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THE EDICT OF PÎTRES, CAROLINGIAN DEFENCE AGAINST THE VIKINGS, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE MEDIEVAL CASTLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2020

Simon MacLean Open the ORCID record for Simon MacLean [Opens in a new window]
Simon MacLean*
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Abstract

The castle was one of the most characteristic features of the western European landscape in the Middle Ages, dominating social and political order from the eleventh century onwards. The origins of the castle are generally assigned to the ninth and tenth centuries, and the standard story begins with the defensive fortifications established against the Vikings during the reign of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald (843–77). In this article I argue that there are serious problems with this origin story, by re-evaluating some of the key sources on which it rests – particularly the Edict of Pîtres (864). I seek to demonstrate that my analysis of this source has important implications for how we think about the relationship between fortifications and the state in the Carolingian Empire; and by extension the evolution of the castle in north-western Europe between the ninth and twelfth centuries.

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Research Article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 30 , December 2020 , pp. 29 - 54
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Historical Society

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References

1 The website of the Capitularies project at the University of Cologne is the best starting point for anyone interested in these texts: http://capitularia.uni-koeln.de/en/.

2 Edictum Pistense, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause, MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum II (Hanover, 1897), no. 273, 310–28.

3 Nelson, J. L., ‘Translating Images of Authority: The Christian Roman Emperors in the Carolingian World’, in Nelson, J. L., The Frankish World (1996), 89–98Google Scholar; Corcoran, S., ‘Hincmar and his Roman Legal Sources’, in Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work, ed. Stone, R. and West, C. (Manchester, 2015), 129–55Google Scholar.

4 Wormald, P., The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1999), 51Google Scholar; Nelson, ‘Translating Images’, 93.

5 Hincmar as primary author: Nelson, ‘Translating Images’, 96–7. Rebellions: J. L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (1992), 181–209.

6 Annales Bertiniani, ed. F. Grat et al. (Paris, 1964), s.a. 864, p. 113. The Edict's Roman legal echoes may have had specific contemporary resonance to the Aquitanians: S. Esders, ‘Montesquieu, the Spirit of Early Medieval Law, and “the Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages”’ (forthcoming).

7 Capitula Pistensia, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause, MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum II (Hanover, 1897), no. 272, 302–10, at 303.

8 Halsall, G., Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West (London and New York, 2003), 99–100Google Scholar; Coupland, S., ‘The Carolingian Army and the Struggle against the Vikings’, Viator, 35 (2004), 49–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Coupland, S., ‘The Fortified Bridges of Charles the Bald’, Journal of Medieval History, 17 (1991), 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maho, J. Le, ‘Un grand ouvrage royal du IXe siècle: le pont fortifié dit “de Pîtres” à Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure)’, in Des châteaux et des sources: archéologie et histoire dans la Normandie médiévale, ed. Lalou, E. et al. (Mont-Saint-Aignan, 2008), 143–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al.; Flodoard, Annales, ed. P. Lauer (Paris, 1906).

11 Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae, ed. M. Stratmann, MGH Scriptores 36 (Hanover, 1998), 1.12, 2.19, 4.8, pp. 114, 179, 399.

12 Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici I, ed. G. Waitz and B. Simson, MGH SRG 46 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), I.12, p. 28; M. Strickland, ‘The Bones of the Kingdom and the Treason of Count John’, in Culture politique des Plantagenêt, 1154–1224, ed. M. Aurell (Poitiers, 2004), 143–72.

13 Thompson, M. W., The Rise of the Castle (Cambridge, 1991), 33Google Scholar; Debord, A., Aristocratie et pouvoir. Le rôle du château dans la France médiévale (Paris, 2000), 28, 36–8Google Scholar.

14 Higham, R. and Barker, P., Timber Castles (Exeter, 2004), 39Google Scholar.

15 E. Schrader, Das Befestigungsrecht in Deutschland von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1909); A. Coulin, Befestigungshoheit und Befestigungsrecht (Leipzig, 1911); K. H. Allmendigen, ‘Befestigungsrecht’, in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. A. Erler and E. Kaufmann (Berlin, 1971–7), s.v.; F. Schwind et al., ‘Burg’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, ed. L. Lutz et al. (Munich and Zurich, 1977–99), s.v.; D. Kerber, ‘Die Burg im mittelalterlichen Territorium. Das Burgenbauregal’, in Burgen in Mitteleuropa. Ein Handbuch, ed. H. W. Böhme et al. (Stuttgart, 1999), 66–8.

16 Nelson, Charles the Bald, 207; C. Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (2009), 517; O. Creighton, Early European Castles (2012), 47.

17 C. Coulson, ‘Fortresses and Social Responsibility in Late Carolingian France’, Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters, 4 (1976), 29–36; Higham and Barker, Timber Castles, 95; J. Henning, ‘Wandel eines Kontinents oder Wende der Geschichte? Das 10. Jahrhundert im Spiegel der Frühmittelalterarchäologie’, in Europa im 10. Jahrhundert. Archäologie einer Aufbruchszeit, ed. J. Henning (Mainz, 2002), 15; P. Ettel, ‘Der Befestigungsbau im 10. Jahrhundert in Süddeutschland und die Rolle Ottos des Großen am Beispiel der Burg von Roßtal’, in Europa, ed. Henning, 370; C. Coulson, Castles in Medieval Society: Fortresses in England, France and Ireland in the Central Middle Ages (Oxford, 2003), 20–2. For the connotations of ‘feudal’ in this context, see R. Abels, ‘The Historiography of a Construct: “Feudalism” and the Medieval Historian’, History Compass, 7 (2009), 1008–39.

18 Scepticism: K. U. Jäschke, Burgenbau und Landesverteidigung um 900. Überlegungen zu Beispielen aus Deutschland, Frankreich und England (Sigmaringen, 1975), 44, 76–8; T. Kohl, ‘Befestigungen in der Karolingerzeit und ihr Umfeld: Eine historische Perspektive’, in Bronzezeitliche Burgen zwischen Taunus und Karpaten, ed. S. Hansen and R. Krause (Bonn, 2018), 196.

19 As pointed out by L. Bourgeois, ‘Les résidences des élites et les fortifications du haut moyen âge en France et en Belgique dans leur cadre européen: aperçu historiographique (1955–2005)’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 49 (2006), 114–15.

20 R. Aubenas, ‘Les châteaux forts des Xe et XIe siècles. Contribution à l’étude des origines de la féodalité’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, ser. 4, 16 (1938), 548–86; B. Bachrach and D. Bachrach, Warfare in Medieval Europe, c.400–1453 (London and New York, 2017), 125–6.

21 Consuetudines et iusticie, in C. H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 278–84; J. Yver, ‘Les premières institutions du duché de Normandie’, in I Normanni e la loro espansione in Europa, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano sull'Alto Medioevo 16 (Spoleto, 1969), 303–4; D. Bates, Normandy before 1066 (1982), 163; C. Coulson, ‘Fortress Policy in Capetian Tradition and Angevin Practice: Aspects of the Conquest of Normandy by Philip II’, in Anglo-Norman Castles, ed. R. Liddiard (Woodbridge, 2003), 332–3; M. Hagger, Norman Rule in Normandy, 911–1144 (Woodbridge, 2017), 442–3.

22 Leges Henrici Primi, ed. L. J. Downer (Oxford, 1972), cc. 10.1, 13.1, pp. 108–9, 116–17.

23 C. Coulson, ‘The Castles of the Anarchy’, in The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign, ed. E. King (Oxford, 1994), 75; Coulson, ‘Fortress Policy’, 339. For a very helpful historiographical discussion see R. Eales, ‘Royal Power and Castles in Anglo-Norman England’, in Anglo-Norman Castles, ed. Liddiard, 41–67.

24 The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth Century, trans. M. Dobozy (Philadelphia, 1999), III.65–8, pp. 133–4.

25 In addition to the works cited in n. 15, see G. Fehring, The Archaeology of Medieval Germany (London and New York, 1991), 118–20; W. Hechberger, Adel im fränkisch-deutschen Mittelalter (Ostfildern, 2005), 331–46; T. Zotz, ‘Burg und Amt – zur Legitimation des Burgenbaus im frühen und hohen Mittelalter’, in Burgen im Breisgau. Aspekte von Burg und Herrschaft im überregionalen Vergleich, ed. E. Beck et al. (Ostfildern, 2012), 141–52.

26 On Italy see C. Wickham, Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900–1150 (Oxford, 2015), 42–52.

27 Coulson, ‘Castles of the Anarchy’, 77.

28 Edictum Pistense, ed. Boretius and Krause, postscript c. 1, 328. All translations taken from the text by S. Coupland at www.academia.edu/6680741/The_Edict_of_P%C3%AEtres_-_translation.

29 Capitula de functionibus publicis, ed. A. Boretius, MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum I (Hanover, 1883), no. 143, c. 4, 295.

30 This point was made by Jäschke, Burgenbau, 78; Zotz, ‘Burg und Amt’.

31 Capitula ab episcopis in placito tractanda, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause, MGH Capitularia II, no. 186, c. 7, 7. The provenance of this text is more complex than realised by Boretius and Krause – a more accurate edition by S. Patzold et al. is forthcoming.

32 Edictum Pistense, ed. Boretius and Krause, c. 27, 321–2.

33 Jäschke, Burgenbau, 32, 111. Anglo-Saxon obligations: N. P. Brooks, ‘The Development of Military Obligations in Eighth and Ninth Century England’, in England before the Conquest. Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. P. Clemoes and K. Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), 69–84. This was not the first time that Hincmar compared Frankish and English military organisation: J. L. Nelson, ‘The Church's Military Service in the Ninth Century: A Contemporary Comparative View’, in J. L. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (1986), 117–32.

34 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 864, p. 113; The Annals of St-Bertin, trans. J. L. Nelson (Manchester, 1991), 118.

35 Above, n. 5.

36 Edictum Pistense, ed. Boretius and Krause, preface c. 1, 311.

37 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 862, p. 91.

38 Capitula Pistensia, ed. Boretius and Krause, c. 4, 309; Nelson, Charles the Bald, 206.

39 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 859, p. 80. Charles himself may have encouraged non-aristocratic involvement in the army: Halsall, Warfare and Society, 100.

40 H. Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta: Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse (Munich, 1995), 168, 221, 301, 375–6, 389, 556, 575–6, 636, 795, 816, 874–5, 1041. See also http://capitularia.uni-koeln.de/en/mss/capit/ under ‘Edictum Pistense [BK 273]’.

41 On the Yale manuscript as a ‘court-adjacent’ compilation, see Mordek, Bibliotheca, 386–91. On questions of reception and originality in the history of the capitularies, see S. Patzold, ‘Capitularies in the Ottonian Realm’, Early Medieval Europe, 27 (2019), 112–32.

42 Mordek, Bibliotheca, 631, 810–11, 865–7; L. Kéry, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400–1140): A Bibliographical Guide to the Manuscripts and Literature (Washington, DC, 1999), 99.

43 For a detailed study of Odo's career see P. Grierson, ‘Eudes Ier, évêque de Beauvais’, Le Moyen Âge, 45 (1935), 161–98.

44 For Odo's movements in this period see ibid., 166–72.

45 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 859, p. 81.

46 Lupus, Correspondance, ed. L. Levillain (2 vols., Paris, 1964), ii, nos. 106–7, pp. 134–45.

47 Vita Auctore Odone Episc., in Acta Sanctorum Jan. I, 461–6.

48 F. Vercauteren, Étude sur les civitates de la Belgique Seconde: contribution à l'histoire urbaine du nord de la France de la fin du IIIe à la fin du XIe siècle (Brussels, 1934), 268.

49 Vita Auctore Odone Episc., 463.

50 Julius Caesar, The Gallic War, ed. H. J. Edwards (Cambridge, MA, 1917), 2.4, 7.59, 7.75, 8.6–7, 8.12–22, pp. 92–7, 462–5, 486–9, 522–7, 532–49.

51 Flodoard, Historia, ed. Stratmann, 3.18, 3.21, pp. 258, 279; Le Maho, ‘Un grand ouvrage’, 146, 157–8.

52 F. Vercauteren, ‘Comment s'est-on défendu, au IXe siècle dans l'empire franc contre les invasions normandes?’, Annales du XXXe Congrès de la Fédération archéologique et historique de Belgique, Bruxelles (1936), 132. See further A. D'Haenens, Les invasions normandes, une catastrophe? (Paris, 1970), 63–5; G. Koziol, The Peace of God (Leeds, 2018), 28–9.

53 Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, ed. B. Simson, MGH SRG 12 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1909), s.a. 885, p. 57; Vercauteren, ‘Comment’, 129.

54 Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, ed. Simson, s.a. 895, p. 77.

55 Bourgeois, ‘Les résidences’, 120–1.

56 Annales Fuldenses, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRG 7 (Hanover, 1891), s.a. 880, 882, pp. 96, 97; Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, ed. Simson, s.a. 894, p. 74.

57 Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze, s.a. 858, 872, 891, pp. 48, 77, 120.

58 Hildegar, Vita Faronis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1910), c. 123, 200: ‘Civitates vero quaedam turribus firmae non potuerunt episcoporum suorum servare vitam.’

59 J. Baker and S. Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage: Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence in the Viking Age (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2013).

60 S. MacLean, ‘Charles the Fat and the Viking Great Army: The Military Explanation for the End of the Carolingian Empire’, War Studies Journal, 3 (1998), 74–95.

61 Recueil des actes de Louis II le Bègue, Louis III et Carloman II, rois de France (877–884), ed. F. Grat et al. (Paris, 1978), no. 76.

62 Die Urkunden Arnolfs, ed. P. Kehr (Berlin, 1940), no. 32.

63 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 865, pp. 122–3.

64 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 866, 868, pp. 125–6, 127, 150.

65 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 869, pp. 152–3; Capitula Pistensia, ed. Boretius and Krause, MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum II, no. 275, 332–7. In general see C. Gillmor, ‘The Logistics of Fortified Bridge Building on the Seine under Charles the Bald’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 11 (1989), 87–106.

66 Halsall, Warfare and Society, 98–101.

67 Epistolae Karolini Aevi, ii, ed. E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1895), 176–7.

68 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 868, p. 141.

69 Kohl, ‘Befestigungen’.

70 For examples see e.g. L. Schneider, ‘De la fouille des villages abandonnés à l'archéologie des territoires locaux. L’étude des systèmes d'habitat du haut Moyen Âge en France méridionale (Ve–Xe siècle): nouveaux matériaux, nouvelles interrogations’, in Trente ans d'archéologie médiévale en France: Un bilan pour un avenir, ed. J. Chapelot (Paris, 2010), 133–62; Creighton, Early European Castles; and the case studies collected in the journal Château Gaillard, 25 (2012).

71 P. Dixon, ‘The Myth of the Keep’, in The Seigneurial Residence in Western Europe, c.800–1600, ed. G. Meirion-Jones et al. (Oxford, 2002), 9–13; A. Wheatley, The Idea of the Castle in Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2004).

72 Annales Regni Francorum, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRG 6 (Hanover, 1895). I hope to elaborate this argument elsewhere.

73 Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze, s.a. 869, p. 69.

74 Heito und Walahfrid Strabo, Visio Wettini, ed. H. Knittel (Heidelberg, 2004), 34–63; Kohl, ‘Befestigungen’, 191.

75 Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze, s.a. 842, 857, 860, 882, pp. 34, 47, 54, 97.

76 Other ‘castles’ mentioned in the context of conflict: Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 873, 878, pp. 193, 222.

77 M. Costambeys, M. Innes and S. MacLean, The Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2011), 271–323.

78 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Grat et al., s.a. 867, p. 140.

79 Ibid., s.a. 871, pp. 178–9.

80 Die Traditionen des Hochstiftes Freising, ed. T. Bitterauf (Munich, 1905–9), no. 634; E. J. Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–76 (Ithaca, 2006), 92–3.

81 Costambeys, Innes and MacLean, Carolingian World, 298.

82 F. Lošek, Die Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum und der Brief des Erzbischofs Theotmar von Salzburg (Hanover, 1997), 148: ‘illi toto mundo spectabiles apparuerunt, isti latibulis et urbibus occultati fuerunt’.

83 Bartlett, R., The Making of Europe (London and Princeton, 1993), 65–70Google Scholar; Bourgeois, L., ‘Castrum et habitat des élites: France et ses abords (vers 880 – vers 1000)’, in Cluny: Les moines et la société au premier âge féodal, ed. Russo, D. et al. (Rennes, 2013), 471–94Google Scholar; Koziol, Peace of God, 24–31.

84 For discussion and feedback I am grateful to the members of the network ‘The Castle and the Palace’, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and led by Stuart Airlie; and to Marios Costambeys, Mayke De Jong, Stefan Esders, Eric Goldberg, Guy Halsall, Thomas Kohl, Geoff Koziol, Jinty Nelson, Steffen Patzold and Charles West.