Jinty Nelson examines the long association between Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Christian emperor of the West, and Europe.
Was Charlemagne a Mass Murderer?
February 2, 2014 By
Did the ‘Massacre of Verden’ actually happen with 4500 people dying in a single day? Was Charlemagne justified in his actions?
Advocating change: monasteries, territories and justice between East and West Francia, 11th-12th centuries
February 1, 2014 By
This article looks at the question of the formation of territorial principalities in western Europe through the issue of ecclesiastical advocacy.
Charlemagne Father of the Continent. The Ideology of the European Christian Empire
January 28, 2014 By
Did ever Charles the Great had such a modern European ideology or it is just about a forced modernization of his ideas.
Books on Charlemagne
January 26, 2014 By
Those interested in the life and reign of Charlemagne will there are many books about him. Here are a just few, including primary sources, biographies, studies focused on particular aspects of his rule, and his legacy throughout the Middle Ages.
Under the aegis of the saints. Hagiography and power in early Carolingian northern Italy
January 22, 2014 By
This article gives an overview of the features, choices, tastes and models of sanctity characteristic of Italian hagiography, against the background of local contexts and political competition.
Carolingian-era mass grave discovered in France
January 1, 2014 By
The bodies of between twenty and thirty people have been discovered in a well by archaeologists in France.
Is the Author Really Better than his Scribes? Problems of Editing Pre-Carolingian Latin Texts
January 1, 2014 By
Latin texts composed after ca. 600 and before the Carolingian writing re- forms that began in the late eighth century present problems that editors rarely have to face when working on classical texts (including most writings of late antiquity), or texts written after ca. 800.
Charlemagne: A Frank Analysis of Imperialism in the 8th and 9th Centuries
December 27, 2013 By
Charlemagne has been approached by historians because of the pivotal role he fills as the Father of a Continent. His kingdom spread across Europe and renewed the culture of the Western World; a “mini-Renaissance” that shifted the focal point of Europe away from crumbling Rome.
Merovingian and Carolingian Empires: An Analysis of Their Strengths and Weaknesses
December 26, 2013 By
In this research paper I will analyze the achievements and the destruction of the Merovingian Empire to demonstrate how both provide a basic structure of government for the Carolingians to adopt.
Behind the Veil: The rise of female monasticism and the double house
September 29, 2013 By
In this thesis I aim to restore the contemporary views of female monasticism that have been marginalized in current historiography. By evaluating the primary source material on women in monasticism, I intend to recapture the complex links between female religious communities and the wider social, cultural and political world of the Frankish kingdoms.
Poultry and Predators in Two Poems From the Reign of Charlemagne
September 24, 2013 By
Poultry and Predators in Two Poems From the Reign of Charlemagne By Jan Ziolkowski Denver Quarterly Volume 24, no. 3 (1990) Introduction: Were there animals in the myths, trickster tales, and fables told by the neolithic people who painted bison and deer on cave walls? Whatever the answer, there can be no doubt that animals […]
A Great Carolingian Panzootic
August 10, 2013 By
This paper considers the cattle panzootic of 809-810, the most thoroughly documented and, as far as can be discerned, spatially significant livestock pestilence of the Carolingian period (750-950 CE).
The Liber Historiae Francorum – a Model for a New Frankish Self-confidence
August 7, 2013 By
The Liber Historiae Francorum – a Model for a New Frankish Self-confidence Philipp Dörler Networks and Neighbours, Volume One, Number One (2013) The Liber historiae Francorum was influenced by different historiographic traditions. In this paper, I pursue two arguments. First, I believe that the author of the Liber historiae Francorum juxtaposes and slightly transforms these […]
The Pagans and the Other: Varying Presentations in the Early Middle Ages
August 6, 2013 By
The Pagans and the Other: Varying Presentations in the Early Middle Ages Ian Wood Networks and Neighbours, Volume One, Number One (2013) Abstract This paper discusses the position of the pagan ‘Other’ in medieval thought, arguing that although Paganism was alien to the Christian, churchmen wanted above all to bring the pagans into the Christian […]
Inquiring into Adultery and Other Wicked Deeds: Episcopal Justice in Tenth- and Early Eleventh-Century Italy
July 18, 2013 By
This article suggests that Italian bishops often had recourse to spiritual penalties to exercise their coercive authority over serious offences during the tenth and early eleventh centuries.
Word of Mouth: Charlemagne’s Capitulare de Villis
May 23, 2013 By
Xavier Riaud examines The Capitulare de Villis, one of Charlemagne’s documents which has a surprising dental content.
Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
May 17, 2013 By
This paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious.
Diplomacy and the Carolingian Encounter with Byzantium down to the Accession of Charles the Bald
April 19, 2013 By
How was it possible that an Irishman should discover in Frankland a talent for studying Byzantine thinkers like Ps.-Dionysius, Maximus Confessor, and Gregory of Nyssa?
Barbarians to the Balkans
March 17, 2013 By
In the High Middle Ages, in a now clearly articulated opposition between the West and the East, Europe and the Balkans began to emerge and be fixed as distinct and hostile entities. In Crusading chronicles, the Balkan lands lay on the way from Europe to the Holy Land. In the late twelfth and in the thirteenth centuries, the conventional separation line between the civilized and barbarian world, identical with the river Danube, began to break down and the barbarians came to be located in the Balkans.
The Making of Men, not Masters: Right Order and Lay Masculinity According to Dhuoda and Nithard
January 27, 2013 By
Setting Nithard’s and Dhuoda’s works in dialogue with one another, this study seeks to explore how the conflicts of the early 840s may have triggered reevaluations of contemporary ideals regarding lay masculinty. At the core of both authors’ works is the understanding that the problems the realm was facing at that time were primarily due to no- blemen’s expression of unmanly modes of conduct.
Questioning the Accepted Techniques for Sword-Forging in Anglo-Saxon England and in Frankish Europe
January 14, 2013 By
Frankish swords were absolutely crucial to the rise of the Carolingian empire and they played a major role in Afro-Eurasian commerce during this period.
Edition, Translation, and Exegesis: The Carolingians and the Bible
December 23, 2012 By
In their attention to philological procedures and details, to the work of editing, revising, and translating, ninth-century scholars made a lasting contribution to the ways in which Europeans would think about the Bible.
Exegesis According to the Rules of Philosophy or the Rule of Faith?: Methodological Conflict in the Ninth-Century Predestination Controversy
December 16, 2012 By
The development of biblical exegesis, as Contreni shows, was rapid, but not homogeneous. On the one hand, one of the main ways to acquire biblical wisdom was to rely on the interpretations and teaching of the Holy Fathers, whose texts were studied, assimilated, simplified, collected, and taught. On the other hand, Alcuin’s revival of the liberal arts6 paved the way for the rise of another method of biblical exegesis.
Trickster, Convert, Martyr, Saint: Four Ways of Dying in Dudo of St. Quentin’s History of the Normans
December 16, 2012 By
I want to push this a bit further here and argue that Dudo was aiming to produce something that we might term sacramentary history, to show the three-fold interaction of the linear time experienced by fallen humanity, the cyclical time in which events are continually re-enacted and foreshadowed in the sacraments, and the unchanging eternity of time as experienced by God.
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