An Empire of Memory (14 page)

constructions’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de l’Ouest et des Musées de Poitiers, 4th ser. 10

(1969), 12.

22 This 1 June council brought together the archbishop of Bordeaux, along with the bishops of

Poitiers, Périgueux, Saintes, Angoulême, and Limoges, as well as numerous abbots and other

ecclesiastics and a large number of laymen from throughout Poitou and the Limousin. Robert

Favreau, ‘Le Concile de Charroux de 989’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de l’Ouest et des

Musées de Poitiers, 5th ser. 3 (1989), 213–17; Thomas Head, ‘The Development of the Peace of God in

Aquitaine (970–1005)’, Speculum, 74 (1999), 666. We should note that Charroux in 989 was still an

unimportant backwater––the site possibly being chosen as a convenient space situated between two

feuding regional lords. See Christian Lauranson-Rosaz, ‘Peace from the Mountains: The Auvergnat

Origins of the Peace of God’, in Thomas Head and Richard Landes (eds.), The Peace of God: Social

Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000 (Ithaca, NY, 1992), 129 n. 65.

Charlemagne’s Journey to the East

47

Cluny providing an abbot at about the same time (in 1020).23 Duke William V

of Aquitaine (d. 1030) called another Peace council at Charroux in 1027/8,

intended to stamp out a local heresy.24 Later in the eleventh century, Popes

Leo IX (1049–54) and Alexander II (1061–73) reaffirmed the papacy’s protection

of the monastery.25 In 1077, King Philip I tried to re-establish a royal association

with Charroux by invoking Charlemagne and Roger of Limoges in confirming the

monastery in its rights and privileges.26 The monks of Charroux used the occasion

of another regional anti-heresy council held at the abbey in 1082 to celebrate the

consecration of the narthex of the new church.27 In 1085, Philip I issued another

diploma for the abbey from Compiègne, confirming the donations of Robert of

Péronne.28 Finally, Pope Urban II visited Charroux in 1096 and confirmed its

rights, privileges, and all its possessions.29

Despite the monastery having over eighty monks within twenty years of its

foundation, the apex of Charroux’s fame and power probably did not come until

the late eleventh century. George Beech, looking at the abbacy of Abbot Fulcrad

(abbot, 1077–95), has shed light on the vast scope of Charroux’s growth at that

time, which resulted in a number of late eleventh-century Flemish abbeys depen-

dent upon Charroux, Charroux’s hand in the refoundation of Bardney abbey

in Lincolnshire, England, and even a grant of land to Charroux by King Henry I

23 Schwering-Illert dates the reform by Saint-Savin to 1032 and Duke William VI. Robert-Henri

Bautier says 1014, during the reign of William V. The earlier date seems more probable, as the new

Romanesque abbey church was begun in 1017/18, shortly after Charroux’s reform. Furthermore, it

would appear probable that Charroux’s council in 1027/8 would have been held there partially for

Duke William to highlight his newly reformed abbey and check on its progress. See Schwering-Illert,

Abteikirche, 19; R.-H. Bautier, ‘Charroux’, in Lexicon des Mittelalters (Münich, 1991); and Landes,

Relics, 122. The arrival of the Cluniac abbot would lend credence to the earlier date for the monastery’s reformation––with Cluny providing an appropriate abbot for the newly reformed abbey. On the

dating of the abbey church, see below.

24 The council is discussed (briefly) in Landes, Relics, 198–9.

25 Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 20.

26 Recueil des actes de Philipe I er, roi de France (1059–1108), ed. M. Prou (Paris, 1908), no. 85. The diploma in question was enacted (acta) at Charroux. This, however, could mean that the diploma was

written there––not necessarily that King Philip I was present. Georges Tessier notes that diplomas

originally distinguished between the place where something was done (acta) and the moment when

something was given (data) but in French royal diplomas the distinction began to disappear in the 11th cent. The chancellors for Philip I, in fact, uses acta almost exclusively, rendering certainty on this point impossible. Philip was in Poitiers in 1076 though, seeking help from the duke of Aquitaine against

William the Conqueror, so it is conceivable (though not at all certain) that Philip would take a trip to one of the duke’s most favored houses. On the significance of acta, see Harry Bresslau, Handbuch der

Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1958), ii. 446–50; Georges Tessier,

Diplomatique royale française (Paris, 1962), 113, 223.

27 Chronicon sancti Maxenti Pictavensis, in Chroniques des églises d’Anjou, ed. Paul Marchegay and

Émile Mabille (Paris, 1869), 407. The council is also discussed in Eygun, ‘Abbaye’, 15; Cabanot,

‘Le Trésor des reliques’, 114–18. On the Holy Virtue and its arrival at Charroux, see n. 16 above.

28 The diploma appears as ‘false’ in Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, ed. Prou, no. 175. Prou,

however, explains that Philip I did confirm the donation of Robert to Charroux at Compiègne in 1085,

but the diploma as it exists was substantially rewritten sometime in the 13th cent. See Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, ed. Prou, ccxiii–ccxix.

29 Eygun, ‘Abbaye’, 15; Becquet, ‘Prieurés’, 47.

48

The Franks Remember Empire

(1100–35) of England c.1102–5.30 Yet Charroux’s ascent can perhaps be best

understood through the history of its magnificent (though now-ruined) Roman-

esque abbey church, which went through no less than six iterations in the tenth and

eleventh centuries.31

The Vikings sacked the original monastery c.897 but the monks quickly rebuilt

the church after they returned from Angoulême. This second church, however,

burnt down in 988 and the third church suffered the same fate sometime before

1017/18. The fourth abbey church, modeled, with some modifications, on the

Church of the Holy Sepulcher, became one of the largest in Western Christen-

dom.32 By 1100, this church’s final, distinctive plan (Figure 2.1) combined a

standard Latin cruciform-pattern with a large rotunda located at the crossing.

The rotunda contained an octagon of pillars, a triple ambulatory, and a circular

crypt beneath an elevated circular platform (within the octagon of pillars) holding

the high altar.33 The first iteration of this unique design (the fourth church) was

completed in 1028, with its consecration most likely occurring in conjunction with

the Peace council held at Charroux in that year. Although this church caught fire

yet again, the monks were not ones to be discouraged. They finished rebuilding the

now-expanded fifth church by 1047 so it could be consecrated by Pope Clement II

(1046–7).34 Just after its completion, the church was damaged once more by

fire. The monks completed the narthex of the sixth church before 1082 and

30 George Beech, ‘Aquitanians and Flemings in the Refoundation of Bardney Abbey (Lincolnshire)

in the Later Eleventh Century’, Haskins Society Journal, 1 (1989), 75–86. A full list of Charroux’s

dependencies and when they came to the abbey, can be found in Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 35–40.

31 The discussion that follows relies heavily on Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 47–51, 79–81.

32 Beech, ‘Aquitainians’, 79. On the 11th-cent. trend of modeling churches on the Holy Sepulcher,

see Robert Ousterhout, ‘Loca Sancta and the Architectural Response to Pilgrimage’, in Robert

Ousterhout (ed.), The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Chicago, 1990), 108–24; Colin Morris, The Sepulchre

of Christ and the Medieval West: From the Beginning to 1600 (Oxford, 2005), esp. 149–64; and the brief discussion in Ch. 3, below.

33 See Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 79–81, 97–101. Remensnyder hypothesizes that the church’s

rather odd final design was intended to recall Charroux’s christological relics––the cruciform shape for their relic of the True Cross and the rotunda signifying the Holy Foreskin. This hypothesis, however,

depends on the presence of the relic at Charroux in the early 11th cent. (c.1017/18) at the time of the initial construction of the abbey church (unless, as Remensnyder maintains, the church was

substantially redesigned shortly after 1047). The relic, however, is not listed on an inventory from

1045 and most scholars consequently suggest that the Holy Virtue did not arrive at Charroux until the

late 11th cent.––just before the council held there in 1082. The first datable mention of the relic occurs in a charter from the abbacy of Fulcrad (1077–95). The almost certain absence of the Holy Virtue at

the time of the abbey church’s design thus suggests that the rotunda was intended to evoke an image of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and highlight the nexus between Charroux’s

dedication (to the Savior) and its christological relics (it possessed a relic of the True Cross since at least the 9th cent.). Cf. Remensnyder, Remembering, 177–8; Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 31–2;

Chartes et documents, ed. de Monsabert, 95; L.-A. Vigneras, ‘L’Abbaye de Charroux et la légende du

pèlerinage de Charlemagne’, Romanic Review, 32 (1941), 125–6. It is also possible that the rotunda

further alludes to the chapel of St Mary at Aachen, heightening the Carolingian connections the monks

so evidently wished to foster. On copies of the chapel at Aachen, see the examples in W. Eugene

Kleinbauer, ‘Charlemagne’s Palace Chapel at Aachen and its Copies’, Gesta, 4 (1965), 2–11.

34 Later in the 11th cent., Charroux would claim that the consecration was performed by Pope

Leo IX (1049–54). This claim emphasized the abbey’s Carolingian connections––i.e. with

Charlemagne through Pope Leo III (who, Charroux claimed in the 11th cent., had consecrated the

initial church). See Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 50.

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

++

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

Figure 2.1. Reconstructed plan of the abbey church of Saint-Sauveur, Charroux. Reprinted

from Gisela Schwering-Illert, ‘Die ehemalige französische Abteikirche Saint-Sauveur in

Charroux (Vienne) in 11. und 12. Jh.: Ein Vorschlag zur Rekonstruktion und Deutung

der romanischen Bauteile.’ Ph. D. diss., Bonn, Germany, 1963. If this image has been

referenced incorrectly, the author will be happy to correct it.

50

The Franks Remember Empire

immediately began another expansion, most likely adding the crypt and raising

platform above it at this time in order to accommodate the growing number of

pilgrims who came to Charroux to venerate the Holy Virtue. By 1096, the

exhausted monks could finally rest and admire their handiwork when Pope

Urban II (1088–99) stopped at Charroux during his preaching tour of southern

Francia to consecrate the high altar in the rotunda, which stood in the middle of the

elevated platform, directly above the altar in the crypt.35

The continuous expansion of Charroux’s church and the rapid territorial gains

made by the abbey throughout the eleventh century (especially the second half of

the century) betoken a vibrant monastic community. Although both manuscripts

of the cartulary containing the Historia date from the early modern period, internal

factors place the date of its composition to just before 1100. Basing his argument

primarily on Philip I’s two diplomas for Charroux, L.-A. Vigneras has suggested the

Historia dates to between 1088 and 1095. He noted that Philip I’s 1077 diploma

for Charroux mentioned Charlemagne, Roger of Limoges, and his wife Eufrasia as

the three founders of the monastery, just as maintained in the first foundation

narrative of the monastery (the Privilegium). Philip’s 1085 diploma, however, only

cited Charlemagne as Charroux’s founder. Vigneras concludes that the discrepancy

reveals the arrival of the Holy Virtue at the monastery in the interim and gestation

of the story that would become the Historia. Further, the Historia names the

archbishop of Bordeaux as Amatus, who did not succeed to the see until 1088,

and does not mention Pope Urban II’s visit to the abbey in early 1096.36

But there is one more piece of evidence. Very briefly, towards the end of his

account, the anonymous author of the Historia refers to Abbot Fulcrad in the past

tense.37 Certainly, the author could simply be referring to his current abbot doing

something in the past. The tenor of the sentence, however, implies a certain

distance from the events in question––i.e. that these things happened not so long

ago, when Fulcrad was abbot. So, taking all these factors together, we may

tentatively suggest that the Historia was completed in late 1095, early in the abbacy

of Peter II (abbot, 1095–1113), intended to legitimize Charroux’s powerful chris-

tological relic, perhaps in anticipation of Urban II’s visit.

But the Historia is not crusade propaganda (even if we must wonder what Urban II

would have thought of it). Jerusalem is at peace. There are no Muslims and, indeed,

the text seems much more concerned with the Holy Virtue than Charlemagne or the

Christians of Jerusalem.38 Here, he is not so much a person as an avatar, functioning

35 Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 20, 51. One should not perhaps underestimate the functional

impact of Urban, on a tour preaching the crusade, visiting an abbey evoking the Holy Sepulcher,

practicing a devotion centered on both Christ in Jerusalem and Charlemagne.