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God's Judgement in Carolingian Law and History Writing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2020
Abstract
Early medieval thinkers often conceived of God in legal terms, especially when they interpreted contemporary disasters as God's ‘just judgement’. Modern scholars have emphasized the importance of these ideas for motivating early medieval reform and legislation and for interpreting history itself. This article explores how these ideas were used in Carolingian legislation and history writing and argues that God's judgement was not as straightforward a theme as it first appears. God's judgement, for example, was not nearly as important for Carolingian historians as it had been for their predecessors. Similarly, in both legal and historical texts, there was great variety in how God's judgement or punishment was expressed, both in how that punishment fell and on whom (whether on the audience or on their enemies). Across these works, however, it is clear that God's judgement was almost never referred to apart from his continuing mercy and help towards to the audiences of these texts. This shows the importance of the various aspects of God's character for early medieval churches and their attitudes to law and history.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2020
Footnotes
I should like to thank my doctoral supervisor, Rosamond McKitterick, and my examiners Stuart Airlie and Mayke de Jong for various invaluable conversations that prompted this article. I am also very grateful to the audience at the EHS Summer Conference in July 2018 for their helpful comments, and to the anonymous peer reviewers for many useful suggestions. Any errors are entirely my own.
References
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2 Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of Justice in Western Europe in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries’, in La Giustizia nell'Alto Medioevo (secoli IX–XI), Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 44 (Spoleto, 1996), 1075–1101, at 1076, 1079–80.
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4 ‘Agitur siquidem iusto iudicio Dei, ut, quia in cunctis delinquimus, interius simul et exterius flagellemur’: Epistola Generalis (MGH Conc. 2/2, 600). For these texts, see Stefan Patzold, ‘Redéfinir l'office episcopal. Les Évêques francs face à la crise des années 820/30’, in François Bougard, Laurent Feller and Régine Le Jan, eds, Les Élites au haut moyen âge. Crises et renouvellements, Haut Moyen Âge 1 (Turnhout, 2006), 337–59, at 340–4; more generally, de Jong, Mayke, The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious (814–840) (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar.
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8 ‘[A]b his exterioribus colligere possumus, nos per omnia Domino non placere interius, qui tanta mala compellimur tollerare exterius’, ibid. (MGH Capit. 1, 245–6).
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10 ‘[P]reces nostrae a Deo non recipiuntur, quia clamores et ploratus altaque suspiria pauperum et orphanorum, pupillorum atque viduarum praeoccupant et praeveniunt preces nostras, quae crudis carnibus fratrum nostrorum gravatae raucitudinem acceperunt nullam sonoritatem virtutum habentes’: Capitulare Vernense, preface (MGH Capit. 2, 371–4, at 372).
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14 For example, Rob Meens, ‘Politics, Mirrors of Princes and the Bible: Sins, Kings and the Well-being of the Realm’, EME 7 (1998), 345–57, at 345–6.
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19 For the religious messages and audience of these texts, see Robert A. H. Evans, ‘“Instructing Readers’ Minds in Heavenly Matters”: Carolingian History Writing and Christian Education’, in Morwenna Ludlow, Charlotte Methuen and Andrew Spicer, eds, Churches and Education, SCH 55 (Cambridge, 2019), 56–71.
20 de Jong, Mayke, ‘Religion’, in McKitterick, Rosamond, ed., The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400–1000 (Oxford, 2001), 131–61Google Scholar, at 139.
21 Hillner, Prison, Punishment, and Penance, 67.
22 Werner, ‘L'Historia’, 137.
23 Pohl, Walter, ‘Creating Cultural Resources for Carolingian Rule: Historians of the Christian Empire’, in Gantner, Clemens, McKitterick, Rosamond and Meeder, Sven, eds, The Resources of the Past in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2015), 15–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Trompf, Garry W., Early Christian Historiography: Narratives of Retributive Justice (New York, 2000)Google Scholar; see also Henri-Irénée Marrou, ‘Saint Augustin, Orose et l'Augustinisme historique’, in La storiografia altomedievale, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 17 (Spoleto, 1970), 59–88, at 79–80.
25 Orosius, Historiae (Orosius. Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII accredit eiusdem liber apologeticus, ed. Karl Zangemeister [Vienna, 1882]); ET Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans, transl. A. T. Fear, TTH 54 (Liverpool, 2010), especially ‘Introduction’, 1–25. For the Carolingian reception, see discussion and references in Robert A. H. Evans and Rosamond McKitterick, ‘A Carolingian Epitome of Orosius from Tours: Leiden VLQ 20’, in Helmut Reimitz, Rutger Kramer and Graeme Ward, eds, Historiographies of Identity, 4: Historiography and Identity towards the End of the First Millennium – A Comparative Perspective (Vienna, forthcoming 2020).
26 Werner, ‘L'Historia’, 137.
27 ‘[I]usto iudicio Dei’: Orosius, Historiae 7.33.16 (ed. Zangemeister, 519).
28 Orosius, transl. Fear, 8–9.
29 Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum X (MGH SRM 1/1); Reimitz, History, Identity, Ethnicity, 27–125.
30 Walter Goffart, Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, NJ, 1988), 433. On Gregory's broader language of justice, see William Monroe, ‘Via Iustitiae: The Biblical Sources of Justice in Gregory of Tours’, in Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood, eds, The World of Gregory of Tours (Leiden, 2002), 99–112.
31 ‘[I]udicio Dei’: Gregory, Libri Historiarum 4.25 (MGH SRM 1/1, 158).
32 ‘[P]ercussa iuditio Dei obit … ne multo post et ipse rex post eam decessit’: ibid. 4.26 (MGH SRM 1/1, 158–9).
33 Daniel Block, ‘God’, in Bill Arnold and H. G. M. Williamson, eds, Dictionary of the Old Testament Historical Books (Leicester, 2005), 337–55.
34 Helmut Reimitz, ‘Omnes Franci: Identifications and Identities of the Early Medieval Franks’, in Ildar Garipzanov, Patrick Geary and Przemysław Urbańczyk, eds, Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe (Turnhout, 2008), 51–70, at 60.
35 Continuations of Fredegar (hereafter Cont.; ed. and transl. J. Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, with its Continuations [London, 1960]); Roger Collins, Die Fredegar-Chroniken (Hanover, 2007), 82–139; Reimitz, History, Identity, Ethnicity, 296–334.
36 Annales Regni Francorum (hereafter: RFA; MGH SRG i.u.s. 6); McKitterick, Charlemagne, 32–5; Reimitz, History, Identity, Ethnicity, 335–45.
37 ‘[P]er divino iudicio’: Cont. 51 (ed. and transl. Wallace-Hadrill, 119).
38 ‘[D]ivino iudicio de equo … proiectus utiam et regnum crudeliter digna morte ammisit’: Cont. 39 (ed. and transl. Wallace-Hadrill, 108–9).
39 ‘[P]ercussus est iudicio Dei’: RFA, s.a. 756 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 6, 14).
40 For this conflict, see Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes and Simon MacLean, The Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2011), 59–63.
41 ‘[Q]uaerendo pro iustitiis sancti Petri’: RFA, s.a. 753 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 6, 10).
42 ‘[I]ustitiam … quaerendo … iustitiam vetando’: RFA, s.a. 755 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 6, 12).
43 ‘[I]ustitiam sancti Petri pollicitus est faciendi’: ibid.
44 Robert A. H. Evans, ‘Christian Hermeneutics and Narratives of War in the Carolingian Empire’, Transformation: A Holistic Journal of Mission Studies 34 (2017), 150–63.
45 ‘Domino auxiliante’: RFA, s.a. 755 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 6, 12).
46 Annales Mettenses Priores (hereafter: AMP), s.a. 745 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10); see Paul Fouracre and Richard Gerberding, Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography 640–720 (Manchester, 1996), 330–49; Hen, ‘Annals of Metz’, 175–90.
47 Hen, ‘Annals of Metz’, 182–3.
48 ‘[I]udicium Domini subituri’: AMP, s.a. 690 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 8).
49 ‘[U]t ibi divinae iusticiae iudicium subiret’: AMP, s.a. 717 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 24).
50 ‘[I]n suum potius auxiliante Domino convertamus exitium’: AMP, s.a. 690 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 8).
51 ‘[D]ivino auxilio victoria patrata’: AMP, s.a. 717 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 25).
52 De Jong, Penitential State; compare the examples above.
53 Thegan, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris (MGH SRG i.u.s. 64, 167–278); De Jong, Penitential State, 72–9.
54 Although see Thegan, Gesta 15.
55 ‘Quem enim diligit Dominus corripit; flagellat autem omnem filium quem recipit’: ibid. 49 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 64, 242).
56 ‘[Q]ui sponte correptiones Domini non suscipit, filius eius fieri non poterit’: ibid.
57 Astronomer, Vita Hludowici imperatoris (MGH SRG i.u.s. 64, 280–555); see also De Jong, Penitential State, 79–88.
58 ‘[D]ivino freti auxilio’ Astronomer, Vita 15 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 64, 328).
59 ‘[Q]uasi nervis succisis … prudentia … adnullata’: ibid. 56 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 64, 514).
60 ‘[O]stendit Deus, quam salubre sit quamque sobrium observare, quod ex eius ore probatur procedere: non glorietur, inquiens, sapiens in sapientia, nec fortis in fortitudine sua, nec dives in divitiis suis’: ibid.; cf. Jer. 9: 23.
61 Nithard, Historiarum Libri IV (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44); Janet Nelson, ‘Public Histories and Private History in the Work of Nithard’, Speculum 60 (1985), 251–93; De Jong, Penitential State, 96–100.
62 ‘[F]retus iustitia ac per hoc auxilio divino’: Nithard, Historiarum 2.5 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 19).
63 ‘Domino auxiliante’: ibid. 2.10 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 27).
64 ‘[U]t iudicio Dei et hac plaga repressi’: ibid. 3.1 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 28).
65 ‘[I]udicio Dei inter illos voluntas eius declarata sit’: ibid. 3.3 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 32).
66 ‘[Q]ua dementia utilitatem publicam neglegat’: ibid. 4.7 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 49).
67 ‘[D]um ex utrisque creatorem adeo offendat’: ibid.
68 Ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 49–50).
69 ‘[I]nsuper multa … maeroremque omnibus, uti praefatum est, iusto Dei iudicio incussit’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 44, 50).
70 Annales xantenses (hereafter: AX; MGH SRG i.u.s. 12, 1–33); Löwe, Heinz, ‘Studien zur Annales Xantenses’, Deutsches Archiv 8 (1951), 59–99Google Scholar.
71 Airlie, Stuart, ‘Private Bodies and the Body Politic in the Divorce Case of Lothar II’, P&P 161 (1998), 3–38Google Scholar; Karl Heidecker, Kerk, huwelijk en politieke macht. De zaak Lotharius II, 855–869 (Amsterdam, 1997; ET The Divorce of Lothar II: Christian Marriage and Political Power in the Carolingian World, transl. Tanis Guest [Ithaca, NY, 2010], especially 39–40).
72 ‘[E]um Dominus Roma redeuntem terribiliter percussit cum omnibus pene suis optimatibus … Quasi ultor dixisset: Mihi vindictam, et ego retribuam’: AX, s.a. 870 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 12, 28); cf. Deut. 32: 35.
73 ‘His omnibus ita peractis in conspectu gentium revelavit Dominus iusticiam suam’: AX, s.a. 871 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 12, 29); cf. Ps. 97: 2 (Vulgate). For the clash between Willibert and Gunthar, see Heidecker, Divorce of Lothar II, 164–8.
74 For example, AX, s.a. 871 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 12, 80).
75 ‘[E]t diversis plagis Dominus assidue populum suum afflixit et visitavit in virga iniquitates eorum et in verberibus peccata eorum’: AX, s.a. 873 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 12, 33); cf. Ps. 88: 33 (Vulgate).
76 ‘Christi … clementiam’: Admonitio Generalis, preface (MGH Capit. 1, 53–61, at 53).
77 ‘[A]b eo, in quo vivimus, movemur et su mus, auxilium esse quaerendum’: Charlemagne, Ad Ghaerbaldum (MGH Capit. 1, 245).
78 ‘Domino largiente congruenter impleta, scilicet’: ibid.
79 ‘[O]mnipotens Deus, qui non solum facta verum etiam antequam fiant omnia novit corda nostra compungat’: ibid. (MGH Capit. 1, 246).
80 ‘Deumque tota devotione deposcere, ut nobis propitiari … et ita Deo miserante fieret’: Epistola Generalis (MGH Conc. 2/2, 599).
81 ‘[A]d illum redeamus et credamus’: Capitula Pistensia 1 (MGH Capit. 2, 305); cf. Coupland, ‘Rod of God's Wrath’, 539.
82 Theodulf, Carmina 28 (MGH Poet. 1, 515).
83 For example, Fulton, Judgement to Passion, 53–9.
84 Hillner, Prison, Punishment, and Penance, 66–7.