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Agobard of Lyons and Paschasius Radbertus as Critics of the Empress Judith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Elizabeth Ward
Elizabeth Ward*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London
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Extract

The Empress Judith has been assigned a central role in the reign of Louis the Pious. But the part she has played has been a controversial one. Judith has been stigmatized as a problem, if not the problem, in the reign. In July 817 Louis had made arrangements for the succession in the Ordinatio imperii, which divided the Empire between his three legitimate sons, Lothar, Pippin, and the young Louis: a few months after the death of their mother, Irmengard, in October 818, the forty-year-old Emperor married for a second time. The young Judith gave Louis another son, Charles, born on 13 June 823. A long historiographical tradition has isolated Judith’s political activities on behalf of her son as a cause of strife, provoking, for example, the rebellions against Louis in 830 and 833. And she stands condemned for this as a woman. In the nineteenth century Judith was seen as motivated not by reason but by emotion—blind Mutterliebe—and as having deployed ‘feminine wiles’ to further her ends. In the 1980s the language may have changed, but Judith is still seen in similar terms: Pierre Riche has described her influence over her middle-aged husband as ‘toute-puissante’. This view of Judith is overly dependent upon two sources which are not only hostile to Judith, but also reveal a strong ecclesiastical bias.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 27: Women in the Church , 1990 , pp. 15 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

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References

1 MGH. Cap, I, no 136, pp. 270–3; Annales Regni Francorum, ed. G. Pertz and F. Kurze, MGH SRG, 6, an. 818, 819, pp. 148-50; Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, roi de France, 1, ed. G. Tessier (Paris, 1943), no 147, p. 389.

2 E. Dümmler, Geschichle des oslfränkischen Reiches (Berlin 1862), 1, pp. 43ff, p. 181, and B. von Simson, Jahrhûcher des frànkischen Reichs unler Ludwig dent Frommen (Leipzig, 1874-6), 1, pp. 146-8,2, p. 15, provide the foundations; for a sample of twentieth-century views, see F. L. Ganshof, in F. Lot, C. Pfister, and Ganshof, F. L., Les Destinées de l’empire en Occident de 395 à 888 (Paris, 1928), pp. 473’90, p. 504 Google Scholar; Schieffer, T., ‘Die Krise des karolingischen Imperiums’, in Engel, J. and Klinkenberg, H. M., eds, Aus Mittelalter und Neuzeit: Festschrift für G. Kallen (Bonn, 1957), pp. 1’15, at p. 10 Google Scholar; Riche, P. Les Carolingiens. Une famille qui fit l’Europe (Paris, 1983), pp. 152’60 Google Scholar, at p. 152. For further comment on Judith’s representation in the reign see my ‘Caesar’s wife. The career of the Empress Judith, 819-829’, in Collins, R. and Godman, P., eds, Charlemagne’s Heir. New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (Oxford, 1990), pp. 205’27 Google Scholar.

3 Annales de Saint-Bertin, ed. F. Grat, J. Viellard, and S. Clemencet (Paris, 1964), an. 830, 831, pp. 1-5; ‘Astronomer’, Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. G. Pertz, MGH.SS, II, cap. 44, pp.632-3, Thegan, Vita Hludowici imperaloris, ibid., cap. 36, p. 597.

4 Annales de Saint-Bertin, an. 833, 834, pp. 8-15; ‘Astronomer’, caps 46-53, pp. 634-9; MGH. Cap, II, no 198, pp. 56-7.

5 Opera Omnia ed. L. Van Acker, CChr.CM, 52 (1981), nos 20 and 21, pp. 309-12, pp. 315-19. LA II, cap. 5, p. 316. All references to Agobard’s works are to this edition.

6 Ed. E. Diimmler, APAW, 2 (1900), pp. 1-98: II. cap. 7, p. 68.

7 Halphen, L., Charlemagne et l’empire carolingien (Paris, 1947), pp. 268’95 Google Scholar.

8 Jews: De insolentia Judaeorum, no 11, pp. 191-5. Church property: De dispensalione ecclesiasticarum rerum, no 7, pp. 121–42. E. Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard von Lyon, Leben und Werk (Cologne, 1969). provides an authorarive analysis of Agobard’s writings and career with full bibliography.

9 It is difficult to reconstruct Radbert’s career; for his conflict with Charles the Bald see the paper by D. Ganz in Collins and Godman, Charlemagne’s Heir, and his The literary interests of the monastery of Corbie in the ninth century’ (Oxford D. Phil, thesis, 1980), pp. 15-18 and 251-331.

10 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983), pp. 348’50, 358’61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard pp. 159-69. We await the forthcoming book by D. Ganz on Corbie’s library.

11 Agobard’s political position is also revealed in an undated letter to Louis the Pious, De divisione imperii, no 16, pp. 247-50. Dümmler dated this so-called ‘flebilis epistula’ to 833, MGH.Ep Xar.V, p. 223, but Boshof argues for 829, Erzbischof Agobard, pp. 203-4.

12 The identification of the texts as two pieces d’occasion was made by B. von Simson, Die Jahrbiicher, 1, pp. 397-9.

13 MGH. Cap, II, no 197, pp. 366-9.

14 LA I, cap. 2, p. 309.

15 LA II, cap. 2, p. 316.

16 LA I, cap. 1, p. 309.

17 LA I, cap. 2, p. 309.

18 I Cor. 3-5.

19 LA I, cap. 5. pp. 311–12; Prov. 12.4: see also, Prov. 27.15–16, 30 and 31.

20 LA II, cap. 7, p. 319. ‘Sed, quia permisit se a muliere iniqua decipi, contigit illi quod scriptum est: “Qui conturbat domum suam possedibit ventos”’.

21 LA II, cap. 6, p. 318.

22 Ahab: LA II, cap. 5, pp. 317-18. Samson: cap.6, p. 318.

23 LA II, cap. 7, p. 319.

24 LA I, cap. s, p. 311: ‘… si qua regina semet ipsam regere non novit, quomodo de onestate palatti curam habebit, aut quomodo gubernacula regni diligenter exercet?’ Agobard quotes, and then adapts, Paul here on the choosing of bishops, I Tim. 3.4-5.

25 MGH.Ep, IV, no 281, pp. 439-40 and no 284, p. 443; cf. honestas in the Epitaphium, e.g., cap. 8, p. 68 and cap. 9, p. 71.

26 Ed. and trans. T. Gross and R. Schieffer, MGH.F, 3 (1980), cap. 5, pp. 72-4; see also the comments of J. Hyam, ‘Ermintrude and Richildis’, in M. Gibson, J. L. Nelson, and D. Ganz, eds, Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, BAR IS (Oxford, 1981), pp. 153-68, p. 157 with n. 48.

27 See Ganz, as n. 9; cf. Dümmler, Epitaphium, pp. 9–12, L. Weinrich, Wala, Mönch, Graf und Rebel: Die Biographie eines Karolingers (Lübeck and Hamburg, 1960).

28 Epitaphium II, caps 4-6, pp. 65-6.

29 ‘Astronomer’, cap. 21, p. 618, cap. 35, p. 626, cap. 45, p. 633, cap. 55, p. 641.

30 Epitaphium II, cap. 8, p. 71.

31 Jer. 3.11T., esp. 20-2; 4.1; 5.31; 7.18; L. J. Archer, The Virgin and the Harlot in the writings of formative Judaism’, History Workshop, 24 (1987), pp. 1-16, at pp. 8-12.

32 Rev. 13.1-5,13-15; 17.1–18; 18.7.

33 Epitaphium II, cap. 11, p. 78.

34 Epitaphium II, cap. g, p. 72.

35 Epitaphium II, cap. 8, p. 69, cap. 9, pp. 71-3.

36 Epilaphium II, caps 13-15, pp. 80-2.

37 Epilaphium II, cap. 12, p. 79.

38 Epitaphium II, cap. 20, p. 92, cap. 23, p. 94.