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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2019
This article explores the ways in which histories were used in the moral and doctrinal education of Christian elites in the West from the late Roman to the Carolingian periods. In the sixth century, Cassiodorus wrote that histories, whether Christian or not, were useful for ‘instructing the minds of readers in heavenly matters’. How far was this characteristic of the period? Traditionally, scholars have emphasized either the apologetic purpose or the moral of specific histories, such as Orosius's Historiae or Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Few modern scholars, however, have examined the long-term development of history writing as a vehicle for Christian education during the transformation of the Roman world. Those who have done, such as Karl-Ferdinand Werner and Hans-Werner Goetz, have emphasized continuity rather than change. The article sketches some of the changes and continuities across the period. In particular, it demonstrates that there was a shift from the apologetic concerns of the fifth-century historians, writing to educate Christians from pagan backgrounds, to the doctrinal (as much as moral) concerns of Frankish historians, emerging from the Carolingian Renaissance.
I wish to thank the audience at the Ecclesiastical History Society's Winter Meeting in January 2017 for their helpful observations, my supervisor Rosamond McKitterick for her feedback on early drafts of this article, and the anonymous peer reviewers for their stimulating comments. Any mistakes remain, of course, my own.
1 McKitterick, Rosamond, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895 (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Contreni, John J., Carolingian Learning, Masters and Manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992)Google Scholar; Brown, Giles, ‘Introduction: The Carolingian Renaissance’, in McKitterick, Rosamond, ed., Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1994), 1–51Google Scholar.
2 ‘[D]ebet ergo quisque discere … quid agere debeat intelligat anima, quanto in omnipotentis Dei laudibus…cucurrerit lingua’: MGH Capit. 1, 79 (Epistola de litteris colendis). All translations are my own except where noted otherwise.
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7 Annales Fuldenses (hereafter: AF; MGH SRG i.u.s. 7).
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9 Innes, Matthew, ‘Memory, Orality and Literacy in an Early Medieval Society’, P&P 158 (1998), 3–36Google Scholar.
10 For example, Sigihart of Fulda: AF, 76 (s.a. 872).
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14 Innes, ‘Memory, Orality and Literacy’, 13.
15 Andrew Marsham, ‘Universal Histories’, in Foot and Robinson, eds, Oxford History of Historical Writing 2, 431–45, at 441.
16 Deliyannis, Deborah M., ‘Introduction’, in eadem, ed., Historiography in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2003), 1–12Google Scholar.
17 McKitterick, Written Word, 165–210.
18 Jerome, De viris illustribus (ed. W. Herding, Hieronymus, Liber de viris inlustribus. Gennadius, De viris inlustribus [Leipzig, 1924]). For Carolingian interest in De viris, see McKitterick, Written Word, 201.
19 ‘[M]ultaque ad utilitatem legentium pertinentia hinc inde congregans’: Jerome, De viris 22 (Herding, ed., Hieronymus, 24; italics in translations mine). For the reception of Hegesippus, see Pollard, Richard, ‘The De Excidio of “Hegesippus” and the Reception of Josephus in the Early Middle Ages’, Viator 46 (2015), 65–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Jerome, De viris 22, 81 (Herding, ed., Hieronymus, 24, 50–1).
21 Gennadius, De viris 17, 40 (Herding, ed., Hieronymus, 78–9, 88–9).
22 ‘[A]dversum idola disputans, quo primum errore crevissent … ex qua ostendit’: Jerome, De viris 22 (Herding, ed., Hieronymus, 24).
23 ‘[A]dversus querulos Christiani nominis’: Gennadius, De viris 40 (Herding, ed., Hieronymus, 88).
24 Isidore, Etymologiae 1.41–4 (Etymologiarum siue Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, vol. 1, Oxford Classical Texts [Oxford, 1911]; this volume is unpaginated); cf. McKitterick, Written Word, 201; Deliyannis, ‘Introduction’, 3–4.
25 ‘[D]isciplina a discendo nomen accepit’: Isidore, Etymologiae 1.1.
26 ‘Historiae gentium non inpediunt legentibus in his quae utilia dixerunt’: ibid. 1.43.
27 ‘[A]d institutionem praesentium’: ibid.
28 Cassiodorus, Institutiones (Cassiodorus senatoris Institutiones, ed. R. A. B. Mynors [Oxford, 1937]); cf. Innes, Matthew and McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘The Writing of History’, in McKitterick, Rosamond, ed., Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1994), 193–220Google Scholar, at 193.
29 McKitterick, Written Word, 194.
30 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.1–16 (ed. Mynors, 2–55).
31 For Carolingian attitudes to Scripture, see de Jong, ‘Empire as ecclesia’.
32 ‘[H]abent etiam … relatores temporum et studia Christiana … qui cum res ecclesiasticas referant, et vicissitudines accidentes per tempora diversa describant, ut sensus legentium rebus caelestibus semper erudiant’: Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.17.1 (ed. Mynors, 55).
33 ‘[Q]uando nihil ad fortuitos casus, nihil ad deorum potestates infirmas, ut gentiles fecerunt, sed arbitrio Creatoris applicare veraciter universa contendunt’: ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Orosius, Historiae (Orosius, historiarum adversum paganos libri VII accredit eiusdem liber apologeticus, ed. Karl Zangemeister [Vienna, 1882]).
36 Peter Van Nuffelen, Orosius and the Rhetoric of History (Oxford, 2012), 186–207; although see the recent response by Goetz, Hans-Werner, ‘Orosius und seine “Sieben Geschichtsbücher gegen die Heiden”. Geschichtstheologie oder Rhetorik?’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 96 (2014), 187–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Van Nuffelen, Orosius, 68–9.
38 Ibid. 17–18.
39 ‘[R]espondeant nunc mihi obtrectatores ueri Dei hoc loco: Hannibalem a capessenda subruendaque Roma utrum Romana abstinuit fotitudo an diuina miseratio’: Orosius, Historiae 4.17.8 (Orosius, ed. Zangemeister, 252–3).
40 Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, VLQ MS 20. I have discussed this manuscript elsewhere, with Rosamond McKitterick, in ‘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).
41 ‘[D]eo sibi adminiculante’: VLQ MS 20, fol. 139v; cf. Orosius, Historiae 7.35.23.
42 ‘[M]asezel iam inde ad theodosium sciens quantum in rebus desperatissimis oratio hominis per fidem Christi a clementia dei impetraret … uictoriam meruit’: VLQ MS 20, fol. 139v; cf. Orosius, Historiae 7.36.5.
43 For Gregory, see Reimitz, History, Identity, Ethnicity, 27–125, with discussion of Christianity at 65–70; for Bede, see Higham, N. J., (Re-)reading Bede: The Ecclesiastical History in Context (London, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 148–67.
44 For summary of recent scholarship, see Evans, Robert A. H., ‘Christian Hermeneutics and Narratives of War in the Carolingian Empire’, Transformation: A Holistic Journal of Mission Studies 34 (2017), 150–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 152–4.
45 Annales Mettenses Priores (hereafter: AMP; MGH SRG i.u.s. 10); Paul Fouracre and Gerberding, Richard, Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography 640–720 (Manchester, 1996), 330–49Google Scholar; Yitzhak Hen, ‘The Annals of Metz and the Merovingian Past’, in idem and Innes, eds, Uses of the Past, 175–90; idem, ‘Canvassing for Charles: The Annals of Metz in Late Carolingian Francia’, in Corradini, Richard, ed., Zwischen Niederschrift und Wiederschrift. Hagiographie und Historiographie im Spannungsfeld von Kompendienüberlieferung und Editionstechnik (Vienna, 2010), 139–46Google Scholar.
46 For a summary of the debate, see Hen, ‘Annals of Metz’, 176–7.
47 Nelson, Janet, ‘Gender and Genre in Women Historians of the Early Middle Ages’, in Genet, J.-P., ed., L'Historiographie médiévale en Europe (Paris, 1991), 149–63Google Scholar, at 159.
48 ‘Domino cooperante’: AMP, s.a. 688 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 5).
49 ‘Christo largiente’: AMP, s.a. 691 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 13).
50 Annales Regni Francorum (hereafter: AMP; MGH SRG 6); see Reimitz, History, Identity, and Ethnicity, 335–45, for the most recent discussion.
51 Evans, ‘Christian Hermeneutics’, 154–5.
52 For the role of women in Carolingian education, see Nelson, Janet, ‘Les Femmes et l'évangélisation au IXe siècle’, Revue du Nord 68 (1986), 471–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 ‘[U]t sese regno futuro inter adolescentiae erudimenta … Domino adiuvante servaret’: AMP, s.a. 678 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 3).
54 ‘[P]restante Domino’: AMP, s.a. 688 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 2).
55 ‘[G]ratia Dei repleta caelesti disciplinae’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 4).
56 ‘[G]ratia divine preditus cunctas salubres suae genitricis ammonitiones … preveniebat’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 3).
57 Fouracre and Gerberding, Late Merovingian France, 24.
58 ‘[N]on paribus consiliis’: AMP, s.a. 690 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 10).
59 ‘[I]n innumerabilis populi multitudine magis quam in consiliis prudentiae confidens … gloriabatur’: ibid.
60 ‘[T]raditum sibi iam Pippinum’: ibid.
61 ‘[Q]uod pro eius amore gerebat, qui potestatem habet salvos facere sperantes in se’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 10–11).
62 ‘[S]ese votis et orationibus Dei omnipotentiae … commendarent, qui dat honorem et victoriam omnibus timentibus eum et custodientibus precepta eius’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 10).
63 ‘[P]restantior consilio et armis’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 11).
64 ‘[S]polia ampla, Deo gratias referens, suis fidelibus impertitur’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 10, 12).
65 Reuter, Fulda, 1–14; MacLean, Simon, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge, 2003), 23–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 MacLean, Kingship and Politics, 24–7.
67 For the east Frankish kingdom, see Goldberg, Eric, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY, 2006)Google Scholar
68 Hellmann, Sigemund, ‘Die Entstehung und Überlieferung der Annales Fuldenses. I’, Neues Archiv 33 (1908), 705–17Google Scholar; Reuter, Fulda, 8–9.
69 For a few exceptions, see AF, s.aa. 850, 854, 857 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 7, 41, 45, 48)
70 ‘Domino illi infidelitatis suae condignam mercedem retribuente … unde et a caelesti medico … curari promeruit’: AF, s.a. 869 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 7, 68–9).
71 ‘[C]rebris incursionibus infestant’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 7, 67).
72 ‘[P]lurima loca devastant et quosdam sibi incaute congredientes interficiunt’: ibid.
73 ‘[U]nde necessitate conpulsus Karolum filiorum suorum ultimum eidem exercitui praefecit’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 7, 68–9).
74 ‘Domino exictum rei commendans’: ibid. (MGH SRG i.u.s. 7, 69).
75 ‘[I]neffabilem … munitionem et omnibus antiquissimis dissimilem’: ibid.
76 ‘Dei auxilio fretus’: ibid.
77 ‘[D]e victoria sibi caelitus data gratulantes’: ibid.
78 See O'Neill, Patrick, ‘Narrative Structure’, in Herman, David, Jahn, Manfred and Ryan, Marie-Laure, eds, Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (London, 2005), 366–70Google Scholar.
79 For example, Costambeys, Marios, Innes, Matthew and MacLean, Simon, The Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2011), 302–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone, Morality and Masculinity, 45–50.
80 McCormick, Michael, ‘The Liturgy of War in the Early Middle Ages: Crisis, Litanies, and the Carolingian Monarchy’, Viator 15 (1984), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a survey of recent literature, see Evans, ‘Christian Hermeneutics’, 153–4.
81 See McKitterick, Rosamond, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), 43–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially for the links between this letter and contemporary histories.
82 For example, Wallace-Hadrill, Michael, Early Medieval History (Oxford, 1975), 72–3Google Scholar; Nelson, Janet, ‘On the Limits of the Carolingian Renaissance’, in Wood, Derek, ed., Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History, SCH 14 (Oxford, 1977), 51–69Google Scholar; Campbell, James, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), 14Google Scholar.