Based upon a 'performative' interpretation of royal charters, 'The Politics of Memory and Identity' offers a new and surprising narrative of West Frankish history from the death of Louis the Pious in 840 to the demise of the Carolingian dynasty in 987. The key is a carefully contextualised analysis of the circumstances in which kings issued charters and an alert examination of the charters' verbal and visual semiotics. For which monasteries and cathedrals did kings issue diplomas and under what conditions? Who were the patrons who interceded for the recipients of diplomas and what titles were they given? Which kings were named as predecessors and which were omitted? Such clues allow us to recover the meaning of events whose significance was concealed by chroniclers, and to find unsuspected continuities in 150 years of West Frankish politics. They allow us to see a ruthless exercise of power in the use of forgeries and a commitment to political reform in the reform of monasteries. They reveal the long shadow cast by the reign of Charles the Bald in West Frankish history and the importance of a handful of monasteries as 'sites of memory'. Above all, an intertextual reading of diplomas shows that political leaders in the kingdom made decisions based on policy, where the policy was articulated in terms of lessons drawn from their understanding of the past, and diplomas were the records that conveyed the lessons.
Author(s): Geoffrey Koziol
Series: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 19
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 2012
Language: English
Pages: 682
City: Turnhout
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
List of Plates xvii
Map xix
Introduction 1
Part One: Instruments of Power 9
Chapter 1. Charters, Diplomas, and Performative Acts 17
'Diplomatik' and 'Urkundenforschung' 17
Performative Acts 42
Diplomas as Performative Acts 52
Chapter 2. Accession Acts: Kings and Regimes Enter into Power 63
Becoming King 63
Charles the Bald at Toulouse (844) 69
Charles the Fat (885) 74
Odo (889) 81
Louis IV d’Outremer (936) 85
A Commitment to Kingship 91
Chapter 3. Succession Acts: Diplomas that Establish Legitimacy and Identity 97
Mimesis, Quotation, and Succession 97
Pippin II of Aquitaine (839) 99
Lothar II in Provence (863) 105
Charles the Bald in Lotharingia (869) 108
Louis II the Stammerer (877) 111
Establishing Succession 115
Chapter 4. The Diplomas of Charles the Bald: Politics and the Palace 119
Diplomas and the Narrative of Decline 119
The Early Diplomas (840-843) 125
Charles the Bald and his Loyalists (858-859) 130
Adalard, Vivian, and Tours (843-845): The High Politics of Diplomas 140
Charles and Erispoë (856) 150
The Low Politics of Diplomas: Ebroin and Glanfeuil 154
Ragamfrid’s Forgeries 162
Writing and the Reform Councils 171
Diplomas and the Selective Application of Reform 179
Diplomas and the Palatines (869-877) 187
Chapter 5. A Politics of Alliance: Diplomas after Charles the Bald 213
Towards a Politics of the Past 213
Trends and Transformations 215
A Kingship of Alliances 223
Alliance Acts 231
Charles the Simple and the Margraves 236
Raoul at Chalon (924) 247
Louis IV and the Vermandois Settlement (943) 252
Louis IV’s Restoration at Chevregny (946) 256
Louis IV, Artald, and Saint-Remi (940) 258
Lothar and Flanders 259
New Directions 261
Chapter 6. Allying the Saints: Diplomas and Monastic Reform 263
'Amicitia' and the Problem of Unity 263
'Amicitia' and Monastic Reform 272
Cluny and Déols 279
Acfred’s Revenge: Sauxillanges 285
The 'Pater et dux monachorum' 287
Closing the Circle: The Pilgrimage of Louis d’Outremer (941-942) 294
Homblières 301
Diplomas, Monasteries, and the Kingdom 307
Chapter 7. Forged Acts: Frankish Truth and its Consequences 315
Understanding Forgery 315
Carolingian Truth: History 324
Carolingian Truth: Commemoration 332
Carolingian Truth: Oaths and Trials 340
'Cartae falsae' 352
The Forgeries of Adalgarius 358
The Le Mans Forgeries 365
Repudiating Boso 381
Humiliating Sint-Baafs 391
Testing 'triuwe' 398
Part Two: The Footsteps of Kings 401
Chapter 8. The Song of Robert of Neustria 409
Stories, Memories, and Diplomas 409
The Robertians in Historiography 415
The Background of the Revolt 425
Northmen and Margraves 429
Robert’s Saint-Denis 439
The ‘Deposition’ 445
The Diploma of 25 January 923 447
Chapter 9. The Passion of Charles the Simple 459
The Judgment of Soissons 459
The Simplicity of the Dove 461
Herbert and Hagano 465
Fulk and Adelaide 470
Dynastic Pride 479
Carolingian Destiny and Gelasian Majesty 481
Legitimacy 492
The Early Acts for Robert and Richard 501
The Resurrection of Reform 504
Lay Abbacies and Royal Prerogative after 911 511
Monasteries and Memorialising 517
The Voice of Charles 524
The Last Diplomas 529
Chapter 10. Remembering Compiègne 535
'Lieux de Mémoire' 535
Carlopolis 541
Charles the Simple’s Politics of Memory 544
Revenge 548
Epilogue: Forgetting Compiègne 557
Bibliography 565
Plates 621
Index 631
