Slavery in the eighth century was not a “peculiar institution.”1.A term generally attributed to the antebellum southern politician John C. Calhoun, who owned slaves himself. Slavery was embedded into every aspect of early medieval society. All strata of society bought, sold, and used slaves. Slavery had been inherited from the ancient world, and continued for more than a millennium after Charlemagne’s death. The only hint of concern or opposition to the practice of treating people as property came from the church, and that opposition was heavily conditional, as we shall see.
The topic of slavery is a large one, and over the next couple of posts I will touch on some of its most salient and visible aspects. In this first installment let’s look at what the law said about slavery.2.This post has been delayed due to the amount of content I’ve found (and my own laziness), so I decided to break it up into more manageable chunks.
Defining who was and was not a slave is surprisingly difficult, as Frankish law recognized degrees of slavery. There are two words that denote full slavery, servi and mancipia, which meant a person owned by another person.3.Much of my understanding of the legal landscape comes from Drew, The Laws of the Salian Franks. I will reference specific passages where warranted. The slave was treated differently than everyone else under the law, and in most ways, but not all, was considered physical property. Slaves could be punished, sold, or otherwise used as their owner desired. There were no laws against the misuse or abuse of slaves.
Recently a coin came to light that throws new light on Fastrada, Charlemagne’s third wife from 783 – 794. To unpack this discovery let’s first look at the coin itself. Then a quick refresher on Fastrada, before we move onto why this discovery is significant. With your indulgence I’ll end with a completely unsupported idea of how to square the seemingly irreconcilable views of Fastrada in the source material.
Earlier this year the Centre Charlemagne in Aachen acquired a coin, a single silver denier.1.I have not been able to find the who, what, why, and how behind this acquisition, but suffice it to say that somebody either gave or sold the coin to the Centre. A denier is a silver penny, the closest thing to a standard medium of exchange in an otherwise barter-based economy. Charles worked hard to standardize his coinage, and the denier is one result.2.Look for a coinage post soon.
This is the coin in question. “The obverse (‘heads’ side) reads +CARoLVSREXFR[ancorum], ‘Charles, king of the Franks’, and the reverse +FASTRADA REGIN[a], ‘Queen Fastrada’, around the usual monogram of Charlemagne (KAROLVS).”3.Archeology.wiki, retrieved June 26, 2023.
Much of what follows is taken from Simon Coupland’s article about this coin in the journal Early Medieval Europe. He is a Cambridge professor who, on his Twitter page, lists “Carolingian coinage” as the first of his loves.4.He does admit that his loves may not be in the correct order.
Charlemagne appears to have drawn inspiration for this coin from his contemporary, King Offa of Britain.5.Reigned 757 until his death in 796. Francia and Britain enjoyed a brisk trade in various goods, and English coins have been found in Francia, and vice versa. In the mid-780s some British coins began to feature Offa’s Queen Cynethryth, not only naming her but even including her image. This would have been unheard of in Francia, where coinage bore the king’s name and no one else.6.Only in the early ninth century did Charles permit a portrait of himself on his coins.
No doubt Charles, who exchanged letters with Offa and came close to marrying at least one son to a daughter of Offa7.Offa came back with a counter-offer, in which one of his sons would also marry another daughter of Charles – that set off a trade war. I’ll see about putting all that together some time. must have seen these new coins. Coupland believes that Charles introduced the Fastrada coin in 793, while she was still among the living.8.He notes a numismatic controversy that Carolingian coins that named anyone besides the king were a form of posthumous commemoration, but he doesn’t buy it.
Why did the king of the Franks chose this queen, one of four in total, to immortalize on his coinage? Perhaps an anniversary present, or a gift from a grateful husband for bringing another healthy child into the world. Whatever the reason, the queen did not have long to enjoy her new-found numismatic fame, for she died in 794.9.Her brief time as a queen with a coin might explain why there is only this single example, while, per Coupland, there are more than 50 of the Cynethryth coins.
We’ve looked at Fastrada’s life, as well as her (alleged) relationship to two minor rebellions against Charlemagne. Going by the most prominent sources, Einhard and the Royal Annals, Fastrada contributed nothing but trouble to the kingdom. Janet Nelson, however, has contributed a more nuanced portrait, and dives deep to present Fastrada as a powerful queen and woman in her own right. These include those (non-disparaging) mentions in the Royal Annals and a letter from Charles to his wife. The seemingly indecent speed with which Charles wed Fastrada after the death of his second wife Hildegarde is put down to the fact that his mother Bertrada had also passed recently, and his children needed a mother. Fair enough.
Coupland reiterates much of Nelson’s case for the exceptional nature of Fastrada as a wife and queen. Like Offa and Cynethryth, the Fastrada coin “is surely further proof of Charlemagne’s feelings towards his wife.” No doubt. Yet the accusations of cruelty in two separate, otherwise well-regarded, sources still stand. What to make of this?
What if all of the sources are true, but simply reflect different facets of the truth? Consider Charles in 783 – his wife and mother have died within months of each other, and he needs to find a woman who can assume the roles of wife, mother to his children, and queen. He has also realized, at perhaps forty-two years of age, that the book of his youth is now concluded. While not a topic of state, his sexual appetites are well known and no doubt were a consideration.10.A poem from around 826 by Walahfrid Strabo describes the vision of a monk named Wettini, in which a damned Charles suffers from a ferocious beast “tearing at his genitals.” Poetry, p. 215. This next wife would be the first in which his mother, the formidable Bertrada, did not have a chance to meet. Was the great king seduced by a desirable woman, who kept him on a string? While the strong man and the beguiling woman is a literary trope, no doubt many of us have watched similar relationships unfold.
Think of Fastrada as an agent, an instigator, not a direct actor. She could be delightful, as in 787 when king and queen met in Worms, “where they rejoiced and were happy in each other’s company.”11.Royal Annals, 787, p. 85. In 791, the honeymoon well over, his letter to her remarks that, “we have been surprised that no missus or letter has reached us from you since we set out from Regensburg. As to which, it is our desire that should notify us more frequently concerning your health and any other matters, as you should decide. And once again we send you abundant greetings in the Lord.”12.Letters, no. 3, p. 310. The very next year his son Pippin led a rebellion, “because they could not endure, so they declared, the cruelty of the queen Fastrada.”13.Revised Royal Annals, 792, p. 124.
Einhard takes a somewhat different slant, and does not accuse Fastrada of direct cruelty to those who rebelled against Charles. Rather that her behavior led him, “in giving in to the cruelty of his wife,”14.Einhard, Vita, ch. 20, p. 40. to generate such ill-will that others could no longer endure his rule. Maybe his underlings felt the verbal lash of the good king when another mailbag contained no letters from home.
All pure speculation, of course. We’ll never know what kind of person was Fastrada, nor the nature of the relationship between she and her husband. But it is fun to speculate!
I have not been able to find the who, what, why, and how behind this acquisition, but suffice it to say that somebody either gave or sold the coin to the Centre.
Offa came back with a counter-offer, in which one of his sons would also marry another daughter of Charles – that set off a trade war. I’ll see about putting all that together some time.
He notes a numismatic controversy that Carolingian coins that named anyone besides the king were a form of posthumous commemoration, but he doesn’t buy it.
Her brief time as a queen with a coin might explain why there is only this single example, while, per Coupland, there are more than 50 of the Cynethryth coins.
A poem from around 826 by Walahfrid Strabo describes the vision of a monk named Wettini, in which a damned Charles suffers from a ferocious beast “tearing at his genitals.” Poetry, p. 215.
Recently a thoughtful and provocative reader (thank you Mike!) raised a critical question: can we really know the past? How we do know if the sources are anything but pure speculation? Think about it. We read history books, but those are simply someone’s analysis, synthesis, and regurgitation of primary sources, of which the author has had no living experience. Yet, generally, we accept those history books as “truth”. What’s going on?
First things first, I am not an historian. I have no training in historiography or any related discipline. Dungeons and Dragons was my medieval history gateway drug, and the fascination grew from there. My particular interest in the eighth century stems from two roots: the Song of Roland, and the fact that, as a layperson, I could collect and read virtually all of the available primary source material in translation. Such are my qualifications.
While Charlemange’s influence in European history is outsize, his modern-day media presence is muted, shall we say. Perhaps one of his more notable appearances is a monthly column in The Economist weekly news magazine. The authors don’t have a byline, instead using pithy words and names that reference the subject of the column. “Banyan” looks at pan-Asian issues, while “Bartleby” is the business correspondent.
The European column is written by “Charlemagne”. A recent story looked at the relationship between Austria and Russia (too neutral, in Charlemagne’s eyes). The reason for the epithet lies in Charles’ long-held title as “the father of Europe”, and of course there is some truth to that. He was the first to see the European continent as a single entity that should be bound together by religion, trade, and law, at least to the extent he was able to conceive of these things. Certainly Rome never looked at the continent to the north of Italy as a distinct domain, with legitimate interests. For the emperors, there was Rome, and there was everything else.
But sometimes the real Charlemagne is worth a mention. The May 4 issue includes a piece in the Culture section that asks, “Might Charlemagne’s capital, long placed in Germany, have actually been in Italy?”
Several months after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the west (no big deal) the great man was again on the move, touring the Italian north in the spring of 801. While in Pavia, “he was told that legates from Aaron Amir al Muminin,1.Known to us as Harun al-Rashid. There are several versions of his name in the sources. the rex of the Persians, had arrived at the port of Pisa.”2.King, Royal Annals, 801, p. 94.
This was news indeed. As Charlemagne’s vision had expanded past the European scene, as a good Christian his attention had naturally turned to Jerusalem and the holy lands of Palestine. At some point the sad state of Christian communities to the east had been made known to him, and he had decided to remedy this unacceptable state of affairs. But as those lands were not under his rule and obviously outside the reach of his armies, he would need to use the softer skills of politics and charm to work his will. In those days that meant the dispatch and reception of personal envoys.
