An Empire of Memory
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Authors: Matthew Gabriele
Tags: #History, #Medieval, #Social History, #Religion
A N E M P I R E O F M E M O R Y
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An Empire of
Memory
The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and
Jerusalem before the First Crusade
M A T T H E W G A B R I E L E
1
3
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# Matthew Gabriele 2011
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First published 2011
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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
(attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte)
Language has always been the partner of empire.
(Antonio de Nebrija, Gramática de la lengua castellana, 1492)
The tomb they were about to enter had not been opened since January 29, 814, the
day on which the Most Serene Augustus Crowned by God the Great Peaceful
Emperor, Governing the Roman Empire, King of the Franks and Lombards
Through the Mercy of God, died. By then he was already wise beyond mortals,
an inspirer of miracles, the protector of Jerusalem, a clairvoyant, a man of iron, a
bishop of bishops. One poet proclaimed that no one would be nearer to the
apostolic band than he. In life he’d been called Carolus. Magnus first became
attached to his name in reference to his great height, but now indicated greatness.
His French label, though, was the one used most commonly, a merger of Carolus
and Magnus into a name presently uttered with heads bowed and voices low, as if
speaking of God. Charlemagne.
(Steve Berry, The Charlemagne Pursuit, 2008)
For Rachel and Uly
Contents
Introduction: Looking for Charlemagne
1. The Birth of a Frankish Golden Age
Religious Houses and their Charlemagnes
2. The Narratives of Charlemagne’s Journey to the East before 1100
A Donation to St. Andrew on Monte Soratte: c.970
The Foundation of Charroux: c.1095
The Relationship among the Sources
3. New Jerusalems and Pilgrimage to the East before 1100
Jerusalem and the West before the Eleventh Century
Jerusalem and Pilgrimage from the West during the Eleventh Century
III. THE FRANKS RECREATE EMPIRE
4. The Franks’ Imagined Empire
The Franks at the End of History
5. The Franks Return to the Holy Land
Frankish Identity in the Eleventh Century
Calling the Franks to Holy War: Ideas Become Action
Appendix 1: Legend for Figure 1.1
It is impossible to properly recognize in just a few words all those who have aided
me over the previous years. My thanks should first extend to Chuck, who provided
the inspiration for this book. For their generous financial support, I would like to
thank Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), especial-
ly the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and the Department of Religion
and Culture, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Medieval Academy
of America, the Mellon Foundation, the Department of History at the University
of California, Berkeley, and the Honors Program at the University of Delaware. My
thanks extend to Nottingham Medieval Studies and the Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies at UCLA for permission to reprint portions of my previously
published articles and to Elizabeth Pastan, the Warburg Institute, the Aachen
Cathedral Treasury, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cambridge University
Press, and Anton Hiersemann Verlag for permission to reprint their respective
images. Also, my research would have been immensely more difficult if it were not
for the librarians and staff members at the University of California, Berkeley,
including the Robbins Collection at Boalt School of Law, Virginia Tech, the
University of Virginia, the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris, the British Library,
the Bodleian Library, the Warburg Institute, and the Institute of Historical
Research.
I would be nothing without my teachers. Daniel F. Callahan deserves my special
thanks for mentoring me as an undergraduate and pointing me towards the
Charlemagne legend when I was at the University of Delaware. He has continued
to be a friend. At Cal, my graduate advisor, Geoffrey Koziol, has always been
supportive both of my work and of my professional development. Thomas A.
Brady, Jr., David Hult, Luminita Florea, Maureen Miller, the late Gerard Caspary,
and the late Robert Brentano all provided helpful advice and support. I learned a
great deal during my summer at a NEH-sponsored seminar in Yarnton, England,
especially in conversation with Irv Resnick, Karen Kletter, Rachel Stocking, Adam
Serfass, and John Ott. In turn, my own students at Cal and Virginia Tech remind
me of why I do what I do. I am especially grateful to my undergraduate assistant,
Rachel Harris, for her patience and her knowledge of VT’s libraries.
One of the great pleasures in academia is meeting other people and sharing ideas.
I have been particularly fortunate in this regard. The anonymous readers at Oxford
University Press offered many constructive thoughts on drafts of this manuscript.
The Earlier Medieval Europe Seminars at the IHR, led (when I was there) by Alan
Thacker, Michael Clanchy, John Gillingham, and Jinty Nelson, were invaluable in
exposing me to scholarship that challenged my own. The Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies Seminars sponsored by UCLA and the Huntington Library did
much the same. In London and thereafter, Theo Riches lent a critical eye to my
work and quickly became a friend. My compatriots at Cal, Kathleen Stewart Fung,
Acknowledgments
ix
Rosalind Jaeger Reynolds, and Sam Collins have been friends for many years now.
R. I. Moore, Jason Glenn, Amy Remensnyder, Paul Kershaw, Tom Madden,
David Warner, Peggy Brown, Scott Bruce, Deborah Gerish, Niall Christie, Mi-
chael Frassetto, Nick Paul, Paul Hyams, Julie Hofmann, Jonathan Jarrett, Kate
McGrath, David Perry, Wendy Hoofnagle, Jace Stuckey, and Anne Latowsky have
all provided much encouragement and many useful suggestions along the way. Jay
Rubenstein and Brett Whalen deserve special thanks for reading this manuscript in
various draft stages and being extremely generous in sharing their own work.
At Virginia Tech, there are too many people to name individually. All of them
have helped me make Blacksburg home. Everyone in my department of Religion
and Culture (and formerly in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies) has been
almost unbelievably supportive of my work in all of its iterations, in the library, in
the classroom, and in the meeting room. The same can be said to a great number of
people in other departments throughout the university, especially those affiliated
with VT’s Medieval and Early Modern Studies.
Finally, the most important people to thank are friends and family. Thanks to all
of our friends we met in Delaware, Berkeley, London, and Blacksburg. Thanks to
all my family and especially to my parents, Tobie and Maureen Gabriele, my sister
Nicole, her husband Jeff, their daughter Paige, my brother Timh, his wife Amanda,
and their daughter Alice. Just thanks for everything. My son Ulysses is my joy in
life. I am always proud of you. Fishsticks and Pfeffernüssen. Finally, Rachel, my
wife, deserves more thanks and praise than I can ever offer her. She is my true and
abiding love. All I can say is, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, won-
derful, and most wonderful, and yet again, wonderful. Thank you.
1.1 Map of sites important to the Charlemagne legend, ninth–early twelfth centuries. 14
2.1 Reconstructed plan of the abbey church of Saint-Sauveur, Charroux.
49
2.2 Scenes from the Jerusalem Crusade, Charlemagne Window,
Chartres Cathedral.
55
2.3 Reconstruction of lower registers of Crusading Window, Saint-Denis.
57
4.1 Eleventh-Century Ottonian Ivory Water Vessel, Aachen Cathedral Treasury.
104
4.2 Drawing of Charlemagne by Ademar of Chabannes, Paris,
BN lat. 5943A, fo. 5r.
122
5.1 Map of recruitment to the First Crusade.
146
5.2 Map of Pope Urban II’s preaching itinerary in Francia 1095–96.
149
AASS
Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur
Apocalyptic Year
Richard Landes, Andrew Gow, and David C. van Meter (eds.),
The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social
Change, 950–1050 (Oxford, 2003).
CCM
Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum (Siegburg, 1963–99).
CCSL
Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina
CCCM
Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis
De ortu
Daniel Verhelst (ed.), De ortu et tempore Antichristi, CCCM 45
(Turnhout, 1976).
DHGE
Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie écclesiastiques
Die Legende
Gerhard Rauschen (ed.), Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11.
und 12. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1890).
FISI
Fonti per la storia d’Italia pubblicate dall’Istituto storico italiano
Folz, Souvenir
Robert Folz, Le Souvenir et la légende de Charlemagne dans
l’empire germanique médiéval (Paris, 1950).
KdG
Wolfgang Braunfels and Percy Ernst Schramm (eds.), Karl der
Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, 5 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1965–8).
Legend of Charlemagne
Matthew Gabriele and Jace Stuckey (eds.), The Legend of Charle-
magne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith, and Crusade (New York,
2008).
Liber de Const.
Liber de Constitutione: Institutione, Consecratione, reliquiis orna-
