-212, reprinted
Nelson,Rulersand RulingFamiliesin EarlyMedievalEurope,London,1999,chap.12.
29. LorschAnnals,792, transl.King,pp. 139-40.
30. Nelson,'Womenat the courtof Charlemagne: a case of monstrousregiment'?,in John
C. Parsonsed., MedievalQueenship,New York and London, 1993,pp. 43-61, reprintedin
Nelson, TheFrankishWorld,London,1996,chap.13.
31. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.19, pp. 80-1.
32. Astronomer, Vita Hludovici, chap. 23, ed. Ernst Tremp, MonumentaGermaniae
Historica,Scriptoresrerumgermanicarum in usumscholarum64, Hannover,1995,pp. 350-1.
See also Nelson,'Lacourimp6rialede Charlemagne', in RegineLe Jan(ed.), La royauteet les
elites dans l'Europecarolingienne,Lille, 1998, pp. 177-91, reprintedin Nelson, Rulersand
RulingFamilies,chap.14.
33. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.18, pp. 74-7.
34. WalahfridStrabo,VisioWettini,lines 444 61, ed. and transl.Peter Godman,Poetryof
theCarolingianRenaissance,London,1985,pp.214-5. See furtherPaulE. Dutton,ThePolitics
of Dreamingin the CarolingianEmpire,LincolnNE and London,1994,pp. 63-6.
35. Capitularyof 802, chaps 17, on monks,and 3, 30-40, on lay people, transl.King,pp.
237, and234,240-2. The tone of some of these late capitulariesmightsoundstrangelyfamiliar
to earlymodem historians.
36. Einhard,VitaKaroli,chap.33, pp. 112-3.
37. See the texts translatedand discussedin Nelson, 'The Voice of Charlemagne',forth-
coming,where I arguethat Charleshimselfset the agendasfor assemblies,and dictatedthe
instructionsto be sent to clergyand laymensummonedto attendthem.
38. MonumentaGermaniaeHistorica,Capitularia regumFrancorumI, ed. AlfredBoretius,
Hannover,1883,no. 71, p. 161, trans.in Nelson, 'The Voice of Charlemagne'.For Charle-
magne's'delight'in the worksof Augustine,'especiallythe City of God', see Einhard,Vita
Karoli,chap.24,pp. 90-1. ForAugustineon signs(he 'takesup up a positionanalogousto that
of Freud'),see Brown,Augustine,p. 261;andnow R. Markus,SignsandMeanings.Worldand
textin ancientChristianity, Liverpool,1996,esp. chapter2.
39. RosamondMcKitterick,TheCarolingiansand the WrittenWord,Cambridge,1989.

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