Table Of ContentHistoriography and Identity III
CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN Historiography and Identity III
LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
Carolingian Approaches
General Editor
Yitzhak Hen, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Editorial Board
Edited by
Angelo di Berardino, Augustinianum, Rome
Nora Berend, University of Cambridge
Rutger Kramer, Helmut Reimitz, and Graeme Ward
Leslie Brubaker, University of Birmingham
Christoph Cluse, Universität Trier
Rob Meens, Universiteit Utrecht
James Montgomery, University of Cambridge
Alan V. Murray, University of Leeds
Thomas F. X. Noble, University of Notre Dame
Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.
Volume 29
HISTORIOGRAPHY AND IDENTITY
The six-volume sub-series Historiography and Identity unites a wide variety of case studies
from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages, from the Latin West to the emerging polities in
Northern and Eastern Europe, and adding a Eurasian perspective that includes the Islamic
World and China. The series aims to develop a critical methodology to harness the potential of
identity studies to add to the understanding of the construction and impact of historiography.
Volume 3
CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN Historiography and Identity III
LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
Carolingian Approaches
General Editor
Yitzhak Hen, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Editorial Board
Edited by
Angelo di Berardino, Augustinianum, Rome
Nora Berend, University of Cambridge
Rutger Kramer, Helmut Reimitz, and Graeme Ward
Leslie Brubaker, University of Birmingham
Christoph Cluse, Universität Trier
Rob Meens, Universiteit Utrecht
James Montgomery, University of Cambridge
Alan V. Murray, University of Leeds
Thomas F. X. Noble, University of Notre Dame
Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.
Volume 29
HISTORIOGRAPHY AND IDENTITY
The six-volume sub-series Historiography and Identity unites a wide variety of case studies
from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages, from the Latin West to the emerging polities in
Northern and Eastern Europe, and adding a Eurasian perspective that includes the Islamic
World and China. The series aims to develop a critical methodology to harness the potential of
identity studies to add to the understanding of the construction and impact of historiography.
Volume 3
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Contents
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image by Dagmar Giesriegl, adapted from a sesquisolidus bearing the image of Acknowledgements vii
Louis the Pious (814-840) from the Cabinet des Medailles, Paris (image by PHGCOM,
from Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license), as well as fragments Histories of Carolingian Historiography: An Introduction
from St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 621; Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, HELMUT REIMITZ 1
Ministerialbibliothek, Min. 109; Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 120.I; Oxford, Merton
College MS 315; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 4886; Paris, Bibliothèque
Carolingian Uses of History
Nationale de France, lat. 12527.
From the Order of the Franks to the World of Ambrose:
The Vita Adalhardi and the Epitaphium Arsenii Compared
MAYKE DE JONG 39
Published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): PUB 779-G. Research
results from: Austrian Science Fund (FWF): SFB F42-G18. Remembering the Ostrogoths in the Carolingian Empire
MATTHIAS M. TISCHLER 65
© 2021, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
A Carolingian Epitome of Orosius from Tours: Leiden VLQ 20
ROBERT EVANS and ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK 123
This is an open access publication made available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. No part of this publication Approaches to History: Walahfrid’s Parallel Universe
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any RICHARD CORRADINI 155
means, for commercial purposes, without the prior permission of the publisher, or
as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Carolingian Histories
Enhancing Bede: The Chronicon universale to 741
ISBN: 978-2-503-58655-7
SÖREN KASCHKE 201
E-ISBN: 978-2-503-58656-4
DOI: 10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.5.118545
A Crowning Achievement: Carolingian Imperial Identity
ISSN: 1378-8779
E-ISSN: 2294-8511 in the Chronicon Moissiacense
RUTGER KRAMER 231
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper
D/2021/0095/110
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Contents
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image by Dagmar Giesriegl, adapted from a sesquisolidus bearing the image of Acknowledgements vii
Louis the Pious (814-840) from the Cabinet des Medailles, Paris (image by PHGCOM,
from Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license), as well as fragments Histories of Carolingian Historiography: An Introduction
from St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 621; Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, HELMUT REIMITZ 1
Ministerialbibliothek, Min. 109; Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 120.I; Oxford, Merton
College MS 315; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 4886; Paris, Bibliothèque
Carolingian Uses of History
Nationale de France, lat. 12527.
From the Order of the Franks to the World of Ambrose:
The Vita Adalhardi and the Epitaphium Arsenii Compared
MAYKE DE JONG 39
Published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): PUB 779-G. Research
results from: Austrian Science Fund (FWF): SFB F42-G18. Remembering the Ostrogoths in the Carolingian Empire
MATTHIAS M. TISCHLER 65
© 2021, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
A Carolingian Epitome of Orosius from Tours: Leiden VLQ 20
ROBERT EVANS and ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK 123
This is an open access publication made available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. No part of this publication Approaches to History: Walahfrid’s Parallel Universe
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any RICHARD CORRADINI 155
means, for commercial purposes, without the prior permission of the publisher, or
as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Carolingian Histories
Enhancing Bede: The Chronicon universale to 741
ISBN: 978-2-503-58655-7
SÖREN KASCHKE 201
E-ISBN: 978-2-503-58656-4
DOI: 10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.5.118545
A Crowning Achievement: Carolingian Imperial Identity
ISSN: 1378-8779
E-ISSN: 2294-8511 in the Chronicon Moissiacense
RUTGER KRAMER 231
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper
D/2021/0095/110
vi Contents
vMi uch Ado about Vienne? A Localizing Universal Chronicon Contents
SUKANYA RAISHARMA 271
Much Ado about Vienne? A Localizing Universal Chronicon
TheS SUeKnAseN oYfA a nR AEInSdHinAgR iMn Ath e Histories of Frechulf of Lisieux 271
GRAEME WARD 291
The Sense of an Ending in the Histories of Frechulf of Lisieux
GRAEME WARD 291 Acknowledgements
Uses of Carolingian History
Historiography of DisilluUsiosens: oEfr cChaermoplienrgt iaannd H thiset o ry
History of Ninth-Century Southern Italy
HisWtoAriLoTgEraRp PhOy HofL D isillusion: Erchempert and the 319
History of Ninth-Century Southern Italy
‘A MWaAnL oTfE NR oPtOabHleL Good Looks Disfigured by a Cruel Wound’: 319 This volume, and the series on Historiography of Identity of which it
The Forest Misadventure of Charles the Young of Aquitaine forms a part, originated in the research cluster ‘Visions of Community:
(‘A8 6M4)a nin o Hf Nisototaryb laen Gd oLoedg eLnodo ks Disfigured by a Cruel Wound’: Comparative Approaches to Ethnicity, Region and Empire in Christianity,
TheE FRoICre sJ.t G MOiLsaDdBvEenRtGu re of Charles the Young of Aquitaine 355 Islam and Buddhism (400–1600 ce) (VISCOM)’, funded by the Austrian
(864) in History and Legend
Research Fund (FWF) from 2011 to 2019.1 In this cluster, medieval historians,
IndEexR I C J. GOLDBERG 338575 social anthropologists, and philologists worked together to compare the role
of universal religions in the formation of particular communities in medieval
Index 387
List of Illustrations Europe and Asia. We are very grateful to the FWF and to the cluster’s two host
institutions, the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences,
Figure 1, p. 361, Napoleon huLnitsitn ogf i Inl ltuhset rFaotiroênt sd ’Compiègne by Carle Vernet for their support. The Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy
(1811). provided an excellent institutional hub for our work. We are grateful to both the
Figure 1, p. 361, Napoleon hunting in the Forêt d’Compiègne by Carle Vernet staff and guests at the institute and its VISCOM partner institutions for their
Figu(1re8 121, )p.. 375, Charlot ambushes Huon of Bordeaux by Manuel Orazi (1898). help in organizing the workshops that formed the basis of this volume and the
others in the series, and for helping to prepare the volumes for publication. Nicola
Figure 2, p. 375, Charlot ambushes Huon of Bordeaux by Manuel Orazi (1898).
Edelmann especially has been instrumental in getting the manuscript ready.
We are very grateful for having been able to work with such an excellent
group of scholars on this volume. We want to thank them for their participa-
tion, their contributions, and especially for their patience with the inevitably
lengthy publication process of such a large-scale undertaking.
The editors
1 The FWF (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung in Österreich) funded
the cluster as SFB (Spezialforschungsbereich) F 42-G 18.
vi Contents
vMi uch Ado about Vienne? A Localizing Universal Chronicon Contents
SUKANYA RAISHARMA 271
Much Ado about Vienne? A Localizing Universal Chronicon
TheS SUeKnAseN oYfA a nR AEInSdHinAgR iMn Ath e Histories of Frechulf of Lisieux 271
GRAEME WARD 291
The Sense of an Ending in the Histories of Frechulf of Lisieux
GRAEME WARD 291 Acknowledgements
Uses of Carolingian History
Historiography of DisilluUsiosens: oEfr cChaermoplienrgt iaannd H thiset o ry
History of Ninth-Century Southern Italy
HisWtoAriLoTgEraRp PhOy HofL D isillusion: Erchempert and the 319
History of Ninth-Century Southern Italy
‘A MWaAnL oTfE NR oPtOabHleL Good Looks Disfigured by a Cruel Wound’: 319 This volume, and the series on Historiography of Identity of which it
The Forest Misadventure of Charles the Young of Aquitaine forms a part, originated in the research cluster ‘Visions of Community:
(‘A8 6M4)a nin o Hf Nisototaryb laen Gd oLoedg eLnodo ks Disfigured by a Cruel Wound’: Comparative Approaches to Ethnicity, Region and Empire in Christianity,
TheE FRoICre sJ.t G MOiLsaDdBvEenRtGu re of Charles the Young of Aquitaine 355 Islam and Buddhism (400–1600 ce) (VISCOM)’, funded by the Austrian
(864) in History and Legend
Research Fund (FWF) from 2011 to 2019.1 In this cluster, medieval historians,
IndEexR I C J. GOLDBERG 335857 social anthropologists, and philologists worked together to compare the role
of universal religions in the formation of particular communities in medieval
Index 387
List of Illustrations Europe and Asia. We are very grateful to the FWF and to the cluster’s two host
institutions, the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences,
Figure 1, p. 361, Napoleon huLnitsitn ogf i Inl ltuhset rFaotiroênt sd ’Compiègne by Carle Vernet for their support. The Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy
(1811). provided an excellent institutional hub for our work. We are grateful to both the
Figure 1, p. 361, Napoleon hunting in the Forêt d’Compiègne by Carle Vernet staff and guests at the institute and its VISCOM partner institutions for their
Figu(1re8 121, )p.. 375, Charlot ambushes Huon of Bordeaux by Manuel Orazi (1898). help in organizing the workshops that formed the basis of this volume and the
others in the series, and for helping to prepare the volumes for publication. Nicola
Figure 2, p. 375, Charlot ambushes Huon of Bordeaux by Manuel Orazi (1898).
Edelmann especially has been instrumental in getting the manuscript ready.
We are very grateful for having been able to work with such an excellent
group of scholars on this volume. We want to thank them for their participa-
tion, their contributions, and especially for their patience with the inevitably
lengthy publication process of such a large-scale undertaking.
The editors
1 The FWF (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung in Österreich) funded
the cluster as SFB (Spezialforschungsbereich) F 42-G 18.
viii Acknowledgements
Other volumes in this series (all Turnhout: Brepols)
Historiography and Identity, i: Ancient and Early Christian Narratives of Community,
ed. by Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (2019)
Historiography and Identity, ii: Post-Roman Multiplicity and New Political Identities,
ed. by Gerda Heydemann and Helmut Reimitz (2020)
Historiography and Identity, iv: Writing History across Medieval Eurasia, ed. by Walter
Histories of Carolingian
Pohl and Daniel Mahoney
Historiography and Identity, v: The Emergence of New Peoples and Polities in Europe, 1000- Historiography: An Introduction
1300, ed. by Walter Pohl, Francesco Borri, and Veronika Wieser
Historiography and Identity, vi: Competing Narratives of the Past in Central and Eastern
Europe, c. 1200–c. 1600, ed. by Pavlína Rychterová, with the assistance of David
Kalhous Helmut Reimitz*
This is the third volume of a series on historiography and identity
which aims to study the relationship of the writing of history and the
construction of identity from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Taken
together, these volumes do not constitute a comprehensive new history of his-
toriography, but instead recover the potential that historiography developed
to articulate and shape strategies of identification in the ancient, late ancient,
and medieval worlds. As we have learned from recent studies on ancient and
medieval historiography, we should not take this social function of the writ-
ing of history for granted. The writing and practice of history has had diverse
social functions and meanings in different cultures and societies, which is
well documented in new comprehensive overviews such as the multivolume
Oxford History of Historical Writings or the new Inventory of Late Antique
Historiography.1 Some of the other volumes in our series also compare the writ-
* Maximilian Diesenberger, Jamie Kreiner, Walter Pohl and Matthias Tischler read earlier
drafts of this essay and I would like to thank them for their time, suggestions, and comments. The
research leading to these results has received funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
in the project VISCOM SFB F42-G18: Visions of Community. Comparative Approaches to
Ethnicity, Region and Empire in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (400–1600 ce).
1 Woolf, ed., The Oxford History of Historical Writing, i–v; Van Nuffelen and Van Hoof,
eds, Clavis historicorum antiquitatis posterioris (forthcoming), offering a full coverage of works
written in Latin, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, and Coptic, while also including Jewish
and Persian works. See also the database at <https://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.
be/database/> [accessed 1 May 2020].
Helmut Reimitz is Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University
Historiography and Identity III: Carolingian Approaches, ed. by Rutger Kramer, Helmut Reimitz, and Graeme
Ward, celama 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 1–35
BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.5.120160
viii Acknowledgements
Other volumes in this series (all Turnhout: Brepols)
Historiography and Identity, i: Ancient and Early Christian Narratives of Community,
ed. by Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (2019)
Historiography and Identity, ii: Post-Roman Multiplicity and New Political Identities,
ed. by Gerda Heydemann and Helmut Reimitz (2020)
Historiography and Identity, iv: Writing History across Medieval Eurasia, ed. by Walter
Histories of Carolingian
Pohl and Daniel Mahoney
Historiography and Identity, v: The Emergence of New Peoples and Polities in Europe, 1000- Historiography: An Introduction
1300, ed. by Walter Pohl, Francesco Borri, and Veronika Wieser
Historiography and Identity, vi: Competing Narratives of the Past in Central and Eastern
Europe, c. 1200–c. 1600, ed. by Pavlína Rychterová, with the assistance of David
Kalhous Helmut Reimitz*
This is the third volume of a series on historiography and identity
which aims to study the relationship of the writing of history and the
construction of identity from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Taken
together, these volumes do not constitute a comprehensive new history of his-
toriography, but instead recover the potential that historiography developed
to articulate and shape strategies of identification in the ancient, late ancient,
and medieval worlds. As we have learned from recent studies on ancient and
medieval historiography, we should not take this social function of the writ-
ing of history for granted. The writing and practice of history has had diverse
social functions and meanings in different cultures and societies, which is
well documented in new comprehensive overviews such as the multivolume
Oxford History of Historical Writings or the new Inventory of Late Antique
Historiography.1 Some of the other volumes in our series also compare the writ-
* Maximilian Diesenberger, Jamie Kreiner, Walter Pohl and Matthias Tischler read earlier
drafts of this essay and I would like to thank them for their time, suggestions, and comments. The
research leading to these results has received funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
in the project VISCOM SFB F42-G18: Visions of Community. Comparative Approaches to
Ethnicity, Region and Empire in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (400–1600 ce).
1 Woolf, ed., The Oxford History of Historical Writing, i–v; Van Nuffelen and Van Hoof,
eds, Clavis historicorum antiquitatis posterioris (forthcoming), offering a full coverage of works
written in Latin, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, and Coptic, while also including Jewish
and Persian works. See also the database at <https://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.
be/database/> [accessed 1 May 2020].
Helmut Reimitz is Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University
Historiography and Identity III: Carolingian Approaches, ed. by Rutger Kramer, Helmut Reimitz, and Graeme
Ward, celama 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 1–35
BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.5.120160
2 Helmut Reimitz Histories of Carolingian Historiography: An Introduction 3
ing of history in the Christian West with other regions and cultures such as the but also developed new forms and formats of writing and arranging history.
Byzantine Empire or the caliphate.2 These wider horizons and the alternative In so doing they developed new frames for the writing and reading of histories
approaches to historical narratives will not only offer a better sense of the spec- that brought old and new histories together in new ways.6 Not only well-known
trum of possibilities. They also will help to remind us that we have to study the scholars such as Frechulf of Lisieux, Einhard, or Walahfrid Strabo, but also a
relationship of historiography and identity in every case based on the specific great number of anonymous compilers and historians have left us with rich and
history of this relationship. manifold evidence. The variety of historical studies and histories impressively
Like the second volume, this one focuses on historiography and identity in illustrates the care and intelligence with which Carolingian intellectuals stud-
the Latin West after the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire. The second ied an ever larger shelf of historical texts that came to occupy a prominent place
volume, however, examined the period before the Carolingian rise to power and in the new Carolingian libraries.7
the establishment of their rule over a significant part of Europe. It explored the Moreover, in the context of the Carolingian correctio, these scholars came
diverse experiments of post-Roman historians with models and historical gen- to develop an increasingly widely shared critical approach to the language and
res that they inherited from the classical past, and how they adopted, adapted, form of the texts.8 It was not least this critique that helped them to make their
and continued the writing of history in the quickly and constantly changing respective choices in view of the range of alternative historical possibilities.
world of the fifth to the eighth centuries.3 It is difficult to find a common label A good example for this critical approach is the Carolingian transmission of
for the various historiographical projects of Jordanes, Isidore, Bede, Gregory Gregory of Tours’s Ten Books of History.9 Carolingian compilers continued the
of Tours, the Irish historians or later Merovingian authors. Taken together, work of their Merovingian predecessors of rearranging Gregory’s Ten Books,
however, their work resulted in what Peter Brown called one of the ‘great tri- using a cut and paste system to create new and different versions of the text.
umphs of early medieval culture’: the gradual creation of a sense of their own Strikingly, these Carolingian manuscripts do not represent a definitive rework-
past in the post-Roman West.4 This creation of a sense of one’s own past was ing of the text. The specific rearrangement varies from manuscript to manu-
the result of an ongoing bricolage with models, genres, and histories from the script, and each version presents its very own edition of Gregory’s Ten Books.10
late classical and Roman Christian world. It is this bricolage, the intensified Marginal notes in some of these extant manuscripts, however, clearly demon-
and conscious rewriting, reframing, remodelling, and reshaping of these older strate that Carolingian readers and users checked the new editions against the
resources to provide meaningful histories for a changed world that sets these complete version of Gregory’s Ten Books that were housed in their libraries as
Latin histories of the early Middle Ages apart from earlier Roman histories and
from contemporary historical projects of the Byzantine Empire.5
6 See McKitterick, History and Memory; Reimitz, ‘The Social Logic’; Reimitz, ‘Livres
As the contributions of this volume show, Carolingian historians under-
d’histoire’; Reimitz, ‘Ein karolingisches Geschichtsbuch’; Pohl, ‘History in Fragments’; Pohl,
stood the difference between Roman and post-Roman histories very well. They Werkstätte; Diesenberger, ‘How Collections Shape the Text’; Tischler, Einharts ‘Vita Karoli’.
read and studied the works of their post-Roman predecessors with the same 7 For the extensive shelf of texts, see Brown, Rise of Western Christendom, pp. 20–22, on
care as they explored older histories. And they continued the experiments of libraries see Ganz, ‘When Is a Library Not a Library’; for history in early medieval libraries and
their post-Roman predecessors with an ever-growing body of texts and concep- manuscripts, see Ganz, ‘Historia’, McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 186–217; and see also
tions of history. Carolingian scribes and scholars took stock of older models Becker, Licht, and Weinfurter, eds, Karolingische Klöster.
8 On correctio, see Brown, Rise of Western Christendom, pp. 440–49; De Jong, Penitential
State, pp. 112–47; McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 306–20; and 345–80; McKitterick,
2 Pohl and Mahoney, eds, Historiography and Identity, iv and Pohl, Borri, and Wieser, eds, The Carolingians and the Written Word; McKitterick, ed., Carolingian Culture; Gantner,
Historiography and Identity, v. McKitterick, and Meeder, eds, The Resources of the Past; Becker, Licht, and Weinfurter, eds,
3 Heydemann and Reimitz, eds, Historiography and Identity, ii. Karolingische Klöster, on the culmination of the correctio-movement toward the year 800, see
4 Brown, Rise of Western Christendom, pp. 7–9. Nelson, ‘Opposition’, and Davis, Charlemagne’s Practice of Empire, pp. 350–64.
5 For a longer discussion, see my introduction to the second volume, Reimitz, 9 For an overview see Reimitz, ‘The Early Medieval Editions’ with further references par-
‘Historiography and Identity’, with further references, for a wider comparison in the Eurasian ticularly to the studies of Pascale Bourgain and Martin Heinzelmann.
world see the conclusion of the fourth volume by Pohl, ‘Mapping Historiography’. 10 See Reimitz, ‘The Early Medieval Editions’, pp. 540–63.
