The Eighth Century and All That https://www.8thcentury.com The life and times of Pepin le Bref Sun, 20 Aug 2023 23:56:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://i0.wp.com/www.8thcentury.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cropped-Signature.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 The Eighth Century and All That https://www.8thcentury.com 32 32 103774075 The Laws of Slavery https://www.8thcentury.com/the-laws-of-slavery/ Sun, 20 Aug 2023 23:56:54 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2337 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 ... Read more

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Fastrada, redeemed? https://www.8thcentury.com/fastrada-redeemed/ Tue, 04 Jul 2023 23:58:06 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2290 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 ... Read more

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Is history real? https://www.8thcentury.com/is-history-real/ https://www.8thcentury.com/is-history-real/#comments Thu, 22 Jun 2023 23:55:01 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2275 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 ... Read more

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Charlemagne in the news https://www.8thcentury.com/charlemagne-in-the-news/ Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:13 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2256 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 ... Read more

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Charlemagne’s elephant https://www.8thcentury.com/charlemagnes-elephant/ Sun, 26 Feb 2023 01:05:22 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2225 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 ... Read more

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The lonely life of a medieval leper https://www.8thcentury.com/the-lonely-life-of-a-medieval-leper/ Fri, 03 Feb 2023 01:15:26 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2198 I would not wish leprosy on anyone. It is an insidious disease, taking anywhere from months to many years to manifest itself.1.World Health Organization – Leprosy. You, too, can become an expert on anything with the help of the internet. Once it takes hold nerve damage causes victims lose sensation in their skin. An inability to feel pain results in untreated injuries, which eventually leads to significant damage as infections take hold and destroy tissue. As fingers and toes are lost other symptoms include degraded eyesight and terrible skin lesions. The victim’s appearance gradually becomes grotesque. While today a highly ... Read more

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Disease-ridden peasants? https://www.8thcentury.com/disease-ridden-peasants/ Wed, 18 Jan 2023 01:15:30 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2167 A recent paper deserves our attention for the light it sheds on the day-to-day realities of early medieval diet, disease, and mortality. Spoiler: it wasn’t a great time to be alive. The journal Genome Biology published “Pathogen genomics study of an early medieval community in Germany reveals extensive co-infections” in December of 2022. The team of sixteen authors performed DNA analysis on the bones and teeth of individuals buried between 650 and 800 (the dating is rough) in a German town now called Lauchheim (part of Frankish Allemania). Their findings illustrate a population ravaged by disease and hardship. Of the ... Read more

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The king’s voice, written https://www.8thcentury.com/the-kings-voice-written/ Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:58:11 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2129 Today let’s climb into the wayback machine and revisit a topic I first wrote about back in 2015. Capitularies are a critical resource for understanding society, government, the economy, and religion in the eighth century. This new post is necessary to better understand the definition of capitularies, introduce some scholarly opinions about their overarching purposes, as well as. Finally we’ll take a look at a new section to the Resources link: a list of every capitulary you can find in English translation, the generally accepted title, a number (which we’ll get into in a moment), probable date of issue, and ... Read more

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Betrayal in the family https://www.8thcentury.com/betrayal-in-the-family/ https://www.8thcentury.com/betrayal-in-the-family/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2022 01:05:05 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2094 Now let’s crack open a tale of deformity, hatred between brothers, scheming wives and priests, broken promises, and family betrayal. The place is not Mar-a-Lago, but Francia in 769. Pepin the Short, the first true Carolingian king, is dead, felled by a fever after eight years waging a war of scorched earth against Aquitaine.1.Covered extensively, starting here. Before Pepin’s death in 768 both Charles and his brother Carloman, “by your father’s order, joined in lawful marriage” two good Frankish women.2.King, Caroline code, Letter 2, 770, p271. Charles first pulled the trigger, so to speak, and sometime in 7693.No one really ... Read more

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Treachery in the East https://www.8thcentury.com/treachery-in-the-east/ Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:47:29 +0000 https://www.8thcentury.com/?p=2062 While everyone loves the good King Charles today, much of that goodwill is retrospective. The hagiographies by Einhard and Notker, and the plentiful platitudes in the Annals were written after his death, and intended to both burnish the past and reinforce the future. But no one is universally loved, particularly not those who impose their will on others, even with the best of intentions. In 786, Thuringian nobles launched some sort of a rebellion against Charles and his rule. They were found out, confessed, and punished. And that is the extent of what is known with any certainty. Before we ... Read more

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