An Empire of Memory (13 page)

nople, Charlemagne suffers Byzantine paranoia but displays his superiority and

concludes a pact of friendship with the distrustful Greeks. Finally, Charlemagne’s

acclamation as Augustus in Rome makes his temporal dominance explicit. He is a

true Augustus, an image painted using Einhard’s template, displaying concern for

Christians in East and West, unlike the petty pretenders in Constantinople.

Not much is known either about the author of this text or the cluster of monasteries

on Monte Soratte. We only know the author’s name because he inserted it into a

poem, originally written by Louis the Pious’s librarian Gerward, that Benedict

appended to the end of his discussion of Charlemagne. Given his use of language

and his concern for the political machinations around Rome though, Benedict

probably came from a Frankish-influenced region of northern Italy.8

One of the few things we can be certain about is that Benedict arrived at Monte

Soratte long after the monasteries’ foundations. A monastery dedicated to St Sylvester

had supposedly existed on the mountain since the time of Constantine but was destroyed

under Julian the Apostate (361–3) and rebuilt by Pope Damasus I (366–84). This is

almost certainly not true.9 Regardless, four interdependent Benedictine monasteries lay

on Monte Soratte by the end of the eighth century. The original late antique monastery

was dedicated to St Sylvester, while houses dedicated to St Victor, St Stephen, and

St Andrew were all built around 746, when Carloman (Charlemagne’s uncle) retired to

the mountain.10 Not long afterwards, the papacy transferred Monte Soratte to Pepin the

6 ‘Ordinatâque Urbe, et omnia Pentápoli, et Ravenne finibus seu Tuscie, omnia in apostolici

postestaibe concessit. Gratias agens Deo et apostolorum principi, et benedictione apostolica accepta,

et a cuncto populo Romano augusto est appellatus.’ Ibid. 711.

7 David Blanks reminds us that pilgrimage in the Middle Ages was a one-way journey. The

homecoming and reception of the pilgrim are post-medieval conceits. David R. Blanks, ‘Islam and the

West in the Age of the Pilgrim’, in Year 1000, 257.

8 Kunsemüller, ‘Chronik’, 63–4, 67.

9 Il Chronicon di Benedetto, ed. Zucchetti, p. x.

10 Giuseppe Tomassetti, La Campagna Romana: Antica, Medioevale e Moderna, 4 vols. (Rome,

1976), iii. 409; Il Chronicon di Benedetto, ed. Zucchetti, pp. xi–xii. On Carloman, see Annales regni

44

The Franks Remember Empire

Short (Charlemagne’s father) as a way-station for pilgrims to Rome and a base for

Frankish monks. Charlemagne himself visited the monasteries in 781 and also offered

gifts to them on two later occasions. The monasteries suffered Saracen raids in the time

of Alberic (‘prince of the Romans’, d. 954) but he restored and reformed them by c.946.

This quickly led to a monastic resurgence on Monte Soratte, especially under Benedict’s

abbot Leo. Benedict himself seems to have benefited from this monastic renewal, as

the monasteries of Monte Soratte appear to have had a good library and archive, as well

as an active scriptorium.11

Benedict of St Andrew’s Chronicon does not appear to have been widely read and

only exists in one MS, roughly contemporary to the text’s composition. Although

the monasteries on Monte Soratte were intended (and likely continued) to be way-

stations for northern pilgrims going to Rome, their influence quickly waned after

the millennium. The Ottonians visited the imperial castle at Paterno just at the base

of Monte Soratte on several occasions but no evidence exists to show they actually

visited the monasteries themselves. Landuin, one of St Bruno of Querfurt’s com-

panions, was buried on Monte Soratte but the monasteries otherwise disappeared

from the record for a full century thereafter, next appearing when Emperor Henry

V (1106–25) captured them in 1111.12

T H E F O U N D A T I O N O F C H A R R O U X : C. 1 09 5

The Aquitanian abbey of Charroux had a vibrant independent tradition about

Charlemagne’s legendary journey to the East, which had little in common with

earlier Carolingian texts. The abbey’s cartulary actually contains two accounts of its

foundation, sitting literally next to each other.13 Charroux’s earliest foundation

narrative, called the Privilegium, likely dates to the middle of the eleventh century.

The later account, the Historia, dates to the end of the eleventh century and tells of

Charlemagne’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem.14

Francorum, ed. Friedrich Krauze, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1895), 6: 7; Einhard, Vita Karoli, ed.

O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1911), 25: 4.

11 Josef Semmler, ‘Karl der Grosse und das fränkische Mönchtum’, in KdG ii. 276; Il Chronicon di

Benedetto, ed. Zucchetti, pp. xiii–xv; Tomassetti, Campagna Romana, 410; and Kunsemüller,

‘Chronik’, 72, 76–8. The codex containing his Chronicon––along with references in the text itself––

suggests that Benedict knew Scripture (including portions of the apocrypha), Sulpicius Severus’ Vita

Martini, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, some works of Gregory the Great, the Liber Pontificalis, Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards, Einhard’s Vita Karoli, as well as the Annales regni Francorum (ARF ).

See Il Chronicon di Benedetto, ed. Zucchetti, pp. xxii–xxiii.

12 Otto III issued a number of charters from Paterno in 1001 and 1002, and eventually died there

on 23 Jan. 1002. See Matthew Gabriele, ‘Otto III, Charlemagne, and Pentecost A.D. 1000: A

Reconsideration Using Diplomatic Evidence’, in Year 1000, 129 n. 75. On Landuin and Henry V,

see Tomassetti, Campagna Romana, 410.

13 The cartulary is Liber de Const. 1–85. See Chartes et documents pour servir a l’historire de l’Abbaye de Charroux, ed. D. P. de Monsabert, Archives Historiques du Poitou, 58 vols. (Poitiers, 1910), xxxix, pp. iv–vii.

14 The title is mine. In the Liber de Constitutione, it exists in two versions. The first, on pp. 7–9, is essentially a later summary of the second, found at Liber de Const. 29–41. See the discussion of the

Privilegium in Ch. 1, above.

Charlemagne’s Journey to the East

45

The Historia claims that Charlemagne decided to found a monastery dedicated

to Christ while visiting Aquitaine, so he gave many rich gifts to the new foundation,

including a piece of the True Cross. Despite Charles’s generous gifts, Pope Leo

advised the Frankish ruler to go to Jerusalem so that he might procure more fitting

relics for the abbey. Thus, Charlemagne gathered his army and departed for the

Holy Land. The trip was uneventful and, in fact, unnarrated. Upon reaching the

Holy City, the patriarch along with his flock allowed Charles an adventus, meeting

him outside the city’s walls to present him with keys to its gates and show their

submission to him. Then Charles entered the city as a penitent, ‘took off his royal

garments and, his feet bare, made sure to hasten to the Holy Sepulcher’.15 After

fasting for three days, Charlemagne entered the Holy Sepulcher where, during the

consecration of the host during mass, the right hand of God appeared, placing the

Holy Virtue (Christ’s Foreskin) in a chalice upon the altar. The Christ-child then

addressed Charles directly, saying, ‘Most noble prince, take up this small present

with veneration, as it is of My true body and blood.’16 His goal achieved, Charles

returned immediately to Charroux, where he handed the relic over to his new

foundation and then disappeared from the narrative. The Historia, however,

continues at some length, concerning itself with an extended summary of the

15 The Roman imperial adventus later copied by the Carolingians (e.g. Charlemagne’s entry into

Rome in 800) ultimately derived from Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. On the ritual

generally, see Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘The “King’s Advent” and the Enigmatic Panels in the Doors of

Santa Sabina’, in Selected Studies (Locust Valley, NY, 1965), 37–75; Peter Willmes, Der Herrscher-

‘Adventus’ im Kloster des Frühmittelalters (Münich, 1976); Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory:

Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986);

Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, NY, 1992), 133–4; Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social

Scientific Theory (Princeton, 2001), 37–44; and David A. Warner, ‘Ritual and Memory in the

Ottonian Recht: The Ceremony of Adventus’, Speculum, 76 (2001), 258–60. cf. John 12: 12–19 and

Matt. 21: 1–9. On Charlemagne’s entry into Rome, see Annales regni, ed. Krauze, 110. Charlemagne’s

entry into Jerusalem can be found at Liber de Const. 31.

16 ‘Princeps . . . , nobilissime, munusculum hoc cum veneratione suscipe, quod ex mea vera carne et

vero constat sanguine.’ Liber de Const. 31. The identity of this Holy Virtue (sanctissimam virtutem) has been debated. Gisela Schwering-Illert has suggested that the relic was originally thought to be some

unknown christological relic and only later came to be interpreted as the Holy Foreskin after 1082.

Jean Cabanot echoed Schwering-Illert in suggesting that the Holy Virtue most likely had something to

do with the eucharistic controversy of the 11th cent. and was not associated with the Foreskin until the 12th cent. Amy Remensnyder, however, reasons that the relic always possessed its phallic resonance

and the design of Charroux’s abbey church (which she dates to after 1047) reflected this fact. It seems reasonable to follow Remensnyder here in believing the Holy Virtue to have always been identified as

the Holy Foreskin (though I differ from her dating of the design of the church), even if veneration

of the Holy Foreskin did not become widespread until the late 11th cent. As Rachel Fulton has recently demonstrated, though devotion to Christ’s humanity had never been absent during the Middle Ages, it

began to gain a more universal currency around the turn of the first millennium and only accelerated

thereafter. Gisela Schwering-Illert, Die ehemalige französische Abteikirche Saint-Sauveur in Charroux

(Vienne) in 11. und 12. Jh.: Ein Vorschlag zur Rekonstruktion und Deutung der romanischen Bauteile

(Ph.D. Diss., Bonn, 1963), 31–4; Jean Cabanot, ‘Le Trésor des reliques de Saint-Sauveur de Charroux,

centre et reflet de la vie spirituelle de l’abbaye’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de l’Ouest et des Musées de Poitiers, 4th ser. 16 (1981), 115–22; Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past:

Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca, NY, 1995), 178 and n. 114;

Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200

(Columbia, 2002), especially 60–141.

46

The Franks Remember Empire

miracles performed by the relic at Charroux and concluding with a specific miracle

the author himself witnessed at a regional Aquitanian council held at the abbey in

1082.17

Charroux was a Carolingian religious house. Founded by Count Roger of Limoges

and his wife, Eufrasia, sometime between 769 and 789, Charroux had its rights and

privileges confirmed by Charlemagne soon thereafter. Within just a few decades,

the abbey had become one of the largest in the Carolingian world, with over eighty

monks in residence.18 One of those eighty was an illegitimate son of Charlemagne

named Hugh, who became a deacon at Charroux before later becoming Louis the

Pious’s archchancellor. Benedict of Aniane may have reformed the abbey sometime

in the early ninth century, but his personal involvement is contested. The abbey

also enjoyed Louis’s special patronage, apparently beginning when he was king in

Aquitaine. Once he succeeded his father, Louis confirmed Charles’s grant of

immunity, gave Charroux the right to elect its own abbots in 815, then rewarded

the foundation with land when it continued to support Louis and his wife Judith

during the revolt of 830.19 Later in the ninth century, the emperors Lothar (840–55)

and Charles the Bald (840–77) confirmed Charroux’s immunity. They were,

however, the last kings to do so for two centuries.

Perhaps because of the abbey’s alienation from royal power, the monastery

turned to the papacy at this time, with Pope John VIII (872–82) being the first

to place the monastery under Rome’s protection.20 Surprisingly, none of this

‘protection’ by royal and papal parchment helped the monks against the Vikings,

who forced the monks to flee with their relics to Angoulême in 897.21 In 989, the

monastery reentered the record, when, in perhaps its greatest claim to fame, it

hosted one of the first councils of the Peace of God.22 About twenty-five years later,

the duke of Aquitaine asked Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe to reform Charroux, with

17 Liber de Const. 38–41.

18 Otto Gerhard Oexle, ‘Le Monastère de Charroux au IXe siècle’, Le Moyen Âge, 76 (1970), 193–4,

197; Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 13; and Dom Jean Becquet, ‘Deux prieurés de Charroux en

Limousin: Rochechouart et Magnac-Laval’, Bulletin de la Société Archéologique et Historique du

Limousin, 123 (1995), 46.

19 This Hugh was the brother of Drogo, archbishop of Metz. Oexle, ‘Monastère’, 194–9;

Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 13, 17; DHGE 12: 540; Remensnyder, Remembering, 168. The

diplomas can be found in Liber de Const. 11–20.

20 Remensnyder, Remembering, 168.

21 François Eygun, ‘L’Abbaye de Charroux: Les Grandes Lignes de son histoire et de ses