bentonian

To hell and back

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Visits to or visions of the afterlife are a common motif in western literature. Odysseus visited the land of the dead and saw his mother. Aeneas traveled to Dis to find his father, and learn of the future of the Romans. These exploits continued after Christ, but of course took on a Christian character. There are dozens of examples. If only someone would collect all these Christian visions into one book…

Out of the four dozen examples found by Eileen Gardiner, there are five that were relatively recent to the population of the eighth century. Two are related by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century, two came from Britain in the early eighth century via the Venerable Bede, and one is related by Boniface. There is a second vision in Boniface’s letters that Gardiner did not mention, which gives us a half-dozen fresh voyages to the nether regions for us to investigate.

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Frankish Travelogue – Gascony

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Gascony is the area bordered by the Pyrenees to the south, the Atlantic to the west, the Garonne river to the north, and a less defined boundary to the east. It has never included Toulouse. Those distinctions have stayed pretty firm over the centuries, except when the border of the “Duchy of Vasconia” extended as far south as Pamplona in the seventh century.

The early medieval histories of Aquitaine and Gascony are inextricably linked, in the same way the histories of Aquitaine and Francia are linked. The fortunes of one inevitably affected the fortunes of the other. The early history of Gascony is particularly hazy, even by ‘Dark Age’ standards.

In 670 or so a Duke Lupus came to power over Aquitaine and Gascony. The scholar Pierre Riche says, “Victorious over the Basques, Duke Lupus exploited the struggles between Ebroin and the Austrasians to carve out a new princedom for himself south of the Garonne.”1.Riche, Carolingians: Family Who Forged Europe, p.29. This was during a period of retrenchment in Francia, and the outlying areas found themselves able to purse greater independence. In 675 Lupus organized a church synod in Bordeaux, a sign of a rule both enlightened and powerful enough to pull it off. But that is the last we hear of Duke Lupus, despite his terrific name.

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Footnotes

Roman roads

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While rivers have always played an important role in commerce and conquest, if you really want to get things done, you have to have roads. The Romans understood this better than anyone, and their road network is a testament to their foresight, energy, and engineering acumen.

Why discuss Roman roads in a website devoted to the eighth century? Because the roads were essential to Carolingian expansion and imperial development, just as they were to the Romans. Let’s consider an example.

In 734 Charles Martel was expanding his kingdom into Provence. One of the lordlings who offered resistance was chased from Marseilles into Avignon, at which point he made the unfortunate decision to ally himself with the Muslims of Septimania. Charles proceeded to lay siege to Avignon and defeated Frank and Arab alike. After defeating the occupiers Charles turned west and laid waste to a host of Muslim towns in Septimania, from Nimes to Narbonne. He then turned and besieged Avignon a second time, as the Muslims had made a second sortie and recaptured it. All of this was accomplished in the span of a single campaign season.

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Muslim funerals – in France

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We have spent some time looking at the Muslim presence in western Europe during the early medieval era, including a survey of the age, a review of Martel’s campaign in 727, as well as the ever-popular Battle of Poitiers. There are plenty of primary and secondary sources available for anyone who wants to know more. One point worth noting is that our information is almost exclusively textual, as the archaeological evidence is practically non-existent. Until now.

Excavations carried out in 2006 by the French rescue archaeology company INRAP1.Last seen excavating a well packed with bodies. in the city of Nimes revealed three Muslim burials. Recently eight of the investigators released a multi-disciplinary study in the journal PlosOne that opens a fresh chapter on the study of eighth century Muslims in France.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Last seen excavating a well packed with bodies.

The king’s daughter and the emperor’s son

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Charlemagne’s relationship with his daughters has raised eyebrows for twelve centuries. In Einhard’s famous phrasing, “[H]e kept them close beside him at home until his death, saying that he could not stand to be parted from their company.”1.Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, ch.19, in Charlemagne’s Courtier, ed. Paul Dutton, p.29. Einhard has other highly interesting things to say about Charlemagne’s daughters and their relationship with their father, and we will explore that in another post. But at least once he considered letting a daughter go, when the mighty Byzantine Empire proposed joining families. That would be enough to make the most protective father think twice about keeping his daughter at home.

Charles was a man who enjoyed life’s pleasures, and a woman’s comfort not the least of them. His wives and concubines produced eighteen children (or more), a fact which caused some concern with at least one poet.2.McKitterick notes that Wetti of Richenau includes Charlemagne in his vision of hell, with a beast chewing on his genitals. Charlemagne: Formation of a European Identity, p.91. His first daughter with his second wife Hildegard was named Rotrude, who was born in 775. Being a daughter of a king, her usual duty and fate would have been to serve as a bridge between great families. Her chance came from an unexpected quarter in 781, when her father was in Rome.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, ch.19, in Charlemagne’s Courtier, ed. Paul Dutton, p.29.
↑2 McKitterick notes that Wetti of Richenau includes Charlemagne in his vision of hell, with a beast chewing on his genitals. Charlemagne: Formation of a European Identity, p.91.