An Empire of Memory (37 page)

Mentalities (Cambridge, 2006), 136–7; and Hagen Keller, ‘Die Ottonen und Karl der Grosse’,

Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschchtsvereins, 104/5 (2002–3), 79. Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, in

Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg, tr. David A. Warner (Manchester, 2001),

89, 124. Matthew Gabriele, ‘Otto III, Charlemagne, and Pentecost A.D. 1000: A Reconsideration

Using Diplomatic Evidence’, in Year 1000, 111–32; and John W. Bernhardt, ‘Concepts and Practice

of Empire in Ottonian Germany (950–1024)’, in Björn Weiler and Simon Maclean (eds.),

Representations of Power in Medieval Germany, 800–1500 (Turnhout, 2006), 155–8.

15 Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, MGH SS 3: 719; and Lambert of Hersfeld, Libelli de

institutione Herveldensis ecclesiae quae supersunt, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1894),

38: 353.

16 Koziol, ‘Political Culture’, 47, 71–5. Although Koziol confines his comments to West Francia,

given the intellectual development I have been tracking, they seem more generally applicable.

17 This is similar to Eugene Vance’s assertion of Charlemagne as discourse. Eugene Vance,

‘Semiotics and Power: Relics, Icons, and the “Voyage de Charlemagne à Jérusalem et à

Constantinople”’, Romanic Review, 79 (1988), 170; also Robert Morrissey, Charlemagne and France:

A Thousand Years of Mythology, tr. Catherine Tihanyi (Notre Dame, Ind., 2003), 10.

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about the same time, new copies of the palace chapel at Aachen began to suddenly

appear––in Bruges, Liège, Muizen, Nijmegen, Groningen, Ottmarsheim, and

Essen.18 Why? Why invoke Charlemagne’s name? Why begin aping his architec-

tural program? The simple answer here is perhaps best: because it meant something.

As we enter the eleventh century, being a Frank seems to have meant consciously

tying into an empire of memory, associating oneself with an idea of empire that had

little to do with political realities. The Salians and Capetians both began moving to

reclaim the Carolingians. Religious houses from across Europe, many of them no

longer intimately tied to royal or imperial courts but still almost all from within the

borders of Charlemagne’s historical empire, created documents to narrow the

perceived gulf between their own times and that lost Golden Age. Charlemagne’s

imagined authority in all of these texts began to expand, reaching into Iberia,

Eastern Europe, and the Holy Land. Sometimes, he would go to Jerusalem himself.

In several instances, Charlemagne would be the Last Emperor and rise from the

dead to lead an army of Franks against the hordes of antichrist.

An empire of memory, a common adherence to the name ‘Frank’ held together by

an idealized (if fictional) memory of Charlemagne’s reign, survived. Talking about

Charlemagne in the eleventh century was a key that unlocked a mental catena of

other associations, most especially related to power and identity. Talking about

Charlemagne was a way of remembering a glorious, militant past that saw the Franks

extend their dominion across the Mediterranean world. But talking about Charle-

magne was also a way of connecting to that past, claiming him as yours. Talking

about Charlemagne was a statement that his Golden Age was a part of your heritage.

And most of eleventh-century Europe fondly remembered their Charlemagne.

In previous chapters, we have seen how this functioned in numerous regions

throughout Europe––Italy, Saxony, Bavaria, Lotharingia, SW Francia, Flanders,

the Île-de-France, etc. Let us look in more depth at the people of one of these

regions, specifically the Normans. There has long been a vein of scholarly literature

devoted to how different the Normans thought themselves to be in this period. In

carving out this niche for themselves, it seems quite clear that they did not think of

themselves as ‘French’.19 But, especially considering how identities could be

supplementary (oftentimes even complementary) in the early Middle Ages, could

they have still thought of themselves as ‘Franks’?

18 ‘Eodem anno unctus est in regem Remis civitate Hugo dux, et ipso anno Robertus, filius eius, in

regnum piissimus rex ordinatus est. Hic deficit regnum Karoli Magni.’ Historia Francorum Senonensis,

MGH SS 9: 368. The HFS moves quickly through the period 688–877 (there are only twelve entries)

and really begins in 877, when Count Odo becomes regent for Charles the Simple. See also the

discussion of this text in Ehlers, ‘Karolingische Tradition’, 226. On the chapels, see Charles

B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600–900 (New Haven,

Conn., 2005), 197. Jason Glenn has also shown how large the Carolingians loomed in Richer’s mind, even into the time of Robert II the Pious (996–1031). Jason Glenn, Politics and History in the Tenth Century: The Work and World of Richer of Reims (Cambridge, 2004), 196–8, 207–14.

19 The most recent examples of this historiography are Nick Webber, The Evolution of Norman

Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge, 2005); and Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic

Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity, 1066–c.1220 (Oxford, 2003).

The Franks Return to the Holy Land

135

Tenth- and eleventh-century Normans were much like their neighbors in that

they held fast to older Frankish institutions and political models. Moreover, even

if the realities of Norman governance may have differed from its antecedents, we

should be clear that the ideal of Carolingian power endured. Later Normans liked

to think of Rollo (d. c.932) as a law-giver but there was little he did that was

not consciously adapted from Frankish precedent. Charles the Bald, for example,

loomed large in Rollo’s imagination as the rebuilt houses of Jumièges and

Fécamp were modeled on the Carolingian foundation of Saint-Riquier. Fécamp

was then expanded to function as a new version of Charles the Bald’s Compiègne

(which was itself a new version of the Aachen of Charlemagne and Louis the

Pious). Manuscripts produced by these ‘Norman’ centers looked just like ninth-

century exemplars. And the Normans took their obsession with them south into

Italy and across the English Channel. According to John Le Patourel, the

transition from duke to king was an easy one for William exactly because of

how tightly the Normans had held on to Carolingian prerogatives. Such Frankish

prerogatives would have been well understood by the Anglo-Saxons, who also

followed them in this period.20

The documents the Normans themselves produced consistently testified to how

they thought of themselves as Franks. Dudo of Saint-Quentin (d. c.1020) originally

came from lands under the control of the counts of Vermandois and was probably

educated at Liège. By 1011 though, he was chaplain to Duke Richard II of

Normandy (d. 1027) and by 1015 Dudo was Richard’s chancellor. Still, his De

moribus et actis primorum Normanniae Ducum, finished c.1015, was not intended

solely for Norman consumption but was deliberately pitched to their neighbors

as well.21

Geoffrey Koziol has suggested that Dudo thought the Franks were an exhausted

race who could only renew themselves by looking to the vigorous Normans.22 But

let us slightly modify that conclusion. Similar to the work of the late ninth-century

Saxon Poet, Dudo was showing how the Franks and ‘Dacians’ came together to

become the Normans, a new member of the gentes Francorum. This plural

20 Bruce R. O’Brien, God’s Peace and King’s Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor (Philadelphia,

1999), 12, 20–1, and esp. his thoughts at 210 n. 22; Felice Lifshitz, ‘La Normandie carolingienne:

Essai sur la continuité avec utilisation de sources négligées’, Annales de Normandie, 48 (1998), 505–20; John Le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976), 238–9; and David Bates, Normandy before

1066 (New York, 1982), 162–72. On the Anglo-Saxons and Carolingian tradition, see James

Campbell, ‘Observations on English Government from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century’,

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 25, 5th ser. (1975), 39–54; and Nelson, ‘Kingship and

Empire’, 239–42. For a more thorough discussion of the Anglo-Norman fascination with

Charlemagne and the Carolingians, though with a later chronological focus, see Wendy Marie

Hoofnagle, ‘Creating Kings in Post-Conquest England: The Fate of Charlemagne in Anglo-Norman

Society’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 2008). I have seen portions of Hoofnagle’s work but

have been unable to consult it in its entirety.

21 Dudo probably hoped that dedicating the work to Bishop Adalbero of Laon would spread the

narrative into Francia. Dudo of Saint-Quentin, History of the Normans, tr. Eric Christiansen

(Woodbridge, 1998), pp. ix–xii; and Leah Shopkow, ‘The Carolingian World of Dudo of Saint-

Quentin’, Journal of Medieval History, 15 (1989), 19–37.

22 Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France

(Ithaca, NY, 1992), 150.

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construction is significant and Dudo used it several times.23 Ninth-century Frank-

ish ideas survived. The Franks continued to absorb new peoples, even through the

tenth century. According to Dudo, these Normans were a new, separate people

from others who lived in Francia but were still part of the Frankish legacy and were

still themselves ultimately Franks. Towards the beginning of his narrative, Dudo

offers a poem in praise of Francia, recognizing how far the Franks have fallen, but

exulting that they will eventually ally with the Dacians so that Frankish imperium

would rise to Olympus again. Later, a poem for Rollo notes how Francia will

benefit from his rule because his offspring will mingle with the Franks to produce

kings, priests, and nobles to renew the ecclesia (meaning the whole community of

Christians). This comes true with the birth of Duke William I Longsword (d. 942),

who was born of a Dacian father and Frankish (Carolingian!) mother and who,

Dudo says, will father a son to make all Francia rejoice. Indeed, William possesses

true Frankish imperium, presumably because he holds power over many peoples,

including the Franks, Burgundians, Bretons, Danes, Flemings, English, and Irish.

That power culminates in William’s son, Richard (d. 996), who rules almost all of

Gaul and acts like a real rex Francorum.24 Dudo set the tone for later Norman

authors. The ideas he borrowed from the ninth century––Frankish identity as

supplementary, the definition of ecclesia, ideas of imperium tethered to the king

of the Franks––passed into the eleventh.

One path of Norman historiography stemming from Dudo can be seen in the

works of Geoffrey Malaterra and William of Poitiers. On this path, the story of the

Normans ‘accumulated’. Each author added another layer to the reputation of this,

the newest member of the gentes Francorum. Geoffrey Malaterra was likely a Norman

monk who came south to become a bishop in Sicily, only to return to monastic life at

St Agata in Catania. His record of the deeds of Roger of Calabria and Robert

Guiscard, written in the late 1090s, has little to say about the French. The Normans

have clearly surpassed a once-proud people, best personified in the vile rex Francorum

Philip I, who tries to bigamously seduce Roger of Sicily’s daughter and steal

her dowry.25 William of Poitiers (d. c.1087), chaplain to William I of England

(1066–87) and archdeacon of Lisieux, also had little good to say about the Franci-

geni, who William clearly delineated from the Normanni. But the objects of Norman

scorn are not Franci, they are Francigeni––not ‘Franks’ but the ‘French’.26

23 e.g. see Dudo of Saint-Quentin, De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae Ducum, ed. Jules Lair

(Caen, France, 1865), 133, 135. See also the comments of R. H. C. Davis, The Normans and their

Myth (London, 1976), 52–4. Note, however, that Davis reads Franci as ‘French’. This is a common

but problematic reading. See below.

24 Dudo, De moribus et actis, ed. Lair, 135–6, 144 (and the vision of the two types of birds/gens

mingling at 146–7), 179–80, 183–92, 264–5, respectively.

25 On Geoffrey’s life, see the sketch in Geoffrey Malaterra, The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and

Sicily and of his Brother Duke Robert Guiscard, tr. Kenneth Baxter Wolf (Ann Arbor, 2005), 6–8. On

Philip I, see Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, ed. Ernesto Pontieri, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Bologna, 1928), 90.

26 Francigeni seems to almost exclusively refer to the inhabitants of a geographical region around the Île-de-France. For instance, see William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi, ed. R. H. C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford, 1998), 14, 96, 130.

The Franks Return to the Holy Land

137

Other ‘Normans’ were more explicit about showing a connection between

Normannitas and Frankishness. The Bayeux Embroidery, in its only references to

William’s assembled invaders, called them Franci and Orderic Vitalis had no

problem using Franci for the assembled armies of the First Crusade. Numerous

Norman magnates of the late eleventh century were proud of their Carolingian

ancestry. As R. H. C. Davis observed, it was only in the early twelfth century that