Boniface

The lonely life of a medieval leper

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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 effective multi-drug therapy cures leprosy, for most of human history there was no treatment. In the absence of a treatment and the horrific effects of the disease, the medieval church and state enforced a strict policy of exclusion. A leper’s life was one of stigma and ostracism.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 World Health Organization – Leprosy. You, too, can become an expert on anything with the help of the internet.

The Saxon Wars I: let’s do this

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 No war taken up by the Frankish people was ever longer, harder, or more dreadful…1.Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, ch. 7, p.20

Beginning in 772, Charlemagne waged war against the Saxons for more than thirty years. It was, as his biographer notes, the longest and most vicious of all the wars he undertook. After literally centuries of cross-border skirmishing, of which Charlemagne’s father and grandfather were frequent participants, he decided to finish the job once and for all. Why did he turn his eye to the Saxons? There were plenty of other opportunities, including Spain, Brittany, or southern Italy.

If Carolingian naval power were only a little more robust he could have looked north to Britain, but that’s a tale for a novelist.2.Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 249-254. Charles Martel launched small fleets at Frisia, and Charlemagne fought along the Rhine, but neither ever attempted a military channel crossing. Commerce between Britain and the mainland was extensive, however, so the knowledge existed.

Prof. Bernard Bachrach, who has studied Carolingian grand strategy in detail, believes that Charlemagne was motivated by both religion and imperial ambition as he planned the Saxon conquest. If he could conquer the regions of the former Roman Empire, then (hopefully) the pope would anoint him as a new emperor of the west. His claim would be further buttressed and enhanced by an extensive (and, as it turned out, ruthless) campaign of Saxon Christianization.3.Personal correspondence with Prof. Bachrach, February 4, 2018.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, ch. 7, p.20
↑2 Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 249-254. Charles Martel launched small fleets at Frisia, and Charlemagne fought along the Rhine, but neither ever attempted a military channel crossing. Commerce between Britain and the mainland was extensive, however, so the knowledge existed.
↑3 Personal correspondence with Prof. Bachrach, February 4, 2018.

Frankish travelogue: Saxony

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“The appearance of the country differs considerably in different parts; but in general it is covered either by bristling forests or by foul swamps.”1.Tacitus, Germania, bk. 5, p.104

Thus did the late first century Roman historian and ethnographer Tacitus describe the country of what we (and he, for that matter) call Germany. The part of Germany called Saxony occupied the northeast portion of the country, east of the Rhine, south of the North Sea, to the southern hills. One of the tribes that occupied this area became known as Saxons, around the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. We know the Saxons as one of the three tribes who began crossing that sea and invading Britain, along with the Angles and the Jutes, those the Venerable Bede called “the three most formidable races of Germany.”2.Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, ch. 15, p. 63.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Tacitus, Germania, bk. 5, p.104
↑2 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, ch. 15, p. 63.

Wandering, heretic priests, of course

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The classic ‘wandering minstrel’ was not the only itinerant non-peasant to roam the roads of western Europe in the eighth century. Priests and other religious were also known to travel from town to village, preaching to the faithful. These wandering priests were not looked upon with favor by the authorities. They disrupted the ‘natural’ order of things, by drawing the common folk away from the established churches (and thereby interrupting the flow of tithes), as well as preaching a message different from what the church establishment preferred.

Charlemagne did not like people to wander. He wanted everyone to sit down, stay put, and get to work. Chapter three of the “General Admonition” capitulary of 769 expressly states, “fugitive clerics and peregrini [pilgrims] are not to be received or ordained by anyone without a letter of commendation, and authorisation, from their bishop or abbot.”1.King, Translated Sources, p.210.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 King, Translated Sources, p.210.

Gregory II: the schism begins

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The pontificate of pope Gregory II marked the beginning of the end of the old “Byzantine papacy,” and the start of a new, western-facing papacy. Gregory opposed the Byzantine emperor on new taxes, inaugurated a muscular regional policy to oppose Lombard expansionism, and implacably fought the eastern empire’s policy of Iconoclasm. The popes that succeeded Gregory continued his policies, eventually culminating the coronation of Pepin the Short and the establishment of the ‘Papal States’ that continued until the 20th century. Let’s take a look.

Gregory II (his original name is not known) was born to a noble Roman family in 669. After holding a number of ecclesiastical posts he was elected pope on 19 May 715, and held the papacy until his death on 11 February 731. He is first notable to history for his work with Boniface, the English monk who proselytized among the Germans. During this period the papacy became increasingly concerned with converting German lands.1.Riche, Family Who Forged Europe, p.32. Boniface, then named Wynfrith, first worked among the Frisians, then traveled to Rome in 717. Wynfrith impressed Gregory, who renamed him Boniface and sent him to Germany.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Riche, Family Who Forged Europe, p.32.