Download PDF | Rachel Stone - Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire-Cambridge University Press (2011).
418 Pages
What did it mean to be a Frankish nobleman in an age of reform? How could Carolingian lay nobles maintain their masculinity and their social position, while adhering to new and stricter moral demands by reformers concerning behaviour in war, sexual conduct and the correct use of power? This book explores the complex interaction between Christian moral ideals and social realities, and between religious reformers and the lay political elite they addressed. It uses the numerous texts addressed to a lay audience (including lay mirrors, secular poetry, political polemic, historical writings and legislation) to examine how biblical and patristic moral ideas were reshaped to become compatible with the realities of noble life in the Carolingian empire. This innovative analysis of Carolingian moral norms demonstrates how gender interacted with political and religious thought to create a distinctive Frankish elite culture, presenting a new picture of early medieval masculinity.
rachel stoneis Departmental Library Cataloguer in the Department of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
INTRODUCTION
The way to heaven In about 800, Alcuin, abbot of St Martin of Tours, sent a moral treatise to Guy (Wido), count of the Breton march, entitled De virtutibus et vitiis. In his introduction, Alcuin said that he was writing since: ‘you entreated me with all your might to write some brief exhortation for your occupation, which we know that you have in military matters’. 1 Alcuin’s response discussed the virtues and vices, focusing less on doctrine or devotional practices than on how laymen ought to behave. His aim was that ‘you might have a booklet every day in your sight, like a manual, in which you might be able to consider yourself, and what you ought to avoid or do’. 2 This image of self-contemplation, also used in other moral texts, leads to the description of the genre of the ‘lay mirror’ . Alcuin added: ‘Do not let either the condition [ habitus] of a layman or the quality of a secular way of life [ conversatio] frighten you, as if in this condition you were not able to enter the doors of the heavenly life.’ 3 The two men were both signii cant i gures in the Carolingian kingdom.
Guy was almost certainly part of the inl uential ‘Widonid’ family, who dominated Neustrian politics in the early ninth century; another branch became dukes of Spoleto in Italy. He played important roles both militarily and politically, receiving the surrender of the Bretons in 799 and acting as a missus dominicus in 802. 4 Alcuinwas at the centre of Carolingian religious and political life, and made important contributions to two of Charlemagne’s key reform edicts. 5 His many writings as a hagiographer, educator, biblical commentator and poet include several texts intended at least partly for a lay audience. 6 His extensive correspondence also contains a number of letters addressed to laymen or groups including them. 7 De virtutibus et vitiis was, in terms of circulation, by far the most successful of all Alcuin’s texts: more than 140 manuscripts of it survive. 8 Copies were owned by two ninth-century lay nobles, Dhuodaand Eberhard of Friuli. 9
A number of Carolingian authors reused Alcuin’s material for their own moral treatises and sermons. 10 It was also translated into several vernacular languagesand became the basis for Old English homilies and sermons, as well as the Middle English poem Speculum Gy de Warewyke . 11 Why did this work, which most modern readers would consider dull and derivative, achieve such popularity? What can we learn from the wide circulation of this and similar moral texts? As I shall show, we can use these texts to study not so much how early medieval Franks behaved, as how they imagined themselves, particularly their masculinity and nobility.
Studying morality Alcuin’s concern about lay conversatio was not an isolated example. Strenuous attempts at religious reform from the time of Charlemagne onwards aimed to correct the behaviour of both lay and religious people. The reformers believed that all of society needed to be made truly Christian, with the laity as one specii c ‘order’ having its own suitable way of life. 12 Alcuin’s text was the most inl uential of several treatises addressed to noble laymen in the Carolingian period. 13 Such lay mirrors were only one in a variety of genres aiming to instruct and guide elite audiences. Hans Hubert Anton ’s work on moral instruction for rulers, for example, uses examples from letters, poetry, conciliar acts and mirrors for princes, while Katrien Heene ’s survey of ‘edifying literature’ focuses on hagiography, moral tracts, sermons and homilies. 14
This large corpus of Carolingian moral texts has often been ignored or dismissed by modern scholars, who dislike both its admonitory tone and its objectionable views on such topics as slavery (accepted) and homosexuality (condemned). Even within religious history and the history of philosophy, the study of morality, or more specii cally of moral instruction and moral discourses, has often been neglected. 15 More studies of lay morality in the Carolingian period have focused on a few texts, such as the works of Nithard and Dhuoda and the Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis . 16
Franz Sedlmeier ’s study of the Carolingian lay mirrors, meanwhile, provides a very detailed account of them and their sources, but gives little sense of their social context. 17 There have been only a few wider studies of Carolingian lay morality, and these have not focused on the specii c practical demands being made on the laity. 18 One important reason for studying such texts is as material for the history of mentalities. An analysis of moral instruction can provide several important insights into wider thought patterns. Firstly, their priorities are revealing: which moral issues were seen as most signii cant? What abuses were felt to require repeated condemnation, and what areas were tacitly ignored or little discussed? Secondly, what reasons were given for the particular moral norm being inculcated? Michel Foucaultand Peter Brown , among others, have shown how many dif erent moral meanings could be given to the same sexual norms. 19 Such explanations again help illuminate the mental universe of the authors and audiences of moral texts.
Finally, what social categories underlie the moral demands? Moral systems dominated by universal moral norms are a relatively recent development; earlier moral instruction normally expected dif erent behaviour from dif erent sexes, classes and ages . The targeting of some moral norms at particular social groups provides insight into how society was imagined to work. An important article by Patrick Wormaldargued that eighthcentury Anglo-Saxon aristocrats who converted to Christianity had to make little change to their way of life. 20 This book is partly an examination of whether the same was true for Frankish noblemen during the Carolingian reforms. To take this question a stage further, what can socially dif erentiated moral norms tell us about a culture’s understanding of the meaning of masculinity and nobility? Cultural historians have shown the very varied moral norms that have been associated with ideas of masculinity: Aristotle , for example, thought that neither women nor slaves could properly possess andreia (manly courage), because of their defective reason. 21
The ethical content of both masculinity and nobility in early medieval Francia is demonstrated by its vocabulary: an adverb such as viriliter (manfully) combines both objective description and subjective valuation. 22 Similarly, the long tradition of ‘nobility’ as meaning both social status and a positive moral characteristic is rel ected in the multiple meanings of terms like nobilis and edel. A study of appropriate behaviour for male nobles, in contrast to expectations of other social groups, therefore of ers a useful approach to issues of masculinity and noble self-representation. 23 Carolingian moral texts also allow insights into other areas, because of the particularly close connections between political and moral discourses in the period. Etienne Delaruelleclaimed that political reform in the time of Louis the Piousbecame dei ned essentially as moral reform; 24 more recently, Mayke de Jonghas shown the key role of ideas of sin and penitence in this period. 25
The same demands for universal moral self-scrutiny and confession are already visible in Charlemagne’sreign. 26 Only Christian behaviour on the part of both ruler and subjects could ensure the safety and prosperity of the kingdom. Examining eighth- and ninth-century texts also shows the arbitrary nature of modern labels separating ‘religion’, ‘morality’ and ‘politics’. For example, in a chapter in De virtutibus et vitiis on justice, Alcuin included a substantial passage discussing the faults that judges( iudices) needed to avoid. 27 Like much of Alcuin’s treatise, this was a reworking of earlier material: here, Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae . 28 Alcuin’s chapter was not the only Carolingian text inl uenced by Isidore’s passage. Very similar statements appear in the Admonitio generalis – a capitulary of Charlemagne from 789 – and also in a long poem by Theodulf , Paraenesis ad Iudices, written about Theodulf’s experiences as a missus dominicus in 798. 29
The same moral expressions thus appear in the advice given to a nobleman by his spiritual adviser; in a satirical and political poem; and in a key text of Charlemagne’s programme of religious, political and social reform. Moral norms cannot be separated out from the ideology of the ruling elite of Francia; they are intrinsic to it. This book thus approaches Carolingian society, culture and politics via the lens of texts providing moral instruction to an audience of elite (noble) laymen. 30 Such instruction was inevitably religiously based: all the moralists assume their audiences adhere to Christianity. Early medieval philosophysays nothing about ethics independently of theology until the twelfth century. 31 Many patristic authors were inl uenced by classical philosophy, especially Stoicism. 32
Some Carolingian scholars, such as Sedulius Scottusand Haimo of Auxerre, collected classical extracts on ethical topics, and Sedulius used a number of these in his Liber de rectoribus christianis , 33 but other moral texts intended for laymen only occasionally cite classical sources or exempla directly. 34 Dhuoda ’s use of Ovid is a rare exception. 35 Modern discussions of early medieval moral norms sometimes use the binary contrast of ‘Christianity’ and ‘paganism’. 36 Yet this distinction is problematic for the Carolingian empire, which was not a newly Christianised society, but one where the elite were attempting further religious reform. As Julia Smithputs it, ‘Throughout the Carolingian empire … the task was not conversion, in the sense of the baptism of pagans, but rather the upgrading of Christian observance, the elimination of inappropriate customs, and the substitution of authorised forms of devotion and morality.’ 37
In addition, simple labelling of behaviour and attitudes as ‘pagan’, ‘pre-Christian’ or unchristian is problematic, due to the polyvalence of Christianity. The gospels’ ethical teachings had already been modii ed by the later i rst century. 38 The Christianisation of the Roman empire had further impacts. Michelle Salzmandemonstrated how late antique bishops shaped the rhetoric of Christianity to appeal to the status-consciousness of western aristocrats; Kate Cooperhas explored conl icting views on asceticism among this Christianised senatorial elite. 39 I have therefore aimed to outline the range of western Christian moral views on which Carolingian moralists could draw. Because I am using Carolingian moral ideals to illuminate wider phenomena, I have ignored metaethics in favour of specii c moral norms, which can be compared more easily across a range of genres. Most studies of such practical ethics in the Middle Ages have concentrated on a few topics, such as marriage, warfare and attitudes to money.
They have often been concerned with tracing specii c long-term ethical developments, and have seen the early medieval period as only one, relatively unimportant, era. 40 In contrast, this study covers a shorter period and three very broad moral areas (warfare, the use of power and sexual behaviour), allowing answers to the key issue of moral priorities. The three areas I have chosen do not exhaust the moral discourses directed at Frankish noblemen; other issues, such as the consumption of food and drink, can only be touched on in this book. 41 Warfare, power and sexual conduct were, however, central to the conceptualisation of noble laymen.
The basic distinction that the sources make between religious and secular men was that only the latter could bear arms and marry. Penances for laymen sometimes prohibited both bearing arms and marriage. 42 Charlemagne asked worriedly in 811 : ‘in what ways can those who have left the world be distinguished from those who still follow the world; whether it is only that they do not bear arms nor are publicly married?’. 43 Notkerthe Stammerer told Charlemagne’s great-grandson, Charles the Fat, an anecdote about Louis the German based on one about St Ambrose . Notker justii ed this since Louis ‘was very similar to Ambrose, except in acts and matters without which earthly public life [ res publica terrena ] does not exist, that is marriage and the use of arms’. 44 Similarly, noblemen had privileged access to certain forms of power, with an almost axiomatic equation of the ‘powerful’, the ‘noble’ and the ‘rich’. 45 An examination of these key moral areas is therefore a particularly ef ective way of exploring the contrasting expectations made about lay noblemen and other social groups.
Morality and reality Two obvious problems arise in studying the impact of Carolingian moral norms. Firstly, given the relatively limited circulation of early medieval texts, did messages conveying these norms reach their intended audience? The second question is a broader one: does moral teaching in any period have an ef ect, or is it simply ignored by its recipients? The issue of audiences and sources will be discussed below; 46 i rstly, we need to consider the more general question of how historians can study the ef ect of moral norms. The assessment of ef ects is methodologically dii cult: Charlemagne himself several times demanded that his missi should report back on whether his orders were being observed. 47 If such reports were produced, they have not survived, but many historians have nevertheless been coni dent that Carolingian clerics and rulers were unsuccessful in their attempts to ‘impose’ new moral norms on the laity. 48 Yet there are serious problems in assessing adherence to moral norms even in contemporary society, as seen, for example, in recent debates about the reliability of crime statistics.
The scantier evidence for earlier periods increases the dii culty. Alan Bray , for example, has demonstrated the problems in using court records to determine the incidence of homosexualactivity in sixteenth-century England. 49 Carolingian texts provide only anecdotal evidence of moral of ences, along with general comments from moralists that ‘some’, ‘many’ or ‘very many’ people are committing particular sins, or behaving correctly. Were anecdotes of misbehaviour included in texts as representative or, conversely, mentioned precisely because they are atypical and therefore noteworthy? Similar problems arise with other evidence often used to claim that Carolingian reforms were inef ective.
The repeating of legislation in councils and capitularies has often been assumed to show the existence of widespread and ineradicable problems. 50 Other historians, however, have pointed out that while legislation shows the continued existence of particular of ences, it provides no information on changes in their frequency. 51 Using evidence of enforcement or its lack to assess the ef ect of moral norms is also problematic. The handful of specii c cases known in Carolingian times, and our incomplete knowledge of them, make generalisations and arguments from silence dii cult. Suzanne Wemple , for example, makes broad claims about Carolingian rules on divorcenot being rigorously enforced on the basis of a tenth-century hagiographical text. The Vita S. Deicoli does not mention any protests about Count Eberhard of Alsace abandoning his wife and marrying an abducted nun, but this may simply rel ect the text’s interest in showing the count as punished by God. 52
Claims that the lack of explicit punishments in capitularies for usurymeant it was not taken seriously have been countered by Harald Siems ’ suggestion that some capitularies may have used an assumed standard i ne for an of ence. 53 Given such problems with the interpretation of enforcement, I have limited the conclusions I draw from negative evidence. However, I have seen evidence of particular concern to enforce a norm, such as by exemplary punishments, or demands for the active seeking-out of of enders, as noteworthy. A further issue is that enforcement is not necessarily vital for legislation. Max Weberargues that the social punishments for breach of a convention may actually be more severe than, and at least as ef ective as, any legal coercion. 54
Indeed legislation in both medieval and modern times may not always have enforcement as its primary goal. James Brundage comments: Medieval sumptuary legislation , like these modern laws [on sex and gambling], sought at least as much to ai rm values as to modify behavior. Sumptuary laws, like sex and gambling laws, proclaim our collective devotion to moral behavior by dei ning immoral behavior as a crime. It need not follow as a consequence, however, that we will therefore change our habits and forego our pleasures by enforcing these bans vigorously. Sumptuary laws allowed urban authorities to visit exemplary punishment from time to time on blatant transgressions of communal morality. 55
It is important to realise that even such symbolic legislation can have a signii cant ef ect on behaviour. A notable modern British example of this is Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which barred the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality . Although no-one was ever prosecuted, this act had a major impact on gay people and the discussion of sexual issues in schools. 56 Research on medieval and early modern political ideology has similarly stressed how discoursesthemselves form part of the ‘underlying realities’ af ecting what political actions are possible. 57 All this makes the ‘ef ectiveness’ of moral norms an inadequate measure for their social impact. I have therefore deliberately approached the question of the impact of moral norms dif erently, using Max Weber’s concept of the ‘validity’ of an ethical norm (the probability that action will be governed by it). 58 As Weber comments, adherence to a norm is only a partial measure of its validity: It is possible for action to be oriented to an order in other ways than through conformity with its prescriptions … it is very common for violation of an order to be coni ned to more or less numerous partial deviations from it, or for the attempt to be made, with varying degrees of good faith, to justify the deviation as legitimate. 59
Psychological experiments have also suggested the widespread existence of ‘neutralisation’ techniques, rationalisations of socially deviant behaviour that allow acts contrary to a person’s own values. 60 As Mayke de Jonghas shown, for example, many of Louis the Pious’ opponents claimed that their supposed ini delity to the emperor was really a higher form of i delity, supporting ideals that he himself had promulgated. 61 Norms may also shape actions more indirectly. Warren Brown has examined the use of norms, including law codes, in early medieval property disputes. Such norms were inl uential, but regarded less as authorities to be adhered to absolutely, than as instruments in negotiations; 62 their inl uence also depended on their being seen as ‘relevant or useful’. 63
Christina Pösselhas explored the possibility that the social identities of Frankish lay and clerical elites were themselves created and af ected by their role in the receipt and transmission of capitulariesand other normative texts. Acting as conduits of Carolingian reform ideas, their own sense of themselves as holders and wielders of power was liable to be subtly reshaped and developed. 64 Focusing on the validity of norms means including as evidence a variety of ‘actions’ beyond actual moral or immoral practice. I have paid particular attention to evidence for the existence of opposing discourses , which go beyond a simple lack of adherence to a norm to of er ideological opposition to it, or approval for those transgressing it. Dif ering views are visible on some moral topics in the period, and suggest a more limited validity of such norms. 65 I do not, however, assume that statements of a moral position in Carolingian texts automatically presuppose the existence of contrary opinions: moralists apparently felt the need to state the blindingly obvious on occasion.
Two problems remain. One is whether particular texts represent widely accepted moral views (i.e. norms) or idiosyncratic opinions. 66 I have therefore included as wide a range of texts as possible, and have seen the expression of collective moral views in capitularies or the decrees of church councils as particularly signii cant. 67 A more dii cult issue is whether texts referring to a particular norm show its continuing validity, or whether morality is simply being used as disposable political rhetoric. Much recent scholarship has stressed the polemical nature of many Carolingian texts: can we therefore see their moral comments as rel ecting anything more than immediate political advantage? Mayke de Jong’swork provides an answer, showing how a long-lasting shared moral consensus provided a framework in which partisan rhetoric could be deployed ef ectively. Repeated appeals were made to common moral norms by writers of polemic. 68 It is also important to note a strong and widespread Frankish conviction about the timeless nature of moral advice.
The quarrying of older texts for norms and arguments was standard practice for all Carolingian moralists. Their frequent repeating of biblical, classical and late antique moral principles shows that such norms were seen as eternally applicable. Attempts by opponents to deny the continuing validity of such principles are rare, although Old Testament sexual and marital norms were sometimes uncomfortable territory. 69 In contrast to de Jong’s focus on textual responses to a few years of Louis’ reign, in a wide-ranging survey like this one it is not feasible to examine the specii c context of every text that I cite. Instead, my main concern is continuities in moral thought, the commonplaces that make up the bulk of much moral rhetoric.
I have looked particularly for norms that are widely repeated by dif erent moralists across generations and between genres. I have also aimed to identify what might be called the negative moral commonplaces : Christian moral ideas that are repeatedly ignored. It is reasonable to use arguments from silence concerning specii c biblical passages (for example the simile of the camel and the eye of the needle) or the works of patristic writers who are frequently cited by Carolingian authors, such as Augustine, Gregory the Great and Jerome. Pierre Toubert comments, for example, that Jerome ’s treatises against marriage were copied in the ninth century, but not reused by Carolingian authors. 71 Such silences provide another way of approaching the key question of the moral priorities of the Carolingian reform movement.
It is only once this background of the banal and the unthinkable is mapped, that more distinctive or rare moral views stand out, which I have explored in more detail. I have also looked for clusters of texts on a particular topic from one brief period, which may indicate the existence of moral panics. Erich Goodeand Nachman Ben-Yehudadei ne these by i ve criteria: (1) a heightened level of concern over the behaviour of a particular group; (2) an increased level of hostility towards that group; (3) widespread consensus in a society or some section of it that a threat is real, substantial and caused by the wrongdoing group; (4) a disproportionate response to the behaviour, seeing it as carried out by far more individuals than is the case and causing or threatening far more damage than is realistically the case; (5) the volatility of the moral panic, which emerges and subsides relatively quickly. 72
The problem for historians is assessing whether the response to any situation was disproportionate or not. Mayke de Jong’s argument for an outbreak of moral panic at Louis the Pious’court from 827 onwards is convincing, however. 73 This was not the i rst time that a series of military defeats or natural disasters had led to soul-searching on the part of the ruling elite and attempts to placate God: there are parallels from Charlemagne’sreign. 74 It was only in the 820s, however, that the situation spiralled out of control, leading to the deposition of a ruler. In a few other cases, such as concerns over ‘sodomy’, clustering of references, combined with few mentions of specii c culprits, also strongly suggests a moral panic. 75 My analysis of moral norms does not claim either to provide a complete account of the state of Carolingian society’s morals, or to show the details of how political and moral factors interacted in specii c events. What it provides instead is a broader picture than previously of what might be called Frankish ‘received ideas’ on the behaviour of lay noblemen.
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