Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
p
robably in 800 AD Charlemagne and his court received a letter,
the De substantia nihili et tenebrarum, written by a certain
Fredegisus. This letter has an at first sight strange topic:
nothing and darkness. More accurately said: Fredegisus tries to
prove in this letter that the word ‘nothing’ (nihil) refers to a real
existing thing and that the word ‘darkness’ (tenebrae) also has
an existing referent. Thus, where ancient as well as modern
philosophy of language considers these words to refer to
intramental concepts, Fredegisus claims that there are two
things outside the mind. We call one of these two things
‘nothing’, the other ‘darkness’. In his proofs Fredegisus used an
array of techniques and theories from philosophy, but included
Scripture as well to get to his conclusion. Charlemagne was
confused. What was he to learn from this letter and from the
way that Fredegisus used the Bible? Especially since the
standard view was that the word ‘nothing’ really had not extra-
mental referent. That this view was the standard view can be
seen in the educational dialogue that Alcuin, an important court
scholar, wrote for young Peppin, the son and heir of
Charlemagne. Alcuin was not ashamed to teach Pippin the
following:
2
The name can be spelled in several ways. I will follow the orthography that
is given in the edition of David Howlett (forthcoming in Archivum Latinitatis
Medii Aevi). This orthography is also used in the Brussels manuscript (B1 in
Ttext tradition). Good biographical sketches are from Philippe Depreux
Prosopographie de l’entourage de Louis le Pieux (781-840) (Sigmaringen
1997), pp. 199-203 and Mary Garrison ‘Fridugisus [Frithugils, Nathanael] (d.
833), abbot and scholar’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography at
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/61648, accessed 26 October 2005.
Especially Depreux has useful notes.
3
Cf. Roger Reynolds for a full description of the chores of an arch-deacon.
‘The Organization, Law and Liturgy of the Western Church, 700-900’ in The
New Cambridge Medieval History, p. 606. In Alcuin’s letter to the patriarch
of Jerusalem, MGH Epist. IV nr. 210, p. 351 r. 7, a letter from Alcuin to the
patriarch of Jerusalem, is the first document in which Fredegisus is called an
arch-deacon.
4
Jozef Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutchen Könige, MGH Schriften,
16/1(Stuttgart 1959), p. 43.
Introduction 3
5
For example Alcuin letter 135, ed. Ernst Dümmler MGH Epistolae Karolini aevi II (Berlin 1895),
p. 204. Mary Garrison, ‘The Social World of Alcuin’ in L. Houwen and A. MacDonald (eds.),
Alcuin of York. Scholar at the Carolingian Court. Germania Latina III (Groningen 1998), p. 79.
6
Alcuin, In Evangelium Joannis, PL 100, 764d. ‘novit enim Dominus, qui sunt
eius. Quorum salvationi ipsum quoque nomen Nathanael aptissime convenit;
Nathanael namque donum Dei interpretatur,…’Cf. Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr.
262, pp. 419-420, r. 28-29/1-12.
7
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 135 204; nr. 289 p. 447-448.
8
Theodulf of Orléans, Ad Carolum regem Carmen XXV ed. Ernst Dümmler
MGH Poetae I (Berlin 1881), p. 487 r. 175-176. Transl. Peter Godman Poetry
of the Carolingian Renaissance (Londen 1985), p. 159 r. 175-176.
Stet levita decens Fredugis sociatus Osulfo, Let the fine deacon Fredugis
stand in company with Oswulf-
Gnarus uterque artis, doctus uterque bene. Both of them experts on
grammar, both of them highly learned
9
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 245 pp. 393-398. This is the case of the escaped
convict. A good introduction can be get in Luitpold Wallach Alcuin and
Charlemagne: Studies in Carolingian History and Literature (Ithaca 1959),
pp. 99-126.
10
Mary Garrison, ‘Fridugisus’.
Introduction 4
11
Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, ed. and transl. Evelyn Scherabon Firchow
(Stuttgart 1996), cap. 33, p. 66.
12
Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle, pp. 82-83.
13
Depreux, Prosopographie, pp. 200-201.
14
Deacon Folcuin in the tenth century and abbot Bovo in the eleventh
denounced Fredegisus’ abbacy of St. Bertin. Ibidem. Further bibliographic
deatails in Depreux, p. 201 n. 28,29.
15
Ermold Nigellus, Carmen in honorem Hludowici, ed. Edmond Faral (Paris
1964, 2nd ed.), p. 176.
16
Agobard of Lyons, ‘Contra objectiones Fredegisi’, ed. Ernst Dümmler in
MGH Epist. III (Berlin 1899), pp. 210-221.
17
Agobard of Lyon, MHG epist.V, p. 214 r 28-30.
Quoting Fredegisus: ‘Nihil enim omnino contra regulam grammaticae
dixerunt [apostoli et evangelistae et scripturae interpretes] quod non ita aut
ratio aliqua aut causa mysterii dici exigeret.’ Ab his verbis vestris multum
ecclesiastici doctores dissonant.’
Introduction 5
18
Vassily, ‘The hunt’ in Neil Gaiman The Sandman. Fables and reflections
(New York 1993), p. 89.
Introduction 6
has tried to poison me with his brews and Bram van den Hoven
van Genderen with his cultural optimism. Nonetheless I thank
Wolfert for the daily conversations, his help, and his comics and
Bram for his tutorship in my career as student of medieval
history. But I should not forget Alisa Bredo, ‘my’ native speaker.
For she has corrected my ‘dunglish’ to American English. And
the thesis would have been less readable if not for her. My last
salute is to Gerja, whose love has supported me every single day.
PART I
Text tradition
19
Concettina Gennaro, Fridugiso di Tours e il “De substantia nihili et
tenebrarum”. Edizione
critica e studio intruduttivo. Con una Aggiunta Paleografica di Anna Laura
Martorana (Padova 1963), pp. 9-56.
20
Andreas Wilmart, Codices Reginenses Latini I: 1-250 (Rome 1936), pp. 152-
155., nr. 69; Joseph van den Gheyn, Catalogue des manuscrits de la
Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique Vol. II. Patrologie (Brussels 1902), p. 303,
nr 1372. The catalogue description of the Bibliothèque National has not yet
reached nr. 5577, Philippe Lauer et al. Catalogue géneral des manuscripts
latins. (Paris 1952). However, Gennaro has included a catalogue description
of ms. 5577 on pp. 19-20, coming from the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, Centre de Documentations, which I have not traced. When
treating P, I will therefore use Gennaro’s description.
Text tradition, Latin Text, Translation 13
P 800-830
V 860-870
B1 800-830
21
The catalogues provide the following dates:
P ninth century
V ninth-tenth century
B tenth century.
Bischoff dates B in the last third of the ninth century, and thinks it was
produced in France. Bernard Bischoff Katalog der festländischen
Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigothischen).
Teil I: Aachen-Lambach. (Wiesbaden 1998), p. 158, nr. 732.
The catalogues also provide information on the other authors in the
codices, which I have left out for the same reason. In V Fredegisus’ text is
accompanied by Alcuin’s letters. In P Fredegisus’ text is accompanied by
Alcuin’s letters and four other texts: Passio s. Eustachii et sociorum, Passio s.
Felicitatis et 7 filiorum, Capitularia regum Francorium I and Prologi in libros
vet. Test. In B Fredegisus’ text is accompanied by Augustine (among others:
excerpts from de vera religione, regula, de civitate dei), Isidore (de ordine
missae et orationibus, quae in ea continentur in libro officiorum), Alcuin (de
baptismi caeremoniis, dialogum de rhetorica et de virtutibus, disputatio de
rhetorica et de virtutibus sipiensimi regis Karoli et Albini magistri), Cicero
(Cato maior de senectute), Seneca (Senecae patris suasoriae et
controversiae), Further two texts: Capitula de quibus concocati conpotiste
interrogati fuerint. Responsiones quoque eorum qualies et ordine quo reddite
fuerint hic pariter ostenduntur and Oraisons en l’honneur de Ste Geneviève.
22
In the palaeographical addition to Gennaro’s work. Gennaro Fridugiso di
Tours, pp. 31-35, especially p. 35.
descendant of P.23 But B1 and P are not related and stem from
different branches. P and V have three lacunae that B1 has not,
and B1 has a lacuna that P and V have not. 24 This suggests that
the text constitution of B1 is better than that of P and V. This
last suggestion is corroborated by an important detail. In B1
(and its copy B2), Fredegisus’ letter is preceded by the letter
Charlemagne wrote to Dungal requesting his opinion on
Fredegisus’ claims. It is therefore very probable that B1 is
closer to the ‘archetype’ than P.
DE SUBSTANTIA TENEBRARUM
EXPLICIT.
Translation
IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT
CHARLES, MOST SERENE AUGUSTUS
CROWNED BY GOD
GREAT AND PEACE-MAKING EMPEROR GOVERNING THE ROMAN
EMPIRE
WHO ALSO THROUGH GOD’S MERCY KING OF FRANKS AND LOMBARDS
TO DUNGAL OUR FAITHFUL MAN
TO ALL THE FAITHFUL MEN OF GOD AND OF OUR LORD THE MOST SERENE
PRINCE CHARLES
LIVING TOGETHER IN HIS SACRED PALACE
FREDEGISUS THE DEACON
Text tradition, Latin Text, Translation 26
24 Indeed not even one of these things which have been begotten
from it can be understood as it is and defined.
25 For who has measured the nature of the elements from an as
[i.e. ‘from a small unit’]?
26 For who has included the substance and nature either of
angelic light or of the soul?
27 If therefore we do not know how to comprehend by human
reason these things which I have proposed
in what manner will we ascertain how much or of what kind this
[nihil] may be, whence they trace back their origin and kind?
28 I could have submitted many other arguments, but we believe that we have
already insinuated enough into the hearts of men eager to learn.
IT ENDS.
Annotations to the text
3
Mario Mignucci, ‘Tradizione logiche e grammaticali in Fredegiso di Tours’ in
Actas del V
congreso internacional de filosofia medieval vol. 2. (Madrid 1979), p. 1010.
4
Max Ahner, Fredegis von Tours. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philosophie im
Mittelalter
(Leipzig 1878), chapter two pp. 24-33.
Annotations to the Text 35
12
Mignucci, ‘Tradizione logiche e grammaticali’, p. 1008.
13
ibidem, p. 1007.
14
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’, p. 766
15
Eleonore Stump, ‘Dialectic’ in David L. Wagner (ed.), The Seven Liberal Arts in
the Middle Ages (Bloomington 1983), pp. 132-135.
16
Eleonore Stump, ‘Dialectic’, p. 127.
Annotations to the Text 38
His aim was to find convincing arguments for his solution to the
question. It is in this way (‘convincing’ or ‘trustworthy’) that
probabile in 12 should be read. His use of probabilis in 82 and
especially 84 suggests that this aim was to be generalised over the
whole of the letter, not only over the first syllogism of 7-12. Finally,
it is in connection with the De topicis differentiis that the word
differentiam in 9 can be put into perspective. A differentia is a
technical term indicating a genus of third terms which can be used
in a syllogism. I doubt whether Fredegisus used differentiam in
exactly the same way, but it seems clear that he wanted to say that
a word like ‘man’ could have a general meaning if there were no
other term with which it was connected (e.g. in ‘Socrates is a man’,
the proposition connecting the two terms ‘Socrates’ and ‘man’, it is
clear that ‘man’ does not mean man in general).
Then there is the question of why Fredegisus included three
syllogisms. Logically, they are redundant, but I presume that
Fredegisus believed them to be different. 17 Colish thinks that at
least the first and the second syllogisms are related. The first
syllogism would only make the existence of nothing probable or
possible. She thus reads probabile as something having a ‘modal’
force. Therefore he needed a second syllogism ‘to close the gap’. 18
In connection with Boethius’ idea that dialectic must yield
convincing, instead of demonstrative syllogisms, I find her idea
unlikely. Another speculation on the relation between the three
syllogisms is from Mignucci. He speculates that the second and the
third syllogisms in the discussion of ‘nothing’ have backgrounds in
different fields of philosophy. The second syllogism would derive
from epistemology (‘we know that ‘nothing’ is a meaningful word,
so there must be an extramental referent’) and the third from
ontology (‘a meaningful word derives its meaning from an existing
extramental-referent’).19 But then what is the background of the
first syllogism? Another speculation could be that there is a
hierarchy in the syllogisms. The first syllogism starts with the idea
that a name has a meaning. The second evolves around the idea
that a meaning involves a reference. The third syllogism states that
a reference is always made to something which exists. And so the
three syllogisms together form a large syllogism itself. This
17
Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 63.
18
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’ , p. 760.
19
Mignucci, ‘Tradizione logiche e grammaticali’, pp. 1013-1014.
Annotations to the Text 39
21
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’ , p. 762.
22
Francesco Corvino, ‘Il “De nihilo et tenebris” di Fredegiso di Tours’ in Rivista
critica di
storia della filosofia Gennaio-Marzo 1956 (11), p. 275.
23
This will be explained in chapter 2.
24
Ahner, Fredegis von Tours, p. 54.
Annotations to the Text 41
25
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’ , p. 761.
26
Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 63.
Annotations to the Text 42
27
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’, p. 762.
Annotations to the Text 43
ibidem, p. 764.
28
29
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’ , pp. 761-762, 774, 785-
786.
Annotations to the Text 44
32
Pseudo-Augustini Paraphrasis Themistiana, Categoriae Decem, ed. Laurentius
Minio-Paluello (Brugge-Paris 1961), par. 31.
PART II
Chapter 1
Historiography
t
here is a long tradition of research on the De substantia. From the
nineteenth century to the late seventies of the twentieth century,
historiography has counted/covered Fredegisus in the context of
the reason-faith debate.33 Adherents of ‘reason’ interpreted
Fredegisus as an ‘enlightened’ logician who used faith as a pretext
to follow his reason. The philosophically minded historians who
saw Fredegisus as such did not hold Fredegisus in high esteem: he
was a failed logician, because his mind was feeble and impeded by
Scripture.34 The ‘faith’ side treated Fredegisus as a theologian who
used reason to clarify his faith. They thought that with his letter
Fredegisus was performing exegesis on Genesis 1. Due to
Fredegisus’ literal-mindedness, they judged him as a failed proto-
33
This opposition is nicely sketched by Marcia Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over
Nihil and Tenebrae’ , p. 764-765, but she has been too harsh on certain
historians. As much as Marenbon (just like Prantl, for that matter) would have
wanted to understand a Fredegisus’ position on universals, his whole point was
that Fredegisus evaded the problem. Ahner showed that Fredegisus’ ideas on
the relationship between faith and authority were consistent with Augustine’s,
since he wanted to reject the overstretched thesis that Reuter and the
enlighteners had put forth. Yet he did not try to prove that Fredegisus was
developing here a whole theory of a ‘holistic system of truth’, as Colish claimed
in her ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’, p. 764. If Fredegisus’
ideas were consistent with Augustines and Alcuin’s, it may be that Fredegisus
did have a theory of such sort. I also believe that Colish overinterpreted Corvino.
She ascribed to Corvino the view that Fredegisus was the herald of an
intramental and logical semantics, but I have not ben able to distill this claim
from his paper.
34
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’ , p. 764, refers among
others to Gennaro, Fridugiso di Tours, p. 100, Ludovico Geymonat ‘I problemi
del nulla e delle tenebre in Fredegiso di Tours’ in Rivista di Filosofia (july 1952),
pp. 101-111, Marenbon From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 62
scholastic.35 Marcia Colish was right to deconstruct the images
that were created of Fredegisus in this debate. Fredegisus was
working under the assumptions and the knowledge of his time, and
had no knowledge of the reason-faith categories as they were used
by these historians. Current research on Fredegisus therefore
benefits much more from the results of placing Fredegisus in the
contexts of three late-antique traditions of knowledge. These
traditions, along with chronology, will form the analytical
instruments with which I have ordered the historiographical
material. One tradition was the logical-philosophical tradition of
Augustine and Boethius, with its commentaries on Aristotle. This
tradition has recently been linked to the second tradition: the
grammatical tradition of Donatus and Priscianus. The third
tradition, with which Fredegisus is connected, is the tradition of
the exegesis of Genesis 1, in which Augustine again figures
prominently. In historiography Fredegisus has been successfully
connected with these traditions. He was first linked with the
exegetical tradition, and next viewed from the logical and
grammatical traditions. Furthermore, a chronological treatment of
the authors seems to show that in modern times research
traditions in different languages succeeded each other. First the
Germans researched Fredegisus, after which the Italians took over
(not accounting for the odd Frenchman) and eventually an interest
in the Anglo-Saxon world took hold.
I will let modern historiography on Fredegisus start in 1844,
when Ritter published his Geschichte der Philosophie. Ritter’s
important original point cannot be put into one of the three late-
antique traditions of knowledge mentioned above. According to
him, Fredegisus attempted to give a description of the point of
contact between God and the creation in his concept of Nothing. 36
Since Nothing is the source of everything, including the soul which
is of a divine nature, Nothing itself has a divine nature. In other
words, it is God.37 Ritter herewith envisioned a line of negative
theology that runs from the Greek church fathers to Fredegisus
and John Scottus. His judgment of the mental powers of our author
35
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’ , p. 764, refers among
others to Ahner, Fredegis von Tours, pp. 24-36, 57-58 and Corvino, ‘Il “De nihilo
et tenebris” di Fredegiso di Tours’, pp. 276-279.
36
Heinrich Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie VII (Hamburg 1844), p. 192.
37
Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie VII, p. 191.
Historiography 48
38
ibidem, p. 187.
39
First edition C. Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande (Leipzig 1855). I
used the photocopied edition (Graz 1955). Fredegisus is treated on pp. 19-20.
40
Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters I
(München 1964
reprint), p. 460, Maurice de Wulf, Histoire de la philosophie médiévale I, p. 157.
Historiography 49
45
ibidem, p. 46.
46
ibidem, p. 47.
47
Augustinus, De genesi ad litteram, I 2-3.
48
Ahner, Fredegis von Tours, p. 47.
Historiography 51
the prime matter that was specific for material things. 49 Fredegisus
included the part on darkness simply because his public wanted to
know his opinion. Fredegisus was thus less inclined to look for a
connection between the two.
With Ahner, the German tradition of research on Fredegisus
discussed here came to a halt. It had tried to understand the letter
by placing its philosophical contents in two traditions: the logical
tradition and the exegetical tradition. Thereby it identified two
groups of sources which can be used in the study of Fredegisus.
Ahner’s study later exerted much more influence than Prantl. The
first serious study of Fredegisus in connection to this logical
tradition appeared only with Mignucci. German research thus
yielded a Fredegisus who had ascribed the characteristics of prime
matter to Nothing. Fredegisus’ goal in this would be to comment
on Genesis 1.1. This Fredegisus-as-exegist reflects the
disproportionate attention that Ahner gave to Nothing as opposed
to darkness.
After the German research tradition, an Italian surge of
interest in Fredegisus began. Ludovico Geymonat was responsible
for this ‘Italian connection’. For the historian, Geymonat’s article
seems only valuable as a curiosity. 50 Yet Geymonat did inspire
Francesco Corvino to take a closer look at our author. 51 He placed
Fredegisus in the context of the exegesis of Genesis 1 and totally
accepted Ahner’s idea that Fredegisus considered his Nothing to
be prime matter. He differed with Ahner’s views on the relationship
between the part on Nothing and the part on darkness. Corvino
perceived an intimate relationship between the two parts, since
Augustine interpreted the darkness in Genesis 1.2 as
49
Ahner, Fredegis von Tours 53-54. Ahner references to a suggestion of Werner,
Alcuin und sein Jahrhunderd (Paderborn 1876), p. 126.
50
I have only seen Gennaro Fridugiso di Tours’s abstract of Geymonat’s study of
1952, but he seems to have tried anachronistically to apply Gottlob Frege’s
theory of sense and reference to Fredegisus’ text. (Gennaro Fridugiso di Tours
107-110. Ludovico Geymonat ‘I problemi del nulla e delle tenebre in Fredegiso di
Tours’ in Rivista di Filosofia (july 1952) pp. 208-288. On Geymonat’s
interpretation, Fredegisus ascribed existence to Nothing because it is the human
think-act of total negation (Gennaro Fridugiso di Tours p. 108.). It is clear that
Fredegisus really did not entertain such an idea. Fredegisus ascribes an extra-
mental existence to Nothing, if only because nothing existed before the human
mind did. Geymonat apparently was interested in theoretical points and not so
much in the historical context of Fredegisus.
51
Corvino, ‘Il “De nihilo et tenebris”, p. 273
Historiography 52
56
Concettina Gennaro, Tours Fridugiso di Tours e il “De substantia nihili et
tenebrarum”. Edizione
critica e studio intruduttivo. Con una Aggiunta Paleografica di Anna Laura
Martorana (Padova 1963).
57
This is also the judgment of Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 62 n. 88.
58
Gennaro, Fridugiso di Tours, p. 64.
59
Ahner, Fredegis von Tours, p. 13-14.
Historiography 54
73
Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 30-31; Early Medieval Philosophy, p.
52, although in this last page Fredegisus is included as part of the achievement.
74
Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 63, 66.
75
ibidem, p. 66.
76
Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy, p. 51.
77
Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 63.
Historiography 58
f
rom this chapter on, I will develop my own interpretation of the De
substantia. As the first of these chapters, the aim here is to provide
a first introduction to Fredegisus’ letter. The first step is to analyze
what this letter was about, in a most general way. The first
noteworthy observation is that the question Fredegisus asks in his
letter has to do with a mere two words. The second observation is
that Fredegisus’ answer is that these two words have referents.
These observations are not earthshaking. In fact, they are so
obvious that an interpreting researcher might not take them
seriously. Yet these observations about the statement of the letter
have farreaching implications for any research into Fredegisus’
methods of derivation, and for the interpretation of the intended
use in its relevant social and intellectual context. It is only since
Mignucci and Colish that Fredegisus’ methods have received due
attention; hitherto, the use of the letter has been neglected. Since
the statement is so fundamental, it is justified to put Fredegisus’
question about words into context and see where this interest in
words came from. The Carolingians had a pervasive concern with
the learning of correct Latin, and Fredegisus’ question fits
perfectly in this context. I will call this concern the ‘linguistic
focus’. It meant that in his letter, Fredegisus was primarily
interested in the words and their relation to the things, and only
secondarily in the nature of these things themselves.
Yet it is the nature of the things, especially of the entity
called ‘Nothing’, to have provoked intensive study, at least in the
80 years since Max Ahner wrote his dissertation. This has led to
the idea that Fredegisus actually meant prime matter with his
thing of Nothing. From Mignucci onwards, the identification of
Nothing with prime matter has been rejected. 86 I fully support this
86
Mignucci, ‘Tradizioni logiche e grammaticali’, p. 1005-1006; Marenbon, From
the Circle of Alcuin, pp. 63-64; Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and
rejection. However, it has never been substantiated. So far, nobody
has scrutinized the tradition of prime matter as it was available in
Fredegisus’ time and compared the findings with his description of
Nothing. As the substantiation of such opinions is fundamental to
any historical enterprise, it is important to review the concept of
prime matter as it appeared in Plato, Calcidius and Augustine, in
order really to be able to make a comparison.
This chapter thus sets out to do two things. First it will not
only say but prove that Fredegisus’ Nothing really was not prime
matter. This interpretation will be cleared once and for all so that
the ‘positive’ research on the De substantia can begin. This
actually constitutes a ‘detour’, since it does not get us any closer to
developing a hypothesis about the meaning or use of the De
substantia. It will, however, clear away a long standing obstacle. In
order to get rid of this obstacle for good, I am prepared to give as
much latitude as necessary to this rejection. I have an ulterior
motive to arrive at another interpretation of Nothing instigated by
an analysis of the methods Fredegisus used. Therefore a subplot
begins here with the rejection of Nothing as prime matter and we
will return to this subplot with another interpretation at the end of
the next chapter. Secondly this chapter will also describe the
linguistic focus which Fredegisus’ question derived from. This
linguistic focus gives the right context with which the aims and
priorities of Fredegisus can be interpreted. His first aim and
priority was to show that ‘nothing’ and ‘darkness’, like normal
words, have referents. Such information is very important if one
wants to use words correctly. Without further ado we will turn our
attention to prime matter.
Tenebrae’, p. 760.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 65
Plato
It will not come as a surprise that this history starts with
Plato’s Timaeus. This later dialogue by Plato, on natural
philosophy, has had a profound influence on Western intellectual
history through its popularity in late antiquity. Moreover, this was
the only one of Plato’s dialogues that was known in the early
middle Ages through Calcidius’ translation into Latin, and
therefore deserves attention.87 In this dialogue, it is the
Pythagorean Timaeus of Locri (Italy), introduced as an honorable
87
Karsten Friis Johansen, A History of Ancient Philosophy. From the Beginnings
to Augustine (London 1998) p. 237.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 66
this view. Joseph Torchia, “Creatio ex nihilo” and the Theology of St. Augustine:
the Anti-Manichaean Polemic and Beyond (New York 1999), p. 23.
91
On the second century apologetics’ uneasy relationship with the Timaeus, see
Torchia, “Creatio ex nihilo”, pp. 6-14.
92
Plato, Timaeus, 47-48a.
93
Plato, Timaeus, 47a; 52a.
94
Plato, Timaeus, in the Donald Zeyl translation: 49a for ‘receptacle’ and
‘wetnurse’, 50d for ‘mother’; 53a for ‘receiver’.
95
Plato, Timaeus, 50b-c.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 68
reason why this container of Space was prime matter was that
change in the sensible world of Becoming could then be
understood as the coming and going of Forms into and out of the
container. In other words: the change we perceive is actually Space
taking on different Forms over time. And so when Plato spoke of
the sensible elements of earth, water, fire and air (the last three of
which constantly change into one another), he did not describe
them as things, but as manifestations of this container. 96 The
container, or Space, therefore was prior to these elements: it was
the substrate or prime matter from which perceptible matter was
formed. Yet this container is very hard to grasp, since our senses
are only apt to perceive the forms. When thinking about it, we are
dreaming with our eyes open and only a ‘bastard reasoning’ can
allow our comprehension.
Although the Latin translation of the Timaeus seems to have
been available to the circle of scholars with which Fredegisus
worked or was part of, Plato’s prime matter has not directly
influenced Fredegisus’ account of Nothing.97 Neither Plato’s
chaotic movement nor Space as a container that manifests itself in
the sensible world are to be found in Fredegisus’ description of
Nothing. A further fundamental difference between Space and
Nothing is that things are in Space, so that Space remains while
the things change. But Fredegisus’ idea was that things were
created out of nothing (ex nihilo), so that Nothing could be
separated from the thing that came from it. I think that Fredegisus
would have found it contradictory to have a thing (e.g. an element)
be another thing (namely Nothing) at the same time. Contrarily for
Plato any perceptible element was itself Space, since it is only a
manifestation of Space. A last difference is that for Plato the soul
was not a product of prime matter, whereas for Fredegisus the soul
and other spiritual entities come from Nothing. Thus it is very clear
that Plato’s receptacle of Space did not serve as a model for
Fredegisus. Augustine’s reworking of neo-platonism on the whole
made it more attractive for modern scholars to see Fredegisus’
Nothing in the light of prime matter.
97
Marenbon, From theCircle of Alcuin, p.57. Chalcidius’ translation only goes to
53c, but all the previous citations from the Timaeus are from this first part.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 69
Chalcidius
Before we turn to Augustine another possibility must be
considered. As I mentioned earlier, a copy of Calcidius’ translation
of the Timaeus was probably present in the circles wherein
Fredegisus moved. This translation was accompanied by an
extensive commentary by the translator, probably written during
the first half of the fourth century for bishop Hosius of Cordoba. 98
This commentary may have influenced Fredegisus. According to
Calcidius’ commentary, it is the part on necessity (De Silva), Plato’s
necessity of course, that is of interest for this thesis. In this part he
treated matter extensively. It is far too long and complicated to
describe in full, and it merits an extensive commentary such as van
Winden has done. Nonetheless, for the purpose of this thesis, it is
safe to claim that Calcidius’ ideas on prime matter are largely in
accordance with Plato’s Space. Matter is the third kind of concept
or principle, which Chalcidius places next to the two other
principles. These to other principles are the unchangeable ideas,
which according to Calcidius are exemplars in God’s mind, and the
coming in to being, i.e. the species which are the images of the
ideas.99 Therefore matter is without form and quality, like wax
ready to be impressed with forms from the outside. 100 Calcidius
differed from Plato in that he consequently calls this third kind
‘Matter’ and not Space. This does not mean that his matter
conforms to our normal understanding of the word matter. Though
he wanted his matter to be considered neither corporeal nor
incorporeal, since it was prior to corporeal or incorporeal things. 101
It was potentially both, and therefore the substrate out of which
corporeal and incorporeal things were formed. It was therefore just
as hard to know matter as it is space. Since the senses perceived
corporeal things and the intellect comprehends incorporeal things,
neither is able to grasp matter.102
98
Jacob van Winden, Calcidius on Matter, his Doctrine and Sources: a Chapter in
the History of Platonism (Leiden 1959), p. 2.
99
Calcidius, par. 344. I have taken the liberty mainly to cite from what van
Winden calls the ‘verifying paraphrase’, that is the third and concluding time
(after the introduction and the argument) that Calcidius presents his ideas.
100
Calcidius, par. 321.
101
Calcidius, par. 319-320. Incorporeal matter is to be understood as the
intelligible.
102
Calcidius, 345-347.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 70
103
Van winden, Calcidius on Matter, pp. 144-145, 171.
104
A fortiori this concerns the concept of prime matter. For I think that Calcidius
read Aristotle as speaking of prime matter, while contemporary scholarship
strongly debates whether Aristotle had prime matter in mind. But since
Calcidius is not really straightforward in this, this claim would need an
argumentation which is beyond this paper. Russel Dancy denies prime matter in
Physics book 1 in ‘on some of Aristotle’s second thoughts about substances:
Matter’ in The Philosophical Review, LXXXVII (no. 3, July 1978) pp. 372-413
while admitting it in the second book of On Generation and Corruption. But
Keimpe Algra also undermines a last stand of Aristotelian prime matter in On
Generation and Corruption, albeit in another locus, in ‘On Generation and
Corruption I.3: Substantial Change and the Problem of Not-Being’ in Frans de
Haas and Jaap Mansfeld (eds.), Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption, Book I
(Oxford 2004) pp. 91-122.
105
Although Calcidius among other works also uses the Metaphysics and On
Generation and Corruption a lot. Van Winden included a useful index on
quotations from ancient sources, Calcidius on Matter, pp. 248-251.
of Plato.106 A discussion arises around the question what the
principles of the becoming of things are. 107 According to Aristotle
there were three principles to this type of change: matter, form and
privation. Take, for example, shapeless bronze.108 Bronze can serve
as the material or substrate out of which many things can be made,
for example statues, coins or swords. But as yet the bronze is not
anything. This is because it lacks a shape which would compel an
observer to call it anything, namely a statue, a coin or a sword. 109
The shape which would ultimately make it anything of note is
called the form. But for now, it lacks a form; in other words, it has
a privation of form. Now Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s concept of
Space is that it conflates privation and matter. If matter lacks form
by nature (as it does in Space) then the following problem arises.
We know it is possible for form to be created out of shapeless
matter. We can change the shapeless bronze into statues or coins.
Thereby the form comes to be. Yet there must be something that
‘desires’ the form, since the form cannot come into being out of
nothing. To say this would violate the law of non-contradiction.
Therefore, form cannot be yearned for by privation, since with the
coming of the form, the privation will be ‘destroyed’ (because it is
the opposite of form). In fact, privation is evil and tries to
counteract form. Something other then privation must desire the
form. The form itself does not ‘yearn’ for form, since the form
already is perfect (otherwise it would change into itself and that
would in fact nullify the change). If the bronze were already a
statue, it could not ‘yearn’ for the form of the statue and change
into one. Therefore there must be something else that yearns for
the change from a lack of shape to a thing. That ‘something else’,
of course, is matter. It is the matter of the bronze that desires the
form. So matter has to be distinguished from privation and from
106
This critique is mainly worked out in Aristotle, Physics I.9.
107
With Aristotle this is a question for sublunary physics.
108
This is the clearest example, but the ultimate use for this theory is for
biological beings, where –as opposed to artifacts- the maker is much less clear.
In this example I am going to talk of bronze as matter in an abstract way.
Aristotle no doubt would want to talk about a specific pile of bronze and not of
bronze in general.
109
Although looking at a ‘lower’ level, this is not true, since the bronze itself has
a particular shape which differentiates bronze from other metals. Bronze itself
therefore has a matter of its own (the elements from which the bronze is formed)
and a form (the specific ratio in which these elements are mixed together).
form, since it can have both privation and form. Therefore neither
form nor privation (according to Plato) belongs to the nature of
matter. In other words, they are accidental.110
Chalcidius has a second way of explaining the same coming
into being of things, which may be interesting for the
interpretation of the De substantia.111 It is from this explanation
that a first interpretative possibility for Nothing is derived. We can
picture for ourselves something that is bound to come into being,
but it is not yet there. We can plan that we are going to make a
statue out of the bronze, but for now it is still shapeless. Then we
can say (assuming that no one or thing impedes us) that the statue
will be made. In Calcidius’ terms, we can say that the statue has a
potential existence, but it is not yet realized. Thus, ‘coming to be’
can be seen as the progression from a possible existence to a
realized existence. The two explanations are connected in the
following way. Matter is capable of having both the opposite of
form and of privation. When matter has a privation of form, it does
not exist as anything. When bronze is shapeless, we cannot say
that it is a statue or a collection of coins. But it has the potential of
assuming a form so that something, the statue, comes into being. 112
In this way the matter becomes the actual (realized) statue. So the
matter by itself (without taking a state of privation of form into
account) can be seen as a potential body, but it is not yet an actual
body.113
In his ideas on matter, Calcidius tried to combine the Platonic
and the Aristotelian notions.114 From this combination a creation in
two phases arose. The first phase of this creation account provided
110
This paragraph was mainly based on paragraph 286 of the De Silva. Van
Winden is not impressed by Calcidius’ apprehension of Aristotle and asks himself
whether he understood the Stagirite, Calcidius on Matter, pp. 84, 88. The
greatest divergence with our current understanding of the doctrine of Aristotle
in book I of the Physics is in my view that the notion of the subject
(hupokeimenon), which is the real underlying factor in change, is not mentioned
by Calcidius. But this notion comes to the fore in I.7, while Calcidius uses mainly
I.8 and I.9.
111
Calcidius paragraph 285. Also according to Aristotle this is another way of
explaining change. In e.g. Metaphysics Λ.5 he treats it right after the principles
of form, matter and privation.
112
The change in terms from possible-realization to potential-actual is deliberate.
Calcidius changes in the same way from paragraph 285 to paragraph 288.
113
Calcidius paragraph 288. Calcidius does make a distinction between an active
and a passive potency, but it does not seem necessary for this paper to treat.
a second possibility to derive Nothing from Calcidius. Matter still
was a container that could be regarded as Space. But the capacity
for this matter to receive forms and opposite qualities was seen in
terms of potentiality.115 This is important for another reason.
Remember the two ways in which Plato described the prime
matter: first as chaos of the sensible world before the ordering,
and second as Space. In Calcidius’ commentary on Plato’s story of
creation, which he sets out in paragraphs 352-354, Plato’s two
ways of describing ‘coming to be’ (receptacle and chaos) evolved
into separate phases.116 First there is a phase in which uncreated
matter is without qualities (thus without the opposites hot-cold,
wet-dry) and motionless. It is the receptacle which can receive
forms but as yet has none. It can therefore be seen by Calcidius as
pure potentiality, ready to receive opposite qualities and forms. In
this phase Aristotle’s notion of potentiality and Plato’s notion of
Space are combined. Next qualities, or ‘vestiges of bodies’ are
‘dropped’ into the matter, causing a disturbance. Calcidius
compares it with the dropping of pebbles into a still pond. Who it
was that ‘dropped’ the qualities in the material pond remains a
mystery, by the way. Matter cannot counteract the qualities that
are dropped therein, since it has no opposing qualities of its own.
Therefore the whole ‘surface’ of matter is brought into disorderly
motion, just like the whole surface of the pond eventually would be
in a turmoil from the pebbles (do not imagine nice circular waves).
This is the second stage of creation, which clearly resembles the
idea of a chaotic prime matter of the sensible, but turns it from a
mythical stage into something real. By this chaotic movement,
Providence can order the elements by their qualities and thereby
separate the materials of fire, water, earth and air. The other
bodies are made out of these elements.
Before I go into the usefulness of ‘matter as potentiality’ for
Nothing, I first want to briefly consider another option arising from
Calcidius’ writings. This will provide us with the third
114
Van Winden, Calcidius on Matter, p. 241. Actually Calcidius probably thought
matter was a good translation concept that the words ‘Space’ and ‘receptacle’
and ‘nurse’ all try to convey. Calcidius saw Aristotle as a Platonist, and not, as
we are used to do, as his foremost critic. Van Winden, Calcidius on Matter, p.
142. This makes one wonder whether Calcidius understood Aristotle’s critique
on Plato through the concept of matter.
115
See for example Calcidius’ paragraph 321.
116
Although this paragraph will be mainly based on Calcidius’ paragraph 352.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 74
that Fredegisus did not use Calcidius’ commentary on Plato for his
Nothing, however high the probability may be that he actually had
it at his disposal. Thus Augustine, the most recent and influential
author on prime matter available to Fredegisus, offers the best
chance to identify Nothing with prime matter.
Augustine
Augustine treated prime matter mainly in the context of his
exegetical efforts on Genesis 1. The De genesi ad litteram, written
A.D. 401-415 A.D., was the latest of his commentaries on Genesis.
Another locus classicus for prime matter is Confessiones book 12,
which was written somewhat earlier, A.D. 397-401. 118 These two
works will serve here as the source for Augustine’s mature
opinions on the topic. Before we go into the works of Augustine, it
should be noted that Augustine developed his exegesis on Genesis
1 in opposition to the Manichees, who taught that there was an
evil, negative God or principle who opposed God and did not have
its origin in God.119 Therefore the negative God is uncreated and
coexistent with God. The negative and evil God is the God of
disunity or change and therefore the changing world in which we
live is in its grip.120 Augustine countered the idea of a negative God
in his exegesis of Genesis 1, stating that God had created the world
out of nothing. The catch here is how one interprets ‘nothing’. The
Manichee could say that ‘nothing’ was the ontologically substantial
negative principle coexistent with God, but Augustine contradicted
this interpretation, explaining nothing or evil instead as a privation
or lack of being.121 In this way Augustine rejected the Manichees. 122
The question under discussion is, however, not whether
118
Johansen, A History of Ancient Philosophy, p. 593.
119
Torchia takes it that with his attack on the Manichees, Augustine actually tries
to reject the whole gnostic outlook. p. 66-67. Augustine, Confessiones IV.15. For
an elaborate account of Manicheaism based on other sources than Augustine
himself, Torchia, “Creatio ex nihilo”, pp. 65-79. The question how much
Augustine knew of Manicheaism is irrelevant here. Even if Augustine knew little
of it, he still opposed his exegesis of Genesis 1 to his perception of Manicheaism.
120
Johanssen, A History of Ancient Philosophy, p. 596.
121
Augustine, Confessiones VII.12, 18.
122
And on an a historical scale, Fredegisus as well.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 76
‘in order that it may not find its end in an unformed state’. The
purpose of unformed matter is obviously that it must be formed, for
taken by itself it is not finished. Unformed matter is not merely
opposing formed matter, but is a logical first step towards it. If we
imagine that the same relation holds between Nothing and the
things created from it, Fredegisus keeps us in the dark. The
element of purpose in unformed matter is altogether lacking in
Nothing.
This uncovers a second argument for why Nothing shouldn’t
be thought of as unformed matter. The reason why the analogous
relationship just mentioned (unformed-formed and Nothing-things)
is doubtful, points to an important difference between Nothing and
unformed matter. Nothing is a thing, but unformed matter is.
Augustine’s unformed matter is explicitly not a thing, for in his
ontology, to be a thing requires having a form. Following this
reasoning, unformed matter is less than a thing. Specifically,
Nothing has a nature, which comes closest to ‘form’, although it is
still intangible. Yet Augustine’s was that unformed matter is
‘natureless’. In my opinion, this difference in ontology behind
Nothing and unformed matter makes an identification
impossible.134
Finally, there is a third argument against such identification.
Both Augustine and Fredegisus attach opposing moral values to
unformed matter and Nothing. As I observed earlier, Fredegisus
characterises Nothing with the lofty-sounding term noble
1.2. In other words, the ‘primal tenebrae’ which is treated above, is connected to
the scriptural place of the Colishes’ second kind of darkness. In fact in the de
genesi ad litteram the two kinds of darkness are conflated. For in his discussion
of gen. 1.4 in the de genesi Augustine applies the idea of order directly prior to
the ‘primal’ darkness. Finally Colish also states that the primal darkness can
denote the rationes seminales. This in my view can hardly be distilled from the
De genesi ad litteram. But if primal darkness denotes the seminal reasons, then
the case I am making would even be stronger. There is no question about
nothing carrying the same seeds for later development as primal darkness, thus
unformed matter does. With this rationale she probably claimed that Nothing is
unassociated with primordial causes. The explanation for the difference between
Colish’s view and mine may be that she uses the De genesi contra Manicheos, so
that this indicates a variance in Augustine’s voluminous oeuvre. Colish,
‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’, pp. 772-773.
134
And so in my opinion Corvino is wrong in his 1950’s elimination of prime
matter by Fredegisus, because of nothing and prime matter sharing the only
property of existence.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 80
non quia hoc jam erat, sed quia hoc esse poterat. Nam et coelum postea scribitur
factum. Quemadmodum si semen arboris considerantes, dicamus ibi esse radices
et robur, ramos, fructus, et folia ; non quia jam sunt, sed quia inde futura sunt.
Sic dictum est : In principio fecit Deus coelum et terram, quasi semen et coeli et
terrae, cum confusa adhuc esset coeli et terra materia. Sed quia certum erat
inde futurum esse coelum et terram, jam et ipsa materia coelum et terra
appellata est.’
Alcuin, Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesim, PL 100 519a.
‘Interrogatio 19. Quot modis est operatio divina?
Responsio. Quatuor. Primo, quod in verbi [Dei] dispensatione omnia aeterna
sunt. Secundo, quod in materia informi ‘qui vivit in aeternum, creavit omnia
simul’.’
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 82
So I urge you, my child, to look up at the sky and the earth. Consider
139
everything you see there, and realize that God made it all from nothing, just as
He made the human race. Cf. Torchia, “Creatio ex nihilo”, p. 2.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 83
from the 780’s onwards Charles and his royal advisors were
thinking about government, the responsibility for the salvation of
the Christian subjects loomed increasingly largely in their minds.
The term ecclesia acquired a new meaning from these decades on.
Not only did it refer to the church as a separate order in society,
but it also came to have an ‘all-embracive’ meaning of ‘the
Christian people, led by Charlemagne and united by a correct
worship of God’.143 This ideal of correctness, which will be further
treated in chapter four, took its shape in the idea that liturgy had
to be performed correctly and that Scripture had to be properly
understood through exegesis. Both of these enterprises of liturgy
and exegesis depended on a good competence of Latin in order to
not fail when addressing God and interpreting the tropes and
figures in his Book. Since, as could be learned from the Old
Testament, the welfare of the realm was directly related to the
purity of the faith, a good command of Latin was to be sponsored.
There were therefore not only Latin teachers present at court, such
as Peter of Pisa, but Charles also commanded the rest of his clergy
to learn the language. In the Epistola de litteris colendis (780-800)
and the Admonitio Generalis (789), these concerns with
correctness of the language of the clergy can be seen.144
The position of Latin as a language with ideological
connotations was strengthened by the fact that it had been spoken
in the Roman Empire. The memories of the Roman Empire were
especially kept alive in the Lombard kingdom, so that Charles
came into contact with these memories after his annexation of the
Lombard kingdom in 774.145 In the west, the Roman Empire once
yielded a universal authority, and the use of Latin as official state
language still alluded to this. The idea of universality, moreover,
went well with the idea of a universal church, so that in
Charlemagne’s reign, the state, church and language became
intricately connected. An important factor in this connection was
that under his rule Charles brought together several peoples, or
‘gentes’. People in the early middle ages had learned from the
143
Mayke de Jong, ‘Charlemagne’s church’ in Joanna Story (ed.), Charlemagne.
Empire and society. (Manchester and New York 2005), p. 110.
144
This will be elaborated in chapter four, pp. 90-93.
145
Giles Brown, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’ in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.),
Carolingian
Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge 1994), pp. 28-29.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 86
Roman Empire that the rule over multiple gentes was a property
reserved for empires.146 When in the 790’s the imperial idea came
to take hold of the royal court, Charles decided to build himself a
suitable capital in Aachen in emulation of Constantine. The Latin
language therefore acquired a meaning which far transcended the
function of forming sentences. Elites focused on Latin, and on
learning the correct words and ways. The result was that some
groups in the ecclesiastical and political elites became so skilled in
using Latin that they used it for poetic compositions. This meant
that a high-Latin came to be distinguished from a vulgar-Latin, a
development which contributed to the development of Romance
vernacular languages from Latin in 750-1000.147
One of the consequences of this focus on Latin was that the
study of grammar, the first of the liberal arts, received an impetus
under the Carolingians. It started with reception of the
grammatical tradition. In late antiquity school grammars were
written, e.g. Donatus’ Ars Minor, and most were transmitted to the
Carolingians. These school grammars systematically discussed the
definitions and properties of the parts of speech. Unfortunately, the
grammars presumed a rather advanced level of competence since
they were written for native speakers or advanced foreign
students. Their coverage of the morphology of the noun and verb
was therefore far from comprehensive. Moreover, they were, in the
words of an expert, ‘telegraphically concise’ and thus ill-suited for
beginning students groping for fundamental understanding. 148 I
expect the average medievalist would wake up in cold sweat from a
146
Janet Nelson, ‘Kingship and Empire’ in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.),
Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation. (Cambridge 1994), p. 69. When
Nelson speaks of ‘Rome-free’ I take it to mean ‘free from papal influence or
authority’, not as ‘free from Roman connotations’.
147
Michel Banniard provides a nice periodization of the loss of competence of
latin in the illiterate masses and lay aristocracy, which provided these years. The
year 750 is based on the start of a ‘rapid loss by the mass of the illiterate, of
“passive competence”’, i.e. of an understanding of Latin. But the case might also
be made that the mass of illiterate lost their competence from 650 onwards,
when the ‘active competence’ of Latin declined. For this thesis it is not
necessary to delve into the debate about the development of vernacular.
‘Language and Communication in Carolingian Europe’ in Rosamond McKitterick
(ed.), New Cambridge Medieval History vol. II (Cambridge 1995), pp. 698-699.
For the claim that het differentiation in high and vulgar latin (sermo rusticus) led
to a linguistic crisis pp. 699-700.
148
Vivien Law, ‘The study of grammar’, p. 89.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 87
149
Ibidem, p. 95.
150
L. J. Engels, ‘Priscian in Alcuin’s De Orthographia’ in L.A.J.R. Houwen and A.A
Macdonald (eds.), Alcuin of York. Scholar at the Carolingian Court. Germania
Latina III (Groningen 1995), p. 126.
151
Vivian Law, ‘The study of grammar’, p. 96.
152
Alcuin, Orthographia, ed. Aldo Marsili (Pisa 1952), p. 107.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 88
expressions of the concern aout how one used correct Latin. The
intellectual surroundings in which Fredegisus lived thus provided
him with an opportunity for the most thorough grammatical
education to be had at the time.
Another consequence of this focus on Latin was that the
Carolingians also scrutinised texts for having the correct
grammatical constructions. The mistakes of scribes did not only
comprise lacunae or redundancy. By poorly reading texts they
might change an inflexion and thereby a grammatical construction
as well.153 Moreover they sometimes consciously made grammatical
adjustments in order to suit their sense of language or meaning of
the text. This heightened focus on the grammatical underpinnings
of the language can also be considered as a step towards the
forming of a canon. In this case we are dealing with a canon who
was not religious. The Carolingians took certain exemplars for
‘correct’ Latin. These exemplars were classical poets, the late
antique church fathers and the Bible. However diverse the state of
Latin in these exemplars was, it still provided the Carolingians with
models for correctness. Moreover, the grammatical treatises that
were used had already established a canon of established grammar
which was current in the same period (the late empire) as most of
these exemplars were made.154 Thus, developments and variants
that Latin as a language in use had undergone in Merovingian
times could be considered faulty. As observed above, the
Carolingians themselves probably had a large part in separating
Latin from its Romance successors by setting standards of Latin
through schooling and actively propagating a distinction between
elite and vulgar language.155
Perhaps the most important text to be emended was the Bible
itself. In the late eighth and early ninth century several efforts
153
When writing about the gender of ‘rubus’ Alcuin warned that his authorities
might have been corrupted in their transmission, since a simple change of a
letter can change the gender of the word. ‘Inter hos vero auctores vestra videat
prudentia, quid sequendum sit. Possunt enim quaedam ex is exemplis vitio
scriptoris esse corrupta, et u pro a vel etiam a pro u posita.’ Alcuin, MGH Epist.
IV, pp. 260-262 nr. 162.
154
L. J. Engels, ‘Priscian in Alcuin’s De Orthographia’, p. 114. cf Robert Kastler,
‘Islands in the Stream’ in Daniel Taylor (ed.), The History of Linguistics in the
Classical Period (Amsterdam and Philadelphia 1987), pp. 149-168.
155
Mark Amsler, ‘Standard Latin’ in Vivien Law (ed.), History of Linguistic
Thought in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge 1993), p. 57.
were made to correct the Bible.156 The monastery of Corbie
produced a revision of the Bible during the abbacy of
Maurdramnus (772-781). The ‘Ada Group’, a group of manuscripts
consisting of seven gospels and one Psalter (possibly produced in
Aachen in the period 781-814) may reflect such a revision as well.
Both the Corbie effort and the ‘Ada Group’ may have been of
influence on the most famous of these projects: Alcuin’s Bible
revision.157 His work was a classical emendation in which he
rectified the grammar, orthography and scribal errors. The
scriptorium of Tours, notably under Fredegisus, produced
beautiful, large format (50cm x 35-39cm) pandects, very suitable
as princely gifts. Maybe it was the first of these Bibles that
Fredegisus himself offered to Charlemagne as a Christmas present
from Alcuin in 800.158 The sweeping impact of these emendations of
patristic texts and especially the Bible was apparent in discussions
about grammar. Not everyone was convinced that grammar should
occupy such an important position. After all, the art of grammar
and the first grammarians were of pagan descent. 159 Why should
the Word be held to pagan grammatical rules? This led to fierce
debates. Agobard of Lyons, for example, held a similar view in his
letter to Fredegisus. He stated that human words just weren’t
enough to express holy matters. The translators and exegetes were
therefore evenly excused if they explained these matters
ungrammatically.
It was they themselves who were at fault, for their need for
grammatical rules: ‘We are the truly poor ones, for we must show
the things we want poorly through the limitations of words.’161
These debates bear witness to the fact that grammar held such a
pride of place in the Carolingian society that some deemed it
hubris.
The focus on language, however, was not solely defined by
the study of grammar and the emendation of texts. The
Carolingians must also be credited with an understanding that
texts have a history of their own. Although reading Greek and
Hebrew was more something of the late ninth c., it was very well
known that the Bible had not been written in Latin. For example,
another discussion between Agobard and Fredegisus evolved
around the reason for ‘a translator’ (Jerome?) to render ‘sanguines’
in plural. Was it because he found a plural in the Greek, as
Fredegisus apparently thought, or, as was Agobard’s conviction,
because it was only in this way that the sentence would keep its
meaning?162 The notion that texts have a history was not only on
the level of words or translations. The Carolingians had a sense
that texts are dependent on text traditions, with their individual
160
Agobard of Lyon, MGH Epist. V, nr. 13, p. 213 r. 24-32. ‘Diximus namque, quia
interpretes divinorum voluminum vel expositores non curarunt omnino tenere
indeclinabiliter regulam gramaticae artis; quod utique neque imperitia neque
malitia fecerunt, sed ratione condescensionis; ut, sicut usus sanctae scripturae
est verbis condescendere humanis, quatinus vim ineffabilis rei humano more
loquens ad notitiam hominum deduceret, et mysteria insolita solitis ostenderet
rebus, ita et interpretes eius eam sequendo, illud studuerunt summopere
transferre, unde manifestiorem sensum legentibus preberent, etiamsi contra
grammaticam esset eatenus, ut sacramento rei concordaret.’
161
ibidem, p. 214 r. 18-20. ‘nos vero pauperes, ut possumus, per angustias
verborum tenuiter ea quae volumus significamus.’ For this remark he earned a
marginal gloss ‘nota humilitatem viri’.
162
ibidem, pp. 213 r. 45-214 r. 3. ‘Iam enim legeramus sanctos doctores ita ut
exposuisse, quod interpres ideo plurali numero sanguines in hoc loco transtulit,
quia sensum evangelistae, quem ille in Greco edidit, hoc in Latino transferre
aliter non potuit; non, sicut vos dicitis, propterea fecit, quia in Greco pluraliter
invenit.’
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 91
163
Laura Light reports this lay-out of a Paris manuscript, BN lat. 9380 ‘Versions
et Révisions du texte biblique’, p 64. Contreni adds that the Roman numeral ii
preceded a reading common to both Alcuin and the Spanish tradition and ‘h’
preceded a reading based on Hebrew in ‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, p. 78. He
bases himself on Bonifatius Fischer, ‘Bibelausgaben des frühen Mittelalters in La
bibbia nell’alto Medioevo. Settimane di Studio X (Spoleto 1963), pp. 593-596 and
Elisabeth Dahlhaus-Berg, Nova Antiquitas et Antiquita Novitas. Typologische
Exegese und Isidorianisches Geschichtsbild bei Theodulf von Orléans (Cologne
and Vienna 1975), p. 44. Dahlhaus-Berg ascribes this to ms. Θ g. Two pages
earlier this turns out to be Paris BN lat. 11937.
164
John Contreni deems Theodulfs Bible ‘a work of true critical editorial
scholarship’, but Laura Light regrets the fact that still ‘il n’en a pas résulté une
meilleure qualité de son texte.’ Contreni, ‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, p. 78,
Laura Light, ‘Versions et révisions du texte biblique’, p. 64.
165
Bernice Kaczynski, ‘Edition, Translation, and Exegesis’ in Richard Sullivan
(ed.), The Gentle Voices of Teachers. Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age
(Ohio 1995), pp. 173-174.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 92
they made and the variants they found had to do with the
corruption or change of the language of the Bible, but not its
meaning. The primary concern of the Carolingian focus on Latin
was on the language as a system of communicating meaning
(literal and allegorical), not on the meaning itself or the things
referred to. Their ‘linguistic turn’ never evolved into ideas on the
creative input of man as a ‘reader of the text of reality’.
However, Fredegisus’ letter was a long way from systematic
grammatical works, complete revisions of the Bible or tripartite
Psalters. In order to fit Fredegisus into the correct context, we
must compare his works to texts of much humbler size and
pretension. Alcuin’s letter to Angilbert, probably written in the
period 796-799, is useful for a comparison. It is an example of
small grammatical questions which prompted concise answers
from masters. In this letter Alcuin answered two restricted
grammatical questions: what was the gender of the word ‘rubus’
(bush, shrub), and should one write ‘despexeris’ or ‘dispexeris’
(that you have despised)?166 In the MGH edition, it takes Alcuin
over two pages to confront several authorities and come to
considered answers, probably on the basis of the best linguistic
considerations to be had at the time. In my opinion, this letter can
be seen as a very good comparison with Fredegisus’ letter. Both
texts are letters of roughly the same size; both were composed
under the linguistic focus, and both clearly adress questions about
words. These words were not just any words either. Just as the
words ‘nothing’ and ‘darkness’ were packed with a religious
significance, ‘rubus’ had a strong religious connotation too. God
used a burning shrub to speak to Moses in Exodus 3:2-3:7. I would
not be surprised if ‘despicere’ was also a religious-ethical word
meaning the opposition of the virtue of humilitas. At the least it is
important to know its orthography if one wants to correct psalm
54:2, which was cited in the letter.167 Last but certainly not least,
Alcuin’s letter, like the De substantia, shows the involvement of
Charles himself and the court in this ‘palatine question’. 168 This
letter points back to the question of why grammar was so
166
Alcuin, epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epistolae IV, nr. 162.
167
Hear, O God, my prayer, and despise not my supplication.
168
‘Miror, cur Flaccinae [=Alcuin] pigritiae socordiam spetiplicis sapientiae
decus, dulcissimus meus David, interrogare voluisset de quaestionibus palatinis;’
MGH Epist. IV, nr. 162, p. 260.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 93
169
Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary (1879), ‘regula’, I, p. 1553. Blaise,
Dictionnaire Latin-Français des auteurs chrétiens (1954), ‘regula’, 1, p. 708.
170
Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitates Lexicon Minus (1984, 2nd ed.), ‘regula’ 1-2, 7-
11, p. 903. Blaise, 4-6.
171
Lewis and Short, II. Blaise 2-3.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 94
was discussed somewhat earlier, was not the only type of grammar
in late antiquity. There was another genre of grammatical tracts
which were known as ‘regulae’.172 A regulae covered only one or a
few parts of speech in which the focus was on morphology
(‘regulae’ is plural since in one tract several grammatical patterns
were addressed). Their material and paradigms could be
structured in various ways, for instance by declension, conjugation
or gender. However, they didn’t structure their material by
definition and properties of the parts of speech, as was done in
school grammars, since these were assumed. It was these rules
and patterns of inflection that gave the genre its name. The rules
and patterns were explained by paradigms that other words or
verbs follow by analogy.173 It would be a strong argument indeed if
it could be proven that Fredegisus referred to this genre.
Unfortunately, I have not found enough support to substantiate
such an argument. It is true that the regulae were not forgotten in
the eighth century. The regulae of Eutyches and Phocas (fourth-
fifth century) were still studied, and some material of Phocas found
its way into the Liber Glossarum.174 It would be interesting to know
whether Alcuin had Priscians regulae, the Institutio de nomine et
pronomine et verbo, at hand along with his Institutiones
Grammaticae.175 But more research is needed to find out whether
Fredegisus himself had such a regulae at his disposition. There is a
big problem as well. As yet I haven’t found any use of the word
‘regula’ with this genre as the clear referent. Therefore it remains
at best inconclusive whether or not Fredegisus referred to the
genre.
This should not disappoint us, though. Perhaps Fredegisus’
use of ‘regulae’ with the genre as referent has not been
substantiated, but there can be no doubt that the word ‘regula’ was
172
Vivien Law, ‘Late Latin Grammars in the Early Middle Ages: A Typological
History’ in Daniel Taylor (ed.), The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period
(Amsterdam and Philadelphia 1987), p. 192.
173
‘Priscian wrote in the Institutio de nomine et pronomine et verbo: ‘Omnia
verba, quae secundum analogiam declinantur, in o vel or desinunt et habent
coniugationes quattuor.’ In Henric Keil (ed.), Grammatici Latini III, p. 450, 38.
Vivien Law, ‘The Study of Grammar’, p. 89.
174
David Ganz, ‘The “Liber Glossarum”: A Carolingian Encyclopedia’ in Paul
Butzer and Dietrich Lohrmann (eds.), Science in Western and Eastern
Civilization in Carolingian Times (Basel, Boston and Berlin 1993), p. 127.
175
Vivien Law, ‘The study of Grammar’, p. 92.
Much ado About Fredegisus’ Nothing 95
of their Latin. Yet some Carolingians did not stop at that. Alcuin
and his scholars, among them Candidus and Fredegisus, used
their knowledge of grammar and language as an analytical
method. This is understandable in a culture in which God was
revealed through text. Moreover, Alcuin introduced his pupils
to the theory of the categories through the Categoriae Decem.
These categories are eminently suited to the study of reality
through language, since they make a connection between
predicates and properties. John Marenbon has analysed the
appliance of logic and the categories to theology in Alcuin’s
circle.179 It is this use of logic, categories and grammar for the
purposes of analysis that constituted the grammatical method.
Such a grammatical method is only useful if one presumes that
language has a bearing on reality, though. The connection of
language to reality was a philosophical presupposition in the
early middle ages, although according to some philosophical
theories, e.g. Augustinian sign theory, this connection was
stronger than according to others, e.g. Boethian-Aristotelian
philosophy of language. John Marenbon has identified a
passage in Alcuin’s Dialectica which stresses this connection
between words and things. He thinks this is a likely passage to
have served as ‘jumping-off point’ for Fredegisus’ ideas.180
Whether true or not, this was the context in which Fredegisus
operated and used the grammatical method to solve his
problem with ‘nothing’ and ‘darkness’.
What were the theories from the grammatical method
supposed to do for Fredegisus? Evidently Fredegisus picked
those elements from the theories at his disposal that stressed
the connection between a word and a thing. 181 This observation
indicates first that with this concern Fredegisus shared in an
important early medieval presupposition: the word is the
carrier of the meaning. In the eleventh century, or in
Aristotelian philosophy of language, it is the proposition which
179
See the historiographical chapter. John Marenbon, From the Circle of
Alcuin, pp. 62-66.
180
John Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin, p. 63. Marcia Colish consideres
the passage likely as jumping-off point too in ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil
and Tenebrae’, p. 784-785.
181
I choose to use the word ‘thing’ instead of ‘object’ since in medieval
philosophy the word ‘object’ would refer to an intramental picture of a thing.
Yet ‘thing’ is here meant as synonym of our modern ‘object’.
Categories and Origins 99
1. Categories.
quoniam definitio vera esse non poterat nisi prius natura hominis appareret,
idcirco ex his duobus, quae in semet converti diximus, homo prioris locum
tenet cuius exstantia definitionis suae exprimit veritatem.’ Cf. Categories, p.
14b 11-24.
187
Categoriae Decem, par. 71. ‘...cum aliquid viderimus, id necesse est
quantum sit aestimare.’
Categories and Origins 104
2. Etymology.
Categoriae Decem, par. 29. ‘…,et id quod dinoscitur sensibus ‘usian’ dici,
191
….’
Categories and Origins 106
192
Mark Amsler in his 1976 dissertation The Theory of Latin “Etymologia” in
the Early Middle Ages: From Donatus to Isidore (Ann Arbor and London
1980), pp. 25, 106.
193
Amsler, The Theory of Latin “Etymologia”, p. 25.
194
An example of Varro, Amsler, The Theory of Latin “Etymologia”, p. 30.
195
Mark Amsler, The Theory of Latin “Etymologia”, p. 126.
Categories and Origins 107
202
Ibidem, p. 452, also n. 1. Amsler, The Theory of Latin “Etymologia”, p. 23.
203
Amsler, The Theory of Latin “Etymologia”, p. 115.
Categories and Origins 109
etymologist in the early middle ages, and for him the word was
a route of access towards spiritual reality.
This etymological theory was widely shared, for example
by Augustine, Jerome, Isidore and others. Fredegisus used
some of the elements of the theory in his mode of thought of
the connection between a word and its extraverbal reality. This
is clear from sentences 43-57, which form a considerable part
of the proof of the existence of darkness. In Genesis ‘day’ and
‘night’ share a similar grammatical function. Therefore, if ‘day’
refers to a thing, ‘night’ must also refer to such a thing. In
sentence 20, Fredegisus states that the church holds that light
is created from nothing. Thus light is something, and darkness
must be something too. This next argument is founded on the
belief that words and things share a common origin in God in
51-52. With this foundation of a common origin in mind, to deny
that ‘darkness’ refers entails the rejection of the principle of
economy: God would have done something in vain. One wanted
to keep clear of such an implication, since it was not only
wrong, but even morally reproachable (nefas est) in 53-56. It
was therefore entirely understandable that our deacon
explicitly mentioned the Genesis account of naming. Not only
did it mention darkness, but it also evoked presuppositions
about the shared origin of words and things from etymological
theory. Yet Fredegisus rejected the idea that this shared origin
was of a spiritual nature. For Fredegisus, God gave the names
as vocal sounds to the things he created. This will become clear
through his examination of the word ‘nothing’.
3. Vox Significativa.
4. Divination
208
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’, p. 766.
Categories and Origins 112
213
Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram in libri duodecim, cap. 2, 9. Alcuin, MGH
Epist. IV, nr. 163, p. 265, r. 10-13. ‘Verbum enim cum dico, priorem dum dixi
syllabam, posterior futura fuit: et dum posteriorem dico, praeteriit prior. Deo
vero nihil praeteritum vel futurum, sed omnia praesentia sunt, qui servo suo
Moysi ait: “Ego sum, qui sum”.’
214
Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, cap 9, 17.
215
Shimizu Tetsuro Alcuin’s Theory of Signification, p. 15.
216
Ibidem, p. 13.
217
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, 163, p. 265, r. 16-18. ‘Verba enim, quibus loquimur,
nihil aliud sunt, nisi signa rerum earum, quas mente concepimus, et [quibus]
ad cognitionem aliorum venire volumus.’
Categories and Origins 114
t
he time has come to widen the scope from the technicalities and
intellectual antecedents of Fredegisus’ letter. This time, however,
the questions will not be about the ‘inner core’ of the phenomenon,
but on the relationships it has with its surrounding world. In other
words, the ‘use’ of the De substantia will have to be addressed in
order to find out what Fredegisus was doing. Why would he have
been interested in writing about ‘nothing’ and ‘darkness’ in the
first place? This answer involves the historical context.
We have seen what the De substantia was about in the
chapter about the statement, and how Fredegisus argued in his
text from his question to the answer in the chapter on the method.
The historical context was important in these chapters since it
elucidated the statement and the method, the ‘inner core’ of the
phenomenon. But it is even more important in this chapter. In
order to see how the De substantia was supposed to be read and
how it was supposed to function one can only place the text in the
historical context. This statement may appear trivial, but it is in the
execution of the research that it must prove its relevance.
Therefore I think it is important to give the historical context all
the space that it needs, and I am afraid it needs a lot.
Indeed both the general developments of the period in which
Fredegisus wrote and the audience for whom he wrote are factors
in the shaping of the De substantia. Moreover, the general
developments and the audience are themselves intricately linked,
since the court and its supreme courtier Charlemagne exercised a
strong influence on the literary culture and ideology in the last
decades of the eighth century. In my opinion it is important to show
how this connection worked and how Fredegisus operated in this
culture. This chapter will start with a general brief introduction to
Tutoring the Court 118
writings and liturgical books. But among the books copied there
were also very different works, e.g. grammars and commentaries
on Roman literary classics.4 As book production expanded, the
library holdings rapidly increased from about 790 to 840. 5 This
expansion in size was mirrored by an expansion in function.
Whereas, for example libraries of monasteries prior to c. 790
mainly provided texts used for monastic reading and study, after
this date they were also used for broad educational purposes and
erudition.6
It was not only the production of manuscripts that surged.
The number of schools presumably increased from the late eighth
century onwards and some 70 centers of learning have been
identified in the ninth century. 7 Using the book of psalms, but also
grammars (from among others Donatus and Priscian) and Latin
poets (e.g. Virgil), the boys in the schools at these centers would be
instructed in basic chant, study Latin grammar, learn to write by
copying texts, learn rudimentary arithmetic and computus (useful
in the counting of tithes and dates for example) and some
explication of Scripture.8 Advanced studies for those destined to
become prelates or masters in their own right seems to have
comprised the artes liberales, the patristic tradition and eventually
advanced studies of Scripture. Of course specific needs and
interests of individual schools shaped specific circumstances for
each of the schools, but still the schools instilled some basic tools
for a shared literary culture over a geographic area that stretched
from the Rhone to the Rhine and from Rome to Utrecht. 9 Leaving
aside the works that were written in the fields of historiography,
hagiography and poetry, other works like the florilegia of patristic
works, educational dialogues and biblical commentaries attest to
4
Contreni, ‘Learning in the Early Middle Ages’, p. 11
5
Ganz, ‘Book production in the Carolingian Empire’, p. 788.
6
Idem, p. 801.
7
John Contreni, ‘Education and Literary Culture’ in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.),
New Cambridge Medieval History vol. II (Cambridge 1995), p. 721.
8
A much discussed theme in the papers of John Contreni. Idem p. 720 and
‘Learning in the Early Middle Ages’ p. 11, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’ in
Waren Treadgold (ed.), Renaissances Before the Renaissance: Cultural Revivals
of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Stanford 1984), pp. 66-67, 70-71.
9
For an account of structural differences or contradictions that the Carolingian
Renaissance would summon see John Contreni, ‘Inharmonious Harmony:
Education in the Carolingian World’ in The Annals of Scholarship: Metastudies
of the Humanities and Social Sciences I (New York 1980), pp. 81-96.
Tutoring the Court 120
the fact that the men of letters under the scepter of the
Carolingians not only received and preserved late antique and
classical culture, but digested and reworked their heritage as
well.10
10
Willemien Otten on the Opus Caroli in ‘The Texture of Tradtition: the Role of
the Church Fathers in Carolingian Theology’ in Irena Backus (ed.), The
Reception of the Church Fathers in the West vol. I (Leiden 1997), pp. 4, 9, 24;
Colish, ‘Carolingian Debates over Nihil and Tenebrae’, p. 794; Contreni,
‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, pp. 72, 85-86; Shimizu, ‘Alcuin’s Theory of
Signification’, p. 4-5; Leonardi, ‘Alcuino e la scuola palatina’, p. 462.
11
Cassiodore, Variarum libri duodecim ed. Theodore Mommsen in MGH AA vol.
12., lib. VIII cap. 31 r. 3-7. ‘Quid prodest tantos uiros latere litteris defaecatos?
Pueri liberalium scholarum conuentum quaerunt et mox foro potuerint esse
digni, statim incipient agresti habitatione nesciri: proficiunt, ut dediscant:
erudiuntur, ut neglegant et cum agros diligent, se amare non norunt.’ Also
mentioned by Contreni, ‘Learning in the Early Middle Ages’, p. 3. Yitzhak Hen,
for example, describes the role of the Bible and the composition of three
exegetical treatises in the seventh century, ‘The Bible and Kingship in
Merovingian Gaul’ in Early Medieval Europe 1998 7 (3), pp. 280, 285.
12
Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Eighth Century Foundations’ in Rosamond
McKitterick (ed.), New Cambridge Medieval History vol. II (Cambridge 1995),
pp. 685-678. Yitzhak Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul. To
the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (London 2001), p. 73.
Tutoring the Court 121
‘For when in the past few years letters were often sent
to us from several monasteries in which it was stated
that the brethren who dwelt there offered upon our
behalf sacred and pious prayers, we have noticed in
the right became the social norms of Carolingian society. ‘Book Production in the
Carolingian Empire’, p. 793.
18
Admonitio generalis, MGH Capt. I, p. 60 r. 4-5. ‘Qiua saepe, dum bene aliquid
Deum rogare cupiunt, sed per inemendatos libros male rogant.’
19
ibidem, p. 59 r. 42-43. ‘Obsecramus, ut bonam et probabilem habeant
conversationem, sicut ipse Dominus in euangelio praecipit.’
20
Donald Bullough however thinks that the letter shouldn’t be seen as the
fundamental text in a royally sponsored program but as an expression of a stage
of Alcuin’s teaching career. Alcuin. Achievement and Reputation (Leiden and
Boston 2004), p. 386. In ‘Aula Renovata’ he accepts Wallach’s claim of Alcuin’s
involvement, but dates the letter in 790, whereas Wallach would date it 794.
Wallach, ‘Aula Renovata: The Court before the Aachen Palace’ in Carolingian
Renewal (Manchester 1991); ‘Aula Renovata’ p. 158, n. 58. Liutpold Wallach,
Alcuin and Charlemagne, pp. 198-226.
Tutoring the Court 123
21
Epistola de litteris colendis, ed. Liutpold Wallach, Alcuin and Charlemagne:
Studies in Carolingian History and Literature (Ithaca, New York 1959) p. 202-
204, r. 7-9 trans. D.C. Munroe in Paul Edward Dutton (ed.), Carolingian
Civilization. A Reader (2nd ed. Peterborough, Plymouth and Sydney 2004), p. 90.
‘Nam cum nobis in his annis a nonnullis monasteriis saepius scripta dirigerentur,
in quibus, qoud pro nobis fratres ibidem commorantes in sacris et piis
orationibus decertarent, significaretur, cognovimus in plerisque praefatis
conscriptionibus eorundem et sensus rectos et sermons incultos; quia, quod pia
devotio interius fideliter dictabat, hoc exterius propter neglegentiam discendi
lingua inerudita exprimere sine reprehensione non valebat. Unde factum est, ut
timere inciperemus, ne forte, sicus minor erat in scribendo prudentia, ita quoque
et multo minor esset quam recte debuisset in sanctarum scripurarum ad
intellegendum sapientia. Et bene novimus omnes, quia, quamvis periculosi sint
errores verborum, multo periculosiores sunt errores sensuum.’
22
ibidem, r.11. ‘Cum autem in sacris paginis scemata, tropi et caetera his similia
inserta inveniantur, nulli dubium est, quod ea unusquisque legens tanto citius
spiritaliter intellegit, quanto prius in litterarum magisterio plenius instructus
fuerit.’
Tutoring the Court 124
23
Ibidem, r. 2a-3. ‘…ut, qui Deo placere appetunt recte vivendo, ei etiam placere
non neglegant recte loquendo. Scriptum est enim: ‘Aut ex verbis iustificaberis,
aut ex verbis tuis condempnaberis.’
24
Ibidem, r. 4. ‘Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse, prius tame nest
nosse quam facere.’
25
Although Kottje speaks of the Council of Mainz in 813 in which the unity of the
people is wished for. Raymund Kottje, ‘Einheit und Vielfalt des kirchlichen
Lebens in der Karolingerzeit’, in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 76 (1965), p.
323. Concordia Episcoporum, ed. Georg Pertz in MGH Leg. IV vol. 2 (Hannover
1837), articles 1 and 2, p. 552.
26
Claudio Leonardi, ‘Alcuino e la scuola platina: le ambizioni di una cultura
unitaria’ in Settimane di studio del centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo
XXVII (1981), p 462. Alcuin states that there was much ‘curiosity’ in the
defenders of the catholic faith in connection with the heresy of Felix of Urgel.
Leonardi generalizes this statement over the received traditions. Alcuin, MGH
Epist. IV, nr 193 p. 320 r.8. ‘Multas habemus curiositates de fide catholica, quia
plurimi sunt impugnatores.’
Tutoring the Court 125
27
Admonitio generalis, MGH Capit. I, art. 82 p. 61 r. 23-26. ‘…ut presbyteros
quos mittitis per parochias vestras ad regendum et ad praedicandum per
ecclesias populum Deo servientem, ut recte et honeste praedicent; et non sinatis
nova vel non canonica aliquos ex suo sensu et non secundum scripturas sacras
fingere et praedicare populo.’ Donald Bullough, Alcuin. Achievement and
Reputation (Leiden and Boston 2004), p. 383.
28
Contreni, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’, p. 712. Kottje, ‘Einheit und Vielfalt’,
p. 341.
29
Reynolds, ‘The Organization, Law and Liturgy of the Western Church, 700-
900’, p. 619. For a more skeptical account see Bullough, ‘Aula Renovata’, p. 126.
Yitzhak Hen believes that the reforms comprised more than chant alone. Hen,
The Royal Patronage of Liturgy, p. 49.
30
Bullough, ‘Aula Renovata’, pp. 143-144.
31
Mayke de Jong, ‘Carolingian Monasticism: The Power of Prayer’ in Rosamond
McKitterick (ed.), New Cambridge Medieval History vol. II (Cambridge 1995), p.
630. Contreni, ‘Education and Literary Culture.’ p. 741.
32
Epistola generalis, MHG Capit. I, p. 80 r. 33-37-81 r. 1-9. trans. D. C. Munroe
‘From the General Letter of Charlemagne’ in Paul Edward Dutton (ed.),
Carolingian Civilization, p. 91.
Tutoring the Court 126
37
Admonitio generalis, MGH Capit. I, p. 54 r. 2-4. II Chronicles 34: 14-33, II
Kings 22: 8-20, 23: 1-16. Cf. Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy, pp. 82-83.
38
Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge
etc. 1989), pp. 28-32.
39
De Jong, ‘Carolingian Monasticism. the Power of Prayer’, p. 629
Tutoring the Court 128
the negligence of our ancestors;’40 His grief may have mirrored the
decrease of general levels of learning at the start of his
government, at the same time as it denounced the previous
Merovingian dynasty, whom I take to be the ‘ancestors’. An
example of the concern that Charles and his scholars had for
Christian standards can be seen in the debates on the conversion
of the Saxons, and whether instruction was needed before baptism
took place.41
To explain how Charles was provided with ample opportunity
to spread Christianity, and how such a religious underpinning came
about, we will have to take a brief look at the political
circumstances of Charlemagne’s reign. This is important for
research on Fredegisus’ text, since Fredegisus wrote against a
background in which this ideal of reform of society converged with
important political developments.
40
Epistola generalis, MGH Capit. I, p. 80 r. 25-28. trans. D.C. Munroe in Paul
Edward Dutton (ed.), Carolingian Civilization. A reader (2nd ed., Peterborough,
Plymouth and Sydney), p. 91. ‘Igitur quia curae nobis est, ut nostrarum
ecclesiarum ad meliora semper proficiat status, oblitteratam pene maiorum
nostrorum desidia reparare vigilanti studio litterarum satagimus officinam,…’
41
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 110 pp. 156-159.
42
The following four paragraphs are based on Paul Fouracre ‘Frankish Gaul to
814’ in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), New Cambridge Medieval History vol. II,
pp. 85-109.
43
Paul Fouracre, ‘Frankish Gaul to 814’, p. 98. Janet Nelson ‘Kingship and
Empire in the Carolingian World’ in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.) Carolingian
Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge 1994), p. 56.
Tutoring the Court 129
this light. This is the collection of canon law that Pope Hadrian
sent the first of April 774, and which served as an exemplar for
royally associated scriptoria.44 One of the consequences of this
conquest was that Charles, as the new king of both the Franks and
the Lombards, acquired new neighbours and developed new
diplomatic contacts. The Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate
in Baghdad, and the Slavs were brought into the diplomatic
horizon. Whereas Pippin was occupied by the need to bring
stability to the Frankish realm during most of his government, the
success of which provided Charles with an excellent point of
departure, the latter worked out international relationships. 45 This
was one of the steps towards his later styling himself as Christian
emperor.
This is not to say that cumbersome campaigning to secure
the borders of his regna and to stabilize the territories beyond
didn’t mark Charlemagne’s reign. In fact, Charles spent vast
amounts of time leading his army from the Saxon border to the
Spanish March and back. Especially the Saxon wars were
sometimes extremely bloody affairs (to repay the demise in battle
of some overeager, inexperienced and under aged Frankish
noblemen, Charles had 4000 Saxons decapitated). 46 From 772 on
time and again the Saxons were suppressed by the superior
Frankish army, but revolted when it travelled elsewhere. This
lasted to 785 when their leader Widukind surrendered and
converted. Nonetheless the Saxons would remain a force to be
reckoned with. But however brutal these wars sometimes were, the
heathen Saxon neighbours provided an ideological opportunity to
see Charles as spreading the Christian message. And priests did
follow in the wake of Frankish troops, although questions were
raised as to the Christian calibre of an involuntary and little-
understood baptism.47 The Admonitio generalis, with its command
44
Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul, pp. 66-68.
45
For a critical discussion of the historiographical sources on Peppin III,
Rosamond McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World
(Cambridge 2004), pp. 137-150.
46
Mayke de Jong provides a useful and very short overview in ‘Het word en het
zwaard. Aan de grenzen van het vroegmiddeleeuwse christendom’ in Tijdschrift
voor Geschiedenis nr. 3 2005 (jrg. 118), pp. 464-466.
47
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 110 pp. 156-159. Cf. Mayke de Jong, ‘Religion’ in
Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The Early Middle Ages. Europe 400-1000 (Oxford
2001), p. 139.
Tutoring the Court 130
this synod that Charles took military action against the Saxons.
With the help of the Slavs the Saxons were finally subdued in 794.
Pippin’s conspirators however had by then already paid the highest
price. The De litteris colendis, with its more elaborate program
then the 72nd article of the Admonitio, stems from this period of the
reign of Charles. The early nineties proved to be a fundamental
period in the progression towards royal religious authority.
The final stage of developments towards a full-blown
religious conception of Charlemagne’s rule had then set in. After
the Saxons were put down, Charles neutralised the Avar threat. In
795 the central system of Avar fortifications, known as the Avar
‘Ring’, was captured. With the forts a vast treasure fell into his
hands, which he put to good use, for example by greasing the joints
of his diplomatic relations. Another destination for the treasure
was found in the building program that Charles had started. In the
790s he decided to settle in a capital, fit for an empire. 53 The site of
one of his favourite palatia was chosen: Aachen with its hot-
mineral sources (and their healthy sulphuric smell and taste of
long aged eggs), where the court settled down in 794. 54 The rich
chapel crowns to this day its inner city. 55 In building this chapel
Charles followed King Solomon (‘Solomon’ was another nickname
53
Bullough states that the court settled in Aachen 794, and therefore predates
the capture of the Avar treasure, but I gather that the palace chapel was not yet
finished. Bullough, ‘Aula Renovata: the Carolingian Court before the Aachen
Palace’ in his Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage. (Manchester and New
York 1991), p. 142.
54
Janet Nelson, ‘Aachen as a Place of Power’ in M. de Jong, F. Theuws & C. van
Rhijn (eds.), Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, Boston
and Köln, 2001), pp. 217-221.
55
Is it a coincidence that the inscription in the octagon of the Chapel, which is in
ninth century facsimile, is ambiguous in its statement?
1 Cum lapides vivi pacis compage ligantur,
2 Inque pares numeros omnia conveniunt;
3 Claret opus domini, totam qui construit aulam,
4 Effectusque piis dat studiis hominum,
5 Quorum perpetui decoris structura manebit,
6 Si perfecta auctor protegat atque regat,
7 Sic deus hoc tutum stabili fundamine templum,
8 Quod Carolus princeps condidit esse velit.
This is certainly the literal meaning since it refers to the building of the chapel.
But these lines might metaphorically be read as:
b) ‘[the lord who] provides fulfilment to the pious studies of humans, whose
culture of perpetual beauty will remain’
This would allude to the religious culture which Charles stimulated, by building
the chapel and by supporting scholarly efforts. I am grateful for dr. Arpad
Orban’s help during the translation. MGH Poetae I, p. 432.
56
I Kings 6, I Kings 5:5.
57
David Ganz, ‘Book Production in the Carolingian Empire and the Spread of
Caroline Minuscule.’ in McKiterrick (ed.), the New Cambridge Medieval History
vol. II, p. 789.
Tutoring the Court 133
yet here we are only interested in the teaching of the liberal arts.
Older historiography has sought for a ‘court school’ for this
reduced aspect of the teaching of the liberal arts. In his research of
the development of the Carolingian chapel Josef Fleckenstein also
paid some attention to the court school. A function of the school
was to provide the chapel of the court with scribes so that it could
perform its chancellery tasks. Let’s not forget that Fredegisus was
a member of the chapel and headed the chancellery for a long
time. But even as Alcuin probably never was a member of the
chapel, so the school seems to have been separate. 66 Fleckenstein
therefore seems to treat the school as a real existing institution.
This might however be a reflection of the older brand of
institutional history he was exercising. But can we prove that it
really was an institution? And there are other questions as well.
For example, what were the pretensions of the school? Is it to be
regarded as the kindergarten of court or more as a college or
polytechnic, in which research is combined with teaching? These
questions merit a thesis of their own, but an approach to an answer
can be made.
A first observation is that the teachings in the liberal arts
were considered to contribute to the moral education to be had at
court, since wisdom and conduct both influence the moral
condition of a person.67 Teachings in some of the liberal arts will
have been given at Charles’ court from a very early date. Yet Peter
Godman warns us not to dream of a school, that is in which the
liberal arts were taught, before the settlement of the court, since
the scholars had to operate ‘amid the bustle of administration,
politics and travel’.68 These are very unfavourable circumstances
for the structural operation of a school indeed. Moreover a
travelling court has difficulties building up an extensive library.
Especially in the 770’s there were probably mainly liturgical texts,
psalters and gospel books at court. The only other text that was
surely at court was the collectio Dyonisio-Hadriana, although
66
Josef Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige I. Grundlegung. Die
Karolingische Hofkapelle (Stuttgart 1959), p. 70.
67
Innes, ‘A Palace of Discipline’, p. 69. Remember also the De Litteris Colendis, r.
4: ‘For although correct conduct may be better than knowledge, nevertheless
knowledge precedes conduct.’ ‘Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam
nosse, prius tame nest nosse quam facere.’
68
Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London 1985), p. 7. Cf.
John Contreni, ‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, p. 83.
Tutoring the Court 136
76
Donald Bullough, ‘Aula Renovata’, pp. 134, 141.
77
Brown, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’, p. 31.
78
Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance, p. 8.
79
Donald Bullough, ‘Aula Renovata’, pp. 146-147 and Fleckenstein Die
Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige I, p. 71.
80
Alcuin, MGH Epist, IV, nr. 262 pp. 419-420.
Tutoring the Court 138
What did they really think they were up to? This is the crucial
question that cultural anthropologists aks themselves, and
historians are no different. In my opinion Fredegisus felt that he
was answering a relevant question. But from what source of
inspiration did this question spring and why was it relevant? In
answering these questions I hope to give a new interpretation of
the De substantia. It should be clear by now that one of the main
drives of the Carolingian Renaissance was a much-felt need to
learn correct Latin, primarily in view of a better understanding of
Scripture and the sacred language of liturgy. This, I think, was the
thirst that Fredegisus was trying to quench. More will have to be
said in order to interpret what Fredegisus was doing though. In the
first part of this chapter we focused on the overall need which
provided the impulses for learning correct Latin and the
Carolingian Renaissance in general. Here I want to sum them up
shortly with Richard Sullivan’s excellent article ‘The Context of
Cultural Activity’. He has put to words his conviction that the
Carolingians, educated laymen and clergy alike, were on a spiritual
quest to learn what it meant to be Christian. This quest has led
them to attempt to determine an orthodoxy of Western Christianity,
for example in the Opus Caroli, and a legalistic canonization,
expressed in canons, capitularies and articles of faith. Yet this
spiritual need gave rise to much wider and varied instances of
cultural activity. Sullivan has described it succinctly: ‘Rather, the
deeply felt uncertainties about the essence of Christian life must
be factored into any consideration of how culture was put to the
service of religious renovatio, defined in terms ranging from
instructing the simplest rusticus to unraveling the mysteries of the
eucharist and the Trinity, from converting pagans to determining
the proper use of images.’81 In my view the De substantia belongs
to Sullivan’s ‘tough stuff’ that needs to be researched in order to
know how Carolingian authors went about their spiritual quest.
81
Richard Sullivan, ‘The Context of Cultural Activity’ in Richard Sullivan (ed.),
“The Gentle Voices of Teachers.” Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age
(Columbus 1995), p. 75.
Tutoring the Court 139
82
This is an adaption of classical metaphor used in the ninth century. John
Contreni ‘Learning in the Early Middle Ages’, p. 12-13 and n. 37.
83
Alcuin, De grammaria, PL 101, p. 853. M. –Th. D’Alverny, ‘La sagesse et ses
sept filles.’ in Émile-A. van Moé, Jeanne Vielliard and Pierre Marot (eds.),
Mélanges dédiés a la mémoire de Felix Grat I (Paris 1946), p. 247. This is also a
much turned on theme in the articles of John Contreni, e.g. ‘Inharmonious
Harmony: Education in the Carolingian World’, p. 85.
Tutoring the Court 140
84
Leonardi, ‘Alcuino e la scuola palatina’, p. 475. The seven liberal arts were the
trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music,
geometry, astronomy) as described by Martianus Capella. This is not to say that
the scheme of Martianus Capella was the only scheme of liberal arts that was
current in the eigth and ninth century Other schemes for example left out
grammar but included medicine. cf John Contreni, ‘John Scottus, Martin
Hiberniensis, the Liberal Arts, and Teaching.’ in Michael Herren (ed.), Insular
Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles, 550-
1066 (Toronto 1981), p. 7. Of course Alcuin was not the first to recognize the
importance of ‘propedeutic’ studies. For precursors to Alcuin compare Pierre
Riché, ‘Instruments de travail et méthodes de l’exégète à l’époque carolingienne’
in Pierre Riché and Guy Lobrichon (eds.), Le Moyen Age et la Bible (Paris 1984),
pp. 149-150.
85
Leonardi, ‘Alcuino e la scuola palatina’, p. 475.
86
Alcuin, De rhetorica, PL 101, p. 947. D’Alverny, ‘La sagesse et ses sept filles’,
p. 246.
87
‘La sacralizzazione dell’umano è dunque la giustificazione ideologica della
cultura enciclopedica alcuiniana.’ Leonardi, ‘Alcuino e la scuola palatina’, p. 475.
D’Alverny, ‘La sagesse et ses sept filles’, p. 246.
Tutoring the Court 141
88
John Contreni, ‘Education and Learning in the Early Middle Ages: New
Perspectives and Old Problems’ in The International Journal of Social Education
4 (1989), p. 14. The illumination is ‘Sophia sancta’ holding a book reading the
words ‘omnia sapientia’ in Bamberg, St. Bibl. Ms. Bibl. 1. D’Alverny, ‘La sagesse
et ses sept filles’, pp. 255-256.
89
Cf. John Contreni, ‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, p. 96.
Tutoring the Court 142
90
Pierre Riché, ‘Méthodes de l’exégèse carolingienne’, pp. 152-153.
91
John Contreni,‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, p. 79.
92
Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae in PL vol. 82, pp. 224-228.
93
ibidem, p. 225.
94
Eucherius of Lyon, Instructionum libri II, ed. Karl Wotke in CSEL (Vienna
1894) vol. 31, pp. 140-161.
95
John Contreni, ‘Carolingian Biblical Studies’, p. 79.
Tutoring the Court 143
well. Another type of study tool, very similar to this second book of
Eucherius, is the glossary.
In the early Middle Ages, Virgil was read for his Latin and the
Bible for God’s will. In their repetitive teaching of the same texts,
the masters made glosses in their copies as a reminder what had to
be explained when reading certain words. These glosses, which
often sprang from Virgil copies and Bible studies, were collected
into glossaria, most of which were alphabetically organised.
However, the compiler of a glossary was not restricted to the
copies of monastic masters. He could consult any available text and
include excerpts thereof.96 In a world lacking internet,
encyclopedia and even dictionaries, these glossaries provided
powerful study tools. The most famous of these glossaries in the
early Middle Ages was the Liber Glossarum, which was composed
during Fredegisus’ lifetime. The terminus ante quem for this
glossary is 830, but if Charlemagne was really involved, it might
have been composed as early as the 790s. 97 The Liber Glossarum
was not just a short descriptive wordlist like other glossaries, such
as the Abstrusa or Abolita glossaries. It combined entranies of
other glossaries but also material from works of Isidore, Ambrose,
Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Eucherius, Junilius, Orosius,
Eutropius, Oribasius, Phocas, Priscianus, and anonymous works. 98
Unfortunately Lindsay did not edited the full entries in this
glossary, which appears to be much longer than in a regular
glossary, but I wholeheartedly trust David Ganz’s judgment that it
should be considered an encyclopedia of Carolingian learning.
Considering the massive size (the oldest manuscript has 361 folia
in two volumes), it is a major achievement and testament to the
drive with which the Carolingians constructed tools for their
(biblical)studies.99
96
Cf. Michael Lapidge’s foreword to his edition of Wallace Lindsay, Studies in
Early Mediaeval Latin Glossaries (Aldershot and Brookfield 1996), p. xiii. The
view of glossaries as products of monastic teaching is Lindsay’s view, that of
glossaries as quarries of ancient lore is Goetz’s. If taken as extreme positions,
both are untenable.
97
David Ganz, ‘The “Liber Glossarum”: A Carolingian Encyclopedia’ in Paul
Butzer and Dietrich Lohrmann (eds.), Science in Western and Eastern
Civilization in Carolingian Times (Basel, Boston and Berlin 1993), pp. 129, 131.
98
David Ganz, ‘The “Liber Glossarum”’, p. 127.
99
Ibidem, p. 133.
Tutoring the Court 144
Librum Glossarum, ed. Wallace Martin Lindsay (ed.), in Glossaria Latina vol. I
100
had left, but their places were taken by the new generation, of
which Einhard and Angilbert were examples. There is also another
group that must be taken into account. The proceres were also
formed by the prominent lay noblemen at court, and Sullivan’s
quest can be ascribed to members of their group as well. 1 Einhard,
for example, was such a nobleman. Another hint of this group is
found in a letter of Alcuin to Charlemagne. In this letter, to which
we will return later, Alcuin tries to answer an exegetical question
about two contradicting statements on swords. 2 The interesting
point is that a lay soldier asked this question. 3 We do not know
much about this lay soldier, but the fact that he could pose his
question to Charles -who in turn delegated it to Alcuin- suggests
that he was a member of the aristocracy. 4 Perhaps it was soldiers of
his sort, who belonged to a ‘self conscious elite’ surrounding the
ruler in Aachen, that Fredegisus also had in mind while writing. If
Charles showed an interest in these matters, which he most
probably did, this would provide more than sufficient incentive for
the palatini to be interested as well. The king, after all, gave the
example of right behaviour, which the competitive court society
tried to emulate so that gifts and grants from the king would come
their way.5
Charles and these courtiers probably had ample opportunity
to (be) read the De substantia. It was the custom for public debates
to be held in which emerging topics were discussed. At least in
very important cases, we know that the court and those from
abroad whom it concerned gathered and debated. These important
topics could be theological and political. At the synod of Frankfurt
in 794 and on occasion of the filioque question in 809 (does the
Holy Spirit derive from the Father alone or from both the Father
and the Son?) Charles gathered his bishops and publicly debated
and decided what had to be thought and done. Yet matters could
1
Janet Nelson describes the formation of a palace elite in, ‘Aachen as a Place of
Power’, pp. 223-224. Mayke de Jong, ‘Monastic Writing and Carolingian Court
Audiences’, p. 183. Adalhard the former soldier, may serve as an example of
such a nobleman. Nelson, ‘Aachen as a Place of Power’, pp. 226-230.
2
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 136 pp. 205-210.
3
Cf. Mayke de Jong, ‘Het woord en het zwaard’, p. 474.
4
Alcuin himself had no idea who the soldier was. He remarks: ‘Tamen iste laicus,
quisquis fuit, sapiens est corde, etsi manibus miles’, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 136 p.
205 r. 28-29.
5
Innes, ‘A Palace of Discipline’, pp. 61-63.
Tutoring the Court 147
Opus Caroli, one could question how much time Charles actually
invested in reading through intellectual biblical commentary, busy
though he was. Seen in this context, the size and method of
Fredegisus’ letter will not have posed problems to Charles.
Charles had a lively interest in many things, and Wigbod’s
commentary shows that theology was an important one of them.
Yet his interests were dictated in large measure by the necessities
of his government. We can see an example of this in the letter from
c. 798 that was prompted by the question of the aforementioned
laicus. The letter has been astutely discussed by Mayke de Jong. 13
The problem was that different moral values were attributed to the
sword. Jesus told the apostles to sell their cloak and buy a sword,
while Peter was commanded to refrain from the use of it after he
had chopped off Malchus’ ear, one of the soldiers who came to
arrest the Christ.14 Since Jesus said ‘Put your sword back into its
place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword’. 15 The
situation is aggravated if we are told in Ephes 6:17 that we have to
understand the sword, which the apostles buy, as the word of
God.16 The implication would be that everyone who receives the
word of God perishes by it. 17 Alcuin’s answer was that the different
contexts of the Gospels had to be taken into account. ‘The sword’
could have very different meanings in these contexts and thus they
couldn’t simply be interchanged.18 Although this answer may have
been satisfactory, it must have left Charles with a nasty taste, since
he and his noble friends had to wield the sword personally on a
regular basis.19 This example clarifies that it was the practical
context that provided relevancy to this otherwise Scriptural
question. Yet to say ‘otherwise’ in the previous sentence is to make
13
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 136 pp. 205-210. Cf. Mayke de Jong’s discussion in
‘Het woord en het zwaard. Aan de grenzen van het vroegmiddeleeuwse
christendom’, p. 475.
14
Luke 22: 36-38, John 18:10.
15
Matthew 26:52.
16
Ephes. 6:17.
17
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 136, p. 206 r. 7-9. ‘Si gladius est verbum Dei et
Dominus, quando gladium emere praecepit, verbum Dei significavit; quomodo
congruit, ut omnis, qui accipitat verbum Dei, verbo Dei pereat?
18
Ibidem, r. 10-12 ‘Sed facilis est solution, si singulorum consideratur
evangelistarum huic loco circumstantial et diversae intellegunter gladii
significations. Non enim aequaliter ubique gladius significant,...’
19
Mayke de Jong, ‘Het woord en het zwaard. Aan de grenzen van het
vroegmiddeleeuwse christendom’, p. 476.
Tutoring the Court 150
21
When I write ‘his letter’, I do not want to imply that Charles himself wrote it,
merely that he commanded it written. David Howlett has kindly permitted to
read a draft of an article in which he will advance the thesis that it was
Fredegisus himself who wrote the letter, on the basis of a similar numerological
composition of both the De substantia and the letter to Dungal and on the basis
of an element of irony or autosubversion on the side of Fredegisus by using the
word ‘nihil’ non referring in the letter to Dungal. Whether Fredegisus also wrote
the letter to Dungal or not is not relevant for this thesis, as long as Fredegisus’
overall intentions were serious. Of this David Howlett is also convinced and
therefore an elaborated treatment of his manuscript is not necessary.
22
The text and translation of the letter are given in the first part of the thesis,
but the lines seemed critical enough to deserve extra attention.
Tutoring the Court 152
43
Mayke de Jong, ‘Monastic Writing and Carolingian Court Audiences: Some
Evidence from Biblical Commentary’ in Flavia de Rubeis and Walter Pohl (eds.),
Le Scritture dai monastery. Atti del II o seminario internazionale di studio “I
monastery nell’ alto medioevo” Roma 9-10 maggio 2002 (Rome 2003), p. 194.
44
Thomas Noble, ‘Tradition and Learning in Search of Ideology: The Libri
Carolingi’ in Richard Sullivan (ed.), “The Gentle Voices of Teachers.” Aspects of
Learning in the Carolingian Age. (Ohio 1995), p. 238.
45
Ibidem, p. 239-240. Mayke de Jong, ‘Monastic Writing and Carolingian Court
Audiences’, p. 192.
46
Arno Borst, ‘Alkuin und die Enzykopädie von 809.’
Tutoring the Court 157
47
ibidem, pp. 64-67. Dietrich Lohrmann, ‘Alcuins Korrespondenz mit Karl dem
Grossen über Kalender und Astronomie’ in Paul Butzer and Dietrich Lohrmann
(eds.), Science in Western and Eastern Civilization in Carolingian Times (Basel,
Boston and Berlin 1993), pp. 79-114.
48
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 145 p. 231 r. 21 – p. 232 r. 5.
49
Dietrich Lohrmann, ‘Alcuins Korrespondenz mit Karl dem Grossen’, p. 100,
Arno Borst, ‘Alkuin und die Enzykopädie von 809’, p. 64.
50
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 148 p. 239 r. 30-33. ‘Sed nunc pusillanimitas
multorum non curat scire rationes arithmetica, quam necessaria ad
cognoscendas scripturas divinas; quam iocunda est cognitio caelestium astrorum
et cursus illorum.’
51
ibidem, r. 18-22. ‘Nam philosophi non fuerunt conditores harum artium, sed
inventores. Nam creator omnium rerum condidit eas in naturis, sicut voluit; illi
vero, qui sapientiores erant in mundo, inventores erant harum artium in naturis
rerum; sicut de sole et luna et stellis facile potes intellegere.’
Tutoring the Court 158
the Bible, just like the Bibelwerk, and that it could have been part
of an official program, commanded by Charles.57 The implication of
this hypothesis is that Wigbod’s pious effort was cut short after
Genesis. In this case, one could further suggest that Wigbod built
the rest of his commentaries around Isidore as a frame in which he
could later insert other material. Yet another hypothesis would be
that Charles commanded him to make only the part on Genesis
encyclopedic and literal, as a result of his heightened interest in
cosmology. 800 was the same year in which Wigbod offered his
work to Charles, and that the letter exchange between Charles and
Alcuin on astronomy ended. Gorman could be right, however,
asserting that the section on Genesis was finished since it was the
first part to be done and that it was offered to Charles in 800 when
he was crowned emperor. In this case one could say that the
commentary has nothing to do with Charles’ interest in cosmology.
This account, however, leaves the work’s focus on the literal
meaning in Genesis unexplained. It can only be made intelligible
with this interest in mind.
A concerted attention for cosmology is also apparent in a
letter that Alcuin sent to Charles in 799. This letter, which has
hitherto failed to attract the attention it deserves, is of key import
for this thesis for two reasons. First, if Wigbod’s encyclopedic
commentary on Genesis does not shown that Charles’ interest in
cosmology was wider than astronomy and computus, this letter
will. Secondly, it resembles the topics in Fredegisus’ letter but
details a different method or model with which to solve it’s
questions. Charles’ bewildered reaction to the De substantia makes
sense if he expected a similar letter from Fredegisus. The question
that Alcuin addresses is the difference between ‘eternal’
(aeternum) and ‘everlasting’ (sempiternum); ‘permanent’
(perpetuum) and ‘immortal’ (inmortale); and ‘age’ (saeculum),
‘eternity’ (aevum) and ‘time’ (tempus).58 These words all evolved
around qualitative differences between the temporal nature of the
cosmos and its eternal creator. The difference is that God is outside
57
Michael Gorman, ‘The Encyclopedic Commentary on Genesis Prepared for
Charlemagne by Wigbod’, p. 188 ‘Wigbod and Biblical Studies under
Charlemagne’, p. 73.
58
Alcuin, MGH Epist. IV, nr. 163 p. 263 r. 14-16. ‘Haec ergo est interrogatio,
quae nobis ab eodem adlata est; scilicet: quid sit inter aeternum et
sempiternum; et perpetuum et inmortale’ et saeculum, et aevum, et tempus?’
Tutoring the Court 160
can speculate on the reasons for him to insert this letter. It might
be motivated by the urge to copy the complete conversation.
However, in this case we might ask why the copyist did not include
Dungal’s answer. Was the copyist close enough to the fire to obtain
Fredegisus’ text and Charles’ letter, but too far to get his hands on
Dungal’s answer? This is a possible scenario, and then we have to
imagine a scribe who had easy access to Fredegisus and Charles’
letters but not to Dungal’s answer. A reason for this might be that
Dungal’s answer was sent to Charles and not directly to
Fredegisus. This would point in the direction of a scribe maybe in
Tours after Fredegisus’ had assumed the office of abbot. Yet other
scenarios are as likely. We might construe scenario’s around the
idea that Dungal’s answer was at hand, but that the copyist’s
motivation did not necessitate to copy Dungal’s letter as well. A
second scenario is that Fredegisus himself wanted to preserve his
literary activity for posterity. Then we would certainly want to look
for a scribe in Tours. A reason why Dungal’s answer was not copied
may then be that Dungal’s answer totally ravaged Fredegisus’
argumentation, leaving an unfavourable impression of Fredegisus’
arguments. Then Fredegisus would have an interest in having
Charles’ letter copied, to show that he even rocked the emperor’s
world, but to exclude Dungal’s. In a third scenario the De
substantia and Charles’ letter to Dungal were copied by someone
who wanted to show that Charles was engaged in intellectual
activity, showing that Charles could respond with expert Scriptural
knowledge to such a strange argument of Fredegisus’. Such a
motivation would provide less incentive to include Dungal’s answer
since this would be irrelevant for the image of Charles as an
intellectual ruler. These questions, however, need to be answered
by the historian who will write about the reception of the De
substantia.
I argued in this chapter that in the quest for Christian
wisdom, Fredegisus tried to solve a difficult question about the
meaning of ‘nothing’ and ‘darkness’ to the best of his abilities, and
presented it as two encyclopedic lemmata. This matched the
requirements of his courtly audience and probably would have
ensured Charles’ approval, but for one thing: Charles did not find
in Fredegisus’ letter the cosmological insights that he looked for at
the time.
Conclusion
I
n the three years prior to the composition of the De substantia,
Charles, his court and Alcuin, then abbot in Tours, had an interest
in cosmology. This interest did not only comprise the courses of
planets, but also the cosmogony. Alcuin explained to Charles, for
example, the difference between time-bound creation and God’s
timeless nature. In this explanation he not only focussed on the
difference itself, but chiefly on the right words that express this
difference, how to use these words and how these words are used
in Scripture. Thereby he presented Charles with a ‘total-package’
of what one needed to know theoretically and practically when
reading and using the words under discussion. Fredegisus also
wanted to tutor Charles on words that were important in the
Christian story of cosmogony; namely the words ‘nothing’ and
‘darkness’. His view was that these two words had extra-mental
referents, meaning that the words referred to real things. However,
Fredegisus in no way offered the ‘total package’ that Charles had
learned to expect from Alcuin. The statement itself was strange
too: did not Augustine and Alcuin teach that ‘nothing’ only was a
name of a negation? Charles therefore ordered a letter to be sent
to the astronomer Dungal to ask for a second opinion. Dungal was
to sort out the right from the wrong in Fredegisus’ letter, and to
recount only the story of the creation of the world, thus without the
moral Christian lessons that could be drawn from it. Whether
Fredegisus himself composed Charles’ letter or not, the request
was sent on Charles’ command and with his knowledge.
Charles’ surprise over Fredegisus’ letter did not stem from a
lack of effort on Fredegisus’ side. Quite to the contrary,
Fredegisus’ argument in the De substantia used the most novel and
progressive method of analysis to be had at the time: the
grammatical method. Maybe Fredegisus thought that his lord was
Conclusion 165
Primary sources
Secundary literature
AHNER, Max, Fredegis von Tours. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Philosophie im
Mittelalter (Leipzig 1878).
D’ALVERNY, Marie –Therèse, ‘La sagesse et ses sept filles.’ in Émile-
A. van Moé,
Jeanne Vielliard and Pierre Marot (eds.), Mélanges dédiés a
la mémoire de Felix Grat I (Paris 1946), pp. 245-278.
AMSLER, Mark,The Theory of Latin “Etymologia” in the Early
Middle Ages: From Donatus to
Isidore (Ann Arbor and London 1980).
_ ‘Standard Latin’ in Vivien Law (ed.), History of Linguistic
Thought in the
Early Middle Ages (Cambridge 1993), pp. 49-66.
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