An Empire of Memory (18 page)

even at Charroux’s scriptorium, but they are not included in the cartulary. They are included in Chartes et documents, ed. de Monsabert, 86–126.

82 See du Pouget, ‘Recherches’, Positions des thèses, 41–4; Folz, Souvenir, 179; Levillain, ‘Essai’,

261–2.

83 Suger says that he remembers pilgrims visiting the relics at Saint-Denis when he was a child

oblate (in the 1090s) but the first mention of the relics at Saint-Denis by someone else is a charter given to Saint-Denis by Bishop Henry of Senlis sometime between 1183 and 1185. See Suger, Scriptum

consecrationis ecclesiae sancti Dionysii, in Œuvres, ed. Françoise Gasparri, 2 vols. (Paris, 1996), i. 8–10; Papsturkunden in Frankreich, Neue Folge, ed. Rolf Grosse, 9 vols. (Göttingen, 1998), ix. 234. This

charter from Senlis would make sense in the context of Odo’s tireless promotion of the Descriptio

qualiter. His program included forged diplomas, a history of the Holy Shroud for the priory of

Argenteuil, and two roundels depicting scenes from the Descriptio qualiter in a crusading window for

the abbey’s church. Although Robert Barroux and Marc du Pouget have argued that the diplomas and

Argenteuil text originated under Suger, Co van de Kieft, Brown, and Cothren have convincingly

refuted their arguments. Robert Barroux, ‘L’Abbé Suger et la vassalité du Vexin en 1124’, Le Moyen

Âge, 64 (1958), 1–26; Marc du Pouget, ‘Le Légende carolingienne à Saint-Denis: Le Donation de

Charlemagne au retour de Roncevaux’, Société des Sciences, Lettres, et Arts de Bayonne, 135 (1979), 58; C. Van de Kieft, ‘Deux diplômes faux de Charlemagne pour Saint-Denis, du XIIe siècle’, Le Moyen Age,

64 (1958), 401–36; and Brown and Cothren, ‘Crusading Window’, 32–3. On the windows, see

Brown and Cothren, ‘Crusading Window’, 37–8.

84 Hincmar of Reims’s (845–82) Gesta Dagoberti emphasized the special place Saint-Denis (and

St Denis) had in Dagobert’s affections. After Philip I’s death in 1108, Abbot Adam of Saint-Denis

instituted a feast commemorating Dagobert––not Charlemagne or Charles the Bald––for the benefit of

the new king, Louis VI. Suger continued this tradition, displaying no real devotion to Charlemagne,

while his ‘special royal heroes appear to have been Dagobert . . . , and Charles the Bald’. See respectively Gabrielle M. Spiegel, ‘The Cult of Saint Denis and Capetian Kingship’, Journal of Medieval History,

1 (1975), 51–2; idem, The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis: A Survey (Brookline, Mass., 1978), 28;

and Brown and Cothren, ‘Crusading Window’, 25. Jean Dunbabin also comments on the pre-

eminence of Charles the Bald as emperor and relic-collector in 12th-cent. Anjou. See idem,

‘Discovering a Past for the French Aristocracy’, in Paul Magdalino (ed.), The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe (London, 1992), 7.

62

The Franks Remember Empire

King Philip I never emphasized any sort of special relationship with either Saint-

Denis or St Denis. In 1085/6, Philip I did place his son, later King Louis VI, in the

care of Saint-Denis for his education85 but Philip promoted St Remigius as the

monarchy’s patron and gave most of his attention to religious houses the Capetians

had heretofore neglected, such as Saint-Maur-les-Fossés, Saint-Corneille of Com-

piègne, and Fleury.86

In most translation narratives, miracles occur at the site of the relic’s new resting

place, legitimizing the place. The original site associated with the relic ‘travels’ with

the relic itself.87 But in the Descriptio qualiter, the miracles all occur before the relics

reach their final destinations. There are no litanies of miracles at Aachen, Saint-

Corneille, or Saint-Denis. Instead, the Descriptio qualiter’s litany of miracles occur

for Charlemagne, enhancing his power, legitimizing the translator as much as, if

not more than, the translation. For example, it is not incidental, I think, that

Charlemagne himself carries the relics back to Aachen from Constantinople. After

Charlemagne’s death, Charles the Bald brings the narrative to a close by passing the

relics to Saint-Corneille and Saint-Denis. One could remove the religious houses

from the Descriptio qualiter and the account would still stand as a story about

Charlemagne’s legendary journey to the East, with Charles the Bald as continuator

of Charlemagne’s legacy, and the current patron of Saint-Corneille and Saint-Denis

as continuator of that Carolingian legacy. Unlike Charroux’s Historia, the Descrip-

tio qualiter is not about a monastery. It tells a story about a ruler, his activities, and

his relics.

As Levillain so astutely recognized in his seminal article on Lendit, the Descriptio

qualiter highlights a nexus between relics, religious foundation(s), and royal/impe-

rial power; a nexus present in northern Francia under King Philip I but not earlier

in the eleventh century. Functionally, the Descriptio qualiter created a legitimizing

genealogy for King Philip I and fit well within an overarching program in the 1070s

and 1080s intended to tie him back to the Carolingians. Shortly before 1080,

85 Louis left Saint-Denis in 1092, when he was appointed count of the Vexin (perhaps naturally,

given his connection to Saint-Denis) at the age of 11. See Grosse, Saint-Denis, 92. Philip also did, it seems, try to help Saint-Denis re-establish its authority around Paris though, for he realized that he would profit by limiting the independence of the seigneurs there. See Thomas G. Waldman, ‘Saint-Denis et les premiers Capétians’, in Dominique Iogna-Prat and Jean-Charles Picard (eds.), Religion et

culture autour de l’an mil: Royaume capétien et Lotharingie (Paris, 1990), 191–2, 195.

86 On Philip and St Remigius, see Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition, 28. Philip I especially favored Fleury during his reign. He offered ten diplomas in the abbey’s favor, twice as many as he gave for his next

most favored religious house (significantly, Saint-Corneille of Compiègne). Philip also visited Fleury on several occasions and, as shown in the subscriptions of his diplomas, was almost constantly

accompanied by its abbots. His burial at Fleury in 1108 signaled not only his affection for the abbey

but also an effort to move the royal necropolis away from Saint-Denis. See La Chronique de Morigny,

ed. Léon Mirot (Paris, 1912), 10–11; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, tr. R. A. B.

Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998), 731–3; Hugh of Cluny, Ad

Philippum regum, PL 159: 930–2; Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, Le Roi est mort: Étude sur les

funérailles, les sépultres, et les tombeaux des rois de France jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle (Geneva, 1975), 75; Andrew W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State

(Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 49; and Crosby and Blum, Royal Abbey, 9.

87 Rosamond McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, Ind.,

2006), 54. For example, see the section on Charroux above.

Charlemagne’s Journey to the East

63

Philip’s brother Hugh, married Adela of Vermandois, whose family was proud of its

Carolingian ancestry. Even Philip’s first wife, Bertha of Holland, whom he married

in 1072, was proud of her descent from the Carolingians.88 This is especially

significant, given that Philip gave his first son and projected heir a name not used

since the Carolingians (Louis), on his birth in 1081 (two years after the translation

of the Holy Shroud at Saint-Corneille), a decision that broke Capetian tradition to

that point (Philip’s father was Henry, his grandfather Robert, his great-grandfather

Hugh, and his brothers Robert and Hugh as well).89 Philip may have even had

another son with a Carolingian name (Charles), who died in infancy.90 In his

diplomas, Philip skipped generations of ancestors––namely his family––in order to

instead style himself as a direct successor to the Carolingians.91 Those diplomas

also make clear that Philip was greatly concerned with long-neglected sites of

Carolingian memory such as Charroux, Saint-Maur-les-Fossés,92 Saint-Corneille,

and Senlis.93 Lest we forget, all of these sites are tied specifically to either Charlemagne

or Charles the Bald, the two main protagonists of the Descriptio qualiter.

88 Bull, ‘Capetian Monarchy’, 33.

89 Lewis, Royal Succession, 47–8. The importance of aristocratic naming should not be

underestimated. Jean Dunbabin has demonstrated that King Henry I of France (1031–60) had

chosen a name for his first son, Philip, intended to demonstrate Henry’s ‘piety, his goodwill towards

his wife, his political optimism, his grasp of Christian history, his consciousness of the peculiar status of the Franks as the chosen people, and his personal conviction that the end of the world was near’. One

would not stretch too far to suggest that Philip thought just as much about his choice of name for his son. Jean Dunbabin, ‘What’s in a Name? Philip, King of France’, Speculum, 68 (1993), 949–68,

quotation at 968.

90 A donation to the monastery of Chaalis by Louis VI mentions a brother named Charles. Other

texts from the monastery are problematic though. See Lewis, Royal Succession, 243 n. 10. If Philip

indeed had a son named Charles, who was born after Louis, Philip would have been following the

example of Charles the Bald (again). Charles named his first son Louis (the Stammerer, 877–9) and his

second son Charles (king of Aquitaine, 855–66). Also like Charles the Bald, Philip placed his son Louis under the protection of Saint-Denis. See the genealogy in Janet L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (London,

1992), 310–11.

91 e.g. Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, ed. Prou, no. 40. In this diploma, Philip confirms the

privileges given to Saint-Denis by his predecessors. He only names Merovingians and Carolingians.

Philip does invoke his father Henry I numerous times in his diplomas, but Hugh Capet and Robert the

Pious rarely appear.

92 Saint-Maur-les-Fossés was founded by the Merovingians. Monks from Glanfeuil fled there in

868, bringing relics of St Maur and beginning a protracted, nearly 250-year struggle between the

abbeys for rights to those relics and over the dependence of which abbey on which. The Carolingians,

beginning with Charles the Bald and continuing through Charles the Simple, were intimately involved

in this controversy and so were well remembered there. See the summary in DHGE 21: 141–5.

93 Much of Philip’s interest in Senlis was practical, since the abbey of Saint-Vincent of Senlis was

founded by his mother and the town, similar to Compiègne, stood at about the farthest extent of

effective royal power, quite close to Normandy. The bishops of Senlis also seem to have been quite

important at court and their appointment was a royal prerogative until c.1120 (although it began to slip away in 1099 when Bishop Hubert, who was earlier Philip I’s chancellor, was invested directly by Pope

Pascal II). Bishop Ursio of Senlis was the one who consecrated Philip I’s bigamous marriage to Bertrada in 1092. But also similar to Compiègne, Senlis was an important palace for the late Carolingians,

especially under Charles the Bald, who spent a great deal of time there. On Philip’s interest in Senlis, see Fliche, Le Règne, 50, 96, 154; Olivier Guyotjeannin, ‘Les Évêques dans l’entourage royal sous les

premiers Capétians’, in Michel Parisse and Xavier Barral I Altet (eds.), Le Roi de France et son royaume autour de l’an mil: Actes du Colloque Hugues Capet 987–1987 (Paris, 1992), 96; Reinhold Kaiser,

Bischofsherrschaft zwischen Königtum und Fürstenmacht: Studien zur bischöflichen Stadtherrschaft im

westfränkisch-französischen Reich im frühen und hohen Mittelalter (Bonn, 1981), 490; and

64

The Franks Remember Empire

The Descriptio qualiter created a tradition linking King Philip I to certain religious

houses and to a tradition of royal/imperial patronage. In effect, the text moves imperial

authority west along with the christological relics, from Jerusalem, to Constantinople,

to Aachen, and finally to Saint-Denis and Saint-Corneille. More importantly, it

suggests that imperium moves west through its rulers, from Christ himself, to Con-

stantine, Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, and eventually to Philip I.94 The Cross and

Crown of Christ, his imperial symbols,95 were deposited by Constantine and Helena

at Constantinople, where they remained until given by––note, another––Constantine

to Charlemagne, who translated them to Aachen after he had re-established proper

order in the empire by expelling the Muslims from Jerusalem. The relics stayed at

Aachen until Charles the Bald, the first west Frankish king, translated them once again

to Saint-Corneille and Saint-Denis. Then, implicitly, Philip I begins the next chapter

of this narrative. By resuming royal advocacy for Saint-Denis, by participating in and

later commemorating the translation of the Holy Shroud at Saint-Corneille, and by

instituting fairs at both Saint-Denis and Saint-Corneille to celebrate those relics, Philip

confirmed those relics’ previous translations and added another layer of royal patron-

age to these houses.96

Despite their common connections to Philip I, one should hesitate before

asserting the dependence of the Historia upon the Descriptio qualiter, or vice

versa. Like Monte Soratte, Charroux was a site of Carolingian memory in its own

right, having a direct link to Charles the Bald, Louis the Pious, and Charlemagne

(through one of his illegitimate sons). As discussed above, although both the