Leading the Way to Heaven: Pastoral Care and Salvation in the Carolingian Period [1 ed.] 9781138556324, 9781138556317, 9781315149981

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LEADING THE WAY TO HEAVEN

Starting from manuscripts compiled for local priests in the Carolingian period, this book investigates the way in which pastoral care took shape at the local levels of society. They show what illiterate lay people learned about their religion, but also what priests themselves knew. The Carolingian royal dynasty, which ruled over much of Europe in the eighth and ninth century, is well-known for its success in war, patronage of learning and its ambitious style of rulership. A central theme in their plans for the future of their kingdom was to ensure God’s everlasting support, and to make sure that all inhabitants – down to the last illiterate farmer – reached eternal life in heaven. This book shows how the ideal of leading everybody to salvation was a central element of Carolingian culture. The grass-roots approach shows how early medieval religion was anything but uniform, how it encompassed all spheres of daily life and how well-educated local priests did not only know how to baptise and preach, but could also advise on matters concerning health, legal procedure and even the future. This volume is of great use to upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars interested in the ecclesiastical history of Europe in the Carolingian period. Carine van Rhijn is a cultural historian of the early middle ages. She teaches medieval history at the Department of History and Art History at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

The Medieval World Series editors:Warren C. Brown, Caltech, USA and Piotr Górecki, University of California, Riverside, USA

The Age of Robert Guiscard Graham Loud The English Church, 940–1154 H. R. Loyn Justinian John Moorhead Ambrose John Moorhead Charles the Bald Janet L. Nelson Leading the Way to Heaven Carine van Rhijn The Devil’s World Andrew Roach The Reign of Richard Lionheart Ralph Turner/Richard Heiser The Welsh Princes Roger Turvey English Noblewomen in the Late Middle Ages J.Ward

LEADING THE WAY TO HEAVEN Pastoral Care and Salvation in the Carolingian Period

Carine van Rhijn

Cover image: Stuttgart, Wuerttembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. bibl. fol. 23, fol. 89v First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Carine van Rhijn The right of Carine van Rhijn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-55631-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-55632-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14998-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra

CONTENTS

Preface ix List of abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1  The pastoral project 3 2  The battle against ignorance 8 3  Manuscripts for priests 12 4  Leading the way to heaven 15 5  This book 18 PART I

Foundations 23 1 Renaissance, reform or correctio? The Carolingians and the quest for salvation 25 1  Introduction 25 2 Interpreting Carolingian culture: the Carolingian renaissance 30 3 After the Carolingian renaissance 34 4 Education for salvation: the Carolingian project reconsidered 46 2 Manuscripts for priests 52 1  Introduction 52 2  Priests and books 54 3  From royal admonishment to diocesan writing desk 56 4  Manuscripts for priests 60

vi Contents

5 T he sliding scale between ‘schoolbooks’ and ‘instruction readers’ 65 6  Manuscripts for priests: three examples 68 7  Characteristics 71 8  When? Where? 78 9  Travelling texts and manuscripts for priests 81 PART II

Cornerstones 85 3 The cornerstones of Christian society I: Baptism 87 1  Introduction 87 2 Baptism in the Carolingian period and the issue of correct ritual 90 3  Carolingian baptismal expositions 94 4  Baptism explained 98 5  Learning the Lord’s Prayer 102 6  Expositions of the Lord’s Prayer 104 7  Lay knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer 106 8  Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508 110 4 The cornerstones of Christian society II: Mass 117 1  Introduction 117 2  Norms and expectations 122 3  Learning about the mass: the sources of priests’ knowledge 126 4  Two Mass expositions: Dominus vobiscum and Primum in ordine 129 5  Learning from sermons: knowledge for lay audiences 139 6  Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40-III 144 5 The cornerstones of Christian society III: Penance 149 1  Introduction 149 2  Prescriptions about penance 153 3  The (non-)issue of variety 158 4  Navigating contradictory texts about penance 162 5  Teaching the laity about sin 167 6 Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 175 PART III

Beyond pastoral care 179 6 Priests as experts 181 1  Introduction 181 2  Areas of expertise 184

Contents  vii

3  Marriage 188 4  Doctors of the soul, doctors of the body 195 5 Pastoral care and dispute settlement: the case of judicial ordeals 202

7 The edges of orthodoxy 211 1  Introduction 211 2  Interpretations 214 3  The damned, the unbaptised and the ignorant 216 4  The voice of the thunder, the age of the moon 229 Epilogue 241 Appendix 1: The Carolingian priests’ manuscripts featuring in this book 245 Appendix 2: Contents of pastoral compendia 249 Bibliography 251 Index 269

PREFACE

This book would have been a very different one without the feedback and advice of many people, and without the generous invitations and hospitality over the past years of many others. The list is long, my gratitude huge. I am, first of all, deeply grateful to my eagle-eyed, good-humoured and sharp-witted friends and colleagues, who show me time and again how friendship is a central feature of the early medieval research community. My special thanks go out to those people who read (parts of ) the book and helped me make it better in a variety of ways: Claire Burridge, Anna Dorofeeva, Meg Leja, Rob Meens, Steffen Patzold, Els Rose, Bastiaan Waagmeester (who also made Appendix 2 look presentable) and of course the intrepid and supportive series editors Warren Brown and Piotr Gorecki. My partner Renate Dürr deserves a very special mention: she read everything and offered support in innumerable ways – I am sure that she is the only early modern historian in the world who knows her Carolingian priests’ manuscripts. Special thanks, too, to my colleagues (past and present) at the Department of History and Art History of Utrecht University, in particular Bram van den Hoven van Genderen, Erik Goosmann, Mayke de Jong, Rutger Kramer, Rob Meens, Marco Mostert, Janneke Raaijmakers (†), Irene van Renswoude and Els Rose. A better group of people to spend my working life with is hard to ­imagine – not only as medievalists but also as human beings. Over the years, I have been very fortunate to find a second academic home at the Eberhardt Karls Universität in Tübingen, where I spent two happy semesters working on this book: the first in the winter semester of 2014/15 as a guest of the Graduiertenkolleg 1662 ‘Religiöses Wissen im vormodernen Europa (800–1800)’, the second in the summer semester of 2019 as a fellow of the DFG Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe ‘Migration und Mobilität in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter’. Throughout, Steffen Patzold has been a wonderful friend and host; there is nobody with whom I have spent more pleasant hours discussing manuscripts, texts and priests.

x Preface

Two international research groups were especially important for the development of the central ideas in this book. The first is ‘Rethinking the Carolingian reforms’, which met several times between 2017 and 2019 for important and inspiring discussions about Carolingian culture: Cinzia Grifoni, Rutger Kramer, Steven Ling, Sven Meeder, Kristina Mitalaité, Ingrid Rembold, Irene van Renswoude, Ed Roberts, Els Rose, Giorgia Vocino and Arthur Westwell. The second is the ‘Small worlds’ group that first started to collaborate in 2012 as a sub-project of Walter Pohl’s ERC Advanced Grant ‘Social cohesion, identity and religion in Europe, 400–1200’, and is working on questions about local societies in the early middle ages to the present day: Miriam Czóck (†), Wendy Davies, Thomas Kohl, Steffen Patzold, Nicholas Schroeder, Marco Stofella, Francesca Tinti, Charles West and Bernhard Zeller. I have learned a lot from all these people, and hope to keep doing that for a long time. --A note about the quotations from manuscripts in the footnotes: I have transcribed the Latin faithfully without ‘correcting’ anything. There are, however, a few concessions to modern readers that I felt were necessary to make: unlike the manuscripts, I do distinguish between u and v, I have capitalised letters where one would expect them in a modern text, and added a minimum of interpunction.

ABBREVIATIONS

Admonitio  Generalis Die Admonitio Generalis Karls des Grossen, eds Hubert Mordek, Klaus Zechiel-Eckes and Michael Glatthaar, MGH Fontes Iuris Germanici Antiqui in usum scholarum separatim editi XVI (Hannover, 2012). CCCM Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina MGH Cap. I MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum I, ed. Alfredus Boretius (Hanover, 1883). MGH Cap. II MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum II, eds Alfredus Boretius and Victor Krause (Hanover, 1897). Cap.ep. I MGH Capitula episcoporum I, ed. Peter Brommer MGH (Hanover, 1984). Cap.ep. II MGH Capitula episcoporum II, eds Rudolf Pokorny MGH and Martina Stratmann unter Mitwirkung von Wolf-Dieter Runge (Hanover, 1995) Cap.ep. III MGH Capitula episcoporum III, ed. Rudolf Pokorny MGH (Hanover, 1995). Cap.ep. IV MGH Capitula episcoporum IV, ed. Rudolf Pokorny MGH unter Mitwirkung von Veronika Lukas (Hanover, 2005). Conc. I Monumenta Germaniae Historica Concilia II, Concilia MGH Aevi Karolini I, Pars I, ed. Albertus Werminghoff (Hanover/ Leipzig, 1906). Conc. II Monumenta Germaniae Historica Concilia II, Concilia MGH Aevi Karolini I, Pars II, ed. Albertus Werminghoff (Hanover/ Leipzig, 1908). Epp. I MGH Epp. Mer.et Kar. Aevi I, ed. Ernst Dümmler MGH (Berlin, 1892).

xii Abbreviations

MGH MGH MGH

PL Settimane ZRG

Formulae MGH Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, ed. K. Zeumer (Hanover, 1886). Poet. I MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini I, ed. Ernestus Dümmler (Berlin, 1881). SS IV MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum IV, Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici, ed. Bruno Krusch (Hanover, 1902). Patrologia Latina Cursus Completus, ed. J.-P. Migne Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about the early medieval belief that knowledge and education could lead a whole population to eternal salvation in heaven, and would ensure the eternity of a kingdom on earth. It covers the time that the Carolingian dynasty ruled over much of Europe (c. 750–c. 900), and tells the story of their ambitious pastoral project – initiated by the court, but taken up by diocesan bishops and many others – that was meant to bring religious knowledge to people of all social ranks, illiterate inhabitants of the countryside included. It also tries to assess the impact of these ambitions and ideals on the ground, as close to the grass-roots of society as we can get through the sources that we have. While much has been written on the Carolingian project, or, as many historians call it, the Carolingian reforms or Carolingian correctio, much less is known about the processes by which the plans that emanated from the royal court were received and implemented by those to whom the real work was delegated. About the project’s effects on the population as a whole we barely know anything at all, which has led many scholars to believe that this was an elite affair of which the rest of the people felt no effects at all.1 This is, however, a conclusion that should

1 The term ‘Carolingian project’ is borrowed from Chris Wickham, The inheritance of Rome. A history of Europe from 400 to 1000 (London, 2009), pp. 382–3 for its pleasantly neutral sound; for a discussion of the more problematic labels of renaissance, reform and correctio see Chapter 1. How different scholars estimate the reach of the project depends on their definition, but the general tendency seems to be that its effects did not extend much beyond the court and the elites of the realm. For instance John Contreni, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’, in: Warren T. Treadgold ed., Renaissances before the Renaissance: cultural revivals of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Stanford, 1984), pp. 59–74 at p. 59 where he explains how this was a phenomenon limited to just a handful of literati; Matthew Innes, The sword, the plough and the book. Introduction to early medieval western Europe, 300–900 (London/New York, 2007), pp. 456–7 and 463–4 prefers the term ‘correction’ over ‘reform’ and suggests effects at the ‘most basic levels’ of the

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-1

2 Introduction

be reconsidered. When one knows where to look and gets rid of some outdated historiographical frames, there is actually quite a lot of evidence for these ambitions landing exactly where they should have: in local lay communities. The crucial people in the efforts to transmit knowledge to the Frankish people were local priests, who, in this period, for the first time started to live within the lay communities to whom they ministered. They took on new responsibilities to this effect, and were encouraged to be founts of knowledge and model shepherds for their flocks.2 The crucial sources with which we can trace their efforts to preach and teach are the manuscripts with which they were themselves educated, as well as the books compiled to facilitate their daily pastoral practice. These priests’ books are little known and have never been studied as a corpus before; through them, we get to see Carolingian Christian culture as it was transmitted to the illiterate population of the ‘small worlds’ that dotted the countryside. At the same time, the highly varied and detailed contents of these manuscripts also show us aspects of the project that remain hidden if we only rely on prescriptive sources. The plans to make pastoral care and religious knowledge accessible to all were no doubt fuelled by the relatively long period of internal peace and prosperity from the year 792 onwards. Charlemagne won war upon war with neighbouring peoples, expanded the kingdom and brought home vast amounts of wealth, considerable quantities of which were invested in the ecclesiastical infrastructure and the patronage of learning. It was clear that God smiled upon the Frankish kings and their mighty armies, and everybody knew that it was of the utmost importance that He kept smiling. All these victories were in the end not just the doings of talented tacticians, steeled warriors and well-crafted weapons: even the best of armies would only defeat its enemy with God’s help, and the one condition for prolonged successes on this front was having and keeping divine favour.3 The Carolingian kings were convinced that they ruled by God’s grace, and that keeping His favour was crucial to the long-term survival of the realm and the salvation of its inhabitants. Theirs was an active God who punished and rewarded, and on Whose favour everything depended, from the success of the Frankish church (p. 464); Peter Brown, The rise of western Christendom. Triumph and diversity, AD 200–1000 (second edition, Malden, 2003), p. 440, on the other hand, points out how the impact of Carolingian correction ‘varied greatly from place to place’. 2 The most recent overview about Carolingian priests is Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle. Local priests in early medieval Europe, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 93 (Berlin, 2016); for ideals about Carolingian priests see Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord. Priests and episcopal statutes in the Carolingian period (Turnhout, 2007); a thorough study of the priests’ social position is Steffen Patzold, Presbyter. Moral, Mobilität und die Kirchenorganisation im Karolingerreich, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 68 (Stuttgart, 2020). 3 Jennifer Davis, Charlemagne’s practice of empire (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 137 and n. 52, on internal peace from 792 onwards see pp. 155–7; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Kingship and empire in the Carolingian world’, in: Rosamond McKitterick ed., Carolingian culture: emulation and innovation (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 52–87 at pp. 57–9.

Introduction  3

army to the richness of the harvest; divine displeasure led to lost battles, hunger, death and disease. From the very beginning of their rulership, the Carolingian kings, their counts and their bishops show a clear awareness that God did not only scrutinise crowned and mitred heads, but that the lives and deeds of every last Christian counted.4 During the late eighth and ninth centuries, then, several generations of Carolingian kings, scholars and clerics shared the conviction that teaching and learning, studying and writing were not only important in themselves, but served a greater purpose. God’s plans with mankind, as revealed in Scripture but also in the events of everyday life, were only comprehensible to those with sufficient knowledge to understand His messages. Additionally, He needed to be worshipped in ways pleasing to His ears, so following the correct doctrine and performing good liturgy in Latin without mistakes. All Christians should constantly improve their beliefs and behaviour to be worthy of that name and avoid punishment. The Carolingian elite’s vision of their society and its projection into the future, was, meanwhile, not only ambitious but also optimistic, for its premise was that even the most humble farmers could look forward to an eternal afterlife in the company of the angels in heaven – that is, if they knew how to lead a life pleasing to God and managed to put these precepts to practice. The way to both individual and collective salvation, in other words, was paved with knowledge and pastoral care.5

1  The pastoral project The earliest, most elaborate and clearest royal expression of the intention to revitalise the Carolingian world of learning and religious knowledge stems from the year 789, when Charlemagne expressed his intention to create a morally improved and better educated society. This is the subject of the longest programmatic capitulary ever issued in his name, the famous Admonitio Generalis. It is clear that the Admonitio was considered to be a very important text at the time itself: as far as we know, it is the only Carolingian capitulary of which a whole series of copies were produced directly at the court for further distribution throughout the kingdom.6 The much-cited introduction to the 80 chapters that follow offers a boiled-down version of how things stood at the time: Charles, the first-person proclaimer of the text, presents himself as king ‘by God’s grace and

4 Examples from royal normative texts of the ideal to lead the people to salvation are legion. An early instance is the introduction to the very first extant capitulary issued by Pippin as a mayor of the palace, MGH Cap. I, no. 10 (21.4.742), pp. 24–5: [after a list of people present] ‘ut mihi consilium dedissent … et qualiter populus christianus ad salutem animae pervenire possit…’. 5 Davis, Charlemagne’s practice, pp. 396–9. 6 Die Admonitio Generalis Karls des Grossen, Hubert Mordek, Klaus Zechiel-Eckes and Michael Glatthaar eds, MGH Fontes Iuris Germanici Antiqui in usum scholarum separatim editi XVI (Hannover, 2012), introduction pp. 86–111, with a useful stemma at p. 111.

4 Introduction

mercy’, and as ‘humble defender and helper of the Church’.7 God’s eternal protection of the realm, he then explains, would only be granted when all thanked and praised their heavenly Lord and did ceaseless good works, and, even more importantly, when all ‘shepherds of God’s church’ led His people to eternal life.8 How exactly this was meant to become reality is then unfolded in a long series of chapters, the majority of which consist of carefully selected canon law, to which a series of newly written chapters were added at the end. The subjects covered range from the practice of justice to the workings of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, from the standardisation of weights and measures to the contents of sermons.9 Interestingly, it is in the last, new and comparatively long chapters that there is much attention for the outlines of the pastoral project. Here we find detailed instructions about the knowledge that could and should be expected from priests, the subjects of their sermons and about everything that they should carefully explain to the laity in their care.10 How we should interpret the Admonitio Generalis and other royal prescriptive, normative texts of the period has been a matter of debate since François-Louis Ganshof in 1955 published a short book titled Wat waren de capitularia? (‘What were the capitularies?’).11 Should we understand such texts as laws, and if so, what exactly gave them their authority? On the other hand, is the term ‘law’ at all appropriate in a world where there was no way to implement such rules and make sure that transgressions were punished? Should we, perhaps, read a text such as the Admonitio Generalis as something closer to binding pastoral advice than to our own, post-Napoleonic laws?12 This is not the place to re-iterate the debate or go into its details further (but see Chapter 1).13 Recent scholarship

7 Admonitio Generalis, p. 180, introduction: ‘Ego Carolus, gratia dei eiusque misericordia donante rex et rector regni Francorum et devotus sanctae ecclesiae defensor humilisque adiutor’. 8 Idem, p. 180: …et quam necessarium est non solum toto corde et ore eius pietati agere gratias incessanter, sed etiam continua bonorum operum excitatione eius insistere laudibus, … sua protectione nos nostrumque regnum in aeternum conservare dignetur, quapropter placuit nobis vestram rogare solertiam, o pastores ecclesiarum Christi et ductores gregis eius et clarissima mundi luminaria, ut vigili cura et sedula ammonitione populum dei per pascua vitae aeterna ducere studeatis… 9 On the Admonitio generalis, its background and its program see the introduction to the edition, Mordek a.o. eds, Die Admonitio, pp. 1–160. Of special interest are Thomas Martin Buck, Admonitio und Praedicatio. Zur religiös-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507–814) (Frankfurt am Main, 1997); Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne. The formation of a European identity (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 239–40; for a somewhat different take see Johannes Fried, Charlemagne, transl. Peter Lewis (Cambridge, MA/London, 2016), pp. 261–8. 10 Knowledge: c. 68 and 70; subjects for sermons c. 80; subjects to teach the laity about: c. 80. 11 François-Louis Ganshof, Wat waren de capitularia? (Brussels, 1955), translated into German as Was waren die Kapitularien? (Darmstadt, 1961). 12 As proposed by Thomas Martin Buck, Admonitio und Praedicatio. Zur religiös-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507–814) (Frankfurt am Main, 1997). 13 The main points of discussion are summarised well here: http://capitularia.uni-koeln.de/en/ project/definition/ (consulted 7.3.2019).

Introduction  5

has followed a sensible middle course on this question that I will take as my cue here: what we see in such texts are not so much laws in the modern sense of the word, but rather a mix of norms, intentions and instructions, ideals and hopes for the future.14 These texts generally reflect the interests and pre-occupations of the ruler and his leading men (both lay and ecclesiastical), and can be read as expressions of consent about the subjects covered.15 That we should not see them as law in our modern sense does, however, not mean that they were free-floating think-pieces that could be respectfully ignored. Normative texts were written down and distributed because the king and his advisers ordered them to be implemented by those in the position to do so. It is important to note here that usually, high-level normative texts set the outlines of what should be done, but do not go into the finer details. As we will see in the chapters that follow, the exact way in which prescriptions took shape in practice was a matter for those delegated with the task. For instance, the bishops admonished in chapter 68 of the Admonitio Generalis to exert quality control over the priests of their diocese were expected to get to work and make sure the priests’ knowledge and know-how was up to standard, but the exact ways in which the individual bishops ought to do this or the criteria they should work by were not specified and left up to their own best judgement.16 What we find in royal normative texts are, then, rather ideals and intentions than ‘hard’ laws in our modern understanding of the term. All the same, we should take such intentions and concerns seriously: the commitment of the court and its entourage to the implementation of the project was very real. The Admonitio Generalis was the most extensive and ambitious blueprint of a future society that the post-Roman West had ever seen.17 What had triggered its creation – and inspired normative texts issued in the name of kings throughout the Carolingian period18 – was in the end a widely shared concern about divine favour and salvation. If God would only support a kingdom that was ruled according to His 14 Christina Pössel, ‘Authors and recipients of Carolingian capitularies, 779–829’, in: Richard Corradini, Rob Meens, Christina Pössel and Philip Shaw eds, Texts and identities in the early middle ages, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 12 (Vienna, 2006), pp. 253–76; ­McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 233–4; Steffen Patzold, “Normen im Buch. Überlegungen zu Geltungsansprüchen so genannte ‘Kapitularien’”, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 41 (2007), pp. ­331–50; Davis, Charlemagne’s practice, pp. 35–6. 15 See Gerhard Schmitz, ‘Kapitularien’, Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte 2 (2011), col. 1604–12. 16 Admonitio Generalis c. 68, p. 220: ‘Sacerdotibus. Ut episcopi diligenter discutiant per suas parrochias presbiteros, eorum fidem, baptisma et missarum celebrationes, ut fidem rectam teneant et baptisma catholicum observent et missarum preces bene intellegant […]’. 17 For the idea of the Admonitio Generalis as a ‘blueprint for the future’ see Buck, Admonitio, pp. 9–10. 18 See Davis, Charlemagne’s practice, pp. 396–7. The themes of eternal life and salvation for king and people are present often in the introductions to royal capitularies and conciliar decrees, for instance those to the councils of 813: Arles (MGH Conc. I, no. 36, p. 249, l. 20–32), Mainz (MGH Conc.I, no. 38, p. 258, l. 10–12 and p. 260, l. 22–3); Council of Paris (829) (MGH Conc. II, no. 50, p. 608, l. 34–5); but also, for instance, in the pact between Louis the Stammerer and

6 Introduction

precepts, in which everybody led Christian lives, it was crucial to set (or repeat) the standards and express the intention to improve all those aspects of society that were found lacking. This is what kings ought to do in order to deserve their God-given power. That the most detailed attention in the newly written section of the Admonitio Generalis was devoted to pastoral care, education and ecclesiastical discipline shows us how the better world of the future was meant to take shape. At the end of the eighth century, Charlemagne and his advisors could of course not fathom how far they would get with their project: sustained peace, adequate resources and dynastic continuity were by no means a given in this period, and indeed, when political circumstances became more fraught as the ninth century wore on, interest in pastoral care and education waned at the highest political levels – but not in the many dioceses and centres of knowledge of the kingdom. By the early decades of the ninth century, the seeds of the pastoral project that had been planted in the late eighth century had not only taken root, but had also been sown all over the Frankish kingdom. As far as we can see through the existing manuscript record, they had sprouted and multiplied in many individual dioceses and centres of learning, where the plans and ideals developed their own forms and dynamics and no longer needed constant attention from the court. In the initial development and elaboration of all these ideas, the influence of a group of talented intellectuals at the court was instrumental. They were recruited from all over (conquered and unconquered) Europe to advise the king, to teach at the court school, to study and to write.19 By the presence of such people in royal circles from the late eighth century onwards, and by the king’s generous patronage, the court became an intellectual hub that fostered a climate of debate and research – a group better positioned to think about ways of improving the moral state of the kingdom, teaching its population and holding on to divine favour is hardly conceivable. This courtly intellectual think-tank, a series of influential bishops among them, together with a fast-growing army of well-educated clerics in monastic and episcopal centres all over the realm did exactly that: they discussed and thought about the religious and moral education of the kingdom, and produced an impressive amount of texts to support these efforts. A prominent intellectual like Alcuin of York, to mention just one example, did not only write poetry and learned works about theology, grammar or astronomy but also

Charles the Bald in 867 (MGH Cap. II, no. 245, p. 168, l. 2–3). Salvation was not only a royal concern, however, but also inspired bishops and laymen (see below). 19 See, amongst much other relevant literature, Giles Brown, ‘Introduction: the Carolingian renaissance’, in: McKitterick, Carolingian culture, pp. 1–52; Donald A. Bullough, ‘Charlemagne’s “men of God”: Alcuin, Hildebald, Arn’, in: Joanna Story ed., Charlemagne. Empire and society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 136–50; Mary Garrison, ‘The emergence of Carolingian Latin literature and the court of Charlemagne (780–814)’, in: McKitterick, Carolingian culture, pp. 111–40; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Was Charlemagne’s court a courtly society?’, in: Catherine Cubitt ed., Court culture in the early middle ages. The proceedings of the first Alcuin conference, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 3 (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 39–57;

Introduction  7

an accessible and highly successful explanation of the ritual of baptism for the education of (future) priests.20 Knowledge, and most of all the right kind of knowledge, was the key to salvation and eternity: for individual Christians it paved the way to heaven, for kings it opened the door to the perpetuity of their kingdom. Kings and their advisers needed many kinds of knowledge in order to rule in ways acceptable to God, individual lay Christians of all social ranks would not find salvation without knowing how to lead their lives in accordance with God’s will. It was this attitude that stimulated a seemingly unquenchable thirst for more: one of the well-known facts of Carolingian history is that it witnessed a veritable explosion in manuscript production; some 7.000 Carolingian manuscripts or manuscript fragments are still extant today.21 This is no doubt the tip of what once was a much larger iceberg, and through the unpredictable processes of survival such a number is not easy to put into perspective. Comparison with the few hundred surviving manuscripts from the Merovingian period at least gives some general indication of the vastly increased time, wealth and energy devoted to book production under the Carolingians. At the same time it is important to remember that the Carolingian world was not investing its energy and resources in manuscripts just for the sake of filling libraries. The reason why all these books were produced, copied and studied was to gather and produce knowledge for the one great purpose of understanding God’s will, organising the kingdom accordingly and educating everybody about the ways to live up to His expectations.22 The intellectuals and other royal advisors at the court did not reinvent the wheel in every aspect of their plans to lead the people to heaven by teaching them how to improve their moral and religious standards. They emphasised the importance of baptism, for instance, of doing penance, and of going to Mass, much in the way that their Merovingian predecessors had.23 The Franks had, after all, been Christian since the early sixth century, so there were long traditions to build on. What was new most of all under Pippin and Charlemagne is the sheer scale of the operation, and the energy and intensity with which the ideal of moral improvement through knowledge and pastoral care was pursued. Through the lens of the normative texts of the time we see how old, well-known principles of 20 On Alcuin’s baptismal exposition see: Owen Phelan, ‘Textual transmission and authorship in Carolingian Europe: Primo paganus, baptism, and Alcuin of York’, Revue Benedictine 118 (2008), pp. 262–88; see Chapter 3. 21 See Bernhard Bischoff, Paläografie des römischen Altertums und des abendländischen Mittelalters, Grundlagen der Germanistik 24 (Berlin, 1979/2009), p. 271. 22 On the higher purposes of learning and education see John Contreni, ‘The pursuit of knowledge in Carolingian Europe’, in: Richard E. Sullivan ed., “The gentle voices of teachers”. Aspects of learning in the Carolingian age (Columbus, 1995), pp. 106–41 and idem, ‘Learning for God: education in the Carolingian age’, Journal of Medieval Latin 24 (2014), pp. 89–129. 23 See Yitzhak Hen, Culture and religion in Merovingian Gaul, AD 481–751, Cultures, Beliefs & Traditions 1 (Leiden./New York/Cologne, 1995); as early as 517, the Council of Epaon devoted attention to each of the three, the celebration of the office, c. 27; baptism: c. 29; penance cc. 3, 23 and 31, MGH Conc. I, no. 2, pp. 17–30.

8 Introduction

Christian life, as set out in the canons of Late Antique and Merovingian church councils, re-appear in royal capitularies and conciliar proceedings as if injected with a shot of adrenaline: bishops were reminded time and again to be active in their care of the diocese, they in turn admonished their diocesan clergy to be zealous in their care of the laity, and the laity itself got more advice than ever before on how to stick to the right path and avoid the omnipresent seductions of the devil and his associates. Within the span of just a few decades before and after the year 800, the Carolingians pursued the strategy of ‘more is better’ as an investment in the eternal salvation of the kingdom. They did so with success: they involved more people than ever before in learning, teaching and pastoral care, they invested substantially more wealth in the effort, they gave the subject more high-level attention, and they produced more texts, new texts and more books in more scriptoria. How does one actually ‘create’ a morally improved Christian people, and how does one organise pastoral care by well-educated priests for everybody? Three things were needed in the later eighth century: an infrastructure of churches organised in such a way that everybody had access to pastoral care, educated priests to man these churches and books to educate and equip these priests for their pastoral tasks. The scope of the undertaking is staggering. In 789, the year in which the Admonitio Generalis saw the light, the Carolingian kingdom encompassed much of modern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, plus the former Lombard kingdom in northern Italy. Estimating the population of this vast area of more than a million square kilometres is a challenge: current estimates range between ten and twenty million inhabitants.24 The vast majority of this multi-ethnic, multi-lingual population lived dispersed over tens of thousands of mostly small rural settlements. What is more, this population was almost entirely illiterate. That Charlemagne and his bishops thought that their ambitions to provide pastoral care and religious knowledge to all these people in all these places were even remotely realistic is nothing short of astonishing.

2  The battle against ignorance Peter Brown has famously reminded us that Charlemagne’s most important battles were not those fought sword in hand against uncooperative neighbours or invading pagans; his crucial challenge was to fight ignorance.25 This was not just any ignorance, but the lack of knowledge and understanding that endangered souls. It was the ignorance of well-meaning people who thought that a big stone in the field was not fundamentally different from an altar in a church, or of those 24 As explained carefully by Michael McCormick, ‘Where do trading towns come from?’, in: Joachim Henning, Post-Roman towns, trade and settlement in Europe and Byzantium I: The Heirs of the Roman West (Berlin/New York, 2007), pp. 41–68 at pp. 50–1 and n. 24. 25 Brown, The rise, p. 426.

Introduction  9

people who lit candles near large trees and springs out of piety, or who believed that mere humans could influence the weather. Crucially, all of these people were baptised and in all probability regarded themselves as Christians. By the ninth century, pagans were a thing of the distant past or – with the exception of the recently conquered and converted inhabitants of Saxony – were ‘others’ who lived beyond the horizon.26 The challenge was, therefore, not so much that of converting unbelievers, but of expanding and deepening the knowledge of those who, according to the new standards, simply did not know enough to be able to live according to God’s will. It is important here to recognise how much a person needed to know and understand to pass muster in the eyes of Carolingian bishops and priests: being a member of the Christian church implied a lifestyle that covered every last aspect of daily life, and the devil was, as always, in the details. What is more: many aspects of daily life had only been described in sketchy fashion by Fathers of the Church, canon law and more recent royal and episcopal instructions, so there were many grey areas open to different interpretations. When a lay person, for instance, wished to abide by the well-known precept that he should honour the Sunday rest, the biblical requirement that he should not work (Exodus 20, 10) was only a first starting point, and not enough of a clear norm to stick to by a long stretch. For what, exactly, constituted ‘work’? That one should not plow a field, weave cloth or bring in the harvest on a Sunday was probably clear enough, but that left many questions about other activities unresolved. This is exactly why the local presence of pastoral experts was essential.27 What about, for instance, riding a horse, should that be considered as work (yes)? Could one have a bath on Sundays (no, this counts as work), or cook dinner (no), or wash one’s hair (only allowed in an emergency) or feet (ditto), and what about moving the body of a recently deceased person with a cart (allowed, on the grounds of special circumstance)?28 Through this one small example it is easy to see how the battle against 26 On pagans and perception of paganism in the Carolingian period see James Palmer, ‘Defining paganism in the Carolingian world’, Early Medieval Europe 15 (2007), pp. 402–25; Saxony was another story, see Ian Wood, ‘Ideas of mission in the Carolingian world’, in: Wojciech Falkowski and Yves Sassier eds, Le monde carolingien: bilan, perspectives, champs de recherches. Actes du colloque international de Poitiers, Centre d’Études supérieures de Civilisation médiévale, 28–30 novembre 2004 (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 183–98; Ingrid Rembold, Saxony and the Carolingian world, 772–888 (Cambridge, 2018); Robert Flierman, ‘Religious Saxons: paganism, infidelity and biblical punishment in de Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae’, in: Rob Meens a.o. eds, Religious Franks. Religion and power in the Frankish kingdoms: Studies in honour of Mayke de Jong (Manchester, 2016), pp. 181–201. See also Chapter 7. 27 On the wide-ranging expertise of priests see Carine van Rhijn, ‘Carolingian rural priests as local (religious) experts’, in: Steffen Patzold and Florian Bock eds, Gott handhaben: religiöses Wissen im Konflikt um Mythisierung und Rationalisierung (Berlin, 2016), pp. 131–46 and see Chapter 6. 28 Riding a horse, cooking: Council of Ver (755), MGH Cap. I, no. 14, p. 36, c. 14; washing feet and hair, bathing: Paenitentiale Merseburgense A, eds R. Kottje, L. Körntgen and U. Spengler-­ Reffgen, Paenitentialia minora Franicae et Italiae saeculi VIII-IX, CCSL 156 (Turnhout, 1994), pp. 132–69, c. 132: ‘Lavacrum capitis in die dominico potest esse si necesse est et inlixiva pedes lavari, balneos non licet fieri.’ See Carine van Rhijn, ‘Precarious knowledge in the Carolingian

10 Introduction

ignorance was in fact a lengthy, intensive process of progressive education that would never be finished completely. By the later eighth century, when we begin to see the first outlines in the normative texts of plans to improve everybody’s morals through education, the Carolingian world lacked the infrastructure, the people and the resources even to begin this battle on the scale proposed in the Admonitio generalis. When Pippin the Short took the Frankish throne in 751, most monastic and episcopal centres that had libraries and could offer any kind of education were mere shadows of what they would become in the course of the ninth century. As for the availability of local churches, a recent rough estimate suggests that there were between two and three thousand in the Merovingian kingdom, with at least the same number of priests who provided local pastoral care.29 These priests usually did not live within the settlement they cared for, but typically lived in small groups together with some lower clerics. Such small communities of secular clergy often functioned as the satellites of episcopal centres, from which priests travelled to local churches for their duties. The little we know about these priests suggests that some of them owned books and had had more education than Boniface has tried to make us believe.30 Access to a church and to good pastoral care was, then, in all likelihood not available to large groups of people at the beginning of our period, especially not to those who lived outside the direct orbit of a monastery or episcopal city. These people therefore had to go without the essential Christian milestones on their way to heaven, such as baptism, penance, participation in the sacrament of Mass and extreme unction. Given the importance of divine favour for the whole kingdom, it is not hard to understand the seriousness of this situation as it was perceived by those with political agency and responsibility: how would the people outside the reach of pastoral care ever participate in the rituals they needed to be members of the church, let alone learn the endless details of living a Christian life pleasing to God? How could they be prevented from angering God unintentionally, out of sheer ignorance because they lacked a local church? Basic logistics were essential here, and it is important to keep this in mind: in order to realize the new ideal of leading the entire people to heaven, the creation of a network of churches with well-educated and well-equipped clergy within easy travelling distance for everybody was crucial.

period: the case of prognostic texts’, in: Renate Dürr ed., Threatened knowledge: knowing and forgetting in times of threat (forthcoming, 2021). 29 This estimate is based on numbers given by Ian Wood, ‘Creating a temple society in the early medieval West’, Annual Early Medieval Europe Lecture, Leeds International Medieval Congress, 1 July 2019. There were about 130 dioceses in Merovingian Gaul, with ‘several dozen’ churches in each one, but many of those were in cities. Each church had at least one priest. 30 Robert Godding, Prêtres en Gaul mérovingienne (Brussels, 2001); Yitzhak Hen, ‘Priests and books in the Merovingian period’, in: Patzold and Van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle, pp. 162–76; Boniface’s negative portrayals of priests can be found in his letters 50 and 51, MGH Epp. I, pp. 298–305.

Introduction  11

Half a century after the promulgation of the Admonitio Generalis in 789, we already see a very different picture – one could say that a pastoral revolution was taking place. Not only were the numbers of monastic and episcopal schools and libraries increasing steadily (as were, as we have seen, the number of manuscripts that could be studied there); crucially for rural populations, a new network of local churches served by educated local priests had been put into place in many regions, or was in the process of getting there. Steffen Patzold has recently shown how the Merovingian system of small communities of secular clergy, who travelled to churches in the neighbourhood to do their pastoral duties, was transformed into a more fine-meshed infrastructure of local churches that provided access to clerical services where they were needed. It is easy to overlook what a fundamental reconfiguration in the organisation of secular clergy this was: what was new here was that diocesan bishops assigned priests to specific churches that served local communities, in principle for life. These priests were expected to live there, preferably in a house next to the church, and take care of the laity’s spiritual health and welfare on a round-the-clock basis.31 The new system also came with a basic income for priests in the shape of a set minimum amount of land and a couple of serfs to work it, provided by the owner of the church.32 Even when we take into consideration that there were surely big regional differences in the speed, degree and strategy with which the various elements of this new infrastructure were implemented, there are signs of its coming into place from many different sources. Charters from all over the kingdom, for instance, show how priests indeed started to live in lay settlements instead of the pre-existing clerical communities; church inventories and other book lists confirm the presence of manuscripts in local churches; episcopal instructions were written that only make sense under these new circumstances. This was one part of the project that was taken up by diocesan bishops and other church-owners, and work was done throughout the kingdom to create an infrastructure of local churches fit to teach the entire population. When we try to assess this flurry of activity in scriptoria, local churches, monastic schools and episcopal centres, we get to see processes that are perhaps so obvious that they are seldom noted: even though Charlemagne and his direct circle heaved the first big stone into the pond and kept the water in motion, all the ripples we see all over the pond are not just the effects of royal agency. In order to understand how ignorance was battled, we need to take into account the initiatives and agency of all those people who actively supported the rather general outlines of the royal initiatives, and added their own ideas, initiatives and strategies. When we push the metaphor just a little bit further, the big royal rocks were followed and interspersed by a rain of smaller ones from all directions, that steadily continued throughout the ninth century and even thereafter. Each of these smaller stones left their own ripples 31 Patzold, Presbyter, pp. 65–70; that priests ought to be ‘on duty’ on a round-the-clock basis was a typical Carolingian concern, see Van Rhijn, Shepherds, p. 63. 32 Patzold, Presbyter, p. 67 and pp. 185–7.

12 Introduction

on the water – and this brought the entire pond into motion. Riding the waves where it mattered most were the priests. With the educated, local priests, we meet the task-force that was ideally positioned to fight the ignorance of the illiterate laity in the Carolingian kingdom. This process of pastoral care and education would, of course, only stand any chance of success if the priests themselves had the level of education required. Even though many scholars have been rather sceptical about the effects of royal and episcopal admonishments in ensuring fitting levels of priestly education, we do have reasons to be a bit more optimistic here. Bishops played a crucial role in the practical side of the matter. Again, we have to rely on prescriptions and norms to gather the outlines of their plans and ideals, but here our corroborating evidence becomes more solid: we have texts, for instance priests’ exams, instructions for visitations, but also entire manuscripts that contain the curriculum taught to future priests, and dossiers to aid them in their daily tasks once they had been ordained. This brings us to the material at the heart of this book: manuscripts for local priests.

3  Manuscripts for priests What can we still know about the lives, beliefs and thoughts of those thousands upon thousands of illiterate and to us mostly nameless inhabitants of the Frankish kingdom? The sources are scarce and uneven. Charter collections can give us glimpses of social and economic structures, showing how people bought and sold land, how they settled their disputes, how they interacted with their relatives and neighbours.33 Settlement archaeology sheds light on the way in which people lived together, what goods they produced locally or imported from further away. The archaeology of death, in turn, tells us stories of health and disease, of beliefs about the afterlife, and of social stratification and status. Important and fascinating as this material may be, it does not help us much if we want to know the answers to questions too specific for charters, and too immaterial for postholes, cesspits and skeletal remains: did the Carolingian project reach its targeted audience? Did the Franks get better educated priests, and did these bring religious knowledge to the grassroot levels of society? What kind of knowledge was this? Norms and ideals do not tell us enough here: they show us that the political elites considered these subjects important, and that they were actively finding ways 33 An early pioneer of this approach is Wendy Davies, Small worlds. The village community in early medieval Brittany (Berkely/Los Angeles, 1988). More recent work using early medieval charter collections to write social and cultural history include Warren Brown, Unjust seizure. Conflict, interest and authority in an early medieval society (Cornell, 2001); Thomas Kohl, Lokale Gesellschaften. Formen der Gemeinschaft in Bayern vom 8. bis zum 10. Jahrhundert, Mittelalter-Forschungen 29 (Ostfildern, 2010); Thomas Kohl, Steffen Patzold and Bernhard Zeller eds, Kleine Welten. Ländliche Gesellschaften im Karolingerreich, Vorträge und Forschungen LXXXVII (Ostfildern, 2019); Bernhard Zeller a.o., Neighbours and strangers. Local societies in early medieval Europe (­M anchester, 2020).

Introduction  13

of pursuing them – but even the most elaborate dossier of royal capitularies is in itself not enough to give us any indication whether such ideals ever came to more than some Sturm und Drang at the court. Small wonder, therefore, that Carolingian attempts to improve society as a whole along ‘correct’ Christian lines (often labelled reform or correctio, discussed in Chapter 1), have often received rather cautious evaluations: it was likely just a small elite affair of highly learned intellectuals, it probably did not have the desired reach and impact of the whole people, the ideals were nice but impractical, we should not expect too much given the circumstances of the time.34 There is little one can do without written sources that tell us the things we want to know, after all. This is where the priests’ manuscripts enter the story, and they are true game-changers, for they offer a veritable treasure-chamber of information about the attempts to bring pastoral care and religious knowledge to the entire population. The manuscripts compiled to teach future priests show what they did (and did not) learn, and thereby give us a fair indication of what their education looked like in different monasteries and episcopal centres. Those codices most likely intended to serve as portable repositories of knowledge for ordained priests show what kind of texts they needed on the job. Both kinds of books – in fact, two ends of one wide spectrum of pastoral compendia (see Chapter 2) – also bring to the light what advice and knowledge local priests had on offer for the lay communities in their care. These compendia start to appear around the year 800, coinciding nicely with the earliest examples of instructions written by diocesan bishops for their priests, the so-called episcopal statutes. As we will see, there are remarkable similarities between the norms and ideals about what priests should know on the one hand, and the contents of these books on the other. At the same time, however, these manuscripts are no simple and straightforward collections of texts that merely turned royal and episcopal ideals into handy volumes: no two surviving pastoral compendia have the same contents. The ideals of improving the morals and education of the kingdom were surely felt everywhere, but the precise shape chosen locally to turn them into everyday practice shows considerable variety. That such codices exist in the first place has been known in some niches of scholarship for quite some time; that they survive in the numbers they do is a more recent discovery. Susan Keefe, in her work on Carolingian baptismal expositions of 2002, was the first to realize how many of the manuscripts in which texts explaining the ritual of baptism appear were, in fact, perfectly suited for the use of priests.35 Again in 2012, when she published a catalogue of a staggering near-400 different explanations of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts, it turned out that a number of these codices were collections of texts eminently 34 For instance: Philippe Depreux, ‘Ambitions et limites des réformes culturelles à l’époque carolingienne’, Revue Historique 304 (2002), pp. 721–53; Wickham, The inheritance, pp. 383–4. 35 Susan A. Keefe, Water and the word. Baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire, 2 vols (Notre Dame, 2002), vol. I at pp. 160–4.

14 Introduction

useful for local priests.36 If we loosely define a priests’ manuscript as a collection of texts well-suited to support the tasks of a priest in a lay community, we now know of about seventy such books that survive from the Carolingian period, about half of which have been explored for this study. However loosely the label ‘priests’ manuscript’ is used here, it is a precise term in another way, since is not meant to include books with a much wider potential group of users. For instance, books of the Bible, liturgical manuscripts, or works by Fathers of the Church would be useful and suitable for much wider groups of clergy, including for instance monks, canons, lower secular clergy and bishops themselves. The duties of bishops in particular overlap to a large extent with those of priests, but they had extra duties, such as reconciliating penitents, dedicating churches, handling relics and consecrating lower clergy. In this book, the term ‘priests’ manuscript’ refers only to those manuscripts that were tailored exactly for the needs of local priests and reflect the duties that only those with this ordination (presbyter) had such as performing the rite of baptism, saying Mass and the imposition of penance. These compendia were compiled with the purpose of providing priests with dossiers of knowledge that could be used for reference or for teaching lay flocks. The core texts of Christian religious life, such as the liturgies for Sundays and feast days and ordines are usually not included, which implies that priests had other books with these texts. There are, for instance, books for priests that contain texts with which difficult theological principles (for instance, the Holy Trinity) could be explained to uneducated people, that provide the priest with explanations of how the laity should ideally behave, and that include a wide variety of handy little texts (quick prayers, medical recipes, marriage contracts) that show the kinds of advice people asked from their priests.37 Most of all, however, these codices are dossiers of useful material about the core of a priest’s everyday tasks, such as preaching, baptising, imposing penance, performing the Mass and teaching the central precepts of Christianity. In (older) manuscript catalogues these compendia often hide under titles such as ‘patristic florilegium’ or ‘miscellany’; they only reveal their purposes and programme when studied from cover to cover. When we approach our questions about the Carolingian ambitions to improve the moral state of the people through the window of these manuscripts, a whole world is opened up, showing in detail how the battle against ignorance was waged. At the same time, pastoral compendia give us close-range snapshots rather than wide panoramas, for each compendium is the result of a process of selection at a given time and place. Each book shows us which texts one priest had at his disposal for teaching his flock and to keep his own knowledge fresh. And even though the corpus of priests’ manuscripts is substantial, seventy manuscripts are not many to understand what was happening in the 10.000 Carolingian churches and all the monastic and episcopal schools that trained secular 36 Susan A. Keefe, A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts (Turnhout, 2012). 37 See Chapter 6.

Introduction  15

clergy for a period of a century and a half. The surviving codices are therefore like some pieces of a puzzle of which much is missing, but as I hope to show in what follows, what we do get to see is important and fascinating. By learning what Carolingian priests learned, and by studying the texts they used in their daily practice, we can come closer than ever before to what the illiterate population of the Frankish realm may have known about its religion and what it meant to live as a good Christian. These books bring us close to the Carolingian project as it was lived and negotiated at the level of local lay settlements. Perhaps the one most fascinating aspect that these manuscripts show us about the way in which the Carolingian rulers and their elites organised their battle against ignorance is that we don’t see the slightest trace of any court-led attempt at imposing some kind of curriculum. Every single priests’ book contains a unique collection of texts, which underlines again how this project was carried by many people in many places who followed their own best judgement in compiling manuscripts and educating secular clergy. There are certainly common denominators thematically and overlaps in contents, but no two dossiers are the same. This means that we should not imagine the Carolingian court tackling the education of its clergy and lay people in a top-down, centrally organised way. Quite to the contrary: most of this was left to the initiatives of the diocesan bishops, who, in turn, delegated many responsibilities to their local priests. Even though the first initiatives came from the court, it is therefore at least as important to take many other (now mostly anonymous) groups of people into consideration, such as authors of texts, compilers of books, teachers and preachers when trying to understand the bigger picture.

4  Leading the way to heaven In the chapters that follow, I offer an exploration of the priests’ manuscripts as unique, individual reflections of the widely shared ideal of providing pastoral care and knowledge by well-educated local priests to the ‘everybody’ targeted in royal capitularies and conciliar proceedings. While these books are clearly connected to royal efforts and concerns in a general way, they were not the direct results of straightforward, top-down obedience to royal directives. Quite to the contrary: most manuscripts do not show any signs of direct royal involvement at all, but they do bear the marks of episcopal ‘quality management’, of more horizontal patterns of knowledge exchange (for instance between episcopal and monastic libraries) and of the agency of a multitude of anonymous people pulling their weight to produce the material needed for the learning and teaching that everybody believed was the way forward. Even though the initiative to create an ambitious new infrastructure of pastoral care and religious education no doubt originated at the court, this surely does not mean that every single initiative to this effect in the Carolingian period should be automatically regarded as a direct result of royal initiatives or direct involvement. This is not, as Jennifer Davis has recently shown, how Carolingian government worked: Carolingian kings were

16 Introduction

good at delegating and as long as there was no trouble, they were happy to leave local affairs to those with local responsibilities.38 In the case of the battle against ignorance, many individuals – mostly anonymous to us, and often not directly connected to the royal court – played a crucial role in the success of the operation. As we will see, once the royal plans had taken root around the year 800, many bishops, learned clerics and perhaps even priests themselves took their own initiatives to tackle the education of the kingdom, and did so in the ways they thought best.39 Seen through the corpus of priests’ manuscripts, we witness a burst of activity from around the year 800: new kinds of texts saw the light, pastoral compendia were put together, old texts were rediscovered, copied and shared. Local resources, interests and priorities were always the natural constraints on what was feasible: a compiler working in a well-stocked library perhaps had an easier task than his colleague who had to make do with a small collection of books; likewise, a commissioner much interested in, say, baptismal liturgy surely put together a different compendium than somebody with penance at the forefront of his mind. What there is to gain by studying pastoral dossiers is that they offer much more, much more varied and much finer detail about the way in which highlevel ideals were turned into workable everyday practice than prescriptions and normative texts tend to do. In this sense, these codices reflect back on the larger ideals behind them, and on their unspoken assumptions, in ways that we cannot derive from the rather general admonishments and prescriptions in capitularies, episcopal statutes or conciliar decrees. When we take the whole corpus of priests’ manuscripts into account, we get a sense of how such general norms were brought to life, and of the bandwidth within which individual approaches to the education of clergy and laity took their respective shapes. As we will see, the things that both clergy and laity were expected to know or learn varied considerably not so much in the general themes, but all the more at the level of details. This, in turn, shows how ‘correct’ knowledge, ritual and behaviour could take many different forms and shapes, but also where flexibility in the interpretation of ‘correct’ could become problematic. The two main, general questions on which this book tries to shed light are therefore the following: (1) what exactly was the Carolingian pastoral project that hoped to create a morally sound, future-proof society, from the perspective of priests’ manuscripts and at the level of the local inhabitants of the kingdom and (2) what can we learn about the Christian knowledge and culture of illiterate, local communities and their priests through these books? The impact of the court-initiated plans on the many small worlds of the kingdom through the hard work of many bishops and local priests is, as we have seen, not very well 38 This is an important finding in Jennifer Davis, Charlemagne’s practice of empire (Cambridge, 2015), esp. ch. 1 and 4, with a warning against the tendency of historians to grant too much agency to Charlemagne personally on p. 177. 39 See Chapter 1.

Introduction  17

understood for lack of evidence. The priests’ manuscripts allow us to tackle this issue anew, and get us as close to the beliefs and knowledge of non-elite Carolingian culture as we are ever likely to get on the basis of written sources. One consequence of the discovery of all this source-material connected to the education and moral improvement of clergy and laity alike is this: there is now so much material about pastoral care and religious education that it is impossible to cover it fully in one book. The strategy used here is therefore to approach all this information by focussing on two processes of knowledge transfer that become visible through the priests’ manuscripts. The first one is that by which priests were taught what they needed to know to take care of a lay flock. The second is that by which a priest, in turn, educated his lay flock. In order to get to grips with such teaching, it is important to distinguish three different groups of texts that shed light on the various stages by which knowledge was passed from one group to the other. The first kind of texts is normative. These texts typically set standards, communicate general norms and sometimes even threaten with punishment in case of slackness.40 They regularly appear in the pastoral manuscripts in the shape of episcopal instructions, but also as patristic excerpts or small collections of canon law. Through this material we see if and how norms and expectations reached those who had to make them come true, and in what exact shape they ended up in priestly hands. It is interesting, for instance, that with very few exceptions priests’ manuscripts do not contain royal capitularies or the proceedings of high-level conciliar meetings, but often include individual bishop’s more detailed instructions and explanations of the main points for use within the diocese (the so-called capitula episcoporum).41 The second kind of texts can be characterised as everything a priest needed to know to fulfil his ministry. Such texts, which come in many forms, shapes and ‘genres’, form the bulk of every pastoral compendium. Here we enter into the world of expositions and explanations about virtually every aspect of religious life conceivable, that of useful lists, long sets of questions and answers, ‘how to’-instructions, practical collections of prayers and sample sermons and homilies. Here, the great variation between different compendia becomes visible. The priests’ manuscripts also have some surprises for us in store, for their contents do not stop at the strictly religious or ecclesiastical subjects in our modern sense. Judging from a whole series of small texts, some of which were added later in empty spaces, on flyleaves or in margins, some priests felt they also needed to know something about basic medicine, prognostication, or certain secular legal procedures and added such material themselves, or asked a scribe to do it for

40 A good, but rare example of punishment can be found in the episcopal statute by Radulf of Bourges, who threatens to relieve priests of their office and give them a long prison sentence when they don’t do as they are told. MGH Cap.ep. I, c. xv, pp. 244–5. 41 One rare exception is the manuscript Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 1370, which contains the last chapter of the Institutio canonicorum of the Council of Aachen (816). See Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 115.

18 Introduction

them. Such material does not only show what priests knew and were able to do, it also sheds light on their position as educated members of local lay communities. The third group of texts is that of knowledge especially intended to educate the laity who were the receiving end of the priests’ efforts to teach and preach. This is no more than an artificial subdivision, for surely a priest needed to know everything and more that he should then impart on his lay flock. After all, future priests certainly needed to acquire solid knowledge of, for instance, the meaning of the Creed and all its complicated elements (the Holy Trinity, the virginity of Mary, the two natures of Christ) before he could pass this knowledge on to a lay audience. The division is useful all the same, for it allows us to zoom in on questions about the potential knowledge of local lay audiences. The clearest examples of such texts are sermons and homilies, basic explanations of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer (every candidate for baptism and their godparents needed to know these prayers plus their meaning), and sets of questions and answers about the basics of the faith. Through this material, we can get close to what illiterate lay people could potentially learn from priests. Additionally, comparison between different pastoral compendia shows how such knowledge took on different shapes in different times and places – the populus Christianus of the Frankish kingdom was never subjected to a uniform canon of learning.42 Taken together, the two processes of knowledge transfer that become visible via the different kinds of texts just described take us to the world of local Christian culture in its many variations. That it is in most cases impossible to glean anything but the vaguest indications about provenance and time of compilation is inherent to these manuscripts. As we will see in Chapter 2, many manuscripts were not copied out by hands so well-trained that they can be connected to any known scriptorium, while the nature of the contents (much of which is anonymous) makes dating difficult. As a result, the best we can often do is a combination of an indication of geography (for instance ‘Northern France’) combined with an equally imprecise indication of date of composition (for instance ‘first half of the ninth century’). Even though future research will doubtlessly add much to what we now know about these manuscripts, the indications we have already allow us to understand at least some of their dynamics.

5  This book This exploration of priests’ manuscripts as a window on the Carolingian ‘battle against ignorance’ comes in three parts. The first two chapters are intended as a historiographical and theoretical basis for the following five. A new exploration of the moral improvement of the Frankish kingdom is impossible without engaging with the old and complicated discussions about the Carolingian 42 See Carine van Rhijn, ‘Royal politics in small worlds. Local priests and the implementation of Carolingian correctio’, in: Kohl, Patzold and Zeller eds, Kleine Welten, pp. 237–53; the theme of variation will be explored further in part two of this book.

Introduction  19

Renaissance, correctio or reform(s). These three labels cover a series of different interpretations of Carolingian culture and politics, ranging from a revival of Classical culture at Charlemagne’s court to some rather loose understandings of reform as near-equivalent to intentional change. Crucially, throughout the entire discussion (so: for the past two centuries) attention has been squarely on royal agency and the culture of the court, and discussions have taken shape against the background of high-level normative texts combined with the most impressive manuscripts of the age. This tradition of scholarship has generally not encouraged looking further than king, court and capitularies: it is here that the concepts of renaissance, correctio and reform originated, so who-ever wishes to research these phenomena need not look any further. One consequence of this situation is that none of the main elements of this book have ever been studied as integral parts of the larger story of Carolingian culture. The priests’ manuscripts are usually not among the high points of decoration, Latin or intellectual content, while their clerical users still have the reputation of being barely more literate than their lay flocks.43 This creates a strange contradiction: even though high-level normative texts show sustained concern for the salvation of the people through pastoral care and education, this aspect of Carolingian politics, religion and governance has never played any role in the discussion at all. Since pastoral compendia are both products of generally shared concerns for the salvation of the kingdom, and vehicles that transported such ideals to local levels, attention for this material as part of the bigger discussion is long overdue. By examining the debates about Carolingian politics and culture, I hope to find new ways to expand the scope of the discussion and open up a new chapter by emphasising the local dimensions instead of the court, the variety of living knowledge instead of failed uniformisation, the horizontal networks of exchange instead of top-down processes and the agency of the many instead of the dominance of a small but almighty court circle. Once such a wider, different image of Carolingian culture is in place, chapter two will tackle the question of what exactly a priests’ manuscript is. Since knowledge of their existence in significant numbers is of a recent date, the discussion here is different. First of all, evidence is presented of the way in which these compendia belong to the same world of thinking that produced royal admonishments to preach and teach, episcopal instructions or canon law collections. Then, it engages with a model for the interpretation of these books introduced by Susan Keefe, who was the first to recognise the importance of this material

43 This image is, however, changing: see for instance Bastiaan Waagmeester, ‘Pastoral works. Priests, books and compilative practices in the Carolingian period’, unpublished PhD thesis, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, 2021; Steffen Patzold, Presbyter, pp. 305–41; Julia Barrow, The clergy in the medieval world. Secular clerics, their families and careers in north-western Europe, c.800–c.1200 (Cambridge, 2015), ch. 6 and 7; Carine van Rhijn, ‘Manuscripts for local priests and the Carolingian reforms’, in: Patzold and Van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle, pp. 177–98.

20 Introduction

to understand what she called ‘the Carolingian reforms’,44 but who to my mind did not find the best way to work with it. Instead of her rather unwieldy division into ‘schoolbooks’ and ‘instruction readers’, categories with which Keefe herself also struggled,45 I will propose a different way of interpreting these manuscripts. Instead of trying to superimpose a set of newly invented categories, it makes more sense to think of all priests’ manuscripts as somewhere on a sliding scale between very basic, scruffy, small pastoral compendia at one extreme end and much more substantial, complicated and expensive ones at the other. No matter how battered or pristine each manuscript may be, what all these books have in common is that they engage in one way or the other with the ideal of improving morals and religious knowledge. With Chapter 3 we enter the second part of the book, that is concerned with three thematic explorations. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 belong together in that they explore (with a borrowed phrase from Susan Keefe46) three ‘cornerstones of Christian society’. By this I mean the most common, recurrent themes in the priests’ manuscripts, which therefore reflect the most important themes around which pastoral care and education crystallised. Chapter 3 explores baptism, Chapter 4 the Mass and Chapter 5 discusses the subject of penance. In each of these chapters, two sets of questions are central. The first is about the flexibility of such knowledge: can we discover shared ideas about ‘correct ritual’ throughout the material in the pastoral compendia, and is there any indication of the extent and bandwidth of the variations between the rituals described? The second set of questions revolves around knowledge and instruction: what did priests know about the subject, and what did they have to offer their lay subjects? Priestly knowledge will be assessed through expositions and other background information about each respective ritual, mostly material that priests would have to have studied before they could perform a ritual properly. What priests could teach their flocks about these subjects can be approached through other kinds of texts, that are better tailored to the needs of the laity. Whoever wished to be baptised, for instance, needed to learn by heart and understand the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. Many pastoral compendia contain (short) explanations of both prayers, often one directly after the other. Similarly, the most important part of the Mass where it came to instruction of the audience was doubtlessly the sermon, many of which were copied in priests’ books. Penance, too, was an occasion for instruction, and here tracts about sins give us an impression of what the priest would have told sinners ready to save their souls. In Chapter 6, we leave the religious and ecclesiastical themes in a strict sense, and move to less self-evident content found in pastoral compendia. Such material

44 Keefe, Water and the word I, pp. 1–9. 45 Keefe, Water and the word I, pp. 22–3. 46 Susan Keefe, ‘Carolingian baptismal instructions: a handlist of tracts and manuscripts’ in: Uta-Renate Blumenthal ed., Carolingian essays: Andrew W. Mellon lectures in early Christian studies (Washington, DC, 1983), pp. 169–237 at p. 171.

Introduction  21

does not feature in every single one of our codices, but occurs often enough to interpret it as a reflection of what was expected of a pastor by a lay community. Through such material, that was sometimes part of the original compilation, but often added in the form of small texts in margins or empty spaces, we see the shape of the Carolingian priest as an expert in more or less everything that may have been relevant for a local lay community. Some manuscripts, for instance, contain the recipes for medical concoctions against piles or stomach aches, or ways of dealing with coughing sheep and other cattle diseases.47 Others contain para-liturgical texts such as blessings for boiling water or red-hot ploughshares used in judicial ordeals, or collections of prayers that should accompany everyday events in local lay lives, such as planting beans, digging wells, finding a strange object in the field or dealing with undesirable weather. Especially in this last case, we are approaching the subject of Chapter 7, which investigates how the limits of good Christianity were defined through descriptions of potentially dangerous others: pagans, heretics and shady characters such as diviners, astrologers and storm-makers. Perhaps surprisingly, both pagans and heretics only appear as phenomena of the distant past – it was mostly the dubious practices associated with superstition that were actively dangerous, which may even have been mostly a matter of rhetoric on the part of disgruntled bishops. Much of this book is based on my study of manuscripts (mostly as high-­ quality digital versions) so it is to these that I will refer throughout the chapters. The core of this study is based on a thorough, cover-to-cover investigation of more than thirty Carolingian pastoral compendia against the wider background of a larger corpus of similar manuscripts containing similar texts. I have tried to gather examples of codices in the full range between what Keefe has labelled ‘instruction readers’ and her ‘schoolbooks’ with which future priests were probably prepared for their ministry (see Chapter 2), so from small and shabby books to much more substantial, higher quality ones written in the hands of recognisable scriptoria. At present, nobody knows how large the number of surviving pastoral manuals is. Over the past years, about seventy have come to light, but no attempt has been made to find them all, especially since it has proven to be quite impossible to come up with a cast-iron definition of what exactly does and does not count as a priests’ manuscript.48 Instead, I have tried to put together a large sample of manuscripts that I can with some confidence connect to priests, their education and their tasks as teachers and preachers to the laity. Contents are what guided me more than anything else, but it is clear that a manuscript compiled for a priest may have been useful to different kinds of clergy too, and that

47 The best example here is London, British Library Add. 19725. The medical material in the margins has recently been studied by Ria Paroubek-Groenewoud, ‘Transfer of medical knowledge in the early middle ages. Medical texts in the margins of a ninth century non-medical manuscript (London BL Add 19725)’ (unpublished RMA thesis, Utrecht University, 2019). See also Chapter 6. 48 See Chapter 2.

22 Introduction

manuscripts generally had lives much longer (and sometimes more interesting) than their initial owners. An overview of the pastoral manuscripts mentioned in this book, plus their dates, sizes and provenances is given in Appendix 1. For the dates, provenances, codicology and other important data about these manuscripts I have generally relied on Keefe’s work (who herself mostly relies on Bernhard Bischoff ), unless a more recent manuscript description exists or my own findings have yielded something different. When quoting from these manuscripts, I do not cite the text from an edition (in many cases, no edition exists), but instead give a faithful transcription of what the manuscripts say – the only concession I have made to help the reader is to add modern punctuation and capitalisation. In general, orthography has not been emended to classical standards: what we see is ‘living Latin’, which is an important and interesting subject for research in itself, but beyond the scope of this book. Existing editions have, of course, been mentioned in the footnotes as far as they exist, and I have used modern translations when available, but where no translations exist, I have made my own. In cases where passages contain biblical quotations, I have followed the translation of the Douay-Rheims Bible. A final word on some of the terms used. Both ‘culture’ and ‘Carolingian’ are always meant in a broad sense: culture is not only about sophisticated poetry, many-layered biblical exegesis or high points of artistry. Rather than something that only concerns a literate or even intellectual elite, I view culture as the way in which the inhabitants of the Carolingian kingdom thought, believed and acted upon their ideas and convictions. It therefore also concerns the ways in which farmers dealt with excessive rain or expressed their piety by wearing an amulet. ‘Carolingian’, mostly used as an adjective, refers to phenomena observed in the Carolingian kingdoms during the period in which this dynasty ruled over much of Europe. It can refer to shared ideas (‘Carolingian interest in knowledge’), beliefs (‘Carolingian concerns about salvation’), practices (‘Carolingian book-­production’) and the like – it never refers only to kings and courtiers unless specified. Following Jennifer Davis’ cue, I will also be consistent in my use of Carolingian kingdom(s) and king(s), even though, technically speaking, there was an emperor and an empire after the year 800.49 Predictably, I will avoid as much as possible the terms Carolingian ‘reform(s)’, ‘renaissance’ and ‘correctio’ in the way that these terms are generally used by modern scholarship. As I will explain in more detail in the first chapter, these terms are too much burdened by their historiographical voyages to be of much use for the themes covered in this book. The term ‘local’, finally, refers to societies of the size of the small worlds (a term I borrow from Wendy Davies) in which priests and their flocks operated, that is: that of a church and the people who came to it to receive pastoral care and advice.50 49 See Davis, Charlemagne’s practice pp. xv and 361, where she explains how the royal title determined the self-perception of Charlemagne more than the imperial one. 50 Terms such as ‘village’ and ‘parish’ have been avoided since they are generally considered to be anachronisms for the Carolingian period.

PART I

Foundations

1 RENAISSANCE, REFORM OR CORRECTIO? THE CAROLINGIANS AND THE QUEST FOR SALVATION

1  Introduction Carolingian history has traditionally been dominated by attention for its kings, their courts, the high points of their culture and their high-level politics. This has everything to do with historiographical trends, which until the second half of the twentieth century favoured great men and political history over most other subjects. It is also a direct result of the source-base with which scholars of the period often work, and the way in which these sources highlight kings and royal rulership: many of the surviving Carolingian capitularies and conciliar decrees are typically products of royal politics, while history-writing of the eighth and ninth centuries often revolves around everything that happened in connection with the ruler. The idea that more or less every enquiry into Carolingian history starts with these sources is so self-evident that those historians interested in other subjects than kings and high-level politics often use royal capitularies and histories as starting points for their enquiries. Whatever one’s theme of research, in other words, kings, court and prescriptive texts are always in there somewhere, which can create the impression of far-reaching royal agency and self-evident validity of normative texts emanating from the court for more or less every subject. Whoever wants to know how the ecclesiastical infrastructure developed in Charlemagne’s day, for instance, will start with everything that the capitularies and conciliar proceedings have on offer by way of official norms, so that other evidence can then be evaluated against that background. There are two suppositions that all too frequently underlie this approach: first, that king and court ‘managed’ from above all major structures operating within the kingdom (for instance, those concerning justice, organised religion, exploitation of land), and that changes in all of these very different spheres automatically imply courtly agency. The second one, building on the first, supposes that everything DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-3

26 Foundations

that happened in the kingdom and that did not agree with royal norms and prescriptions comes down to failure: either the arm of the court was not long or strong enough, or the political system through which it operated did not work as it should have.1 This focus on high-level normative texts (in practice mostly royal capitularies and conciliar proceedings), combined with the traditional belief that they reflect how things were done in practice can lead to far-reaching conclusions. One good example is that of the alleged court-initiated Romanisation of the liturgy in the Carolingian kingdom, which is based on just a handful of passages in royal capitularies of the late eighth and early ninth centuries. On this very slim basis, theories have been built that made Charlemagne into an active ‘Romaniser’ of the Frankish liturgy, who wished for his kingdom to follow one, uniform, Roman liturgy that should replace all other forms. That there is, in fact, evidence for a colourful and varied liturgical landscape in the Carolingian period has therefore been read as failure: apparently the Franks were too stubborn and their ‘indigenous habits’ too strong for the king to be able to implement his intentions. This idea of active royal Romanisation was dominant until, quite recently, research of liturgical manuscripts has shown Roman threads among many different other ones combined into an intricately patterned liturgical weave, in which there was plenty of space for local variations and innovations.2 This has, in turn, led to a re-evaluation of the royal prescriptions and a de-bunking of the Romanisation-­ thesis.3 Instead of a king ordering Romanisation and the kingdom not following up on that as it should have, we are now starting to see many members of the Carolingian clergy involved in the study, creation and performance of the liturgy, and many initiatives to compile liturgical books and ordines based on a wide 1 See for instance Philippe Depreux, ‘Ambitions et limites des réformes culturelles à l’époque carolingienne’, Revue Historique 304 (2002), pp. 721–53 at p. 750 where he evaluates the disappointing reach of the Carolingian ‘renaissance’. In his view, it only reached a very limited number of people. 2 Helen Gittos, ‘Researching the history of rites’, in: eadem and Sarah Hamilton eds, Understanding medieval liturgy. Essays in interpretation (Farnham, 2016), pp. 13–38; R.N. Swanson ed., Unity and diversity in the church: papers read at the 1994 summer meeting and the 1995 winter meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 32 (Oxford, 1996); Raymond Kottje, ‘Einheit und Vielfalt des kirchlichen Lebens in der Karolingerzeit’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 76 (1965), pp. 323–42; Arthur Westwell, ‘The dissemination and reception of the Ordines Romani in the Carolingian church, c.750–900’, PhD thesis Queens’ College, Cambridge 2017; Arthur Westwell, ‘The Ordines Romani and the Carolingian choreography of a liturgical route to Rome’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam pertinentia 31 (2019), pp. 63–79. 3 For the discussion see: Yitzhak Hen, ‘Liturgische hervormingen onder Pepijn de Korte en Karel de Grote: de illusie van romanisering’, Millennium 15 (2001), pp. 97–113; idem, The patronage of liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the death of Charles the Bald (877) (Londen, 2001) and idem, ‘The Romanisation of the Frankish liturgy: ideal, reality and the rhetoric of reform’, in: Claudia Bolgia, Rosamond McKitterick en John Osborne eds, Rome across time and space: cultural transmissions and the exchange of ideas c.500–1400 (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 111–23; Carine van Rhijn, ‘Zoeken naar zuivere geloofdspraktijken. Romanisering en uniformisering van de liturgie onder Pippijn de Korte en Karel de Grote?’, Millennium 26 (2014), pp. 5–21; Westwell, ‘The dissemination’.

Renaissance, reform or correctio?  27

range of sources (including Roman ones), but not necessarily as a direct and more or less automatic result of instructions from the court. Surely king and court had opinions about matters liturgical, and sometimes this voice was heard loudly, but all the same we should consider this voice as a member of a choir and not even as a soloist per se.4 Royal normative texts and the assumptions that often come with them have, then, been over-emphasised in past historiography, and they continue to be in some of the more traditional fields of research. This issue is all the more relevant since the interpretation of capitularies in all their different shapes and forms has changed substantially over the past couple of decades: where influential scholars such as François Louis Ganshof regarded them as royal law, more recent historians – among whom those who are working on their re-edition5 – have moved away from this notion. What we get to see through these texts, it is now generally believed, can be many different utterances of ‘royal will’, such as royal intentions or pre-occupations, long-term ideals, improvised ad hoc solutions, general advice and all of these are the products of specific moments and circumstances.6 Rather than ‘the capitularies’ as one uniform type of source, we should therefore think of them as a series of individual texts on the basis of which no easy generalisations can be made. What is more, none of the intentions or decisions expressed in capitularies would ever have a chance of becoming reality without the consent and active collaboration of many, including the episcopate. Bishops and other royal advisers no doubt had themselves a strong influence on the contents of these normative texts, which has led historians to re-consider the extent to which we actually hear the ‘voice’ of a king in any of the texts pronounced in his name.7 Rethinking such fundamental building blocks of our understanding of Carolingian history as the royal capitularies has consequences. The emphasis on the sheer variety of functions and intentions behind high-level normative texts, for one thing, dissolves the genre as the traditional touchstone against which

4 As for instance shown by Hen, The patronage. 5 This enormous project is currently running under the direction of Karl Ubl at the University of Cologne, see https://capitularia.uni-koeln.de/en/ (last consulted 20.3.2019). 6 For instance by Christina Pössel, ‘Authors and recipients of Carolingian capitularies, 779–829’, in: Richard Corradini, Rob Meens, Christina Pössel and Philip Shaw eds, Texts and identities in the early middle ages, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 12 (Vienna, 2006), pp. 253–76; Jennifer Davis, Charlemagne’s practice of empire (Cambridge, 2015), esp. pp. 352–59; Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne. The formation of a European identity (Cambridge, 2008), esp. pp. ­214–44. Steffen Patzold has recently argued that it is important to contextualise and interpret each individual capitulary rather than generalise about all of them, “Normen im Buch. Überlegungen zu Geltungsansprüchen so genannte ‘Kapitularien’”, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 41 (2007), pp. 331–50. 7 The exceptions to the rule have been discussed by Janet L. Nelson, ‘The voice of Charlemagne’, in: Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser eds, Belief and culture in the middle ages: studies presented to Henry Mayr-Harting (Oxford, 2001), pp. 77–88.

28 Foundations

‘practice’ can be measured in terms of failure or success. Another important contribution to our image of Charlemagne’s rulership in particular has recently come from Jennifer Davis and Jinty Nelson. They both argue that Charlemagne did not have an over-arching, detailed ‘plan’ or a consistent political programme that went beyond general aspirations and ideals. Instead, he was very good at reacting to the circumstances in which he found himself. At the same time, Davis notes a set of consistent goals in his otherwise often reactive policies – so what we see in his capitularies and other normative texts is a mix of reactions to specific situations and reflections of wider goals (such as the salvation of the people) that could be attained via many different roads.8 One consequence of this idea of a reacting ruler instead of one unfolding a master plan is that the tried and trusted idea that the Carolingian world moved and changed from the top down becomes hard to defend.9 As we have just seen in the example about Romanisation, the king surely had a voice and took initiatives, but he was not alone in making decisions (capitularies were, after all, often produced as a result of deliberations between the ruler and his trusted men), and neither was he the only one who initiated changes. Surely all power exercised in the Carolingian kingdom ultimately devolved from the ruler (who, in turn, got his own royal power from God), but delegated power and responsibility came with substantial individual agency for those designated to do these jobs. This brings us to the subject of this chapter: that of the phenomenon variously labelled as Carolingian renaissance, reform or correctio. One thing all scholars of this much-debated theme have in common, no matter what they choose to call it, is that they invariably interpret it as a phenomenon that worked top-down, was initiated by king or court and was more or less passively ‘received’ by the kingdom as a whole – if it reached the more humble levels of society to begin with. A second common denominator is that it is always conceived of as a coherent and well-thought-out plan or even a programme, hatched at the court by Charlemagne and his advisors. The tacit assumption behind this seems to be much in line with more traditional scholarship, in which change, innovation or experiment observable anywhere in the kingdom was always part of a master plan thought out at the court, which found its expression in prescriptions and normative texts. Since research of the topic began in the early nineteenth century, scholars have noted the energy with which the Carolingians copied books, gathered knowledge, invested their resources in education (Charlemagne is the ‘father

8 Davis, Charlemagne’s practice, pp. 423–7; Janet L. Nelson, King and emperor. A new life of Charlemagne (Oakland, Cal., 2019). 9 Davis introduces the useful term ‘empire of practice’ to describe the way in which Charlemagne’s politics were often not well thought-out programmes, but rather ad-hoc and opportunistic reactions to specific situations. This is a fruitful approach to the policies of other Carolingian rulers too, although there were of course many differences among them. See Davis, Charlemagne’s practice, esp. pp. 429–30.

Renaissance, reform or correctio?  29

of the primary school’ in several European historiographical traditions10) and studied writings old and new. Because of the evident interest in Classical Roman literature this was initially interpreted as a renaissance, a precursor of the Italian Renaissance; later it was recognised that all these attempts were part of a wider religious-political ‘correction’ of society, while the very flexible and most frequently used label is that of reform, likewise understood as a top-down process. It is important to understand how the discussion that led from one frame of interpretation to the next developed, for the labels used and the suppositions behind them still steer our thinking about Carolingian culture and make it difficult to develop alternative ways of looking at the extant sources. In this chapter, I will therefore first sketch out how the discussion about the Carolingian renaissance, correctio and reform has developed since its beginnings. Remarkably, many of the (tacit) suppositions behind the terms have remained in place, even when the terms themselves were replaced by alternatives considered better. It is therefore important, second, to bring them out in the open and evaluate to what extent each of them is tenable in light of current scholarship. The purpose of this exercise is to show the fundamental problems with each of these frames of interpretation. Even though they may be still valuable for the discussion of specific topics if they are defined carefully, they are not very helpful for our interpretation of the Carolingian efforts to bring kingdom and population to eternal salvation in heaven. For our understanding of the Carolingian flurry of activity in the realm of pastoral care in all its many aspects, I think it makes more sense to relegate all three terms to the graveyard of obsolete terminology and start from a different point. Instead of trying to build on the long history of these now rather over-burdened terms, that automatically imply a court-centred perspective, I will try to be a bit more pragmatic and start from the idea that Carolingian kings, bishops and increasingly priests and lay population all shared one purpose (that could take many different forms and shapes), which was obtaining salvation. All these people, in their own ways, exercised agency towards this goal, which was not dependent per definition on the say-so of some higher authority. This is the world of thought, effort and intensive activity where the priests’ books originate. The entire pastoral project was geared towards this end, and it can be analysed through the collections of old and newly written texts gathered in the priests’ books combined with the royal, conciliar and episcopal normative texts related to the project. Thinking about the Carolingian pastoral project in this way is no more than a new chapter in a much older discussion. In order to explain how this approach is different and why it makes sense to use it here, we will first have to delve into the history of the debate itself and understand where established ideas about Carolingian political-religious culture originate, and what the problems with these

10 There is even a popular French song (France Gall et ses petits amis, ‘Sacré Charlemagne’, a no.1 hit in 1964) that prolongs this misconception.

30 Foundations

interpretations are. The history of this debate starts in the nineteenth century with the ‘invention’ of the Carolingian renaissance.

2 Interpreting Carolingian culture: the Carolingian renaissance Few subjects in the history of early medieval Europe have been debated for so long as that of the Carolingian renaissance. The term was first introduced in 1839 by Jean Jacques Ampère, who in this year published a three-volume study of literature produced in France before the twelfth century.11 In his analysis of the work of many authors writing in Latin in early medieval ‘France’, Ampère drew attention to the fact that especially in the time of Charlemagne, learned intellectuals at his court showed a marked interest in the literature of Classical Rome. In Ampère’s view this was nothing short of extraordinary: a barbarian king in a dark age, at whose court the high points of Latin literature were studied and diligently copied for posterity – how could this be anything else than a shortlived but unmistakable rebirth of Classical culture?12 The idea of renaissance, one might say, was in the air at the time. It had been recently (re-)invented by Jules Michelet, who in 1833 introduced it as a scholarly concept to describe the French revival of Classical culture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.13 This idea of a ‘re-birth’ after a period of decline of especially Roman culture was picked up enthusiastically by a wider circle of scholars (Ampère among them), and a whole series of other, mostly medieval, renaissances were discovered as a result. Ampère drew attention to the fact that Carolingian scholars studied literature from Antiquity, but they were by no means the only ones. Similar interests could be observed before and after Charlemagne’s time in a variety of cultural contexts, for instance in that of the Anglo-Saxon Northumbrians and the Visigoths in Spain in the seventh and eighth centuries, in tenth-century Ottonian Germany and in the whole of educated Europe some 200 years later. In due course, the history of Europe thus gathered a whole collection of renaissances – Northumbrian, Visigothic, Ottonian, twelfth-century – by which some kind of rebirth of Classical culture was meant.14 11 Jean Jacques Ampère, Histoire littéraire de la France avant le douzième siècle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1839). 12 Ampère, Histoire littéraire, vol. III, p. 32: ‘… je suis amené à considérer le règne de Charlemagne sous son véritable point de vue, c’est à dire, comme une renaissance’. 13 Jules Michelet, Histoire de la France, VI vols. (Paris, 1833–44). Note, however, that the idea of a re-birth of Antiquity (rinascita, renascimento but not called renaissance) existed in the late Middle Ages, see for instance Theodore E. Mommsen, ‘Petrarch’s conception of the “Dark Ages”‘, Speculum 17 (1942), pp. 226–42. The label ‘renaissance’ did not gain currency until the nineteenth century. 14 A famous early example is Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the twelfth century (Cambridge Mass., 1927); also W. Treadgold ed., Renaissances before the Renaissance. Cultural revivals of Late Antiquity and the middle ages (Stanford, 1984); Alexander Murray, ‘Should the Middle Ages be abolished?’, Essays in Medieval Studies 21 (2004), pp. 1–22 at pp. 10–11. Note how the concept of renaissance has meanwhile gone global: it has also been used to describe cultural phenomena

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Soon after the appearance of Michelet’s important book in 1833, then, the long dark ages that followed upon the decline and fall of the Roman Empire began to acquire some small but significant flares of light. The majority of these (the Carolingian renaissance included) were considered to have been only shortlived, and in none of these cases did the label ‘renaissance’ go unchallenged. The exception is what most people nowadays regard as the only real renaissance: the Italian Renaissance (note the capital R), about which Jacob Burckhardt published his immensely influential study in 1860.15 What we have come to understand by the term Carolingian renaissance nowadays is something quite different from what it meant in its early days some two centuries ago. In Ampère’s view, the Carolingian renaissance was a clearly defined and delimited idea. It was restricted to Charlemagne’s rule, and it focussed on the ‘rebirth’ of one specific aspect of Classical culture: a lively interest in the high points of Roman literary culture by a small, highly learned elite connected to the royal court. Ampère was interested in literature, not in other kinds of artistic expression, which is why his Carolingian renaissance revolved around Classical Latin, the revival of interest in texts from the Roman era and the way in which Carolingian intellectuals tried to imitate this style in their own prose and poetry. Meanwhile, the concept of a rebirth of antique culture in a broader sense than Ampère’s understanding proved to be so appealing to other scholars of the Carolingian period that his Carolingian renaissance in no time started a life of its own. Through the wide reception of the idea, its definition changed considerably, for as it turned out, the study of Classical literature at Charlemagne’s court was no more than one aspect of a much wider phenomenon. Did Carolingian manuscripts not testify to a lively interest in other kinds of texts from Antiquity than just literature, such as those concerning medicine or astronomy, and was Charlemagne’s palace in Aachen not constructed after a Roman imperial example? Applied to new kinds of research about early medieval culture, Ampère’s Carolingian renaissance was inevitably found wanting: it was too narrowly defined and too much focussed on just one aspect of a far richer culture. Scholars of subsequent generations therefore began to stretch the concept, for instance to make space for other people than Charlemagne and his court scholars, and for other types of interest than that in the literature of Latin Antiquity.16 As we will see shortly, the entire concept of renaissance itself proved to be less fitting for the analysis of Carolingian culture than it was initially believed to be.

such as the nineteenth-century Bengali Renaissance, the twentieth-century Tamil Renaissance or the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. See Jack Goody, Renaissances, the one or the many? (Cambridge, 2010). 15 Jacob Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien: ein Versuch (Basel, 1860). 16 See, for instance, Werner Jacobsen, ‘Gab es die karolingische “Renaissance” in der Baukunst?’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 51 (1988), pp. 313–47.

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Since the days of Michelet and Ampère, ideas about a Carolingian rebirth of Classical culture and learning have undergone a complete transformation, and in the process, the term renaissance has mostly gone out of fashion. The culture of the Carolingians is presently neither considered to have been a rebirth, nor is it seen as particularly Classical, even though their interest in all things Roman is widely recognised. The fact that the past 70 years or so have witnessed the introduction of several new terms to replace the term renaissance (and even to replace its replacements) is in itself telling. Below this layer of labelling, however, much more important changes have taken place. Here we come to the more fundamental questions about the interpretation of Carolingian culture. For instance, once it had become clear that the study of Latin literature from Antiquity was no conscious attempt by Charlemagne to resurrect the culture of the Ancients or even of the Roman Empire itself, the use of the idea of rebirth and the term renaissance could be justified no longer. Such new insights led to the introduction of new terms that did better justice to the phenomena they tried to describe, and this process of discussion and re-­ interpretation continues to the present day – including here, in this book. Old habits of using tried and trusted terminology meanwhile die hard, and generally do not die at all. Since Ampère’s introduction of the term Carolingian renaissance, no single term or interpretation ever has been rejected lock, stock and barrel in the sense that it disappeared from the scholarly literature. Quite to the contrary: the number of terms denoting (aspects of ) the unique Carolingian religious-political culture has only grown. We should also note an interesting line in the development of thinking about Carolingian culture and labelling it: throughout the discussion, terms and labels have changed, but old connotations connected to these same, rejected labels have proven to be remarkably resilient, and easily transferred to other labels. For instance, even when the term renaissance was replaced by ‘reform’, the old idea that interest in Classical Latin literature mattered simply became part of the new concept. This is one important reason why discussions about Carolingian culture tend to get confusing, and it at least in part explains why they are far from over. Unfortunately for us, the Carolingians themselves did not have a handy label that we can simply adopt as a shorthand for what exactly they envisaged,17 nor did they write about many aspects of their culture that we would love to know more about. It is therefore important to realise that each of the terms used by scholars to describe Carolingian culture was introduced as shorthand for a theory, that they are therefore not neutral but programmatic, and that such words were never part of the early medieval vocabulary itself in the ways that scholars use them. It is common for researchers to develop concepts and terminology as

17 Percy Ernst Schramm proposed correctio as the best term since it stemmed from the Carolingian period itself, but this claim is hard to defend. See below pp.38–9.

Renaissance, reform or correctio?  33

part of their toolkit to understand the past, and often these terms are useful in the sense that they make analysis, comparison and interpretation easier. In this case, however, the labels and the historical phenomena they claim to describe have considerably grown apart over time. All the labels discussed in this chapter have acquired so many connotations and different uses that they have become imprecise, confusing or both. Especially in the last 30 years or so the three terms, which each describe ideas of intentional change in some way, have slowly become increasingly flexible and vague. The net result is that they nowadays seem to flow into one rather opaque semantic puddle that can be summarised as ‘people changing things (but it is complicated)’. One good example is this: in the practice of current scholarship, any type of intentional change observed in the Carolingian world, be it military, numismatic, religious, intellectual, architectural, legal or otherwise, is often unreflectively labelled correctio or reform, or both,18 which renders both terms more or less meaningless. A term such as reform, after all, only makes sense as a tool for historical analysis when it is possible to distinguish clearly between deliberate, organised attempts to change that were successful (reform) on the one hand, and other kinds of change on the other. Many things changed in the Carolingian period, but not all of these were intentional; by the same token there are examples of initiatives to change things that did not come to much. If we use reform and change as near-synonyms to understand Carolingian culture, in other words, the term gets in the way instead of contributing to historical analysis and interpretation. Under the layer of terms that slowly merged into each other, meanwhile, their interconnectedness has also led to the survival of a series of rather tenacious presuppositions about Carolingian culture that have silently been transferred from one term to the next without ever being questioned. Following this process of transfer will help us understand how new terms (correctio, reform) came into the world, how they were connected to ideas about Carolingian culture considered new and exciting at the time, and what the connotations of these terms therefore were. The other side of the medal, the criticism of each term (but not necessarily all the ideas behind them), will help us understand why and how the debate developed in the course of time. The interpretation of Carolingian culture, it will be clear, is one central to our understanding of the period and is therefore unlikely ever to end. One could even argue that each generation of historians re-interprets it anew, following the interests and needs of the time.

18 For instance Julia M.H. Smith, ‘“Emending evil ways and praising God’s omnipotence”: Einhard and the uses of Roman martyrs’, in: Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton eds, Conversion in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Seeing and believing. Studies in comparative history. Essays from the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (Rochester, 2003), pp. 189–223, esp. pp. 189–90; John Contreni, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance: education and literary culture’, in: Rosamond McKitterick ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History II, ca. 700–ca. 900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 709–55 at p. 712.

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3  After the Carolingian renaissance Already in 1925, when the Austrian historian Erna Patzelt wrote the first full monograph dedicated to the Carolingian renaissance, the term and the ideas behind it were contested, not in the last place by the author of the book herself.19 She noted with some frustration that scholars tended to change the definition of the term renaissance to suit their own needs: … they concede that the term “Renaissance” does not fit in its real sense; therefore, they reshape and torture the concept until it finally fits, or until in the end explanations become necessary to make understandable what they mean by “Carolingian Renaissance”.20 This ‘real sense’ that Patzelt referred to goes back to the work of Jules Michelet, who, as we have seen, introduced the term renaissance in 1833. According to Michelet, a renaissance had two essential elements: first of all, a rebirth of Antique culture; second, a rediscovery of the individual.21 Whereas the second element of his definition has hardly played a role at all in the discussions about an alleged renaissance in Charlemagne’s day (it does, for instance, not make an appearance in Ampère’s work), the revival of Roman culture has done so all the more. What made the idea of renaissance widely popular and well known was Jacob Burckhardt’s Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, which was first published in 1860 and still counts as one of the most important introductions to the subject.22 With this book, the concept of renaissance in the meaning of ‘rebirth of Classical culture’ entered the mainstream of historical research and became generally accepted as a term of historical analysis. Burckhardt’s success, in turn, led to new interest in Ampère’s earlier idea of a renaissance at Charlemagne’s court – and from that point on, the discussion about this earlier renaissance started to develop, for the time being especially (but separately) in France and Germany.23

19 Erna Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kultur des frühen Mittelalters (Vienna, 1923, repr. Graz, 1965), chapter 1: Das Problem, pp. 9–31. 20 Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance, p. 30: Es ist bezeichnend: man erkennt, dass der Ausdruck “Renaissance” im eigentlichen Sinne nicht zutrifft; daher wird der Ausdruck so lange umgeformt oder auch gepresst, bis er endlich passt, oder bis schliesslich geradezu Kommentare notwendig werden, um verständlich zu machen, was unter “Karolingische Renaissance” gemeint sei. 21 Jules Michelet, Histoire de la France, VI vols. (Paris, 1833–44). 22 Burckhardt, Die Cultur. Although the work is still considered to be brilliant, his ideas have not gone uncontested; see for instance Peter Burke, ‘Back to Burckhardt’, The New York Review of Books 11.9.1979. 23 That it took a while for the debate to start in the first place had to do with German mistrust of French conceptual novelties, so that for instance Ampère was initially completely ignored in Germany. See Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance, pp. 12–15.

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By the time that Patzelt published her monograph, 65 years after Burckhardt’s book appeared, the notion of renaissance at Charlemagne’s court had already started to divide the scholarly community to the bone. There were those who – like Ampère – saw a rebirth of Classical culture at the court in Aachen, and those (amongst whom Patzelt herself ) who decidedly did not. The essential difference between these two groups was their interpretation of the Merovingian period that separated Late Antiquity from the age of the Carolingians: those who considered the Merovingian period as ‘centuries of the deepest barbarism, as a sinking back into the darkness of illiterate un-learnedness’24 were, understandably, more susceptible to the idea of a Carolingian renaissance than those with a less pessimistic view of the fifth to the eighth centuries. A re-birth, after all, implied that classical culture had first ‘died’,25 and what scholars such as Erna Patzelt discovered was, quite to the contrary, cultural continuity from the Late Antiquity through the Merovingian into the Carolingian period.26 Whether or not one saw a renaissance of any kind did therefore depend not only on the acceptance or rejection of a definition but also on the wider implications of such a re-birth. What counted was one’s broader understanding of what happened between the fourth and the later eighth century, and the way in which developments in this period were connected to those of Charlemagne’s reign. Interestingly, scholars such as F.A. Specht, who in 1885 published a monograph about medieval schools and education, belonged to those subscribing to cultural continuity and therefore rejected the renaissance idea. Even though such centres of learning, most prominently the famous court school at Aachen, had been the locus of the Carolingian renaissance (after all, it was there that Roman literature was studied, copied and imitated), Charlemagne had not heralded a rebirth according to Specht, but did no more than rescue for posterity whatever could be salvaged from Antiquity.27 A second line in the debate about the Carolingian renaissance can be found in the works of those authors who were less concerned with the idea of cultural death and rebirth as such, but rather concentrated on the question of what exactly was supposed to have been born again. While some focussed on the renewed study and imitation of classical literature and on the improvement of Latin following classical standards, others subscribed to a political take on the question and maintained that Charlemagne tried to revive – more or less single-handedly  – the

24 Paraphrased by Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance, p. 9: ‘Jahrhunderte tiefster Barbarei, als ein Zurücksinken in die Finsternis analphabetischer Unbildung’, after Montesquieu, L’esprit des lois III, c. XXVIII, 11 at p. 102. In fact, Montesquieu is not as negative as Patzelt has it: there is no mention of ‘deep barbarism’, nor of ‘un-learnedness’, but merely of a Frankish reversal to illiteracy: ‘Les Règnes malheureux qui suivirent celui de Charle-Magne … replongèrent les Nations victorieuses dans les ténebres dont elles étoient sorties: on ne sçut plus lire ni écrire.’ 25 This point has recently been eloquently made (again) by Goody, Renaissances, p. 11. 26 Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance, pp. 159–60. 27 Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance, pp. 17–18; F.A Specht, Geschichte des Unterrichtwesens in Deutschland von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1885).

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Roman Empire itself. An important piece of evidence for this line of thinking was his adoption of the imperial title in the year 800.28 Yet others realised as early as the 1920s that the Carolingian court was, in fact, not primarily interested in the pagan classics and their beautiful Latin. Even though these texts were surely studied and copied, closer inspection of the manuscript record itself demonstrated that there was much more interest in the writings of the Late Roman Fathers of the Church than the works of Vergil and Cicero.29 Was the study of the pagan classics then perhaps no more than a sideline of an upsurge of interest in the great authors of early Christianity? Compared to the reception and study of authors such as St Augustine, Gregory the Great or St Jerome, the interest in pre-Christian authors was certainly visible, but Carolingian manuscripts containing the works of the Fathers of the Church vastly outnumber those containing Classical Roman literature.30 These ideas opened up many new questions, for if a conscious revival of Classical Rome at the Carolingian court could not be demonstrated, how then should the interest in Latin texts and education be interpreted? All of this changed, nuanced, or in Patzelt’s words, ‘reshaped and tortured’ the meaning of the Carolingian renaissance. From a relatively early stage, then, the application of the term renaissance to the culture of the Carolingian period was not a comfortable one, mainly because opinions varied about the ‘death’ of Classical culture before it (in whatever way ‘it’ was defined) could be born again. The term renaissance for the later eighth and ninth centuries automatically implied a pessimistic view of the sixth and seventh centuries (‘the Dark Ages’), much in line which the way in which Gibbon had argued that every last trace of Roman culture was eradicated by barbarians.31 This knife, of course, cut on both sides: barbarian destruction and cultural ‘death’ implied a renaissance, whereas cultural continuity excluded the possibility of a real rebirth.32 Over time, the way in which ‘renaissance’ was understood has meandered along with the discussion between the pro- and contra-continuity schools, meanwhile making space for new insights developed during the course of the twentieth century.33 Many of the original connotations of the term have, m ­ eanwhile, 28 For instance Karl Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1894–1909), vol. 1, V, chapter 2, ‘Die Karlingische Renaissance’, pp. 60–82 at p. 65. 29 Patzelt, Die Karolingische Renaissance, pp. 27–8, where she cites Karl Hampe, ‘Karl der Grosse’, in: Erich Marcks ed., Meister der Politik: eine weltgeschichtliche Reihe von Bildnissen, Band I (Stuttgart/Berlin, 1922) who pointed to the cultural centrality of Christianity in Charlemagne’s day. 30 Interesting figures are given by Rosamond McKitterick, ‘The Carolingian renaissance of culture and learning’, in: Story ed., Charlemagne, pp. 151–66 at p. 160, where she shows convincingly how the Carolingians rescued the works of Classical authors. All the same, the number of extant copies of the works of St Augustine, Gregory the Great, St Jerome and other Church Fathers is vast in comparison. 31 Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, 6 vols (London, 1776–1789). 32 Brown, ‘Introduction’, pp. 3–4. 33 A very interesting example is Janet L. Nelson, ‘Revisiting the Carolingian Renaissance’, in: Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz eds, Motions of Late Antiquity. Essays on religion, politics, and

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silently disappeared. For instance, nobody will nowadays maintain that Charlemagne single-handedly intended to resuscitate the smoking ruins of Classical civilisation. Similarly, the idea of the ‘fall of the Roman empire’, with a Dark Age following it, has now been replaced by images of transformation and continuity.34 In this light it is remarkable that some people still use the term ‘Carolingian renaissance’ at all. The best example here is John Contreni, one of the most important historians of Carolingian high-level intellectual culture. Contreni has stuck with the term renaissance, but his ideas about the frame within which one should interpret this renaissance have changed considerably over time and developed in reaction to new discoveries and ideas. When writing about the Carolingians and their efforts in the fields of education and literary culture in 1995 he put it as follows (the italics are mine): These accomplishments give substance to the notion of a renaissance in the modern sense of the word, a rebirth of learning, even if what the Carolingians really wanted to achieve was reform and correction of their society.35 This definition of the term, it will be clear, is still connected with Ampère’s use of it – but only by the thinnest of threads. If we now step back from the discussion for a moment and take stock of the ways in which a Carolingian renaissance (or a lack thereof ) has been conceptualised in general terms since its first definition, a number of shared ideas become visible. First of all, no matter which side of the debate people took, or which specific aspect of rebirth they wished to emphasise, it was always the revival of some elements of Roman culture that they looked for. This may not sound very surprising in a debate about a renaissance, were it not that this idea of Roman elements as the criteria by which Carolingian culture could be judged and measured survived even when the concept of Carolingian renaissance itself was replaced with other images. Second, there is the matter of agency: Charlemagne himself (sometimes with a small background chorus of court scholars) was the all-important figure, often pictured as a lone visionary far ahead of his time. society in honour of Peter Brown. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 20 (Turnhout, 2016), pp. 331–46, where she revisits some of her ideas on the Carolingian renaissance (which she still finds a useful concept) published as ‘On the limits of the Carolingian renaissance’, Studies in Church History 14 (1977), pp. 51–69. 34 One of the most important forces behind this paradigm shift was a big project funded by the European Science Foundation called The transformation of the Roman world (1993–1998), as well as the resulting book series published by Brill (The Transformation of the Roman World, continued as Brill’s Series on the Early Middle Ages). 35 Contreni, ‘The Carolingian renaissance’, pp. 711–12. A similar, more recent example is Doris Haberl, ‘Die Hof bibliothek Karls des Grossen als Kristallisationspunkt der karolingischen Renaissance: Geschichte, Umfeld, Wirkungen’, Perpektive Bibliothek 3.1 (2014), pp. 111–39 esp. at pp. 111–12 explains how she keeps the term renaissance as shorthand ‘von einer Wiederbelebung der Studien im Allgemeinen im Frankenreich’, even though in her opinion Christian correctio describes the phenomenon more adequately.

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Third: connected to this and often implied rather than spelled out we find the idea that it was only a very small intellectual elite who participated in and benefited from the Carolingian renaissance.36 These three elements stem from the time that renaissance was the main concept through which Carolingian culture was discussed, but they stayed important in the debate. All three connotations attached themselves to newer labels, those of reform and correctio, and that is why they are still important today. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that new ways of looking at Carolingian political-religious culture started to be explored. The first real and influential alternative to the concept of the Carolingian renaissance, that therefore merits some special attention here, was presented by Percy Ernst Schramm. In an article that appeared in 1964, Schramm made a strong case for rejecting outright Burckhardt’s renaissance idea applied to the culture of Charlemagne’s time, and instead proposed the term correctio.37 According to Schramm, the notion of re-birth did not fit Carolingian political-religious culture at all: he detected nothing in the age of Charlemagne that even remotely resembled a birth of any kind. However, Schramm did not reject the entire narrative connected to the notion of renaissance in his attempts to introduce a new conceptual frame. The idea of Charlemagne’s central agency remained firmly in place, and perhaps became even stronger than before. Schramm thought that the intellectual, literary, poetic, artistic and other cultural activities of this time were the result of the ceaseless initiatives and boundless energy of this one, extraordinary man. The king looms larger than life in this interpretation: it was his doing that artists of various plumage and ethnic backgrounds flocked to the court, and it was Charlemagne who heralded a new chapter in the intellectual and artistic history of Europe.38 This image of Charlemagne as the key actor is something that Schramm shared with his renaissance-minded predecessors, but otherwise much was new and refreshing in his ideas. A wholly different king appears under Schramm’s hands: rather than a romantic ruler longing for the past greatness of Rome, we meet a pragmatic and thoroughly Christian Charlemagne. This ruler was forward-­ looking rather than backward-looking and pursued something completely different than the revival of Rome, namely religious truth and correct knowledge. His interest in Roman texts and manuscripts had less to do with an appreciation of Latin literature than with his concerns with the present. In Schramm’s view,

36 But see G.W. Trompf, ‘The concept of the Carolingian Renaissance’, Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (1973), pp. 3–36, in which he defends the concept but not in the shape of a ‘teaparty affair between a few scholars’ (p. 9). Genuine ‘Christian humanists’ were involved (p. 11). 37 Schramm, ‘Karl der Grosse’, p. 339: ‘Sollen wir für sie (i.e. the cultural efforts of the time) weiter den Namen “Renaissance” ausleihen, der ja seit Jacob Burckhardt einen festen, auch zeitlich eingegrenzten Begriffsinhalt hat? Wir sagen: Nein!’ 38 Schramm, ‘Karl der Grosse’, pp. 341: ‘Karl war es, der bewirkte, dass … ein neues Kapitel in der Kunst- und Geistesgeschichte begann.’

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it was in the works of the late antique Church Fathers that Charlemagne sought trustworthy religious knowledge and flawless Christian doctrine.39 At least as important, but often overlooked, is a new idea launched by Schramm about the purpose that Charlemagne had with all his activities to find trustworthy religious knowledge. After carefully reading Charlemagne’s capitularies and a few related, mostly normative, texts, Schramm could only conclude that the king did not just pursue his goals for his own benefit: he intended his entire realm to profit. It is only in what reads like an off-the-cuff remark that we encounter this important new element, and unfortunately Schramm does not explain it any further. Nevertheless, here we see how his interpretation departed fundamentally from the older ideas about Carolingian culture.40 It is difficult to underestimate the importance for later stages of the discussion the idea that to the Carolingians, correct religious knowledge concerned and benefited everybody. Also in the interpretation of Carolingian political religious culture that I will introduce in the last section of this chapter, this idea plays an important role, and it is an essential ingredient to explain the emergence of priests’ manuscripts and the Carolingian pastoral project in general. Schramm wrote down his partly old-fashioned, partly highly innovative interpretation of Carolingian culture in just four pages of a much longer article, and did not waste his breath on footnotes and careful analysis of primary sources. This is how an innovative interpretation of Carolingian culture came into the world, even though Schramm cut it down to Charlemagne’s reign only: instead of a revival of Roman literature he introduced a search for true and correct religious knowledge against which old, corrupted knowledge could be emended, and instead of a momentous rebirth he showed an energetic and visionary Christian emperor pursuing such knowledge for the greater good of all. There was, however, a proviso: for subjects political, so those concerning the conscious emulation of Antiquity in the political arena (for instance Charlemagne’s adoption of the imperial title in the year 800), Schramm thought that the term renaissance was still useful. For everything cultural (which in his view covered the full range of literature, the visual arts, religion, architecture and scholarship) he thought that the word renaissance should be dropped completely.41 Schramm’s new interpretation needed a new term. What he proposed as a better label than renaissance to describe Charlemagne’s cultural initiatives and the ideas on which they were based was correctio. He proposed the term since it was both used in the period itself and to his mind reflected Charlemagne’s intentions best. Among the many verbs used in Charlemagne’s capitularies to describe the intention to improve the realm through the amelioration of the morals and

39 Note how before Schramm, Heinrich Fichtenau made a similar point in the original German version of his book of 1948. Fichtenau, The Carolingian empire, transl. Peter Munz (Oxford, 1968), p. 90. 40 Schramm, ‘Karl der Grosse’, pp. 340–1. 41 Schramm, ‘Karl der Grosse’, p. 341.

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religion of all its inhabitants, Schramm thought the verb corrigere best reproduced what the king wished to achieve. For practical purposes he turned this into the noun correctio, which was, in fact, a word hardly used at all in the texts he studied, but to his mind it had the right ring. Schramm wanted it to sound active, fitting for an energetic ruler. Correctio looked ahead to a future (for correction is a process that is meant to lead to improvement at some later point in time), and not so much to the past, as did for instance verbs beginning with re- such as restituere (to re-instate), revocare (to re-call) or reformare (to re-form). In short, correctio described, as he put it ‘the planned re-establishment of that what was true and right’.42 Through correctio, then, Charlemagne envisaged a better future for the entire realm by using true religious knowledge from the past to correct that of the present. It is important to underline here that the term correctio in this sense was Schramm’s own invention. The Carolingians themselves did not use correctio in the way that he introduced it to the historical debate, that is: as a term that described the process of improvement of everything deemed ‘incorrect’, where possible with the help of (rediscovered) writings of the Fathers of the Church. To Carolingian authors (and those before them), correctio with few exceptions applied not to groups, but to individual Christians, who should each, individually, continuously try to correct themselves in the image of Christ.43 The term also has connotations of punishment (criminals should be ‘corrected’), and of penance. Schramm’s correctio was primarily religious and cultural, and (again other than his renaissance-minded predecessors) he thought it lived on after Charlemagne’s death during the reigns of his son Louis the Pious and his grandson Charles the Bald. The purpose of Charlemagne’s correctio was to set straight all that had become corrupted, misunderstood or forgotten since the days of the early church: beliefs, morals, standards for good behaviour, knowledge. The benchmark of this correctness could be found in Scripture itself and in the works of the Churchfathers. The king’s purpose, in Schramm’s view, was rooted solidly in his own present and could be summarised as a top-down, Christian educational upgrade (Bildungsreform) for the greater good of the whole empire.44 Schramm’s ideas were received mostly favourably, for instance by FrançoisLouis Ganshof and later by Peter Brown,45 but a little more than a decade after he 42 Schramm, ‘Karl der Grosse’, p. 341: ‘die planmäβigen Wiederherstelling des ‘Wahren’ und ‘Richtigen’’. 43 Much in line with the findings of Gerhard Ladner, The idea of reform: its impact on Christian thought and action in the age of the Fathers (Cambridge, MA, 1959), who unfortunately never took his research up to the Carolingian age. An exception is the oeuvre of Hincmar of Rheims, later in the ninth century, who seems to have re-defined the term for his very own purposes. Important thoughts on the matter: Kristina Mitalaité, ‘Reformatio and correctio in Carolingian theology: reformation or aggiornamento?’, in: Ingrid Rembold, Arthur Westwell, Carine van Rhijn eds, Rethinking the Carolingian reforms (Manchester, forthcoming 2022). 44 Schramm, ‘Karl der Grosse’, p. 342. 45 At least, according to Schramm himself. See Janos Bak, ‘Medieval symbology of the state: Percy E. Schramm’s contribution’, Viator 4 (1973), pp. 33–65 at p. 38 n. 17; Peter Brown, The rise of

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introduced it, the fresh concept of correctio got company from another term that soon became more important: reform. Rosamond McKitterick was, in 1977, the first to write a full monograph about the Carolingian reforms.46 Her choice of terminology was no reaction to the renaissance debate or to Schramm’s correctio, but came from another direction entirely. Since she was interested primarily in the history of the Frankish church, intertwined as it was with Frankish politics, it made sense to borrow this term from church historians, for whom it had been standard vocabulary since the Reformation.47 Scholars had used ‘reform’ in writings about the Carolingian church since the 1920s, and some had even used it to describe Charlemagne’s attempts to improve education, but after McKitterick’s book, the term reform became the new standard, even though renaissance and correctio stayed in use.48 McKitterick’s adoption of this term was most of all pragmatic: she needed a label to cover a wide range of court-led initiatives and innovations, not only those that covered the Church in a strict sense of the word. What interested her was not just religion and culture (reborn or otherwise), but in the end more or less everything that was touched by Carolingian high-level politics, for in her vision Church and state were closely entangled.49 In contrast to her predecessors, she did not view Charlemagne as a lone and energetic genius, but rather as what one may describe as the talented ‘chief executive officer’ of a large network of lay and ecclesiastical ‘managers’. She and many scholars after her were interested in Carolingian rulership and in decision-making at the highest levels, where kings and their lay and clerical leading men collaborated to turn the Franks and the peoples they conquered into a Christian society, and in the primary sources (notably capitularies and other high-level normative texts) that hold the key to our understanding of these processes.50 One of the central and highly influential ideas of McKitterick’s book is that politics, religion and culture cannot be separated from each other in the early Middle Ages: the political health and future of the realm was believed to be

46

47

48

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western Christendom, triumph and diversity, ca.200–1000 (2nd edition, Malden, 2013), p. 439. A more critical note can be found in Gerhard Ladner, ‘Gregory the Great and Gregory VII: a comparison of their concepts of renewal’, Viator 4 (1973), pp. 1–31 at p. 25 n. 109 where he states that notions of renascence and reform stayed important in the time of the Carolingians. Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish church and the Carolingian reforms, 789–895 (London, 1977), which was a ground-breaking study in various ways. It is interesting that an early reviewer of the book, Thomas F.X. Noble, summarizes it as an explanation not of what the Carolingian renaissance was, but how it worked: Speculum 53 (1978), p. 830. On the history of the term see Julia Barrow, ‘Ideas and applications of reform’, in: Thomas F.X. Noble and Julia M.H. Smith eds, The Cambridge history of Christianity. Early medieval Christianities, c.600–c.1100 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 345–62, esp. pp. 346–8. For instance Josef Fleckenstein, ‘Bemerkungen zu den Bildungserlassen Karls des Grossen und zum Verhältnis von Reform und Renaissance’, Società, istituzioni, spiritualità: Studi in onore di Cinzio Violante (Spoleto, 1994), vol. I, pp. 345–60. McKitterick, The Frankish church, pp. xvi–xvii. McKitterick, The Frankish church, pp. xx–xxi.

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directly dependent on God’s favour, and knowledge (including that inherited from antiquity) was crucial to understand how to gain and keep His support. Charlemagne’s (or any other early medieval king’s) rule, then, should not be compartmentalised – as Schramm had suggested – into a cultural-religious part (correctio) and a political one (with or without renaissance-elements). As is abundantly clear in the normative texts of the day, so McKitterick shows, religious questions were political, just like politics were concerned with questions of religion. The term reform in her work functions as shorthand for those processes of (political) decision-making that Carolingian rulers and their clerical and lay elites envisaged as steps towards a better world, including those in the realms of religion and education.51 This book, understandably, was a game-changer in the discussion and in the wider understanding of Carolingian culture. Reform has since become widely used as the term to describe mostly top-down political, cultural and religious change in the Carolingian period. However, it never fully replaced the older terms, and this is where things start to get fuzzy. Writing in 2002, Susan Keefe, for instance, described the Carolingian reforms (in the plural) as ‘a program, educational in nature and religious in content, aimed at the thorough Christianization of all of society’.52 The term reform shows how she viewed her subject of study: a well-planned operation thought out at the court, and implemented top-down through the whole empire: ‘The word “Reform” has been preferred in this study because it expresses the perception of the Carolingians themselves in what they were about. […] The essence of the Reform was the Christianization of society through education’.53 A good decade later, however, Doris Haberl described ‘the revival of learning in the Frankish realm’ as a renaissance (while conceding that correctio was a better term still): to her mind, the aspect of revival, of returning to the perceived origins of Christian knowledge was central.54 The reader will be pardoned for thinking that these are two terms for two aspects of the same phenomenon, but there is more to this story. Apart from the mingling of terminology, the different definitions used and the way in which our understanding of all three terms have started to overlap, there are two more problems that require our attention. The first is that, in the course of the past decades, the term ‘reform’ as used by historians has been subject to steady inflation. The main symptom of this development is that scholarly use and understanding of the term has become increasingly flexible, witness the ever-growing number of reforms we now encounter in the literature: not only did the eighth and ninth centuries witness the tried and trusted educational,

51 McKitterick, The Frankish church, p. xvii, and elaborated further in Rosamond McKitterick, ‘The Carolingian renaissance of culture and learning’, in: Story, Charlemagne, pp. 151–66. 52 Susan A. Keefe, Water and the word. Baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire, 2 vols (Notre Dame, 2002), vol. I, pp. 1–2. 53 Keefe, Water and the word I, p. 2. In Keefe’s opinion it was Christianisation, not political unity through religion that was the core of the matter. 54 See Haberl, ‘Die Hof bibliothek’.

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ecclesiastical and religious reforms, there is also evidence for, to mention some examples, military, numismatic and economic reforms, as well as reforms in land-management, writing (the advent of the Carolingian minuscule) and of the calendar.55 It brings to mind what happened when the term renaissance took hold and renaissances were discovered everywhere: reform has become the next fashionable catch-word. However, the net result of this process is that reform has become indistinguishable from change. In many cases there is an implicit or explicit connotation of decisions taken at high levels and their top-down implementation (as in matters military or numismatic), but by no means always. In John Howe’s recent study of pre-Gregorian reform, for instance, the term ‘reform’ is stretched so far that it can mean everything between the (top-down, court-led) revitalisation of ecclesiastical discipline in general, to the refurbishment of parts of the interior of a single church.56 The case of the term reform is more complicated than this, however. Julia Barrow in 2008 published a thorough analysis of the history of the term, tracing carefully how it has come to have the meaning that it now has. As it turns out, the term reform (reformatio, reformare) used to describe changes implemented top-down in the realms of religion and church history, for instance in the organisation of the church as an institution, post-dates the Carolingian period by centuries. In other words: using the term ‘Carolingian reform’ for all kinds of collective or institutional reform, as scholars have now been doing for some decades, is anachronistic by definition.57 Like correctio, the Carolingians did not (or only in very rare cases) use reformare or any of its derivatives for anything but the individual: much in line with what Gerhard Ladner has written about the idea of reform in Late Antiquity, the Carolingians applied it first and foremost to individual Christians, who were perpetually striving to improve themselves in the image of Christ.58 There is a clear parallel with the use and understanding of

55 To mention a few examples only: writing: Anne Schmid, ‘Schriftreform - die karolingische Minuskel’, in: Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff eds, 799. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn, vol. III (Mainz, 1999), pp. 681–91; the calendar: Arno Borst, Die karolingische Kalenderreform, MGH Schriften 46 (Hanover, 1998); Immo Warntjes, ‘The final countdown and the reform of the liturgical calendar in the early middle ages’, in: Matthew Gabriele and James T. Palmer eds, Apocalypse and reform from late antiquity to the middle ages (Abingdon, 2019), pp. 51–76; coinage: Ildar H. Garipzanov, ‘Regensburg, Wandalgarius and the novi denarii: Charlemagne’s monetary reform revisited’, Early Medieval Europe 24 (2016), pp. 58–73. 56 John Howe, Before the Gregorian reform: the Latin Church at the turn of the first millennium (London, 2016), pp. 8–9. 57 Barrow, ‘Ideas and applications’, p. 348. 58 Ladner, The idea of reform. For the lasting effects of his ideas see Christopher M. Bellitto and David Zachariah Flanagin eds, Reassessing reform. A historical investigation into church renewal (Washington, 2012), especially the editors’ ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–16 at p. 4: A primary insight resulting from Ladner’s research is that for most of Christianity’s first millennium, the idea of reform was almost exclusively personal and, indeed, theological and even spiritual at its very core: Christians seek to restore within themselves the imago Dei […].

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the term correctio in the Carolingian period, that was, as we have just seen, also reserved for the punishment or self-improvement of individuals. Bishops and priests, in their role of pastors, should, likewise, ‘correct’ sinners, and thereby aid individuals in their personal ‘reformation’. In common modern usage, however, the term is infused with (positive) ideas that go back to the time of the Reformation. In that context, reform came to mean positive progress against the bad practices of the (Roman Catholic) past and the shaking off of (medieval) ignorance. This optimistic, early modern sense of reform has stuck and has become integrated in our everyday understanding and usage of the word. By replacing the inferior, old system (that was, for instance, unjust or inefficient) by the superior new one, society moved forward.59 This was, as will be clear by now, not at all what Carolingian kings and bishops were thinking when they outlined how the Christian Franks should be led to salvation. Just like the two other terms, then, reform as it is used in scholarly descriptions of the Carolingian world is never neutral (in the end, no term ever is), and neither does it represent the ideas and aspirations of the time. Even in its most diluted form, that has come very close to notions of intentional change, it is a claim historians make about the Carolingians and the success of their intentions. To be more precise: any reform in the modern sense of the word is by definition a construction in retrospect – an intention to change something that never comes to any observable effect will not be labelled ‘reform’ (but maybe ‘failed attempt at reform’). For instance, when a king announces the introduction of a new type of coin, it is not an automatic given that his ideas will actually become reality, nor does it imply when this introduction will happen, nor if the new coin will eventually replace old currency – et cetera. A historian writing about ‘reform of coinage’ only on the basis of a royal capitulary, then, is making a claim that this proposal to change the use of certain kinds of coins was a success, and that things actually changed as a result of a king issuing this capitulary with the support of his leading men. It is surely defensible to use the term ‘reform’ for this example, even though doing so may be anachronistic, when we clearly explain what is meant by reform: a well-defined plan to change, implemented from the top down, with visible results. In this case, for instance, it can be pointed out that there is a clear before and after to it, plus the active agency of members of the political apparatus that implemented changes. The historian who describes the process may label it ‘reform’ to underline the process of change itself, the royal agency, and the outcome, and by using the term claims that the royal initiative had real-life effects and was a success.

59 See for a good example the Wikipedia-explanation of the American Tax Reform Act of 1986, that claims simplification, the elimination of tax havens, and the movement of a substantial part of the tax burden from individuals to corporations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Reform_Act_of_1986 The full 882 pages of the act can be found here: https://www.scribd.com/ document/62544151/PL-99-514-Tax-Reform-Act-of-1986.

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For processes such as Carolingian ‘religious reform’ or ‘church reform’, the term is more problematic, for, quite apart from its inherent anachronism, it forces us to ask: what exactly is ‘religious reform’ (what is the before, the after, the process itself?), and how do we prove the agency, causality and outcome that is implied in the term? As we have observed for all three terms now, they belong first and foremost to the rhetoric used by historians and cannot be understood as neutral descriptors. And while I do not reject the use of any term at all, I hope to have shown how important it is to define them as precisely as possible for the specific case described, and to beware of the rhetorical side to such labelling. For this book, however, I have avoided all three terms and have used a different frame, as will be explained shortly. This short overview in which the three most important terms have been discussed shows how in the course of time different ‘lenses’ were introduced through which the Carolingian world and its culture, religion and politics were observed and interpreted. ‘Renaissance’ opened up perspectives on the Carolingians’ interest in Roman culture, while correctio emphasised their pre-occupations with pleasing a stern God. ‘Reform’, in turn, focussed on the ruling elites and their active dealings with the entire complex of culture, religion and politics. It will be clear that all three terms have their problems, not least because they do not correspond to Carolingian ways of thinking, and because all three of them have become increasingly blurred at the edges. They also have important elements in common, such as their focus on the central role and agency of kings and political elites, their assumptions about the important role of Roman inheritance, their connotation of top-down implementation and finally the way that in the end they leave out of the picture the vast majority of the kingdom’s population. These elements emphasise the interests and claims of historians rather than those of Carolingian bishops and rulers. The question that now remains for the purposes of this book is the following: if none of the three terms adequately reflects the shared ideas and initiatives that led to the new and renewed interest in well-educated pastors, and well-pastored flocks, then how can we do better? Where do we start? As we have seen, the production of Carolingian manuscripts filled with texts for the use of priests cannot be sensibly separated from the will to improve the moral standards of the kingdom, in the same way that the correction of corrupted Latin was considered an important step towards the salvation of all. Can we, therefore, separate any kind of clearly delineated reform or correctio from the wider context of the way in which those with responsibilities simply did things in the time of the Carolingians? Is the determining factor not the set of ideas and ideals they shared, and the fact that they – rulers, bishops and certainly also large numbers of now anonymous people – acted upon them? The next section will propose a context for the emergence of the manuscripts for Carolingian priests that to my mind does better justice to Carolingian culture than the concepts just described.

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4 Education for salvation: the Carolingian project reconsidered No model of renaissance, correctio or reform has thus far helped to explain sufficiently why and how, in the decades around the year 800, Carolingian Europe witnessed a series of rapid changes in its religious and religious-political culture. None of these frames of interpretation, moreover, has adequate space in its definition to accommodate all these interlinked innovations and changes, or for their impact on the different social segments of the Carolingian world. Nor does the focus on kings, their capitularies and top-down processes of implementation provide a satisfactory basis to understand the explosion of texts and manuscripts that is nowadays the most visible sign of all these developments. Any interpretation of the highly dynamic religious-political culture in its many textual expressions will therefore need to start from a broader perspective, and ask questions about the roots of the ideas that propelled them forward. My scope here is of course limited to just one aspect of Carolingian culture, but hopefully the approach laid out below will also prove fruitful to other parts of the much bigger story. The central question concerns the appearance and subsequent success of priests’ manuscripts that were intended to improve pastoral care against the background of the ideals shared by those in positions of responsibility. Instead of trying to contribute to the discussion by inventing yet more terms or concepts, I will explore the emergence of pastoral compendia from a different starting point, that is: a set of ideas about pastoral duties widely shared by Carolingian kings, bishops and – increasingly – priests and local lay communities themselves. This means that no term will be used to describe this phenomenon: it is considered to be so central to Carolingian politics, religion and culture that it cannot be usefully considered as a clearly identifiable, separate sphere. Ideas about pastoral responsibilities and pastors’ duties towards believers had been around for centuries by the time Pippin the Short became king, but they came to be used in new ways in the time of the new Carolingian dynasty. For the first time, not only bishops and priests but also kings themselves came to be regarded as pastors, which brought new responsibilities and new emphases to the way in which they ruled. Moreover, in this period we witness for the first time expressions of concern from the bottom up, when lay communities felt they did not receive adequate pastoral care and worried about the consequences for their souls.60 The pivotal concept around which all these ideas revolved is that

60 An eloquent example is the case of Trising, who left his community to travel to Rome – after a year, Hincmar of Rheims notes, his flock started to complain that they did not have a pastor. See Hincmar of Rheims, ‘Ad Adrianam papam’, PL 126, cols 641–48. On this famous case see Mayke de Jong, ‘Hincmar, priests and pseudo-Isidore: the case of Trising in context’, in: Rachel Stone and Charles West eds, Hincmar of Rheims. Life and work (Manchester, 2015), pp. 268–83, with a translation of Hincmar’s letter on pp. 281–3; Charles Mériaux, “‘Boni agricolae in agro Domini’. Prêtres et société à l’epoque caroingienne (VIIIe-Xe siècle)”, volume II (Unpublished dossier de habilitation, Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille III, 2014), pp. 81–7; Charles

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of salvation, and, more specifically, the ways in which kings, bishops and priests came to hold themselves and each other responsible for the salvation of all. Numerous scholars have already remarked on the fact that to Carolingian kings, the salvation of their kingdom and its inhabitants was central to their rule. All their Christian subjects should be led to eternal life in heaven after death so that the kingdom would continue to exist into all eternity. The ecclesiastical hierarchy of both regular and secular clergy was the taskforce entrusted with two crucial responsibilities in this context: regular clergy sent an incessant stream of prayer to heaven, while secular clergy took care of lay souls and instructed them by word and example. The salvation and continuation of the kingdom, in this vision, required the dedication of every last one of its inhabitants. The eyes of God did not just rest on members of the elite but also on those men and women who plowed fields and herded swine. In the Carolingian conception of salvation, every single Christian, who had after all promised to serve their Lord God when they were baptised, should do their utmost to live according to His will. In the Carolingian period, a lot of thought was dedicated to parsing what this meant. What exactly was considered to be the lifestyle of good Christians came to cover every last aspect of daily existence. Salvation for all and continuing divine favour would, therefore, be the ultimate result of collective success; reversely, as people had known for centuries, outbreaks of diseases in humans and cattle, inundations or failed harvests were signs of collective failure to please God, and this needed to be remedied, or better, prevented altogether. The outlines of all of these ideas were already in place long before the Carolingians ascended to the Frankish throne; most of it can be found in the works of the Fathers of the Church. What was new is their specific way of interpreting these ideas, the consequences they drew from them and, in the end, the way in which pastoral care and religious knowledge as the way to collective salvation became a central theme. From their first ascent to the throne in the middle of the eighth century, Carolingian kings started to do things differently than their Merovingian predecessors. The outlines of this story have been told often before and better than I can do here: it features Boniface who started to rebuild the ecclesiastical infrastructure and helped resurrect the lapsed institution of the church council; it emphasises the special bond that the Carolingian kings had with the pope in Rome; it draws attention to the new ways in which kingship was defined as actively supported by God (at least, as long as He was pleased). Much of what kings and bishops undertook as new initiatives to contribute to collective salvation built upon ideas long established. Works by Church Fathers such as Gregory the Great and St Augustine, as well as conciliar decisions from the days of the early days of the church, were studied with great interest. These texts held valuable explanations of venerable traditions, as well as norms useful

West, Reframing the feudal revolution. Political and social transformation between Marne and Moselle, c.800–c.1100 (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 38–9.

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and relevant for the present. It is such texts that one consulted with questions about the way in which the ecclesiastical hierarchy should work, for instance, or about what each ecclesiastical grade should do exactly and how, or what, in broad lines, could and should be expected from lay people who wished to be worthy to be considered Christians. Small wonder that the Carolingian period with its new ideas about Christian kingship witnessed an intense interest in canon law: old collections were copied and dozens of new ones assembled out of both old and new material. All these activities, traditionally interpreted as part of a renaissance, reform or correctio, then, were streams flowing into the same great river: the quest for collective salvation. It is well known that Charlemagne likened himself at least on one occasion – and with all due modesty – to the Old Testament king Josiah who concerned himself with the improvement of his subjects, leading his people back to ‘the cult of the true God’. Similar ambitions drove him to have the chapters of the Admonitio Generalis put together, in order that the Almighty would remunerate all with eternal felicity in heaven.61 Already in the early years of his father Pippin the Short’s reign, this first Carolingian king had pronounced himself in the same way about the need to improve all that needed improvement. There was one important difference: Pippin stopped short of linking the efforts to set right ‘all that is very contrary to the church of God’ to the salvation of his subjects and the survival of his kingdom. Starting with Charlemagne, however, the idea took root that such improvement of all that was found lacking had the higher purpose of salvation, and this henceforth became a standard component of the royal ministerium. The duty of sacerdotes, the collective term used for bishops and priests, to correct and emend the lives and behaviour of the members of their flocks in order to lead them to salvation was by no means new either in the eighth century, it had been central to episcopal and priestly self-definition since the sixth century at least.62 This is, for instance, how it appears in Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, or in Isidore of Seville’s De officiis ecclesiasticis.63 Taking care of souls, one 61 Admonitio Generalis, introduction: Nam legimus in regnorum libris, quomodo sanctus Iosias regnum sibi a Deo datum circumeundo, corrigendo, ammonendo ad cultum veri Dei studuit revocare: non ut me eius sanctitate aequiparabilem faciam, sed quod nobis sunt ubique sanctorum semper exempla sequenda, et, quoscumque poterimus, ad studium bonae vitae in laudem et in gloriam domini nostri Iesu Christi congregare necesse est. Quapropter, ut praediximus, aliqua capitula notare iussimus, ut simul haec eadem vos ammonere studeatis, et quaecumque vobis alia necessaria esse scitis, ut et de ista et illa aequali intentione praedicetis. Nec aliquid, quod vestrae sanctitati populo Dei utile videatur, omittite ut pio studio non ammoneatis, quatenus ut et vestra sollertia et subiectorum oboedientia aeterna felicitate ab omnipotente Deo remuneretur. 62 Thomas Martin Buck, Admonitio und Praedicatio. Zur religiös-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507–814) (Frankfurt am Main, 1997). 63 On the reception of Gregory’s Regula pastoralis and the way in which important thinkers such as St Boniface and Alcuin of York had incorporated its messages see Silke Floryszczak, Die Regula

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may say, was the whole point of having priests in the first place. That this idea had also become part of early medieval thought outside the episcopate as early as the sixth century can be clearly detected in, to mention just one example, a Merovingian edict from the late sixth century. In this text, King Guntramn reminded his bishops to ‘correct’ and ‘govern with pastoral zeal’ the people entrusted to their care – this was their task, the king did no more than mention it, and did not in any way claim this responsibility for himself. The clear difference with the parallel that Charlemagne drew between himself and King Josiah, a little over two centuries later, is that there it was the king himself who was doing the ­correcting.64 In other words, before the first Carolingian king ascended to the throne, the correction and emendation of erring individual Christians was the duty of bishops and priests – kings occasionally reminded them of these duties, but did not claim them as their own. What was new from the early days of the Carolingians onwards, then, is that such pastoral ideology was pulled into the royal orbit and became written into the kings’ job description: as we have seen, in his Admonitio Generalis Charlemagne did not only remind the bishops and priests of his kingdom of their pastoral duties, but presented this as his own, royal duty too. This redefinition of Christian kingship and politics, closely connected with the special relationship that the Carolingians had with the pope in Rome, is, I think, why pastoral care and the dissemination of religious knowledge became a central part of Carolingian culture – and it is here that we see the root cause of the energetic efforts in the field of pastoral care. Ideas about pastoral care and salvation were already in place in episcopal and priestly circles; once these ideas had become central to royal self-definition, the brakes were off. Most striking for the time of Pippin the Short and especially of his son Charlemagne is the scale and intensity with which the goals to improve the church and its believers were pursued, and by how many people. In this world of ‘more and better’, all kinds of new ideas and innovations saw the light, and increasing numbers of people invested their resources and efforts into the ideals they shared.65 This is one point worth underlining once more: the court played an important role in the formulation and implementation of norms and ideals (‘the stone in the pond’), but they were far from alone. In fact, kings were new to the pastoral scene, which opened fresh possibilities for the bishops in their role of royal advisers. From the point that kings started to consider it their duty to manage the salvation of the kingdom and everybody in it, it was a small step for an Pastoralis Gregors des Groβen. Studien zu Text, Bedeutung und Rezeption in der Karolingerzeit (Tübingen, 2005), esp. part II, chapter 2. 64 ‘Guntchramni regis edictum’, MGH Cap. I no. 5. (10.11.585), p. 11, in which the king asks the bishops to take their pastoral duties seriously: ‘Ad vos ergo, sacrosancti pontifices, quibus divina clementia potestatis paternae concessit officium, imprimis nostrae serenitatis sermo dirigitur, sperantes quod ita populum vobis providentia divina comissum frequenti praedicatione studeatis corrigere et pastorali studio gubernare ….’. 65 For the earlier phase: Michael Glatthaar, ‘Boniface and the reform councils’, in: Michel Aaij and Shannon N. Godlove eds, A companion to Boniface, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 92 (Leiden, 2020), pp. 219–46.

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ever-­g rowing list of pastoral concerns to enter both episcopal and royal agendas. God-given kingship, a revitalised episcopate, a period of relative internal peace and the availability of considerable resources were in all probability the main ingredients for the revolutionising of the Carolingian pastoral infrastructure, for the increase of the priesthood’s quality, and of the purpose of spreading increasing amounts of religious knowledge by teaching and preaching for the salvation of all. Things seem to have moved fast – as far as we can tell, there is about a decade between the issuing of the Admonitio Generalis in 789 and the appearance of the first pastoral manuals, whereas the first detailed episcopal statutes for local priests date from the early ninth century. Importantly, the production of pastoral compendia and new kinds of pastoral and educational texts seems to have started simultaneously in several centres and regions of the kingdom. While the court issued general norms and admonishments, it seems that the bishops were the main engines at this level. They drove the efforts to establish a system of pastoral care that would reach lay communities with the right kinds of knowledge to impart; the actual work was done by the priests who lived locally and were in daily contact with their flocks. As we have seen, the earliest, rather general instructions about pastoral care that came from the court date to 789 (the Admonitio Generalis); the earliest episcopal normative texts for priests date from the first decade of the ninth century and appeared more or less simultaneously in the dioceses of Liège, Orléans, Basle and in unidentified dioceses of Bavaria and Western Francia.66 The earliest pastoral manuscripts date from around the same time. While it is impossible for even the best of palaeographers to date these books to the decade or localise them with any precision (see Chapter 2), the first quarter or third of the ninth century produced priests’ manuscripts in regions far removed from the court and from each other, for instance in central Germany, Bavaria, Burgundy and Switzerland.67 In the same period that the first priests’ manuscripts emerged, so the years not long after the year 800, several related developments thus become visible. Bishops, putting in place a new infrastructure of priests living locally, were investing substantially in their education. Meanwhile, new kinds of texts were invented so that they could be better instructed and supervised.68 The first episcopal statutes and priests’ exams were written, as we have seen, just shy of the year 800, and from about this moment, a veritable wave of expositions, explanations and didactic interrogations about subjects connected to pastoral care were composed,

66 Van Rhijn, Shepherds, pp. 102–4. In the dating of these texts, I follow the MGH Capitula episcoporum. 67 Examples of such manuscripts are Basel Universitätsbibliothek F III 15e+ N I 13:c (Fulda, s. IX1/4), Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27 (Italy/Switzerland, s. VIII/IX), Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 27152 (Tegernsee?, s. IX in), Paris Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796 (France, 813/15). 68 See the Introduction, p. 12.

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mostly by authors now anonymous to us.69 Meanwhile, extracts of works by Fathers of the Church such as Isidore of Seville and Gregory the Great were excerpted and combined into new, compact, study texts and works of reference, while also their much longer works were copied on an unprecedented scale. In some cases, it is even possible to see connections: the Capitula Frisingensia Prima, a short priests’ exam dating from the last years of Charlemagne’s reign, lists among the knowledge required from diocesan priests both Gregory the Great’s Cura pastoralis and Isidore of Seville’s De officiis ecclesiasticis.70 All three manuscripts that contain this priests’ exam include Isidore’s work as well, but the early ninth century also saw an increased production of both Isidore’s and Gregory’s works in Southern Germany, where the priests’ exam was written. Rather than a model with which the royal court initiated the production of new texts and new books, it therefore makes more sense to imagine a series of bishops and other clerics simultaneously taking similar initiatives within their respective dioceses. Such initiatives may of course have been discussed during meetings at the court, but the point is that the construction of a new pastoral system and the production of texts and books to support this was undertaken in a decentralised way and shows considerable variation. As we will see in the next chapter, there is, moreover, a clear connection between the episcopal norms and instructions about the quality of priests on the one hand, and the contents of pastoral compendia on the other.

69 See, for instance, the many anonymous Carolingian explanations of baptism in Keefe, Water and the word II, and the even higher number of expositions about the Creed in her A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts (Turnhout, 2012). 70 ‘Capitula Frisingensia Prima’, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 205, c. 13 with n. 21 and 22: ‘Librum pastoralem canonici atque librum officiorum.’

2 MANUSCRIPTS FOR PRIESTS

1  Introduction Around the year 812, Bishop Waltcaud of Liège composed a compact examination for the priests of his diocese. In 18 chapters, he tried to cover the breadth and depth of the priestly ministry, asking about their knowledge of the canones, of the Creed and of Mass, but also specifically enquiring ‘why we say per omnia saecula saeculorum, and how this should be understood by priests, and why we say amen and what that means’.1 This was no examination that his priests would pass easily: underneath the questions concerning their knowledge of the rituals and beliefs of the Christian church, he implicitly or explicitly supposed that his priests had internalised the contents of some 20 different texts or books. He explicitly mentioned key texts such as the canones, a computus, a poenitentiale, the liber sacramentorum and the evangelium, but no priest would be able to answer, for instance, the bishop’s specific questions about baptism without ready knowledge of a baptismal ordo.2 What is more, mere familiarity with the contents of such texts was not enough: the bishop wanted his priests to understand what they had studied, and he asked them explicitly to explain their knowledge – after all, one of their most important tasks was to make knowledge about Christian beliefs and rituals accessible to their mostly illiterate lay flocks. This exam, then,

1 Waltcaud of Liège’s episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 45–9 at p. 47, c. VIII: ‘Cur dicitur ‘per omnia saecula saeculorum’ vel quomodo a presbiteris intellegatur et quare dicitur ‘amen’ vel quid interpretatur.’ Mass: c.3 and 10; the canones: c.12. This text is perhaps better classified as a priest’s exam than as an episcopal statute. See: Carine van Rhijn, ‘Karolingische priesterexamens en het probleem van correctio op het platteland’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 125 (2012), pp. 158–71. 2 Waltcaud, ‘Episcopal statute’, cc. 1, 6, 11, 12, 13.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-4

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assumes literate, educated priests who could fulfil such requirements and had access to books.3 Bishop Waltcaud was by no means the only Carolingian bishop with such expectations. Especially in the first decades of the ninth century, many royal capitularies, proceedings of church councils and episcopal statutes expressed the ideal of entrusting Frankish churches large and small to educated priests, men capable of teaching Christian lay flocks to live and believe in ways pleasing to God. Such priests were unthinkable without education, knowledge and manuscripts.4 Literacy and knowledge of Latin were the starting points of such education, but what was considered essential was that priests be able to share correct knowledge, and know how to perform rituals in the right way. In other words: they needed to be able to distinguish good practice from bad, and filter out silly superstition from real, orthodox belief, all in order not to offend the stern Frankish God and guarantee the ultimate salvation of the lay souls in their care. This was no easy task, for the lines to tread were sometimes thin: the distinction between good and invalid baptism, for instance, could be just one immersion more or less.5 Small wonder, then, that in the wake of royal initiatives to improve teaching, education and knowledge in the Frankish Christian world, the education of priests became a key issue: they were the ones designated to teach lay Franks to be good Christians on their way to heaven, and only good priests could create good believers. Starting around the year 800, and no doubt inspired by the ideals expressed in royal circles of which they themselves were often part, many individual bishops began to issue so-called episcopal statutes (capitula episcoporum): instructions, prescriptions and admonishments for the priests of their dioceses in which they listed specific requirements and instructions about the priests’ knowledge and abilities.6 The same period saw the first appearance of manuscripts especially compiled and copied for those in charge of churches and their lay flocks. Although well-known and respectable works about the church and pastoral care, such as Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, or Isidore of Seville’s De ecclesiasticis officiis, were still widely read and studied, it was felt at the same time that new kinds of texts and manuscripts were needed to boost clerical expertise. An unprecedented amount of time, effort and wealth was invested in the production of manuscripts through which priests could be educated about exactly the things they needed to know, and in books which they could have with them in their churches for day-to-day

3 Waltcaud of Liège, ‘Episcopal statute’, c. 15: books are mentioned in a small list of what priests needed to have. 4 See Charles Mériaux, ‘L’“entrée en scène“ du clergé rural à l’époque carolingienne’, in: Michèle Gaillard ed., L’empreinte chrétienne en Gaule du IVe au IXe siècle, Culture et société médiévales EB 5 (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 469–90 at pp. 470–2; Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord. Priests and episcopal statutes in the Carolingian period, Cultural encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 6 (Turnhout, 2007). 5 One of the key components of valid baptism was considered to be triple immersion, as a symbol of belief in the correct Trinity. See Chapter 3. 6 These episcopal statutes have been edited in MGH Cap.ep. I–III.

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consultation. It is through these manuscripts that we can find out what priests learned, what they potentially knew and what repertoire of knowledge they had available that they could share with their flocks. This, in turn, shows us how the rather general and abstract admonishments and prescriptions issued by kings and bishops were turned into the manuscripts that survive to this day.7

2  Priests and books There is growing evidence that the normative texts issued by Carolingian kings and bishops were more than intellectual fantasies by people far removed from local realities. Priests in many regions of the Carolingian world actually had books at their disposal from which they learned the ins and outs of their ministry, and which later on helped them do their work. A good example of such a practical set of books for everyday use can be found in a small list added separately into the library catalogue of the monastery of Fulda. It contains the books that the monastic librarian received after the murder of the priest Otolt, their erstwhile owner, who ministered a small church in a settlement called Auhausen. This priest owned a missal, Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, a psalter, four Bible books in one codex and part of an antiphonary.8 His small collection of manuscripts seems to have been nothing out of the ordinary in all but the most remote parts of Carolingian Europe. In 1980, Carl Hammer published an important article about Bavarian church inventories and showed how churches in that region entirely without books were the exception rather than the rule.9 Similar conclusions for the archdiocese of Rheims have more recently been drawn by Charles Mériaux,10 and continuing investigations of charter collections from all over Carolingian Europe show that priests in many areas had one or more manuscripts as part of their church inventories, but often more than that.11 In most cases, these were books needed for the liturgy or for pastoral care, such as lectionaries,

7 Keefe, Water and the word I, p. 7; Van Rhijn, ‘The local church’; Van Rhijn, ‘Manuscripts for local priests and the Carolingian reforms’, in: Patzold and Van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle, pp. 177–98. 8 G. Schrimpf, Mittelalterliche Buchverzeichnisse des Klösters Fulda und andere Beiträge zur Geschichte der Bibliothek des Klosters Fulda im Mittelalter (Frankfurt, 1992), p. 24; Janneke Raaijmakers, The making of the monastic community of Fulda, c.744–c.900 (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 191–2; Charles Mériaux, “‘Boni agricolae in agro Domini’. Prêtres et société à l’epoque caroingienne (VIIIe–Xe siècle)”, volume II (Unpublished dossier de habilitation, Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille III, 2014), pp. 111 and 153–4; Carine van Rhijn, ‘The local church, priests’ handbooks and pastoral care in the Carolingian period’, Chiese locali e chiese regionali nell’alto medioevo, Settimane 61 ­(Spoleto, 2014), pp. 689–706 at 689. 9 Carl Hammer jr., ‘Country churches, clerical inventories and the Carolingian renaissance in Bavaria’, Church History 49 (1980), pp. 5–17 at 11–12. 10 Mériaux, “Boni agricolae”, especially Chapter VI. I thank the author for giving me access to this book. 11 See the contributions about different regions of Carolingian Europe in Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle. Local priests in early medieval Europe (Berlin, 2016).

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missals, collections of homilies or handbooks of penance; only in exceptional cases did priests own non-liturgical books, such as the priest Wolfman who donated a Lex Alemannorum to the monastic library of Reichenau.12 Even though this evidence shows manuscripts in the hands of priests and in local churches, recognising these books in modern manuscript collections is a different matter entirely. How can we, with any degree of certainty, identify manuscripts used by priests? There are many extant lectionaries, sacramentaries, biblical books and missals from the early Middle Ages, for instance, but how can we be sure that a given manuscript was ever used by, or made for, a priest? A sacramentary, or for that matter a copy of Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, for instance, is plausible too in the hands of a bishop, or in those of an abbot with a priestly ordination, or used by clerici canonici operating in a cathedral, or by a monk who was also a priest, or even by an interested lay person. One expects such texts to be used and studied by people who had some logical purpose for them, but many manuscripts like these were useful to a lot of people (priests included) for a lot of different reasons. Moreover, such books were sometimes used for centuries, which opens the possibility of manuscripts passing from hand to hand and from place to place. There is, therefore, an important distinction to be made, namely that between ‘manuscripts used by priests’ and ‘manuscripts made for priests’. The second category can, I think, be recognised on the basis of other criteria, which is the subject of the next section. The first category can only be ascertained if something in the manuscript ties it to a priest, as in the following example.13 The manuscript Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. CCXX is an exceptional manuscript because two different priests – one from the ninth, and one from the eleventh century – wrote their names in it. This codex is dated to the early ninth century, and contains the last two books of Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, which was probably the most comprehensive explanation of how to preach in existence at the time. The ninth-century priest Engelbert wrote his name (and part of a so-called Ordinal of Christ) on the recto of the first folio, while his eleventh-century colleague Richardus wrote his on the verso of the same leaf. Between these two priestly owners, the book spent some time in the library of the monastery of Reichenau: its catalogue registers Engelbert donating it to the monastic library somewhere between 823 and 838.14 It was probably in

12 Gustavus Becker, Catalogus bibliothecarum antiqui (Bonn, 1885), p. 18. 13 In recent years, interesting and important work has been done on single manuscripts, which show exactly these problems. One recent example is Maximilian Diesenberger, Rob Meens, and Els Rose eds, The Prague sacramentary. Culture, religion, and politics in late eighth-century Bavaria (Turnhout, 2016). For a discussion of the question for whom this manuscript may have been compiled see Yitzhak Hen, ‘The liturgy of the Prague sacramentary’ in this volume, pp. 79–94 esp. at pp. 91–2. 14 We know that Engelbert was a priest through the library catalogue (823–838) of the monastery of Reichenau, which lists a ‘librum pastoralem’, donated to the library by an ‘Engilpreht presb.’. See Gustavus Becker, Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui (Bonn, 1885), no. 8, ms. 62.

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Reichenau’s monastic school that the manuscript acquired a series of corrections, and glosses in both Latin and Old High German, which shows how it was studied at the time. A century and a half later, the book was still important to Richardus, a priest ordained to a church of a lay community not far from the monastery. A small text that Richardus wrote on the verso of the first folio instructs his fellow priests from the region to study the book and, if needed, to help each other understand it.15 Such manuscripts as these were precious and had very long lives, during which they passed from hand to hand and were studied for different reasons. That this manuscript with just half of Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis was used by two priests in the course of its active life is clear, but there is no way to tell whether it was originally copied for a priest, or to discover who studied the book while it was in Reichenau’s library. Gregory the Great’s work was very popular in the early Middle Ages, and was required reading for priests in Bavaria according to two priests’ exams from the early ninth century.16 All the same, priests were certainly not the only clerics who could benefit from such a text, which makes this codex too generic to be counted as a manuscript written especially for a priest. Fascinating as this book may be, the fact that it was used by priests does not tell us enough about its intended use and its intended users. For my purposes, manuscripts are needed that were especially compiled or written for priests, so that they could fulfil the ideals expressed by their ecclesiastical superiors, and, increasingly, expected of them by their lay flocks. Whenever the term ‘manuscript for a priest’ falls in what follows, I therefore mean it in the specific sense of ‘compilation of texts specifically intended for study, or use by, a (future) priest’.

3  From royal admonishment to diocesan writing desk As far as we can tell, the first elaborate lists of requirements for the knowledge and abilities of priests appeared in high-level prescriptions during a period of intense discussions among the Frankish king and elites in the second half of the eighth century. There were many questions on the table that concerned the state of the realm, and the improvement of religious knowledge in clerics and laymen was, as we have seen, a central one.17 The idea that priests through their integration in local communities held the key to the improvement of lay Christianity was developed during this time, and as a result, the education of priests was given unprecedented attention. Charlemagne’s Admonitio Generalis of 789 was the first royal capitulary that paid more than cursory attention to what priests should

15 On the eleventh-century life of this codex see Helmut Maurer, ‘Die Hegau-Priester. Ein Beitrag zur kirchlichen Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte des früheren Mittelalters’, ZRG 61 (1975), pp. 37–52. 16 Capitula Frisingensia I and II, MGH Cap.ep. III, pp. 205 and 211. See Van Rhijn, ‘Karolingische priesterexamens’, p. 163 for a definition of what a priests’ exam is. 17 See Chapter 1.

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know, know how to do, understand and be able to explain to others. What is more, the Admonitio’s instructions about these subjects were all newly formulated for the purpose, which indicates that there was no authoritative precedent deemed useful enough to repeat. Whereas the long, first part of the capitulary was compiled from older canonical material gathered in the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana, the admonishments about priests’ level of knowledge and education were added as ‘some chapters that seem useful to us’ in the last part of the Admonitio that was written from scratch.18 Four long chapters of this second part (cc.68, 69, 70 and 80) are dedicated to priests, all four address issues of their knowledge and know-how in very general terms. Chapter 68, for instance, directs the following: To the sacerdotes. That the bishops examine the priests of their dioceses with the utmost care about their beliefs, baptism, and celebration of Mass, so that they hold the right beliefs, baptise in the catholic way and have a good understanding of the prayers of the Mass. And that the Psalms be sung in a worthy and melodic way according to the divisions of their verses, and that they themselves understand the Lord’s Prayer and preach about it intelligibly to all, so that everybody knows what he should ask from God. […]19 Chapter 69 addresses the way in which church buildings and their contents should be treated: not like robbers’ dens, but as God’s houses in which there was no place for dogs, idle talk and worldly affairs. The next chapter is concerned with priests’ lifestyle, which should be exemplary, and it prescribes their founding of local schools as well as the use of ‘well-emended books’ for teaching to prevent errors of interpretation. Chapter 80, finally, lists the subjects about which every priest should preach, amongst others the Holy Trinity, Creation, the Last Judgement, the Resurrection, sins and virtues, and God’s forgiveness.20 This last section of the Admonitio generalis, then, contains a boiled-down but full programme for the improvement of priests, so that they could be worthy shepherds and teachers to their lay communities. Such ideas were repeated often in capitularies and conciliar proceedings of the decades around 800. What the programme for priests came down to was a set of efforts to give them a good education, and to stimulate them to lead immaculate lives. They should also take

18 Admonitio Generalis, p. 27; idem, p. 210: ‘aliqua capitula, quae nobis utilia… visa sunt’. 19 Admonitio Generalis c. 68, p. 220: Sacerdotibus. Ut episcopi diligenter discutiant per suas parrochias presbiteros, eorum fidem, baptisma et missarum celebrationes, ut fidem rectam teneant et baptisma catholicum observent et missarum preces bene intellegant. Et ut psalmi digne secundum divisiones versuum modulentur et dominicam orationem ipsi intellegant et omnibus praedicent intellegendam, ut quisque sciat, quid petat a deo. 20 Idem, pp. 234–9.

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care of, and respect the local church, and make sure they were able to fulfil their duty to provide proper pastoral care to their lay communities. It is important to note that the four chapters are all addressed to the bishops, since they were responsible for the actual implementation of this programme within their own dioceses. The quality of their clergy and, in the end, all problems concerning local pastoral care that arose, were theirs to sort out. High-level admonishments such as those of the Admonitio generalis should therefore be read as starting points on the basis of which individual bishops could draw up their own, more specific, plans: generally speaking, the Admonitio’s directions are too vague to be practical, but clear enough to show the priorities and concerns of the court. Texts such as Waltcaud of Liège’s priest exam, it will be noted, were much more precise, and show how individual bishops each developed these general admonishments into practical tools and pointers useful to those responsible for local lay communities. One of the most elaborate instructions for priests, the episcopal statute by Theodulf of Orléans from ca. 800, was so enthusiastically received by contemporaries that it survives in nearly 50 manuscripts, about a third of which date from the Carolingian period.21 Behind every one of these episcopal instructions or exams there are silent requirements about the knowledge and education of priests: they had to be literate, educated in Christian learning and ritual, and should be able to apply such knowledge in their everyday pastoral practice. For this, they had to have access to at least a modest collection of texts. The manuscripts compiled for priests, in turn, mostly contain several of the texts mentioned in prescriptions or exams for priests. One example of this is a pastoral compendium now in Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale ms. 288. It was compiled in the East of France, possibly Laon itself, in the first third or second quarter of the ninth century.22 The manuscript nowadays consists of 91 folia (but at least one quire is missing), and measures 210 × 144 mm. It contains what reads like a well-thought-out reflection of what priests ought to know according to their bishop. The compiler of the manuscript had clearly thought about what could be useful for a priest when teaching the laity: the codex contains expositions on the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and Mass, and an explanation of the rite of baptism. Its last part consists of a set of 12 homilies with themes especially useful for preaching to laymen, such as good and bad Christians, the Last Judgement, paradise, the merits of charity, penance, dishonest friends and Christmas. The connections between the contents of this compilation and the ideas expressed by king and bishops in their instructions about what priests should know in order to lead their flocks to salvation is clear. That such books were produced in the first place shows, to my mind, two different processes that were part of the broader Carolingian efforts to improve Christian education and knowledge for the greater good and salvation of all. In 21 Theodulf of Orleans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 103–42; the manuscripts are listed on pp. 76–99. 22 For the most elaborate description of this manuscript see Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 26–9.

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the first place, there is that of the education of priests under the wings of monastic or episcopal schools, and in the second that of education and pastoral care by priests once they had been ordained to churches. As will be explained in more detail below, many books for priests include baptismal expositions, handbooks of penance, explanations of one or more Creeds and of the Lord’s Prayer. Like the Laon manuscript, some of these manuscripts contain compact collections of canones, or of sermons and homilies. For scholars these manuscripts are a veritable gold mine. When we can accept that the production of these codices were inspired by the ideal of having better priests and better pastoral care, we can read them as ‘snapshots’ of such intentions, for each of them was put together in a specific time and place, following the priorities, resources and ideas of those in charge.23 Since bishops were responsible for the quality of priests and pastoral care, the initiative to create such manuscripts must have come from an episcopal context in many cases, and the results may therefore have been different from diocese to diocese and through time. By studying these books from cover to cover, then, we can understand which exact shapes and forms the general, shared ideals of an educated and well-functioning priesthood took in single dioceses at specific moments in time. Analysing the contents of entire manuscripts can help us understand how such ideals, but also knowledge of many kinds, reached the level of local priests, and through them, that of small-scale lay communities. At a more abstract level, they can show us how Carolingian ideals to improve, teach and lead the way to heaven arrived at the grassroots levels of society. In the process of transmission, these ideals were more often than not changed, adapted to local circumstances or re-invented altogether. For historians, this material therefore offers rare opportunities to study what happened to high-level decisions when they reached those whom such texts concerned. After all, as a historian one cannot get much closer to the silent majority of lay Franks than through their local priests. Even though these manuscripts did certainly not reach every last Frankish hamlet, and even though not every cleric knew impeccable Latin in the Carolingian period, the evidence, in the form of these books, that attempts to raise standards of education, religious knowledge and Christian practice did indeed have effects at the local levels of Carolingian society is unmistakable. It is now time to turn to the manuscripts themselves. In what follows, I will first explain the problems that arise when one tries to identify a manuscript compiled for priests, and how the material for this study 23 In this sense, the concept of ‘social logic’ offers a useful perspective on compilatory practices, since it emphasises the intended users of the compilation. The term was first introduced by Gabriele Spiegel, ‘History, historicism, and the social logic of the text in the middle ages’, Speculum 65 (1990), pp. 59–86, and further developed for early medieval compendia by Helmut Reimitz, ‘The social logic of historiographical compendia in the Carolingian period’, in: Osamu Kano ed., Herméneutique du texte d’histoire (Nagoya, 2012), pp. 17–28. Bastiaan Waagmeester was the first to apply these ideas to manuscripts for priests: ‘Pastoral works. Priests, books and compilative practices in the Carolingian period’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, 2021).

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has been selected. The notion of ‘manuscripts for priests’ is, after all, a modern one and in all probability bears little relation to the way in which the early medieval users of these books might have perceived them. Not a single Carolingian manuscript studied here has the early medieval title ‘handbook for priests’ or something similar. Mostly they bear no contemporary title or label at all. The books that form the basis of this study are, to my mind, not of a clear ‘genre’: even though there are some shared, but always very general, features for most, no single criterion fits them all. At the same time, it has to remain undecided for many books whether or not they were compiled for priests. Hence, the manuscripts studied here are no more than a core selection of a much wider pool – there is no doubt that the number of extant manuscripts compiled for priests is much higher. The reason for this approach is the enormous variety in contents, size and quality of manuscripts that contain collections of relevant texts; only those books that I believe were put together specifically for priests have been included. Fortunately, and as we will see shortly, a number of scholars has recently done groundbreaking work in recognising potential manuscripts for priests, which has provided some important starting points to tackle the question of definition and the problem of selection.

4  Manuscripts for priests Two elements important to determine whether a manuscript was explicitly intended for use by a priest are its material characteristics and its contents, or, preferably, a combination of the two. When it comes to size and quality of manuscripts, the assumption often seems to be that priests needed practical books that they could carry around with them. Since these were meant as manuscripts for everyday use and not for display, good quality parchment, beautiful script or lavish decoration are not to be expected. Such characteristics are not absolute, and clearly only mean something in comparison with other manuscripts – the bigger, better books are usually interpreted in an episcopal context, for instance, and the lower end of the range in the hands of priests. The distinctions between big and small, or between high and low quality are not only a matter of degree, however, for there are ways to be a bit more precise. The classification devised by Carla Bozzolo and Enzio Ornato is helpful for thinking about manuscript size, since it is simple and straightforward. In order to decide whether a manuscript is small or big, one needs to add up the (average) length and width of the manuscript’s leaves. If the sum is less than 320 millimetres, the book can be considered ‘small’; 321 to 490 constitutes ‘small to average’, 491 to 670 is ‘average to big’, and numbers higher than that belong to the category ‘big’.24 Even though their division of manuscripts sizes into these

24 Carla Bozzolo and Enzio Ornato, Pour une histoire du livre manuscript au Moyen Âge. Trois essais de codicologie quantitative (Paris, 1983), pp. 217–8.

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four categories is perhaps a bit arbitrary (it is not clear why there are four groups, or why categories begin and end where they do), the classification gives us a starting point to think about size, which then can be supplemented by other criteria. Already in the 1990s, Rob Meens used these categories in his study about Carolingian handbooks of penance, which were pastoral texts for priests par excellence. His finding that all such texts survive in relatively small manuscripts is important: about a third of the penitentials in the category are ‘small’, the remainder being ‘small to medium’.25 Size, therefore, can indeed be an indicator for recognising priests’ manuscripts, and Meens’ findings are consistent with the size of the manuscripts that take centre stage here, even though there are some exceptions. Important work on determining criteria for priests’ manuscripts was also done by Niels Krogh Rasmussen, who took both material criteria and contents on board. His primary purpose was to find a way to tell liturgical books for priests apart from those for bishops, which proved difficult on the basis of contents alone.26 Ten years after the appearance of Rasmussen’s seminal article, Yitzhak Hen refined some of his points in two studies of his own.27 Together, both authors provide us with a whole range of relative criteria that can be added to the one of size. They both are of the opinion that given the expense and time involved in making any manuscript, and the practical, everyday uses for which these books were needed, priests in all probability had to work with smaller, lower end manuscripts. As ways of recognising such books by their material characteristics, Rasmussen and Hen use size, layout, parchment quality, lack of decoration, palaeography and the quality of Latin. What this boils down to is that relatively small manuscripts with simple layout and little decoration, made out of relatively poor quality parchment, and written by relatively unsophisticated hands in relatively un-classical Latin are likely to have been made for and used by priests. None of these criteria, of course, is set in stone (for what exactly is, for instance, ‘bad parchment’?), and there are exceptions to each single criterion. Taken together with the contents of the manuscript, however, they constitute a good starting point for identifying books for priests. The main criterion for recognising a manuscript compiled for a priest, however, must always be its contents. The line of reasoning behind this idea is based on what priests were supposed to know and do according to admonishments and norms of the time. Manuscripts consisting to a large extent of texts about clerical 25 Rob Meens, Het tripartite boeteboek. Overlevering en betekenis van vroegmiddeleeuwse biechtvoorschriften (met editie en vertaling van vier tripartita) (Hilversum, 1994), pp. 223–4. 26 Niels Krogh Rasmussen, ‘Célébration episcopale et célébration presbyterale: un essai de typologie’, Segni e riti nella chiesa altomedievale occidentale, Settimane 33 (Spoleto, 1987), pp. 581–603. 27 Yitzhak Hen, ‘Knowledge of canon law among rural priests: the evidence of two Carolingian manuscripts from around 800’, Journal of Theological Studies 50 (1999), pp. 117–34; idem, ‘Liturgical handbooks for the use of a rural priest (Brussels, BR 10127–10144)’, in: Marco Mostert ed., Organising the written word: scripts, manuscripts and texts, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 30 (Turnhout, forthcoming).

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duties that only a priest could fulfil, such as for instance baptism, prescribing penance, saying Mass or preaching, make most sense in the hands of a priest. Such books have been known for a while. Starting in the 1980s, a steady trickle of articles has appeared identifying single manuscripts as ‘manuel de pastorale’, ‘clerical handbook’ or ‘vademecum für Weltpriester’. The determining factor for recognising such books was primarily their contents, to which criteria such as size and quality were sometimes added.28 These manuscripts were not in first instance liturgical books of the kind that Rasmussen had used as his starting point, but manuscripts that gathered sometimes dozens of texts connected to religious knowledge and pastoral care. Exactly these collections of texts had caught Susan Keefe’s eye in her search for baptismal tracts in Carolingian manuscripts. Already in 1983, it was she who pointed out that there are, in fact, dozens of little studied Carolingian manuscripts that were in all likelihood compiled for priests. Keefe described and analysed many of these in her ground-breaking study Water and the word of 2002, a book that has proved to be a treasure hoard to many historians.29 Even though this was a sideline to her study about baptismal instructions, her findings about the manuscripts in which she found her texts are very important: this was the first time that anybody had studied more than a single or a few manuscripts of this kind. Where it was difficult for earlier authors to determine how exactly a handbook for a priest should be defined – after all, they were looking at single, or very small numbers of manuscripts – Keefe presented over 60 manuscripts (many, but not all, probably compiled for priests), which could be studied, compared, analysed and interpreted as a loosely defined, but distinct corpus. Three years later, Rudolf Pokorny came up with eight more of what he considered to be handbooks for rural priests.30 At a stroke, handbooks for priests were no longer exotic solitary survivors: a whole new field of study had been opened up. However, neither Keefe, nor Pokorny took the criteria offered by Rasmussen and Hen on board systematically in their identification of possible manuscripts for priests, and on top of that they treated their material in different ways. Pokorny included a single (but important) paragraph about the issue of identification of manuscripts in the final volume of the MGH Capitula episcoporum. His main 28 Some examples are: Raymond Étaix, ‘Un manuel de pastorale de l’époque Carolingienne (clm 27152)’, Revue Bénédictine 91 (1981), pp. 105–30; Frederick Paxton, ‘Bonus liber: A late Carolingian clerical manual from Lorsch (Bibliotheca Vaticana ms pal.lat. 485)’, in: Laurent Mayali and Stephanie A.J. Tibbetts eds, The two laws. Studies in medieval legal history dedicated to Stephan Kuttner (Washington D.C., 1990), pp. 1–30; Yitzhak Hen, ‘Educating the clergy: canon law and liturgy in a Carolingian handbook from the time of Charles the Bald’, in: idem ed., De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem. Essays on medieval law, liturgy and literature in honour of Amnon Lindner (Turnhout, 2001), pp. 43–58. 29 Susan A. Keefe, ‘Carolingian baptismal expositions: a handlist of tracts and manuscripts’, in: Uta-Renate Blumenthal ed., Carolingian essays (Washington, 1983), pp. 169–237; eadem, Water and the word. Baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire, 2 vols. (Notre Dame, 2002). 30 Rudolf Pokorny with Veronika Lukas, MGH Cap.ep. IV (Hannover, 2005), p. 9.

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concern was to present his synthesis about episcopal statutes and the manuscripts in which such texts survive, in the course of which he came across what he called ‘Handbücher für den Landpfarrer’. He considered these handbooks as a kind of ‘Sammelhandschrift’ that contained, apart from one or more episcopal statutes, texts such as expositiones, sermons and homilies, penitentials, canons of Late Antique councils, short texts or extracts of longer ones by important authors such as Alcuin or Isidore of Seville, and sometimes computistical texts. There were, to his mind, nine manuscripts in his corpus that qualified as such, eight of which dated to the ninth century. All of these contained capitula episcoporum composed between circa 800 and 820.31 Keefe, on the other hand, used a set of four types of manuscripts to subdivide her corpus of more than 60 Carolingian codices containing baptismal expositions. Each type had a different purpose, which may be recognised on the basis of contents: ‘instruction-readers for priests’, ‘bishops’ pastoral manuals’, ‘bishops’ reference works’ and ‘schoolbooks’ – all of them potentially quite similar to Pokorny’s priestly ‘Sammelhandschriften’. All of her manuscripts were the products of what she termed the Carolingian revival of learning, and can therefore be usefully analysed in order to understand what was considered to be important knowledge for priests, bishops or other clerics in different places throughout the period.32 The ‘instruction-readers for priests’, Keefe’s first category, were to her mind intended for individual priests who were already in charge of a local church and a lay community. The contents of these manuscripts are, for that reason, a direct reflection of what high-level prescriptions of the day required from priests, and these books brought the ideals of pastoral care, knowledge and teaching to the grassroots levels of society.33 The distinction between such books and those of the second category, that of the ‘bishops’ pastoral manuals’, is, she admitted immediately, not clear-cut. Such pastoral manuscripts, containing very similar material to those of the first category, might also contain material that no priest would ever need, such as an explanation of the dedication of a church (a bishop’s prerogative). Material arguments also played a role in her distinction between the two categories, in the sense that one beautifully written manuscript is, to her mind, more likely to be a bishop’s than a priest’s.34 ‘Bishops’ reference works’ then, are more substantial books containing longer and more sophisticated texts, sometimes several about the same subject, and often their overall quality is good (parchment, palaeography, Latin). These books were intended to be kept in a monastic or episcopal library to be studied and copied, and would have no direct pastoral use. ‘Schoolbooks’, finally, is a wide category of manuscripts intended to train future secular and regular clergy in monastic or episcopal schools. This seems to be the category where everything that did not fit in the first three has 31 Pokorny, MGH Cap.ep. IV, p. 9. 32 Keefe, Water and the word I, pp. 13–21. 33 Keefe, Water and the word I, pp. 23–4. 34 The manuscript is Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410.

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ended up. Such books might contain more or less anything, from law codes to grammatical treatises, ordines, theological tracts, but also material particularly useful for the secular clergy, such as baptismal expositions or explanations of the Lord’s Prayer suitable for teaching lay people.35 On the basis of the four categories, the 63 manuscripts that form the starting point of her research were subdivided as follows: 18 instruction-readers, 5 episcopal manuals, 8 episcopal reference works and 30 schoolbooks. Two manuscripts defied classification.36 Telling these different groups apart, as Keefe herself admitted immediately, is not straightforward for lack of hard criteria.37 In her classification, therefore, she had to make many educated guesses, which is perhaps not the most productive way to treat this material. Like the classification of manuscript sizes devised by Bozzolo and Ornato, this is again a modern subdivision which does not necessarily reflect early medieval ways of thinking about these books. While it is reasonable to suppose that a manuscript containing explanations of the ritual of church dedication, which was an exclusively episcopal duty, is likely to have belonged to a bishop, such clear indications are rare. Moreover, one can well imagine how such knowledge could also be interesting to those who would merely witness and not perform such a ritual. What should we do, for instance, with a book full of pastoral material that also mentions monks a few times? How should we interpret one bishop’s letter to a colleague among sermons evidently addressed to laymen in a small, grubby book? Interestingly, Pokorny and Keefe are so different in their approach that they classify the same manuscripts in varying ways: the Vatican manuscript Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana pal.lat.485, for instance, identified by Pokorny as handbook for a local priest, was probably a (monastic) schoolbook in Keefe’s eyes. Pokorny’s priest’s handbook Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410, in turn, could, according to Keefe, well be a bishop’s pastoral manual. It is important to note that only four manuscripts on Pokorny’s list are also on Keefe’s, showing how neither episcopal statutes, nor baptismal expositions can be considered a standard part of a manuscript for a priest.38 The ideas about what may and may not be manuscripts for priests developed by Pokorny and Keefe lead, all in all, to four fundamental points, all of which need to be approached with a degree of flexibility. The first is that such books can be recognised by comparing their contents to prescriptive texts that expressed the Carolingian ideals of learning and education: if specific knowledge and abilities were expected from priests, it stands to reason to find these expectations reflected in the texts gathered in priests’ manuscripts. Second, different selections of texts reflect different people or purposes envisaged by the compiler

35 36 37 38

Keefe describes her categories with examples in Water and the word I, Chapter 2. Keefe, Water and the word I, table I at pp. 160–3. Keefe, Water and the word I, p. 26. The manuscripts are: Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410, Sélestat, Bibliothèque Humaniste 132, and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1012. For an overview of Keefe’s classification see her Water and the word I, pp. 160–3.

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or commissioner. Manuscripts filled with long, sophisticated texts, even if pastoral care was the main topic, may have served not just priests, but also bishops, abbots or those still being schooled to become clerics. What can be considered a book for a bishop rather than for a priest, in turn, is often a matter of degree, and there is a large grey area between ‘short and practical’ and ‘long and sophisticated’. Material criteria can be used to make an educated guess. Third, compilers always had to work with the texts available to them, and probably improvised when they could not find what they needed. One way to fill such gaps, I think, was to produce new texts on the spot, which may well explain why there are so many anonymous texts on the same subjects of which we have just one or two copies (see below). Fourth and final, what especially Keefe has shown is that we should never read the great variety among the manuscripts as failure to impose uniformity, but rather consider each manuscript as a window on local attempts to learn, teach and distribute knowledge. Before these ideas can be put to productive use, however, it is important to rethink Keefe’s four categories. If manuscripts compiled for priests could serve different purposes and were put together with what was at hand, we should perhaps not put them into a single box too readily but work with a flexible approach that keeps multiple options open.

5  The sliding scale between ‘schoolbooks’ and ‘instruction readers’ Asking questions about what Carolingian priests learned and knew, and what texts they used or studied for their daily practice of pastoral care means that two kinds of collections just discussed are relevant here: Keefe’s ‘instruction readers’ and her ‘schoolbooks’, and perhaps also some of the manuscripts that landed (by her educated guesses) in the other two categories.39 Instead of adopting these categories of books with their problems of exact definition and delimitation, however, the model used here will be somewhat different. I think it makes most sense to approach these manuscripts in terms of a sliding scale between two extremes. On the one end of the spectrum there are Keefe’s ‘instruction-readers’, often small, unassuming books, which contain a limited amount of mostly short texts for the use of a priest already established in a church that served a lay community. A good example of this is the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1008, a book of unknown but French provenance, dating to the ninth or maybe the tenth century. This book contains a set of 20 rather concise texts about various aspects of religious knowledge and pastoral care, such as expositions of the Mass, the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, baptism, canones and what one might call basic theology. Its material characteristics also put it into the cheaper category of

39 The only type of manuscript not taken on board here are those with overwhelmingly monastic contents.

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manuscripts: it is small (a mere 146x100 mm.), mostly undecorated and its parchment is of irregular quality. Its layout is simple (long lines, limited hierarchy of scripts), but the single scribe was well practiced and produced regular script.40 At the other end of the spectrum there are books that belong to Keefe’s categories of ‘schoolbooks’ and ‘bishops’ manuals’. A good example here is the Vatican manuscript mentioned before, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana pal.lat. 485, which was compiled in the monastery of Lorsch in the third quarter of the ninth century. Even though both Keefe (‘monastic schoolbook’) and Pokorny (‘handbook for a local priest’) think otherwise, Fred Paxton has convincingly argued that this ‘bonus liber’ (as it is labelled on the first page by an early medieval hand) was primarily intended for the education of secular clergy, which accords very well with its long list of contents but surely does not exclude other uses over time.41 It contains material more sophisticated and extensive than that of the Paris manuscript just mentioned, for instance a good chunk of computus (including carefully composed tables and mathematical explanations), and a short Greek-Latin glossary. The fact that it was most probably a book for study rather than for use in the daily practice of a priest’s ministry can also be derived from the presence of several examples of texts important for pastoral care, such as four handbooks of penance, two episcopal statutes and two different commentaries on the Mass. Its size is ‘small to medium’ in the classification mentioned above (255 × 188 mm), the quality of parchment and writing is high, but the only decoration is red rubrication in part of the book. What is immediately striking when surveying the corpus of manuscripts for priests used for this study, however, is how few manuscripts fit comfortably into either of the two extreme ends of the spectrum. The majority by far is somewhere in between, ticking some boxes of Keefe’s ‘instruction reader’ and a few of ‘schoolbook’. A good example is the manuscript Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek ms. 40, which dates from the last third of the ninth century, with a Swiss provenance.42 The book is medium to large (295 × 213 mm), well written on relatively good parchment, but it contains only 15 (originally 13) short texts aimed at the practice of pastoral care.43 It will be obvious why this manuscript is impossible to classify in Keefe’s categories combined with Rasmussen and Hen’s material criteria: it is too big and too well made to be an instruction-reader in Keefe’s definition, but its contents are exactly that: a limited selection of short, straightforward texts. Even though most manuscripts for priests are in general not big, rather business-like in their execution and filled with texts useful and important to priests, such general characteristics should not disguise the enormous variety 40 See for a detailed description Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 65–7. 41 Paxton, ‘Bonus liber’. Keefe describes its contents in Water and the word II, pp. 100–3. 42 This manuscript was cobbled together from three manuscripts, one of which is a book for a priest. This is now the third and last part of Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40. 43 See Keefe’s description, Water and the word II, pp. 82–4.

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among these books. The advantages of getting rid of too rigid a classification are, therefore, obvious.44 In what follows, therefore, the term ‘manuscript for priests’ will include the full range of possibilities. The basis of this book is a selection of about 60 Carolingian manuscripts, all collections of texts that are somewhere on the scale between ‘instruction reader’ and ‘schoolbook’. For the reasons just explained they will be studied collectively; more than half of these have been investigated in detail. All these manuscripts were compiled for priests for the purpose of either educating them, or supporting them in the practice of their daily ministry, or both. Keefe’s works on baptismal instructions and Creed commentaries have been the starting points for putting the selection together; some of Pokorny’s manuscripts have been added, as have a number of single manuscripts known from older literature.45 In their respective works, Keefe and Pokorny gathered texts central to the priestly ministry, and there are probably not many manuscripts for priests without any baptismal exposition, Creed commentary or episcopal statute.46 Thanks to digital library catalogues and digitised manuscripts collections, however, some hitherto unknown manuscripts have been added to the list, and there are surely more to be discovered. This process of hunting and gathering initially resulted in a list of manuscripts nearly twice as long as the final selection in the first appendix. All manuscripts where there was some doubt regarding the intended primary users have been excluded. Of course, choices had to be made that can never be entirely objective, and like Keefe, I had to make some educated guesses. While I think it is unlikely that a manuscript for a priest would contain a sizeable chunk of texts about asceticism explicitly addressed at monks, it does not seem improbable that a pastoral compendium would include an explanation of the dedication of a church, even though this was an episcopal duty. By the same token, excerpts of the Regula Benedicti do not put a manuscript automatically into a monastic context.47 What the final selection boils down to is, I think, a pool of manuscripts that is by no means exhaustive. Nevertheless, it gives a good impression of the books compiled for priests in the Frankish empire in the course of the ninth century. Before I highlight two interesting characteristics of the corpus as a whole, three 44 For an overview of the manuscripts used for this study, see Appendix 1. 45 Not all of them, though. The manuscript Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 10127–44, studied by Yitzhak Hen in his ‘A liturgical handbook for the use of a rural priest ‘ can no longer be considered as such. I thank Daniel DiCenseo for sharing his insights about this manuscript with me. 46 Keefe, Water and the word and eadem, A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts (Turnhout, 2012). In this second work, however, she let go of her four ‘types’ in favour of a much wider range of short descriptions. 47 Interesting research about potential extra-monastic uses of parts of the Rule of St Benedict, and about the possible existence of manuscripts for priest-monks is currently undertaken by Scott Bruce, whom I thank for sharing his ideas about the manuscript Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6330.

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examples will illustrate in more detail the sliding scale between Keefe’s instruction-readers and schoolbooks, and the range of possibilities.

6  Manuscripts for priests: three examples48 6.1  Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1012 In its most basic form, a manuscript for a priest consists of a modest selection of rather short texts about different aspects of pastoral care, and this is a good example. This northern French manuscript consists of 92 folia that measure 195 × 130 mm; it was probably written (by at least three hands) in the first third of the ninth century.49 It is among the shorter manuscripts for priests, with a total word count of about 20,000. The manuscript consists of 16 texts, which are organised as a cluster of explanations, prescriptions and instructions in the first 66 folia, after which follow eight sermons.50 The main themes covered in the first part are the following: baptism (twice), requirements for priestly lives and knowledge (twice, in both a priests’ exam and an episcopal statute), Mass, the Creed (twice), canones (a fragment of a collection). These texts are between a single and nearly 20 folia long, which in modern word counts is between 200 and 4,000 words. Most do not mention an author, and where they do the ascription is not always correct: some sermons, for instance, have been wrongly attributed to St Augustine. At least three texts in the manuscript are products of the Carolingian period, that is: the priest exam,51 an anonymous instruction for baptism 52 and one of the two expositions of the Creed.53 As far as is ­v isible – the manuscript has suffered considerably over time – there are a few later additions in the margins and empty spaces, such as some short annalistic notes from the thirteenth century (f.66r), and tironian notes (a kind of shorthand) on f.9r which was originally empty.

48 The length of the manuscript as well as the number of texts and hands are based on my own findings. There may, therefore, be discrepancies between the descriptions of the books here and those in the various catalogues. 49 Opinions about the date of the manuscript have varied in the past. See: B. Lauer, Bibliothèque nationale. Catalogue général des manuscrits latins I (nos 1–1438) (Paris, 1939), p. 362; Vykoukal, ‘Les examens’, pp. 85–6, says s. X; Pokorny in MGH cap.ep. III, p. 23 puts it in the ninth century; Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 68 dates it to the first third of the ninth century. Since one text mentions Louis the Pious, the date post quem is 814. 50 The sermons in this manuscript have been studied by James McCune, ‘The sermon collection in the Carolingian clerical handbook, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 1012’, Mediaeval Studies 75 (2013), pp. 35–91. 51 However, a related, but different version can be found in the manuscript Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 43, f. 25r-27v. The text as it appears in the Paris manuscript has been published by Vykoukal, ‘Les examens’. See MGH Cap.ep. III, pp. 16–35. 52 This is Keefe, Text 51, see Water and the word II, pp. 586–92. 53 See Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 68, n. 7.

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6.2  Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek lit. 131 An example of a manuscript somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between basic and elaborate is this mid- or late ninth-century book, compiled in southern Germany. The manuscript contains 177 folia that were filled by a single, well-practiced hand, and the entire book has been rubricated with a bright red-orange pigment.54 It measures 198 × 129 mm, so around the same size as the Paris manuscript, but it is twice as long (about 40,000 words). There is considerable variation in the dates offered by different experts: Bernhard Bischoff places it in the second quarter of the ninth century, Keefe in the last quarter, while earlier authors such as Andrieu think it may even date to the tenth century.55 The contents of the book, which contains quite a lot of datable material, suggests a date post quem of the early 840s when Walahfrid wrote his Liber de exordiis et incrementis. Its most remarkable feature today is the later cover, which in the eleventh century has been decorated with two engraved silver images (apostles? Christ?) nailed onto the wooden covers on a layer of coloured silk. The book shows a variety of signs of use that imply its life in a place with a scriptorium: some texts have been carefully corrected, some small interlinear and marginal glosses were added occasionally, mostly to explain single words. The layout of the book, which has wide margins, seems to have anticipated this. The collection of 19 texts in total was constructed in a different way than the Paris manuscript. Its main building blocks are a set of longer texts of up to about 25 folia, which means about 6,000 words. These longer texts include two expositions of the Mass, an extended version of the episcopal statute by Haito of Basel,56 Theodulf of Orléans’ first episcopal statute, two elaborate expositions of two different Creeds (one of the Apostles’ Creed, one of the Athanasian Creed), extracts from Amalarius’ Liber officialis and an extract from Bede’s De temporum ratione. Between these longer texts, and clustered around these main themes, there are shorter texts to complement them, but also a separate cluster about baptism. Even though the description of contents might suggest otherwise,57

54 The fullest and most complete description is Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 68–9; see Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländische Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunters (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen) III (Wiesbaden, 2014), p. 30, no. 4001; Catalogue général des manuscrits latins de la Bibliothèque Nationale I (1939), p. 362. 55 See Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 16–17; Michel Andrieu, Les ordines romani du haut moyen âge: les manuscrits (Louvain, 1931), pp. 84–9; Bischoff, Katalog I, no. 222; Friedrich Leitschuch and Hans Fischer, Katalog der Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Bamberg I, 1 (Bamberg, 1895), pp. 296–9. 56 The statute was expanded with c. 21–25 of Walahfrid Strabo´s Liber de exordiis et incrementis, which together appear as c. 26 of the episcopal statute. See MGH cap.ep. I, p. 205. See Alice L. Harting-Correa, Walahfrid Strabo’s Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum. A translation and liturgical commentary (Leiden/New York/Cologne, 1996), pp. 21–2 where she proposes a date between 840 and 842. 57 Pokorny maintains: ‘die Hs überliefert vornehmlich liturgische Texte von Amalar von Metz, Walahfrid Strabo und Alcuin’, but this does not even fill half of the book.

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11 of the texts in this manuscript are anonymous. Interestingly, authorities not mentioned are Alcuin, Amalarius of Metz (apart from the Eclogae, where his name is mentioned, there is an anonymous excerpt of his Liber officialis at the end of the book), Theodulf of Orléans and Bede, while those who do appear in the book are St Augustine, Isidore of Seville, Gregory the Great, Pope Damasus. The only contemporaries that deserved mention were Amalarius (in the header to the Eclogae) and Bishop Haito of Basel. Church Fathers, then, seem to have been more important to mention than contemporary luminaries, and even though we now know many of the authors not mentioned, it is important to realise that in this manuscript, such texts are, indeed, anonymous. Just one text in this manuscript, one of the expositions of the Lord’s Prayer, only appears in this manuscript and nowhere else. Interestingly, though, a number of the other texts only turn up in other manuscripts for priests,58 which seems to suggest the existence of a shared pool of texts as building blocks for such books. This issue will be further developed later in this chapter, since it leads to the identification of ‘families’ of priests’ manuscripts.

6.3  Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal. lat. 485 Among the most elaborate manuscripts for priests in the corpus is this compilation from Lorsch, dating to ca. 850–875. It is a bit larger than the first two books with 113 folia measuring 255 × 185 mm, and about 55,000 words plus a number of full-page tables. A dozen of well-practiced hands collaborated to write the book, and filled it with 25 texts, plus a computistical quire (inserted into the book at a slightly later date, but still in the Carolingian period) with a lot of extras, which means that all in all the manuscript contains about 40 texts and tables.59 Parts of the manuscript contain rubrication, others do not. While there are some corrections throughout the book, it hardly contains any glosses at all. There are, however, other signs of use that indicate the long shelf-life of this compilation in the form of a variety of later additions in margins and empty spaces. The famous ‘Lorscher Beichte’, a confession in Latin and Old High German, was added later in the ninth century on f. 2r–3v; on f.15r there is a ‘missa in natale Sigismundi’ that asks for the speedy recovery of a sick person suffering from fever; a line of neumed chant was added in the upper margins of f.119v and 120r (‘cum esset desponsata mater ihesu maria….’). These few examples (there are more) show how this book apparently was a sort of magnet for interesting additions because all this material was added to what was already there: a substantial compilation about pastoral care. 58 See Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 16–17. 59 See Paxton, ‘Bonus liber’; Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 100–3; Faith Wallis, ‘Medicine in medieval calendar manuscripts’, in: Margaret R. Schleissner ed., Manuscript sources of medieval medicine. A book of essays (New York/London, 1995), pp. 105–43.

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In its basis, the original compilation of the manuscript is not fundamentally different from the examples just discussed. There are clusters of texts about central themes of pastoral care: two Mass commentaries, two explanations of baptism, two sets of canones, three episcopal statutes and one priest exam, four handbooks of penance and a practical multi-purpose collection of 123 short prayers to which we will return later on in this book. Added as a block is an entire quire filled with computistical tables and explanations of the relevant calculations to figure out the date of Easter, as well as a calendar of the whole year listing saints’ feast and other important dates. Shorter texts were slotted in between this material in a thematically more or less coherent way; for instance, two prayers for the blessing of Easter candles precede the longer prayer collection, while a small Isidore excerpt about the meaning of Greek and Hebrew words relevant for the Mass (for instance, chrisma, messias, alfa et omega, sabaoth and angelos) comes before the two expositions of the Mass. The compiler of this manuscript, then, had a rather more expansive understanding of what a priest might need than the people who designed the two manuscripts just discussed, and those adding some additions later built on this. A priest needed to study several penitentials and Mass expositions, but apparently some knowledge about, for instance, medicine was desirable as well. As in the two other examples, the majority by far of the texts included in this book is anonymous, which means that works by important Carolingian bishops (Theodulf of Orléans, Waltcaud of Liège, Gerbald of Liège) do not mention their authors. Only six out of circa 40 texts do come with an attribution. As in the Bamberg manuscript, the few names that turn up in titles to texts are of wellknown authorities: St Jerome, Isidore of Seville and Pope Clemens. However, two out of four penitentials do mention their authors too: Theodore of Canterbury and Egbert of York. Other material is in some cases unique to this manuscript, or only turns up in other manuscripts for priests. Among these texts are an exposition of the Mass, a short interrogation about the Church (only in this manuscript), part of the prayer collection (only in this manuscript) and a unique version of the episcopal statutes (II and III combined) of Gerbald of Liège. As we will see below, this Lorsch manuscript was also a member of a recognisable ‘family’ of books for priests. First of all, however, some further reflection is needed on two characteristics that the whole pool of manuscripts seems to share.

7  Characteristics Two characteristics of manuscripts for priests that clearly appear in the three examples just given deserve some extra attention here. What is perhaps most striking is the great variety in their contents, even though, as we have seen, the basis of each book is a series of recurring general themes connected to pastoral care. Second, the overwhelming majority of texts included in these books is anonymous (that is: in the manuscripts themselves, but often also to modern

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scholarship), and many texts seem to have only enjoyed very limited circulation.60 The compilers, then, do not appear to have been very interested in conferring authority upon the contents of these books, but aimed at producing useful collections. There was no set repertoire of specific texts for the purposes served by such collections, and hence we see a lot of creative re-working in these handbooks. When we assess the whole corpus, the number and variety of texts used to educate priests and laymen is impressive. What is more, much of this material has received little scholarly attention (or none at all): much of it consists of excerpts, or rephrasings of known material, and is therefore not original in the modern sense of the word. Most of it, moreover, lurks in the often unspectacular, grubby, undecorated and sometimes badly written manuscripts just described. Still, these texts all represent people doing their best to explain and to educate, and on occasion to improve the example they were working with – in that sense, variation does not only show the enthusiasm with which initiatives to teach and improve knowledge was received in many quarters, it also underlines that this led to lively practices of writing, compiling, reworking, but also studying, reading and passing on. That this happened at the highest intellectual and scholarly levels is well known; that this was a much wider phenomenon is not (see Chapter 1). The two features of variety and anonymity are closely related, and stem directly from the way in which the manuscripts were compiled. It is important to note that throughout the corpus, no two compilations are the same. Even though some texts were selected for incorporation in many books, such as the highly successful first episcopal statute by Theodulf of Orléans, or an anonymous but well-distributed explanation of the Mass,61 there are no signs whatsoever that any part in the process of compilation and selection was standardised or centralised. That each pastoral compendium was different, so presumably ­purpose-made, shows that there was no consistent planning at any level, nor any detailed opinion about what exactly priests needed to learn and what they should use to instruct their flocks. High-level prescriptions were insistent that priests and laity be taught, but as we have seen, such admonishments are never precise to the point that they divulge which texts exactly would be appropriate for the 60 Keefe, A catalogue bears this out: of the 393 explanations of the Creed, an overwhelming number is anonymous or is known under a ‘pseudo-’attribution, while Keefe herself was often the first to provide a transcription or edition. For her edition of part of this material see her Explanationes symboli aevi Carolini, CCCM 254 (Turnhout, 2012). Similar conclusions about different kinds of texts: Anna Dorofeeva, ‘Miscellanies, Christian reform and early medieval encyclopaedism: a reconsideration of the pre-bestiary Latin Physiologus manuscripts’, Historical Research 90 (2017), pp. 665–82, esp. p. 678. 61 This is the so-called Dominus vobiscum, once believed to have been written by Amalarius of Metz or Alcuin of York. The most recent edition by Jean-Michel Hanssens, Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia I (Vatican City, 1948), pp. 284–338 only uses a fraction of the extant manuscripts. See C.M. Nason, ‘The Mass commentary Dominus vobiscum: its textual transmission and the question of authorship’, Revue Benedictine 114 (2004), pp. 75–91 and Carine van Rhijn, ‘Ut missarum preces bene intellegant. The Dominus vobiscum: A Carolingian Mass commentary for the education of priests’, Revue Mabillon n.s. 31 (2020), pp. 7–28.

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purpose. This idea can even be pushed a bit further, to the extent that there never was any set reading list for priests in this period, which identified specific texts, or a well-defined ‘canon’ of some kind – the royal court, or individual bishops, regularly prescribed knowledge of a penitential, for instance, but never specified which one it should be. Although there is always a visible connection between the contents of the manuscripts and Carolingian ideals for priests and laymen (as expressed, for instance, in the Admonitio generalis), this relation works at the level of general ideas only and left a lot of room for different interpretations and approaches. We see the results in the manuscript record: some compilers or commissioners decided for a limited set of short, straightforward texts written on good parchment by one well-trained scribe, while others created shabby booklets containing sophisticated theological material written by a whole team of less practiced hands. Whatever the solution chosen, and whatever the quality of the material used, however, it is clear that these books were considered valuable in the Carolingian period, and sometimes still centuries later. A lot of time, effort and resources must have gone into the creation of what must once have been thousands of books, booklets and loose quires (see below), of which we now only see the few survivors. Each manuscript reflects an individual response to the shared conviction that it was important to teach priests and laity, or, on the part of priests, to have certain texts at hand for their daily ministry. Each selection of texts was based on local availability of material, as well as personal priorities, knowledge and interests of the bishop, priest or other commissioner. ‘Correct’ knowledge and ‘correct’ ways of doing things could take many different shapes and forms in the eyes of different people, at different moments, in different places. Manuscripts for priests, then, provide us with snapshots of what was considered to be a useful dossier at a given time and place. Let us have a look at one example to make this combination of correct knowledge in various forms and shapes more tangible. A short exploration of the many forms that the explanation of the Creed could take, as well as an example of how different the contents of such texts could be is illustrative here. What consequences did the attitude of ‘pick, mix and add what you need’ have for the contents of these books, and how far did variation actually go? Concerning explanations of the Creed, Keefe found 393 different texts to this end which were all included in manuscripts (but not necessarily composed) in the Carolingian period.62 The challenge to explain the Creed in a comprehensible, un-fuzzy way was met in a series of more and less successful attempts – there was variety in the approach, that is, in the format of the text, but also in the contents. The various forms of texts designed to explain the Creed include, for instance, line-by-line expositions, but also didactic texts structured as questions-and-answers, sermons, more long-winded theological commentaries, as well as very

62 See Keefe, A catalogue; eadem, Explanationes.

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short, compact expositions. An explanation of the Creed could also be part of a longer work, so that a separate text was not necessary. The possible ways to make sure that priests knew and understood the Creed, and could explain it to others were, then, extensive, and the fact that we find so many different ways to fulfil this requirement shows great creativity and resourcefulness on the part of authors and compilers. While some of the texts that Keefe has gathered predate the Carolingian period, most were new compositions, which often survive as anonymous texts in just a handful of manuscripts. Only few texts about the Creed, on the other hand, have a named author (or a solid attribution) or survive in substantial amounts of manuscripts.63 This pattern suggests that the Carolingian age witnessed a veritable explosion in the composition of new texts that explained the Creed, which, as we will see in the next three chapters, also goes for the other themes central in manuscripts for priests. The case of the Creed is unique in the sheer number of surviving texts, but variation in format and contents, as well as the predominant anonymity, is a pattern repeated in texts about more or less every subject considered relevant for priests, pastoral care and religious education. Texts that, in one way or the other, explain the Lord’s Prayer, Mass, baptism or penance come in many different forms, are similarly anonymous in most cases and more often than not do not show traces of wide circulation.64 However, at a more fundamental level, variety does not only show in form but also in contents. Here it is important to remember how central correct knowledge and understanding of the Creed was for both clerics and laymen. It was a key element of the religious education of lay people and a requirement for those wishing to be baptised, as well as for the godparents of children who were too young to talk.65 The shared idea that all ought to know and understand this prayer, then, seems as straightforward as can be, as was the obligation for priests to be able to explain it correctly. Short though the prayer may be, however, every single sentence was potentially tricky. The uneducated ran the risk of getting it wrong without even perhaps noticing: in the context of theological discussions about the exact nature of the Holy Trinity, for instance, the first sentence Credo in unum deum (‘I believe in one God’) becomes a statement of orthodoxy only when backed up by the correct understanding of the triune nature of the one Christian God. Even for the laity, then, learning the Creed was not just a matter

63 An example of a text with an author and a rather wide circulation is a letter by Pope Leo I, which in some cases was copied with a preface mentioning the pope and his addressee, Bishop Flavantius of Constantinople. Keefe, A catalogue no. 195, p. 126. This text survives in 44 manuscripts, 26 of which are Carolingian. 64 On the Lord’s Prayer see now Steffen Patzold, ‘Pater noster: priests and the religious instruction of the laity in the Carolingian populus christianus’, in: Patzold and Van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle, pp. 199–211 with a list of texts and manuscripts on pp. 212–4. 65 See for instance Gerbald of Liège’s first episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 3, p. 26, where he explains how godfathers and godmothers ought to teach their godchildren the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and should therefore know these prayers themselves.

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of learning the text by heart. Correct understanding of the Creed distinguished good Christians from those who held the wrong beliefs. But, as we will see shortly, the definitions of what exactly constituted ‘good knowledge’ could vary considerably. In order to illustrate this last point, I will now give a detailed example, using four interrogations about the Creed from priests’ manuscripts. All four are anonymous and have no title – they survive in one or two manuscripts only. Many interrogations of the Creed begin with testing the right understanding of the Trinity. One such interrogation, intended for sacerdotes, opens as follows: QUESTION:  Explain us your belief, how you believe. ANSWER:  I profess that I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as

one Tri- une God, of one essence and might and eternity; […] I profess that the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, the Holy Ghost however is neither unbegotten nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father and the Son; that the Son proceeds from the Father by birth, but the Holy Ghost did not proceed by being born.66 Another interrogation, the opening of which is very close to the first example, appears in two manuscripts for priests: BEGINNING.  QUESTION: Explain to us your belief, how you believe. ANSWER:  I believe that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are one

God, triple and one; triple in person, one in divine essence. We call essence that which only pertains to God. I believe in God, out of whom everything, the Son through whom everything, the Holy Ghost, in which everything.67 A third interrogation, with a remarkable reading of the Holy Ghost (see below), now extant in two manuscripts, approaches the subject a bit differently: 66 See Keefe, Catalogus, p. 102, no. 119; eadem, Explanationes, textus 13, pp. 72–5 at p. 73: Interrogatio. Dispone nobis fidem tuam, quomodo credis. Profiteor Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum unum Deum in Trinitate, unius essentiae et potestatis ac s­ empiternitas […]. Pater confiteor ingenitum, Filium genitum, Spiritum autem nec genitum nec ingenitum, sed a Patre et Filio procedentem; Filium a Patre nascendo procedere, Spiritum uero Sanctum procedendo non nasci. […] This text only survives in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat.1008, and in an eleventh century copy of a Carolingian priest’s book now Barcelona, Biblioteca de la Universitat 228. 67 See Keefe, Catalogus, p. 109, no. 136; eadem, Explanationes, textus 16, pp. 88–93 at p. 89: Incipit. Interrogatio. Expone nobis fidem tuam, quomodo credis. Responsio. Credo Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum unum esse Deum, trinum et unum; trinum in personis, unum in essentia divinitatis. Essentia dicimus quod ad solum Deum pertinet. Credo Patrem, ex quo omnia; Filium, per quem omnia; Spiritum Sanctum, in quo omnia. This text survives in two priests’ manuscripts: again Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1008, and, in a different order, Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 43.

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QUESTION:  How do you believe in God? ANSWER:  I believe in God the Almighty Father. QUESTION:  Who is the Father? ANSWER:  God the Creator of all worlds, Who did not become flesh. QUESTION:  Who is the Son? ANSWER:  The Word of the Father that was spoken before the worlds, that came

into the Virgin Mary, and was incarnated – our Lord Jesus Christ. QUESTION:  Who is the Holy Ghost? ANSWER:  Wisdom, that was before the worlds, and proceeds from the Father, in which all has been created.68 Perhaps a less successful, somewhat confusing example now only survives in a priests’ manuscript copied in the eleventh century: QUESTION:  Whether each person of the Holy Trinity, that is God the Father,

God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, are three Gods or not. ANSWER:  The right answer to that is that each person, God the Father, and God

the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the perfect God. They are therefore not three gods, but one God, which means triple in person and one in nature.69 Clearly, these four interrogations expect four different answers to rather similar questions. The author of the first text, who worked with Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis on his writing desk,70 chose to emphasise the question who begot whom and how; the second text, probably inspired by one or more works by Eucherius of Lyon,71 was interested in the issue of how the one God can consist of three personae. Author three presents a short ‘who is who’ of the Holy Trinity, but what he

68 See Keefe, Catalogus, p. 162, no. 290; eadem, Explanationes, textus 26, pp. 119–20 at p. 120: Interrogatio. Quomodo credis in Deum? Responsio: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem. Interrogatio. Qui est Pater? Responsio: Deus creator omnium saeculorum, qui carnem non induit. Interrogatio: Qui est Filius? Responsio: Verbum Patris, quod fuit ante saecula, venit in Maria virgine, induit carnem, Dominus noster Iesus Christus. Interrogatio: Qui est Spiritus Sanctus? Responsio: sapientia, quae fuit ante saecula, quae procedit ex Patre, in qua facta sunt omnia. The text survives in two Carolingian priests’ manuscripts: Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27 and Verdun, Bibliothèque Municipale 27. 69 See Keefe, Catalogus, no. 334, p. 177; eadem, Explanationes, textus 29, pp. 124–9 at p. 125: Interrogatio. Si unaquaeque persona sanctae Trinitatis, id est Pater Deum, Filius Deus, Spiritus Sanctus Deus, utrum sint tres dii? Responsio. Recte unaquaeque persona perfectus Deus et Pater Deus et Filius Deus et Spiritus Sanctus Deus; et tamen non tres dii, sed unus Deus, id est trinus in personis et unus in natura. This Carolingian text only survives in the eleventh-century manuscript Troyes, Mediathèque Jacques Chirac 1979. 70 See Keefe, Explanationes, p. 73. 71 See Keefe, Explanationes, p. 89.

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read as inspiration is unclear; number four seems to have been mostly concerned with avoiding confusion, and (rather unsuccessfully) tried to show how the Trinity is, in fact, one God and not three. He may have used Alcuin’s De trinitate for inspiration, as well as Isidore’s Etymologies.72 What we see is, I think, different individuals doing their best to provide explanations of the Trinity. People studying these texts, however, would learn different things, which nevertheless all constituted ‘correct understanding’ in the eyes of the authors and/or compilers – with just one exception. In his efforts to create a useful and clear explanation, our third author made a mistake. Instead of explaining how the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, as the official teaching went, he claims that only the Father was responsible, and he does not correct this in a later part of his text. This was, in fact, an unorthodox if not outright heretical idea in the Carolingian period, but one can barely imagine that the author of this very short, basic text intended to spread false teachings or promote heresy.73 In all probability, this text was based on literature on the non-Carolingian side of the filioque-controversy and would surely have been considered ‘incorrect’ by any bishop with sufficient knowledge of the matter74 – whatever the case, it shows how some material in priests’ manuscripts did not always conform entirely to the latest theological insights of the day. But most of the time it did. The examples just discussed are a mere four out of the 393 that Keefe lists, a rather dizzying perspective if one takes into account all extant texts about all subjects covered in the corpus of priests’ manuscripts. What the existence of all this material means is, I think, that much was created especially for these manuscripts, that individuals working near a monastic or episcopal library (not necessarily always the best-informed or most learned people) did the writing, and that most texts were never intended for a wide circulation. The examples just cited show serious work on complicated subjects, experiments with form and contents that were meant to hit the nail on the head without becoming too long-winded or complicated. Some authors were clearly better equipped for this task than others, most seem to have had access to longer works of reference to help them. The image this evokes is that of a Frankish world filled with people busy at their writing desks, thinking about the challenges of educating and teaching and creating new texts for the purpose. That this image may sound (too?) optimistic but is, in fact, not improbable for large stretches of the Frankish kingdom is the subject of the next section, which discusses the chronological and geographical distribution of the manuscripts, and the relationships between certain clusters of books.

72 See Keefe, Explanationes, p. 125. 73 I would like to thank Kristina Mitalaité for sharing her thoughts on this passage with me. 74 On the background of this controversy see R.G. Heath, ‘The western schism of the Franks and the ‘filioque’’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 23 (1972), pp. 97–113.

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8  When? Where? When and where were all these manuscripts composed, and what can we know about the people who put them together? The overview in Appendix I shows what we know about the dates of composition and provenance of the priest books discussed here, and what is immediately striking is how imprecise most information in this table is. Only a few manuscripts, such as El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, have both a clear provenance (Senlis) and a relatively exact date (850–875), but those are the exceptions. Most of the books in the table have imprecise dates, unclear provenances or both. Such dates and provenances most of the time go back to the work of Bernhard Bischoff, who is followed by most authors of manuscript studies such as Keefe. That so much of the corpus cannot be dated or localised with more precision, then, means that even Bischoff could not do any better.75 It is worth considering briefly what this may mean. The first factor to take into account here is that texts which can be dated to a specific year or decade in the Carolingian period are uncommon in these books. This stems directly from the fact that so much of this material is anonymous or written by long-dead Church Fathers. Sometimes, however, a manuscript contains a work by a known Carolingian author, which then gives us a date post quem for the production of the manuscript. A good example is provided by the Bamberg manuscript described above: its latest datable text contains an extract from Walahfrid Strabo’s Liber de exordiis et incrementis, composed between 840 and 842, which means that the manuscript cannot possibly have been compiled before that date.76 Sometimes, a little snippet of information in one of the texts included gives a hint – as we have seen, one text in the Paris manuscript BN 1012 mentions Louis the Pious as emperor, which means that its earliest date of compilation must be 814.77 This method of dating a manuscript by one of its texts does not always work, however, as in the case of the Munich manuscript Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14461. The main body of this manuscript is filled with Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis, supplemented with a series of anonymous texts, mostly homilies. On the back of the last page, however, we find the text of a hymn composed by Hrabanus Maurus, which would, in theory, push the date of the manuscript to the second half of the ninth century, since Hrabanus lived until 856 and the hymn has not been dated to a more precise moment in his life. However, the hymn is a later addition to the manuscript, which can be easily seen from its place in the book (the originally empty last page), and the palaeography, which is a hand that does not turn up anywhere

75 The standard work is Berhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigothischen), 3 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1998–2014). 76 See above note 56. 77 See above note 49. Emperor Louis the Pious is mentioned in the Capitula Parisiensia, c. 13 on f. 36r.

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else in the manuscript. In this case, then, a datable Carolingian text does not help to date the manuscript. This brings us to the second factor, that of palaeography. If there is no other hint in the manuscript, its date ultimately has to be based on the date of the hand or hands who copied out the book. Thanks to the pioneering work of Bernhard Bischoff, but also the studies of David Ganz and John Contreni for instance, the hands used in various Carolingian scriptoria can be recognised and dated with some precision.78 However, such dates are based on analyses of well-trained, recognisable hands of scribes who are sometimes even known by name, and who demonstrate the typical way of writing of a specific scriptorium. Especially the large and famous scriptoria of the Carolingian period are well known in this way, and about a quarter of the books listed in the appendix can be localised to specific scriptoria, such as the monasteries of Corbie, Reichenau or Fulda, or the episcopal scriptoria of Rheims, Freising or Orléans. In these cases there is often something in the contents of the manuscript to confirm such a provenance, such as entries with some recognisable couleur locale, or an early library inscription.79 The remaining three quarters of the list, in other words, was not written in hands recognisable enough to connect them to a known Carolingian scriptorium – and if the texts in the books give no hints, sometimes a manuscript’s provenance remains as vague as ‘perhaps France’. What this means is that the majority of the manuscripts for priests were not written by well-trained, professional scribes. There is again a sliding scale here, between manuscripts copied out by nice hands typical of a specific scriptorium (for instance, the manuscript Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, which is a recognisable product of the monastic scriptorium of Lorsch), and barely trained hands that have no recognisable features which point to any known scriptorium, or even to a geographical area. All books for priests must have been compiled in a place with a library of some kind, but this does not automatically mean that professional scribes did all the hard work. Clearly, ‘non-professional’ or ‘amateur’ scribes were often involved in the copying of these manuscripts, and sometimes they worked in teams. The manuscript Séléstat, Bibliothèque Humaniste 132, for instance, was written by nine different people; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135 by no less than 20. One exceptional, and as far as I know unique, piece of evidence shows a professional scribe at work to copy out a book that may have been intended for (the education of ) priests. The example comes from the library catalogue of the monastery of Reichenau, which lists the books copied by the monk and scribe Reginbert over the course of his long career. The first item on the list (which 78 Bischoff, Katalog; David Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian renaissance (Sigmaringen, 1990) and John J. Contreni, The cathedral school of Laon from 850 to 930: its manuscripts and masters (Munich, 1978). 79 A good example can be found in the manuscript El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, which contains a martyrology to which specific entries connected to Senlis have been added, for instance on f. 137r.

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may be the manuscript Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.perg. XVIII) reads as follows: First of all one very large book, in which are contained several explanations about the Lord’s Prayer. Next there are tracts about the Apostles’ Creed by many orthodox Fathers, with further ones about the faith explained in different ways, and an exposition of Mass, and one about the ecclesiastical ordo of Mass, and one about the ecclesiastical orders, and one about the sacrament of baptism. Thereafter various canons, that is from Greece, Africa, Gaul, and Spain. Thereafter decretal letters from the bishops of the Romans, and thereafter canones from the Old and New Testaments, thereafter various handbooks of penance.80 This is a case of a single, well-trained scribe compiling what must have been a substantial volume by himself. In the corpus, however, entire manuscripts copied out by single, let alone professional hands, are rare, the Bamberg manuscript just mentioned being one of the exceptions. Usually, several people wrote the book together – given the unpolished style of many of these hands, it does not seem far-fetched to imagine how such teams may also have been made up of (future) priests themselves, collaborating to produce a useful compendium. Dates are as difficult to establish as places of composition, which largely stems from the same reasons: if there is no material in the book datable to the Carolingian period or other hints that can establish a date post quem, one has to rely on palaeography, which in many cases means Bernhard Bischoff’s estimates. As is well known, Bischoff changed his mind regularly about certain manuscripts, so his published dates may vary according to which of his publications one consults.81 Sometimes there are so few hints that it is not even certain whether a manuscript was produced in the eighth to ninth, or ninth to tenth centuries; only in a few cases can a book be dated to the decade. What we find most

80 Becker, Catalogus, pp. 19–20: Inprimis liber I praegrandis, in quo continentur super orationem dominicam nonnullorum catholicorum explanationes. Deinde super symbolum apostolorum quam plurimorum orthodoxorum tractationes cum caeteris de fide tractantibus diverso modo explanation. et expositio de missa et de ordine ecclesiastico missae, et de ordinibus ecclesiasticis, et de ratione sacramenti baptismatis. Deinde diversi canones, id est Graeciae, Africae, Galliae, Hispaniaeque. Postea decretales epistolae antistitum Romanorum ac deinceps canones ex veteri et novo testamento composita, postmodum diversi libri paenitentiarum. This may well be the manuscript Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. XVIII. See Waagmeester, ‘Pastoral works’, p. 302. 81 The example of Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14461 is eloquent: in his Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit I: Die bayerischen Diözesen (­Wiesbaden, 1960), no. 42, p. 102, Bischoff dates the manuscript to the ninth century in general; in his Katalog II, p. 258, no. 3206, published nearly 40 years later, he dates it to the second quarter of the ninth century.

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often is a dating to the half or quarter century – that is, to within one or two entire generations – but this is the best we can do given the current state of research. For nearly all manuscripts in the corpus, we can therefore not establish who ruled the Frankish kingdoms/empire, or who held a certain (arch)episcopal see at the time the book was compiled. There are, however, other things that we can do with the little information we have, uncertainty and imprecision notwithstanding. It is, for instance, possible to pinpoint a few regions in Europe that produced many of these books, against areas from which we know no pastoral compendia at all. Going from the list of manuscripts gathered in Appendix I, it is easy to see that about half of all manuscripts listed have been identified as written in France, and relatively many of those in either northern France or southern France. The German manuscripts, a good quarter of the corpus, seem to be concentrated in Bavaria and to a lesser extent in Lotharingia. Perhaps unsurprisingly, areas such as Italy, modern Belgium and Saxony are barely represented at all, as are whole stretches of France and Germany from which we have not a single book for priests. Given all the uncertainties in the dating and localising of manuscripts just outlined, it makes no sense to analyse these data much further – what is important here is that the manuscripts we have are not evenly distributed all over the Carolingian realm, but do show some concentrations. One thing that can be usefully done with this, is finding out whether there are any recognisable ‘types’ of manuscripts in certain regions, or if and how texts travelled all over the Carolingian empire. A brief discussion of this issue of manuscripts and their relatives, and finally that of texts travelling or staying where they were written will conclude this chapter.

9  Travelling texts and manuscripts for priests Even though each priests’ manuscript contains a unique dossier, not a single one of them is an island totally isolated from the rest of the corpus. Even sets of anonymous texts of uncertain provenance show connections with other compilations, while some books turn out to be surprisingly close to each other in contents. The manuscripts do not just show what a given compiler at a specific moment in time thought most useful, but also shed light on a pool of texts and other manuscripts that they could draw on. What is more, texts shared by just a few manuscripts, such as some of the Creed explanations discussed previously, sometimes reveal that there must have been contacts between people and places about which the manuscripts themselves give us no hint at all. One example will illustrate this and show how connections between books show up everywhere when one looks close enough. The short interrogation with the mistake about the Holy Spirit just cited provides a good starting point, for it survives in just two manuscripts. These two books both date from the second third of the ninth century, but one (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek ms 27) is from northern Italy or Switzerland, while the other

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(Verdun, Bibliothèque municipale ms 27) was compiled in eastern France.82 Even though these regions are quite far apart, then, there must have been a direct or indirect connection between the two places for the books to end up with the same text. On closer inspection, these two manuscripts turn out so share not one but a whole series of texts, which do not appear in the same order in both books. This could be because the different compilers used exemplars in which the texts had become shuffled, or because they selected and compiled ­d ifferently – ­whatever the case may be, it is clear that these compilers thought about their compilations and at least one of both did more than just copy an example.83 When we look for further pastoral compendia that contain one or more of these shared texts, however, the two manuscripts turn out to have another relative, for some of the texts shared by the Einsiedeln and the Verdun manuscripts (but not our initial interrogation about the Creed) also appear in another manuscript for a priest, which is also dated to the second third of the ninth century. This book was probably compiled in northern France (Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médicine 387) and shows how this compiler, too, had access to a series of texts also available to a colleague in Northern Italy/Switzerland and eastern France.84 The density of connections was actually even thicker: the Montpellier manuscript, in turn, contains two short baptismal interrogations one of which only survive in three, the other in just two other manuscripts. One of these manuscripts (Monza, Biblioteca Capitolare e14/127, dated to the late ninth century, provenance northern Italy) also contains one of the texts that features in the Einsiedeln, Verdun and Montpellier manuscripts.85 Once we start looking for connections such as these between manuscripts, the story becomes very complex very fast. The more texts one takes into consideration, the more connections become visible – this is not a matter only of texts with known authors, but just as much, if not more, of the anonymous material. How exactly all these exchanges may have worked in practice is probably impossible to reconstruct in most cases, although detailed analyses of small families of manuscripts may prove to offer ways forward. Here, the more interesting question is what such connections could mean, and the implications which this dense network of related manuscripts might have for our interpretation of the culture that fuelled it. Clearly, it is hard to assess the full extent of the network of people and knowledge exchange through the sample of pastoral compendia

82 See Keefe, Catalogue, pp. 228 and 374. 83 Similar arguments about different kinds of manuscripts: Dorofeeva, ‘Miscellanies’; Michael Gorman, ‘The Carolingian miscellany of exegetical texts in Albi 39 and Paris lat. 2175’, in: idem, Biblical commentaries from the early middle ages, Millennio Medievale 32 (Florence, 2002), pp. 476–94. 84 The texts shared by the Einsiedeln and Verdun manuscripts are Keefe’s numbers 3, 106, 140, 269, 290 and 295 (see her Catalogue); the Montpellier manuscript includes numbers 3, 140 and 295. See Keefe, Catalogue, p. 275. 85 This is Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 39 and Text 40, pp. 538–9. For the Monza manuscript see idem, p. 41.

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used for this book, but it is worth mentioning two characteristics indicative of the larger picture. First of all, all of the texts in the pastoral compilations show that those putting together books for priests could sometimes draw on clusters of texts that seem to have been widely available. In the example just given, three compilers (the Monza manuscript is later) who worked in the same period but in different parts of the Carolingian empire, had access to a set of texts from which they each made their own selections. Taken together, all these contributions to the Carolingian pastoral project constitute an impressively large pool of texts, which grew substantially over this period and contained many newly invented kinds of texts. The overwhelming majority of these texts, most of all the short and anonymous ones, did not become empire-wide success stories, but nevertheless often knew some circulation. What pastoral compendia show us, then, is selections from the available pool of texts, dependent on time, place, personal preference and local availability. Second, all the connections between the texts in the pastoral compendia show a dense network, but not only between and among these manuscripts themselves. The ‘pool’ of texts just described spills over to different kinds of manuscripts, which again shows how the Carolingian pastoral project to lead the population to Eternal Life was so central that we find its traces everywhere. It also underlines once again how hard it can be to distinguish a priests’ manuscript from other, neighbouring kinds of compilations. These texts, finally, may often be small and in themselves not very significant, but the pattern that this network of connections shows is all the more so. Shared texts, after all, show connections between manuscripts, and thereby between the places where manuscripts were written and, most importantly, between the people who worked with these texts. As we have seen, even the most insignificant of the short, anonymous texts could travel over great distances fast. When we consider each manuscript as a whole, and picture all of the connections with other manuscripts through single or multiple texts, a dense, complex web of knowledge exchange comes into view of which even the shabbiest of priests’ manuscripts turns out to be a product. Compilations of pastoral material that would aid the purpose of salvation through education were in constant high demand during the Carolingian period.

PART II

Cornerstones

3 THE CORNERSTONES OF CHRISTIAN SOCIETY I Baptism

1  Introduction The pastoral compendia of the Carolingian age bear witness to the ideals and responsibilities of bishops and priests, whose task it was to teach the population and lead it to salvation. For the illiterate lay inhabitants of the many rural settlements of the Carolingian world, the long and sometimes bumpy road to heaven started right on their doorstep, at least, if their local priest was educated to the right extent and did his job as he ought to. That the Carolingian intensified system of pastoral care could work in the first place was a result of a few fundamental innovations of the period. Where rural priests had previously lived in small groups as satellites of the episcopal city and travelled to the rural churches within their reach, in the course of the late eighth and early ninth century they increasingly moved into local lay settlements and lived there permanently.1 Each individual priest was ordained to a single church, in principle for life. The reason why it was thought to be so important that priests live with their flocks is – and here we see a second Carolingian innovation – that they were expected to take care of lay souls on a round-the-clock basis. This was no mere logistical issue: in several explanations of their duties it was impressed upon priests that they would be held personally responsible for souls lost by their negligence. No child should die unbaptised, no sick person should pass away without the last rites and no sinner tormented by his bad conscience should look for the 1 On the Merovingian situation: Robert Godding, Prêtres en Gaul mérovingienne (Brussels, 2001), pp. 240–60; the Carolingian infrastructure: Steffen Patzold, Presbyter. Moral, Mobilität und die Kirchenorganisation im Karolingerreich, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 68 (Stuttgart, 2020), pp. 89–156.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-6

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priest in vain.2 By moving priests to where the people were, response time to such emergencies was minimised. This new infrastructure of pastoral care, together with the increased education of priests themselves, also ensured that the instruction of the laity could be undertaken more systematically and effectively than before. Re-organising the logistics of pastoral care and the intensification of the education of priests were, therefore, integral parts of the greater project that should lead the population to salvation. But what was it, exactly, that Carolingian priests knew, and how should their instruction of the laity be understood? In this chapter and the next two, the three main areas of the priests’ expertise that one could call the ‘cornerstones of Christian society’ will be explored though the priests’ manuscripts: knowledge about baptism in this chapter, and that of the Mass and penance in Chapters 4 and 5, respectively.3 These three subjects have been chosen for two reasons. First, they are the themes most frequently discussed and explained in pastoral compendia – and understandably so, for the performance of these rituals was, in the end, what priests were primarily for in a lay community. Second, each of these key moments in the religious lives of Christian communities was also occasions for the education and instruction of the laity. We can consider them as the moments where the priest’s own education mattered most, since these were the times where he needed to teach the laity. The extent of his knowledge and how good he was at transmitting it had direct consequences for the priest’s success in shepherding the lay flock towards heaven. For ritual to be valid and pleasing to God, the priest needed to know exactly what he was doing at the peril of his own and his flock’s souls, so here his own education was crucial. The instruction of lay people during these occasions was, however, no less important than the ritual itself in the Carolingian period, for these were the moments where the improvement of the morals and knowledge of the whole population had to happen, which should eventually ensure everybody’s salvation. This is, in other words, where the ideals expressed in general terms in the Admonitio generalis and in many episcopal normative texts about ‘project salvation’ were ideally preached and practiced. The pastoral manuals provide a wealth of texts about each of these three subjects, but also about the themes fit for lay instruction at each of these occasions. Before lay people could be baptised, for instance, they had to participate in a

2 An evocative expression of this idea can be found in Theodulf of Orléans’ first episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 104, c. 1: ‘Veraciter nosse debetis et semper meminisse, quia nos, quibus regendarum animarum cura commissa est, pro his, qui nostra neglegentia pereunt, rationem reddituri sumus.’ See Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord. Priests and episcopal statutes in the Carolingian period, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 6 (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 110–11; Patzold, Presbyter, pp. 85–7. 3 The term ‘cornerstone’ is borrowed from Susan Keefe, ‘Carolingian baptismal instructions: a handlist of tracts and manuscripts’, in: Uta-Renate Blumenthal ed., Carolingian essays: Andrew W. Mellon lectures in early Christian studies (Washington, DC, 1983), pp. 169–237 at p. 171. Keefe uses the term only for baptism. A similar idea is expressed by Owen M. Phelan, The formation of Christian Europe. The Carolingians, baptism and the Imperium Christianum (Oxford, 2014), ch. 2.

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sometimes lengthy period of religious education called the catechumenate. During this time, they were taught by the priest about the essentials of the Christian religion, such as the double nature of Christ, the virginity of His mother and the right understanding of the Holy Trinity, but also about the meaning and working of Christianity’s main rituals and feasts. When those baptised were children too young to speak, as was increasingly the case in all but the recently converted areas of the Carolingian world, their godparents promised to take it upon themselves to do such teaching once the child was old enough. Of special importance were the two prayers that each Christian had to understand and know by heart: the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. Baptism followed this period of education as the ritual through which the baptismal candidate (catechumen) became a full member of the community of Christians. Thanks to the teaching that came before, such Christians could be expected to know and understand the central beliefs, feasts and rituals of their newly adopted religion. Similar observations can be made about the Mass and penance. The main vehicle for week-to-week instruction of lay audiences during Mass was homilies and sermons, while rituals of confession and penance were excellent occasions for a priest to share knowledge about virtues and vices. For each of the three rituals, priests’ manuscripts contain ample material to shed light both on what priests knew about these subjects, and on what they could teach the laity on each occasion. Both processes of instruction and education,4 that of priests themselves and that of lay people by priests, respectively, are relevant to understand how religious knowledge was acquired and shared in the Carolingian world. Ultimately, these processes help us understand the formation of the religious culture that became such an important feature of early medieval Europe, even after the Carolingian kings and their intellectual entourage had faded from the scene. This chapter and the next two will each try to answer similar questions about the themes of baptism, Mass and penance, and therefore their structure is more or less the same. The main questions are about the two levels of education, so: what did priests learn about each subject, and what could they teach the laity on each occasion? These three themes, moreover, provide excellent case studies for the question about uniformity versus diversity: if it cannot be maintained that Carolingian kings and bishops strove for uniform religious practice and understanding, as has been argued above, what do we see instead? How broad was the bandwidth within which rituals and their interpretation were considered to be correct and valid, and how flexible was religious knowledge about important items of belief? Where exactly is it that we find the ideas that were the building blocks for a shared religious culture, and what were the areas where variation

4 This is a term I intend in the widest sense possible, without the connotation of teachers, classrooms and institutionalised systems in the modern sense. In this I follow Sita Steckel, Kulturen des Lehrens im Früh- und Hochmittelalter. Autorität, Wissenskonzepte und Netzwerke von Gelehrten, Norm und Struktur. Studien zum sozialen Wandel in Mittelalter in Früher Neuzeit 39 (Cologne, 2010), esp. Ch. 2.2 at pp. 116f.

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and diversity were usual? In each chapter, a wide variety of texts will be used that appear in priests’ manuscripts, for knowledge about all these subjects came in different shapes, forms and compilations. Each chapter will, therefore, also showcase one pastoral compendium in its entirety in order to illustrate, respectively, what priests were taught and what they, in turn, taught their lay flocks on each subject.

2 Baptism in the Carolingian period and the issue of correct ritual The ritual of baptism, as recent research has emphasised, was central to the Carolingian ideals of improving the moral standards of the kingdom by religious education.5 Especially in the time of Charlemagne, there was great interest in the ritual: baptism was considered to be of the highest importance for the salvation of the people. The ritual also had strong political overtones from the years around 800, when the idea of promising fides (in the double meaning of faith and faithfulness) to the King of Kings in Heaven was connected to being faithful to the king who ruled on earth in His name.6 Here, again, good intentions alone were not enough for each individual’s salvation: those baptised incorrectly could never reach heaven, and the same went for the priest who performed the ritual badly or incorrectly.7 The relevance of baptism and the catechumenate was, therefore, much more than a personal affair only important for the individual. Baptism created communities of Christians, who were each part of the Christian Church, which, in turn, became more or less equivalent with the Christian realm of the Frankish king(s) in the course of the ninth century.8 It was through baptism, moreover, that the community of Christians guaranteed its continuity into the future, and was woven ever closer together by godparenthood, which was understood as equal to biological kinship.9 Kings who ruled by the grace of God

5 Keefe, Water and the word I, esp. Chapter 1; Phelan, The formation. 6 Robert Flierman, ‘Gens perfida or Populus Christianus? Saxon (in)fidelity in Frankish historical writing’, in: Clemens Gantner, Rosamond McKitterick and Sven Meeder eds, The resources of the past in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 188–205. Phelan, The formation, esp. pp. 81–93. 7 See Arnold Angenendt, ‘”Mit reinen Händen”. Das Motiv der kultischen Reinheit in der abendländischen Askese’, in: Georg Jenal and Stephanie Haarländer eds, Herrschaft, Kirche, Kultur. Festschrift für Friedrich Prinz zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 297–316; Mayke de Jong, ‘Charlemagne’s church’, in: Joanne Story ed., Charlemagne, empire and society (Manchester/ New York, 2005), pp. 103–35 at pp. 119–25. 8 Mayke de Jong, ‘The empire as ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus and biblical historia for rulers’, in: Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes eds, The uses of the past in the early middle ages (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 191–226 and eadem, ‘The state of the church: ecclesia and early medieval state formation’, in: Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser eds, Der frühmittelalterliche Staat – europäische Perspectiven, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften 386, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 16 (Vienna, 2009), pp. 241–54. 9 See Joseph Lynch, Godparents and kinship in early medieval Europe (Princeton, 1986).

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considered themselves responsible for the salvation of their subjects. Small wonder that the quality of baptism and religious teaching that preceded it was high on Charlemagne’s agenda around the turn of the ninth century, and that the priests’ knowledge on the subject was deemed essential. Later in the ninth century, when kings turned their attention to other matters and their prescriptive texts show no interest in baptism to speak of, it nevertheless remained of high importance to the instruction of clergy and laity alike.10 In the year 813, Charlemagne himself famously sent a letter to his archbishops enquiring about the way in which baptism was performed in their respective archdioceses, after which a series of answers with detailed descriptions of the ritual came back to the court.11 Using as the framework for his questions an existing description of the ritual by Alcuin of York, the so-called Primo paganus, the emperor wondered, for instance, ‘what is a catechumen?’ (quid sit catecuminus), ‘why does the catechumen take salt?’ (cur catecuminus accipit salem) and ‘why is the baptismal candidate dressed in white clothes?’ (cur albis induitur vestimentis).12 Several (arch)bishops, amongst whom some of the most important theologians of the day, came up with more and less detailed texts in which they addressed some, or all, of Charlemagne’s question. These answers show common features, but are far from uniform, neither in the exact shape that the ritual took, nor in the details of its interpretation. To give just a single example: we just saw that one thing Charlemagne wanted to know is everybody’s explanation of why the newly baptised Christian should be dressed in white clothes. To this, Archbishop Magnus of Sens answered as follows: After the sacred regeneration from the font the baptized are dressed in white clothes, so that, by rising from the font they mystically symbolise the mystery of the church, or to show happiness about their new regeneration and their life of chastity and their decoration with angelic splendor.13

10 Such interest can be derived from the contents of pastoral manuscripts of the later ninth century, which show continued interest in baptismal expositions, didactic texts useful during the catechumenate, episcopal statutes emphasising the importance of baptism, et cetera. One example of such a manuscript is Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40, which contains four different baptismal expositions, explanations of both the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, a priest’s exam and a baptismal ordo. 11 See Keefe, Water and the word II for the most recent editions of all these texts. Charlemagne’s letter is Keefe’s Text 14, to which the following answers have been preserved: Text 1 [in part a pre-existing florilegium re-used by Odilbert of Milan], Text 15 (Magnus of Sens), Text 16 (Theodulf of Orléans, originally addressed to his archbishop Magnus of Sens), Text 23 (Amalarius of Metz), Text 25 (Leidrad of Lyon), Text 28 (anonymous), Text 33 (Maxentius of Aquileia), Text 41 (perhaps Hildebald of Cologne), Text 53 (anonymous). 12 Charlemagne’s letter: Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 14 at pp. 261–3; the Primo paganus: idem, Text 9 at pp. 238–45. 13 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 15 at p. 269: ‘post sacrae regenerationis lavacrum baptizati candidis induuntur vestimentis, ut surgentis figurent mysticum ecclesiae mysterium, vel propter gaudium novae regenerationis vitaeque castitatem et angelici splendoris decorem.’

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One of his (now anonymous) colleagues, however, had another take on the matter: About white clothes. That you dress the person who has been baptised. You know that it is worthy and transmitted through the authority of the Fathers that he who has shed his old person and his deeds, and, renewed in the Lord, has been clothed in a new person, should be dressed in white clothes.14 Archbishop Maxentius of Aquileia, in turn, goes no further than equating the white clothes to ‘wedding clothes’ without any further explanation.15 This single example shows well how wide the range of the archbishops’ answers to a seemingly simple question could be. The white clothes feature in each description of the ritual, but the explanations of what that meant varied widely. Presumably, one baptismal candidate would believe their clothes symbolised a life of chastity, while the other could be convinced he was wearing wedding clothes. The important question to ask here is this: how much did different explanations matter? Each of these explanations was obviously deemed fit for Charlemagne’s eyes, and all the texts sent to the court were carefully copied and studied by later generations of clerics (see below), which suggests that these variations were not considered to be problematic. When we cast the net a bit wider and include not only answers to Charlemagne’s questions, but the entire corpus of baptismal expositions composed in the Carolingian period, both the sense of shared ideas (‘there should be white clothes’) and that of variety (‘many different interpretations of these white clothes are possible and acceptable’) becomes more visible. Before we explore both characteristics further, however, it is important to take into account the different interpretations by historians that this material has inspired. At the basis of most older interpretations of the Carolingian baptismal dossier stands an apparent contradiction that, so historians believed, was derived directly from the primary sources. When Charlemagne in the Admonitio Generalis demanded ‘that priests baptise in the catholic way’ it was assumed that this was one, specific ritual that should therefore be followed everywhere.16 The letter of 813, then, with all the emperor’s questions about the various elements of this ‘catholic’ ritual, has perhaps been too easily interpreted as an attempt at top-down imperial control to make sure that this uniform ritual was followed everywhere,

14 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 17 at p. 325: ‘De albis vestibus. Vestiet eum qui baptizatus est. Dignum enim scitis et a sanctis patribus auctoritate traditum ut albis induatur vestibus qui exutus est veterem hominem cum actibus suis et indutus est novum eum qui secundum deum renovatus est.’ 15 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 33 at p. 464: ‘… albis induti, id est nutpiales vestes…’. 16 Admonitio Generalis, c. 68, ‘Ut episcopi diligenter discutiant per suas parrochias presbyteros, eorum fidem, baptisma et missarum celebrationes, ut… baptisma catholicum observent…’.

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even though the letter does not give the slightest hint of this.17 In the light of such presuppositions, however, it does not take much to understand how Charlemagne’s ‘reform’ of baptism has been read as an attempt to uniformise practice and even enforce such uniformity. It also helps to explain how, according to such interpretations, all the different answers and further explanations of the ritual constituted overwhelming evidence of failure to accomplish this. In the eyes of many historians Charlemagne’s ideas were good and laudable, but where it came to practical implementation, reality fell short of the ideal.18 There is, however, another way to look at this question. If the texts about baptism produced in the eighth and ninth centuries tell a story of variety and flexibility, then how exactly should we understand Carolingian perceptions of correct baptism? This much is clear: by the time that the Carolingians took the throne, there was no straightforward answer to this question, or, seen from a different perspective, there were many acceptable answers. Over time, the various regions of the growing kingdom had developed their own ritual forms and traditions; all of these rituals were considered to be totally acceptable locally. That Charlemagne’s archbishops sent him diverging descriptions of the ritual some 60 years later is therefore no great surprise, nor is it a sign that different regions refused to conform to royal attempts at imposing uniformity. What is more, no Carolingian baptismal exposition or prescription about the ritual of baptism is explicit about the use of a specific baptismal ordo, and there were many to choose from. What we see in the Carolingian baptismal dossier are the reflections of well-established local usages and interpretations. Often they take the form of rather rough outlines with some details highlighted, and otherwise there is a lot of room for variation. Recent research sheds a different light on the issue of correctness versus uniformity, moreover.19 The image of the royal court wishing for rigid adherence to any set ritual does not stand the test of the primary sources – neither the prescriptive texts, nor the descriptive ones – in which there is no trace of variety as a potential problem. Correct ritual, in other words, was not about following one clearly defined ritual everywhere, but could take many shapes and forms; and neither was its interpretation set in stone. However, flexibility had its limits too. It was never so extensive that just anything could be considered correct. Before assessing the bandwidth of possibilities it is now first time to take a closer look at the composition of the Carolingian corpus of texts explaining baptism.

17 See Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 14. 18 As Rosamond McKitterick eloquently put it: ‘Despite these efforts to promote a standard religious observance, harmony rather than uniformity was achieved.’, Rosamond McKitterick, ‘The Carolingian renaissance of culture and learning’, in: Joanne Story ed., Charlemagne: empire and society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 151–66 at p. 155. 19 See Chapter 1.

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3  Carolingian baptismal expositions The more than 60 texts from the Carolingian period that explain baptism and were gathered by Keefe form, at least in their structure, a remarkably homogeneous corpus. They all presuppose that the reader is familiar with a baptismal ordo and has witnessed the ritual often enough to recognise its different parts, as well as the different people who play a role. These texts are, in other words, not intended to educate the reader about the ritual as such, but rather to offer quite detailed instruction about its constituent elements and their meaning. Even though they share a basic structure that generally follows the order of the ritual, such texts come in different shapes and forms. There are three main models that together cover all the material in Keefe’s edition: first that of the exposition, second the question-and-answer model, and in third place sets of glosses. In general, baptismal expositions, the most commonly used model, offer explanations of the terminology and/or the different phases of the baptismal ritual in the order followed when performing the ritual. Many expositions begin with some comment on the term catechuminus, highlight several elements of the ritual in order of performance (numbers of elements differ) and mostly end with an explanation of the episcopal confirmation by the laying on of hands. The question-and-answer model in general also follows the course of the ritual, but adopts a more explicit didactic model that had been in uninterrupted use for education since Late Antiquity.20 Lists of glosses are confined to an explanation of the difficult words in an ordo of baptism, and thereby also serve the purpose of teaching priests about the ritual and its different elements. The first and the second models are sometimes very similar, usually because the question-and-answer version is a direct reworking of an exposition. Where, for instance, Alcuin’s Primo paganus opens its explanation of the ritual as follows: First the heathen who wants to be baptised becomes a catechumen, so that he renounces the evil spirit and all his damnable pomp.21 an anonymous question-and-answer version of the same text reads: QUESTION:  First I ask you why a catechumen is called like that, and what lan-

guage that is. 20 See, for instance, Marie-Pierre Bussières ed., La littérature des questions et réponses dans l’Antiquité profane et Chrétienne de l’enseignement à l’exegèse. Actes du séminaire sur le genre des questions et réponses tenu à Ottawa les 27 et 28 septembre 2009, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia. Research on the Inheritance of Early and Medieval Christianity 84 (Turnhout, 2013); L.W. Daly and W. Suchier, Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi, Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 24 (Urbana, 1939); David Ganz, ‘Some Carolingian questions from Charlemagne’s days’, in: Paul Fouracre and idem eds, Frankland. The Franks and the world of the early middle ages. Essays in honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester, 2008), pp. 90–100. 21 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 9, p. 240: ‘Primo paganus caticumenus fit accedens ad baptismum, ut renuntiet maligno spiritui et omnibus damnosis eius pompis […]’.

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ANSWER:  Greek. QUESTION:  how would you translate that in Latin? ANSWER:  As a person who listens, or somebody who learns. For first the hea-

then who wants to be baptised becomes a catechumen, so that he renounces the evil spirit and all his pomp.22 Apart from the three models used to shape the didactic approach of the explanation of the ritual, Carolingian authors drew on three main sources that together cover about three quarters of the full corpus. The most important single text in this sense was Alcuin’s Primo paganus itself, a short exposition (it is not even 300 words in Keefe’s modern edition) originally written as a letter in ca. 798.23 As far as we know, it is the first Carolingian text explaining baptism in a clear, compact and comprehensive way. That it became popular immediately is well attested by the extant manuscripts: clearly this text had found a wide audience even before Charlemagne sent out his letter for which he used this text.24 The Primo paganus itself survives in 20 ninth-century manuscripts, some of which are priests’ books. However, 14 further texts explaining baptism were composed by Carolingian authors with this compact explanation as their starting point.25 Where Alcuin’s text found its way throughout the Carolingian kingdoms, these ‘second generation texts’ usually do not survive in more than a single or a couple of copies: in total 18 manuscripts of these texts derived from the Primo paganus survive, about half of which are pastoral compendia. Taken together, the Primo paganus and its derivatives (15 texts) constitute nearly a quarter of all Carolingian baptismal expositions, attested in 38 Carolingian manuscripts.26 The second most important source for baptismal expositions is older works of the Fathers of the Church or, in some cases, extracts from Isidore of Seville’s De ecclesiasticis officiis alone. Taken together, such extracts based on the authority

22 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 55, p. 613: ‘Primum quero a te quare caticuminus vocetur et qua lingua dicatur? Responsio, greca. Interrogatio, latine quid interpraetatur? Responsio, audiens vel auditor. Primo enim paganus caticuminus fit accedens ad baptismum ut renuntiet maligno spiritui et omnibus pompis eius.’ 23 The version for the priest Oduin can be found in MGH Epp. IV, p. 202f; the slightly different version addressed to the monks in Septimania at p. 214f. Keefe has made the first full edition of the text on the basis of 35 manuscripts and one early edition (the manuscript on which this edition was based is unknown). One manuscript she overlooked is Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek B 113, dating to the third quarter of the ninth century. On the attribution to Alcuin see Owen Phelan, ‘Textual transmission and authorship in Carolingian Europe: Primo paganus, baptism, and Alcuin of York’, Revue Benedictine 118 (2008), pp. 262–88. 24 See the list of manuscript in Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 238. Note how six of the extant manuscripts date from the early ninth century or before. 25 Interestingly, it is especially this text that was often reworked into a question-and-answer version, for instance Keefe’s Texts 19, 40. 54 and 55. One such interrogation not in Keefe can be found in the ninth-century manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506. As far as I know, this text has not been printed or edited anywhere. 26 See Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 239 (the manuscripts of the Primo paganus), p. 246 and p. 253 (the manuscripts for the two texts that use the Primo paganus).

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of the Fathers also constitute about a quarter of the total number of baptismal expositions, with a total of 18 texts that survive in 35 manuscripts.27 A honourable third is Charlemagne’s letter about baptism plus all the answers he got from his (arch)bishops: while the letter itself surprisingly survives in only two ninth-­ century copies, the 14 answers and reworkings of these answers (in this case, we do not only have a second generation of texts, but also a third 28) can be found in 28 Carolingian codices. These 15 different explanations also form about a quarter of the entire corpus. The remaining texts, so the final quarter, is a bit of a mixed bag, ranging from three short explanations based on Hrabanus Maurus’ De ecclesiasticis officiis29 (only one of which survives in a single ninth-century manuscript) to a long, allegorical explanation of the rite by the priest Angilmodus of Soissons for Bishop Odo of Beauvais, a complex text that does not seem to have been primarily intended for the instruction of priests.30 In this last category we also find the sets of glosses, plus a good handful of explanations that fit in none of the other groups. When we take into account that Alcuin’s Primo paganus was the main model used by Charlemagne in his letter to the archbishops, and thereby structured most of the answers to this letter, the ‘mainstream’ of Carolingian baptismal explanation comes into view. Taken together, texts based on, or inspired by the Primo paganus directly or indirectly constitute nearly half of the entire corpus of Carolingian baptismal expositions. When we count the manuscripts in which these texts survive, the total is more than half of the corpus. The general picture that emerges from all this material is that of a substantial corpus of new baptismal explanations following, on the one hand, well-known pre-­Carolingian authorities (apart from Isidore, extracts from the works of St Augustine or St Jerome were sometimes used 31), and on the other hand inspired by a new impulse initiated mainly by Alcuin, which was continued slightly later by Charlemagne’s letter. Since Alcuin and Charlemagne clearly used more or less the same model of what a baptismal ritual should be, they can here count as one ‘voice’ in the search for correct baptism. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Charlemagne’s letter was less influential than Alcuin’s explanation. It is, for instance, significant that at least two (now anonymous) bishops used Alcuin’s Primo paganus to help them answer Charlemagne’s questions – Alcuin’s text was

27 The numbers mentioned may be different than Keefe’s. For instance, her Texts 20, 21 and 22 are all sections of one longer text, which I have counted as a single instance of Isidore reception. 28 For instance: Keefe’s Text 15 is the answer to Charlemagne’s letter by Archbishop Magnus of Sense (so: second generation), while Text 15A is an exposition of baptism on the basis of Magnus’ answer. 29 Keefe, Water and the word II, no. 44 at pp. 557–62, no. 45 at pp. 563–5 and no. 46 at pp. 566–8. 30 Text 32, which is more learned and written in a more complicated Latin than most other expositions. 31 One example of a baptismal exposition based on both Isidore and St Augustine is Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 51 at pp. 586–92. It is an anonymous instruction that only survives in a single manuscript.

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clearly well known by the year 812.32 Most active in producing explanations and didactical material about correct baptism was, then, not the court itself, but a much wider group of bishops and others who knew Charlemagne’s letter or were inspired by Alcuin’s text. Charlemagne and his advisers were surely interested in the question of correct baptism as an important step in the salvation of the people, and issued admonishments to that effect. The work of producing explanations and making sure priests were sufficiently educated on the subject was, however, solidly in the hands of many different ecclesiastical specialists, who each had their own ideas and priorities. Most of their names are irretrievably lost to us, but their combined efforts ensured that, in the course of the ninth century, baptismal expositions for the education of secular clergy became widely available. Now what of the influence of all these texts taken together? Their survival and distribution over the Carolingian realm is, predictably, rather uneven. Some texts survive in a single, post-Carolingian manuscript, while others found their way all over the kingdom in relatively little time. In general, texts with famous authors (Theodulf of Orleans: nine Carolingian manuscripts, Amalarius of Metz: seven) survive in higher numbers than anonymous ones, but these are the exceptions: most baptismal explanations are extant in one or two ninth-century manuscripts. This is not enough to establish any meaningful distribution patterns for single texts, but it does allow us to see a more general picture on the basis of the full corpus. First of all, it is clear that texts explaining baptism reached most corners of the Carolingian world. The geographical distribution of text production may be uneven, as far as provenances for the texts can be established at all (which is sometimes impossible in case of anonymous authors), for instance Bavaria and Northern France are present more clearly than, for instance, Brittany or modern Belgium, but even so, it is not too much of a stretch to conclude that in the course of the Carolingian period, baptismal expositions became widely available, and often within the covers of pastoral manuals. This means, in turn, that the general ideas at the basis of such texts were spread throughout the kingdom: people needed to be baptised properly and to understand what that meant, and therefore the priests who performed the ritual and instructed catechumens needed to be educated about baptism. What is more, baptismal expositions clearly remained interesting enough to write or copy out throughout the Carolingian period and for some considerable time after. To mention just one example, half of the extant Carolingian copies of Theodulf of Orleans’ explanation date from the late ninth century, so a good two generations after he composed the work. This was a period very different from the optimistic, energetic and well-funded decades around the year 800, and the issue of baptism had more or less disappeared from royal agendas as an urgent concern about the kingdom. At the level of the dioceses, however, such texts were in

32 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 10 at pp. 246–9 and Text 12 at pp. 253–9.

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continuous demand, and this did not stop with the demise of the Carolingian dynasty: there are no less than 14 further copies of Theodulf ’s text that post-date the Carolingian period.33

4  Baptism explained How did a baptismal explanation work, and what exactly did it explain? A good starting point into Keefe’s corpus is the ultra-short explanation by Archbishop Maxentius of Aquileia in answer to Charlemagne’s letter.34 There were six elements to this ritual that he found worth explaining: the catechumenate, the ingestion of salt by the baptismal candidate, the exorcism, the scrutiny, the rejection of the devil and his works, and finally baptism by triple immersion. In his exposition, Maxentius mostly limits his comments to pointing out what happened during each of the six phases: the catechumenate was for teaching, by taking salt the candidate accepted wisdom, through exorcism the bad spirit was chased from his body, the scrutiny checked whether the candidate had really overcome the works of the devil. By the public rejection of the devil the candidate showed how he wished to leave behind the errors of his earlier life, and through baptism by triple immersion he, finally, entered the community of Christians and became a member of the church. Other authors offer much longer lists of important elements of the ritual and/or longer explanations of each element, and sometimes include etymological explanations of words, biblical quotations or descriptions of the symbolical meaning of certain actions.35 Interestingly, Maxentius did not answer all of the emperor’s questions in his exposition, but stuck to the essentials and politely ignored the rest. Indeed, these same six elements turn up in more or less every baptismal exposition. They can, in other words, be read as the bare scaffolding of the ritual – it was possible to add all kinds of stages in the ritual, but most authors thought that without these six, the baptism would not be as it should. Other expositions usually include elements that Maxentius does not mention, for instance the anointing of chest and shoulders,36 a second ingestion of salt,37 or a touching of ears and nose with the priest’ spittle.38 Not only the number of stages of the ritual, but also the order that it took – from the start of the catechumenate to triple immersion in the font – could vary, even amongst texts that are clearly related. The best example here is the way in which various (arch)bishops structured their answers to Charlemagne’s letter: there are 33 See the list of manuscripts in Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 279. 34 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 33, pp. 462–6. 35 For instance Amalarius of Metz, ed. Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 22 at pp. 337–51, who wrote one of the longest baptismal expositions. 36 For instance in an ultra-short list included in the episcopal statute by Waltcaud of Liege, MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 43–9. 37 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 12, pp. 253–9 at p. 254: the first time stands for the ingestion of wisdom, the second for the cleansing of the candidate’s sins [see below]. 38 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 5, pp. 209–15 at p. 212, c. VII: ‘nares ideo tanguntur de sputo et aures…’.

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many close similarities between the texts, but most answers to the letter change the order of the ritual, and neither do the texts mention exactly the same elements.39 What we see here, I think, is how there was a broad consensus regarding some minimal, general criteria for the form of the ritual: there seem to have been shared ideas about some essential elements, but beyond that, much variation in the length and order of the ritual was possible and acceptable. A similar image emerges when we now turn to a comparison at a more detailed level, where the various authors explain how exactly the different parts of the ritual should be understood. The explanation of what the catechumen’s ingestion of salt means, for instance, varies quite a lot between different baptismal expositions. Maxentius describes it as follows: Then, salt is given to the catechumens, so that we be what the Lord says in the Gospel: ‘You are the salt of the earth’, that is, the condiment of God’s wisdom […]40 Alcuin’s Primo paganus, however, explains it like this: The catechumen accepts salt, so that the rottenness (putrida) and moral sickness ( fluxa) of his sins are cleansed by the divine gift of the salt of wisdom.41 Yet another take on the interpretation of salt can be found in an anonymous text in question and answer form: QUESTION: Why do the catechumens then get exorcised and are given blessed

salt in their mouths? ANSWER: So that it is shown that they have already received at least a little taste

of the highest wisdom; those who are going to be baptised should be flavoured with the salt of heavenly wisdom in the same way that, according to the law, sacrifices should be offered flavoured with salt.42 39 Maxentius of Aquileia’s answer is again instructive, see Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 33: even the six elements he mentions are in a different order than Charlemagne gives them. Maxentius: catechumenate – salt – exorcism – scrutiny – rejection of the devil – baptism; Charlemagne: catechumenate - scrutiny – rejection of the devil – exorcism – salt (and he skips baptism by triple immersion altogether). 40 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 33, p. 463: ‘Sal autem propterea catecuminis in ministerio datur ut nos simus sicut dominus in evangelio dicit “Vos estis sal terrae”, id est condimentum sapientiae dei …”. 41 Alcuin, ‘Primo paganus’, in Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 238–45 at p. 241: ‘accipit caticuminus salem, ut putrida et fluxa eius peccata sapientiae sale divino munere mundetur’. 42 Keefe, Water and the word II, Text 50, pp. 578–85 at p. 579: Interrogatio: quare deinde sal exorcizatum ac benedictum in ore catecuminorum mittitur? Responsio: ut ostendatur supernae sapientiae eos iam vel modicum recipere gustum, sicut enim sacrificia quae iubente lege offerebantur sale condiebantur, ita nunc qui baptizandi sunt caelestis sapientiae sale debent condiri.

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Although there are certainly some common denominators in these three texts, for instance that of a connection between salt and wisdom, the differences are at least as striking. When these were the explanations studied by (future) priests to understand the ritual, it is easy to see how their knowledge about baptism had a very general, broadly shared basis (at the level of: some basic elements are needed for the ritual, and salt is connected to wisdom), but could move into different directions at the level of details. When we picture this image of variation in practice, it may well have meant that one lay community got an explanation of the ritual that was rather different in its details from that delivered to a neighbouring community 30 kilometres down the road. Not a single text in the entire dossier, nor any royal or episcopal normative text of the period, suggests that such diversity was ever deemed undesirable or problematic. Uniformity in our modern sense of the word was simply no part of the horizon of expectations: ‘good’ baptism had many different faces. The bandwidth of variations between different explanations was, however, not as wide for every element of the ritual: in some cases, we even find more or less the same explanation everywhere. Here we come to the (few!) elements of the ritual that did not bear variation. The most evident case in point is that of the triple immersion: baptism should be performed as a three-fold full body immersion in the water of the baptismal font, whereby the candidate was cleansed of his sins and reborn in the image of the Holy Trinity. Most expositions are remarkably brief on this issue, some even skip the subject altogether, perhaps since its explanation was so obvious.43 Similarly, there is hardly any variation in the explanation of what a catechumen is or in the interpretation of the renunciation of the devil. These were subjects understood in the same way by all: they needed little explanation, did not give rise to varying interpretations and can therefore be counted as part of the mainstream of the Carolingian understanding of baptism. On the basis of Keefe’s dossier of baptismal explanations as a whole, the general picture of what priests knew about the ritual can be summarised as follows. First of all, it is clear that these expositions all assume thorough knowledge of a baptismal ordo, both of the text itself and of the ritual as it was performed. Expositions, second, built on this knowledge, in the sense that they were all written to deepen the priest’s understanding of the meaning and interpretation of the various elements of the ritual. Although the length of the extant expositions varies considerably, their structure is in general very similar: with only few exceptions, the order of the ritual is followed, and each element deemed relevant gets a shorter or longer clarification. Priests who learned about baptism by direct observation, by studying an ordo and by learning about the ritual through an exposition, acquired knowledge about the ritual in three different ways: they

43 Charlemagne’s letter does not ask about triple immersion, for instance. See Keefe, Water and the word, Text 14.

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learned what a good baptismal ritual was and how it should be performed in practice, and they learned about the symbolical meaning of different parts of the ritual. The baptismal exposition also gave him some starting points to explain the entire ritual to his lay flock. Short and relatively straightforward baptismal expositions as free-standing texts were new to the Carolingian age, and were composed and copied in substantial numbers to create well-educated priests, who could in turn create new Christians in the right way through their performance of the ritual.44 These texts, especially the ones newly composed in the Carolingian period (and not, for instance, those extracted from Isidore of Seville’s works), therefore reflect these ideals clearly: the emphasis is on priestly knowledge and instruction of the laity, as well as on a right performance and understanding of the ritual. How exactly ‘right’ knowledge, performance and understanding should be interpreted is an important question here – the examples just discussed have shown that in broad outlines, the structure and general explanation of the ritual can be considered as generally shared knowledge. At a more detailed level, however, variety dominates the picture in all but a few central cases: what the ingestion of salt meant exactly could be explained in a series of different ways even when most often salt was linked to wisdom. However, that a baptismal candidate should be immersed thrice and that that symbolised his rebirth in the Holy Trinity was not open for any other interpretation in these texts. Both the organisation and the interpretation of baptism were therefore neither uniform nor endlessly flexible: a good ritual clearly hinged on a few key elements, beyond which there was considerable freedom to shape and explain it. Good baptism as part of the efforts to lead the people to heaven did, however, not just depend on the proper knowledge, solid education and good intentions of priests. Lay people too had to learn about Christian beliefs and morals in order to become worthy baptismal candidates and faithful Christians. As many Carolingian bishops pointed out in their instructions to the priests of their dioceses, good intentions alone were never enough, and lack of knowledge could lead to mistaken practices that would surely anger God.45 The next section will therefore focus on the transmission of such knowledge to lay people, and especially on the way in which priests taught them the Lord’s Prayer. All catechumens (or their godparents, in case of child baptism46) were expected

44 See Keefe, Water and the word I, pp. 2–3. 45 There are many examples of well-intentioned practices by people who doubtlessly saw themselves as good Christians, but lacked essential knowledge. For instance: those who prayed in the wrong places, or went to Mass for the wrong reasons. See Chapter 7. 46 As for instance mentioned by Gerbald of Liège, ‘Zweites Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 26: III. Ut, si patrini vel matrinae, qui infantes de fonte suscipiunt sive masculos sive feminas, si ipsum symbolum et orationem dominicam sciunt, et filios et filias suas spiritales, quos et quas de fonte susceperunt, pleniter instructos habeant de fide, de qua pro eis fideiussores exstiterint.

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to learn by heart and understand the meaning of both the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and in typical Carolingian fashion, a considerable corpus of explanations of each prayer was produced in this period to aid priests in their efforts.47 Since the explanations of the Lord’s Prayer are less well known than the hundreds of Creed expositions written and copied in the Carolingian period,48 the focus will be on the instruction of the laity about this one prayer. What did lay people learn about it, why was it considered important, how wide was the bandwidth of its interpretation and how was such knowledge connected to individual salvation?

5  Learning the Lord’s Prayer That all Christian inhabitants of the Frankish realm had to know and understand the Lord’s Prayer is a typical Carolingian idea, and part of the wider efforts to lead the people to salvation via instruction and education. It first surfaced one or two decades before the year 800, both in normative texts and via the first ‘Carolingian style’ expositions that explain the prayer.49 In most royal and episcopal prescriptions on the subject, knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer is usually lumped together with that of the Creed, for instance in Bishop Theodulf of Orléans’ first episcopal statute, written around the year 800: The faithful should be exhorted that all, from the smallest to the greatest, should know the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. And they should be told that the foundation of the entire Christian faith rests on these two sentences. And that, unless a person knows these two sentences by heart and believes them with all his heart, and visits them often in prayer, he cannot be a catholic. It has, after all, been established that nobody shall be anointed or baptised or shall receive another person from the baptismal font, or take

47 See Jean-Paul Bouhot, ‘La tradition catéchétique et exégétique du Pater noster’, Recherches Augustiniennes et Patristiques 33 (2003), pp. 3–18; Steffen Patzold, ‘Pater noster: priests and the religious instruction of the laity in the Carolingian populus Christianus’, in: idem and Carine van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle: local priests in early medieval Europe, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 93 (Berlin/Boston, 2016), pp. 199–221. 48 Nearly 400 different Creed expositions in Carolingian manuscripts have been inventorised by Susan Keefe, A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia, Research on the Inheritance of Early and Medieval Christianity 63 (Turnhout, 2012). A selection of 43 of these texts have been edited by eadem, Explanationes fidei aevi Carolini, CCCM 254 (Turnhout, 2012). A third volume with translations of the texts was planned, but Dr Keefe passed away before its completion. A team at Duke Divinity School, in close collaboration with Brepols Publishers is, however, finishing Keefe’s work and publishing translations online, see https://divinityarchive.com/handle/11258/35697 (last consulted 17.5.2019). 49 The earliest attestations in royal capitularies are the Admonitio Generalis, c. 68, p. 221 and the Synod of Frankfurt (794), MGH Cap. I, no. 28 c. 33. See Patzold, ‘Pater noster’. The earliest Carolingian expositions date from the late eighth century.

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anybody to the bishop for confirmation unless he knows the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer by heart, except those who are too young to be able to speak.50 This is what Theodulf told his priests, so that they would understand the importance of their task of teaching their flocks: without the knowledge and understanding of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, a baptismal candidate could not become a Christian, let alone a good one. Theodulf ’s instruction was received widely. In the course of a few decades, the text was copied many times and travelled all over the Carolingian world. It surely found an audience much wider than that of his own diocesan priests for which the bishop originally intended it, for not only was the text copied outside the diocese of Orleans; a number of Theodulf ’s colleagues saw the sense of this admonishment and included something similar in their own statutes for their priests.51 What Theodulf wrote down so succinctly reflected a wider set of ideals: good Christians knew the Lord’s Prayer by heart and understood its meaning, and good priests made sure that all of this knowledge was embraced and understood by their flocks. The importance of such knowledge is clearly underlined by Bishop Haito of Basle, one of Theodulf ’s colleagues with similar messages about the importance of teaching and learning the Lord’s Prayer: Secondly it should be stated, that the Lord’s Prayer, in which everything necessary for human life is encompassed, and the Apostle’s Creed, in which the entire catholic faith is included, should be known by all, both in Latin and in the vernacular [barbarice], so that what is professed with the mouth, is believed and understood with the heart.52 As pointed out in the section about baptism, the Lord’s Prayer was part of the Christian ‘entrance examination’ that marked the end of the catechumenate: the 50 Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 22, p. 119: Commonendi sunt fideles, ut generaliter omnes a minimo usque ad maximum orationem dominicam et symbolum discant. Et dicendum eis, quod in his duabus sententiis omne fidei christianae fundamentum incumbit. Et nisi quis has duas sententias et memoriter tenuerit et ex toto corde crediderit et in oratione saepissime frequentaverit, catholicus esse non poterit. Constitutum namque est, ut nullus chrismetur neque baptizetur neque a lavacro fontis alium suscipiat neque coram episcopo ad confirmandum quemlibet teneat, nisi symbolum et orationem dominicam memoriter tenuerit, exceptis his, quos ad loquendum aetas minime perduxit. 51 On the manuscripts of this influential text see MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 76–99. Reception of this chapter: p. 119, n. 79. 52 Haito of Basle’s episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 210: ‘Secundo iubendum, ut oratio dominica, in qua omnia necessaria humanae vitae comprehenduntur, et symbolum apostolorum, in quo fides catholica ex integro comprehenditur, ab omnibus discatur tam latine quam barbarice, ut, quod ore profitientur, corde credatur et intellegatur.’

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prayer was required knowledge for all who wished to be baptised and become members of the Christian church. It had, however, more functions than proving the catechumen’s worthiness: the Lord’s Prayer was truly multi-purpose and woven into daily life. For one thing, its recital was part of Sunday Mass (hence the inclusion of an explanation of the prayer in some expositions of Mass, see below) in a conscious imitation of Christ’s teachings to his disciples.53 For another, saying the prayer (many times over) could be part of a sinner’s penance,54 and of the deathbed ritual.55 The prayer should also be part of everybody’s daily routine, even on busy days on which time for prayer was short: in yet another admonishment of Bishop Theodulf to his priests, he writes that on busy days it is sufficient for lay people to say only three prayers, of which the Lord’s Prayer should be the last.56 Prayer, as everybody ought to know, was the weapon to fight the devil,57 so it was important to devote time to this at least twice a day.58

6  Expositions of the Lord’s Prayer As Steffen Patzold has demonstrated in a recent article, serious efforts were taken to provide priests with expositions and other didactic material that enabled them to teach the laity about the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer.59 Like in the case of the 53 As explained in the Mass exposition Dominus vobiscum, see the edition by J.M. Hanssens, Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, Studi e Testi 138–40 (Vatican City, 1948–50), vol. 140, pp. 284–338: Expositio missae “Dominus vobiscum”‘, c. 59 at p. 330: ‘Et divina institutione formati, id est formam et exemplum a Christo Domino nostro accepimus, et ausi sumus orare, sicut ille docuit discipulos suos, et patrem nostrum credimus in caelo esse, qui nos creavit et dicimus PATER NOSTER QVI ES IN CAELIS […]. 54 As for instance in the so-called Edicta Bonifacii, in which a one-day penance could be replaced by saying a series of prayers, ‘and he should prosternate himself on the ground seventy times while saying the Pater noster’. See the manuscript Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 39v. 55 As mentioned for instance in Theodulf of Orleans, ‘Zweites Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 183, c. 33. 56 Theodulf of Orleans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 126, c. xxviiii: ‘ …Si vero tempus ad haec omnia peragenda minus sufficiens fuerit, sufficiat tantum: Qui plasmasti me, miserere mei et Deus, propitius esto mihi peccatori et oratio dominica tantum cum gemitu et contritione cordis.’ 57 The clearest expression of this can be found in a letter by Bishop Gerbald of Liège to the priests of his diocese, written after he had been reprimanded by Charlemagne about the insufficient level of lay knowledge of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer (see Patzold, ‘Pater noster’, pp. 199– 200), printed in MGH Cap. I, no. 122, p. 242: …ut unusquisque orationem dominicam, id est Pater noster qui est in coelis et reliqua quae sequuntur, et simbolum sicut docuerunt sancti apostoli discere et in memoriam retinere studeat et ore proferre, quia sine fide impossibile est placere Deo, et opus bonum; et adnuncietis populo, quia haec est arma unde se contra diabolum defensare debet, et adversum generis umani inimicum pugnare debent. Haec est arma spiritalis in qua vincitur diabolus. 58 Idem, p. 120, c. xxiii: ‘Dicencum illis, ut singulis diebus, qui amplius non potest, saltim duabus vicibus oret mane scilicet et vespere dicens symbolum sive orationem dominicam.’ 59 Patzold, ‘Pater noster’, esp. pp. 209–13.

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ritual of baptism, the relevant sections of a series of older and longer texts were reused for the purpose. Some of these expositions were cut-and-paste jobs from existing, sometimes much older works, for instance from St Augustine’s Enchiridion de fide, spe et caritate,60 from a much longer tract on the subject by Cyprian,61 or from something more recent such as the anonymous Disputatio puerorum, which uses the question-and-answer form as a teaching tool.62 However, many more new expositions were composed in what one may call a typical Carolingian style, and it is these texts, that mostly took the form of a line-by-line explanation of the prayer, which we encounter frequently in pastoral compendia. How many Carolingian expositions of the Lord’s Prayer survive exactly is unknown; at present I know of 33 different ones that survive in just over 70 Carolingian manuscripts, and this number is very likely to increase in future.63 Unlike the baptismal dossier just discussed, there do not seem to have been dominant explanations of the Lord’s Prayer that had major influence on large parts of the corpus. This is a significant difference with the baptismal dossier, which often used either the Primo paganus or Charlemagne’s letter as a starting point. This lack of an influential example is, to my mind, a significant piece of the puzzle when thinking about the way in which the ideal of salvation was translated into recognisable actions in this case: many individuals contributed by writing expositions that mostly follow a very similar structure, but formulated them according to their own ideas and in their own words. The earliest examples of the line-by-line structure itself dates from the later decades of the eighth century, when this same format was also used to explain the Creed and the Mass.64 60 Chapter CXV of Augustine’s Enchiridion is a free-standing exposition on the Lord’s Prayer in the manuscript Basle, Universitätsbibliothek F III 15e. The same text is attributed to Bede in a manuscript that gathered no less than eight different explanations of the prayer: Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. XVIII, f. 8r–v. Migne has followed this attribution when he printed the text in his PL 92. Col. 131–2. See also Patzold, ‘Pater noster’, p. 212, no. 7. 61 Cyprian, Liber de oratione dominica, PL 4, col. 525A–B was likewise turned into a freestanding explanation ascribed to John Chrystostom in the manuscript Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 38bis, f. 51r–52v. 62 See Andrew Rabin and Liam Felsen eds, The Disputatio puerorum. A ninth-century monastic instructional text, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 34 (Toronto, 2017), book IX at pp. 94–6. This book IX, an interrogation on the Lord’s Prayer, also circulated separately. The authors of the edition identified three manuscripts in which book IX is a separate text, but see David Ganz’ review in Francia-Recensio – Mittelalter/Moyen Âge 3 (2018), https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg. de/index.php/frrec/article/view/51776/46102, who lists several more. 63 Patzold, ‘Pater noster’ gives an overview of texts and manuscripts on pp. 212–14; the number of texts and manuscripts has increased since. Much of this material remains unpublished and unedited, and merits a study of its own. 64 There are several examples from the late eighth century, for instance the Lord’s Prayer exposition included in the (line by line) Mass commentary Primum in ordine. See Daniela Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione dell’expositio missae “Primum in ordine” e l’expositio orationis dominicae cosidetta Milanese’, Archivio Ambrosiano XLV, Ricerche Storiche sulla Chiesa Ambrosiana. Storia Eucaristica di Milano XI (1982), pp. 208–67 with a list of manuscripts on pp. 210–12. The oldest of these, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 93 and Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale 600 (559) are both dated to the late eighth century. This exposition was also copied as a separate text in the manuscript Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug Perg XVIII, f. 10v.

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The purpose of all these Carolingian-style expositions was the same, that is: instruction of priests and other clergy (and indirectly of lay people). The details of their contents were again not thought up centrally, but entrusted to many different individuals with the know-how to write down something sensible and useful. Similar purposes and formats notwithstanding, different authors sometimes had different primary audiences in mind when they wrote down their expositions. Not all of the extant explanations of the Lord’s Prayer that ended up in manuscripts for priests seem equally well suited to teach an illiterate lay audience: while the shorter examples are very clear and straightforward, the longer expositions are more complex and occasionally refer to other texts, so that a primary audience of clerics (or clerical students) is more likely. However, it is important to remember that most of these texts could easily have played a role in various kinds of instruction, even when they were copied out in pastoral manuals. Clerics themselves needed to learn about the prayer and develop the skill to explain it, and once they had learned to do so, they would surely use this knowledge in their own instruction of the laity. It is likely, therefore, that those manuscripts that contain a series of different explanations served this purpose of showing priests a variety of options for explaining the prayer.65 Usually a priest’s manuscript contains just a single exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, which could be useful for both keeping the priest’s own knowledge up to standard, and for the instruction of the lay flock. When we imagine the expositions not as texts read out, but rather as starting points for a freely formulated form of explanation (in all probability in the local vernacular), a skilled priest could shape his explanation to fit the needs of his audience.66 Even after their ordination, moreover, priests could surely do with texts to refresh their knowledge now and then, so in the end, any kind of expositions included in their manuscripts had a function for both shepherd and sheep.

7  Lay knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer The question I would like to explore here is not so much what clerics themselves were taught on the subject, but what their lay audiences are likely to have learned about the prayer, and how big the variation among different kinds of explanations was. I will focus, therefore, on the shorter expositions in pastoral compendia, since they are most likely to reflect the kind of instruction offered 65 The manuscript Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. XVIII holds the record, it contains no less than 12 different explanations of the Lord’s Prayer, some of which are only extant in this manuscript. See Patzold, ‘Pater noster’, p. 213. 66 This is in line with what James McCune has maintained about the function of sermons in manuscripts: in his opinion, they were not meant to be read out, but instead served as sources of inspiration for freely spoken sermons. See James McCune, ‘An edition and study of select sermons from the Carolingian sermonary of Salzburg’ (unpublished PhD thesis, King’s College London 2006).

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to lay audiences. Unlike the baptismal expositions discussed previously, there is hardly anything that all the different explanations of the Lord’s Prayer have in common beyond the text of the prayer (there are no variations there), and the wider connotations of the central concepts in the prayer. For instance, throughout the corpus there is the shared, mostly implicit understanding that ‘our Father’ equals God, whereas ‘evil’ stands for the devil and his works. Nearly all of the expositions of the Lord’s Prayer are anonymous in their manuscripts, even if in some cases (especially those explanations extracted from well-known Late Antique writings) it is easy to discover their author.67 The very few attributions we do find in the manuscripts (to Bede, Alcuin or John Chrysostom) are false, and have to do more with a framing of the text as authoritative than with any real authorship. Many expositions of the Lord’s Prayer survive in a single or a handful of manuscripts, the exception being the exposition Christus dixit post resurrectionem suam, which is known as a separate text only in two Carolingian manuscripts, but in more than 20 as part of the Mass commentary Dominus vobiscum.68 Most of the explanations are between 400 and 600 words long, the shortest is a mere 125 words, the longest a little over 1,000.69 In order to get some idea of the range of possible explanations, one of the shortest expositions, which is anonymous and survives in only a single manuscript, provides a good starting point. It has no title or other header, and reads as follows (the text of the prayer itself is in italics here): Our Father: because He created us and we should love each other like brothers. Who art in heaven, that means: with the angels and the spirits of the saints. Hallowed be thy name: that we be such that we may be called worthy of God alone. Thy kingdom come: that God may rule in us and not the devil. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thus we carry out His will, just like the saints and the angels. Give us this day our daily bread, that is spiritual nourishment in the present life. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And through this petition we bind ourselves if we do not forgive those who sin against us.

67 Since many of these texts have never been edited, I have named all of them after their first words. 68 See Chapter 4. 69 The longest exposition of the Lord’s Prayer so far is extant in just one manuscript, Verdun Bibliothèque Municipale 27, incipit ‘Quia stuppida mens’. It is a text that has clearly been used for study, given many interlinear glosses to explain difficult words (in Latin) – it is the only text in the entire manuscript that has had this treatment.

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And lead us not into temptation, that is that we should not be allowed to do wrong more than we are able to redeem. But deliver us from evil, that is from the devil or from hell.70 How far did other explanations diverge from this very basic one? Let us start by looking at a few explanations of the meaning of ‘our Father’ in other texts, for it stands to reason to assume that this is not a concept with which an author could be very creative in his exposition. Here are three examples from other expositions in priests’ manuscripts that show how even ‘our Father’ can, nevertheless, lead to a surprising variety of explanations: We invoke the Father Who has created us, because all men have been created by one God.71 That is that you may be a worthy son of the church.72 Christ said after his resurrection: I ascend to My Father and your Father. In one way He said His Father, in another our Father. His Father because He is the real Son of the Father, and of the substance of the Father, born before all times from the Father, and coeternal with the Father.73 And also because He has created us in time, and we are His adopted children, and we shall possess our Father’s heavenly inheritance because we have solemnly declared to understand the precepts of belief.74 70 This exposition remains unedited, and can be found in the manuscript Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 32v–33v: PATER NOSTER quia ipse nos fecit et nos ut fratres diligere debemus. QUI ES IN CELIS. Id est in angelis et sanctis animabus. [33r] Sanctificetur nomen tuum, ut tales simus quod digne Dei sole vocari possimus. ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM. Ut deus regnet in nos non diabolus. FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA SICUT IN CELO ET IN TERRA. Sic perficiamus eius voluntatem sicut sancti et angeli. PANEM NOSTRUM COTTIDIANUM DA NOBIS HODIAE. Id est cibum spiritalem in presente vitae. ET DIMITTE NOBIS DEBITA NOSTRA. Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Ac nos petitione ligamus si nobis peccantibus non remittimus. ET NE NOS INDUCAS IN TEMPTATIONE. [33v] Hoc est ne nos plus permittat derelinquere [probably: delinquere] quam nos possimus penitentia luere. Sed LIBERA NOS A MALO id est a diabulo vel de inferno.’ 71 This is the explanation from ‘Haec vox libertas est’, see Patzold, ‘Pater Noster’, p. 213: ‘Patrem invocamus qui nos creavit, quia omnes homines ab uno Deo creati sumus.’ 72 This is the explanation from ‘Hoc est ut tu filius’, see Patzold, ‘Pater Noster’, pp. 212–13: ‘Hoc est ut tu filius esse merearis aecclesiae.’ 73 In the manuscript Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, a scribal error makes the father not co-eternal to the son; in the other manuscripts this error has not been made, so I have adapted this here to avoid confusion. 74 This longer explanation is the most copied one. It is part of the Mass commentary Dominus vobiscum, but it also circulated as a separate text. This is the reading from Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27 (and see the previous note, I have underlined the error below): Christus dixit post resurrectionem suam, ascendo ad Patrem meum et Patrem vestrum. Aliter dixit Patrem suum, aliter dixit Patrem nostrum. Patrem suum proprius filius est patris, et substantia Patris, ante omnia genitur Patri, coaeternus Pater non est. Ideoque quia nos creavit in tempore et nos filii sumus Sui adoptivi et hereditatem celestem Patri nostri celestis possidere debemus quia perceptione fidei spopondimus.

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The invocation of ‘our Father’ at the beginning of the prayer, in other words, always did more than just refer to God. For one commentator, it emphasised God’s creation of man, for another it underlined the idea that Christians are sons (and presumably daughters) of the church, for the third, it stimulated expressions of orthodoxy75 and reminded him of the heavenly inheritance for all Christians. All these explanations easily remain within the boundaries of orthodoxy, and could therefore all count as correct and acceptable. The second example, ‘our daily bread’ has been chosen because it may well have invited wider or more creative interpretations, for surely God was hoped to deliver more than bread alone to His faithful believers. The explanation in the short exposition just quoted is ‘our spiritual nourishment in the present life’, to which three other expositions offer the following alternatives: That is the bread necessary for our sustenance, about which the Lord has said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven”, so that we will be nourished with the body of Christ from the holy altar.76 Where it says ‘today’ it shows that the spiritual life must be received daily; without it nobody is worthy to understand it, and nor can he who does not deserve it in this life, share in it in the future.77 Our daily bread, that is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ in which is the salvation of the believers and remission of sins. If the bread, that is, the body of Christ, is daily, why do we then take it after a year like the Greeks are used to in the East? You should take every day what does good to you every day. Whoever is not worthy to receive it every day, is not worthy to receive it after a year either. We should live in such a way, that we are worth receiving the Redeemer every day. Who has a wound needs

75 Emphasising the fact that the Father and the Son are co-eternal and co-substantial may well be a result of the late eighth-century Adoptionism controversy, which was condemned in no uncertain terms during the Council of Frankfurt in 794, see Florence Close, ‘Procédés et enjeux de l’écriture polémique: dossier épistolaire anti-adoptianisme du concile de Francfort (794)’, in: Thomas Deswarte, Klaus Herbers and Hélène Sirantoine eds, Epistola 1. Écriture et genre épistolaires: IVe-XIe siècle, Collection de la Casa de Velázquez 165 (Madrid, 2018), pp. 85–97 and her discussion of this dossier in Uniformiser la foi pour unifier l’Empire. La pensée politico-théologique de Charlemagne (Brussels, 2011), chapter IV; Rutger Kramer, ‘Adopt, adapt and improve: dealing with the Adoptionist controversy at the court of Charlemagne’, in: Rob Meens e.a. eds, Religious Franks. Religion and power in the Frankish kingdoms. Studies in honour of Mayke de Jong (Manchester, 2016), pp. 32–50. 76 This is the explanation from ‘Haec vox libertas est’: ‘Panem nostrum cottidianum da nobis hodie. Id est panem supersubstantialem, de quo pane Dominus dixit: Ego sum panis vivis qui de caelos discendi. Ut de sancto altare reficiamur corpore Christi.’ 77 This is the explanation from ‘Haec supplicatione genera’, a highly abbreviated re-working of an explanation of the Lord’s Prayer in John Cassian’s Conlatio IX: ‘Cum dicit hodie ostendit eum cotidie sumendum spiritalem vitam, sine illo nemo valet adprehendere, neque particeps esse eius in futuro poterit, qui non eum in hac vita habere meruit.’

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a doctor. We are wounded because we live in sin; the medicine is the heavenly and venerable sacrament.78 Again, the explanations go in rather different directions, but are all theologically sound. The bandwidth of interpretation was wide, which means that teaching the Lord’s Prayer to lay audiences did not automatically imply any standardised interpretation. This suggests, as in the case of the baptismal expositions, that the ideal of teaching the Lord’s Prayer to all was widely shared, but that initiatives to write down explanations to this end were taken at the level of individual (monastic or episcopal) centres. What it took to produce useful didactic texts, I think, were educated people with enough know-how, possibly a library, certainly some kind of scriptorium with writing materials handy, and most of all sufficient knowledge of the ideals that meant to ensure salvation for all. Teaching the Lord’s Prayer was, in other words, a joint effort that we should, however, not consider as a top-down affair: surely these ideas were supported by the court and carried by the consensus of the episcopate and other leading men, and we know that Charlemagne himself told off one bishop when he discovered that knowledge of the prayer was below par in his diocese.79 Given the fact that we already find explanations of the Lord’s Prayer as free-standing texts in the late eighth century, so from around the time that the Admonitio Generalis saw the light in 789, it seems that the ideal may well have been older than its first extant royal expression. What royal and episcopal admonishments did was to formulate and distribute the message; its amplification and implementation happened through many individual voices.

8  Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508 How did texts that explained baptism and the Lord’s Prayer function within the context of manuscripts for priests? Thus far, the various expositions have been

78 This is the explanation from the ‘Hoc est tu filius esse’, itself an abbreviated and altered version of Ambrosius of Milan’s De sacramentis libri sex, V, c. IV, 19–29 PL 39, col. 451A–454A. The text in Bamberg Staatsbibliothek, Lit. 131 reads: Panem nostrum cottidianum, hoc est corpus Domini nostri Ihesu Christi, in quo est salus fidelium et remissio peccatorum. Si cottidianum est panis hoc est corpus Christi, quare ergo illum post annum sumimus, quodmodo Greci in oriente facere consueverant, accipere ergo cottidie debes quod cottidie tibi prodest. Qui non meretur cottidie accipere, non meretur post annum accipere. Sic vivamus, ut cottidie mereamur accipere Redemptorem. Qui vulnus habet medicinam requirit. Vulnus est, caeleste et venerabile sacramentum. The last sentence as become mangled and should read ‘Vulnus est, quia sub peccato sumus: medicina est coeleste et venerabile sacramentum.’ to make sense – the translation follows this longer version of the sentence. 79 See Charlemagne’s letter to Bishop Gerbald of Liege, MGH Cap. I, no. 122 p. 241. Patzold, ‘Pater noster’, pp. 199–200.

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discussed as parts of corpora of similar texts, and in order to facilitate comparison several examples of these expositions have been highlighted in isolation from their manuscripts. However, the way to get closer to the ‘snapshot’ of pastoral knowledge contained in a manuscript is through a consideration of these texts among other texts, as part of a compilation in its entirety. In this section, one pastoral compendium that contains material to elucidate both baptism and the Lord’s Prayer will serve as an example of this. As we will see, no text was a completely free-standing unit in a manuscript: the themes and subjects touched upon in the expositions also appear in some form in other texts, which underlines time and again how the different elements of pastoral care were all connected through its central purpose of guiding the laity on their long road to salvation. Tracing such connections between texts within one codex brings into sight a kind of ‘weave’ of intertwined strands of knowledge that gives the presence of single texts or subjects depth and relates them to wider themes of pastoral care, religion and, as we will see in Chapters 6 and 7, also less self-evident subjects. The details of these fabrics of interwoven knowledge are unique to each manuscript, even though pastoral compendia may look rather similar from a distance. The rest of this chapter will be devoted to one manuscript: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508. In what follows, I will first present briefly the manuscript’s material characteristics, followed by a section about its contents. After that, I will show how knowledge about baptism and the Lord’s Prayer, respectively, are tied in with other kinds of knowledge, and how the different texts in this book are connected via shared concepts and themes. What will become apparent is how a priest’s manuscript is not just a stack of texts, but instead reflects an integrated way of thinking about religious knowledge. This should not surprise us too much – after all, one can hardly explain the ritual of baptism without talking about sins, forgiveness, the one universal catholic Church, the promise of heaven, God the Father and so forth; the same themes appear in texts about the Mass and penance, are the subjects of sermons and interrogations, merited mention by bishops in their instructions to their priests, and appear in collections of canones. The relations between these texts are often detailed, so the weave can be very fine. This is one more reminder how a priest mastering such a manuscript (especially since a pastoral compendium was certainly not the only book that needed mastering) acquired a lot of knowledge about a lot of subjects, and how central much of this knowledge was to the lives of illiterate lay flocks. The codex Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508 is 146 folia long and currently combines a late medieval copy of the thirteenth-century theologian Peter of Capua’s Summa theologiae (f.1–63) with a ninth-century pastoral compendium; this second part is the manuscript that concerns us here (f.64–146).80 The manuscript measures 226 × 154 mm and is therefore of ‘small to average’

80 Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 52–4 and Keefe, A catalogue, pp. 285–6.

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size in the classification of Bozzolo and Ornato.81 According to Bischoff (who is followed by Keefe, Mordek, Schmidt, Stadelmaier and Brommer82), the palaeographical characteristics of the manuscript suggest that it dates from the third quarter of the ninth century and was probably written in the area of Rheims. Not long after its completion, it travelled to Bavaria: by the end of the ninth century it was in the library of Regensburg.83 Two regular, rather similar hands have filled most of the book. A first hand copied out some 15, mostly short, texts up to f.128v, where a second hand took over to copy out one longer canon law collection. A third, slightly later but again similar hand has added two prayers connected to judicial ordeals after this, and a few late ninth- or tenth-century hands have added some very short miscellaneous (and mostly barely legible) bits and pieces on the last two folia. One tenth- or eleventh-century hand used an originally empty folio (the back of a thin, and therefore transparent folio in the middle of the Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum [f.87v]84) to write down two versions of the so-called Egyptian days.85 In its organisation, the manuscript is made up of two, related, parts. The first is a dossier of shorter expositions, compact lists with useful knowledge, didactical texts in question-and-answer form, an extract from a longer didactic work called the Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum and two episcopal statutes. The second part consists of the longer ‘Collectio in 53 titles’, an anonymous ninth-century collection of canon law.86 The main themes of the codex as a whole are normative texts useful for priests, and didactic material concerning catechumenal teaching and baptism. Zooming in on the composition of the manuscript’s first part, it is immediately clear that the compiler was very interested in the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and baptism. The manuscript opens with an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, followed directly by a sermon on the same subject. After that, there is a little

81 See Chapter 2. 82 Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 52; Hubert Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta. Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse, MGH Hilfsmittel 15 (Munich, 1995), p. 339; Bernward Schmidt, Herrschergesetz und Kirchenrecht. Die Collectio LIII titulorum – Studien und Edition, Studien zur Geschichtsforschung des Mittelalters 21 (Hamburg, 2004), p 16; Michael Stadelmaier, Die Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum: Eine systematische Kanonessammlung der frühen Karolingerzeit, Studien und Edition, Freiburger Beiträge zur mittelalterichen Geschichte, Studien und Texte 16 (Frankfurt am Main etc., 2004), p. 94; Brommer, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 11. 83 The description is based on Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 52–54; Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, pp. 93–6; Brommer, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 11; Mordek, Bibliotheca, pp. 339–42, and my own study of the manuscript. 84 See Stadelmaier, Die Collectio. How the extract in this manuscript came into being has been studied by Bastiaan Waagmeester, ‘Beyond the manuscript. Inquiries into a ninth century local priest and his social environment by means of his handbook (BSB clm 14508)’, (unpublished Research Master thesis Utrecht University 2016). 85 Egyptian days are fixed days of the month considered to be unlucky. See Chapter 7. 86 See Lotte Kéry, Canonical collections of the early middle ages (ca.400–1140). A bibliographical guide to the manuscripts and literature, (Washington, 1999), p. 167. The collection has been edited by Schmidt, Herrschergesetz.

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block of texts explaining the Creed: first an anonymous exposition, followed by a further explanation of some central items of belief, then the so-called Fortunatus commentary on the Athanasian Creed.87After a block of normative texts (the extract from the Collectio Sangermanensis and the first episcopal statutes by, respectively, Theodulf of Orleans and Gerbald of Liege), there is a list of glosses to explain the difficult words of a baptismal ritual, another exposition of the Creed and an exposition of baptism.88 Following a few short lists (of mortal sins, ecclesiastical grades, the seven ways of preaching), the first section finishes with two question-and-answer texts, the first about the Lord’s Prayer,89 the second about the Creed. Generally speaking, this dossier has a lot of knowledge on offer for priests instructing catechumens preparing for baptism, and about the norms that regulated lay Christian and clerical life. Knowledge about the two subjects that interest us here, baptism and the Lord’s Prayer, comes in a series of different forms and shapes in this manuscript. The most self-evident places where such knowledge could be found is in those texts that have these subjects as their main themes. Helping the student to understand a baptismal ritual is clearly the central purpose of the glosses to the ritual, where he will find, for instance, that ‘the word satan is Greek, which we should understand as adversary because he is always against us’.90 Likewise, the exposition of baptism helped the student understand elements of the ritual step by step, in this case drawing much on the works of Isidore of Seville. In a similar way, the Lord’s Prayer is the main subject of the exposition, the sermon and the interrogation just mentioned. The contents of these explanations are, therefore, somewhat predictable: they stay very close to the texts of the ritual and the prayer in the way described above. Other texts in the manuscript, however, contain knowledge about both subjects not found in their explanations, glosses, sermon and interrogation, and it is here that the connections between the different texts start to become visible. Let us now look at some other things worth knowing that the manuscript had on offer about these two subjects, starting with baptism. One obvious and clearly labelled place to go for knowledge about the ritual after the glosses and the exposition on baptism is a short section in the extract

87 The material on the Lord’s Prayer remains unpublished. The first Creed exposition is a combination of Keefe’s numbers 125, 13 and 269, see her A catalogue at pp. 104–5, pp. 66–7 and p. 155. This text also appears in two other priest’s manuscripts, St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40 and Vienna, Ősterreichische Nationalbibliothek 1370. On the Fortunatus commentary and its manuscripts see Keefe, A catalogue, p. 155. 88 See Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 53. She calls the text (her no.3) a ‘florilegium’. 89 This is book nine from the Disputatio puerorum, which was copied by itself more often. See ­R abin and Felsen eds, The Disputatio Puerorum, and n. 62 above. 90 See Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 551 and this manuscript f. 119v: Satane Grecum est quod interpretatur adversarius quia semper est adversum nos.’ The purpose of this short text is underlined by its title at f. 119r: ‘De baptismo officio ac misticis sensibus eorum que auctoribus nominatim designatis, et de ordine venientium ad fidem eiusdem que misterii oratio quasi oris ratio eo quod ex ore et ratione procedit.

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of the Collectio Sangermanensis titled ‘De baptismo interrogatio’ (‘Interrogation about baptism’). It consists of two questions, asking what baptism is and why one performs it with water, after which follow three canones that offer more relevant knowledge. The first two of these are from the Canones apostolorum, and deal with triple immersion: priests or bishops who do not baptise in this way should be deposed.91 The third canon, from the Council of Carthage, answers the question of what one should do in the case that it is uncertain whether a young child has been baptised already (answer: do it again to be sure).92 But also in other parts of the Collectio there are bits and pieces that touch upon themes related to baptism: in a section about Mass it mentions, for instance, that catechumens have to be sent out of the church when Mass begins,93 and in a section ‘about men, women and marriage’ it discusses the question whether (and if so, when) a pregnant woman can be baptised.94 Yet another section of the Collectio, a short interrogation, asks ‘why are you baptised?’, to which the answer is a discussion of the six sins that Adam has committed, with the implied understanding that baptism washes these inherited sins away.95 In these last examples, there is no other way of knowing that the text offers some insight about baptism unless one actually reads it. Titles of texts, in other words, would only bring the student so far. Then there are some relevant sections in the normative texts: Theodulf in his episcopal statute forbids priests to refuse baptism to sick children, and emphasises the pastor’s personal responsibility for souls lost in this way (c.17). He also connects baptism to knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer (no demonstrable knowledge means no baptism, c.21), explains how penance helps wash away the sins committed after baptism (c.36) and lists the seven ways of washing away sins (of which baptism is the first, c.37). Gerbald of Liège, in turn, underlines the importance of baptism on the right days (c.10), assures his priests that it is, nevertheless, always allowed to baptise a sick person who might die (c.11), but that the priest should under no circumstances ask money for baptism (c.12). Some

91 In the manuscript: f. 84v–85v; Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, XII, 10–11 and 18, pp. 253–4 and p. 260. 92 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 85v: De infantibus placuit, quibus non inveniuntur certissimi testes qui eos baptizatos esse sine dubitatione testentur, neque ipsi sunt prae aetate idonei de traditis sibi sacramentis respondere eos qui se baptizatos nesciunt, baptizandi sunt ne ista trepidatio fiat in eis in periculum. 93 Munchen, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 91r (ed. Stadelmaier c.XVI, 1), ‘INT cur dicitur missa et ubi incipit ordo ei? R missa dicitur tempore sacrificii quando caticumini mittuntur foras […]’ 94 Idem, f. 99r (ed. Stadelmaier c.XXI, 5): ‘Si pregnans mulier debeat baptizari aut postquam genuerit, post quantum tempus possit ecclesiam intrare aut etiam baptizari, aut ne morte preoccupetur quod genuerit, post quod dies liceat baptizare […]’ The source is Gregory the Great’s Libellus responsionum c. 8. 95 Idem, f. 93v (not in the edition by Stadelmaier): ‘INT es baptizatus? R sic sum. INT pro quid? R propter illa sex peccata quod comisit Adam primus homo, quem fecit Deus de limo terrae, id est superbiam, sacrilegium, homicidium, fornicationem, furtum, avaritiam …’

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more normative material is contained in the Collectio 53 titulorum, where it is established that one should not baptise the dead (c.51), and that one should only receive baptised heretics, or heretics still in the catechumenate, if they have really distanced themselves from their mistaken beliefs (c.17). Knowledge about the Lord’s Prayer mostly appears in less direct form, but it is there all the same. Bishop Theodulf is clearest on the subject, stating how everybody should say the prayer twice a day, even if there is little time (c.22 and 29). A very interesting admonishment is contained in his chapter 36, in which he cites one sentence of the Lord’s Prayer (‘and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us’) in the context of the beginning of the Fast and the imposition of penance, which cannot be done properly without mutual forgiveness between enemies. In his explanation, Theodulf explicitly links ‘our trespasses’ (debita nostra) to ‘sins’ (peccata) that need to be redeemed through penance, ‘the second baptism’.96 In this way, knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer is linked to knowledge about the ritual of penance, which is, in turn, an important subject of the Collectio Sangermanensis’ extract. This is a connection also made in the Collectio Sangermanensis itself, where the confession of sins is presented as a pre-condition for forgiveness, with a paraphrase of the same sentence from the Pater Noster.97 These are a few examples only of connections between texts, to which many more could be added. Following the way in which the threads of baptism and the Lord’s Prayer run through the different texts in this one manuscript shows how knowledge about these two subjects is linked to yet other areas of religious expertise. In this way, by direct reference and by explicit and implicit association, all texts in the manuscript are connected. One way of picturing this is as an ever-widening network of connotations and associations: reading about baptism, the user of this manuscript will be led in a series of different directions through various texts and passages. Starting from direct knowledge about the ritual and its wording, he will, for instance, be reminded of the duties and responsibilities of a good priest (who is like a doctor, but also a teacher, and who can never lose a single soul), as of the fact that it is important to respect the right days for the

96 Idem, f. 36: XXXVI Ebdomada prima ante initium quadragesime, confessiones sacerdotibus danda sunt, paenitentia accipienda, discordentes reconciliendi, et omnia iurgia se danda et dimittere debent debita invicem de cordibus suis, ut liberius dicant, dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et sic ingredientes in beate quadragesime tempus, mundis et purificatis mentibus, ad sanctam Pascha peraccedant, et per penitentiam se renovent que est secundus baptismus. Sicut enim baptismus peccata ita et penitentia purgat, et quia post baptismum peccator denuo non potest baptizari, hoc medicamentum a domino penitentiae datum est ut per eam vice baptismi peccata post baptismum diluantur. 97 Idem, f. 76v (ed. Stadelmayer XX, 10): ‘Si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus, veritas in nobis non est, sed ipsi nos seducimus, si autem confitemur peccata nostra fidelis et iustus est Deus ut remittat peccata nostra.’

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ritual, plus that the ritual is essential to reach heaven. The priestly duty of helping to ‘cure’ souls, in turn, leads to knowledge about confession and penance, while the priest as teacher directs the attention to many different aspects of pastoral care, including instruction in the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer – and so forth. In the way that many texts in this one manuscript touch upon a whole series of these subjects, the fabric of religious and pastoral knowledge comes into view that was essential for Carolingian priests as those leading their flocks to heaven.

4 THE CORNERSTONES OF CHRISTIAN SOCIETY II Mass

1  Introduction If there was any ritual that had the potential to bind communities of Christians together through collective participation in regular worship, it is the Mass as it was celebrated on every normal Sunday of the year, that is: Sundays on which there were no special feasts. Mass could be celebrated in every consecrated church that had a consecrated altar, and as far as we can tell, this is exactly what happened in many places.1 Sunday Mass took place in churches that ranged from the marble-adorned palace chapel in Aachen down to the smallest rural ones that from the outside could sometimes be hardly distinguished from a barn.2 Only clerics with a priestly ordination were allowed to lead the celebration: bishops led the ritual in their cathedrals, priest-abbots or priest-monks (or local priests in the case of female monasteries3) did so in monastic churches, and outside such centres, in the smaller churches, it was the local priest who acted as the intermediary between the lay community and their stern God.4 To a visitor from outside, the 1 See for instance Ruotger of Trier’s episcopal statute c.3, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 63. 2 Thanks to a growing interest in the archaeology of rural settlements, increasing numbers of such small churches have come to the light in recent years. An interesting overview is presented by Christine Delaplace ed, Aux origines de la paroisse rurale en Gaule méridionale (IVe-IXe siècles) (Paris, 2005), including many plans of such buildings. The smallest ones measure less than 10×4 metres. 3 Celebrating Mass in a female monastery was clearly considered to be not without risks: there is a whole series of high-level prescriptions stating that a priest was only allowed to enter a female monastery to celebrate Mass or visit the sick – after which he should leave promptly. For instance: ‘Concilia Rispacense, Frisingense, Salisburgense (800)’, c.21 (16), MGH Conc. I, no. 24, p. 209; ‘Concilium Aretalense (813)’, c. 7, MGH Conc. I, p. 251; ‘Capitula ecclesiastica ad Salz data (803/4)’, c. 5, MGH Cap. I, p. 119. 4 There are prohibitions of alternative locations in a series of episcopal statutes, for instance Gerbald of Liège ‘Erstes Kapitular’, c. 9, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 18, who forbids the celebration of

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-7

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ritual may have looked quite different in each of these locations. A bishop or the abbot of a large, well-endowed monastery would have a range of lower clerics to assist him; there may have been a practiced choir and a large audience; the liturgical vessels were surely of precious metal and the books beautifully written and decorated. In a local church, the same ritual would probably be performed by the priest alone, with a much simpler chalice and paten, while the audience in some places consisted of just a handful of believers. However, in the perception of those involved, the ritual celebrated was the same. It had the same meaning, it consisted of the same main building blocks and (just like other sacraments, and leading a virtuous life) it was intended to lead to salvation for all. How exactly the Mass developed in the western Church, or how a variety of different kinds of Mass rituals co-existed in the early middle ages, or what exactly the influence of Rome (or Rome imagined) may have looked like has been the subjects of much research.5 These are, however, not discussions I will engage with here. My main focus of interest in this chapter is not which exact texts or rituals were used where, or what the historical roots of their constituent parts were. Instead, I am interested in what priests were expected to know about the ritual in whichever way they knew it, how they could get that knowledge and what lay people coming to church to celebrate Mass may have learned. Interestingly, the – usually normative – texts that give any detailed information at all on the subject of Mass and its lay audience generally assume two things: in the first place that lay people as a rule lived close enough to a church to go there and attend Mass, and second that people actually went to these gatherings.6 This is why the celebration of Sunday Mass is our second cornerstone: it was here that baptised lay Christians prayed together, listened to a sermon that

Mass ‘in houses or in other places’; Haito of Basle’s episcopal statute c. 14, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 214 mentions ‘huts and unconsecrated churches or in houses’. That the only correct location for Mass was ‘a church consecrated by the bishop’ is stated in the Capitula Monacensia c. 13, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 164: ‘Vt nullus presbiter, nisi in ecclesia ab episcopo consecrata, ullo modo missam presumat caelebrare.’ 5 On the history of the Mass: Adolph Franz, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Liturgie und des religiösen Volkslebens (Freiburg, 1902); Josef Andreas Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia. Eine genetische Erklärung der Römischen Messe, 2 vols (Vienna/Freiburg/Basel, 1962); on the influence of Rome see Michel Andrieu, Les ordines Romani du haut moyen Âge, 3 vols (Leuven, 1948–56); Yitzhak Hen, The royal patronage of liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the death of Charles the Bald, Henry Bradshaw Society Subsidia 3 (London, 2001); Arthur Westwell, ‘The dissemination and reception of the ordines Romani in the Carolingian church, c.750–900’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge, 2017); Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton eds, Understanding medieval liturgy. Essays in interpretation (London, 2017). 6 Witness, for instance, episcopal grumblings about lay behaviour as in Theodulf ’s first episcopal statute, c. 39, Cap.ep. I, p. 137, where he explains how there are many people who claim to be fasting, but nevertheless eat before they have gone to Mass and prayed. See James McCune, ‘The preacher’s audience, c.800–c.950’, in: Maximilian Diesenberger, Yitzhak Hen, Marianne Pollheimer eds, Sermo doctorum: compilers, preachers and their audiences in the early middle ages (Turnhout, 2013), pp. 283–338 at p. 294.

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taught them about their religion and occasionally received communion7; it is here that the priest’s role as intermediary between the people and their God was performed clear for all to see – that is: clear for all who had some kind of knowledge and understanding of what was happening. Like the ritual of baptism, Mass was (and still is) neither easy to understand nor self-explanatory for those who did not know what to expect. At its most basic level, language could be an issue, especially in non-Romance-speaking areas. Even though preaching may well have taken place in the local vernacular (see below), the Mass itself and all its prayers were in Latin.8 Apart from the language factor, moreover, the ritual was full of gestures and actions that cannot have made much sense to those who had not learned about them. In other words, the audience too needed knowledge about the ritual to understand it and to be able to play its assigned role. The role of lay people during Mass was, after all, not a passive one; they had their own parts to play. At fixed points of the ritual, they were expected to respond to the priest (for instance, when the priest said ‘the Lord be with you’, the audience should answer ‘and with your spirit’), or join him in prayer when the priest asked them to.9 As Theodulf of Orléans put it, Mass cannot be celebrated without the salutation of the priest, the response of the people, the admonition of the priest and, again, the response of the people - thus it ought never to be celebrated by one man alone.10 It was a ritual that both created and perpetuated communities of Christians everywhere, and built and maintained their knowledge of what it meant to be Christians and members of such communities. As one exposition of Mass reminded it readers, Mass was celebrated not just for the spiritual good of its celebrant. After all, Christ had not just died for priests, but also for the people.11 7 It was not common to receive communion every week, episcopal statutes assume that lay people did so at least three times a year (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost), for instance in Ruotger of Trier’s episcopal statute c. 25, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 69. 8 On the discussion whether or not preaching took place in the vernacular, see James McCune, ‘An edition and study of select sermons from the Carolingian sermonary of Salzburg’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2006), chapter 1. McCune’s arguments for priests adapting the Latin sermons in their manuscripts into vernacular spoken texts while they preached seems entirely plausible to me. See McCune, ‘The preacher’s audience’, p. 290. 9 On the role of the laity in the Mass during the early middle ages, see Els Rose, ‘Plebs sancta ideo meminere debet – the role of the people in the early medieval liturgy of Mass’, in: Uta Heil ed., Das Christentum im frühem Europa / Christianity in early Europe – Diskurse – Tendenzen – ­Entscheidungen / Discourses – tendencies – decisions (Berlin, 2019), pp. 459–76. 10 Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 108, c. 7: ‘Sacerdos missam solus nequaquam celebret, quia sicut illa celebrari non potest sine salutatione sacerdotis, responsione plebis, admonitione sacerdotis, responsione nihilominus plebis, ita nimirum nequaquam ab uno debet celebrari’. Translation by Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian civilisation: a reader (Peterborough, 1993), p. 95. Through Theodulf ’s text, this norm was widely received in the Carolingian period, see Brommer, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 108, n. 37. 11 That priests should not celebrate Mass alone but needed at least one person to participate is repeated time and again in normative texts. A good high-level example can be found in the

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For all these reasons, priests had to learn about the Mass, and so did the lay flocks with whom they celebrated in the hope of being heard, and ultimately received, in heaven. After all, God’s favour for the Frankish realm was gained and safeguarded one church – or even one Christian – at the time. This is why priests’ exams often explicitly required that the priest know the ‘ordo of Mass and the prayers with which sacrifices offered to God are consecrated’,12 and why lists of books that every priest should have include those needed for Mass.13 However, knowing a set of texts in books was never enough, for there were many small details on which the success of a Mass depended – it was well-known that God would not accept His people’s gifts and prayers if they were not offered in the right way.14 Even more than was the case with baptism,15 normative texts of the period express preoccupation with the correct execution and the validity of the ritual. Going from just these prescriptions, it is immediately clear that details mattered, and that there was a lot that could go wrong with any odd Sunday Mass. For instance, what if a hungry mouse had eaten the Eucharist? What if there were pigeons nesting in the roof beams over the altar who made a mess in this most holy of places? What if the lay audience used its time in church to crack jokes, gossip or turned the church into a ‘den of robbers’ by negotiating trade deals?16 All such accidents and unfortunate circumstances could threaten the validity of the ritual, and, as we have seen before, bad ritual was considered to be dangerous for the present and future well-being of everybody. In a typical Carolingian way that will surely sound familiar by now, an increasingly detailed stream of norms and prescriptions about the celebration of Mass was issued as the result of high-level gatherings in the decades around the year 800. More specific definitions of all that a good Mass should involve helped priests and laity remedy smaller and larger evils that could threaten the power of the ritual. Councils and capitularies devoted some attention to the subject, but it





Council of Mainz (813), c. 43, MGH Conc. I, p. 271, titled ‘Ne presbyter missam solus cantat’. That priests did not just pray for themselves but also for their lay audience can be found in the anonymous Mass commentary ‘Dominus uobiscum’, ed. J.M. Hanssens, Amalarii opera liturgica omnia, 3 vols (Vatican City, 1948–50), vol. I, p. 318: ‘Plebs sancta ideo meminere debet quia christus non solum pro sacerdotibus passus est sed et pro plebe.’. 12 As required in the priests’ exam of Waltcaud of Liège, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 46, c. 3: ‘De ordine missae vel orationibus, quibus oblata deo sacrificia consecrantur …’. 13 For instance Gerbald of Liège, ‘Drittes Kapitular’, MGH cap.ep. I, pp. 39–40, c. 9, who not only lists the books, but also the sacred vessels needed for the Mass. 14 As explained in the Mass commentary ‘Dominus vobiscum’, ed. Hanssens, Amalarius III, p. 336: ‘…quia sine concordia digni non sumus sanctum communionem accipere quia munera nostra si discordiam habemus cum proximis nostris antequam reconciliemur a deo non recipiuntur.’ 15 See Chapter 3. 16 Mice: Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori, XXXIII, c. 3, ed. Carine van Rhijn, CCSL CLVIb (Turnhout, 2009), p. 90; pigeons: Hincmar of Reims, ‘Zweites Kapitular’, c. 13, MGH Cap.ep. II, p. 49; misbehaving laymen: Radulf of Bourges’ episcopal statute c. 2, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 235. The term ‘spelunca latronis’ (used by Radulf ) comes up regularly as a way of expressing disapproval of lay behaviour or misuse of the church building, alluding to Matthew 21.13: ‘domus mea domus orationis vocabitur, vos autem fecistis eam spelundam latronum’.

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was especially the episcopate that produced norms and detailed admonishments to ensure that the churches of their dioceses would offer Sunday Mass in ways pleasing to God. At the same time, so from the late eighth century on, a series of didactic texts saw the light to help priests learn about Mass or to keep their knowledge active. Such texts come in a wide variety of shapes and forms, ranging from highly sophisticated, lengthy expositions of Mass in longer works (composed by, for instance, Amalarius of Metz, Florus of Lyon or Hrabanus Maurus) to short lists of questions and answers about (some aspects of ) the ritual. They were all primarily intended for a specialised – or specialising – clerical audience, but some of these texts were certainly also useful for priests to explain to the laity what it was exactly that they heard and saw in church during Sunday Mass. As was the case with baptism, royal preoccupation with the correct celebration of Mass peaked during the reign of Charlemagne, but waned in the decades after his death. By that time, however, the wheels had been set in motion, and many texts had seen the light that continued to be copied and used for the education of clergy and laity alike. New texts explaining Mass were composed throughout the Carolingian period, but it seems that none were as important for the education of the secular clergy as these earlier, anonymous ones.17 Texts about the Mass are fixed features of pastoral manuscripts, which again underlines how central this ritual was as a cornerstone of Christian society, and how crucial knowledge of the ritual of Mass was considered to be for those with the responsibility to lead its celebration. This chapter will explore such knowledge by zooming in on what the pastoral compendia have on offer on the subject. We will start by finding out what it was exactly that bishops and kings expected from priests when they celebrated Mass, which is the backdrop against which we can make sense of the material gathered in the manuscripts. There we find what priests learned (or knew) themselves, and what they could therefore potentially teach others. In the following section, explanations of the Mass will take centre stage. What exactly was it that the celebrants themselves knew about the ritual, how much variety in form and interpretation can we detect, and what were the focal points of Mass according to these and other didactic texts? Thereafter, the perspective will shift to the lay people attending Mass, for what was it that they learned about Mass, but especially during Mass? Here, sets of sermons in pastoral books will be the focus of our attention, for preaching was widely considered as the most important way in which the laity could be taught about their religion and

17 That is, if we go by numbers of extant copies in ninth century manuscripts. The ‘bestseller’ in this respect was without doubt the anonymous Dominus vobiscum, which survives in 25 ninth-century manuscripts and more than 40 later ones. Compare the list in Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 126–7, where she lists 23 Mass explanations included in the same manuscripts as baptismal expositions. For a full list of the extant manuscripts of the Dominus vobiscum see Carine van Rhijn, ‘Ut missarum preces bene intellegant. The Dominus vobiscum: A Carolingian Mass commentary for the education of priests’, Revue Mabillon n.s. 31 (2020), pp. 7–28, appendix 1.

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everything it demanded from them. Even though there is discussion among scholars about the question whether priests actually preached everywhere, many extant pastoral codices show that access to sample sermons and homilies was widespread in the ninth century. In a final section one example of a pastoral compendium will show how knowledge about Mass was woven through many texts in one book, and what the student of that manuscript would potentially know about the subject.

2  Norms and expectations If we go by the normative sources produced in Latin Europe between the sixth and the late ninth century, the regular Sunday Mass as performed by priests seems never to have been a theme that elicited a lot of excitement, or even attention in the circles of the powerful. It was, at least, not a subject that inspired the kind of normative activity that the rite of baptism did in the early decades of the ninth century. This should not mislead us, however: as we will see shortly, especially the Carolingian period witnessed the composition of a wide range of didactic texts about the Mass, which again shows how a top-down model of developments based on prescriptive texts alone distorts our understanding of the period. Meanwhile, there was some attention for the Sunday Mass in high-level prescriptions, so let us start by what rulers and bishops did pronounce about the subject from the sixth century onwards. What we see instead of a continuous stream of new prescriptions about the regular Sunday Mass is a slow but steady trickle of regulations in high-level normative texts, as well as some repetition of older decisions in canon law collections.18 To this, a somewhat more substantial little stream was added in the decades around the year 800 by the episcopal statutes, which coincides with the peak in high-level attention for education and collective salvation. After about 830, interest in the subject nearly disappears from both royal capitularies and the proceedings of councils; in the episcopal statutes, however, the celebration of the Sunday Mass remained a theme until this type of text itself disappeared in the early tenth century.19 So what was it about the Mass that inspired at least a small number of high-level norms? In broad lines, the councils and capitularies from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century do not present a nicely coherent image. What we seem to get most of the time is remedies for existing situations that were not as they should be. A canon of the Council of Tours (567), for instance, agonises over people

18 See for instance the Collectio Vetus Gallica, which similarly shows a steady trickle of older canones but no overwhelming attention for the ins and outs of the celebration of Mass. Hubert Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich: die Collectio Vetus Gallica, die älteste systematische Kanonessammlung des Fränkischen Gallien (Berlin, 1975). 19 See for instance the early tenth century episcopal statute by Ruotger of Trier, Cap.ep. I, pp. ­57–70, esp. cc. 6, 8, 10 and 16, which are all repetitions of older episcopal norms.

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who first celebrated Mass and took communion, to go home to their ‘gentile errors’ immediately afterwards to eat ‘demonic food’ – the council decided that such people should not be accepted in church.20 Some decades earlier, bishops convening in the Council of Orléans (511) were clearly unhappy about lay people leaving the Sunday Mass before it had finished, and stipulated that that was forbidden.21 There is no sign of interest in how exactly the Mass was celebrated, which texts should be used for the purpose, or even when exactly it should be celebrated on Sunday – generally speaking, councils did not do much more than react to undesirable situations. Most of the time, the resulting norms only appear once or twice in the entire corpus, as if the problem had been solved or was no longer deemed important enough to merit high-level attention. Other decisions had a much longer life and were repeated over and over again. An especially successful one, attested between the early sixth and the mid ninth century, is the ruling that priests who went to a female monastery to celebrate Mass should not linger afterwards and socialise, but go straight home.22 All in all, then, the harvest of high-level rules and prescriptions about Mass is meagre before the second half of the eighth century. What we do not find at all in such texts is anything about the way in which Mass was celebrated. The fact that it was celebrated and that lay people participated is taken for granted throughout. Sometime before the year 800, in the context of the Carolingian efforts to bring salvation to the people by providing them with working churches, educated priests and knowledge, bishops started to take more interest in the way Mass was celebrated within their dioceses. Their prescriptions, addressed to the local clergy in charge, add new elements to the bits and pieces inherited from earlier prescriptive texts. Even though the celebration of Mass was never very high on the agenda, from the second half of the eighth century onwards the subject does appear in new ways in conciliar canons and capitularies. Most episcopal statutes, in turn, echo and elaborate the general ideas expressed in these texts, and in this way new themes and trends can be distinguished. Such statutes, it should be remembered, are often part of pastoral manuscripts, so the ideas contained in them reached priests and their local churches. The most important and consistently present example of such new norms is a series of prescriptions that require knowledge of priests about the Mass (amongst other things), and lists books that every priest needed.23 When we take the Admonitio Generalis as a starting point, for again it is here that we find the first and 20 Council of Tours (567), c. 23, Concilia Galliae a. 511 - a. 695, ed. Carlo de Clercq, CCSL 148a (Turnhout, 1963), pp. 191–2 at p.191: ‘Sunt etiam qui … post missas redeuntes ad domus proprias ad gentilium revertuntur errores et post corpus Domini sacratas daemoni escas accipiunt.’ 21 Council of Orléans (511), c. 26, Concilia Galliae a. 511 – a. 695, p. 11. 22 This prescription is attested throughout the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, for instance, Council of Épaon (517), c. 38, Concilia Galliae a. 511 – a. 695, p. 34; Capitulare ecclesiastica ad Salz data (803/4), c. 5, MGH Cap. I , p. 119; Council of Mainz (813), c. 43, MGH Conc. I (Hanover/Leipzig, 1906), p. 268; Statuta Bonifatii (before 850), c. 14, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 362. 23 See Chapter 2 about books for priests.

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most elaborate discussion of the theme, it is immediately clear that the wind was blowing from a new direction in the year 789. In chapter 68, the bishops are required to discuss diligently with the priests throughout their diocese their faith, the way in which they baptise and celebrate Mass, so that they hold the right belief, baptise in the catholic way and understand the prayers of Mass well. And so that they sing the psalms worthily according to their division in verses, and understand the Lord’s Prayer, and preach to all in an understandable way, so that everybody knows what he should ask from God …24 Detailed norms about the precise contents, texts and procedures for the celebration of Mass were never issued in capitularies or conciliar decrees – this was clearly the terrain of individual bishops. It is in their statutes, but especially in the extant priests’ exams that we start to get some glimpses of what was supposed to happen in church on regular Sundays, of the texts needed for the ritual and of what was expected from priests and their lay audiences before, during and after the Mass. Perhaps the best early example of a text that shows active interest in the priests’ knowledge and understanding of Mass is the priests’ exam written by bishop Waltcaud of Liège in 812/14. No less than eight consecutive questions are devoted to the subject of Mass, which ask about the priests’ knowledge of texts (the ordo of Mass, the canon in missa), their understanding of why certain texts are read or sung during Mass (the introitum and responsorium, the evangelium), of what certain terms mean (oratio, alleluia, amen, osanna) and of why some things are done as they are during Mass (why does one sing sanctus thrice? Why does one celebrate Mass to begin with?).25 The level of detail in Gerbald’s exam is unique among the normative texts of the time of Charlemagne, and his exam was never widely distributed or used by other authors. All the same, Gerbald’s questions were surely a sign of the times: that it was important for priests to know and understand the Mass thoroughly. Mass as part of their wider efforts to lead their flocks to heaven became a fixed feature of episcopal instructions of the Carolingian period.26 The details addressed in priests’ exams like the ones just listed 24 Admonitio generalis c. 68, p. 220: Sacerdotibus. Ut episcopi diligenter discutiant per suas parrochias presbiteros, eorum fidem, baptisma et missarum celebrationes, ut fidem rectam teneant et baptisma catholicum observent et missarum preces bene intellegant. Et ut psalmi digne secundum divisiones versuum modulentur et dominicam orationem ipsi intellegant et omnibus praedicent intellegendam, ut quisque sciat quid petat a Deo.… 25 Waltcaud of Liège, priests’ exam, MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 46–7, esp. cc. 3–10. 26 Even though Waltcaud of Liège’s questions are the most elaborate, there are other examples of questions about the Mass in other priests’ exams. See the (probably related) Capitula Frisingensia prima, c. 4, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 204 and the Capitula Moguntiacensia cc. 4 and 5, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 179. On the relations between these texts see Pokorny, MGH Cap.ep. III, pp. 199–202, where the editor explains how these three texts were probably inspired by the same source.

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were, moreover, often explained in the Mass commentaries that started to appear around the year 800 (see below). A generation later, in 852, Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims devoted the first, elaborate, chapter of his first episcopal statute to the priests’ knowledge of the texts needed for the Mass, showing how early Carolingian royal admonishments and the issues addressed in, for instance, Gerbald’s questions had become part of the mainstream of instructions to priests. In typical Hincmarian fashion, the archbishop composed a dense chapter on the subject of the Mass, showing in the process how expositions (in this case of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer) had meanwhile become part of the regular curriculum, and how prescriptions became more detailed with time. Every single priest, Hincmar stated, should know well an exposition of the Creed and of the Lord’s Prayer according to the tradition of the orthodox Fathers, and by preaching from these texts, he should diligently instruct the people entrusted to his care. He should understand and have committed to memory the praefatio of the canon [of the Mass] and the canon itself, and should also be able to pronounce the prayers of Mass, and read well the [letters of the] apostles and the Gospels. He should know by heart how to pronounce the words and distinctions of the psalms in the regular way, together with the customary canticles. He should also commit to memory the Athanasian Creed, which starts with the words Quicumque vult salvus esse, and understand its meaning, and be able to explain it in plain language.27 Lay people themselves also became the subjects of at least some episcopal norms. A series of bishops admonished priests to explain to the laity that they should be ‘pure’ when receiving the Eucharist, meaning that they should abstain from sex in the night preceding Mass.28 The anonymous author of the Capitula Bavarica, in turn, considered it important that the laity abstained from telling each other ‘unseemly stories’ while in church: they should focus on praying for the salvation of their souls instead.29 Such expressions of expectations about lay participation

27 Hincmar of Rheims, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, c. 1, MGH Cap.ep. II, pp. 34–5: Ut unusquisque presbiterorum expositionem symboli atque orationis dominicae iuxta traditionem ortodoxorum patrum plenius discat et exinde predicando populum sibi commissum sedulo instruat. Praefationem quoque canonis et eundem canonem intellegat et memoriter ac distincte proferre valeat et orationes missarum, apostolum quoque et evangelium bene legere possit. Psalmorum etiam verba et distinctiones regulariter ex corde cum canticis consuetudinariis pronuntiare sciat. Nec non et sermonem Athanasii de fide, cuius initium est “Quicumque vult salvus esse”, memorie quisque commendet et sensum illius intellegat et verbis communibus enuntiare queat. 28 A good example is the Capitula Neustrica tertia, c. 4, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 66 with parallels with a dozen other episcopal statutes listed in n. 8. 29 Capitula Bavarica c. 3, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 195: ‘Deinde, ut ad sanctam ecclesiam mundi absque sorde peccati frequentius veniant et, cum venerint, non otiosis fabulis intendant, sed tantum orationi vacent et pro salute animae suae laborare studeant.’

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are even rarer than those about priests; these ideas are new to the Carolingian period, and all these bits and pieces are part of one larger story. If all we had were the prescriptive texts produced by kings and high-level gatherings, it would be easy to conclude that Carolingian kings and the participants of councils were only marginally interested in the Sunday Mass and never bothered to think about, for instance, liturgical questions. This would be a mistake in two ways: first of all, it discounts the steady copying, quoting, using and re-using of norms and admonishments about the celebration of Mass – thin on the ground as they may have been – throughout the period and often even beyond.30 More importantly, however, such an over-reliance on high-level norms ignores a much more substantial corpus of other texts about the theme. As we will see, priests’ manuscripts generally include knowledge about the Mass in some form, be it as just one subject in a didactic text in question-and-answer style, or as the main subject of a longer exposition. It is to these that we now turn in order to find out what priests could learn from such texts.

3  Learning about the Mass: the sources of priests’ knowledge Learning about the Mass involved practice and participation in the ritual, but also mastery of a range of texts. What priests learned on the subject was, therefore, not confined to the texts they found in the pastoral manuscripts that are the subject of this book. Such manuscripts generally do not contain ordines, and the actual performance of the liturgy was usually learned by seeing, assisting and participating during long years as junior clerics.31 For the purpose of performing the texts of Mass – some of which were different every week – priests relied on one or more books that provided all the material needed.32 The focus here is, however, not on how the priest performed Mass, but on what he knew about it, how he understood it and what he could therefore potentially teach his lay flock about the ritual. The Carolingian period has left us with a wealth of texts that explain the Mass in one way or the other. Many of these texts are anonymous and survive in just a single or a couple of manuscripts, showing how – like many 30 An eloquent example is the success story of Theodulf of Orléans’ first episcopal statute, which was copied dozens of times. Long stretches of this text were re-used by other authors. See Brommer, MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 76–99 for the manuscripts, and pp. 75–6 for a short overview of the later reception of the text. Theodulf ’s c. 7, admonishing priests never to celebrate Mass alone, was cited by six other bishops in their instructions for priests, some of which were, in turn, cited by others. 31 On the education of future priests see Julia Barrow, The clergy in the medieval world. Secular clerics, their families and careers in north-western Europe, c.800–c.1200 (Cambridge, 2015), ch. 6 and 7. As for ordines in manuscripts for priests: there are exceptions, for instance Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1248. However, an ordo for a ‘normal’ Mass does not appear in any of the manuscripts I have studied. 32 For a good introductory explanation of the books needed for Mass, including the development from sacramentarium to missale see Eric Palazzo, Le Moyen Âge: des origines au XIIième siècle, Histoire des Livres Liturgiques (Paris, 1993), part II, ch. 1.

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of the baptismal expositions – they may well have been produced locally when the need arose. Given the wealth of this material, which merits a separate study, I will not provide a full overview here, but just sketch the lay of the land in order to highlight a few important themes that show up throughout. A good place to start is the lists of questions and answers that are quite common in manuscripts for priests and cover all kinds of knowledge about the church, its organisation and the Christian faith. Although the original function of such questionnaires was probably the education and examination of clergy, some of these texts – in particular those extant in pastoral manuscripts – may well have aided the priest in teaching lay people too.33 The questions we find in these books are usually short and to the point, and the answers are usually given. It is here that we find knowledge about the Mass in a nutshell, for instance QUESTION: who was the first person to celebrate Mass? ANSWER: that was the apostle Peter. It was he who first instituted the ordo of

Mass with which the gifts sacrificed to God are consecrated, the celebration of which is performed in one and the same way throughout the world. QUESTION: What is the Mass, and how do you translate the word ‘Mass’ into Latin, and what language is it? ANSWER: The word missa is Greek, and is derived from ‘sending’ (mittando). Missa also means prayer, the prayers of the faithful which are sent (missa) to heaven.34 33 Clerical questionnaires have received less scholarly attention than they deserve, with the exception of the so-called Ioca monachorum, on which see W. Sucher, Das mittellateinische Gespräch, Adrian und Epictitus, nebst verwandten Texten ( Joca Monachorum) (Tübingen, 1955); Charles D. Wright and Roger Wright, ‘Additions to the Bobbio Missal: De dies malus and Joca monachorum’, in: Yitzhak Hen and Rob Meens eds, The Bobbio Missal. Liturgy and religious culture in Merovingian Gaul (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 79–139; F. Ploton-Nicollet, ‘Ioca Monachorum et pseudo interpretatio sancti Augustini’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 74 (2007), pp. 109–59. One clerical questionnaire has been published by David Ganz, ‘Some Carolingian questions from Charlemagne’s day’, in: Paul Fouracre and David Ganz eds, Frankland. The Franks and the world of the early middle ages. Essays in honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester, 2008), pp. 90–100. That such questions and answers about the Bible and/or the church and/or the main tenets of Christianity are often automatically considered to be monastic is the result of a long tradition of considering priests as barely literate. See Van Rhijn, ‘Manuscripts for local priests’, in: Patzold and Van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle, p. 194. 34 This interrogatio has to the best of my knowledge not been edited or published. It only appears in this form in the manuscript Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 116, part II (the second half of which is now Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82), f. 73v: INT Quis primus missam caelebravit? Ipse apostolos petrus. Ordo enim vel orationum quibus oblata deo sacrifitia consecrantur primum ab ipso institutum, cuius caelebrationem uno eodemque modo universus peragit orbis. INT Missa quid est et quid inpretatur in Latino, vel in cuius lingua dicitur? R In Greco dicitur. Missa ab mittando nuncupatur, vel missa oratio dicitur eo quod ad caelum orationes fidelium missa sunt. The first of these questions is very similar to the Disputatio puerorum, book VII question 40, see Andrew Rabin and Liam Felsen eds, The Disputatio puerorum. A ninth-century monastic instructional text, edited from Vienna Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 458, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 34 (Toronto, 2017), p. 82.

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Even though we know that the word missa is not Greek but Latin,35 and that the ritual was by no means celebrated in the same way everywhere, such questions and their answers highlight the interests of those who put together these lists. In this example, the history (and impeccable pedigree) of the ritual and the meaning of the word are central. Another interrogation, that emphasises the contents and meaning of the ritual, asks the following: What is Mass? Mass is the time of sacrifice, and when the catechumens are sent outside when the levite calls out ‘if there is any catechumen left, let him go outside’. Why is it called Mass? It is derived from sending the catechumens outside (emittendo…foras), because who has not been regenerated [i.e. baptised] cannot be present for the sacrament of the altar.36 Compact bits of knowledge such as these show what were the relevant basics, overall a surprising wealth of facts, thoughts and details. The most common themes are the origins of the ritual, the meaning of the word missa and the significance of the ritual itself as a time of sacrifice to God by a community of baptised believers. In this short form, I think, such knowledge was eminently useful both to maintain priest’s own knowledge and to explain these matters to a lay audience. At the same time, these questions and answers represent just a fraction of the information available to those with the right books. Questions and answers like these did not exist in a vacuum, but linked its readers to other, more elaborate texts that offered more in-depth and wider-ranging explanations. This brings us to the most important category of texts we have in pastoral manuscripts to assess priests’ knowledge and understanding of the mass: the Mass expositions.37

35 This mistake is not unique, for the unpublished exposition of Mass ‘Missa pro quid dicitur’, only extant in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1248 says the same thing in similar wording. 36 This long interrogatio has not been published or edited either, but these two questions show close parallels with questions 24 and 23 of the Disputatio puerorum VII, which also go back to Isidore. See Rabin and Felsen eds, The Disputatio puerorum, who have, however, not noticed the parallel with this questionnaire. The only manuscript that contains this text is Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 103r: ‘Quid est missa? Missa tempore sacrificii est quando cathecumini foras mittuntur clamante levita: si quis remansit catecuminus exeat foras. Missa quare dicitur? Ab emittendo cathecuminos foras, quia sacramentis altaris interesse non possunt qui non dum regenerati noscuntur.’ Interestingly, these two questions reflect nearly literally the opening sentences of the Mass commentary Quotiens contra se, of which the best available edition is still PL 138, col. 1475–1488. 37 On these still understudied texts see A. Wilmart, ‘Expositio missae’, in : F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq eds, Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de liturgie 5.1 (Paris, 1922), col. 1014– 1127; Franco Brovelli, ‘La «Expositio missae canonicae», edizione critica e studio liturgico-­ teologico’, Studia Ambrosiana VIII (1978–79), pp. 5–146.

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4  Two Mass expositions: Dominus vobiscum and Primum in ordine Carolingian Mass expositions come in different lengths, shapes and forms. While some are very learned and offer lengthy allegorical, historical and/or etymological explanations of the Sunday Mass in all its many aspects, others are only a few hundred words long and focus on the explanation of a few central terms. The texts most interesting here are those expositions that explain the unchangeable section of Mass, the text and prayers of the so-called canon. These explanations are different from ordines in that they do not give instructions about how the different parts of the ritual should be performed, and neither are they as far-flung as learned tracts: Mass expositions of this kind were intended to teach clerics to understand the text of the Mass, and thereby the meaning of the various components of the ritual. This ‘word for word’-approach was new in the late eighth and ninth centuries, and there is no doubt that the composition and distribution of such texts was part of the wider efforts to educate clergy and laity.38 When André Wilmart wrote his lemma on Mass commentaries in 1922, he knew of four anonymous, and five non-anonymous expositiones missae. In her Water and the word of 2002, Keefe listed 23 such texts. The real number is certainly higher, since Keefe only lists those explanations that appear in manuscripts with one or more baptismal expositions.39 The non-anonymous explanations of the Mass are without exception sections of longer works by famous churchmen such as Amalarius of Metz, Florus of Lyon or Hrabanus Maurus. Such works aim to explain and comment on much more than the Mass alone; they also discuss, for instance, other types of Masses, the ecclesiastical grades, clerical vestments and liturgical vessels. Moreover, the explanations offered are usually more abstract and learned than the more basic, anonymous ones I discuss below. This suggests that these books were probably not written primarily for the education of (future) local priests, but for a more learned audience in monastic, episcopal or courtly centres.40 On the other far end of the spectrum there are the shortest, anonymous Mass explanations listed by Keefe, which highlight only some aspect(s) of the Mass and sometimes cover less than two folia in a manuscript.41 38 Wilmart, ‘Expositio missae’, col. 1017–18; Brovelli, ‘La «Expositio missae canonicae»’, pp. 14–21. 39 See Wilmart, ‘Expositio missae’, col. 1019–27. The non-anonymous expositions he lists are those by Hrabanus Maurus (two), Amalarius of Metz (one, there is no mention of the Eclogae), Florus of Lyon and Remigius of Auxerre. See, however, Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 126–7 for a much longer list. Note, however, that Keefe uses a wider definition of ‘mass exposition’ than Wilmart. 40 Amalarius’ Liber officialis: Hanssens ed., Amalarii episcopi II ; Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum. Über die Unterweisung der Geistlichen, ed. and transl. Detlev Zimpel, 2 vols, Fontes Christiani 61 (Turnhout, 2006). This work, which Hrabanus wrote for the monks of Fulda, consists of three books, divided into 130 chapters, two of which – I, 32 and 33 - are dedicated to the office and the ordo of Mass. Florus of Lyon, Opusculum de expositione missae, PL 119, cols 15–72. 41 A good example is a short didactic text which focusses on the seven prayers of Mass and takes the shape of a concise interrogation. It is only extant in two southern German manuscripts: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6325 (the oldest of the two), and Munich, Bayerische

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When we now turn to those expositions that have been copied most frequently into pastoral compendia, it is immediately clear that the longest and most sophisticated texts just mentioned were, indeed, generally not on the reading lists of local priests. The expositions we find most often by far in priests’ books are two anonymous texts that explain the canon of Mass word for word or sentence by sentence: the Dominus vobiscum which has been mentioned before, and the somewhat more extensive Primum in ordine.42 The Dominus vobiscum probably dates to the years around 800, the Primum in ordine may well be a bit earlier. Already in the ninth century, these two texts occasionally turn up in the same manuscripts.43 There are 25 extant Carolingian manuscripts with the Dominus vobiscum, and eight of the Primum in ordine, most of which are manuscripts for priests in both cases.44 Both texts travelled widely in the ninth century. The Dominus vobiscum found its way all over the Carolingian empire, and featured in the libraries of several important monasteries, while the Primum in ordine even turns up in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript as early as the late eighth or early ninth century. The numbers of surviving Carolingian manuscripts containing especially the Dominus vobiscum is exceptional: not a single known authority of the period produced a Mass commentary that was received so widely.45 Going from their presence in the full range of pastoral compendia, from voluminous schoolbooks to the more modest codices for local use, the Dominus vobiscum and the Primum in ordine were both composed to teach (future) priests

Staatsbibliothek clm 6324 (a copy of clm 6325). The bulk of both manuscripts is Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis. 42 Dominus vobiscum, see n. 11. The Primum in ordine has been edited by Daniela Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione del’expositio missae “Primum in ordine” e l’expositio orationis dominicae cosidetta Milanese’, Ricerche Storiche sulla Chiesa Ambrosiana XI (1982), pp. 208–66. There are other, mostly longer anonymous texts that go through the entire ordo word by word, for instance the Quotiens contra se already mentioned by Wilmart, ‘Expositio missae’, col. 1021–2. This text only survives in one manuscript, however, of which the most recent edition is PL 96, col., 1481–1502. 43 Although Wilmart thinks that the Primum in ordine is a bit earlier than the Dominus vobiscum (‘Expositio missae’, col. 1021), the oldest manuscripts of both texts date from just after 800; the interpretation of the Trinity discussed below, however, confirms Wilmart’s idea. Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 210 dates the oldest manuscripts of the Primum in ordine, Cambrai, Bibliothèque Municipale 600 (a canon law manuscript), and Oxford, Bodleian Library Hatton 93 (an English liturgical manuscript) to s.VIII/IX, while the oldest extant manuscripts of the Dominus vobiscum are from the first decade of the ninth century. Both texts sometimes occur in the same pastoral compendia, for instance in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal. lat. 485. The oldest manuscript that contains both is St Petersburg, Publichnaja Biblioteka im. M.E. Salotykova Schedrina Q.V.I no. 34 (olim Corbie ms 230), dating to around 813. 44 The manuscripts of the Dominus vobiscum are listed as an appendix to Van Rhijn, ‘Ut missarum preces bene intellegant’, to which one manuscript dated to s.XII should be added: Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VI.E.41 (I thank Samuel Schröder for sharing this discovery with me); Keefe, Water and the word II lists 17 manuscripts at pp. 126–7; for the Primum in ordine see Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, pp. 210–12. 45 See Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 126–7.

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about the regular Sunday Mass, and to serve as useful texts on the subject to refresh their knowledge after ordination. Both texts serve these purposes well by offering rather short and mostly straightforward explanations, usually in accessible Latin. Each author offers comments on a text of the Mass that is in both cases very close (but in neither case identical) to that of the regular Sunday Mass in the Sacramentarium Gregorianum-Hadrianum.46 These expositiones can therefore tell us a lot about priests’ knowledge and understanding of the ritual, and provide insights in the way in which the high-level ideals outlined above may have had direct effects on widely shared understandings of the Mass. The ‘knowing and understanding the Mass’ of the prescriptive texts, in other words, can be fleshed out through the expositions. The rest of this section will discuss what exactly such ‘understanding’ involved. Let us now first get acquainted with the techniques of explanation employed in the Dominus vobiscum and the Primum in ordine, and then consider two of its recurrent themes (the Trinity and salvation) against the background of royal and episcopal admonishments. As it will turn out, some of the characteristics observed in the previous chapter about baptismal expositions appear here too: both texts share general ideas and the purpose to educate, but they vary considerably at the more detailed levels of explanation. All the same, there is no doubt that both authors intended to present their audiences with a thorough and theologically sound didactic text, useful for people who were literate but not excessively learned.47 The way in which the two commentaries go about this is to explain the canon of Mass sentence by sentence, or, if necessary, word for word. Both expositions divide the text in small pieces (about 75 for the Dominus vobiscum, and more than 100 for the Primum in ordine), varying in length from one word to a sentence. Generally speaking, the explanation of each section contains (1) basic elucidation of the word or of the sentence (sometimes including etymologies), (2) explanation of what exactly the passage means in the wider context of the Mass, as well as (3) clarification of relevant doctrinal aspects. Not every section includes more than one of these elements; only the longest chapters contain all three. The first, most basic level at which the anonymous authors of both texts explained the canon of Mass is that of words, which often get a brief clarification, a translation from the Greek or Hebrew, or an etymological explanation. I will give examples of each, in order to illustrate the kind of knowledge that 46 See Jean Deshusses, Le sacramentaire Grégorien. Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits I (Fribourg, 1992), pp. 85–92. The discussion about the real or imagined ‘Romanisation’ of the Carolingian liturgy in general and that of the Mass in specific is beyond the scope of this book. An important recent contribution, which discusses the most important literature on the subject is Westwell, ‘The dissemination’. 47 Brovelli, ‘La «Expositio missae canonica»’, pp. 25–6 notes how especially the Dominus vobiscum is characterised by ‘la relativa povertà dottrinale e la forma assolutamente elementare del commento’, which to her mind makes an envisaged audience of (presumably poorly educated) priests very plausible.

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the author expected his audience to need and understand. This will at the same time show how the Latin used in both texts is relatively easy, and that the explanations offered are generally quite compact and to the point. These few examples will also make clear how both authors were doing the same thing (that is: explaining the canon of the Mass), but chose their own approach at every turn. The first example is the way in which both texts explain the word inlibata, which translates as ‘pure’. The context is that of the dona, munera and sancta sacrificia inlibata: the pure and untainted gifts and sacrifices offered to God during Mass. Each author chose a somewhat different approach to explain this important term, but all the same they both underline the importance of offering a pure gift: Primum in ordine: Inlibata that is: uncontaminated, and without any uncleanliness. Sacrifices are, then, inlibata if they are given from one’s own goods with a pure heart, and have been acquired by just labour.48 Dominus vobiscum: Inlibata, that is immaculate and far removed from all malice. Gifts and sacrifices are inlibata when they are offered without the stains of scandal and have been acquired by just labour. It is not like many claim in error, who say that inlibata means undedicated.49 Both texts also offer a translation and an explanation of the Greek-derived word catholica (‘general’): Primum in ordine: Catholica means universal, because the Greek word catholicon means universality in Latin.50 Dominus vobiscum: Catholica means universal, because everybody (universi) who believes in the Lord must gather in one community.51 Etymological explanations are thinner on the ground in the Primum in ordine than in the Dominus vobiscum, and there are no instances where both texts offer an etymological explanation of the same word. The Primum in ordine, for instance, 48 Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 235, l. 232–4: ‘INLIBATA hoc est incontaminata et omni immunditia carentia. Inlibata etenim tunc sunt sacrificia si de propriis puro corde dantur et iusto labore adquiruntur.’ 49 Hanssens ed., Amalarius I, pp. 306 and 308: ‘Inlibata, id est inmaculata et ab omni livore malitiae aliena. Tunc sunt dona et sacrificia inlibata, quando absque scandalorum maculis sunt offerta, et iusto sunt labore adquisita; non, ut multi errant, qui dicunt inlibata esse non dedicata.’ 50 Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 235, l. 239–40. 51 Hanssens ed., Amalarius I, p. 308: ‘Catholica universalis dicitur, quia universi qui in Deum credunt, in una debent esse congregatione.’

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explains the word antistes, by which the bishop, the head of the diocese is meant, as follows: Antistes means that which stands before, he who leads the other clerical orders.52 However, etymological explanations of words are not always as commonsensical as this one – the Dominus vobiscum in particular contains some interesting examples to the contrary. One such explanation is that of the word terra (earth, land) in the Dominus vobiscum. The context is ‘Thou will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven’, part of the Lord’s Prayer: Terra is derived from crushing (terendo), that which is crushed by feet.53 Here, something interesting emerges: rather than show the author’s peculiar or even bizarre understanding of words, as Wilmart thought,54 this explanation actually betrays his learning: this reading of terra is a close paraphrase from Virgillius Maro’s Epitome, a learned grammatical work.55 Taken together, these examples illustrate well how both authors in general follow similar lines of approach when explaining single terms. The emphasis is on meaning, either direct, through another language or via etymology, and the explanations are always short. When they clarify the small sections into which each author has subdivided his text, however, an obvious difference in approach between both expositions shows. The Primum in ordine often reverts to biblical quotations to support the interpretation given, whereas the Dominus vobiscum hardly does so at all. A good example that shows the difference is the two explanations of the sentence et cum spiritu tuo (‘and with your spirit’), the response expected from the people after the priest has said ‘the Lord be with you’ (Dominus vobiscum): Primum in ordine: Et cum spiritu tuo, that is that our understanding and spirit be one, as the apostle says: “I will sing with the spirit, I will also sing with the understanding”

52 Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 236: ‘Antistes dicitur quod ante stat eo quod presit ceteris ordinibus.’ 53 Hanssens ed., Amalarius I, p. 332: ‘Terra a terendo dicitur, eo quod pedibus teritur.’ 54 Examples such as these inspired Wilmart, ‘Expositio missae’, col. 1019, to call the explanations offered in the Dominus vobiscum ‘parfois bizarres’. 55 Virgilius Maro, Opera omnia, ed. Bengt Löfstedt, Bibliotheca Teubneriana (Munich/Leipzig, 2003), Epitomae XI: Incipit de cognationibus etymologiae aliorum nominum, pp. 227–8: ‘terra ob hoc dicitur quia hominum pedibus teritur’. There are several instances of the Dominus vobiscum using this work. Debate about this enigmatic text: Vivien Law, Wisdom, authority and grammar in the seventh century. Decoding Virgilius Maro Grammaticus (Cambridge, 1995), and Rory Naismith, ‘Antiquity, authority, and religion in the Epitumae and Epistolae of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus’, Peritia 20 (2008), pp. 59–85.

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(1 Cor. 14,15). He [should pray] for them and they for him, for the apostle teaches to pray for each other so that they will be saved, and the Lord says in the Gospel: “Amen I say to you, for if two or three agree about all things on earth, whatever they will ask shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven.” (Mat. 18,19).56 Dominus vobiscum: Et cum spiritu tuo. [This is] the people’s answer and prayer that, just like the priest has prayed that the Lord be with the people, the people also pray that the Lord be with the priest’s spirit.57 Again, the formulation of both explanations shows different ways of expressing shared ideas. In this case, the approach chosen by the author of the Primum in ordine, that of letting biblical quotations speak for themselves, weighs down the explanation more than it really explains what ‘et cum spiritu tuo’ means. The Dominus vobiscum, on the other hand, is crystal clear in its explanation of the sentence. This takes us to the last aspect of Mass commentaries that I will discuss here: that of central ideas that were part of the bedrock of Frankish Christianity. Such ideas have a tendency to surface several times in both texts, and not necessarily where one would logically expect them. These passages were no doubt intended not only to explain but also to impress upon its readers what the right belief was and why, and how such beliefs were related to each other. A whole series of such themes were woven into the expositiones missae, for instance the double nature of Christ, the virginity of Mary, the death of Christ as sacrifice and every person’s possibility to become an adopted son or daughter of God. At this level of the explanations, there are clear connections with principles of belief that also make their appearance in the high-level normative texts of the period. Two themes will illustrate this, first that of the Holy Trinity and second that of salvation. The Holy Trinity, or to be more precise, the correct understanding of the Holy Trinity, is spelled out several times in each text. Understanding the Holy Trinity in the correct way had been a hallmark of correct, ‘orthodox’, Roman Christianity since the Council of Nicaea (325), when Arius was declared a heretic and Athanasius’ views became the norm. Subscribing to the orthodox point of view, that of Rome, was one of the most important 56 Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 227, l. 58–64: ET CUM SPIRITU TUO, id est ut mens et spiritus noster unum sint secundum apostolum. “Psallam spiritu, psallam et mente”. Ipse pro illis et illi pro illo, quia apostolus docet invicem orare, ut salventur, et Dominus in Evangelio: “Amen dico vobis, quia si duo uel tres consenserint de omni re super terram, quamcumque petierint fiat illis a patre meo qui est in celis.” 57 Hanssens ed., Amalarius I, p. 284: ‘ET CUM SPIRITU TUO. Responsio populi atque oratio, ut, sicut sacerdos orauit quod Dominus esset cum populo, ita et populus orat quod Domnus sit cum spiritu sacerdotis.”

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building blocks of Carolingian identity, so expressions of correct belief should be understood as more than an expression of religious allegiance: sharing one ‘correct’ religion was the glue that held the Carolingian world together. 58 An understanding of the Holy Trinity in which Father, Son and Holy Ghost were three ‘persons’ but nevertheless equal in divinity, power and eternity was an integral part of Carolingian Christianity – hence the belief, for instance, that it was so important for all Christians to be able recite the Nicene Creed by heart. In the middle of the eighth century, the correct understanding of the Holy Trinity became an especially relevant topic when the so-called filioque-debate became part of wider controversies with the Byzantine Empire. 59 In very short, the issue was this: did the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father alone, or from the Father through the Son, or from the Father and from the Son ( filioque)? Unlike the Byzantines, the Franks believed that the filioque reflected orthodox ideas, even though the Nicene Creed did not mention it with so many words.60 While this is not the place to go into the discussion any further, this context is important since it sheds light on a remarkable difference between our two Mass expositions. It may even help us date the Primum in ordine to the time before the filioque-controversy burst loose, since it bears no trace at all of any interest in the issue. The emphasis in this text is solidly on the Trinity as one God in three, equal, persons, as for instance in the explanation of sanctus, sanctus, sanctus: Primum in ordine However, although the name ‘holy’ (sanctus) is bestowed on each person, there ís not a plural number of three holy persons (sancti), but there is one holy (sanctus) God. And by the three-fold repetition, the one holiness of three persons is demonstrated.61 58 See Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Les perceptions carolingiennes de Rome’, in: Wojcieck Falkowski and Yves Sassier eds, Le monde carolingien; bilan, perspectives, champs de recherches. Actes du Colloque International de Poitiers, Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation médiévale, 18–20 novembre 2004, Culture et société médiévales 18 (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 83–103; Mayke de Jong, ‘Charlemagne’s church’, in: Joanna Story ed., Charlemagne: empire and society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 103–35; Thomas F.X. Noble, ‘Carolingian religion’, Church History 84 (2015), pp. 287–307 esp. 289–95; Ross Balzaretti, Julia Barrow and Patricia Skinner eds, Italy and early medieval Europe. Papers for Chris Wickham (Oxford, 2018); Rosamond McKitterick, Rome and the invention of the papacy. The Liber Pontificalis (Cambridge, 2020). 59 For a good overview of the filioque-controversy see Edward Sciecienski, The Filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy (Oxford, 2010), especially chapter 5; Shawn C. Smith, ‘The insertion of the Filioque into the Nicene Creed and a letter of Isidore of Seville’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 22 (2014), pp. 261–86. 60 R.G. Heath, ‘The western schism of the Franks and the ‘filioque’’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 23 (1972), pp. 97–113. 61 Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 233: ‘Sed, quamvis unicuique persone nomen imponatur sanctum, non tamen plurali numero tres sunt sancti, sed unus Deus sanctus. Et sub trina repetitione una in tribus personis sanctitas demonstratur.’

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The author of the Dominus vobiscum, on the other hand, explains the same passage as follows: Dominus vobiscum Therefore ‘holy’ (sanctus) is said three times so that it signifies the holy Father, the holy Son, and the Father’s and the Son’s Holy Ghost. Therefore ‘holy’ (sanctus) is said three times, and not the plural ‘holies’ (sancti) but the singular ‘holy’ (sanctus), so that a single holiness in these three persons and one eternity is understood.62 While the three-in-one aspect of the Holy Trinity is present in both explanations, thereby underlining the orthodoxy of their interpretations, the Dominus vobiscum also slips in how the Holy Ghost is of both the Father and the Son. This is, I think, an echo of the Frankish position in the controversy on the subject with the Byzantine Church, which further specified the correct understanding of the Holy Trinity. The equality and eternity of all three members of the Holy Trinity, meanwhile, is mentioned by both authors at several other points in the text63; this was the essence of the matter that everybody should know and understand. The author of the Dominus vobiscum was clearly more interested in the theme than his colleague. In this text, an elaborate explanation of the Holy Trinity is presented right at the start of the text as the (somewhat unexpected) explanation of ‘oremus’ (‘let us pray’): Dominus vobiscum … and when he [i.e. the priest] says ‘God who lives and reigns with You [ i.e. the Son] in unity with the Holy Ghost’, he wants the people to believe and understand that the Son lives and reigns with the Father without beginning and end, and that He is God like the Father, and that the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son are one power, and one substance, and in all one unity of godliness.64 62 Hanssens ed., Amalarii I, p. 302: Ideo enim tribus vicibus dicitur Sanctus, ut significetur Pater sanctus, Filius sanctus, Spiritus Patris et Filii sanctus. Sed quamvis tripliciter dicatur Sanctus, non tamen dicitur plurali numero Sancti, sed singulari numero Sanctus, ut una sanctitas in his tribus personis et una aeternitas intellegatur. 63 In the Primum in ordine the subject appears three times, i.e. in sections 13, 17 and 26, see Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’; in the Dominus vobiscum it is mentioned twice at the beginning of the text, and once more in the comment on ‘sanctus, sanctus, sanctus’ as quoted above, see Hanssens ed., Amalarii I, pp. 284 (twice) and 302. 64 Hanssens ed., Amalarius I, p. 284: Cum dicit Qui tecum vivit et regnat Deus in unitate Spiritus Sancto, vult populum credere et intellegere quod Filius cum Patre sine initio ac sine fine vivit et regnat, et Deus est, sicut Pater Deus est, et una potestas est Spiritus Sancti cum Patre et Filio, atque una substantia et in omnibus unitas deitatis.

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That the correct understanding of the Holy Trinity was given such prominent attention in both texts must surely have pleased the bishops of the period, who in their episcopal statutes and priests’ exams also emphasised the way in which priests should understand the Holy Trinity and teach it to others.65 Even Charlemagne himself issued admonishments that encouraged belief in the ‘true, perfect Trinity’,66 which connects the concerns of the highest authority of the kingdom to our locally used Mass commentaries. Our second theme, that of salvation, can be best understood as the over-­ arching reason for everybody to participate in the Mass to begin with. The theme of salvation is frequent in both texts, and taken together the knowledge shared through these explanations can be considered as a compact guide to Christian life as a whole. There were many sides to the idea that each individual Christian had the possibility to gain eternal life in heaven. The one aspect on which the Mass focussed was that of offering sacrifices to God. The Primum in ordine explains that as follows: By the gift of this sacrifice, the soul is redeemed of sins and saved by the expectation of eternal salvation.67 However, God would not just accept any old gift: it had to be offered in the right way. According to the Dominus vobiscum, this came down to two things, the first of which consisted of a pure heart: If everybody does not forgive their brother their sins with your hearts, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your sins, and: the sacrifice will not be received if it is offered with scandal, but we are ordered to forgive before the altar until reconciled to their brother and then the sacrifice can be offered with a clean heart.68 65 For instance Walter of Orléans in his episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 2, p. 188, or the priests’ exam ‘Primum omnium qualis’, in E. Vykoukal, ‘Les examens du clergé paroissial à l’époque Carolingienne’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique XIV (1913), pp. 81–96 at p. 85. 66 For instance in Charlemagne’s ‘Missi cuiusdam admonitio’, MGH Cap. I, no. 121, p. 238. The synod of Frankfurt (794) explicitly states – borrowing the words of the Council of Chalcedon (451), c. 32 - that ‘the catholic faith of the Holy Trinity’ should be preached to all. MGH Cap. I, p. 77, no. 28, c. 33: ‘Ut fides catholica sanctae trinitatis … omnibus praedicetur et tradatur.’ 67 Mazzuconi, ‘La diffusione’, p. 237: ‘Per oblationem enim illius sacrificii animam redimuntur a vitiis et salvantur per spem salutis eterne.’ Note that the sentence explained here, ‘Pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salute et incolumnitatis sue’ is not part of the text of the Mass in the Dominus vobiscum. 68 Hanssens ed., Amalarii I, p. 332: Si non remiseritis unusquisque fratri suo de cordibus vestris nec pater vester caelestis remittet vobis peccata vestra …, et iterum: sacrificium non recipitur si cum scandalo offertur, sed ante altare dimitti iubetur, usque dum reconcilietur fratri suo et tunc offerri mundo corde.

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In second place, it was necessary to live according to Jesus’ precepts: Jesus is Greek, in Latin this means saviour or salvific. He is called Saviour, Who saves His people from their sins. … He is called salvific because He gives us salvation, so that we are worthy to receive eternal life if we follow His precepts.69 Every participation in the Mass, understood as the commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice for the redemption of the sinfulness of humankind, then, was one small step towards heaven. It involved asking forgiveness for one’s sins and participating in the sacrifice to God to beseech His forgiveness. Crucial in both explanations is, however, this: only those who live according to Christ’s precepts will ever hope to deserve eternal life. Here we again reach familiar territory, for what else were Christ’s precepts than all the principles for a good Christian life taught, preached and admonished to the people by priests and bishops? That priests should lead the people to heaven gains a new dimension here, for God will simply not listen to the pleas for mercy of those who do not listen to the ministers of His church. This analysis of two anonymous Mass expositions has highlighted two main points. First of all, those who studied these texts were exposed to all kinds of knowledge about the Mass, ranging from small facts to overarching religious concepts. Each text provided various kinds of information, including, for example, the meaning of Greek or Hebrew words, passages of biblical history, and etymological and symbolical interpretations of terms and actions. It is here that there is clear variety in presentation and interpretation: the word catholicos or the sentence et cum spiritu tuo, as we have seen, did not mean the same to our two authors. However, second, at the core of each text is the intent of offering a clear and theologically sound explanation of the Mass. The central ideas that underpin both explanations show more agreement in interpretation, for instance the emphasis on the three-in-one nature of the Holy Trinity, or the importance of salvation and its implications. It is here, I think, that high-level concerns connect to local circumstances through texts such as these expositions: where kings, intellectuals and bishops expressed their interest in the correct understanding and performance of the Mass, for instance, the expositions delivered the means to attain these ideals. Where high-level admonishments and regulations lack detail, Mass commentaries make up for this generously. There was a lot to know and understand about the Mass, and as long as the central themes were explained in the right way, comments and interpretations of all the rest could vary within the boundaries of correct understanding. It is now time to turn to the lay participants in the Mass, for what could they learn and understand by going to church on Sundays and feast days and listening to the sermon? 69 Hanssens ed., Amalarii I, p. 306: ‘Iesus grece, latine salvator sive salutaris. Dicitur salvator, eo quod salvat populum suum a peccatis eorum… Salutaris ideo dicitur, quia salutem nobis dedit, ut si praecepta eius servamus, vitam aeternam capere valeamus.’

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5  Learning from sermons: knowledge for lay audiences The one part of Mass that was intended especially to teach and edify its audience was the sermon. In the early church, preaching had been the exclusive right of the bishop, but by the Carolingian period, not only bishops but also priests were expected to preach as a matter of course.70 Episcopal instructions and royal admonishments both testify to the importance of priests’ preaching as a way of instructing lay audiences. ‘We admonish you,’ so several bishops wrote to the priests of their dioceses, to be prepared to teach the people. Who knows Scripture, should preach Scripture; who does not, should at least tell the people that which is most important: that they turn away from evil and do good, that they seek after peace and pursue it, for the eyes of the Lord are on the just and His ears unto their prayers; but the countenance of the Lord is against them that do evil things, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth (Ps 33, 15–17). Nobody can excuse himself by saying that he does not have a tongue with which he can edify somebody.71 Even if a priest did not know the Bible by heart, then, he was expected to preach to the people and have sufficient knowledge about Christian morals and behaviour to help them keep God’s ears onto their prayers. The key purpose of preaching was to instruct the laity about leading a virtuous life worthy of God’s attention – with, or if need be without the help of Scripture. Bishops and kings underlined how important the sermon was as a way of communicating religious knowledge to lay audiences. That preaching therefore took place in the local vernacular, especially in regions where Latin was not understood seems plausible, even though the extant manuscripts barely contain any evidence for the existence of written-down sermons in languages other than Latin.72 As we will see shortly, 70 See Yitzhak Hen, Culture and religion in Merovingian Gaul, AD 481–751 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 33–4; Robert Godding, Prêtres en Gaul mérovingienne (Brussels, 2001), pp. 375–81. Preaching in the Carolingian period: Maximilian Diesenberger, Sermones. Predigt und Politik im frühmittelalterlichen Bayern. Arn von Salzburg, Karl der Grosse und die Salzburger Sermones-Sammlung, Millennium-Studien 58 (Berlin, 2015); Maximilian Diesenberger, Yitzhak Hen and Marianne Pollheimer eds, Sermo doctorum. Compilers, preachers, and their adiences in the early medieval West (Turnhout, 2013); James McCune, ‘An edition and study of select sermons from the Carolingian sermonary of Salzburg’, PhD thesis King’s College London 2006. 71 This admonishment is originally from Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, c.28, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 125: Hortamur vos paratos esse ad docendas plebes. Qui scriptura scit, praedicet scripturas; qui vero nescit, saltim hoc, quod notissimum est, plebibus dicat: Ut declinant a malo et faciant bonum, inquirant pacem et sequantur eam, quia oculi domini super iustos et aures eius ad preces eorum; vultus autem domini super facientes mala, ut perdat de terra memoriam eorum. Nullus ergo se excusare poterit, quod non habeat linguam, unde possit aliquem aedificare.; it was copied by Radulf of Bourges and Ruotger of Trier into their own episcopal statutes. 72 See Bernhard Zeller a.o., Neighbours and strangers. Local societies in early medieval Europe (Manchester, 2020), esp. ch. 5 at pp. 123–8; on one special case of a sermon in the vernacular see David Ganz, ‘The Old French sermon on Jonah: the nature of the text’, in: Diessenberger, Hen

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however, the presence of Latin sermons in manuscripts for priests may well have formed the raw material for vernacular preaching. As was the case with Mass in general, detailed norms and ideals about preaching only started to turn up in royal and episcopal instructions in the decades around the year 800. The last and longest chapter of Charlemagne’s Admonitio Generalis, to mention the most extensive example, is one long preaching instruction. Those responsible for good preaching in their dioceses were the bishops, who should ensure that the priests preached in a ‘right and worthy way’.73 What this meant was that sermons ought to focus on those themes that would help the audience lead good Christian lives and (in an ideal scenario) reach eternal life; anything too fanciful, new or uncanonical should be avoided. Appropriate themes for preaching, of which the king added a long list, were first of all issues of belief in such things as God as the Creator of heaven and earth, the virginity of Mary, the Holy Trinity, the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgement. Second, Christian morals should be addressed through examples of virtues and vices, the importance of confession and penance, almsgiving and forgiveness as a way of deserving the kingdom of God. That preaching was, by the ninth century, a self-evident part of the pastoral care offered by priests is clear throughout normative texts of the period, and the same ideas appear in texts that reflect these norms. Priests’ exams, for instance, contain questions about the priest’s ability to preach,74 and such interrogations sometimes even offer a small glimpse of what these sermons might have been like: QUESTION: How do you preach to the people entrusted to you? ANSWER: I ask and admonish that they believe in God the Almighty Father and

in His only Son our Lord and in the Holy Ghost that proceeds from both, the Father invisible in His substance. And that they abstain from evil and do good, and bear each others’ burdens. That they love God with their whole heart and their whole soul and with all their strength, and [that they love] their neighbours as they love themselves, and that they do not do to others

and Pollheimer eds, Sermo doctorum, pp. 427–39; Wolfram Kinzig, ‘Formation des Glaubens. Didaktische und liturgische Aspekte der Rezeption altkirchlicher Symbole in der lateinischen Kirche der Spätantike und des Frühmittelalters’, in: Heil ed., Das Christentum, pp. 389–431 at pp. 415–16. 73 Admonitio Generalis c. 80, p. 234: ‘… ut presbiteros, quos mittatis per parrochias vestras ad regendum et ad praedicandum per ecclesias populum deo servientem, ut recte et honeste praedicent.’ 74 For instance the unpublished priests’ exam ‘Si hac parroechia’ in the manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 109r: ‘Si sciat predicare’, or the priests’ exam ‘Primitus cum venerit’, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, ‘Neue Texte zur bischöflichen Gesetzgebung aus den Jahren 829/30. Vier Diözesansynoden Halitgars von Cambrai’, Deutsches Archiv 35 (1979), pp. 368–94 at p. 393, where it is stated that a priest should be ‘benignus, misericors, largus, ecclesiasticus, predicator, visitator infirmorum …’.

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what they do not wish to be done to themselves. […] These things, and similar precepts from the Old and New Testament I try to teach them.75 Even though we cannot be sure that priests preached everywhere, and although we do not know how frequently they did so or how eloquent their sermons might have been, the expectation of priests preaching as a way of leading the laity to heaven is, all in all, well-attested.76 On top of the normative evidence, early medieval church inventories and the priests’ manuscripts themselves show how priests often owned sets of sermons and homilies. Some book lists from local churches contain items such as homiliaria,77 and many pastoral compendia contain sets of homilies and sermons. Such manuscripts, in other words, place preaching material directly in the hands of priests who needed to prepare for the Sunday Mass. While some manuscripts contain organised sets of selected homilies for specific feast days, for instance homilies on the Bible readings for Easter, Pentecost or the feast of St John the Baptist,78 we mostly find texts on a range of themes that could be used more flexibly and were fitting for normal Sundays. The early ninth-century pastoral manuscript Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 288 is a good example.79 It contains expositions of the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and of the Mass, a clerical interrogation, some material on baptism and a set of about a dozen short sermons and homilies. The themes, which are eminently suitable for a lay audience, include paradise, Christmas, the merits of almsgiving, good and bad Christians and the Day of Judgement. Interestingly, most of these texts bear titles mentioning authorities such as St Augustine, Isidore or Jerome, and even though these ascriptions are nearly always incorrect, such titles do show how the copyist did his best to provide ‘right and worthy’ preaching material for the priest. It is important to ask how we should imagine that these texts were used in practice, for this is not as self-evident as it may seem. For one thing, the sermons 75 This is one question of an unpublished Carolingian interrogation, here quoted from Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 43, f. 19r: Int Qualiter predicas plebem tibi commissa? Rogo et moneo ut credant in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, et in Filium Eius hunigenitum Dominum nostrum, et in Spiritum Sanctum hab utroque procedentem Patrem invisibilem in sua substantia. Et ut devertant a malo et faciant bonum et alter alterius honera portent. Diligant Deum ex toto corde et ex tota anima et ex tota virtute, proximos autem tamquam se ipsos. Et quod sibi nolunt fieri ab alios ne faciant. Non iurent ne forte periurent. Sed casto corpore et mundo corde semetipsos custodiant. Ut corpus et anima sine querelia in adventum Domini servent. Ista autem et alia his similia precepta ex Veteri et Novo Testamento illos monere studeo. 76 Some scholars remain doubtful about the frequency and theological quality of preaching, see for instance Kinzig, ‘Formation des Glaubens’, pp. 405–16. 77 Carl Hammer jr., ‘Country churches, clerical inventories and the Carolingian renaissance in Bavaria’, Church History 49 (1980), pp. 14–17 shows several examples; also Patzold and Van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle. 78 As in the manuscript Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 14461. 79 The best description of this manuscript is Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 26–9.

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and homilies are in Latin, which would have made it difficult for most lay audiences to understand what was being said. For another, some sermons as we find them in such manuscripts are so short that they would hardly have filled five minutes of a Mass when read out directly from the book: one of the shortest ones in this manuscript, a heavily corrected ‘humilia sancti geronimi’ about the Last Judgement, is just about 350 words long. According to James McCune, who has done important work on early medieval sermons, we should not imagine a priest delivering such a short sermon by reading it out. Instead, these texts were intended as sources of inspiration for sermons delivered as free-flowing speech in a language that the audience understood.80 A short text in a manuscript could therefore be the basis for a much longer and more elaborate sermon – or even several ones. Longer sermons, for these turn up in pastoral compendia too, could in this way of thinking have a variety of functions such as study material, sources of inspiration for one or more sermons, or texts useful for lay education via other routes than the Sunday Mass.81 The short preaching material we find in pastoral books can, then, be viewed as the skeletal raw material for freely improvised sermons and homilies, which could be adapted to different circumstances and different audiences. It surely depended on the priest’s skills and wider knowledge how he would flesh out the outlines contained in his book. For our interpretation of the preaching material in pastoral manuscripts this idea means that the texts tell us about the topics and themes considered appropriate for preaching; if all we have is a short outline, we do not get to see the sermons as they were delivered in church on a Sunday.82 McCune’s theory of priests working with outlines for their preaching, and using material in manuscripts as inspiration, is a very interesting one, especially in the context of our exploration of priests’ knowledge and know-how. The assumption behind his ideas, and probably also that behind some compilers’ decision to provide skeletons of sermons rather than full texts, is that priests had the ability to work with this material in their everyday practice. This means that they were expected to be able to turn a 350-word outline in Latin into a flowing, spoken sermon in a different language, and that they had enough additional knowledge to flesh out the main theme of this sermon in ways understandable and interesting to the audience. That most pastoral books do not distinguish very clearly between sermons, homilies and other preaching material is a strong argument in favour of McCune’s idea. One of the short texts in the Laon manuscript, for instance, is labelled there as ‘Humilia sancti Agustini de die iudicii’ (‘Homily by St Augustine about the Day of Judgement’), but in another manuscript it appears 80 James McCune, ‘The sermon collection in the Carolingian clerical handbook Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 1012’, Mediaeval Studies 75 (2013), pp. 35–92, at pp. 37–8; idem, ‘An edition and study’, pp. 63–6. 81 See for instance the manuscript Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 40, which contains a few longer sermons. A good description of the contents: Eckhard Hauswald ed., Pirmin Scarapsus, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 25 (Hanover, 2010), pp. lxix-lxxiii. 82 Cfr. Kinzig, ‘Formation des Glaubens’, p. 401.

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as ‘Epistola sancti Agustini episcopi de die iudicii’83 (‘Letter of St Augustine about the Day of Judgement’), while it has no title at all in a third one84 – this same text has been edited as sermo 251, possibly written by St Augustine, in the Patrologia Latina.85 Even though a homily is usually understood as an exposé about a passage from the Bible, the definition used in the priests’ manuscripts seems to have been a lot looser, to the extent that in many cases it is impossible to tell a sermon apart from a homily (or, for that matter, from some letters) on the basis of their contents. In the rest of this chapter, therefore, I will just use the term ‘sermon’ for the text delivered by a priest on Sundays, independent of the titles of the material he might have used for inspiration (homily, sermon, letter or otherwise) in the manuscript. Such texts I will call ‘preaching material’, to distinguish the building blocks from the spoken text. Let us now take a closer look at one of the texts in the Laon manuscript to get some impression of what the raw material for a spoken sermon could look like: the ‘humilia sancti Agustini de die iudicii’ just mentioned. It is a text not even 400 words long that appears in a number of pastoral manuscripts, always in the context of a cluster of preaching material.86 The text divides its message about the Day of Judgement into five parts: (1) a statement of the subject with a brief explanation; (2) the visible signs of that day; (3) the return of Christ; (4) what happens to sinners; (5) what happens to virtuous people. Several quotations from the Gospel of Matthew (Mat. 24, 29–31) provide connections to the Bible, but the text is not primarily intended to explain the Gospel. The main theme is what will happen to sinners who are too late to repent, confess and do penance, the description of which (including gnashing of teeth, ever-lasting fire, eternal torment) takes up more than half of the text. Each of the five sections by themselves opens up possibilities to elaborate and expand. They contain terms and ideas that link the text to wider religious knowledge that a priest ought to have (for instance, an understanding of Christ as redemptor (redeemer), or of what the mons oliveti (Mount Olive) was, or who the electi (the chosen) were), and together they invite wider reflections about saints and sinners, virtues and vices, heaven and hell. Each of the five sections contains short but graphic descriptions that may well have inspired priests to elaborate. A good example is the first section, where it is announced that Christ will return ‘with a flame of fire with which he burns his enemies and evil-doers’,87 or, in the third one, that Christ’s arrival will be

83 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo, L III 8, f. 70r. 84 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135, f. 63v. 85 See PL 39, col. 2210, where the ‘sermo’ has been printed as part of a section ‘Auctor incertus (Augustinus Hipponensis?)’. 86 Other manuscripts with this text are El Escorial Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135, Albi Bibliothèque Municipale 40, and Einsiedeln Stiftsbibliothek 27. There is no modern edition of this text. 87 Laon Bibliothèque Municipale 288, f. 69v: ‘…cum flama ignis, que inflamat adversariis suis et eos qui fatiunt iniquitatem.’ Interestingly, a later hand has explained this last bit by adding ‘contra sancta ecclesia et contra populum innocentem’.

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announced by the appearance in the sky of ‘the cross of Christ, the light of which puts a shadow over the entire world’.88 Short though it may be, in other words, this outline may well have served priests to think up a series of different sermons that could be adapted to the audience, or to a specific moment in the year. It is not hard to imagine a pattern similar to the expositions of the Lord’s Prayer discussed in the previous chapter, where the same prayer could inspire a wide variety of different explanations. If a priest had sufficient knowledge and some rhetorical skill, a dozen of these skeletal sermons could surely go a long way. Lay audiences could doubtlessly learn many things from sermons delivered on the basis of this compact preaching material; what exactly that was depended directly on the way in which the priest decided to flesh out the themes, stories and biblical quotations of his text. As a rule, compilers of priests’ manuscripts seem to have gathered material about themes that would appeal to a local lay audience. The Laon manuscript just discussed contains a dozen short texts of this kind, while another pastoral compendium, the manuscript Albi Bibliothèque Municipale 40, contains – apart from the same text on the Day of Judgement – preaching material about fighting your sins, penance, drunkenness and sobriety, and how God listens to your heart and not to empty words.89 Such collections offered a lot of possibilities to preach ‘in a right and worthy way’ about themes important to lay audiences, in ways that linked to the lived experience of being a lay Christian.

6  Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40-III What could a priest learn about the Sunday Mass and the sermons he ought to deliver for the occasion from one single manuscript? We have seen that explanations of the Mass contained the kind of knowledge that led to a detailed and deeper understanding of both text and meaning of the ritual. What such expositions have in common with the shorter and longer preaching material, however, is that all these texts presuppose a lot of general religious background knowledge, for instance about abstract principles of belief, biblical figures and stories, but also the ability to think symbolically about these subjects. Whether or not a priest, and therefore his audience, could grasp what such texts meant exactly was for that reason dependent on their wider knowledge, and it is here that the presence of other material in pastoral manuscripts – including later additions in margins and on flyleaves – begins to look less random than it may sometimes seem. A good example of a manuscript that has knowledge about the Mass and preaching woven through its contents is a slim codex that now shares a cover with two other, unrelated early medieval manuscripts. The first of these is a copy of the biblical books of Isaiah and Jeremiah (ca. 780); the second is St Jerome’s 88 Laon Bibliothèque Municipale 288, f. 90r: ‘…crux Christi, in cuius lumen tenebricabitur totus mondus.’ 89 See note 81.

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commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (ca. 820–840). The third part of the codex, labelled Variae by the cataloguer, is a pastoral compendium of a mere 28 folia long, possibly of Swiss provenance.90 As to the date of this priests’ book there are various opinions that together cover the entire ninth century. On the basis of the contents, we can only say that the manuscript certainly postdates the beginning of the ninth century, when the Disputatio Puerorum was written91; the palaeography indicates an earlier rather than a later date in the ninth century.92 The core of the book consists of a priest’s exam, two expositions of the Mass, two expositions of the Creed and two of the Lord’s Prayer (one of which is part of the Mass exposition Dominus vobiscum), a series of excerpts from the works of Fathers of the Church (a separate quire that has been inserted later), and material about baptism. Two of these texts, an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer and one of the Creed, are excerpts from the early ninth-century Disputatio Puerorum, a work (parts of ) which regularly turns up in pastoral manuscripts.93 As we will see shortly, the patristic excerpts may have had many functions, and ‘raw preaching material’ was probably one of them. At least six different hands wrote the book, on some pages in sloping sentences on unlined parchment. Slightly later hands have added an ordo for the baptism of the sick, an Ordinal of Christ, and a short calculation of the age of the world on the first pages. The manuscript was originally divided into three neat thematic blocks: the first three texts (9 folia) are about Mass, the next three explain the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer (2 folia), while the last three cover baptism (9 folia). The quire with a couple of sermons and some short excerpts from the works of the Fathers of the Church, which seems to be contemporary to the rest of the manuscript and is written in a similar hand, has been inserted into the beginning of the section about baptism, between two quires. Even though we cannot be sure when exactly this may have happened (the numbering of the pages in red pencil is much later), an early date seems entirely plausible given the contents of the inserted quire and the way in which this expanded the scope of the manuscript as a whole.94

90 See Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 82–4. 91 Rabin and Felsen eds, The Disputatio Puerorum, p. 2. 92 Keefe, Water and the word II, p. 82 thinks – following a private letter from Bischoff, see Keefe, A catalogue, p. 336 - that the third part dates to s. IX 3/3. However, Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst vom 8. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts I (St Gallen, 2008), p. 306, no 10, proposes a date of ca. 780 on the basis of palaeography, organisation and decorated initials. It seems, however, that this does not apply to the third part. A date of early-mid ninth century for this third manuscript seems plausible; I thank Marco Mostert for his advice about this. 93 Neither Keefe, nor Von Euw, nor the editors of the Disputatio were aware of this, but Wolfram Kinzig, Neue Texte und Studien zu den antiken und frühmittelalterlichen Glaubensbekenntnissen (Berlin, 2017), p. 4 has noticed. The exposition of the Lord’s Prayer is Disputatio Puerorum IX (entirely), eds Rabin and Felsen pp. 94–6; de exposition of the Creed is Disputatio Puerorum VIII, 1–19, eds Rabin and Felsen pp. 83–6. 94 The inserted quire seems to have been the last part of a manuscript, for its last verso is discoloured.

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What would the owner of this manuscript learn about the Sunday Mass from these texts? The liturgy itself or an ordo of the Mass is not part of the book, but its contents do presuppose solid knowledge of such texts. The two Mass commentaries would not be comprehensible without. The first of these, a short extract from Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis, is a compact run-through of the seven prayers of the canon of Mass, explaining the purpose of each. The third prayer, for instance, is ‘for that which is offered, and also for the dead believers, so that through this sacrifice they will be given forgiveness’.95 The long Mass commentary that follows it immediately, the Dominus vobiscum discussed above, offers a much more detailed explanation of every single word or sentence of the Mass. These two texts together offer thorough understanding of the unchanging parts of Sunday Mass. An interesting feature of this manuscript is how the priest’s exam that precedes these two explanations, the Dic mihi pro quid, includes no less than five questions about the Mass which can be answered with the help of the two expositions.96 The second question, ‘Why do you sing Mass?’ lists as the desired answer ‘for the commemoration of the Lord’s death, because the life of the world is created by the death of Christ, and so that by offering, the salvation of the living and the rest of the dead is advanced, as well as the healing of their souls and bodies’.97 The explanation of the third prayer just quoted overlaps substantially with this answer, and a further study of the Dominus vobiscum would present the reader with more thorough knowledge about the meaning and connotations of the sacrifice. He would, for instance, learn about the connection between offering to God and personal salvation, and about the difference between various kinds of offers (dona, munera, sacrificia).98 The Dominus vobiscum even echoes the question in the priests’ exam by underlining how important it is that priests (sacerdotes) understand what exactly they 95 Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 305: ‘Tercia pro offerendis sive pro defunctis fidelibus ut per aeandem sacrificium veniam consequantur.’ Cf. Isidorus Hispalensis, De ecclesiasticis officiis, ed. Christipher M. Lawson, CCSL 113 (Turnhout, 1989), book I, c. 15, 1–3. There are differences between the manuscript and the edition, but I am certain Isidore’s work is the source and, in this case, not the the Disputatio Puerorum, viii, 42, ed. Rabin and Felsen p. 82. 96 For an edition of this priests’ exam see Carine van Rhijn, ‘“Et hoc considerat episcopus, ut ipsi presbyteri non sint idiothae”: Carolingian local correctio and an unknown priests’ exam from the early ninth century’, in: Rob Meens e.a. eds, Religious Franks. Religion and power in the Frankish kingdoms: studies in honour of Mayke de Jong (Manchester, 2016), pp. 162–80. 97 Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 304: ‘II Interrogatio. Pro quid cantas missa? Responsio. Pro commemoracione mortis Domini, quia mors Christi facta est vita mundi, ut offerendo proficeret in salutem vivencium et requiem defunctorum atque medella animarum et corporum.’ Van Rhijn, ‘Et hoc considerat’, p. 177. 98 The connection between offering and salvation: Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 314, commenting on ‘Diesque nostros in tua pace disponas…’ , ed. Hanssens, Amalarii opera I, p. 312; on the difference between various kinds of gifts: Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 311 commenting on ‘Haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrifica inlibata’, ed. Hanssens, Amalarii opera I, p. 306.

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celebrate during the Mass, and what they ask for with their prayers, ‘for the prayer is a stupid request (stulta postulatio) if the person who asks does not know what he asks’.99 This short example shows how the priests’ exam and the expositions of Mass are interrelated; a similar argument can be made for the direct connection between the last two questions of the exam which deal with baptism, the last section of the manuscript and the added liturgy for the baptism of the sick added later at the beginning of the book. The expositions of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, the next block of texts in the manuscript, are relevant for learning about both the Mass and baptism.100 That two of these texts come in the form of short questions and answers indicates that they may have had a didactical purpose for both (future) clergy and laymen. The other explanation of the Creed, which assigns each line of the prayer to one of the 12 apostles and then discusses the prayer, is a more elaborate Creed-exposition since it branches out from the literal text of the Creed to offer a wider exposition of what it means to believe in God.101 Here, subjects like the right belief in the Trinity, the omnipotence of God and the Last Judgement are discussed. In between these important themes, all directly relevant for the understanding of the Creed, there are some smaller nuggets of other knowledge, for instance a brief discussion of the question whether Jesus had a brother (the answer is no, not in the natural sense), or an explanation of how the sun and the soul – like the Holy Trinity – are examples of single things that have three distinct aspects.102 Here we reach, I think, layers of general religious knowledge useful for different people and different occasions. For priests, such explanations deepened their knowledge and understanding, which enlarged their possibilities to teach, preach and explain. This brings us to the inserted quire of 5 folia (10 pages), which contains seven sections of an unknown, longer work that has not been identified. Each of the sections has a different theme: the first is a short extract from St Ambrose De fide about the Holy Trinity103; the second, from Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis book II, chapter 1, discusses how clergy should live and behave; the third, just one long sentence, is from an unknown text ascribed to Gregory the Great. It describes how everybody should remember where they were, are, are not and will be104; the fourth is a sermon (probably incomplete) ascribed to St Augustine

99 Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 315: ‘quia stulta postulacio oracio est si postulans nescit quid postulat’. 100 On the role of these two prayers in the ritual of baptism see above, Chapter 3. 101 This text has recently been edited by Kinzig, Neue Texte, pp. 8–16. 102 Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 323, ed. Kinzig, Neue Texte, pp. 10 and 12. 103 See Ambrosius, De fide (ad Gratianum), ed. Christoph Markschies, Fontes Christiani 47–2, 3 vols. (Turnhout, 2005). The extract is part of chapter 1. 104 The text cannot be found in the works of Gregory, but the very same passage, also ascribed to ‘Gregorius papa’, has been added on the last page of a ninth-century hagiographical collection written in (the South of ?) England, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 10861, f. 123v.

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about the ten people elected by God (from Adam to David)105; the fifth is an unknown text, titled De originae anime, here also ascribed to St Augustine, that indeed discusses the soul106; the sixth is a short extract from St Augustine’s De vera religione, also about the soul107; the last one is the first section of yet another sermon, perhaps by St Augustine’s, about the Tree of Knowledge.108 What these seven texts share is the density of the information packed into each of them. The fourth text, to give one example only, is a homily (on Luc 15, 8–10) about a page and a half long. It starts by introducing a woman who had ten denarii, lost one, but cleaned out her house with a broom until she found it. This woman, so the text proceeds, symbolises the ‘holy law’ (sancte legis figuram), that is, the Bible; the ten denarii are the ten chapters of this law. Then the author proceeds by mentioning these ten chapters, which centre on people elected by God, and he explains in a few words why each of them was elected. For instance, ‘the sixth He elected was Lot, a just man and host to pilgrims’.109 Thereafter, the explanation continues: the broom with which the woman cleaned her house to find the lost denarius, for instance, stands for the elimination of uncleanliness, which is paralleled by penance as the ‘broom’ that cleans the soul. Similar observations can be made for the other six texts in the quire. The various elements of each of the texts in this quire, I think, could be used for multiple purposes: they taught the reader a thing or two that probably built on figures and stories from the Bible that were already familiar, they offered material to teach others and they were surely useful for building sermons. This multifunctionality is an important characteristic of many texts in pastoral compendia that – at least in our eyes – do not have one clear purpose. This also goes for the texts about penance, virtues and vices that are the subject of the next chapter.

105 See Iohannis Machielsen, Clavis patristica pseudepigraphorum medii aevi I, Opera Homiletica A (Turnhout, 1990), no. 3310, p. 551, but without the manuscript Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40. The manuscript is mentioned in Sara Janner and Romain Jurot with Dorothea Weber, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus, Band IX/I Schweiz (Vienna, 2001), p. 267. The full sermon, which is a bit longer than the version in Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40, can also be found in a ninth-century manuscript now in Cologne, Dombibliothek cod. 15, f. 84r–v. 106 The enitre (?) text is also included in a twelfth-century manuscript: London, Lambeth Palace 414, f. 77v–78v. As far as I know, it has not been edited or published anywhere. 107 Augustinus, De vera religione / Über die wahre Religion. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar, ed. and transl. Josef Lössl (Paderborn, 2007), book I, viii. 108 This sermo has been printed in PL 39, col. 1735–1741 as ‘Sermo 1’ of the Appendix to volume 5 of St Augustine’s works. 109 Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40, p. 334: ‘Sextum eligit Lot hominem iustum et ospitem peregrinorum.’ Note that the version in Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek 40 skips over number two, Noah, who is mentioned in the Cologne manuscript.

5 THE CORNERSTONES OF CHRISTIAN SOCIETY III Penance

1  Introduction The last of our three cornerstones, that of penance, takes us to the way in which single individuals, but also entire communities were able to deal with the consequences of sinful behaviour with the help of their priest.1 Like performing the rituals of mass and baptism, hearing confession and deciding on the right amount of penance was a duty reserved to people ordained to the priesthood. On the basis of the extant penitentials, the texts that guided priests in their decisions about the right amount of penance for any given wrongdoing, it is clear that sin was understood as a very wide category of misbehaviour indeed. It ranged from relatively innocent actions such as thinking angry thoughts, to more serious forms of disruptive and harmful misbehaviour like adultery and even murder. It included eating the wrong kind of food and having the wrong kind of sex; even thinking about committing a sin without actually doing anything was, in itself, sinful. 2 1 Important recent works on various aspects of early medieval penance include Rob Meens, Penance in early medieval Europe, 600–1200 (Cambridge, 2014); Sarah Hamilton, The practice of penance, 900–1100 (Woodbridge, 2001); Mayke de Jong, The penitential state. Authority and atonement in the age of Louis the Pious, 814–840 (Cambridge, 2009); Ludger Körntgen, Studien zu den Quellen der frühmittelalterlichen Bussbücher, Quellen und Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter 7 (Sigmaringen, 1993) and many articles by each of these authors. Fundamental is also the somewhat older work by Raymond Kottje. 2 A good example of this last point is a three-year penance for wanting to murder somebody but being incapable to do so, a regulation from the so-called Paenitentiale in duobus libris, here quoted from the pastoral compendium Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médicine H 387, f. 6v–25v at f. 7r: ‘Si quis uoluit [homidicium facere] et non potuit iii annos peniteat, i ex his in pane et aqua.’ This text has been edited by Adriaan Gaastra (using this manuscript), Paenitentialia Italiae saeculi XI–XII, CCSL 166 C (Turnhout, 2016), pp. 121–63. An introduction to this penitential can be found on pp. xxxvii–xlii, where the editor explains that it is Frankish and can be dated to the late eighth or early ninth centuries (p. xxxvii).

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-8

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In other words, sin as it was understood in the early middle ages was the mirror image of the way in which good Christian behaviour covered every last sphere of daily life: its dangers lurked in one’s bed, on one’s plate, in daily interaction with others and even in one’s most private thoughts. For individual Christians, none of whom were without sin by definition, the possibility to confess and do penance provided a way of negotiating bumps in the road to salvation. Those whose souls had become tainted by trespasses against God’s precepts were, after all, not welcome in heaven, but it was never too late to repent and submit to a penitential regime – even a deathbed penance just before exhaling one’s ultimate breath was possible. A good Christian with a gnawing conscience therefore always had a way of clearing the slate; only the most heinous of crimes were considered to be beyond redemption. Reversely, sinning without doing penance closed the doors to the Eternal Kingdom. As one sermon in a pastoral manuscript put it, after listing a series of sins: ‘whoever knows that he has committed even one single of these sins: unless he will do penance, he cannot have the kingdom of heaven’.3 Penance was considered to be a ‘second baptism’ by which all one’s sins were washed away,4 with the difference that a person could only be baptised once, while in the Carolingian period penance could be repeated more often. The process that started with confession and ended in reconciliation after a period of penance in this way gave people a chance to keep looking after the health of their souls, even if they had done something seriously wrong after their baptism. The priest was a key figure throughout: it was he who heard confession, after which he assigned the appropriate period and kind of penance. It was also the priest who continuously reminded his flock to live virtuous lives and do penance for their sins before it was too late. The way in which the local pastor handled the behaviour of his flock and taught its members about sin, confession, penance and 3 This sermon about virtues and vices, but without a title in this manuscript, can be found in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Weiss. 91, part IV, f. 104v–106v, at f. 105v: ‘Et quicumque in se vel unum peccatum de istis habere cognoscit, nisi paenitentiam egerit, regnum caelorum habere non poterit.’ On this sermon see Wilhelm Scherer, ‘Eine lateinische Musterpredigt aus der Zeit Karls des Grossen’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 12 (1865), pp. 436–46 at pp. 443–4. On the manuscript context: Wolfgang Haubrichs, ‘Das althochdeutsch-­lateinische Textensemble des Cod. Weiss. 91 („Weissenburger Katechismus“) und das Bistum Worms im frühen neunten Jahrhuntert’, in: R. Bergmann ed., Volkssprachig-lateinische Mischtexte und Textensembles in der althochdeutschen, altsächsichen und altenglischen Übelieferung: Mediävistisches Kolloquium des Zentrums für Mittelalterstudien der Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg am 16. Und 17. November 2001, Germanistische Bibliothek 17 (Heidelberg, 2003), pp. 131–73. 4 As mentioned by Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 36, p. 134: …et per paenitentiam se renovent, quae est secundus baptismus. Sicut enim baptismus peccata, ita et paenitentia purgat. Et quia post baptismum peccator denuo non potest baptizari, hoc medicamentum a domino paenitentiae datum est, ut per eam vice baptismi peccata post baptismum diluantur. See Rob Meens, ‘Remedies for sins’, in: Thomas F.X. Noble and Julia M.H. Smith eds, The Cambridge History of Christianity III, c.600–c.1100 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 399–415 at pp. 400–2.

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redemption was, therefore, the third ‘cornerstone’ of pastoral care and religious teaching in Carolingian Europe. Many priests’ manuscripts contain texts related to these themes. It is important to point out straightaway how conceptions of sin related to those of crime in this period, for the distinction was generally not about the deed per se but rather about the two distinct kinds of consequences that such deeds could have. Acts of violence, for instance, affected more people than just the victim. In a ‘legal’ way of thinking, it was a crime that required compensation towards the victims and their family; in a ‘penitential’ frame, such a misdeed also required remedial actions to cleanse the perpetrator’s soul of its blemish. Such acts, therefore, demanded compensation in both the worldly and the spiritual spheres. It is for that reason that the penitentials and the law-codes of the period – the so-called leges such as the Lex Salica and its ninth-century additions – ­regularly discuss the same types of misbehaviour, but with different consequences. For instance, the first chapter of Charlemagne’s additions to the Lex Salica of 803 reads as follows: About the murder of clerics. If somebody has killed a subdeacon, he should pay 300 solidi in compensation; for a deacon 400; for a priest 600, for a bishop let him pay 900 solidi in compensation; he who kills a monk should be judged liable for 400 solidi.5 The penitential of pseudo-Gregory in a pastoral manual (Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506), on the other hand, reads as follows: About homicide. Who murders a bishop or a priest or a deacon should be sent to the king for judgement. […] Who kills a cleric of a lower grade should be sentenced by the bishop to lay down his weapons and serve God in a monastery or do penance for seven years with lamentations.6 While neither of these two texts is a law in the modern sense of the word, they both reflect norms about the way in which the murder of a cleric should be 5 Capitulare legibus additum (803), MGH Cap. I, no. 39, pp. 111–14 at p. 113, c. 1: ‘De homicidiis clericorum. Si quis subdiaconum occiderit, ccc solidos componat; qui diaconum, cccc; qui presbiterum, dc; qui episcopum, dcccc solidos componat; qui monachum, cccc solidis culpabilis iudicetur.’ 6 The penitential of pseudo-Gregory can be found in the manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 67r–73v, on murder at f. 68v: De homicidio. Qui occiderit episcopum aut presbiterum vel diaconum regi dimittendum est ad iudicandum. […] Qui occiderit minoris ordinis clericum in iudicio episcopi est iudicandus ut arma relinquat et in monasterio deo serviat, vel vii annos cum luctu peniteat. […] Edition of the text: Paenitentiale pseudo-Gregorii, ed. F. Kerff, ‘Das Paenitentiale pseudo-­Gregorii. Eine kritische Edition’, in H. Mordek ed., Aus Archiven und Bibliotheken. Festschrift für Raymond Kottje zum 65. Geburtstag (Frankfurt, 1992), pp. 161–88.

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handled, and the differences are revealing. While the lex seeks compensation in money to settle the issue with those affected by the killing,7 the penitential aims to compensate for the blemish on the perpetrator’s soul in the eyes of God, and to find a way to avert His anger. In this last case, it is clear that according to this penitential, some sins were beyond the reach of penance: killing a high cleric was too great a sin for a priest to deal with and therefore a matter for the king, while murder of a lower cleric could be redeemed by entering a monastery (presumably forever) or by doing a seven-year penance. In very short, then, the first system of compensation was aimed at life on earth by establishing peace with those affected by the crime through the payment of compensation; the second centred on the hope of eternal life in heaven by seeking God’s forgiveness. It is this second kind that this chapter will discuss, but it is nevertheless important to remember what might have happened to people who committed such misdeeds: they may well have been subjected to the payment of compensation or punished in some other ‘earthly’ way,8 while their own conscience (and maybe local unrest or social pressure, see below) impelled them to confess and seek penance as well.9 In socially disruptive cases such as murder or misbehaviour that concerned problematic sexual behaviour, penance could also have an important social function with implications wider than just the safeguarding of personal salvation. For the communities of lay Christians over which a priest kept a watchful eye, penance could be a way out of otherwise unresolvable problems within or between local families, or it could take the worst sting out of other complicated situations that undermined peaceful co-existence in small communities.10 A hypothetical situation in which somebody had committed adultery, for instance, which may well have led to heated emotions, arguments or violence once it had come to light, could benefit in various ways from the culprit’s confession to a priest and the subsequent imposition of penance. For one thing, confession implied the admission of guilt, while the will to do penance can be read as a way of accepting

7 On the function of fines in money in the leges see Stefan Esders, ‘“Eliten” und “Strafrecht” im frühen Mittelalter. Überlegungen zu den Bussen- und Wergeldkatalogen der Leges barbarorum’, in: François Bougard, Hans-Werner Goetz and Régine Le Jan eds, Théorie et pratiques des élites au Haut Moyen Äge, Haut Moyen Âge 13 (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 261–82. See also Meens, ‘Remedies for sins’, p. 404. 8 For background on these themes see Guy Halsall, ‘Violence and society in the early medieval West: an introductory survey’, in idem ed., Violence and society in the early medieval West (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 1–45 with extensive bibliography, and idem, ‘Reflections on early medieval violence: the example of the “blood feud”‘, Memoria y Civilización 2 (1999), pp. 7–29. 9 New research suggests that these two kinds of penance were sometimes interwoven more closely than this, see: Rob Meens, ‘Penance and satisfaction. Conflict settlement and penitential practices in the Frankish world in the early Middle Ages’, in: S. Esders, H. Nijdam, L. Bothe eds, Wergild, compensation and penance. The monetary logic of early medieval conflict resolution, Medieval Law and its Practice (Leiden, 2021), pp. 212–39. 10 Still fundamental on the way in which early medieval societies dealt with disputes: Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre eds, The settlement of disputes in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986).

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the consequences of one’s deeds. Already this may have helped to defuse a potentially explosive situation, while a penance that took the culprit to a monastery even removed him or her physically from normal society, which also may have helped such conflicts to die down. This social aspect of penance, as Rob Meens has shown, is one important side of the workings of penance that is often forgotten; I think it is crucial to take it into account when thinking about priests and their flocks, the challenges of pastoral care and the problems that small communities were faced with.11 Even though nobody could be forced to do penance (after all, true repentance was the essential criterion, and God was watching), it stands to reason that an exposed adulterer, faced with the possibility of violence against himself or his family, would perhaps experience more stimuli than his bad conscience alone to go and knock on the priest’s door in order to confess his sins and become a penitent. This chapter, like the previous two, will be divided in two sections. The first is devoted to priests, to what was expected from them as those hearing confession and prescribing penance. What they learned and what they knew about penance can be derived not only from penitentials, the long lists of sins and their remedies that are frequently part of pastoral manuscripts, but also from other, related texts. Taken together, such clusters of texts about penance offer insights in the way in which the priest’s role as a ‘doctor of souls’ was framed and interpreted. The second part of the chapter will turn to the lay flocks, and ask what knowledge priests had on offer to educate these people about sins. If every human was a sinner by definition, what advice could priests give their flocks to minimise the damage? A final section will zoom in on one single manuscript in order to illustrate how the themes of penance and sin were woven through the texts it contains. At the same time, this case will make clear how sin, repentance and the way to heaven were what united the three cornerstones of Christian society. Baptism, the mass and penance can be considered as three different expressions of the same greater concerns.

2  Prescriptions about penance The idea that sins required atonement predates the formation of the Frankish world by several centuries: in the late antique world, penance was one of various possible ways to make amends for sins committed after baptism. Late antique and early medieval church councils discussed penance, and penance was a frequent subject of papal letters as early as the fifth century.12 11 The Penitential of pseudo-Egbert prescribes three years of penance if a married man seduces an other man’s wife. The possibilities that penance offered to defuse explosive situations within a local community were first laid out by Rob Meens in a thus far unpublished paper delivered at the IMC Leeds ‘Confession and marriage counselling’, delivered on July 2nd 2013; Meens, Penance, pp. 51–2. 12 A good example is Pope Leo I and his letter to the bishops of Vienne and Narbonne, PL 50, ‘Epistola IV Coelestini papae I ad episcopos provinciae Viennensis et Narbonensis’, col. 429B–436A, c. 2, which became the first chapter of the Collectio Dacheriana.

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The norms formulated in such texts found their way into the early medieval world through direct copies, but more importantly, via collections of canon law. The Collectio Dacheriana, for instance, a voluminous and widely copied canon law collection from ca.800, transmits much older material about penance, and this collection, in turn, was the most important source for new canon law collections assembled in the first half of the ninth century.13 By this time, however, another tradition of writing about penance had been introduced and widely received in the Frankish world. These were the penitentials, which probably originated in the sixth century in England and Ireland. Such books, which take the form of lists of sins and the appropriate periods of penance to remedy them, found their way to the Continent and, especially in the eighth and ninth centuries, inspired a whole series of Frankish authors to compose similar works of their own.14 It is clear that in general terms, the notion of penance was part of Frankish Christianity since its very beginning, and that the Franks inherited and actively used a substantial corpus of conciliar decrees and writings on the theme by the popes and Fathers of the Church. It is therefore no surprise that from the earliest Merovingian period onwards (so before penitentials were known in Continental Europe), penance turns up with some frequency in Frankish normative and prescriptive texts. Even though penance as we encounter it in early medieval texts is no longer part of modern Christianity, it is important to understand that in the eighth and ninth centuries, such notions were integrated into the same religious system that also included the rituals of baptism and the Mass. And even though the practice of penance and the texts connected to it underwent many changes between the fifth and the ninth centuries, the central idea that one’s sins demanded compensation in order to safeguard one’s personal salvation was and remained the core of the matter.15 In the Frankish world, we encounter the first normative and prescriptive texts that include ideas about penance in the early sixth century. As early as 511 the Council of Orléans mentions people who had to submit to penance for ‘forgetting’ their religious vows and returning to the lay world16; a few years later, at the 13 The only edition is still Jean-Luc D’Achery ed., Spicilegium sive collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum qui in Galliae Bibliothecis delituerant (Paris, 1723). A digital version can be consulted here: http:// www.ceec.uni-koeln.de/projekte/CEEC/texts/Achery1723/Achery1723-518.htm (last consulted 11.9.2021). Note how the editor has identified the sources of every chapter, which include many passages from papal letters and early church councils. A short description and a long list of the extant manuscripts can be found in Lotte Kéry, Canonical collections of the early middle ages (ca.400–1140). A bibliographical guide to the manuscripts and literature (Washington D.C., 1999), pp. 87–91. 14 There is substantial research about the earliest history of penance, for an overview and the relevant literature see Meens, Penance. 15 On the late Antique background of penance see Meens, Penance, pp. 15–25. 16 Council of Orléans (511), Concilia Galliae a. 511 – a. 695, ed. Carlo de Clercq, CCSL 148a (Turnhout, 1963), c. 11, p, 8.

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Council of Epaon (517), penance was prescribed for those who reverted to heresy (presumably Arianism) after receiving catholic baptism.17 In the pre-Carolingian period, most mentions of penance in normative texts are related to particularly scandalous situations: a bishop who ordained a cleric although he knew the latter was living with a woman, a person who willingly committed murder, or nuns who indulged in fornication.18 The first time that priests were mentioned as those responsible for penitent laymen was, similar to what has been observed in the previous two chapters, much later, in Charlemagne’s Admonitio generalis of 789. Here, bishops and priests, ‘to whom it falls to pronounce the judgment of penance’ were reminded to prescribe penance to ‘those who sin with four-footed animals or with men against nature’.19 Not long afterwards, with the appearance of the first priests’ exams and episcopal statutes, priests’ knowledge about penance and their access to a penitential seem to have become self-evident.20 What is more, there is enough evidence to believe that these expectations were met in many places. Such evidence comes from more or less all regions of the Carolingian realm. An early ninth-century text from Mainz that lists what ‘all sacerdotes’ should know includes, in consecutive chapters, that of the Mass, baptism and penance,21 while around the same time Bishop Waltcaud of Liège and some of his colleagues expected that priests knew a paenitentiale.22 It is also early in the ninth century that inventories of local churches begin to mention a penitential among the books present in the building.23 What having sufficient knowledge about penance meant in its daily practice, however, was more than having some skill in leafing through a penitential and 17 Council of Epaon (517), Concilia Galliae a. 511 – a. 695, c. 29, p. 31. 18 A bishop who appointed a cleric of whom he know that he lived with a woman had to do penance and lost his office: Council of Orléans (538), Concilia Galliae a. 511 – a. 695, c. 2, p. 114–15; voluntary murder: Concilium Clippiacense (626 or 627), Concilia Galliae a. 511 – a. 695, c. 6, p. 292; fornicating nuns: Karlmanni principis capitulare (742), MGH Cap. I, no. 11, p. 26. 19 Admonitio Generalis, p. 204, c. 49: ‘Sacerdotibus. In concilio Acyronense inventum est in eos qui cum quadrupedibus vel masculis contra naturam peccant, dura et districta penitentia. Quapropter episcopi et presbyteri, quibus iudicium penitentiae iniunctum est, conentur omnimodis hoc malum a consuetudine prohibere vel abscidere.’ See Meens, ‘Remedies for sins’, pp. 409–12. 20 The requirement that priests own (and have knowledge of ) a penitential is attested from the very beginning in episcopal statutes, for instance in the priests’ exam Capitula Corbeiensia, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 12, c. 4; Waltcaud of Liege, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 47, c. 11; Haito of Basle, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 211, c. 6. 21 This text survives in a single pastoral manuscript from the area around Mainz, Séléstat Bibliothèque Municipale 132, f. 18v–19v, the four chapters (unnumbered and not separated in the manuscript) are on f. 18v–19r. The text has been edited as the Capitula Moguntiacensia, MGH Cap.ep. III, the four chapters are cc. 4–7, at pp. 179–80. 22 Waltcaud of Liège, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 11 at p. 47. 23 Good examples can be found in Thomas Kohl, ‘Presbyter in parochia sua: local priests and their churches in early medieval Bavaria’, in: Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle. Local priests in early medieval Europe (Berlin, 2017), pp. 50–77 at pp. 63–4; Carl Hammer Jr., ‘Country churches, clerical inventories and the Carolingian renaissance in Bavaria’, Church History 49 (1980), pp. 5–17 at p. 13 and no. 3, 7 and 8 of the Appendix at pp. 14–17.

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looking up the right sin. The bigger picture is explained in the so-called Capitula Bavarica, an episcopal statute from around 800: That the priests admonish the Christian people to try and maintain the life of sanctity which it assumes with baptism […] and that they are taught to do true penance for all their sins, and are not ashamed to confess their sins to God in the holy church in the presence of priests, who serve as witnesses between us and God, and from whom we must accept the instructions and medicines for our (spiritual) health (salus), because, who-ever hides from his misdeeds will not be guided along the road to salvation (salus).24 In this passage, the ambivalent use of the term salus catches the eye: it stands for both the individual’s spiritual health, cared for by the priest via penance, and for the envisaged result of such pastoral care, that is: (guidance towards) salvation. Another important element is the way in which the author highlights the connections between baptism, preaching and doing penance: what links the three is the idea that every sinful human being can find back the way to heaven. By baptism, all one’s sins were washed away, but since this was a non-­ repeatable ritual often undergone rather early in life, priests had the important task of admonishing people to steer clear from sin (through sermons, private consultations, etcetera) and, if people lapsed all the same, to offer them a way to redemption through penance. The three elements combined, which together formed the core of pastoral care, guided individuals towards eternal life after death. Ideally, the pastors’ efforts should lead to a situation where all members of their flocks could stand before their Lord at the Last Judgement unburdened by past transgressions. These were ideals. The profusion of increasingly specific norms and admonishments in prescriptive texts shows that the practice of penance was taken seriously, and constituted a living and changing part of early medieval religious practice. At the same time it is important to ask if penance was such a common practice as the prescriptions suggest, or rather something that lay Christians only resorted to if they saw no other possibility. Evidence that can help answer this question is very sketchy indeed, but the extant wealth of texts and manuscripts suggest that doing penance was part of lived reality, albeit that we should reckon 24 This text only survives in a single priests’ manuscript, Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410, f. 83v–85v at f. 84r–v: Ut a presbiteris ammoneatur plebs Christiana, ut sanctitatem vitae quam in baptismo adsumit studeat omnimodis conservare … [84v] et ut paenitentiam veram doceantur facere de omnibus peccatis suis, et non erubescant confiteri Deo peccata sua in ecclesia sancta coram sacerdotibus, qui testes adstant inter nos et Deum et a quibus documenta et medicamenta salutis nostrae accipere debeamus, quia qui abscondit scelera sua non dirigitur in viam salutis. The text has been edited as the Capitula Bavarica, MGH Cap.ep. III, pp. 194–8.

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with a variety of local traditions and frequencies.25 Theodulf of Orléans and a few of his colleagues describe clearly how, a week before the beginning of the fast (held three times per year in preparation for the major Christian feasts of Easter, Pentecost and Christmas), people should confess their sins to the priest and accept penance, no matter if they had actually committed any sins or only thought about doing so.26 In places where this practice of thrice-yearly confession existed and flocks were encouraged to participate it stands to reason to assume that penance was a regular part of life, whereas in other regions it may well have been less frequent. A chapter in Hincmar of Rheims’ first episcopal statute (852) offers a different angle on the practice of penance: it contains the suggestion that the realities of some priests’ everyday pastoral care occasionally diverged from the archbishop’s aspirations. Hincmar warned his priests that they should not take gifts or favours from penitents in return for a shorter (and, of course, ‘less worthy’) penance, not even if the penitent was the priest’s friend or relative.27 This suggests communities in which doing penance was common enough for people to think of creative ways to shorten the period somewhat – bribing their priest included.28 In some cases, as we know from the works of Theodulf of Oréans, priests also needed to try and coerce notorious sinners to confess: Theodulf sketches a scene of a person who had committed perjury or a similar serious sin, but refused to come to confession ‘fearing the long agony of penance’. Such people, the bishop writes, should be thrown out of church, and excluded from both communion and the community of the faithful ‘so that nobody eats or drinks or prays with him, or receives him into his home’.29 The moral of this story is clearly this: penance is always to be preferred over eternal damnation in hell after death. By the sound of it, this was not always what the sinners of Theodulf ’s diocese thought. One thing the prescriptive sources never do, and this is again a parallel with those about baptism and the Mass, is state exactly which penitential or which ritual should be followed. This is all the more remarkable since there was some discussion of anonymous penitentials in the first half of the ninth century. In both 813 at the Council of Chalon, and at the Council of Paris in 829, some 25 Important for this issue is Rob Meens, ‘The nature and frequency of early medieval penance’, in: Peter Biller and Alistair Minnis eds, Handling sin: confession in the Middle Ages, York Studies in Medieval Theology 2 (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 35–61 with a list of manuscripts at the end. 26 Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 133, c. 36, copied literally by Radulf of Bourges in his episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 258, c.32 and by another author who may be Hildegar of Meaux, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 196. 27 Hincmar of Rheims, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. II, pp. 40–1, c. 13. 28 Further implications of Hincmar’s chapter are discussed in Bernhard Zeller a.o., Neighbours and strangers. Local societies in early medieval Europe (Manchester, 2020), pp. 135–6. 29 Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 123, c. 26: …Si quis vero perpetrato periurio aut quolibet criminali peccato timens paenitentiae longam aerumnam ad confessionem venire noluerit, ab ecclesia repellendus est sive a communione et consortio fidelium, ut nullus cum eo comedat neque bibat neque oret neque in sua eum domo recipiat.

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participants expressed their objections against anonymous penitentials. The main problem, as we find it in the records of the Council of Chalon, were the penitentials ‘of which the errors are certain, but the authors are not’, leading to confusion.30 The conciliar decrees that pronounced on the subject, however, only stated what should not be used, and did not suggest a solid, trustworthy penitential that all should rely on. That their negative opinion of anonymous penitentials was not shared everywhere is clearly borne out by the pastoral compendia. The penitentials in these manuscripts are mostly anonymous and tariffed, which means that for each sin the precise period of penance was prescribed that was needed to redeem it. They also show great variety, which now deserves our closer attention.

3  The (non-)issue of variety What doing penance involved exactly depended to a large extent on the texts available locally, and the way in which the individual priest chose to interpret them. Here too, a variety of approaches was typical, although there were clear common denominators throughout. For instance, most penitentials list the amount of time needed to compensate for every kind of sin (the so-called tariffs), but such tariffs were often different from penitential to penitential. Moreover, in some texts extra elements were added, such as singing psalms, genuflecting or specific ways of fasting. To give just one example: the remedy for sodomy in one late eighth-century penitential reads as follows: Sodomites (should do) three years (of penance), if they are in the habit (of committing sodomy), seven years. If they are monks, seven years.31 Another, early ninth-century penitential included two separate remedies that together cover the one just cited, one for clerical sodomy and one for laymen: If a cleric fornicates like a sodomite, he should do ten years of penance, three of which on water and bread. And afterwards he should never sleep with anyone.32

30 Council of Chalon (813), c. 38, MGH Conc. I, p. 281; Council of Paris (829), c. 32, MGH Conc. II, p. 633. See Meens, Penance, pp. 117–18 and 130–1. 31 Penitential of pseudo-Bede, here cited from the manuscript London, British Library Add.19725 (which has no division in chapters), f. 36v: ‘Sodomite, annos iiii, si in consuetudine sit annos vii, uel si monachi sunt annos vii peniteat.’ In Schmitz’ edition, this prescription has been divided up into two, H.J. Schmitz ed., Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt, 2 vols, (Graz, 1958), II, p. 557, c. 19 and 20. 32 Paenitentiale in duobus libris, here cited from Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 (which has no numbered chapter division), f. 8r: ‘Si quis clericus fornicaverit sodomite x annos peniteat, iii ex his in pane et aqua et postea cum alio numquam dormiat.’ Gaastra ed., Paenitentialia, pp. 123–63, III, c. 5 at p. 131.

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If a layman fornicates like a sodomite, he should do seven years of penance.33 What we see here is in a nutshell what can be observed throughout the corpus of penitentials. Even though these texts tend to borrow copiously from earlier ones and from each other, they all have their own ways of describing sins, judging how serious they were in the eyes of God, and what penance exactly would remedy the sin committed.34 What this means in the context of pastoral manuscripts is that where more than one penitential was copied into such a book, the priests would need to be able to deal with a range of various possibilities. The exact practice of penance therefore depended on the priest in charge of deciding which remedy was needed in each individual case, based on the texts at his disposal and his wider knowledge and experience. More important than all these writings, however, was the priest’s wisdom in the weighing of his judgement. It is surely not for nothing that the preface to the penitential of pseudo-Bede admonished the priest who used this text to take into account ‘the gender, age, strength and will to do [penance]’ of the sinner. For some, it was best to fast, while others would benefit more from giving alms, or from singing psalms, or from praying while doing genuflexions. Some people should do all of the above – in the end, penitents ought to do whatever it took to purge their souls and be reconciled with their stern God, and it was left to the priest to judge what was needed in each case.35 We should therefore certainly not read penitential tariffs as inflexible rules that were imposed mechanically: admonishments to the priests to take into account such factors as gender, health, social status and age show that they should carefully consider all these aspects in their decisions about the most appropriate form and measure of penance.36 Most penitentials included in pastoral compendia of the Carolingian period state a regime of fasting (on water and bread, or without wine and meat) during a given period of time as the most basic form of penance, but given the instructions to priests just mentioned this was in all probability just a starting point. There were plenty of options to provide a suitable ‘penitential package’ for each individual sinner. 33 Idem, f. 9v: ‘Si quis laicus fornicaverit sodomitae vii annos peniteat.’; Gaastra ed., Paenitentialia, p. 133, IV, c. 1. 34 A thorough study on this subject: Körntgen, Studien. 35 Penitential of pseudo-Bede in the manuscript Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 28v–37r at f. 28v–29r: Sollerter ammonentes doctum quemque sacerdotem Christi et in universis quae hic adnotata reppererit sexum, aetatem, potentiam, agere volentis. […] Quibusdam namque a cybis abstinendo, aliis per aelemosinis dando. Nonnullis genua saepius flectendo, sive in cruce stando, aut aliud aliquid huiusmodi quod ad purgationem peccatorum pertinet fatiendo, plurimis universa haec agendo. An edition of this text: Schmitz ed., Die Bussbücher II, pp. 556–64. 36 See Pierre J. Payer, ‘The humanism of the penitentials and the continuity of the penitential tradition’, Mediaeval Studies 46 (1984), pp. 340–54.

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While it was surely an advantage to be able to draw on a series of different penitentials for the best possible judgement of each unique case, it is important to return briefly to the fact that the anonymity of, and variety among these texts was also reason for some unease in the first decades of the ninth century. The root cause for this may well have been, as Rob Meens has suggested, conflicting traditions in different parts of the Carolingian world, which put these issues on the agendas of two councils that met in 813 and in 829.37 The main concern of the high churchmen gathered there was not so much the phenomenon of tariffs as such, but rather this: did such anonymous, contradictory books really help the priest to heal the spiritual wounds of the sinner? Should these writings not be eliminated altogether?38 As a result of these debates, a few new penitentials were commissioned, which have often been labelled as ‘reform penitentials’ in modern scholarship. 39 The approach of their authors, most prominently Halitgar of Cambrai (one long text) and Hrabanus Maurus (two shorter ones) was different from that of the ‘old school’ tariffed penitentials.40 Instead of writing down long lists of specific sins and the equally specific period of penance required to compensate for them, these authors tried to anchor their judgements in the Bible, the writings of the Fathers of the Church and canon law. This led to texts that were surely authoritative, but less practical and probably less easy to work with than the tariffed ones. Where, for instance, the sin of long-time anger against one’s near and dear could be remedied by making peace and doing a penance of three years in an ‘old-fashioned’ tariffed penitential, the penitential

37 See above n. 30. 38 This is the most outspoken judgement of the anonymous penitentials, written down in the proceedings in the Council of Châlons (813), c. 38, MGH Conc. I, p. 281: ‘… repudiatis ac penitus eliminatis libellis, quos paenitentiales vocant, quorum sunt certi errores, incerti auctores…’. 39 For instance in Pierre J. Payer, Sex and the penitentials. The development of a sexual code, 550– 1150 (Toronto, 1984), pp. 59–64; Raymond Kottje, Die Bussbücher Halitgars von Cambrai und des Hrabanus Maurus, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 8 (Berlin/New York, 1980), pp. 3–4; Cyrille Vogel, Les “Libri paenitentiales”, Typologie des Sources 27 (Turnhout, 1978), pp. 80–1; Meens, Penance, pp. 130–8. The precise definition of what characterises such ‘reform penitentials’ varies among these authors, who sometimes also count tariffed penitentials written after 813 among them. The discussion about the question whether or not these experiments with different concepts of penitentials should be called ‘reform’ in the first place is beyond the scope of this book; see my comments on the issue in the preface to the Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori, pp. xvii–xix and Marjolijn Saan and Carine van Rhijn, ‘Correcting sinners, correcting texts: a context for the Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori’, Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006), pp. 23–40 at pp. 32–5. 40 The penitential of Halitgar of Cambrai still awaits a modern edition, the most recent one of the full text is PL 105, cols 651–710; the same goes for Hrabanus’ two penitentials, which both originated as letters: Paenitentiale ad Otgarium, PL 112, cols 1397–1424 and his Paenitentiale ad Heribaldum, PL 110, cols. 467–94. The texts and the manuscript traditions have, however, been studied by Raymond Kottje, Die Bussbücher Halitgars von Cambrai und des Hrabanus Maurus. Ihre Überlieferung und ihre Quellen, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 8 (Berlin/New York, 1980).

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of Halitgar instead advised patience, charity and loving one’s enemies, with no period specified.41 Looking at the pastoral manuals, it is clear that those commissioning and compiling these books never stopped working with tariffed penitentials, although there clearly was some interest in the newer style as well.42 To my mind, we should not read this as a ‘penitential reform’ that failed, but as discussions between the proponents of different traditions leading to new kinds of texts that were added to the pre-existing corpus.43 As far as we can tell from the extant manuscript record, tariffed penitentials were considered the most useful tools for (learning about) pastoral care. Most remarkable is probably that especially the longer pastoral compendia tend to include several tariffed penitentials that allowed its user to compare and weigh the different options that these texts proposed.44 To the users of these books, then, anonymous authors and inconsistencies between penitentials were clearly no obstacles in the way that the bishops gathered in 813 and 829 feared. Rather to the contrary: being able to consult several such texts seems to have been desirable and perhaps even part of the education of priests.45 This again underlines how these texts were not prescriptions set in stone, but starting points for taking well-informed and fitting decisions on the proper kind of penance for each individual case. More important than having one consistent system with the names of unquestionable authorities attached was to have a way to make sure that those seeking penance had a chance to wipe away their sins and find back the way to heaven – that there were different, equally effective, ways to accomplish this seems to have been self-evident.46 What stands out here yet again is trust in the education and knowledge of priests, who were

41 Three years of penance: Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori, ed. Carine van Rhijn, CCSL 156B (Turnhout, 2009), c. 5, p. 7. Halitgar: book I, c. viiii De remedio irae, including biblical quotations such as Luke 21.19 ‘In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras.’, PL 105, cols 664 A–C. This was, however, a good way to structure teaching about sin, see below pp. 169–72. 42 An interesting example of this is the manuscript Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup., which contains an excerpt of Halitgar’s book V (‘new style’) and his book VI (tariffed) that seems to have been written with a priest in mind. That tariffed penitentials did not vanish from early medieval library shelves as a result of the deliberations of 813 and 829 is eminently clear from the manuscript evidence, see Meens, Penance, Appendix 1 (manuscripts of Theodore’s penitential), 2 (manuscripts of the Excarpsus Cummeani) and 3 (manuscripts of the penitentials ascribed to Bede and Egbert), pp. 226–33. 43 On the problems of ‘reform’ as an analytical category for such cases as these, see Chapter 1. 44 Several penitentials: for instance Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat 485, which includes an excerpt of the Penitential of Theodore (Discipulus Umbrense), the Penitential of pseudo-Egbert, a combined version of the penitentials of pseudo-Bede and pseudo-Egbert and the Penitential of Cummean. 45 Manuscripts such as Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat 485, Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Ashb. 82, Merseburg Dombibliothek 103 and Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 all contain more than one tariffed penitential. 46 On the variety of texts about penance in pastoral manuals see also Carine van Rhijn, ‘The local church, priests’ handbooks and pastoral care’, Chiese locali e chiese regionali nell’alto medioevo, Settimane LXI (Spoleto, 2014), pp. 689–710 at pp. 703–5.

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deemed capable of navigating various, sometimes contradictory texts to care for the souls of their flocks.

4  Navigating contradictory texts about penance After the expositions of the rituals of baptism and the Mass discussed in the previous two chapters, one might expect that some early medieval authors would make use of the same kind of text to explain penance to (future) pastors, but such expositions were never composed in the Carolingian period. There are, however, other types of texts that provided instruction, background knowledge and explanation about penance, albeit in a less structured way than a line-by-line expositio. The most elaborate and interesting examples for our purposes here are, first of all, prefaces to penitentials, which were sometimes considered important enough to be copied as separate texts without the penitential itself.47 Such ‘instruction-­ prologues’, as one may call them, explained the importance of penance and the principles that a priest should bear in mind for determining the right remedy for each sinner. Second, some manuscripts contain (parts of ) penitential ordines, that list and sometimes explain briefly the various steps of the ritual. A third type of text that provided background knowledge to its reader are the so-called commutations, which explained how a lengthy penance could, under special circumstances, be converted into a shorter, more intense one. These commutations seem to have functioned mostly as semi-independent texts, which were sometimes added to penitentials but also found their way into pastoral manuscripts by themselves. Together these three kinds of texts show clearly how the process of confession and penance was understood, and which elements were considered to be so important that they were carefully explained. Such key points highlighted in these texts should be understood against the background of the norms and expectations just discussed: a bishop who admonished his priests to be sure that they knew and understood penance surely did so from this point of view. Whereas the penitentials themselves offered ways of thinking about types of sins and their remedies in a sometimes very detailed manner, the texts surrounding them in the manuscripts offered their readers context and help with the theoretical and practical sides of the ritual. What could be learned from these texts prepared (future) priests for a wise and informed use of penitentials, all their contradictions and inconsistencies notwithstanding. The material about penance that we find in pastoral compendia often consists of clusters of texts that together make up a ‘penitential dossier’. A manuscript may, for instance, include commutations and a short ordo in one case, or a longer ordo and an introduction in another, each combined with one or more (parts of ) penitentials.48 No two of the extant dossiers are made up of exactly the same 47 A good example of this can be found in the manuscript Milan Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup., which contains the preface to the Paenitentiale Cummeani without the penitential itself on f. 48r–50v. 48 The manuscript Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 mentioned before combines an ordo, an introduction-instruction, a penitential, part of another

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components. The three types of texts, therefore, seem to have functioned as more or less independent building blocks, packaged and re-packaged into various pastoral or penitential contexts: in one case, the same introduction is combined with half a dozen different penitentials in different manuscripts, combined with different kinds of commutation tables and/or a penitential ordo.49 Even though clusters of texts varied, however, there is considerable consistency at the level of the explanation of penance and the priest’s role in the proceedings. Let us therefore now briefly consider some examples from the prologues to penitentials in pastoral compendia, and see how penance was framed and explained to those working with these texts. The first important metaphor with which penance was described in the instruction-­prologues is that of medicine: priests should view themselves as doctors of the soul, who healed the sinners’ spiritual wounds via penance. The introduction to the Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae-Egberti included in the pastoral manuscript London, British Library, Add 19725,50 for instance, emphasises how in the same way that ‘doctors of the body’ prescribe different medicines for different ailments, different sins require different kinds of penance. The crucial factor was a ‘right diagnosis’ (recte iudicium), so that ‘the wounds of the soul are not worsened by an ignorant doctor’.51 A priest prescribing the wrong remedy, in other words, did not save souls but imperilled them even further. Along similar lines, the preface Quotiescumque in the priests’ manuscript Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 14532 (and in this manuscript combined with the Paenitentiale pseudo-Romanum), reminded the priests that no doctor can cure the wounds of the sick unless he has experienced their foulness; in the same way, no priest or bishop can cure the wounds of sin or wipe the soul clean of iniquities unless they offer care and tearful prayer. For this reason, priests should always fast for some time with the penitents who confessed their sins to them.52 penitential, and commutations. See Reinhold Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung der Beda und Egbert zugeschriebenen Bussbücher, Europäische Hochschulschriften 461 (Frankfurt etc., 1991), p. 74, Gaastra, Paenitentialia, p. lxiii–lxiv and Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 38–9. Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 38bis, on the other hand, just offers a penitential and commutations, see Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung, pp. 52–3; Keefe, Water and the word I, pp. 3–7. 49 As discussed by Körntgen, Die Quellen, pp. 234–43. 50 On this penitential see Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung, pp. 220–46. 51 The text is here quoted from London, British Library Add 19725, f. 34r: ‘Quae diversitas culparum, diversum facit penitentibus medicamentum, sicut medici corporum diversa medicamina vel pociones solent facere contra diversitatem infirmitatum. … ne per stultum medicum vulnera animarum fiant peiora.’ A study of the complex histories of the penitentials of Pseudo-­ Bede and Pseudo-Egbert and their various combinations is Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung. 52 This introduction has been edited by Schmitz, Die Bussbücher, pp. 290–1; on this text, the socalled ‘Quotiescumque’, see Körntgen, Die Quellen, pp. 130–8. On the question whether or not book VI could also be ascribed to Halitgar see Körntgen, Die Quellen, pp. 87–90; Meens, Penance, p. 131. Here quoted from manuscript Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14532,

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A second theme encountered in the introductions is that of pastoral responsibility in a more general sense: priests were not only responsible for healing souls once they had become injured, but also ought to protect their flocks from getting wounded in the first place. The introduction to the penitential of Pseudo-­ Gregory uses some vivid imagery to emphasise the great responsibility that rested on the priests’ shoulders, and the crucial importance of their watchfulness and knowledge. The anonymous author of the text compares ignorant priests to wolves appointed as pastors of the flock.53 Without a wise shepherd to guide the herd away from potential dangers, the sheep would be hopelessly lost and delivered into the claws of evil – evil that may well be caused by the ignorance of those whose very task it was to protect. It is interesting how the theme of pastoral responsibility clearly echoes the normative and prescriptive texts discussed above, but in these instructions we find more details and further elaboration of the general ideas. For instance, the Quotiescumque gives some practical guidance: priests should advice sinners to do penance as soon as they see sins happen, and not wait. After all, it was to them that ‘the keys to the heavenly kingdom have been entrusted’.54 The message is, again, that without the help of a knowledgeable priest, sinners could not be saved. The priest as holder of the keys to heaven is an important image here. It doesn’t mean that they could open and close those gates as they liked, but rather underlines their role of mediators between God and man. Sinners for whom the gates to the Eternal Kingdom had closed could never hope to re-open them without the help of a priest. Since every mortal was a sinner by definition, the general message can even be put more bluntly: no priest, no salvation. This brings us to a third aspect that provided context for penitentials: the priests’ role of humble intermediaries between God and man once the latter had confessed his sins and asked for penance. It is at this point that the penitential ordines come in, because there we find prayers that express more clearly what the introductions which contains all six books. The introduction to book VI can be found on f. 68v–69r: ‘Neque ullus medicorum vulnera infirmantium potest curare, nisi foetoribus particeps fuerit, ita quoque nullus sacerdotum vel pontifex peccatorum vulnera curare potest.’ The requirement that priests fast with their penitents can be found on f. 68r: ‘Quotiescumque Christiani ad poenitentiam accedunt ieiunia damus, et nos communicare cum eis debemus ieiunio, unam aut duas septimanas aut quantum possumus…’. 53 Here quoted from the manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 67r: ‘Et si indocti ad sacerdotium proheuntur considerandum est valde quid de gregibus agatur quando lupi pastores fiunt.’ 54 See n. 52 on this text, and the edition of Gaastra, Paenitentialia, p. 124, here quoted from manuscript Montpellier, Biblithèque Interuniversitaire, section de Médecine, H 387, f. 2r: Ideoque et nos, si viderimus aliquem in peccatis iacentem, festinemus eum ad poenitentiam … et quotiescumque dederis consilium peccanti simul da illi et poenitentiam… Non omnes clerici debent hanc scriptura usurpare aut legere nisi episcopi et presbiteri cuius claves regni caelorum tradite sunt. Si autem necessitas evenierit et presbiter non fuerit, presens diac suscipiat poenitentem….

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to penitentials only stated briefly. The first prayer of the ritual preceding the Paenitentiale in duobus libris (Penitential in Two Books) in the Montpellier manuscript mentioned earlier illustrates this point well. Here the priest prays as follows: Lord Almighty God, be well disposed to me, a sinner, so that I can be worthy to give thanks to You, Who has deemed me, an unworthy person, worthy to rise to the sacerdotal office through your mercy, and Who has made me into an insignificant and humble mediator to beseech and intercede with our Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of those who have sinned. … Receive my prayer which I pour out in Your mercy’s presence for my own sins and for those who have assembled to do penance.55 On their own, sinners could never hope to be heard by the averted ears of God, but with the priest’s help and mediation not all was lost for those seeking true penance. Priests who through these texts learned to think about their own role in the ritual as doctors of the soul, as shepherds and as mediators surely learned to regard penance as a serious matter indeed, and would understand how the art of prescribing remedies for sins was subtle and based on thorough knowledge of characters and compensations. What the introductions and ordines did not prepare them for, however, were factors that obstructed the process. What should one do, for instance, with a penitent who could not fast? Or what if a penitent wished to speed up the period of penance without losing any of its remedial power? Such questions are the main theme of the commutations, which explain how a priest could change one form of penance into another without losing any of its beneficial effects. There were several ways to go about this. Long periods of penance could be shortened considerably by penitential activities more intensive than living on water and bread, for instance by singing entire psalters, giving substantial sums of money in alms, by receiving beatings or following a more stringent regime of fasting than usual – or a combination of the above. Like the penitentials themselves, each commutation had its own way of ‘calculation’, which could lead to rather different outcomes. Here, too, the priest needed to know what he was doing, because the responsibility for finding the right remedy for each case was

55 For the edition see Gaastra, Paenitentialia, p. 125, here cited from Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 2v–3r: Domine Deus omnipotens propitius esto mihi peccatori ut cum digne possim Tibi gratias agere, Qui me indignum propter tuam misericordiam ad officium sacerdotalem dignatus esse provocare, et me exiguum et humilem mediatorem constituisti adorare et intercedere ad Dominum nostrum Ihesum Christum pro peccantibus. Ideoque Domino dominator, qui omnes homines vis salvos fieri, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire, qui non vis morte peccatorum sed ut convertantur et vivant. Suscipe orationem meam quam fundo ante conspectu clementiae Tuae [3r] pro peccatis meis et pro eorum qui ad poenitentiam convenerunt. Per Deum.

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ultimately his, and the number of different possible remedies only went up with the number of different penitentials and commutations available. The priest working with the manuscript London British Library, Add.19725, for instance, found the following instruction about commutation at the end of his penitential: Who can fulfil what is written in the penitential is good. To the person who cannot, however, we give the following advice, by the mercy of God. In the first place, for one day on water and bread (the penitent has to sing) fifty psalms with genuflections; everybody who can, should sing, or without genuflections seventy psalms … and for one day 200 with genuflections, or one denarius for one day, and three alms for three paupers to compensate for one day. Some say that fifty blows or fifty psalms compensate for one day. In winter, in autumn and in spring one hundred blows or fifty psalms; in summer 150 psalms or 200 blows.56 Here, a series of options was offered to compensate for one day of penance, it was for the priest to decide which possibility was most fitting. But what if the penitent was not only unable to fast non-stop for sustained periods of time, but did not know the psalms either? Well: Who does not know the psalms and cannot fast should give twenty-six solidi as alms for one year that he should fast on bread and water, and he should fast one day per week until the ninth hour, and another day till evening, and during the three periods of fasting (quadragesimas) he should think about how much he takes [of food], and he should give half of it in alms.57

56 Edited as part of a longer text by Schmitz, Die Bussbücher I, pp. 585–7 at 585–6, here quoted from London British Library Add. 19725, f. 48r, which shows some variations compared to the edition: Qui autem hoc quod in penitenciale scriptum est implere potuerit, bonum est. Qui autem non potuerit ea implere consilium damus, per misericordiam Dei. In primitus autem pro unum diem in pane et aqua L psalmos genua flectendo, unusquisque qui potest canet, aut sine genua flectendo LXX psalmos… et pro uno die valent CC genua flectendo, vel unus denarius valet pro uno die, et tres elimosinas tribus pauperibus pro uno die valent. Quidam dicunt L percussionibus vel L psalmos pro uno die valent. In hieme in autumno et inuerno, C percussiones vel psalmos L. In estate psalmos CL vel percussiones CC valent. 57 Schmitz, Die Bussbücher II, p. 586, London British Library Add. 19725 f. 48v: Qui vero psalmas non novit et ieiunare non potest, per uno anno quod ieiunare debet in pane et aqua donet in elemosina solidos XXVI, et in unaquaque ebdomada unum diem ieiunet ad nonam et alium ad uesperam, et in III quadragesimis quantum sumit penset, et medietatem tribuet in sua elemosina.

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These different possibilities did not even exhaust the options offered in this one manuscript, which contains one more set of commutations ascribed to Boniface, where several ways are explained to do a seven-year penance in just one year.58 The fall-back options described in the commutations complete our short tour of texts that are often part of penitential dossiers in pastoral manuscripts. If one thing stands out, it is the sheer variety of possibilities for sinners to do penance, and the range of choices the priest had to make in order to be able to offer a remedy that would wipe away these sins. The wealth of different penitentials and related texts, and the variety of dossiers built with these various components should, however, not distract our attention from a couple of absences in these manuscripts. For one thing, there is not a single piece of instruction about the way in which priests ought to use penitentials. What is emphasised is more general: priests should decide wisely about penance, and take into account the sinner, his sins and the circumstances under which they were committed. Another element not mentioned even once is the way in which priests should deal with differences or outright contradictions among penitentials. Even though, as we have seen, this issue reached the agenda of high-level councils in the earlier ninth century, it does not seem to have been much of an obstacle in daily practice. Those using these texts, then, had presumably learned how to work with them and knew the ropes. That bishops did not even attempt to micro-manage the local practice of penance more than in general terms, most of all expresses trust in the priests’ knowledge and know-how. The message of all this material was, then, this: healing the wounds of the soul could be accomplished in many different ways, and it was the priest as doctor-shepherd-mediator who knew how to decide which remedy each individual sinner needed. Let us now turn to these individual lay sinners, for what did they learn about the bewildering world of sin?

5  Teaching the laity about sin For penance to make any sense at all to lay people, some understanding of sin was the indispensable starting point, and this was by no means a straightforward set of ideas. The penitentials reveal a complete labyrinth of possible missteps that required compensation: even if sinning had been unintentional or if the sinner was not aware that he or she was doing anything wrong, penance could be required nevertheless. Conversely, sometimes one might fear one had sinned, for instance by eating something unusual, but had not.59 Another complicated issue was that of comparison, for how could one tell how bad one deed was compared to an 58 Schmitz, Die Bussbücher II, p. 587; London British Library Add. 19725, f. 49v–50r. Note how knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer is important here, since it is part of a program of prayer to redeem the seven-year penance. 59 The Excarpsus Cummeani gives some good examples of this: Chapters 22, 23 and 24 (ed. Schmitz, Bussbücher II, p. 607) reassure the reader that it was okay to eat fish (c.22), horse (c.23) and hare (c.24).

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other one? How could a person know, for instance, whether it was worse to drink milk in which a mouse had drowned or to eat meat of which a dog had had a bite or two too? How could lay people know that these were sins in the first place?60 Negotiating the road to heaven with all these potential traps and pitfalls looks rather daunting in this light, and here, too, priests had their jobs cut out for them. Teaching lay flocks about virtues and vices, good Christian behaviour and all the potential dangers of daily existence made up a substantial part of day-to-day pastoral care. There is, moreover, probably no better example than the mirror themes of sin and virtue to illustrate how all three cornerstones were interlinked parts of one over-arching Christian code of behaviour that formed the foundation of pastoral care. The specific emphases surely varied for each cornerstone, but knowledge about good and bad Christian behaviour as well as everybody’s never-ending efforts to deserve and keep God’s grace was at the heart of each. Knowledge about sin and forgiveness therefore featured in what catechumens and their godparents learned before baptism, and was a standard component of the sermons preached throughout the Frankish world. These principles of good and bad Christian life were shared with individuals through less formal pastoral advice, and the results of misbehaviour were the rationale behind the system of confession and penance. In short, each cornerstone rested on a sturdy foundation of ideas about desired and undesirable Christian behaviour and their consequences in the afterlife. It is therefore no great surprise that many texts in pastoral manuscripts feature virtues and vices in one way or the other. Some highlight explanations of good and bad behaviour, others emphasise ways to compensate the bad by the good, many warn against the temptations that lurk in every aspect of daily life. Such writings come in many different forms: there are tracts and sermons, admonishments, normative texts and lists; the theme may be the main subject of an excerpt, or just an aside in something wider-ranging. In a world filled with (potential) sinners, this was indispensable knowledge for everybody, rich and poor, man and woman, free and unfree, cleric and lay. All these various texts in the pastoral manuscripts therefore served several purposes at once: they reminded the priest of what he ought to know already, and provided him with teaching material for his flock. As we have just seen, moreover, such teaching material could come in handy for a range of different situations, including catechumenal teaching, preaching, informal pastoral advice and private talks with those confessing what oppressed their conscience. In the pastoral manuscripts, there is such a profusion of material that the wide theme of sin cannot be sensibly approached by zooming in on one specific kind of text. Instead, this section will focus on two particular themes connected to sin that feature in priests’ manuscripts in different shapes and forms. Taken together, 60 On the possibility that handbooks of penance were also used to instruct the laity about such questions see: Rob Meens, ‘Religious instruction in the Frankish kingdom’, in: E. Cohen, M.B. de Jong eds, Medieval transformations. Texts, power, and gifts (Leiden, 2001), pp. 51–67, esp. p. 55.

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they illustrate well how priests could tackle the task of teaching their flocks about sin and its remedies, and how such knowledge touched upon every sphere of daily life. The first theme concerns the question of how priests could present the confusing world of sin to their flocks, and shows how one widespread way of doing so was by framing sin as a system. Its starting point was the idea that sins were connected to each other like a kind of family-tree: each of the eight main sins was thought to give rise to a series of derived ones. Even though different authors described such a system in different ways, the idea that sins were related to each other is consistent throughout. What is more, all descriptions of such systems linked each sin to a good type of Christian behaviour that could (and should) be used by sinners to fight it. This leads to the second theme, which considers the kind of guidance and teaching that lay people received. If it was taken as a given that every person was a sinner by definition, what advice could a priest give the members of his flock to at least sin as little as possible? Starting with the first, theoretical theme, the most common way of explaining sin in a systematic way started with the eight principal vices, which were believed to have each a series of different aspects or derivatives.61 In pastoral manuscripts, such explanations are usually encountered in the shape of excerpts from longer tracts, or as preaching material. A good example is an anonymous Sermo de penitentiae (‘Sermon on penance’) that appears in several of our manuscripts and is, in fact, not so much a sermon as a compact extract from John Cassian’s Collationes.62 This text is only about 500 words long, and offers an explanation of a system in which nearly 40 sins were given a place. It opens by listing the eight principal vices in the following order: greed, fornication, avarice, anger, sadness, weariness, vainglory and pride (castrimargia, fornicatio, avaritia, ira, tristitia, accidia, vana gloria, superbia). Then, the author briefly explains for each of the eight which other sins they generate. The list opens with greed (castrimargia): About greed. From this, feasting and drunkenness are born. Those who eat a lot are voracious people and gluttons. Feasting, lust and consorting with prostitutes result from that.63

61 Whether sins are presented as ‘aspects’ or ‘children’ of the eight main sins depends on the text one reads. The Sermo de paenitentiae is explicit that sins are ‘born’ (nascitur), while Alcuin’s De vitiis et virtutibus tends to view sets of sins as genera of the eight main ones (see below). 62 This ‘Sermo de paenitentiae’, here quoted from the manuscript Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. f. 43r–46r is also included in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410 and Barcelona, Biblioteca de la Universitat 228 under similar titles. The text is originally a section from John Cassian’s Collationes V, II, c. 16, which dates to the early fifth century. Cassian himself re-used it in his De octo principalibus vitiis. The same extract was also used by Columbanus as the prologue to his penitential. See Hermann Wasserschleben, Beiträge zur Geschicte der vorgratianischen Kirchenrechtsquellen (Leipzig, 1839), pp. 85–7. 63 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. f. 43v: ‘De castimargia. Nascuntur commessationes et ebrietates. Castrimargia et ingluviis qui multum manducant. Inde nascuntur commessationes, luxuria uel convivium meretricum.’

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Interestingly, this way of explaining sins steers the connotations of the reader of these texts, in the sense that the derived sins are coloured in by the explanation of the sin from which they originate. For instance, through this short description feasting and lust automatically carry the connotation of immoderate eating and drinking. Following this way of thinking, the Sermo shows how the eight central sins gave rise to a total of 30 derived sins. Pride (superbia) was the most productive or dangerous of them all, for it generated six other sins: contempt, injustice, disobedience, blasphemy, discontent and slander.64 With all the sins thus neatly structured in families, the Sermo continues by explaining how each main sin could be fought and defeated. The clusters just described are central here, for the strategy of fighting the central sin was believed to help against its derivatives as well. According to the Sermo, each main sin had at least one antidote, which was often its opposite. To those who wished to fight greed (and its derivatives feasting, drunkenness, lust and consorting with prostitutes), the Sermo offered the following advice: Greed should be conquered in three ways: by abstinence through fasting from the ninth hour to the ninth hour, by taking little food and drink, and by vigils.65 The advice seems to be logical, understandable and effective: who barely eats or drinks and spends the night praying in church will not only refrain from eating and drinking too much but also be removed from tempting situations and places. The system thus connects sins and vices to each other, and to their opposite virtues: sadness (tristitia) and related sins could be beaten by ‘spiritual joy and hope of future beatitudes’, and pride (superbia) by ‘true humility, contrition of the heart, and fear of God’.66 This way of explaining sin and its remedies as a logical, understandable system that was easy to explain and remember was clearly popular in the Carolingian period. The first book of Halitgar’s penitential is an elaborate version of the same set of ideas, as is Alcuin of York’s tract about virtues and vices.67 Those authors of the midninth-century penitentials who wished to avoid tariffs usually drew on this

64 Milan Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. f. 44v: ‘De superbia contemptus, iniuria, inoboedientia, blasphemia, murmuratio et detractio.’ 65 Milan Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. f. 44v: ‘Gula tripliciter vincenda est, per abstinentia ieiunii de horam nonam in oram nonam, per paucitatem cibi et potui atque a vigilate.’ 66 Milan Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. f. 45r: ‘Tristitia vero spiritale gaudium et spe futurorum beatitudine vincenda est. … Vana gloria quoque et elatio inmunda atque superbia, veram humilitatem et cordis contritione per Dei timorem vincuntur.’ 67 Alcuin of York, De virtutibus et vitiis liber, PL 101, cols 613–32 and Rachel Stone, ‘Translation of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis liber (Book about the virtues and vices)’, The Heroic Age 16 (2015). The full penitential of Halitgar is only available in PL 105, cols 651–710, books III–VI have also appeared in Schmitz ed., Die Bussbücher II, pp. 267–300.

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way of thinking as an alternative,68 as did many anonymous authors. At the same time, there was variety among the different systems described, much as we have seen in the previous two chapters about baptism and the Mass. While all seem to have agreed which the eight main vices were, there was, for instance, no set order in which they were discussed, no agreement about which vice exactly generated which other sins, nor any shared convention about the names used for each sin.69 Every author similarly developed his own take on the way in which any given sin could be countered best. To give just one example of such variation, Alcuin, for whom greed was the second vice on the list, thought this was the root of a different and longer series of sins than the Sermo, namely ‘unsuitable merriment, scurrility, levity, empty talk, uncleanliness of the body, instability of mind, drunkenness, and immoderate desire’.70 The remedy was, however, similar to that proposed by the Sermo: all of this could be countered by fasting and works of abstinence, performed with due dedication.71 Some manuscripts contain several texts that explain the eight vices, their derivatives and the ways to fight them in different ways, showing how this subject, too, was studied by reading several different variations on the main theme.72 Since the inclusion of various texts on any subject was a common feature of pastoral manuscripts, it seems unlikely that Carolingian bishops and priests worried about any confusion that this may have caused. That ninth-century clerics would have been unable to cope with contradictory texts seems to be most of all a modern idea that underestimates the capabilities of the clerics who studied this material. There were surely more ways to learn and teach about sins than the one just described, but this systematic approach seems to have been a common and widespread one. Going by the contents of pastoral manuscripts, some version of this system was common knowledge for many priests. Theodulf of Orléans even praised it as a convenient way of organising confessions: if the confessor structured his interrogation of the sinner by the principal vices, the smaller sins would

68 See above, pp. 169–70. 69 Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis liber, here quoted from an extract in the manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, uses ‘superbia, gula, fornicatio, avaritia, ira, accidia, tristitia, coenodoxia’. Theodulf of Orleans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 31, pp. 128–9 lists ‘gastrimarga, fornicatio, accidia, avaritia, vana gloria, invidia, ira, superbia’, where the Sermo uses ‘castrimargia, fornicatio, avaritia, ira, tristitia, accidia, vana gloria, superbia’. 70 See Stone, ‘Translation’, § 28. 71 The manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506 contains an extract from Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis liber. On f. 73v–74r: ‘De qua idem gula nascitur inepta laetitia, scurilitas, levitas, vaniloquium, immunditia corporis, instabilitas mentis, ebrietas, libido … Quae per ieiunia et abstinentia operis cuiuslibet assiduitatem optime vincitur.’ 72 A good example is Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, which contains the full six books of Halitgar’s penitential, the extract of Alcuin’s Liber de vitiis et virtutibus, and a penitential ordo (f. 75v) which presents yet a different version of the eight main vices and their derivatives.

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come out all by themselves.73 This may well be the reason why some penitentials, too, were partially structured according to the eight vices.74 This brings us to the second theme and the question of what lay flocks may have learned from their priests about sins and vices. There seems to have been an interesting tension here: even though the ideal was to reach heaven free of sin, all authors on the subject were adamant that each human being could not help but commit sin. Daily life was full of seductions, and if a mere thought about a sin was problematic, it would not even help to spend one’s life in a locked room without windows. What was demanded from every Christian, after all, was a life filled with active good deeds, and it was never enough only to refrain from sinful behaviour. Sin was, in other words, a given. Alcuin summed this up nicely in the first chapter of his De virtutibus et vitiis liber (‘Book about virtues and vices’): ‘For it does not suffice for someone not to do bad things, unless he also does good things, nor to do good things unless he also does not commit bad things’.75 The pastoral tasks of priests in dealing with their sinful flocks was, then, not in first instance prevention, but rather damage control: they explained, warned and admonished to do good and abstain from evil, and offered help with the consequences when somebody strayed all the same. Care for the soul of sinners was a process that required permanent attention. The main way in which such warnings and admonishments were communicated to lay audiences was without doubt to an important extent via sermons and homilies, for which the texts just discussed were great starting points. All these ideas about vices, their roots and ways of fighting them made for excellent preaching material. One anonymous sermon in the manuscript Merseburg Bibliothek des Domstifts 103, for instance, is no more than a very compressed version of the catalogue of sins, their derivatives and the best ways of fighting them, excerpted from Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis liber.76 Other sermons weave themes of virtues and vices into considerations about salvation, the Day of Judgement or explanations of good and bad Christians. One pseudonymous ‘Sermon of Saint Augustine to the people’ (Sermo sancti Agustini ad populum, in fact by Caesarius of Arles) in the manuscript Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135, for 73 Theodulf of Orleans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 128, c. 31: ‘Confessiones dandae sunt de omnibus peccatis, quae siue in opere siue in cogitatione perpetrantur. Octo sunt principalia uitia, sine quibus uix ullus inueniri potest. Est enim gastrimargia hoc est uentris ingluuies. Secunda fornicatio, tertia accidia siue tristitia …’. Note how Theodulf has his own, unique list of eight vices at p. 128 n. 114. 74 For instance the Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori, ed. Van Rhijn, where chapters 2 to 9 (pp. 6–11) are dedicated to ‘superbia, inani gloria, invidia, ira, tristitia, avaritia, ventris ingluvia and luxuria’. Note how the author regularly prescribed both a period of penance and some form of virtuous behaviour. 75 PL 101 col. 615: ‘Non enim sufficit cuiquam mala non facere, nisi etiam et bona faciat: nec bona facere, nisi etiam et mala non committat.’ Stone, ‘Translation’, §1. 76 For a description of the manuscript see Keefe, A catalogue, p. 265. Merseburg, Bibliothek des Domstifts 103, f. 43v–47r. The text has no title, but takes the shape of a sermon. The order of the sins is the same as in Alcuin’s Liber.

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instance, illustrates one such way of explaining the importance of virtues and the dangers of sins: for human beings, the health of their souls should always be their main concern. In a passage where the author describes the difference between animals and Christians, he says: What else do animals seek but eating, drinking, having sex and sleeping? This is how those people are who take better care of their bodies than of their souls, those who love greed and lust more than chastity and justice. You should know, brothers, that we have been made Christians so that we always think about the future world and eternal beatitude, and so that we work harder for our souls than for our bodies, because our flesh will be in this world just briefly.77 It is not enough, so the sermon continues a little further on, to call oneself a Christian without doing Christian works. Interestingly, the explanation that follows is as much about avoiding sins as about these good works themselves. A good Christian, in other words, was also defined by the things he did not do while living virtuously: He who is called a Christian is good when he loves chastity and flees drunkenness, detests jealousy and rejects the poison of the devil. A Christian does not steal, does not give false testimony, does not lie, does not commit perjury and does not commit adultery.78 This way of juxtaposing good and bad Christians by highlighting virtuous and sinful behaviour is very common indeed, as is the more or less standard admonishment to do penance for one’s sins before it is too late to prevent ending up 77 The sermon is ascribed to Saint Augustine, but is in fact by Caesarius of Arles. Edited as Caesarius of Arles, Sermo XVI in G. Morin ed., CCSL 103, pp. 76–8. It was a popular sermon which appears in several pastoral manuscripts, all under the name of St Augustine. For instance: Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 128v–130v, Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 288, f. 59r–63r, Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 27152 f. 74v–77r. Here quoted from Munchen, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135 f. 47v–50v at 48r–v: Quid enim quaerunt animalia nisi manducare et bibere, luxoriare, atque dormire? Tales sunt qui plus cogitant de carne sua quam per animam suam, qui plus diligunt gulam ac luxoriam quam castitatem atque iustitiam. Scire debetis fratres, quia Christiani facti sumus ut semper de futuro saeculo, ut de aeterna beatitudinem cogitemus et plus pro anima quam corpore laborent quia caro nostra paucis anno erit in mundo. 78 Idem, f. 48v–49r: Non nobis sufficit fratres, quod Christianum nomen accipimus, si opera Christiana non facimus. Illi vero prodest quod Christianus dicitur qui castitatem diligit, ebrietatem fugit, detestatur invideam velud venenum diaboli respuit. Ille vero Christianus qui furtum non facit, qui falsum testimonium non dicit, qui nec mentitur nec periurat, qui adulterium non committit.

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in the claws of the devil after death. The point that for each kind of sin there is a ‘saintly’ opposite is also illustrated by an interesting short text in the same manuscript Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 28135, probably an extract from a longer Hiberno-Latin text known as the Liber de numeris.79 In compact sentences, the path of saints is juxtaposed with that of sinners, and here again some of the vices occur: The path of saints: holy chastity, the path of sinners: unclean desire. The path of saints: exemplary sobriety, the path of sinners: misshapen drunkenness. The path of saints: generosity in giving, the path of sinners: the service of avarice.80 For all this knowledge about good and bad behaviour, and all the different kinds of pastoral care for which priests may have used them, one may argue that the explanations as we read them in the manuscripts may be somewhat abstract. Even though we can never know how detailed exactly a priest’s sermon or face-to-face advice may have been, one can imagine that terms like ‘misshapen drunkenness’ leaves something to be desired in terms of what it meant for everyday life. Drinking beer or wine was part of daily existence, so when did normal consumption become misshapen and turn into sin? This is surely one reason why some penitentials are so detailed – those who had the Penitential of pseudo-Egbert on their shelf would have no problem explaining the ins and outs of sinful drunkenness to anyone who wanted to know. It prescribed penance to those who drank so much that they threw up, or who forced others to get drunk. The texts distinguished this from drinking so much that the person’s ‘state of mind changes, the tongue stumbles, the eyes cloud, he feels vertiginous, his belly swells up and pain follows’.81 However, most of the time the precise meaning of sins was left open to interpretation. Priests probably spent a lot of time teaching the laity what sins and vices were, and explaining where a normal act turned into something sinful. What they do not seem to have done, however, is issue direct and practical prohibitions, such as ‘don’t drink’ or ‘keep out of taverns’. This is all the more interesting since priests

79 On this extract: R.E. McNally, Der irische Liber de numeris: eine Quellenanalyse der pseudo-­ Isidorischen Liber de numeris (Munich, 1957), pp. 41–2. On the texts with Irish roots in this manuscript see Mary F. Wack and Charles D. Wright, ‘A new Latin source for the Old English “Three Utterances” exemplum’, Anglo-Saxon England 20 (1991), pp. 187–202. 80 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135, f. 12r–v: ‘Via sanctorum castitas sancta, via peccatorum luxoria inmunda. Via sanctorum subrietas formosa, via peccatorum ebrietas deformis. Via sanctorum largitas dandi, via peccatorum avaritia servanda.’ The full text has been edited by McNally, Der irische Liber de numeris. 81 ‘Paenitentiale pseudo-Egberti’, ed. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher II, p. 671, here quoted from Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485 f. 78r: ‘… hoc est hebriositas quando statum mentis mutant et lingua balbutiat et oculi turbentur et vertigo erit et ventris distentio ac dolor sequitur …’.

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themselves received clear and detailed advice to this extent from their bishops. A whole series of episcopal statutes, for instance, instruct priests not to go drinking in a tavern and mix with lay people, because all kinds of unsavoury things happened in those places.82 Given the high risk of sinning to all those going for a drink in a tavern, it would stand to reason to see priests advise their lay flocks not to go there, but such instructions are unknown from our sample of pastoral manuscripts. Instead, priests were advised to preach against drunkenness.83 Apparently, it was taken for granted that lay people had a way of life with a high risk of sin. What priests could do is warn them against the dangers, educate them about sin and virtuous behaviour, stimulate good deeds and offer help when somebody had strayed from the right path.

6  Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 What could a priest learn about penance and sin from one single manuscript? This chapter has shown that the most common texts about penance available in pastoral books were tariffed penitentials, which were often combined with dossiers of additional material such as commutation tables, introductions and ordines. On top of that, such manuscripts contain a wealth of material about sins and vices that surely functioned as an important resource for several forms of pastoral care. In this section, one manuscript will be our focus to find out how all such material came together, and what we learn if we study it as one whole rather than as a set of constituent parts. This manuscript, Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, or to be more precise, its first 80 folia,84 is one of the smallest manuscripts discussed in this book: it measures a mere 155 × 112 mm (but it has clearly been trimmed). Bernhard Bischoff dates it to the second third of the ninth century, places it somewhere in northern France on the basis of its palaeography and labels it a ‘pocket-manuscript for personal use’.85 One main hand with the occasional help of a second one has filled the pages with clear, regular script. Apart from some small capitals and titles in red ink, decorations are absent.

82 For instance Gerbald of Liège, ‘Drittes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 38, c. 4: ‘Vt nullus presbyter tabernas ingredi audeat ad bibendum nec se misceat in tali conventu saecularibus hominibus, ubi turpia verba audiat aut loquatur aut contentiones ibi aliquas audiat aut intersit, sicut saepe contingere solet.’; compare Haito of Basle’s episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, p.213, c. X, with references to parallel admonishments in the notes. 83 As for instance by Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 112, c. 13. 84 This originally separate priests’ manuscript, which now breaks off in mid-sentence on f. 80v, has been bound in with another manuscript from a later date. See Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 38–40; Gaastra ed., Paenitentialia, pp. lxiii–lxiv. 85 Berhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigothischen), 3 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1998–2014), vol. II, pp. 208–9 at p. 208: ‘Taschencodex zu persönlichem Gebrauch’.

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The two main themes of this manuscript, that was clearly compiled for a priest, are penance and basic religious knowledge useful for different purposes, with the Mass as a secondary theme and baptism just featuring as one subject in a longer text. Its first section, which fills half of the book, is a penitential dossier composed of some texts we have encountered before: first the instruction-­introduction Quotiescumque, after which follow the Paenitentiale in duobus libris,86 commutations, excerpts from the Penitential of pseudo-Bede, prayers for penitents and more commutations. After this block of texts related to penance, there are ten folia of multi-purpose texts for basic religious education: an exposition of the Creed, one of the Faith (especially the Holy Trinity) and one of the Lord’s Prayer. Then follows a long set of questions and answers (titled ‘interrogations before somebody enters holy orders’87), which can be identified as a priests’ exam since it includes a baptismal exposition in question-and-answer form. The book ends with two Mass commentaries, of which the last one is the Dominus vobiscum. On the theme of penance the user of this codex was well-served. He had two tariffed penitentials (one of which complete) to work with, three different instructions on commutation (one of which is not a separate text, but just a short paragraph included at the end of a set of prayers for penitents88), the Quotiescumque, and a useful set of prayers. The Quotiescumque instructed the reader about the importance of penance and the role of the priest as a doctor of the soul, mediator and holder of the keys to heaven. It also underlined the importance of true repentance, and reminded the reader that people should confess all their sins, so those ‘in word, in deed, in thought’.89 The introduction to the Penitential of Pseudo-Bede, additionally, taught the priest that he should take into account all the circumstances of the sin when deciding on the right amount of penance. One detail we have not encountered before is worth mentioning here: the so-called Quaestiones beati Hieronimi presbiteri (‘Questions of the blessed priest Jerome’), one of the texts that explains a method of commutation, mentions how a priest should under no circumstances share a sinner’s confession with anybody, not even with his near and dear. Those who had been indiscreet should be deposed immediately, and do a seven-year penance themselves.90 All in all, and much in 86 Note how Gaastra ed., Paenitentialia, p. lxiii treats the Quotiescumque as part of the Paenitentiale in duobus libris. 87 ‘Interrogationes antequam ad sacros ordines aliquis accedit’, at f. 50r–57r. Keefe has edited four sections of this interrogation as Texts 39 and 40 (on baptism) in Water and the word II, and no. 284 and 347 (on the Creed) in A catalogue. To my mind it is one priests’ exam. 88 Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 39r, where 12 psalms are listed that the penitent should sing 24 times with their arms extended to compensate for a whole year of penance on water and bread. 89 Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 3r–v where the Quotiescumque explains how a sinner should be interrogated, and how he should confess all his sins in so far as he can remember them (‘in quantum recordare potest’). After this confession, the sinner proclaims: ‘Multa sunt peccata mea in verbis, in factis, in cogitationibus…’, after which the priest gives him his penance. 90 Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 28r–v: ‘Caveat ante omnia sacerdos ne de is qui ei confessi sunt peccata sua alicui recitet quod ei confessum est, non

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line with what we have seen in this chapter, the main messages of the penitential dossier revolves around the knowledge and responsibility of the priest: he should save souls, correct errors and be wise in his judgement of each sinner who came to him to confess. The theme of penance and especially that of sin is not confined to the penitential dossier, however, but extends through the entire book. One clear bridge between these two themes and the Mass can be found in the Mass commentary Dominus vobiscum, which mentions (using part of Ezechiel 33,12) how a sinner will always be forgiven, no matter the moment in his life that he decided to better his ways and do penance.91 Christ the Saviour, so we read in another passage of the same text, is called ‘saviour’ because He saves His people from their sins through His forgiveness.92 This forgiveness should, however, be deserved not only by penance for graver sins, but also by participating in the sacrament of Mass to ask for forgiveness for all the small sins that every person commits every day.93 And Christians can only receive the sacrament when they have forgiven all their enemies from the bottom of their hearts, for only those who have forgiven, will be forgiven by God. This last idea, that everybody should forgive in order to be forgiven, features no less than three times in the manuscript, so this was an important message and the different contexts in which it appears are interesting. In the explanation of the Apostle’s Creed, under the heading ‘forgiveness of sins’ (remissio peccatorum), the anonymous author lists seven ways in which a sinner can deserve such forgiveness. The fourth of these (after baptism, penance and martyrdom) is the forgiveness of one’s enemies, for, so the explanation states, if you do not forgive, neither will God forgive you.94 The same message can be found in the exposition propinquis, non extraneis, nec quod absit pro aliquo scandalum. Nam si hoc fecerit deponatur et septem annos peniteat.’ See Adriaan Gaastra, ‘Between liturgy and canon law. A study of books of confession and penance’ (unpublished PhD Thesis Utrecht University, 2007), pp. 35–6, n. 7 and Körntgen, Studien zu den Quellen, pp. 211–12. 91 ‘Dominus vobiscum’, Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, 3 vols, ed. J.-M. Hanssens (Vatican City, 1948–50), vol. III, pp. 322–4, Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 73r–v: ‘…in quacumque die peccator conversus fuerit et penitentiam egerit, omnia peccata eius in oblivione erunt coram me.’ On the fascinating history of this quotation see Marbury W. Ogle, ‘Bible text or liturgy?’, The Harvard Theological Review 33 (1940), pp. 191–224 at pp. 218–21. 92 ‘Dominus vobiscum’, ed. Hanssens, Amalarii III, p. 306; Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 64r: ‘Ihesus Grecae, Latinae salvator sive salutaris dicitur. Salvator eo quod salvat populum suum a peccatis eorum. Ideo salvat a peccatis, quia potestatem habet dimittendi peccata.’ 93 ‘Dominus vobiscum’, ed. Hanssens, Amalarii III, p. 322, Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 73r: ‘…haec omnia sacrifitia ideo sunt offerta tam a sacerdote, quam a populo ut omnipotens Deus peccata nostra non reputet…’. The idea that small sins are part of everyday life is expressed in the Interrogatio, f. 55r: ‘INT Cur cottidie offertur corpus Christi et sanguis in eclesia quando canimus missam? R Idcirco cottidie offertur quia peccamus cotidiae. […]’ 94 Explanation of the Apostle’s Creed, see Keefe, A catalogue, no. 360, pp. 186–7, Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 43r: Quarta remissio est per indulgentiam inimicorum, sicut dicimus in orationem dominica: Dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ipse dominus

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of the Lord’s Prayer, about the sixth petition: ‘and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us’. In the explanation of the same prayer that is part of the Dominus vobiscum, we find some more detail: the sacrifice offered during the Mass will not be accepted by God if it is ‘offered in scandal’. That is why everybody must forgive while standing before the altar, for only when one is ‘reconciled to one’s brother’ can the sacrifice be done ‘with a clean heart’.95 Where it comes to baptism, this manuscript contains just one main message about the connection of this ritual with sin. In the commentary to the Apostle’s Creed just mentioned, baptism is mentioned as the first of seven ways to find forgiveness for one’s sins. One question of the Interrogatio contains the same: where the interrogator asks ‘what is accomplished by baptism?’, the short answer is ‘through baptism, forgiveness of sins is given’.96 Through the lens of penance and sin, then, several connections between the main subjects of the Montpellier manuscript become visible that show how the three cornerstones are, in fact, three aspects of one over-arching way of thinking about pastoral care and salvation. If the purpose was to reach heaven, the basic requirement was to have an unblemished soul at the end of one’s life. Adam’s original sin, and all those sins committed before baptism (if the candidate was no recently born baby) were washed away in the font; after that, confession and penance allowed each Christian to keep their souls as clean as possible. For those sins that were the inevitable parts of daily existence, however, penance was too heavy a remedy. Here, participation in the sacraments of Mass was an important moment to ask God for forgiveness, but He would only open his ears when those asking had a clean heart. Dealing with sins large and small was, then, one element that connected penance with both baptism and the celebration of Mass. While baptism was the basic requirement to be allowed among the community of Christians in church and participate in Christian rituals, one function of the Mass was to ask forgiveness of smaller sins, while confession and penance were needed for the heavier cases. The Montpellier manuscript shows these self-evident connections naturally throughout its contents – it shows how priests’ management of their flocks’ sins was a continuous and substantial aspect of their ministry. With this, we now leave the three cornerstones to explore what knowledge priests may have had on offer outside the narrow definition of pastoral care.

dicit, Si enim remiseritis hominibus peccata eorum, et Pater vester caelestis dimittet vobis peccata vestra. Si non remiseritis, nec Deus dimittet vobis. 95 ‘Dominus vobiscum’, ed. Hanssens, Amalarius III, p. 332, Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 75r: ‘… Et item, sacrifitium non recipitur sicut in scandalo offertur, sed ante altare dimitti iubetur, usque dum reconcilietur fratri suo et tunc offeri mundo corde. 96 Montpellier Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, f. 54v: ‘INT Quid per baptismum… efficitur? R In baptismo peccatorum remissio… datur.’

PART III

Beyond pastoral care

6 PRIESTS AS EXPERTS

1  Introduction Carolingian priests as shepherds of lay souls needed education, knowledge and books to take care of their flocks in the ways in which their bishops instructed them to. As discussed in the previous three chapters, the Carolingian period witnessed an upsurge in attention for the education of secular clergy, which resulted in increasingly detailed prescriptions about the kinds of religious knowledge and know-how that they should have, and about those things that they should be able to teach to the laity. The focus on church rituals of the previous chapters, however, only tells part of the story. In the same way that pastors did not spend their days only in church, lay Christians were surely not thinking about the latest sermon or their baptismal vows all the time. After all, there were fields to work, sick relatives to take care of, houses to build and trade to conduct. Priests and laity were part of the same communities, lived in the same settlements and therefore shared, to a large extent, the same preoccupations and experiences of daily life. Like their lay neighbours, priests, too, socialised with relatives and friends, behaved like the local free landowners they sometimes were, and used their skills as educated, literate men to their own and to others’ benefit.1 So far, only the better-known areas of priestly competences have been explored, in particular those Christian rituals which marked the key moments of lay people’s lives. This may have created the impression that priests’ knowledge did not extend much beyond those subjects, but this is far from true. Pastoral manuscripts give us interesting and important insights in the extent of what else a priest potentially knew and could do, which, in turn, clarifies what exactly 1 For examples see Bernhard Zeller a.o., Neighbours and strangers. Local societies in early medieval Europe, Manchester Medieval Studies (Manchester, 2020), Chapter 5.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-10

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was understood to be pastoral care in the Carolingian period. Many manuscripts contain material that shows how pastoral care was, in fact, more wide-ranging than one may think after reading this book up to this point. Overall, virtually no area of lay life remained untouched by the many shorter and longer texts found in priests’ manuscripts, and, as always, the variation is great: one manuscript offers prayers to assist those sowing green beans or digging a well, the next one contains knowledge about unlucky days on which one had better not travel or undergo medical treatment; a third one includes a text that would allow a priest to tell parents what the future of their new-born child would hold.2 Rather than being confined to the church and its rituals, it seems that no sphere of lay life was considered to be beyond the scope of pastoral care, and especially the more substantial pastoral compendia reflect this. As a general context for this chapter and the next one, two aspects of priestly expertise are important. First of all, their books show how not only religious knowledge in a strict sense was transmitted to lay communities, but that on occasion, also medical or computistical texts may have reached audiences wider than learned clergy in well-established episcopal and monastic centres. John Howe has recently coined the term ‘hinge people’ for priests and others who acted as intermediaries between different social groups, and this seems an apt term for the phenomenon we are observing here: by virtue of their ministry and education, priests connected the elite world of learning, knowledge and intellectual traditions to that of illiterate lay communities.3 That Carolingian bishops and rulers implemented a new, fine-mazed pastoral infrastructure that brought local churches and their priests to areas where this had not existed before, in other words, also had consequences for the availability of such knowledge to rural populations.4 This leads to the second aspect: priests who were educated according to Carolingian ideals were in all probability often the only people locally who had these various kinds of knowledge on offer. Even though their modest libraries usually did not contain a very wide range of texts, clerics may well have become acquainted with a much wider range of written works during their education, and even their memories of such knowledge were relevant. This made them into local monopoly-holders of trustworthy, written knowledge and skills. If heeding pastoral advice would lead to salvation, then the pastor’s advice about

2 Prayers for planting beans and digging wells: Vatican library pal.lat. 485 f. 51v; unlucky days: Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508 f. 87v; predictions about o.a. new-born children: El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, f. 184r–186v (see also the next chapter). 3 John Howe, Before the Gregorian reform. The Latin church at the turn of the first millennium (Ithaca/ London, 2016), pp. 253–7. Note, however, that his views are quite different from the ones expressed here. Howe’s term does not refer to the Latin term ‘cardinalis’ (cardinal) which can literally mean ‘pivotal person’. 4 See the Introduction pp. 8–9; Steffen Patzold, Presbyter. Moral, Mobilität und die Kirchenorganisation im Karolingerreich, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 68 (Stuttgart, 2020), Chapter 3.

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matters other than sin and virtue could only be trustworthy as well. Moreover, if the guardian of one’s soul also knew how to cure a bad cough or give business advice, all the better.5 This chapter and the next one will explore such knowledge beyond the core themes of baptism, penance and the Mass. Their focus will be on those texts that show what in addition to liturgy, religious advice and ecclesiastical rituals the local pastor could potentially offer to the lay world of his flock. The texts related to baptism, penance and the Mass clearly form the core of most priests’ manuscripts by far, but almost every compiler added material on other subjects, too. What is more, many later users saw fit to include even more texts, for instance medical recipes or formulas used in legal contexts, that shows how far beyond the strictly religious pastoral expertise could reach. Assessing the range and significance of this expertise, and thereby of pastoral care, will be the main theme in what follows. That texts about subjects beyond the central rituals and liturgy found a home in pastoral manuals is little known, and sheds light on some understudied aspects of the history of knowledge. Apart from the fact that pastoral care could clearly extend to activities for which one would need waterproof boots (to bless new wells or beans planted in the field), some of the texts, as we will see, may strike modern readers as surprisingly far removed from the religious worlds in which liturgy and rituals featured large. That such expertise reached areas outside the traditional (royal, monastic, episcopal) centres of learning in the first place, it should be remembered here, was a Carolingian phenomenon: this period saw the emergence of pastoral manuscripts, as well as the anchoring of local pastors within the many settlements of the Carolingian world through the foundation of many new local churches.6 Their expertise, therefore, became available in an increasing number of places that had previously not had easy access to pastoral care.7 The mere fact that some priests’ manuscripts include snippets of, for instance medical or astronomical texts among the handbooks of penance and baptismal expositions, shows how some ‘elite knowledge’ – snippet by snippet – found its way to the small worlds of the Frankish realm. The hinge men of the Carolingian world brought potential salvation, and at the same time connected institutionalised intellectual traditions to the wider world. What exactly was this knowledge beyond liturgy and ritual brought to local communities by educated secular clergy? This chapter will explore three themes that show how such expertise included activities and know-how that we would nowadays not understand as self-evident duties for an early medieval pastor, but 5 The question of competition for knowledge between Christian and other experts is an interesting and important one, but beyond the scope of this book; in the pastoral material, such competition is implicit at best. A very different view: Valerie Flint, The rise of magic in early medieval Europe (Oxford, 1991), esp. pp. 355–64, where she describes competition between Christian priests and non-Christian magi. On priests’ potential medical knowledge see below. 6 Patzold, Presbyter, p. 153 mentions a number of ‘more than 20,000 local priests’ in the Carolingian period on the basis of a conservative calculation. 7 Compare Patzold, Presbyter, Chapter 7 and its summary at pp. 386–8.

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which were surely welcomed by lay communities. Usefulness to lay people was clearly the main reason why pastoral compendia contain texts on subjects that went beyond the core responsibilities outlined in episcopal statutes; at the same time pastoral care was a flexible concept that offered room for many kinds of knowledge and expertise.8 In this chapter, the subjects discussed will stay within established, trusted areas of expertise such as canon law, medicine and legal procedure. The next chapter, however, will take this approach one step further. It will, first of all, wonder who ‘the others’ were in pastoral manuscripts, so those groups with which the ideal good Christians were contrasted, and those held up as negative examples. Second, it will investigate a series of texts long thought to belong to the realm of superstition, ‘pagan remnants’ or even ‘incorporated non-Christian magic’. The special case under investigation is that of prognostic texts, which combine knowledge about astronomy, time-reckoning, medicine and daily life to offer the reader insights about what the future may hold. Interestingly, elements of such knowledge were what Martin Mulsow has called – in a very different, early modern context – ‘precarious’: such expertise was perhaps not always self-evidently trustworthy, but texts of this sort ended up in pastoral compendia all the same.9 The presence of these texts in pastoral manuals shows, on the one hand, how far pastoral care could reach into the daily lives of lay flocks, but also that the Carolingian age was a period of active experimentation and trust in priestly competence, in which the limits of acceptable knowledge and pastoral care were far from set in stone. Let us now first have a closer look at one rather extensive pastoral manuscript in order to assess what kinds of expertise it contained beyond the core pastoral themes, and what shape such knowledge took. After that, three areas of knowledge that must have been particularly useful for lay communities (those of marriage, medicine and judicial ordeals) will be explored further.

2  Areas of expertise In the manuscript Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Latin 2796, in the middle of a computistic section and sandwiched between a short explanation about the solstice and one about the new moon, a ninth-century scribe penned some content that was surely not part of the computistic text he was copying out. Rather than addressing the difficult questions of the solar and the lunar cycles, his addition 8 One exception is their ability to write charters, a skill much valued locally but without exception frowned upon by bishops. See Zeller a.o., Neighbours and strangers, pp. 143–8. The Capitula Frisingensia Prima c. XV, MGH Cap.ep. III, p. 205, which requires priests to be able to write charters and letters, is very interesting in this light; see the editor’s comments on pp. 199–200. 9 Martin Mulsow, Prekäres Wissen. Eine andere Ideengeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 2012); Carine van Rhijn, ‘Precarious knowledge in the Carolingian period: the case of prognostic texts’, in: Renate Dürr ed., Threatened knowledge. Practices of knowing and ignoring from the middle ages to the twentieth century, Knowledge Societies in History (London/New York, (2021), pp. 52–73.

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offered solutions to the uncomfortable problem of soreness in a rather tender part of the body. Perhaps he had been sitting on a hard bench for too many hours, perhaps he had altruistic reasons to preserve this knowledge for future reference; what he wrote down were two short recipes for treatments against haemorrhoids.10 Although this is the only instance of medical content in the entire manuscript, the two recipes illustrate well how a pastoral compendium could be a home not only for knowledge about the large themes of pastoral care but also for other items considered useful by the person writing them down. This particular compendium, that dates from around the year 815 and has a French provenance, contains texts explaining baptism, the Mass and the Creed, an exposition of the New Testament and some shorter bits and pieces on pastoral themes that reveal its primary purpose, most probably that of serving as an educational volume for future priests and those who taught them.11 In its current state, the manuscript also contains a substantial canon law collection (the socalled Collectio Bigotianum), an originally independent manuscript12; when the two parts were bound together is unknown. An early modern table of contents at the back, that mentions this Collectio, provides the date ante quem for the joining of both parts. In the classification of Bozzolo and Ornato,13 the manuscript falls in the category ‘small’: it is about the size of a Penguin pocket, but rather bulky (190 × 115 mm, at 153 folia). For such a modest-sized, undecorated volume, it covers a remarkably broad range of subjects and reflects an equally broad conception of what kind of knowledge may have been of use for a (future) priest. What makes this codex special are the many different ways in which the compiler did not limit his compilation to the central subjects of pastoral care. For one thing, he was very interested in computus, the art of calculating time. The manuscript contains everything one would need to calculate the correct date of Easter for each year (a basic skill every priest needed to master), and to teach or learn about it: tables, explanations of the relevant concepts and mathematics, and educational dialogues between a ‘discipulus’ and a ‘magister’ about these

10 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796, f. 105v: ‘CONTRA FICUM. Cenamo, riopontio, myrra, matre herbarum, pipero grana novem, staupum plenum. ITEM CONTRA FICUM. Aidro, millefolio, reblo, quinquefolia, matre herbarum, interrusco de figario, pipero grana viiii.’ 11 Susan Keefe, Water and the word. Baptism and the education of the clergy in Carolingian Europe II (Notre Dame, 2002) does not describe this manuscript, but uses it to edit her Text 53, Vol. II, pp. 599–602; she describes the manuscript in her A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 63 (Turnhout, 2012), p. 313, where she labels the codex a ‘schoolbook’. 12 The date of this part of the manuscript is up for debate: Arno Borst, Schriften zur Komputistik im Frankenreich von 721 bis 818, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 21, 3 vols (Hanover, 2006), I, p. 266 dates it to the second half of the ninth century, while Hubert ­Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta. Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse, MGH Hilfsmittel 15 (Munich, 1995), pp. 430–2 at p. 430 states that both parts date from more or less the same time. 13 See Chapter 2.

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calculations. However, there is more than just Easter-related knowledge on offer: the elaborate sections about computus have been enriched with other material about time and the night sky, texts useless for calculating Easter but clearly considered relevant and interesting by the person who thought up this compilation. On f.69r, for instance, we find a list that shows on which day of which month each sign of the zodiac becomes visible, while a somewhat longer text explains how the months came by their names (f.99v–101r),14 and a short excerpt from Isidore (f.55v) lists the different ages of man measured in years.15 Once a student started to learn about time and computus for the calculation of Easter and the other moveable feast days of the year, so the rationale seems to have been, he might as well learn a bit more about related subjects while he was at it. In a similar way, the pastoral core of the codex was enriched with more short and useful texts, for which the compiler had a real taste. One of the more exotic examples we find is a short list of the sounds that various animals make (f.56r–v including, somewhat surprisingly given its French provenance, elephants and lions16). Nor was the original compiler of the book alone in his interest in expertise wider than the strictly religious-pastoral. Over time, more material was added by later scribes to this already rich package of knowledge, which shows how the manuscript was used and studied by several generations, and how its users thought it could become an even better compendium by adding more texts. Probably still in the ninth century, a rather unpracticed hand added an ‘orolegium’ (that is: a horologium, an overview of the time of sunrise and sundown per month of the year17) on a previously empty page (f.101v). Not long after, maybe around 900 or a little later, somebody copied out the first ten entries of the socalled Sortes sanctorum (to which we will return in the next chapter), a text that gives answers to any questions one may have via three dice.18 Finally, a much later hand added keywords in the margins in order to make it easier to find specific sections of the computistic explanations. This is, of course, just one manuscript, selected as an example here to demonstrate how wide the variety of knowledge in one of the more elaborate pastoral compendia could be. Even if a book such as this one may have never left a monastic or episcopal library, young clerics who later became priests were exposed 14 For a short description of the computistic contents of this codex see Borst, Schriften I, pp. 266–7. 15 Cf. Isidorus Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W.M. Lindsay, 2 vols (Oxford, 1911), II, XI, c.2. 16 On this and similar texts see: Thomas Benediktson, ‘Polemius Silvius’ “Voces varie animancium” and related catalogues of animal sounds’, Mnemosyne 53 (2000), pp. 71–9. 17 Explanation about the working and cultural background of horologia: Barbara Obrist, ‘The astronomical sundial in Saint Willibrord’s calendar and its early medieval context’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 67 (2000), pp. 71–118. 18 The Sortes sanctorum have been edited (using the Paris manuscript, but missing two early medieval copies of the text in the tenth-century manuscript Vienna ÖNB 2723) by Enrique Montero Cartelle, Les Sortes sanctorum. Étude, édition critique et traduction, Textes Littéraires du Moyen Âge 27, Série Divinatoria 3 (Madrid, 2004).

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to a whole spectrum of knowledge through its contents – and even if they did not take all the texts with them once they were ordained to a church, they may well have remembered at least something of what they once learned. The book certainly ticked episcopal boxes on the central pastoral themes of the age: there is plenty of material on baptism, the Mass, penance and canon law – but teaching and learning may not have stopped there, so priests may therefore have ended up with more knowledge than the basics.19 When we take codices such as this one as reflections of potential priestly knowledge and know-how, and compilations plus their later additions as products of deliberate choices, a whole panorama opens up. Even though there are not many pastoral compilations that cover as many themes as the Paris codex just described, many include texts about subjects that reflect such wider interests. Following this line of argumentation, this chapter will now explore three themes that occur with some regularity in pastoral compendia. Each of these themes hovers, as it were, on the edge of pastoral care in the strict sense of the word: none of the three belongs to the central pastoral duties according to prescriptive texts, but all include knowledge important for the spiritual, and sometimes physical, well-being of lay communities. Given their frequent occurrence, such knowledge may well have belonged to the pastoral repertoire according to more than a single compiler. The first theme is that of marriage, which fits into a wider context of prescriptive, canonical and normative material. This subject is all the more interesting since it is a ‘lay’ subject par excellence (since clerics were not allowed to marry), about which very little is known when it concerns social groups not belonging to the nobility. What did priests know about the subject, and what advice could they give?20 The second theme covers physical health: apparently, some priests were not only doctors of lay souls, but were also able to give advice about their flocks’ bodily health, and in a few cases also about that of various kinds of farm animals. No pastoral manuscript contains blocks of remedies or medical tracts in their original compilation, but sometimes bits of medical knowledge, here defined in the widest sense possible, slipped into larger texts (as we have just seen), while in other cases health-related extracts were added later to the margins and empty spaces of manuscripts. The mere presence of these usually small snippets of longer texts shows how such literate, elite knowledge was not exclusive to

19 See Zeller a.o., Neighbours and strangers, Chapter 5; Carine van Rhijn, ‘Carolingian rural priests as local (religious) experts’, in: Steffen Patzold and Florian Bock eds, Gott handhaben: religiöses Wissen im Konflikt um Mythisierung und Rationalisierung (Berlin, 2016), pp. 131–46. 20 On the transformation of marriage in the Carolingian period see Agathe Baroin, ‘Le couple en droit au haut Moyen Âge: autour de l’affectio maritalis et des relations patrimoniales’, Médiévales. Langues, Textes, Histoire 65: Le couple dans le monde franc (2013), pp. 93–108 and Francesco Veronesi, ‘Conjugality and Christian life in Jonas of Orleans’, De institutione laicali’, Early Medieval Europe 23 (2015), pp. 436–56. For an older view, that saw ‘the Church’ trying to ‘take over’ see Georges Duby, ‘Le mariage dans la société du haut moyen âge’, Il matrimonio nella società altomedievale, 22–28 Aprile 1976, Settimane XXIV (Spoleto, 1977), pp. 15–39, esp. p. 19.

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intellectual centres, and how priests could play a role in its transmission. As a third theme, texts connected to judicial ordeals will be discussed. Blessings of boiling water or red-hot iron feature in several priests’ manuscripts, which highlights the pastors’ potential role as experts contributing to the resolution of conflicts. This case is especially interesting in the light of differing episcopal opinions about the desirability of this ritual. True to the nature of most pastoral manuscripts, the three themes discussed in this chapter are either addressed in longer texts that cover many other subjects, or take the shape of short extracts from much longer works – the two remedies against piles just mentioned, for instance, likely stem from a more substantial collection of medical recipes held in a monastic or episcopal library.21 Throughout, it will become clear how priests functioned as local experts in many fields, but also as intermediaries, who through their pastoral care – broadly defined – ­t ransmitted knowledge produced, stored and studied in the cultural centres of the time. Pastoral care could, then, function as a vehicle for such knowledge, which ranged from warning lay people against illegitimate marriages to providing easyto-make cures for minor ailments. What the richest pastoral manuscripts reflect is that in the course of the ninth century, well-educated priests were becoming the go-to persons for whatever question or problem members of their flocks may have had. Surely some of them were better equipped for this role than others, but it is clear that what was expected of a priest did not stop at their religious and liturgical duties and know-how in a strict sense. This, in turn, reflects the role of a local church not only as the religious focal point of a community but also as a local hub where different kinds of expertise could be found, and where activities were concentrated that in later times would belong to different specialists and different spheres of life.

3  Marriage Priests were as a rule unmarried in the Carolingian period, following the age-old and oft-repeated precepts of canon law.22 We can therefore safely assume that the texts on the subject we find in their books were intended as guidelines for their 21 Many examples of such medical codices are listed in Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (seculi ix, x e xi) (Rome, 1956). 22 Patzold, Presbyter, pp. 391–403; the exception seems to be Italy, see Marco Stoffella, ‘Local priests in early medieval Tuscany’, in: Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn eds, Men in the middle. Local priests in early medieval Europe (Berlin, 2016), pp. 98–124 at 121–2. All the same, prohibitions against priests marrying feature with some regularity in pastoral compendia, especially in collections of canon law or other repetitions of earlier prescriptions. See for instance the Paenitentiale in duobus libris (ed. Gaastra, CCSL CLVI C, p. 132), in the manuscript Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387, at f. 8v: ‘Si quis monachus vel cuius superius quis episcopus, presbiter, diaconus qui uxorem habuit et post conversionem uel honorem iterum eam cognoverit sicut qui adulteravit ita ambo peniteant sicut superius iuxta grados suos.’ In all probabililty this reflects a situation no longer current in the Carolingian period; the prescription goes back to the Paenitentiale Burgundense dated to the seventh or eighth

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advice to lay people. As we will see shortly, this was predominantly moral advice (often derived from canon law), that did not concern itself with the economical or other, more practical aspects of the matter.23 Of course all facets of marriage were relevant to the lay people who married and to their relatives especially when property or family prestige were concerned, but the emphases in the texts available to priests were confined to explanations of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ kinds of marriage. In this sense, marriage was unambiguously part of Christian life. Even though it became a church ritual with its own liturgy much later, and all its various stages – from the preceding negotiations to the conclusion of the bond and the celebration afterwards – took place outside of ecclesiastical contexts in this period, a substantial corpus of norms and prescriptions existed about its moral dimensions. Even if marriage itself was no outright Christian phenomenon, in other words, lay people who were concerned about their souls should take into account norms about acceptable partners and the ramifications of married life. For instance, the bond between two partners should be legitimate according to specific rules, it should be lived virtuously, and in case of lapses, penance was the solution. This is how marriage fit into the frame of pastoral care naturally: it was the priest who had this kind of knowledge. The solidly moral focus of texts in pastoral manuscripts that discuss aspects of marriage is even the more interesting in the light of discussions about early medieval marriage, both at that time and in more recent years. Until quite recently, the Carolingian age was often thought to have witnessed fundamental changes, especially in the shape of a supposedly growing influence of ‘the’ church on marriage.24 Such notions about the church trying to ‘control’ marriage have now been largely rejected 25; all the same, it is clear that in the Carolingian period itself, definitions of what exactly constituted a legitimate marriage and an acceptable married life were subject to debate among high-ranking churchmen, and that various interpretations co-existed. As Rachel Stone has vividly described it, at no point in the Carolingian period did a single consistent set of norms emerge; neither was there was any linear movement towards uniformity. In ways similar to the notion of flexible, non-uniform correctness described for the cases of century, which itself goes back to an even earlier penitential. See Rob Meens, Penance in early medieval Europe, 600–1200 (Cambridge, 2014), p. 76. 23 For an overview of the development of all aspects of marriage see Philip Lydon Reynolds, Marriage in the western church. The christianization of marriage during the patristic and early medieval periods, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae XXIV (Leiden/New York/Boston, 1994). 24 For instance Duby, ‘Le marriage’, p. 19; Baroin, ‘Le couple’, p. 100. But see the nuances added to this discussion by Rachel Stone and Charles West, The divorce of King Lothar and Queen Theutberga. Hincmar of Rheims’s De Divortio (Manchester, 2016), pp. 46–50. Also Ruth Mazo Karras, ‘The Christianisation of medieval marriage’, in: David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton eds, Christianity and culture in the middle ages. Essays to honor John van Engen (Notre Dame, 2014), pp. 3–24 at p. 5, who points out that the Christianisation of marriage was a long process which was not finished at the end of the Middle Ages. 25 See the summary of this debate by Rachel Stone, Morality and masculinity in the Carolingian empire (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 262–4.

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baptism, penance and the Mass, various authoritative voices (such as Hincmar of Rheims and Hrabanus Maurus) expressed their opinions of what they considered acceptable and unacceptable, often based on a contradictory body of canon law and variety within legal traditions.26 In general, research about early medieval marriage has understandably focussed on elite marriages, about which there is the most source material. What happened outside such small circles, however, mostly stays out of sight in these discussions.27 Francesco Veronesi, for instance, has shown how Jonas of Orleans framed the morals of marriage as an integral part of a lay Christian life in the lay mirror he wrote for Count Matfrid,28 and we may well wonder how different in general terms the ideals and ideas on the subject were in less socially elevated circles. It is therefore interesting to explore what local priests could tell their lay flocks on the subject.29 If marriage was understood as an element of a good Christian life, living one’s marriage in the right manner was part of the way to heaven. When we accept that there was no single answer to what exactly constituted ‘right’, it is all the more interesting to see what knowledge about marriage was selected for the use of priests. Many priests’ books contain longer prescriptive or didactic texts, especially handbooks of penance, episcopal statutes and canon law collections, in which marriage was just one subject among many others. Generally speaking, texts discussing moral aspects of marriage in one form or the other are quite common in priests’ books, which suggests that it was an established theme of pastoral advice and required knowledge for priests by the time that these manuscripts started to appear.30 Some of this material predates the Carolingian period, for example an extract from the Council of Rome of 721 that features in several pastoral manuscripts, which is comprised of a short set of anathemas concerning the wrong kinds of marriage.31 With only a few exceptions, the focus of all texts that discuss marriage in some way is on marrying legitimate partners, and on behaviour befitting married people. Both aspects show how marriage was considered as an integral part of a Christian life.32 Central to the issue of legitimacy are questions of consanguinity, whereas sexual behaviour is a core theme in the regulation of married life. In this last case, one could argue that these norms were not so 26 Stone, Masculinity, for instance at pp. 258–9 on the discussion of what exactly constituted an incestuous marriage. 27 A good overview of what we know about noble marriages: Stone, Morality, Chapter 8. 28 Veronesi, ‘Conjugality’, p. 453. 29 On the development of a ritual of marriage in church see Dominique Iogna-Prat, ‘L’espace sacramentel de l’église’, Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre, hors-série 7 (2013), pp. 1–24 at pp. 14–16. 30 As pointed out by Stone, Morality, p. 247. 31 For the full text see ‘Concilium Romanum I’, ed. Joannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio XII (Florence, 1766), pp. 262–6. 32 One interesting exception is a marriage contract added to the manuscript El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8 in the tenth century; it is only known from this manuscript and edited in the MGH Formulae, pp. 540–1.

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much about marriage itself, as concerned with the consequences of entering the married state. As we will see shortly, the rules about sexual behaviour for married people were, for instance, stricter than for unmarried laymen, who were given less penance for the same wrongdoing than their married neighbours. It is, moreover, interesting to see that in general terms, these basic principles do not seem to have changed in any significant way during the Carolingian period. What is more, those elements of marriage and married life that we encounter time and again in normative texts often predate the Carolingian period. The biggest change concerning marriage in the Carolingian period, therefore, does not seem to be the Christianisation of marriage, but rather the fact that relevant knowledge about Christian norms and regulations became available locally when churches and their priests became more widespread than before. What exactly a priests’ dossier could contain on the subject will now be outlined on the basis of two pastoral manuscripts. A good place to start is the manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, in which knowledge about marriage can be found in two handbooks of penance: the so-called penitential of Pseudo-Gregory III and that written by Halitgar of Cambrai.33 To start with the shorter text (f.67r–73v) ascribed to an unidentified Gregory,34 we find marriage or married people – among many other categories of clerics and laymen – under the chapter headings ‘On adultery’ (chapter IV), ‘On incest’ (chapter XI), ‘On corrupted virgins’ (chapter XVIII), ‘On those who have relations with animals’ (chapter XXII), ‘On married faithful people who sin with a jew or a gentile’ (chapter XXVII) and ‘On various minor sins’ (chapter XXX). Just the chapter headings illustrate well how it was not so much the act of marrying itself that concerned the author, but the many ways in which married people could sin against the sexual norms that came with the married state. For instance, under the heading of ‘various minor sins’, anal sex between husband and wife is mentioned as behaviour that deserved penance, while the chapter on sex with animals makes it clear that married people over the age of 20 who indulged in this deserved a more severe penance than those who were younger or ‘of less capacity’: married people needed to do ten years of penance, others sometimes just a single year.35 Stricter rules about sexual behaviour applied to married people.

33 For Halitgar see: ‘Halitgar of Cambrai, Collectio libri VI’, partly in H.J. Schmitz ed., Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisziplin der Kirche, nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt, 2 vols (Graz, 1958), II, pp. 274–300; the full text can be found in Halitgar of Cambrai, ‘De vitiis et virtutibus et de ordine poenitentium libri quinque’, PL 105, col. 651–710; the penitential of pseudo-­ Gregory III has been edited by F. Kerff, ‘Das Paenitentiale pseudo-Gregorii. Eine kritische Edition’, in H. Mordek ed., Aus Archiven und Bibliotheken. Festschrift für Raymond Kottje zum 65. Geburtstag (Frankfurt, 1992), pp. 161–88. 34 On this text see F. Kerff, ‘Das Paenitentiale Pseudo-Gregorii III. Ein Zeugnis karolingischer Reformbestrebungen’, ZRG 69 (1983), pp. 46–63; Meens, Penance, pp. 135–6. 35 Anal sex between husband and wife: Penitential of pseudo-Gregory here cited from the manuscript Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 72v: ‘Si quis vir cum sua uxore retro nupserit,

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Turning to Halitgar of Cambrai’s much longer, five-book penitential (f.3v–66r in the Gent manuscript), book four, on lay penance, contains nearly all of this work’s few chapters in which marriage or married people feature. The emphases are somewhat different from those in pseudo-Gregory’s penitential, but they are all familiar: Halitgar seems to have been less interested in sexual offences (although he includes several forms of adultery), but instead devotes what little attention he has for the subject to questions of divorce/separation, and to the issue of which people one could and could not marry. Chapter X, for instance, decrees that those who had been sent away by their husband or wife were not allowed to marry again but should try to work things out within their existing marriage.36 As for acceptable, that is legitimate, marriage candidates, as mentioned in chapter XIV, notions of incest underpin the decrees: nobody should marry two brothers or two sisters one after the other,37 nor people to whom one was related too closely.38 What deserves special mention in this context is how chapter XV features a priest blessing the spouses, and explains that marrying somebody else after such a blessing amounted to sacrilege – this is highly unusual in early medieval texts.39 The impression that this short sketch gives is that the handbooks of penance in the Gent manuscript offer knowledge about marriage that centres on the kinds of sinful behaviour for which married people, or those who wished to marry, were especially vulnerable: the wrong kinds of sex, the wrong choice of partner, separation and remarriage. Even though both penitentials just discussed were composed in the middle of the ninth century, these aspects of marriage are in general terms

corripiendus est ne faciat, et in semetipso peniteat.’ Sex with an animal: idem, Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 71r: ‘Si quis autem post xx annos habens uxorem in hoc fedissimo vitio corruerit, si cum buccula x annos peniteat… iuniores aetate minusque capaces vii annos peniteant uel iii aut unum annum.’ 36 Halitgar’s penitential, book IV, c. X here quoted from Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 41r: ‘De his qui uxores aut que viros dimittunt ut sic maneant. Placuit ut… neque dimissus ab uxore neque dimissa a marito alteri coniugatur sed ita maneant ut sibimet reconcilientur. Quod si contempserit ad penitentiam redigatur.’ 37 Halitgar’s penitential, book IV, c. XIV quoted from Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 42r: ‘De his qui duobus fratribus nubserit vel qui duas sorores uxores acceperit.’ 38 Halitgar’s penitential, book IV, c. XXII is a short version of the decrees of the Council of Rome of 721, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum XII, pp. 262–6, which turns up as a separate text in other manuscripts. On the important issue of legitimate and illegitimate partners via definitions of incest see Stone, Masculinity, pp. 255–61; Karl Ubl, Inzestverbot und Gesetzgebung: die Konstruktion eines Verbrechens (300–1100), Millennium Studies 20 (Berlin, 2008) who, however, mostly focusses on kings and nobles. Important remarks on this book: David D’Avray, ‘Review article: kinship and religion in the early middle ages’, Early Medieval Europe 20 (2012), pp. 195–212. 39 Halitgar’s penitential, book IV, c. XV quoted from Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506, f. 42r–v: Quod non liceat alterius sponsam ad matrimonii iura sortiri. De coniugali autem violatione requisisti disponsatam alii puellam alter in matrimonium [42v] possit accipere hoc ne fiat modis omnibus inibemus, quia illa benedictio qua nubture sacerdos inponit apud fideles cuiusdam sacrilegii instar est, si ulla transgressione violetur.

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not different from the ones addressed in earlier handbooks of penance or the canons of (much) earlier councils.40 Emphases vary, as do the specific details added, but the focus is generally on steering the behaviour of married people (or of those who wish to marry) in directions that avoided sin and respected Christian morality. This takes us to a second manuscript, Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 14508, in which the relevant texts are episcopal statutes, a canon law collection, and an extract from the Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum.41 Remarkably, the episcopal statute of Theodulf of Orléans has little to say about marriage – the bishop was only interested in marital sex, or rather, sexual abstinence by married people during the fast or in preparation of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. Sex between spouses, even though it was a legitimate activity when procreation was the purpose, was considered to be polluting nevertheless. In Theodulf ’s opinion, everybody should celebrate Easter or take communion in a pure state and therefore abstain from sex before such occasions.42 The two chapters (out of more than 100) that mention marriage in the canon law collection Collectio 53 titulorum, on the other hand, only pay attention to the (im)possibility of remarrying.43 Chapter XXXV centres on the question of whether remarriage was at all possible after a husband or wife had been sent away by their legitimate spouse (the answer was a clear ‘no’), whereas Chapter XLII touches upon marrying twice in a row (not permitted either).44 A special case is the excerpt in this manuscript of the Collectio Sangermanensis, a didactic work dating from the second half of the eighth century, which devotes book XXI in its entirety to the subject of marriage. The author quotes canon law, inserts sections from the writings of the Fathers of the Church and includes short sections of questions and answers that reveal a didactic purpose.45 The extract of the Collectio in the Munich manuscript was intended especially to suit the needs of (future) priests, and devotes more attention to the subject of marriage than any other text in the corpus of pastoral manuscripts.46 Here, then, we get to 40 On the long history of ideas about incest and illegitimate marriage: Ubl, Inzestverbot. See Meens, Penance, pp. 130–9. 41 See Keefe, Water and the word II, pp. 52–4. On the creation of this extract for the education of priests see Bastiaan Waagmeester, ‘Beyond the manuscript. Inquiries into a ninth century local priest and his social environment by means of his handbook (BSB clm 14508)’ (unpublished Research Master thesis Utrecht University 2016). Note that in this manuscript, the extract from book XXI breaks off after XXI, 10, and that book XXI has moved from the end of the text to a more central place. 42 Theodulf of Orléans, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, c. 43 and 44 MGH Cap.ep. I, pp. 139–40. 43 See the edition of Bernward Schmidt, Herrschergesetz und Kirchenrecht. Die Collectio LIII titulorum. Studien und Edition, Studien zur Geschichtsforschung des Mittelalters 21 (Hamburg, 2004), pp. 99–100 (c. xxxv) and pp. 104–5 (c. xlii). See Stone, Masculinity, pp. 268–74. 44 Chapter 35 and 42: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 142r–v; Schmidt, Herrschergesetz, pp. 99–100 and pp. 104–5. 45 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 75r–105r, at f. 97v–100v; only c. 1–10 of book XXI have been included in this extract. Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, pp. 339–48. For the date of the collection: Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, pp. 67–72. 46 As demonstrated by Waagmeester, ‘Beyond the manuscript’.

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see knowledge available to some priests (the Collectio was not a text copied very often47) that is a bit more specific on the moral issues just outlined. Book XXI opens with short explanations of the relevant terminology, much in the style of Isidore of Seville, to get to the true meaning of marriage, for instance: QUESTION: Why do we say coniux? (husband or wife) ANSWER: They are called coniuges after the yoke (iugum) which is imposed on

them by joining in matrimony.48

The chapters of book XXI are all concerned with defining good Christian marriage, and, more briefly, with ways of dealing with those marriages that did not work out as hoped. These themes are sandwiched in between a section about the qualities of good women, and one at the end that lists reasons for the rejection of a woman – men are not discussed in this way at all. Using the authority of St Augustine, but in fact quoting the Collectio Hibernensis, the author explains at the beginning of book XXI that the woman should be chaste, dowered legitimately, handed over by her consenting relatives (implying that abducting a woman or eloping with her could not result in a legitimate marriage49), and not divorced.50 At the end of the extract on marriage, the author also includes the reasons why a man would be allowed to leave his wife (again invoking St Augustine, but quoting the same Collectio Hibernensis): That is, if the wife is prone to drunkenness or aggression, if she is lecherous, gluttonous, quarrelsome, evil-speaking, or if it is discovered she is not a virgin.51 to which ‘Isidore and St Jerome’ (but again the Collectio Hibernensis) add, however: If she is sterile, deformed, aggressive, gluttonous, evil-speaking and the rest of it, willingly or unwillingly, she should be kept.52

47 See Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, pp. 86–104 for an overview of the extant manuscripts. 48 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 98r (ed. Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, XXI, 2, p. 341): ‘INT cur dicitur coniux? R coniuges dicte propter iugeum quod inponitur matrimonio coniungendis.’ Stadelmaier notes that this is a rephrasing of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, book IX, c. 7, 9. 49 On so-called ‘raptus’ see Stone, Morality, pp. 249–55. 50 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 98r (ed. Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, p.340): ‘AGUSTINUS dixit. Qualis esse debet uxor, quae habenda et secundum legem, id est virgo casta, si disponsata in virginitate, si dotata legitime et a parentibus tradita et a spunso non separata…’. Stadelmaier, Die Collectio, p. 340 identifies this as a rephrasing of the Collectio Hibernensis XLVI, 2. 51 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 100v: ‘Id est si tumulenta mulier, si iracunda, si luxoriosa, si golosa, si iurgatrix, si maledica, vel si non inventa est virgo…’. 52 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 100v: ‘Si sterelis, si deformis, si iracunda, si golosa, si maledica, et reliqua vellis nollis tenenda est.’

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This is a clear example of how the author of this Collectio was providing his audience with short, to-the-point mini-dossiers about important subjects, without telling them which authority (real or alleged) was right – even if they contradicted each other outright. A more substantial part of book XXI is, however, devoted to the definition of legitimacy: first of all, within which degree of kinship was marriage between relatives allowed?53 According to Gregory the Great in his Libellus Responsionum, the third or fourth degree would be acceptable ‘where it is necessary’ (so: between people who shared a great-grandparent or a great-great-grandparent), but marriage in the second degree (so: between people with the same grandparent) was out of the question. The Iudicia Theodori, however, stated how the Greeks accepted the third degree of kinship, but the Romans only the fifth. Again, the author of the Collectio did not give a final verdict but just showcased a few important but divergent points of view on the subject. The other element concerning legitimacy, only mentioned briefly, relates to the question of whether one was allowed to marry two brothers (one after the other), or any relative of a person one was married to before – the answer is without exception negative. That two manuscripts contain different information about marriage and the morality of married people is probably not very surprising in the light of the various acceptable norms and ideas about more or less any subject we encountered before. More interesting than this lack of uniformity is, to my mind, how common it was for priests to have access to such norms in the first place. Marriage and married life, so it seems, were standard elements of pastoral care. Even though marriage was no ecclesiastical ritual, this aspect of lay life was all the same treated like any other element of a Christian lifestyle: choice of partner, sexual (mis)behaviour and crises were defined in terms of sin and penance. Even though the details of norms included in pastoral books varied, it is clear that, throughout the Carolingian period, priests were expected to steer and monitor laymen in their choice of partners and in their conduct as married people, and to help them remedy sinful behaviour in the eyes of God. In this sense, there was no great difference between those with power and those without: there was surely more attention for divorcing kings and adulterous counts, but the general principles that encouraged all Christians to avoid incestuous marriages, sexual misbehaviour and divorce were and remained relevant for all married people.

4  Doctors of the soul, doctors of the body Already in the Carolingian period, there existed a long and well-established tradition of likening pastoral care to medicine for the soul: in the same way that doctors healed the body (leading to salus, health), those practising pastoral care 53 A lucid explanation of the problem: Mayke de Jong, ‘An unsolved riddle: early medieval incest legislation’, in: Ian Wood ed., Franks and Alamanni in the Merovingian period: an ethnographic perspective (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 107–40; Ubl, Inzestverbot, esp. pp. 14–26.

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healed the soul (leading to salus, salvation). Such metaphors appear in many different kinds of writings: the Fathers of the Church used them, authors of sermons and penitentials used them,54 and so did Carolingian rulers and bishops in their own prescriptive texts.55 With this set of well-established connotations already in place, it was probably just a small step for some compilers and users of pastoral manuscripts to include, or add in empty spaces, texts about physical health among the other pastoral material.56 After all, as Meg Leja has recently underlined, the ninth century witnessed a shift of thinking in which body and soul came to be viewed as ‘partners’ instead of two aspects of the human being (its material and its immaterial aspects) that were continuously struggling. Taking good care of the body as the home of the soul, therefore, became part of the road to salvation.57 It should be noted immediately that medical knowledge of any kind did not make it into pastoral manuscripts very often, that these texts are not especially numerous, and that they are never ascribed to an author. What is more, this medical material is usually brief and unassuming: they are invariably short texts or small snippets presumably extracted from longer works. The two recipes to remedy haemmorhoids mentioned earlier are a good example: they fill just four short lines in a substantial manuscript, and may well have been extracted from a longer receptarium. All the same, there are several good reasons to take a closer look at this material in pastoral manuscripts. The most self-evident of these is that, taken together, all the bits and pieces about physical health add yet another aspect to the range of skills and knowledge that could be part of pastoral care. At the same time, however, this material sheds light on two wider-ranging discussions: one about what exactly was considered to be ‘medicine’ in the early Middle Ages, another about whether such knowledge was confined to small, predominantly monastic, elites. The first discussion concerns the nature and scope of early medieval medicine, which is traditionally thought to have been a rather unoriginal, primitive and obscure affair.58 Whereas Carolingian scribes copied late antique medical compendia as enthusiastically as any other manuscripts, such collections also contained much that was considered to be superstitious or magical by those scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth century who studied them: to this tradition of schol 54 On the idea of penance as medicine, see Chapter 5. 55 See, for instance, the Capitulary of Châlons (813), MGH Cap. II, c. 34 where pastors are called ‘animarum medici’. Bishop Radulf of Bourges copied this entire chapter into his episcopal statute, MGH Cap.ep. I, c. 24, p. 252. 56 See Meg Leja, ‘The sacred art: medicine in the Carolingian renaissance’, Viator 47 (2016), pp. 1–34, at p. 30. 57 Meg Leja, Embodying the soul. Medicine and religion in Carolingian Europe (forthcoming, 2022), Chapter 2. I would like to thank the author for allowing me to read the book before its publication. 58 See Peregrine Horden, ‘What is wrong with early medieval medicine?’, Social History of Medicine 24 (2011), pp. 5–25. A negative view on early medieval medicine ‘in die dunkelsten Zeiten des Mittelalters’: Henry Sigerist, Studien und Texte zur frühmittelalterlichen Rezeptliteratur, Studien zur Geschichte der Medizin 13 (Leipzig, 1923), p. 14.

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arship, the only real medicine was that preserved from Greek and Latin Antiquity.59 As the various bits and pieces that ended up in pastoral manuscripts show, however, early medieval ideas about what texts were useful for healthcare paints a rather different picture. The second debate centres on the question whether access to such knowledge was confined to the learned, intellectual circles of the Carolingian world: did learned, medical compendia ever leave the libraries of the important centres of knowledge of the period? Finding (snippets of ) such texts in manuscripts for priests underlines how small sections of larger corpora may have travelled, and how such knowledge may even have ended up in rural contexts. Even though most of the material discussed below is found in the more extensive pastoral compendia that were probably intended to educate future priests, this means that these pastors were familiar with such writings and with some of the ideas behind them. In what follows I will first present the various kinds of texts that concern physical health in the relevant pastoral manuals, and then briefly discuss some implications of this material for each of the two bigger questions. Let us begin with a well-known category of health-related texts that is usually considered to belong to ‘real’ medical knowledge: that of recipes. These usually follow a format common since Antiquity: they begin with a title stating the purpose (‘against headache’) followed by a list of ingredients as well as instructions for preparation and use. Such recipes appear in three of the more extensive manuscripts that have been studied for this book, in two cases as slightly later additions. The two peppery concoctions against haemorrhoids in the manuscript Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, lat 2796 have been mentioned already. The second example is that of the manuscript El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, on the last page of which a series of recipes have been added by several hands. In this case too, we find remedies against common ailments such as pain in the chest (confectum pro pectus dolore) and ‘other pain’, as well as sciatica (nescia).60 Third, the manuscript London, British Library, Add. 19725, contains a series of remedies added by various hands in the margins of several folia. Interestingly, the recipes in this last manuscript do not stop at what may be wrong with human beings (such as a sore throat, ‘an abundance of sputum’ or gout), but extend to the ailments of domesticated animals such as sheep, pigs and cows.61 Looking at all 59 A good example is: Loren C. MacKinney, ‘An unpublished treatise on medicine and magic from the age of Charlemagne’, Speculum 18 (1943), pp. 494–6 in which the so-called Epistula vulturis is presented. Interestingly, this letter, which discusses how various body parts of a vulture can be used for medical or other purposes, was not early medieval at all but much older. See A.A. Barb, ‘The vulture epistle’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13 (1950), pp. 318–22, who explains that the text was translated from the Greek, probably going back to Egyptian origins. Also discussed by Horden, ‘What is wrong’, pp. 7–9. 60 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, f. 181v–182r and f. 183r. 61 These marginal additions have been studied by Ria Paroubek-Groenewoud, ‘Transfer of medical knowledge in the early middle ages. Medical texts in the margins of a ninth century non-medical manuscript (London BL Add 19725)’ (Unpublished RMA-thesis, University of Utrecht, 2019). See also the brief comments on these texts in Franz Kerff, ‘Frühmittelalterliche pharmazeutische Rezepte aus dem Kloster Tegernsee’, Sudhoffs Archiv 67 (1983), p. 111–16.

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the ingredients mentioned in the remedies in these three manuscripts, it is striking how they are usually substances that would have been easily available: the plants mentioned, such as sage (salvia) or potentilla (quinquefolium), are common in most of Europe to this day, and honey or salt surely featured in many kitchens. The only really expensive ingredient mentioned is pepper. That most ingredients were probably not hard to come by suggests practical purposes, and in that sense it is especially interesting to find them added to pastoral compendia. A pastor with this knowledge at hand could share remedies against common problems such as headaches and coughing sheep; such medicines could be put together from local ingredients at every kitchen table. A second category of texts with Classical antecedents found in pastoral manuscripts is that of regimens, which feature in two of our manuscripts. These texts do not so much focus on healing as on keeping good health, for which it offers advice per month of the year. Good health is promised to those who eat and drink certain things (but not other things), and follow advice concerning bloodletting. Hot baths or cold drinks in certain months should keep all four humours nicely balanced. Such texts, too, regularly inhabit the pages of the medical compendia of the time, but also appear in a variety of other contexts, which shows how interesting compilers found this material.62 Surely, the brevity and practicality of regimens added to their easy travel from one manuscript context to the other, which was presumably the reason for the compilers of pastoral compendia when they included them. In the manuscript St Petersburg, Publichnaja Biblioteka im. M.E. Saltykova Schedrina Q.V.I no. 56, f.10r–v, for instance, the reader learns that it is good to eat lots of leeks in October, that it is not advisable to undergo bloodletting in March, and that May was the month to have hot drinks and purge one’s head. A similar (but not the same) regimen has been included in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat 485 (f.13v–14r).63 What is striking in both texts is how none of the different types of food and drink mentioned is at all exotic: the discussions of what one should eat or avoid mention, for instance, root vegetables, beer, cabbage and milk. Like the recipes just discussed, this ‘kitchen table’ aspect of such texts gives the impression that they were intended for practical use, and that they were as useful in places not well-stocked with exotic or expensive ingredients as in better equipped monasteries.64 A completely different take on physical health, that is usually not regarded as part of medical knowledge but still reflects ideas about healthcare, can be found 62 See Beccaria, I codici; An interesting overview of some of the material is offered by Reiner Reiche, ‘Einige lateinische Monatsdiätetiken aus Wiener und St Galler Handschriften’, Südhoffs Archiv 57 (1973), pp. 113–41. 63 On this text in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485 see Faith Wallis, ‘Medicine in medieval calendar manuscripts’, in: Margaret R. Schleissner ed., Manuscript sources of medieval medicine. A book of essays (New York/London, 1995), pp. 105–43 at p. 112. 64 These findings are in line with the study of early medieval medical recipes by Claire Burridge, ‘An interdisciplinary investigation into Carolingian medical knowledge and practice’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge 2020), Chapter 5.

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in a large collection of prayers and short liturgical texts included in the Vatican manuscript just mentioned (f.49r to f.63v). This is a wide-ranging collection, and includes prayers that cover many subjects relevant to clergy ministering to a lay community. They range from well-known pastoral themes such as baptism and the creation of holy water to perhaps less self-evident pastoral activities such as the blessing of a freshly dug well or a new house. Some prayers beseech God to send more rain or to let the rain stop, others ask for a good harvest. In this collection full of couleur locale there is also room for prayers concerned with health.65 Pastoral care included the duty to visit the sick, and this collection provides the pastor with more than a dozen different prayers with which he could beseech God to restore the patient to health. For instance: God, who added three times five years to the life of Ezechias your servant, restore tohealth through your pious power also this servant of yours, who is in bed sick.66 The wording of the different prayers varies, but the idea is the same in every instance: recovery always comes from God.67 In this sense too, pastoral care and healthcare were closely bound together. In the eyes of the compilers and users of these manuscripts, there was clearly no contradiction between praying for health, adapting one’s diet to a regimen and mixing a medicine. Even if God in the end had the power to give and take health, this was no reason why a pastor should not pick medicinal herbs or learn about the right times for bloodletting.68 This question about when one should let blood takes us to yet another way of thinking about issues of health and sickness. Three of our pastoral compendia contain texts that connect issues of health and healthcare to the months of the calendar (based on the cycle of the sun) or to the course of the moon. Such texts, so-called prognostics, will be discussed more fully in the next chapter, but it is important to note here that this way of thinking about human health as connected to the movements of the sun and the moon predates the Christian era by several centuries, as does the idea that there were certain days in each month on which it would be potentially fatal to undergo medical treatment.69 In the 65 On this collection and its many sources see Frederick Paxton, ‘Bonus liber: A late Carolingian clerical manual from Lorsch (Bibliotheca Vaticana ms pal.lat. 485)’, in: Laurent Mayali and Stephanie A.J. Tibbetts eds, The two laws. Studies in medieval legal history dedicated to Stephan Kuttner (Washington D.C., 1990), pp. 1–30. 66 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, f. 56r: ‘Deus qui Ezechae famulo tuo ter quinos vitae addidisti annos, ita et hunc famulum tuum a lecto aegritudinis tua pia potentia erigat ad salutem.’ This prayer refers to 2 Kings 20, 1–6. 67 See Leja, ‘The sacred art’, pp. 13 and 28. 68 A similar argument is made by Frederick S. Paxton, ‘Signa mortifera: death and prognostication in early medieval monastic medicine’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 67 (1993), pp. 631–50, at p. 645. 69 For an introduction into the wider developments see Vivian Nutton, ‘Early-medieval medicine and natural science’, in: David C. Lindberg and Michael. H. Shank eds, The Cambridge History of Science 2 (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 323–40, at pp. 331–2.

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St ­Petersburg manuscript just mentioned, this last idea is expressed clearly by a short, incomplete text titled ‘Dies Egi’ (meaning: ‘Egiptiaci’), added at its very end: no person should take medicine or let blood on the two or three days of each month listed.70 That the occurrence of unlucky days had a rhythm that was repeated with every cycle of the sun is very similar to the idea of lunaries. Here, the 30-day cycle of the moon was thought to show ever-repeating patterns. One kind of lunary, included in the Vatican manuscript (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat.485) as part of the original compilation, offers the reader a very concise overview of the potential beneficial or dangerous effects of bloodletting for each day of the moon. This text, too, has the businesslike approach of a practical text: it lists the day of the moon (counted from 1 to 30, starting with the new moon), and sometimes mentions specific hours or parts of the day, in order to advise for or against bloodletting. We learn, for instance, that ‘the first day [of the moon] is good. The second is not. The third is good from the third hour onwards. The fourth is good in the morning…’.71 These two examples illustrate how time-reckoning and healthcare were connected in prognostic texts. Knowledge of computus, with its prominent place for the lunar cycle, in other words, would enable a priest not only to calculate the correct Easter date, but was also a gateway towards knowledge about health and healthcare.72 Those who knew how to discover the age of the moon could even find out whether a patient would live or die. A so-called Sphere of Apuleius was added somewhat later to another section of the manuscript. The page contains a circular diagram, an alphabet with numerical values for each of its letters written around the sphere, and a very short explanation of how to do the relevant calculations to find out whether the patient would survive or not. The sphere is divided horizontally into two halves. Each half contains numbers; if the outcome of the calculation was a number in the top half of the figure, the patient would live, if in the bottom half, he or she would die. The calculation itself adds the numerical value of the sick person’s name to the day of the moon,

70 St Petersburg, Publichnaja Biblioteka im. M.E. Saltykova Schedrina Q.V.I.56, f. 10v. The text is a somewhat later addition to the manuscript and is unfortunately too damaged to read without technical aid. A first exploration of several kinds of texts that list the Egyptian days: Annemarie Veenstra, ‘Understanding prognostic texts. On prognostic texts and their intellectual contexts in eighth and ninth century Carolingian manuscripts’ (unpublished RMA thesis, Utrecht University 2020). Lists of Egyptian days occur in other pastoral manuscripts too, but they usually lack the explicit link with bloodletting, see for instance Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, f. 87 (two different lists) and Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat. 612, f. 36r. In both cases, the Egyptian days are slightly later additions to the manuscript. 71 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, f. 15r: ‘Luna i bona est. Secunda non est. III ab hora tercia bona est. IIII matutino bona est…’. 72 Wallis, ‘Medicine in medieval calendar manuscripts’ makes several important points about the interrelatedness of computistic and medical knowledge.

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after which 30 is subtracted so often from the result until a number between 1 and 30 remains.73 The Sphere of Apuleius takes us rather far away from what we nowadays consider to be medicine or healthcare, and into the realm of what has often been thought to be folklore or superstition.74 Without entering into this old discussion here, it is relevant for the present context that the manuscripts in which the Sphere appears are without exception filled with learned, Christian material – there is no reason to think that early medieval readers and compilers had misgivings about its usefulness or trustworthiness.75 At the same time, the presence of such a Sphere and texts offering similar prognostic knowledge provides excellent examples of the fact that early medieval people thought very differently than we do about what should, and should not be considered as knowledge about healthcare. Modern discussions of early medieval medicine and knowledge about health and sickness are often full of judgements still informed by traditional scholarly ideas, and tend to focus on works by the famous doctors of Antiquity such as Galen and Hippocrates. Texts that express ways of thinking alien to our modern concepts were and are, meanwhile, often dismissed as primitive, folkloristic or superstitious, and this has had direct impact on the attention paid to such material in scholarly research. To this day, for instance, no study of early medieval prognostic texts exists that takes the full manuscript evidence on board, even though medical prognostics are often part of Carolingian medical compendia.76 In the end, moreover, modern opinions about what does or does not constitute early medieval thought about these matters is not very relevant – after all, what we want to know is how the early medieval compilers and users of these manuscripts thought, and what was, in their opinion, useful, reliable and interesting on the subject. To the compilers of pastoral compendia, so it seems, many kinds of knowledge about health were interesting as long as they were practical and practicable.

73 On the Sphere of Apuleius (sometimes called Sphere of Pytagoras) see: Roy Michael Liuzza, ‘The sphere of life and death: time, medicine, and the virtual imagination’, in: Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard eds, Latin learning and English lore. Studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge, Toronto Old English Studies (Toronto, 2005), vol. 2, pp. 28–52; on the late medieval Spheres in England see Joanne Theresa Edge, ‘Nomen omen: the ‘Sphere of Life and Death’ in England, c. 1200–c. 1500’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London 2015). 74 See, for instance, Lynn Thorndike, A history of magic and experimental science during the first thirteen centuries of our era, vol 1 (New York/London, 1923), pp. 683–4 and Appendix 1. However, the text that usually accompanies the Sphere (but minus the sphere itself ) has also been printed in early modern editions of the works of Bede, see Charles W. Jones, Bedae Pseudepigrapha: scientific writings falsely attributed to Bede (New York/London, 1939), pp. 11 and 90. 75 See Carine van Rhijn ‘Pastoral care and prognostics in the Carolingian period: the case of El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo, ms L III 8’, Revue Bénédictine 127 (2017), pp. 272–97. 76 Examples of medical compendia with prognostic texts can be found in Beccaria, I codici, no. 50, 55, 78, 117.

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On the basis of these admittedly few texts, it is nevertheless possible to make a few observations about the status of such material in these manuscripts. First of all, there is no visible distinction in the importance of what we now consider as very different kinds of knowledge about health and illness: recipes, regimens, prayers and lunaries found a home in the same manuscripts, and were sometimes added to pastoral compendia later, in all likelihood for practical purposes. This shows, second, that thinking about health could take many different shapes and forms in the early Middle Ages, reflected in a wide spectrum of possible forms of healthcare.77 People confronted with sickness could turn to a priest’s prayers, but herbal remedies might work equally well, as would bloodletting on the right day of the moon or simply a change of diet – one set of ideas did not exclude any of the others. That doctors of the soul could also be doctors of the body was, then, no far-fetched idea.78 Even though the manuscript evidence is far from abundant, it is clear that among the many kinds of knowledge that accumulated in pastoral compendia, texts about health featured too. The health of the soul did, in the end, require care for the body: it was through the body that a person sinned, but it was likewise through the body that these sins could be remedied by submitting to penance or doing good works.79 As a final remark on this dossier it is worth calling attention to the fact that the regimens, recipes and lunaria that ended up in pastoral compendia constitute, once again, interesting and important evidence of the connection of intellectual centres to the wider world. Such snippets taken from medical and computistic manuals show how not only the learned inmates of monasteries, or their colleagues living in a bishop’s entourage had access to this material. Even though most of the manuscripts discussed in this section may not have travelled with priests to local churches, (future) priests were exposed to these texts and ways of thinking, and may well have remembered some of it when the need arose in their pastoral practice.

5 Pastoral care and dispute settlement: the case of judicial ordeals The last example showing the potential extent of pastoral care and knowledge takes us into the area of legal procedure, and in particular that of the trial by ordeal. In first instance, this may sound somewhat surprising: it is well-known that priests were not allowed to be involved in secular cases, that they could not be oath-helpers, or even bring their own conflicts before a secular judge.80 Under 77 See Nutton, ‘Early-medieval medicine’, pp. 337–40, and Peregrine Horden, ‘Medieval medicine’ in: Mark Jackson ed., The Oxford handbook of the history of medicine (Oxford, 2011), pp. 40–60 at p. 51. Both authors draw similar conclusions on the various forms which early medieval ideas about healthcare and healing could take. 78 Leja, Embodying the soul, esp. ch. 4. 79 As argued by Leja, Embodying the soul, Chapter 2. 80 See, for instance, Gerbald of Liège, ‘Erstes Kapitular’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 20, c. 16 and n. 24 and 25 for many parallels in royal capitularies, canon law and other episcopal statutes.

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rare circumstances, however, the help of a priest was indispensable in secular law to help end disputes or cases that had exhausted all other possibilities for coming to a satisfactory solution. When witnesses were lacking, written evidence was absent or inconclusive, and the parties in a conflict could not resolve their differences in any other way, God could be asked for His judgement as a last resort.81 Such a procedure, always part of a secular trial presided over by a secular person with the power to judge, was staged by a priest in his role of intermediary between God and man; in this section we will investigate this role and look in more detail at the texts intended for ordeals included in pastoral manuscripts. In the cases where it was decided to try to resolve a conflict by seeking divine judgement, there were several ways to go about it. The first was through a duel, where it was believed that God would help the champion who defended the truth to defeat his opponent. Since there is no information about such procedures at all in the pastoral manuscripts, these will be not discussed any further here.82 The texts we do have in this corpus pertain to the second kind, the so-called unilateral ordeals. Here, the accused was required to show his or her innocence by undergoing a rather gruesome test, for example by putting a hand into a cauldron of boiling water, or by picking up a red-hot metal bar. In these instances, God was believed to show His judgement about guilt or innocence through the way the burns had healed (or failed to do so) after a set period of time. Even though the cases concerned were, as far as we know, usually land disputes or cases of theft and thereby secular, when it was decided to ask for a divine ordeal, the responsibility for asking God’s judgement was put squarely in the hands of the priest.83 That we find such texts in pastoral books, sometimes in the form of later additions, shows that these practices were deemed to be real possibilities for conflict resolution, and that priests needed to know at least a bare minimum in order to be able to deal with these situations as they arose. It has been pointed out by several scholars that the decision to resolve a case with a judicial ordeal was rare, and that their actual performance was even rarer. More often than not, the conflicting parties came to an agreement before the ordeal took place.84 According to Thomas Kohl, this discrepancy can in all prob 81 See (among substantial literature) Robert Bartlett, Trial by fire and water. The medieval judicial ordeal (Oxford, 1986); Vickie L. Ziegler, Trial by fire and battle in medieval German literature (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 1–3. 82 More about duels: Bartlett, Trial by fire, pp. 117–19; Warren Brown, Unjust seizure. Conflict, interest, and authority in an early medieval society (Cornell, 2001), p. 207; Lukas Bothe, ‘In die Vergangenheit gerichtete Wahrsagung? Gottesurteile als quasidivinatorische Praktiken im Prozessrecht der Lex Ribuaria’, in: Klaus Herbers and Hans-Christian Lehner eds, Mittelalterliche Rechtstexte und mantische Praktiken (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar, 2021), pp. 23–37 esp. pp. 32–5. 83 Examples of unilateral ordeals: Julia M.H. Smith, ‘Religion and lay society’, in: Rosamond McKitterick ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History II, c.700- c.900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 654–78 at pp. 671–2; Ziegler, Trial by fire, pp. 5–7. 84 Most of this goes back to important research by R. Hübner, ‘Gerichtsurkunden der fränkischen Zeit. Erste Abteilung’, ZRG Germ. Abt. 12 (1891), pp. 1–118. See for instance Janet L. Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement in Carolingian West Francia’, in: Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre eds, The

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ability be explained by the fact that the mere idea of having to undergo divine judgement (and, one might add, severe physical pain) exerted enough pressure on the parties in a dispute to stimulate them to find a different solution.85 What may also have played a role in the infrequent occurrence of recorded ordeals is that, from the early decades of the ninth century onward, several authoritative voices were heard expressing objections against such practices. The best-known opponent is probably Agobard, archbishop of Lyon, who sometime between 817 and 822 composed a tract rejecting judicial ordeals in no uncertain terms.86 His main points of criticism were that divine ordeals had no biblical precedents, and that God’s will is hidden to mere mortals and cannot be discovered through water or iron.87 Whether such objections had far-reaching effects is, however, doubtful. Agobard’s work survives in only one manuscript,88 and the mere fact that several pastoral manuals contain texts relevant for judicial ordeals suggest that debates about the validity and desirability of these practices existed but did not influence lived practice to such an extent that ordeals disappeared as a result.89 Moreover, that ordeals did not make it into historical records very often does not automatically imply that they did not happen. The texts relevant for this ritual in pastoral manuscripts seem to imply, quite to the contrary, that they were intended for practical use and constituted knowledge that should be at hand. On the basis of the texts preserved in pastoral manuscripts that were intended for use during an ordeal, it is immediately clear that there was no set, single way of going about the procedure. In each manuscript, the text or texts (or combinations of texts) are different – even though they are sometimes related, as we will see below – and vary in length. In the five manuscripts that contain such texts, we find evidence for three different types of ordeal (hot water, cold water, red-hot iron), for which texts varying from a one-line prayer to a description of the entire procedure have been copied. One element that they have in common (apart from the invocation of God’s judgement) is that they show unequivocally how, within the context of the entire legal procedure, the priest organised and managed the various stages of the ritual, which could involve the celebration of Mass, the blessing of the participants and the consecration of the attributes needed for the ritual. settlement of disputes in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 45–64 at p. 54; Thomas Kohl, Streit, Erzählung und Epoche. Deutschland und Frankreich um 1100 (Stuttgart, 2019), pp. 130–2. 85 Kohl, Streit, p. 131. 86 Agobard of Lyon, ‘De divinis sententiis contra iudicium Dei’, ed. Lieven van den Acker, Agobardi Ludgunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 31–49. The text found some contemporary reception, for instance in the anonymous poem Carmen de Timone comite, MGH Poet. I, pp. 120–4, which is discussed by Brown, Unjust seizure, pp. 1–3. 87 Agobard, ‘De divinis sententiis’. No biblical precedents: c. 2 at p. 31; hidden truths will not be revealed by iron or water: c. 6, p. 34. Kohl, Streit, p. 132. 88 This is Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2853, which dates from s.ix/x. See Van den Acker, Agobardi, p. li. 89 For instance H.-J. Becker, ‘Gottesurteil’, Lexicon des Mittelalters 4 (Stuttgart, 1977), cols 1594–5 argues that these objections fell onto deaf ears and had no effect on lived practice.

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Five of the manuscripts studied for this book contain longer or shorter texts needed for an ordeal.90 The Vatican manuscript Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat 485, first of all, contains just one relatively short text (it is a little over 200 words long), which combines a prayer with a few stage directions for an ordeal by hot water. In this manuscript, the text has survived in the context of the large collection of prayers about many different subjects mentioned before; it is the only one for an ordeal in the entire collection. Succinct though it may be, the text is nevertheless interesting enough to merit some attention here and serve as a starting point for the discussion of the other examples. The prayer opens with the priest’s invocation of God, whom he calls ‘just and strong and patient judge, (You) Who are the creator and lover of mankind, Who judges them fairly’.91 This sets the stage for the ritual: by this prayer the priest puts himself between God and the accused, as it were. The priest then asks God to sanctify the boiling water, and implores Him: just as You saved Sidrac, Misac and Abdenego from the hot oven, and had them led away unharmed by Your angel, and in the same way that You freed Susanna from a false crime, o most clement Dominator, allow that if somebody who is innocent of this theft that we endeavor to examine, and puts his hand in this boiling water, he be led away safely and unharmed.92 Then follows a second invocation, in which the priest beseeches God that the truth be revealed so that the accused can save his soul through penance, even if the devil has hardened his heart and made him put his hand into the cauldron. Special mention is made of those who try to hide their crime by a wicked deed (maleficium) or with the help of ‘diabolical herbs’ (herba diabolica); surely God will see through that immediately. At this point, the prayer stops. The last sentence of the text explains what should happen next: the priest should spread the smoke of myrrh and take up the cauldron with which the ordeal would be performed. And thus, so the text concludes, every theft will be proven.93 The text does not discuss the activities that follow from this point on. 90 Unfortunately, one of these texts is no longer legible without technical aid: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796 contains a ‘Benedictio aquae ferventis’ on f. 152v–153v. According to Mordek, Bibliotheca, p. 431, this text is related to no. 2b of the MGH Formulae, pp. 605–7. It therefore belongs to the same family as the prayer for the hot-water ordeal described below. 91 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485 f. 63r: ‘…Deus iudex iustus et fortis et patiens qui auctor et amator es hominum et iudicas aequitatem…’. 92 This text has been edited, without this manuscript, as element b (in variant a) of the second of the Iudicia aquae ferventis, caldarii pendentis, ferri in the MGH Formulae on p. 605. Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, f. 63r: ‘…tu clementissime Dominator praesta ut si quis innocens de hoc furto, de quo indagare nitimur, in hanc aquam ferventem manum miserit, salvam et inlaesam educat….’. 93 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, f. 63r: Tu Domine omnipotens fac si quis culpabilis est de hoc furto, et incrassante diabulo, corde indurato, manum in eam mittere presumpserit, ut Tua ueritas hoc declaret ut animam suam

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Three elements stand out here. First of all, the prayer is explicit about the nature of the crime, namely theft. This is, more or less by definition a crime for which witnesses and other forms of evidence were usually not abundant. Disputes about such cases, then, were likely to end in a deadlock where the word of the accuser had to be weighed against that of the accused. It does not take a big stretch of the imagination to picture such a situation leading to resentment, animosity and unrest within a local community, exactly the kind of setting where a divine ordeal could offer a solution. Second, the kind of resolution asked from God was an answer to the thus far unanswerable question of whether or not the accused was innocent. The proceedings, even though they were potentially very painful for the person undergoing them, were, in other words, believed to answer the question and lay the case to rest. However, even in this context, there was apparently room for doubt, and for people manipulating the outcome.94 Apart from the use of maleficia and herbs, the factor to take into account here is that of how to interpret the wounds: what exactly constituted an arm that was healing well? When was a wound festering so much that it spelled guilt? The eye of the beholder, probably that of the judge (perhaps amongst other people), may well have been the decisive factor. Third, the role implied for the priest is a double one: as we have just seen, he first of all stage-managed the ritual as part of the trial, and may well have had a voice in the interpretation of the outcome. Apart from that, however, another role implied in the text was that of confessor and dispenser of penance in case the accused was found guilty and needed to heal his soul. In this sense, too, it was crucial to discover the truth, for if the accused got away with successfully hiding his crime, his chances of salvation were gone. The other examples of texts for ordeals in the remaining manuscripts show similar patterns. The second instance is that of the manuscript Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 14508. Here we find, as an addition at the end of the book (in an early medieval hand), two prayers needed for two kinds of ordeals. The second prayer concerns an ordeal by hot water, and is shorter but otherwise quite similar to the one we just discussed. The first prayer, titled ‘consecration of iron’ (consecratio ferri), is even shorter (73 words), and very pragmatic and to-the-point. Here, the priest asks God the iudex iustus to bless the iron, so that the accused, if innocent of the unspecified crime, could hold the hot iron in his per paenitentiam salvet. Si autem quis per quoddam maleficium aut per herbas diabolicas peccatum suum celare, aut furtum facere voluerit, tua dextera hoc evacuare dignetur, per unigenitum filium tuum Domini nostro. Postea vero fumo myrrae odoretur et sumetur caldarium, tam subtus quam in circuitu, et sic omne furtum probabitur. 94 This element of uncertainty is interesting and merits further research. It is reminiscent of what Roy Flechner describes about the way that the Collectio Hibernensis book 25, c. 3 warns that demons could interfere with the outcome of lot-casting, a ritual here interpreted as a form of divine judgement. See Roy Flechner, ‘Divination and lot-casting in early medieval canonical collections. The Hibernensis and the Corbie redaction of the Vetus Gallica’, in: Herbers and Lehner eds, Mittelalterliche Rechtstexte un mantische Praktiken, pp. 55–64 at p. 60.

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hand and come away unscathed. The purpose of the proceedings, so the prayer concludes, is that the truth wins over falsehood.95 While this prayer leaves the contents of the accusation open, and it omits the possibility of deception, it is explicit about wishing to find the truth and giving the accused the chance to purge himself of the accusation. The role of the priest as the intermediary between man and God, again, is similar to the previous example, although no mention is made of penance. The third example, that of London, British Library, Add. 19725, reads like a somewhat garbled form of the prayer for the ordeal by boiling water. We find it between some computistic material and an episcopal statute, as part of the original compilation. The prayer has no title, and compared with the prayer we started out with, it only transmits some form of the second part. This means that the context has disappeared: the priest’s opening invocation of God’s mercy has disappeared from the prayer, and so has the mention of a crime and of somebody accused of that crime. What remains is, perhaps, the essence of the matter: that God helps in finding veritas, the truth, that a guilty person may be saved by penance, and that attempts at obfuscation of the truth be revealed.96 My last example concerns yet another kind of ritual, that of the ordeal by cold water, for which we have the most elaborate text of this dossier in a single manuscript: Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat. 612.97 The opening of the text immediately shows its practical nature: ‘When you wish to put men into cold water for an ordeal, this is what you have to do’.98 The description of the ritual then takes the reader through the procedure step by step, starting with bringing those who wish to undergo this ordeal to church so that

95 These two prayers occur together in manuscripts more often, see the edition in the MGH Formulae, no. 2, pp. 605–7, for which this manuscript has been used. The first prayer reads as follows in the manuscript f. 146v: CONSECRATIO FERRI. Deus iudex iustus qui auctor pacis est et iudicas aequitatem, te suppliciter rogamus ut hoc ferrum ordinatum ad iustam examinationem, cuiuslibet dubietatis faciendam, benedicere et sanctificare digneris, ita ut si innocens de prenominata causa unde purgatio querenda est, hoc ignitum in manus acceperit inlesus appareat, et si culpabilis atque reus, iustissima sit ad hoc virtus Tua in eo cum veritate declarandum, quatinus iustitiae non dominetur iniquitas, sed subdatur falsitas veritati. Per dominium. 96 Since this prayer was unknown to Zeumer, I quote it in full here. London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 31v–32r: Manum miserit salvam et inlesam educat. Ita Domine omnipotens si quis est culpabilis, ingravante diabolo induratum, presumpserit manum suam mittere, Tua iustissime sicut veritas hoc declarat huius in corpore suo tua veritate manifesta. Ut animam penitentia salvet, et si quis culpabilis per aliquo malefacio aut per herbas peccata sua tenere voluerit, tua dextera hoc evacuare dignetur. Per unigenitum Dominum nostrum Ihesum Christum filium Tuum, qui Tecum semper vivit et regnat. Per. 97 For the edition on the basis of this manuscript see MGH Formulae, pp. 619–20. 98 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat. 612, f. 39r: ‘Cum homines vis mittere in aquae frigida et d (sic) probationem, ita facere debes.’

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they can hear Mass, and ending with a statement of authority. It is worth citing this in full, for it shows another side of the coin in the time that Agobard voiced his criticism: This judgement was created by the Almighty God because it is true, and the blessed Pope Eugenius and the Lord Emperor Louis99 established it so that all men, bishops, abbots, counts in all regions will do this; and it has been proven to us that it is doubtlessly certain and true; this has been created so that men cannot commit perjury in the Holy of Holies.100 Even though there is no way of establishing the authenticity of this claim, it is interesting as a frame: it suggests the ritual was approved by emperor and pope, and that it was safe to use for everybody. What is more, it suggests shared concern about the reliability of the ritual. The ritual as a whole consists of several steps: after those who have to undergo the ordeal have heard Mass, the priest asks them if they are really innocent, for otherwise they should not take communion or approach the altar. Next, the priest takes communion, and after him the men do the same. The priest then blesses water, and takes it to the location where the ordeal will take place. Once there, he gives each of the men a sip of blessed water, after which they undress, kiss the Holy Gospel and a cross, and, the text continues, after this, he sprinkles this blessed water on each man, and throws them, one by one, into the water immediately.101 The text then gives the two prayers needed in the ritual, the first a consecration of water, the second a consecration of a man. The first prayer entreats the water (with appropriate biblical parallels) not to accept the man who is guilty in any way. This means that whoever sinks, and is ‘accepted’ by the water, is innocent (and should be fished out before drowning), while floating indicated guilt. The second one entreats each man by an impressive series of saints, elders and angels, that the water may not receive him if guilty, nor allow him to use any maleficium 99 This refers to Pope Eugenius II (824–27) and Emperor Louis the Pious; Agobard wrote his tract against judicial ordeals somewhat earlier, between 817 and 822. 100 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat. 612, f. 39v: Hoc iudicium creavit omnipotens Deus, quia verum est, et beatus papa Eugenius et domno Hludovicus imperator illi constituerunt, ut istud faciant omnes homines, episcopi, abbati, comiti, in omnem regionem, et probatum est apud nos et certum et verum est utique. Id hoc autem inventum est ut non licet homines periurare in sancta sanctum. In the manuscript, the text is followed by a set of (undeciphered) tironian notes, and a later medieval note in clear black ink saying ‘Hoc iudicium creavit omnipotens Deus.’ 101 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat. 612, f. 39v: ‘Et post haec de ipsa aqua benedicta aspergit super unumquemque hominem et proiciat eos statim per singulos in aqua.’

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to subvert the ritual with success.102 Interestingly, the descriptive part of the text also mentions that the men should not have fasted before undergoing the ordeal, presumably so that an empty stomach did not help them float and wrongly showed them guilty.103 This last example illustrates well how we should imagine an ordeal from beginning to end, and what setting we should picture for those rituals. That the prayers discussed above were lifted from similar, longer descriptions is likely,104 but clearly they could also be used without their original context. The addition of the two prayers that consecrated hot water and hot iron in the manuscript Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 14508, for instance, makes very little sense without some practical reason to include them. The variety of prayers and other elements of the ritual, meanwhile, suggest considerable freedom in the wording and organisation of an ordeal. It could well be that, in a similar way that we saw for the ritual of baptism, a series of set elements needed to be there for the ritual to work and be acceptable, but that there was considerable flexibility elsewhere. The handful of texts in the pastoral compendia are of course not enough to make into more than a hypothesis (and further research into ordeals is beyond the scope of this book), but what we have suggests that one central prayer may have been enough to go on for a priest asked to perform the ritual. The two main points that this dossier about ordeals has shown us, are, then, the following. First of all, the pastoral manuscripts do not contain any indication at all that ordeals were considered to be controversial in any way. Some scribes or compilers included mostly short texts into priests’ manuscripts to equip their users for the occasion. The most common use of ordeals seems to have concerned cases that were committed secretly and therefore lacked witnesses or evidence, which put them beyond the scope of secular judgement. This brings us to the second point that of the special position of the priest as a person who could perform the rituals needed for a judicial ordeal. We have seen how this ritual cast him clearly in his usual position of intermediary between man and God, but in this case there is something extra: by virtue of the judicial nature of these occasions, it also made the priest into a guardian of truth, and a helper in the resolution of disputes. Marriage, medicine and judicial ordeals may have appeared as three rather unconnected fields of expertise at the beginning of this chapter, but on closer inspection it is easily recognisable how each of them connects to the priest’s central responsibilities of pastoral care. All three types of knowledge share the need for education, literacy and access to written texts to create expertise.

102 For the full text see MGH Formulae, p. 620. 103 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat 612, f. 62v: ‘Haec autem omnia facere debeat ieiunus, neque illi antea comedant qui ipsos mittant in aqua.’ This is the last sentence before the two prayers start. 104 The MGH Formulae contains instances where these prayers are part of a longer ritual.

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The way to understand the inclusion of these themes in pastoral compendia is, I think, through pastoral care ‘Carolingian style’, the basis of which was a combination of pastors living in lay rural settlements with their education and literacy. Building on these two factors, the guardian of souls could become the neighbour with expertise and books, and this ‘stretched’ the notion of pastoral care into areas that were traditionally not part of a priest’s core duties. All three types of expertise can be seen as extensions of central characteristics of a pastor’s ministry. Knowledge about marriage, first of all, could help lay people avoid incestuous or illegitimate unions, which would imperil their souls – knowledge of canon law and the intricate workings of kinship structures was fundamental here. Even though marriage was not an ecclesiastical ritual, in other words, pastoral advice was important to ensure its living up to Christian standards all the same. Some expertise in medicine, second, can be interpreted as an extension of the pastor’s function as a healer of souls, especially from the new Carolingian perspective that taking good care of one’s body was also a way of caring for the soul. In the way that penance led to the healing of spiritual damage created by sin, herbal mixtures, bloodletting or a healthy diet could improve the health of those who had physical ailments. Medical compendia, usually kept in monastic or episcopal libraries, were central for the transmission of this knowledge. The case of ordeals, finally, emphasises most of all the priest’s ritual role within the context of wider legal procedures as the ordained intermediary between lay communities and their stern God. Apart from the workings of rituals, the pastor also needed to be acquainted with the relevant secular legal procedures to fulfil his role properly in these cases. As we have seen in each of these cases, only some priests had access to some of this knowledge through some manuscripts. This suggests that the expansion of pastoral knowledge could vary substantially from one place to the next, but also that the core of a priest’s knowledge attracted related texts and expertise. There is no doubt that this was a Carolingian development, first witnessed by the emergence of manuscripts like the ones described in this chapter. The list of themes that could be explored further to demonstrate that priests became experts in more than pastoral care in a narrow sense during the ninth century is, of course, longer than the three discussed here – some more will feature in the next chapter.

7 THE EDGES OF ORTHODOXY

1  Introduction The early medieval world in which pastoral manuscripts were compiled, studied and used was not populated by model Christians alone. At least in the minds of those who wrote, read or heard normative and other admonitory texts, received pre-baptismal Christian education or talked to a confessor in order to receive penance for sins committed, there existed people other than those who held orthodox beliefs and behaved according to pastoral advice only. Unsurprisingly, priests’ compendia present a world which is predominantly populated by (idealised) good Christians who, even though they needed continuous admonishment and education, were on their way to heaven and did their best to reach this ultimate goal. A much smaller, but all the same significant role is played by groups on the opposite side of the spectrum: people deemed dangerous for their false beliefs, people involved in un-Christian practices, people who tried to lure good Christians off the right path. These were the heretics, the pagans, and also the many hard-to-interpret categories of people offering dubious knowledge that appear in our manuscripts with some regularity, such as malefici (‘evil-doers’), mathematici (star-gazers) and divini (diviners). These categories mattered, even if they were perhaps more rhetorical in nature than that such characters could potentially be one’s next door neighbour. Although it is unlikely that inhabitants of the Carolingian kingdoms ever met a living and breathing heretic, for instance, the idea was important that such non-Christian people existed and could spread dangerous ideas.1

1 For an interesting example of ‘heretics’ in the middle of the eighth century, which shows how heresy could be in the eye of the beholder: Sven Meeder, ‘Boniface and the Irish heresy of Clemens’, Church History 80 (2012), pp. 251–80. About the ideas surrounding pagans see James

DOI: 10.4324/9781315149981-11

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This chapter investigates what light priests’ manuscripts can shed on pastoral knowledge and perceptions of such others, who form the starkest contrasts with the ideal good Christian. It does, however, not include the most obvious and familiar category of outsiders to Christian authors of the early Middle Ages: that of grave sinners who needed to do the kind of penance that excluded them from normal social interaction, and from participation in Christian rituals.2 Such people were, in a manner of speaking, temporary outsiders, who were held up as negative examples to their fellow-members of Christian communities. Even though they may well have committed horrible sins, they were, however, without exception baptised Christians who strayed through human weakness, and could eventually be reconciled with God through penance and pastoral admonishment. In this sense, sinners doing penance were solidly embedded within the society of Christians, which was well-equipped to save such straying souls through pastoral care. The people and practices that will concern us here were of a different kind: pagans and heretics were per definition not part of the orthodox Christian church, while those involved in suspicious practices were of a more uncertain status. Of these three groups of others, heretics appear the least often in pastoral manuscripts. Such people were understood as ‘wrong’ Christians who deliberately chose to hold unorthodox beliefs and thereby willingly caused their own damnation. What is more, heretics were known to try and convince others of their ideas, thereby spreading dissent; this made them extra threatening. When heretics make one of their infrequent appearances in texts in one of the priests’ manuscripts, they are usually there to emphasise the wrongness of their beliefs and behaviour in contrast with those of good Christians, and generally, they appear as a phenomenon of the past. In the corpus of pastoral compendia, I have not found more than a few indirect traces of contemporary, Carolingian heretics and their ideas, or even of doctrinal debates that produced heretics such as those about double predestination, adoptionism or iconoclasm. People holding theologically unorthodox beliefs in the Carolingian period itself, therefore, do not seem to have played any role of significance in teaching priests and laymen how to be good Christians. All the same, the real or imagined heretics that do occasionally appear in priests’ books were potentially dangerous others in ways relevant to pastoral care. Pagans and their – real or imagined – practices show up slightly more frequently in the corpus, and they appear in an interesting variety of texts and contexts. Their roles are generally negative in those texts that do mention them. Interestingly though, not every pagan was evil per definition. Some kinds of knowledge, as we will see, were known to be thought up and written down by Palmer, ‘Defining paganism in the Carolingian world’, Early Medieval Europe 15 (2007), pp. 402–25; Yitzhak Hen, ‘The early medieval West’, in: D.J. Collins ed., The Cambridge history of magic and witchcraft in the West. From Antiquity to the present (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 183–206. 2 See Chapter 5; Rob Meens, Penance in early medieval Europe, 600–1200 (Cambridge, 2014), ch. 4.

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pagans, but that did not make such ideas automatically wrong or un-Christian.3 What we find most often, typically in prescriptive and adhortative texts, are warnings not against pagan people, but against practices that had a pagan or suspicious undertone in some way. People involved in such practices were the most sinister and threatening type of ‘other’ by far: these were the diviners, magicians, star-gazers and more generic ‘evil-doers’ (malefici) that everybody should watch out for. We encounter such people in normative texts such as handbooks of penance and conciliar decrees, but also in sermons and episcopal admonishments to priests and laity both. Many of their practices, for instance the type of divination that sortileges, ‘lot-casters’, were allegedly involved in, were considered – at least by the authors of these texts – to be un-Christian for several reasons: they evoked connotations of the pagan past, but also of the kind of unlearned, superstitious stupidity that bordered on the un-Christian.4 Since every Christian should know that only God could see the future, any kind of prediction, lots included, potentially involved acts of sacrilege. At the same time, however, there were also other ways of thinking about such practices: did the Bible itself not contain examples of accepted lot-casting, for instance when the apostle Matthias was elected (Acts 1, 23–26)? Did not learned churchmen themselves need to study the night-sky in order to establish the correct Easter date? Did God not reveal His will through signs (such as comets, earthquakes, thunder)? In such cases, the distinction between ‘we’ and ‘the others’, or between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Christians was clearly more complicated than sermons and prescriptive texts would like their intended audiences to believe. What exactly all of those practices listed in the sermons and normative texts entailed we have no way of knowing – what kinds of evil did malefici do exactly, and what did mathematici do with their observations of the night sky? Generally speaking, however, it seems that most of these dubious practitioners offered knowledge about important everyday worries, such as health, the harvest, what decision one should take (for instance: travel or stay home?) and what the future held. The pastoral compendia invariably warn against long lists of people who offered such services, but also against the practices themselves. Penitentials prescribe penance for those Christians who consulted such people or tried such practices out themselves. Clearly, then, there was such a thing as approved and rejected forms of healthcare, of decision-taking and of thinking about the future. What is more, many researchers have pointed out how more or less standardised lists of unacceptable practitioners and practices had circulated for centuries by the

3 This certainly did not go for all kinds of pre-Christian learning, see Mariken Teeuwen, ‘Seduced by pagan poets and philosophers: suspicious learning in the early middle ages’, in: Concetta Giliberto and Loredana Teresi eds, The transfer of encyclopaedic knowledge in the early middle ages, Mediaevalia Groningana NS 19 (Leuven, 2013), pp. 63–80. 4 On the history of lot-casting see Annemarie Luijendijk and William E. Klingshirn eds, My lots are in Thy hands: sortilege and its practitioners in Late Antiquity (Leiden/Boston, 2019); Robert Wiśniewski, Christian divination in late Antiquity (Amsterdam, 2020), esp. ch. 5.

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time they were written down in Carolingian manuscripts. We should therefore wonder how and why these warnings and prohibitions were deemed relevant for pastors and their flocks.5

2  Interpretations Scholarly interpretations of the pagans, heretics and dubious practitioners mentioned in early medieval texts have diverged widely over the past century, and even the last decades have seen remarkable changes in the explanation of these phenomena. It is not my intention here to describe in detail how and why these changes came about, or to propose new interpretations. Instead I would like to contribute to our understanding of these real or perceived ‘other’ people and practices by offering some perspectives on such people via the pastoral compendia. Two lines of questioning are especially relevant here. First of all, to what extent were all these people and practices considered to be real threats? Did Christian communities actually have the possibility of consulting a diviner, or meeting a pagan of the sort that the texts describe? Were our texts, in other words, to some extent field notes of concerned clerics, or do they constitute a literary, written reality that did not bear much resemblance to what people experienced in their daily lives? The second, related question is the extent to which we should interpret the categories in the texts as active strategies of othering and exclusion. Are all these norms and prohibitions part of the tried and trusted way of defining good Christians through the identification of what they should not be? When a bishop wrote that no Christian should seek the advice of a diviner, for instance, should we imagine that there were people peddling these services everywhere? Was this a way of framing knowledge about the future that was delivered by people considered suspicious by the bishop as out of bounds? Historians are usually well aware that the perception of beliefs and practices as (un) acceptable was to a large extent in the eye of the beholder, and this only expands the number of possible interpretations.6

5 The literature is substantial, some important voices are: Dieter Harmening, Superstitio. ­Ü berlieferungs- und theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur kirchlich-theologischen Aberglaubensliteratur des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1979); Jean Gaudemet, ‘Les collections canoniques, miroir de la vie sociale’, in: E. Dravasa e.a. eds, Réligion, société et politique: Mélanges en hommage à Jacques Ellul (Paris, 1983), pp. 243–53; William E. Klingshirn, ‘Isidore of Seville’s taxonomy of magicians and diviners’, Traditio 58 (2003), pp. 59–90; Bernadette Filotas, Pagan survivals, superstitions and popular cultures in early medieval pastoral literature, Studies and Texts 151 (Toronto, 2005); James Palmer, ‘Defining paganism’; Yitzhak Hen, ‘The early medieval West’. A useful overview: Patrick Hersperger, Kirche, Magie und “Aberglaube”. Superstitio in der kanonistik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts (Cologne/Weimar/Vienna, 2010), pp. 155–95. The question of topos versus lived reality is also an important theme in most of the contributions to Klaus Herbers and Hans-Christian Lehner eds, Mittelalterliche Rechtstexte und mantische Praktiken, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 94 (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar, 2021). 6 A point eloquently made by Hen, ‘The early medieval West’, p. 199.

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Important voices in these debates have come up with different ways of reading the sources: interpretations range from field-notes reflecting ‘real’ people and practices to the literary and largely rhetorical. Where Valery Flint, for instance, interpreted the sources as evidence for a process of incorporation of active pagan practices into early medieval Christianity through a process of negotiated conversion, Dieter Harmening, James Palmer and others have made a case for the dominance of ‘literary’ pagans and practices, in times where living and breathing pagans could, by and large, only be found beyond the borders of the Frankish kingdoms.7 Practices or beliefs such as star-gazing, ‘alternative medicine’ and attempts at influencing the weather, in turn, have been thought of as evidence for surviving pre-Christian practices (possibly without any religious connotation), as rather harmless Christian folk beliefs or superstitions, or as no more than repetitions of literary conventions.8 My approach here will be mostly limited to what we can derive from texts included in pastoral manuscripts. Since priests looked after the souls of illiterate lay communities, it is not hard to imagine that they needed to know how to fortify their flocks against the dangers of unorthodox beliefs, unacceptable practices and old habits that may have had more than a whiff of the pagan about them. This chapter will therefore investigate what knowledge, images and ideas pastors could potentially use to warn Christians away from such harmful influences. It comes in two sections. The first part of this chapter will be about pagans and heretics as well as unacceptable practices as they appear in a variety of texts in pastoral compendia. The way in which these ‘other’ people and practices are presented in such texts show the flip side of everything that pastoral care stood for, and underlines the dangers of not heeding the priest’s advice. As we will see, pagans, heretics and objectionable practitioners each have their own profile in the pastoral compendia; especially the practices considered dangerous and un-Christian appear as acutely threatening for Christian souls. The second part of this chapter will build upon the first, and apply its findings to an interesting and little-researched type of text that appears with some frequency in pastoral compendia: that of prognostic texts. For instance lunaries, which offer ever-repeating cycles of predictions about a wide range of subjects per day of the 30-day cycle of the moon, or lists of unlucky Egyptian days, have long been interpreted as evidence for lingering paganism, or for the widespread existence of all those dangerous, or even non-Christian practices we encounter in sermons and prescriptions.9 Given the normative texts that condemn the 7 Valery Flint, The rise of magic in medieval Europe (Oxford, 1991); Harmening, Superstitio; Palmer, ‘Defining paganism’; Hen, ‘The early medieval West’. 8 One famous early example of a work that took at face value texts expressing pagan or superstitious knowledge: Thomas Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England, 3 vols. (London, 1864–66, repr. 2015), esp. the preface in vol. I, pp. ix–xiii; for the influential view according to which mentions of superstitious practices had little direct practical relevance, but should be interpreted as topoi most of the time see Dieter Harmening, Superstitio. 9 A first exploration of this subject: Carine van Rhijn ‘Pastoral care and prognostics in the Carolingian period: the case of El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo, ms L III 8’, Revue Bénédictine 127 (2017), pp. 272–97.

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­ bservation of the night sky, for instance, surely no Christian in their right mind o would consult a lunare or look out for the appearance of Sirius the Dog Star in the early morning sky? On the other hand: how could we, in the light of everything this book has described so far, explain the deliberate inclusion of such texts in pastoral handbooks? This section of the chapter is perhaps best titled ‘The edges of orthodoxy?’, so with a question mark added, since I will argue that prognostic texts should be interpreted as something quite different from the dubious practices that had bishops worried. It is worth repeating here that the content of each pastoral compendium was the result of a selection process: compilers gathered what they considered to be important texts for pastoral care and lay knowledge, and in many cases material was added later, presumably by readers who wished to add something useful. The texts that mention pagans, heretics and dubious practices therefore reflect something of the way in which these categories of people and behaviour had meaning for those who worked with these books. When we investigate how heretics, pagans and problematic practices appear through the lens of these manuscripts, we will, therefore, find out how these categories mattered and in which ways they were deemed problematic to begin with. That said, it should be remembered that especially heretics and pagans (so: people implicitly or explicitly labelled as such) are rare in the entire corpus, whereas the suspect practices are more frequent. For reason of this scarcity of material, not one but three manuscripts will be the starting point.

3  The damned, the unbaptised and the ignorant In the entire corpus of priests’ manuscripts discussed here, there is not a single text that is only about undesirable people or shady practices. Instead, these themes always show up in the context of other subjects: pagans make their appearance where Christians are tortured and martyred, for instance, and bad practices are mentioned in sermons about being a good Christian. As we will see, moreover, the way in which pagans, heretics and those involved in dubious practices were characterised could vary between texts within one and the same manuscript, which results in a layered image that is worth exploring here. In order to find out about the various images, I will discuss each category in turn on the basis of what three pastoral manuscripts reveal. The books chosen here are Einsiedeln Stiftbibliothek 27, London British Library Add. 19725 and El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8. Not only are these codices very different from each other in size and contents, they also show the pagans, heretics and bad practices in a variety of ways. What we see in this way is not a complete image of all the shapes and forms in which the ‘others’ appear in pastoral manuscripts and what, therefore, a (future) pastor might know on the subject, but a series of the more common possibilities. The examples discussed below have been chosen to highlight how images of others were not monolithic (not all pagans were evil!), and how they could be more complex and layered than just black-and-white.

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These images, then, give us an impression of how real or rhetorical we should understand the three kinds of others in their specific contexts, and thereby what the pastoral function of their appearance may have been. Let us now first meet the three manuscripts. The Einsiedeln manuscript, to start with, is one of the smallest books in the corpus of pastoral compendia studied here. It measures a mere 155 × 90 mm, but is a sturdy volume with 140 folia; it originates from Switzerland or northern Italy. The codex is a composite that consists of a first part dating to the eighth century, one leaf that is even earlier, and a second part (the bulk of the manuscript and the part that concerns us here) from the second third of the ninth century.10 Most of the second part consists of short sermons on a wide variety of topics relevant to lay people, such as the importance of doing penance, on heaven and hell, and on fighting sin. The other texts too seem to have been chosen for their brevity and pastoral utility: there are expositions on the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, interrogations about the Creed, a short explanation of the Holy Trinity, and similar compact texts useful for pastoral practice. Although this codex may also have been suitable for teaching young clerics, its most likely primarily intended user was a priest with a community of laymen. The London manuscript, second, is a rather different kind of volume. It dates from the end of the ninth or the early tenth century, measures 175 × 150 mm with 129 folia. According to Bernhard Bischoff, its most likely regions of origin are eastern France or the area around Reims. This manuscript contains no sermons at all, and is organised in a systematic way. After a martyrology, the manuscript contains a block of texts concerning computus and a section about penance, followed by Gennadius of Marseille’s De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis and a set of three episcopal statutes. This section of the book, the first 88 folia, may well have served as a study book for future clerics, but was surely also useful for a priest fulfilling his ministry in a lay community. The last 40 folia of the book, once probably an independent codex, are filled with short stories about mostly monastic saints from a variety of sources (for instance John Cassian, Rufinus, Bede). In what follows, the focus will be on the pastoral first part of the manuscript. The El Escorial codex, finally, was compiled in Senlis in 860–870, and has been described as ‘a gathering of canonical, patristic and liturgical texts’.11 It is somewhat bigger and substantially longer than the other two manuscripts with 230 × 172 mm and 189 folia: where the Einsiedeln codex is about 25,000 words long and London roughly 40,000, this codex is a little under 70,000.12

10 See Susan A. Keefe, A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the Creed in Carolingian manuscripts (Turnhout, 2012), pp. 228–9. 11 MGH Cap.ep. IV, p. 189: ‘Sammelhandschrift kanonistischer, patristischer und liturgischer Texte’. Thus far, the manuscript has not been digitised. For a good description see Susan A. Keefe, Water and the word. Baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire, 2 vols (Notre Dame, 2002), vol. II, pp. 19–23. 12 These numbers are based on my own transcriptions.

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The manuscript, most likely a clerical study book or a book used for teaching future clerics, contains a wide range of material: it includes several expositions of the Trinity, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Mass and of baptism, a good set of homilies, texts about penance, early church councils, a martyrology and a computistic dossier – and that is not even all of it. What did the readers and audiences of these manuscripts learn about heretics, pagans and wrong practices? Since the last two categories are often connected, we will start with the first: those adhering to Christian doctrines considered heretical.

3.1  Heretics The best place to start the investigation about the images of heretics in pastoral compendia is the London manuscript, since this is the only of these three in which such people are mentioned to begin with. It does so in two different texts, that both highlight the main reason why heretics were relevant to pastors and their flocks. In one of the episcopal statutes, the Capitula Parisiensia, heretics feature in their well-known capacity of those holding beliefs which had been rejected by authoritative, learned leaders of the church. When the anonymous author explains at the end of his first chapter what kind of knowledge exactly a canon contains (by which he means the chapters of church councils) he writes the following: A canon … is a rule (regula), which derives its name from living rightly (recte vivendo), acting rightly (recte operando), and believing rightly (recte fidem tenendo), proclaiming to believe truly in the divinity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, despising the wrongness of the heretics and keeping to the correctness of our holy orthodox Fathers.13 Here we see a clear case of a black-and-white opposition: ‘we’, those who live, act and believe in the right ways versus ‘they’ the heretics who are wrong. Even though the author seems to refer to heretics in general, the reference to the right belief in the double nature of Jesus is very likely a reference to the adoptionist heresy that troubled Carolingian bishops and rulers greatly. Where the correct belief held by the Franks was that Christ had a human and a divine nature and was God’s real son, adoptionists rejected this idea and believed that Christ was completely human (and not divine) and God’s adoptive son.14 The explanation of 13 London, British Library Add.19725, f. 64v: ‘Canon enim ut dictum est regula noncupatur, id est a recte vivendo, recte operando, recte fidem tenendo, divinitatem et humanitatem Domini nostri Ihesu Christi veraciter confitendo, hereticorum pravitatem calcandam et sanctorum ortodoxorum patrum nostrorum rectitudinem tenendam denonciet.’ The edition, which uses this manuscript, can be found in MGH Cap.ep. III (Hanover, 1995), pp. 16–35 at p. 27. 14 For general background see E.Ann Matter, ‘Orthodoxy and deviance’, in: Thomas F.X. Noble and Julia M.H. Smith eds, The Cambridge History of Christianity 3 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 510–30; on Carolingians and adoptionism in specific: Willemien Otten, ‘Carolingian theology’,

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the word ‘canon’ also suggests how one could avoid ‘the wrongness of heretics’: adherence to the canones and the authority of the Church Fathers helped a person to stick to the right ways of life and belief. Who exactly these heretics were or what they believed is not specified beyond the reference to the double nature of Christ: heretics are mentioned as a broad category, which underlines the distinction between right and wrong believers. Christians and heretics are opposites here, and shades of grey do not fit the picture. In this same manuscript, the interested reader could find out quite a bit more about heretics, however. Gennadius of Marseille’s De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis, a well-known fifth-century work copied anonymously here, mentions many names of heretics and short descriptions of their wrongful doctrines.15 The text, that has the title ‘Here begins the ecclesiastical doctrine’ (Incipit doctrina ecclesiastica) in this manuscript, discusses the central ideas of orthodox Christianity one by one. Each chapter briefly describes the correct idea, for instance that of the Holy Trinity or the human soul, and often this short explanation is followed by one or more names of heretics who held different – wrong – views. One clear example is Chapter 3, where the author first explains that Christ was born as both God and man: Nor [should we believe] that He was born from the virgin in such a way that He was human first and became God while being born, as if He was no God before He was born from the virgin, like Artemon and Berillus and Marcellus teach, but He was born from the virgin as eternal God and man.16 Gennadius, perhaps wisely, does not offer detailed explanations about the exact ideas of all the heretics he mentions, but he tells his readers enough to show the core of the matter. What is important in this text for its potential pastoral purposes is how heretics are portrayed time and again as Christians who got it wrong. Artemon, Berillus and Marcellus were heretics even though they did believe in God, Jesus and His birth from the virgin Mary. What made them into heretics was that they were mistaken about one issue: the exact way in which in: Gillian R. Evans ed., The medieval theologians. An introduction to theology in the medieval period (Oxford, 2000), pp. 65–82; Rutger Kramer, ‘Adopt, adapt and improve: dealing with the Adoptionist controversy at the court of Charlemagne’, in: Rob Meens e.a. eds, Religious Franks. Religion and power in the Frankish kingdoms. Studies in honour of Mayke de Jong (Manchester, 2016), pp. 32–50; Cullen J. Chandler, ‘Heresy and empire: the role of the Adoptionist controversy in Charlemagne’s conquest of the Spanish March’, International History Review 24 (2002), pp. 505–27. 15 On this text, that still awaits a modern edition, see C. Turner, ‘The Liber ecclesiasticorum dogmatum attributed to Gennadius’, Journal of Theological Studies 7 (1905), pp. 78–99 and Journal of Theological Studies 8 (1906), pp. 103–14. The London manuscript does not feature in his overview of known manuscript witnesses of this text. 16 London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 51v: (c.III) ‘Neque sic est natus ex virgine ut deitatis inicium nascendo homo acciperet, quasi antequam ex virgine nasceretur Deus non fuerit, sicut Artemon et Berillus et Marcellus docuerunt, sed eternus Deus homo ex virgine natus.’

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Jesus’ double nature came into being. Even worse: they taught their mistaken beliefs to others. Interestingly, Gennadius does not offer any historical context for the people he mentions; readers of the London manuscript had no way of finding out that, for instance, the three teachers of misguided doctrines mentioned in the quotation lived in the third century and were therefore no longer around to spread their dangerous teachings in person.17 What Gennadius does make clear is that for every Christian article of belief there had been – sometimes many – ­a lternatives, which had been rejected one by one by church councils and ecclesiastical authorities. In the context of a priest’s manual this underlines once again the importance of pastoral guidance, teaching and preaching to help everybody find the narrow path of orthodoxy through the labyrinth of heretical ideas. By keeping his text timeless, Gennadius made it sound as if the world was full of heretics who disagreed with orthodox ideas, and in many cases the devil was – quite literally – in the details. Small wonder, therefore, that this text was included more often in pastoral compilations, since it illustrates the importance of knowing one’s heresies and underlines the fact that details of belief mattered.18 What the London manuscript offers as knowledge about heretics is, all in all, rather straightforward and does not differ substantially from the little that can be found in other priests’ manuscripts not discussed here. Heretics never take the shape of living, active people in the texts that mention them. At the most general level, they are a rather abstract category of people holding wrong Christian beliefs as opposed to those of good Christians. Where we find information about heretics that is a bit more detailed, the wrongness gets more specific, but such descriptions float in time and space and are never tied to the present.19 The threats posed by these heretics to laymen seem, therefore, to have been predominantly in the mind. Heretics formed a contrasting category to orthodox Christians, and thereby underlined the challenges of knowing exactly what to believe, being steadfast in one’s beliefs, and also the importance of pastors leading the way.

3.2  Pagans Pagans we have encountered before in this book, so a quick reminder will start us off here: in baptismal expositions, for instance the important, well-known Primo paganus written by Alcuin of York, the term is used to contrast the state of an 17 See J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian doctrines (London, 1968), pp. 115–9. 18 There are many other pastoral compendia that include Gennadius’ work, for instance München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796, München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14661. For a full list of manuscripts see Turner, ‘The Liber’ (1905). 19 This is also the case in the sixth century Fortunatus Commentary, an explanation of the Athanasian Creed ascribed to Venantius Fortunatus, which is also included in several pastoral compendia. In this text, heretics are mentioned much like Gennadius did: the author gives names, but never any context. See A.E. Burn, The Athanasian Creed and its early commentaries (Cambridge, 1896), pp. 28–39; Keefe, A catalogue, no. 269, p. 155.

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individual before and after baptism.20 Everybody comes to the baptismal font a pagan, and it is only after undergoing the ritual of baptism (which includes a renunciation of the devil), that the Christian emerges. As Alcuin explains it, every pagan, unbaptised person houses demons which must be chased away through an exorcism (part of the ritual of baptism) in order for the candidate to get ready to receive the Holy Spirit.21 In this sense, pagans and Christians are binary opposites, but in a different way than orthodox Christians and heretics are: pagans house demons where Christians house Christ, pagans are not baptised where Christians are. In this context, pagans are therefore the clearest category of non-Christians. However, no pagan was irredeemably lost, for they could always convert, be baptised and join the fold. This is the main difference with heretics, who stubbornly stuck to their un-orthodox but Christian convictions, and thereby placed themselves outside the Christian community and beyond the reach of pastoral care. For these people, salvation was impossible. A similar binary opposition between Christians and pagans emerges from the martyrology in the London manuscript, the only place in this codex where pagans make their appearance.22 A martyrology is a kind of year calendar which explains how the saint or saints who were born or died on a particular day became martyrs. In some cases, pagans play an active role in the story, for instance in the case of Saint Apollinaris, celebrated on the tenth kalends of August. After doing many good deeds wherever he went, and while undergoing various kinds of torture, Apollinaris was exiled to Ravenna in chains where he was bound by pagans, flogged and wounded, and (again) put into prison and beaten, and this is how he received his martyrdom in the time of the Emperor Vespasian […]23 Pagans ‘creating’ Christian martyrs in various painful ways feature more often in this martyrology. At the same time, it is important to note that, unlike the examples featuring heretics just discussed, these stories do have a historical dimension. The reference to the Emperor Vespasian in this instance shows that those pagans were killing Saint Apollinaris a very long time ago. This is typical for the stories that fill the martyrology: the Roman priest Valentinus, to mention just one more example, was tortured and beheaded by pagans ‘in the time of the Emperor

20 See Keefe, Water and the word II, no. 9, pp. 238–45. 21 Keefe, Water and the word II, no. 9, p. 241: ‘… exorcizatur, id est coniuratur malignus spiritus, ut exeat et recedat, dans locum deo vero….’. 22 According to Peter Brommer, MGH Cap.ep. I (Hanover, 1984), p. 34 this is an incomplete version of Usuard’s Martyrology. The most recent full edition of this text is Jacques Dubois, Le Martyrologe d’Usuard: texte et commentaire, Subsidia Hagiographica 40 (Brussels, 1965). 23 London, British Library Add. 19725 f. 18r: ‘….Deinde cathenatus in exilium directus est, in quo rursum in Rauenna ligatus a paganis caesus et vulneratus, et rursum in carcerem missus et caesus; sic martyrium consummavit sub Vespassiono caesare…’.

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Claudius’.24 In this way, murderous pagans were historicised and removed from the present. The El Escorial manuscript contains a martyrology that similarly features pagans as killers and torturers of soon-to-be Christian martyrs. However, this codex also takes up the theme of historical pagans in a different way. The pagans we encounter in an explanation of how the months came by their names were not in the least homicidal: the names for the months they invented were still in use by the time the manuscript was compiled and studied, hence the relevance of this short text in the section about computus. The pagan roots of these names are presented as neutral fact here, without any content-warning or other negative comment. About the month of May, for instance, we learn that the pagans called it ‘after an idol, the pagan god Maio, who is also called Iovis’.25 Surely, these pagans were historical in their own way, in the sense that they stood at the cradle of knowledge still current so many centuries later. Interestingly, there is no suggestion whatsoever that there was anything objectionable about this kind of knowledge with obvious pagan roots. In these three pastoral manuscripts, there is only one way in which pagans were pictured as directly relevant for the here and now: in some rare homilies and sermons that admonished Christians not to behave like pagans. An untitled sermon ascribed to St Augustine and St Eligius in the Einsiedeln manuscript, for instance, warns Christians away from ‘observing pagan customs’, because ‘whoever does such evil deeds, immediately loses the sacrament of baptism’.26 What these pagan customs entailed was either the consultation of diviners, sorcerers and other suspicious people, or doing objectionable things such as reading the future by listening to birdsong or attaching predictive meaning to sneezes. 27 However, this already moves us away from pagans as people; problematic practices are the subject of the next section. What this short overview has shown is that pagans could play various roles in the texts of pastoral manuscripts. The most basic of these was the pagan

24 London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 8r, for the 16th kalends of March: ‘Natale sancti Valentini presbiteri Rome qui post multa sanitatum et doctrina insignia fustibus caesus, et sic decollatus est sub Claudio caesare….’. 25 The text is Pseudo-Bede, De divisionibus temporum, PL 90, col. 15f. This manuscript only contains the entries for January to July. London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 178v: ‘... sub idolo Maius dictus est a Maio deo apud paganos, qui dictus est Iovis….’. 26 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 125v: ‘…ut nullus paganorum consuetudinis observare debetis…. quia qui facit hoc malum statim perdit baptismum sacramenti.’. See: Sara Janner and Romain Jurot with Dorothea Weber, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus, Band IX/1 Schweiz, Werkverzeichnis (Vienna, 2001), p. 256. The sermon contains passages from several sermons by Caesarius of Arles, but there are also shared passages (in some cases via Caesarius) with the sermon in the Vita Eligii book II, c. 16, see ‘Vitae Eligii episcopi Noviomagensis’, MGH SS IV (Hanover, 1902), pp. 634–749 at pp. 705–8. 27 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 126r: ‘… non carazos non divinos non sortilegos non precantatores nec pro ulla causa eos interrogare presumatis’ (because you will lose the sacrament of baptism). ‘Similiter et aguria uel sternutationis diservare, nolite nec avicolas cantantes….’.

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unbeliever as a binary opposite of the baptised Christian. In this sense, pagans were nothing uncommon (though probably often still babies), since every single Christian had started out as an unbaptised paganus. Unlike heretics, pagans also appear as real people of the distant past. They could feature as the ruthless, murderous opponents of Christians who had filled the calendar with an impressive number of martyrs’ feasts. Other pagans of the past, however, could also take the shape of those who had left behind knowledge that was still relevant for the present. With the exception of the unbaptised, pagans seem to have been largely tied to Christian history or, in the case of inherited knowledge, even to the time before Christ’s birth. There is no indication in these three compendia that the pastoral programme included urgent warnings against pagans of the present, or that Christian flocks might inadvertently be exposed to their bad influences or murderous inclinations. In this sense, the texts that mention various practices considered inappropriate for Christians sound a lot more relevant for lived reality, so it is there that we now turn.

3.3  Bad Christians, ignorant Christians Where heretics and pagan people do not appear very often in pastoral manuscripts, objectionable practices and practitioners are relatively common. What is more, such people or categories of bad practices tend to turn up in groups: a diviner usually does not appear by himself, but is generally accompanied by a small army of equally suspicious colleagues.28 An important difference from the heretics and pagans just discussed is that for this category, several texts in the three manuscripts have interesting things to say, that show us what pastoral function knowledge of this kind may have had. Let us begin with normative texts. In the El Escorial manuscript, first of all, we encounter an interesting chapter in the Capitula Silvanectensia prima, an anonymous re-worked version of Gerbald of Liège’s second episcopal statute that is unique to this manuscript.29 Even though there is no mention of pagans or heretics in this text, the anonymous bishop was certainly worried about certain people and their suspicious practices. In the last chapter of his statute he instructs his priests that it is to be investigated whether there are lot-casters (sortilegi) and diviners (aruspices), who observe the months and the times and dreams, and [people] who wear amulets ( filacteria) around their necks with some words

28 For an interesting example concerning such lists in penitentials see Ludger Körntgen, ‘Mantische Bestimmungen in den frühmittelalterlichen Bussbüchern’, in: Herbers and Lehner eds, Mittelalterliche Rechtstexte, pp. 65–84. 29 The text was initially identified as Gerbald’s second episcopal statute by Brommer, MGH Cap. ep. I, pp. 22–32, but in the eyes of Pokorny, MGH Cap.ep. III, pp. 74–83 it is a different text based on Gerbald II. Note, however, how the sections quoted here are not very different from Gerbald’s text.

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written on them, and women who give out some kind of potions to drive off unborn children, and who do some kind of divination (divinationes) so that their husbands love them more. We order in every way that whereever such things are found, they are to be severely corrected until these people better their lives.30 In the introduction to the statute, the author states how this text lists things that were happening in his diocese ‘through negligence and carelessness’, situations that he considered to be ‘contrary to the observance of the Christian religion’. 31 The other chapters of the text, it should be noted, list very different kinds of problems, for instance ignorance among lay people of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer (c.2), illegitimate marriage (c.5), non-observance of the Sunday rest (c.6) and of the fast (c.9). These chapters about basic ingredients of a lay Christian life form the context for the last chapter that mentions divination, love-amulets and potions causing miscarriage. There is, therefore, no indication that such practices were considered as anything other than bad practices by good Christians: people involved in such things should be corrected (that is: punished or submitted to penance) until they stopped their activities and behaved as they should. Wearing an amulet, in other words, was just as objectionable as not knowing the Lord’s Prayer by heart or working one’s fields on a Sunday. The pastoral message is clear here: good Christians did not get involved with people who offered these services, and neither should they practice such things themselves. The handbook of penance in the London manuscript, the Paenitentiale additivum pseudo-Bedae-Egberti, is a bit more elaborate: three of its two dozen (unnumbered) chapters feature the same kinds of practitioners and practices as the episcopal statute just discussed.32 Remarkably, in the entire text there is only one instance of labelling where the term ‘pagan’ is used, and two more where a 30 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, f. 3v: XI. Ut inquirantur sortilegi et aruspices qui mensis et tempora et somnia observant et filacteria circa collum portant habentia quaedam verba scripta, et mulieres quae potiones aliquas donant ut partus excutiant, et aliquas divinationes faciunt ut per haec maritis suis maiorem amorem habeant. Iubemus enim omnimodis ut ubicumque tales reperti fuerint, siveriter corrigantur donec ad emendationem venient. Note how this is the last chapter of the text in this manuscript; the edition adds one more; this is, however, the first chapter of the next text in the manuscript: MGH Cap.ep. III, pp. 82–3. 31 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8, f. 2r: CAP I. Haec capitula subter inserta continentur de his qui per neglegentiam et incuriam in parrochia nostra evenire solent, quae videntur esse contraria contra observantiam Christianae religionis. Unde volumus ut ubicumque de his causis aliquid in eadem parrochia nostra inventum fuerit, ut cum omni diligentia corrigatur et deinceps plenius ne ulterius fiat observetur. 32 See Reinhold Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung der Beda und Egbert zugeschriebenen Bussbücher, Europäische Hochschulschriften 461 (Frankfurt am Main etc., 1991), p. 70.

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s­ pecific practice is called ‘diabolical’. Women who practice unspecified ‘diabolical divinations’, for instance, should do a penance of ‘one year, or three forty-day periods, or forty days’.33 Interestingly, a few chapters earlier, five years of penance is listed for ‘auguries or divinations’ without mention of the diabolical element.34 The most elaborate chapter, titled ‘Of auguries and divinations’ contains a lengthy, rather chaotic, catalogue of practices that should likewise be remedied by penance. It starts as follows: Of auguries and divinations Who-ever observes auguries or lots (sortes) that are falsely called ‘of the saints’, or divinations, or who promises to investigate whatever writing, or swear oaths on trees or on whatever thing except in church, if clerics or lay people do so, they should be excommunicated from the church, or a cleric should do three years of penance, a lay person two or one and a half. A woman who puts her daughter on the roof or in the oven to cure her from a fever should do five years of penance.…35 The list continues in the same vein: it mentions shouting at the moon when it eclipses (labelled sacrilegious), sorcerers, diviners and (diabolical) amulets. The only practice it calls ‘pagan’ is the celebration of the first of January – which was, for all intents and purposes, a pre-Christian feast that still seems to have been celebrated even in Rome at the time.36 Clerics who indulged in any of these activities had to do penance for five years, lay people three.

33 London, British Library Add. 19725 f. 44r: ‘Mulier si divinaciones diabolicas fecerit… i annum vel tres quadragesimas sive xl dies iuxta qualitatem culpe peniteat.’ 34 London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 41v: ‘Qui augurias vel divinaciones perpetrant v annos peniteat.’ 35 London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 44v: De auguriis vel divinacionibus. Auguriis vel sortes qui dicuntur falsa sanctorum vel divinaciones qui eas observaverint vel quarumcumque scripturarum inspeccione promittunt, vel vota voverint ad arborem vel ad quemlibet rem excepto ad ecclesiam, si clerici vel laici faciunt excummunicentur ab ecclesia, vel clericus iii annos peniteat, laicus ii vel i annum et dimidium. Mulier si filiam suam super tectum ponit vel in fornacem pro sanitatem febris v annos peniteat. This feast was mentioned and prohibited at the Council of Rome (743), MGH Conc. II, c. 9: ‘.ut nullus Kalendas Ianuarias et bromas ritu paganorum colere praesumat.’ For more sources see C.P. Caspari, Eine Augustin fälschlich beilegte Homilia de sacrilegis. Aus einer Einsiedeler Handschrift des achten Jahrhunderts herausgegeben und mit kritischen und sachlichen Anmerkungen, sowie mit einer Abhandlung begleitet (Christiana, 1886), p. 33. 36 London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 44v–45r: (continued from the previous footnote) … Nolite exercere quando luna obscuratur, ut clamoribus suis ac maleficiis sacrilego usu se defendere posse confidunt. Caraius et divinos, precantatores, filacteria etiam diabolica vel erbas a succinos suis vel sibi inpendere vel v feria in honore Iovis seu kalendae Ianuarias secundum paganam causam honorare ac colere voluerit, si clericus est non cum gradu v annos peniteat, si laicus iii annos peniteat.

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In comparison with those for other wrongdoings mentioned in the penitential, the durations of penance here are mid-range: three years of penance would compensate perjury, for instance, while sex with an animal resulted in a maximum of ten years.37 The labels used sometimes to qualify the sins listed, such as ‘sacrilegious’ and ‘diabolical’, emphasise that these norms applied to misbehaving Christians, who in the eyes of Christian authorities indulged in unacceptable behaviour or asked services from persons they should avoid. Furthermore, it is interesting to see that we yet again get no sense at all of who the sorcerers, diviners or lot-casters were and what exactly they did. Were they simply standardised, one-dimensional dangerous figures copied from text to text, or were such people so common that the author of the penitential assumed that no further explanation was required? The list also shows how there could be a grey area between the ‘right’ and the ‘wrong’ way of doing things. Swearing an oath in church, for instance, was unproblematic, but using a tree for the same purpose was wrong: it was not the oath itself that was the issue, but the precise place where it was sworn. Less clear-cut is the case of ‘investigating’ an otherwise unspecified text – surely this warning was not intended to extend to all texts, for instance the Bible or the writings of the Fathers. The author of the penitential seems to have been worried about people studying specific kinds of texts that he considered to be dangerous – what exactly he had in mind we have no way of knowing. It even is unclear whether the problem was the content of the text itself, or rather the wrong person studying the text, or both. All in all, then, the practices and people mentioned in the penitential had connotations of un-Christian behaviour, but they applied without exception to Christians themselves who could remedy their errors through penance. While mentions of diviners and star-gazers may well have evoked connotations with paganism to some, it seems that we should read these terms as labels that functioned as warning signals rather than as objective descriptions. At the same time, the vagueness of the descriptions also created room for interpretation and framing: the difference between acceptable and unacceptable ‘inspection of texts’ for instance, or of studying the night sky was to a large extent in the eye of the beholder.38 In these as in so many other matters, lay Christians needed continuous guidance on the finer details that distinguished good practices from bad ones. In the penitentials it becomes visible how the grey areas between right and wrong ways of doing things could be especially tricky, so it is no surprise that some sermons take this as their main theme. Matters could be even more complicated than ignorant people mistakenly swearing an oath on a tree, for sometimes clerics themselves set the wrong example, much to the frustration and disgust of their bishops. A sermon in the Einsiedeln manuscript can shed more light on this issue. It is titled ‘On the health of the soul’ (De sanitate animae), ascribed to St Augustine 37 London, British Library Add. 19725, f. 43v–44r for perjury; f. 41r for sex with animals. 38 A point made eloquently by Hen, ‘The early medieval West’.

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in this compilation, but in fact written by Caesarius of Arles.39 In a little under 400 words, the sermon states that the health of the soul is much more important than that of the body, and how one should take good care of it. Those who consulted lot-casters (sortilegi), diviners (divini) or enchanters (precantatores), or wore diabolical amulets ( filacteria diabolica) were thereby imperiling their soul. This sounds all quite familiar, but then Caesarius added: Others receive such amulets daily from clerics and religious people, but these are not religious people or clerics, but helpers of the devil.40 What should we make of this? On the one hand, this sentence suggests that there were people in Caesarius’ diocese, clerics included, who behaved like bad Christians and handed out amulets to easily fooled members of their flocks. On the other hand, we may also read it as an indication for the existence of different opinions about the exact parameters of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices, especially within the grey areas just mentioned. If the surviving examples of charms and amulets are anything to go by, it is not difficult to understand why opinions could vary: even though a bishop may consider them ‘diabolical’, such texts, which are often very similar to prayers, usually contain biblical phrases, crosses, names of saints and other Christian elements.41 What we may well see here is the disjuncture between the normative voice of a bishop, versus a local priest dealing with the demands of his flock.42 A second sermon in the same manuscript, this one ascribed to St Augustine and St Eligius, is packed to the brim with practices considered wrong for a variety of reasons.43 As in the previous examples, it is striking how few explicit terms are used that label a practice: in most cases the author did not use terms 39 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 88r–90r. The sermon, known in two other manuscripts, has been edited here: Caesarius Arelatensis, Sermones, ed. G. Morin, CCSL 103 (Turnhout, 1953), pp. 224–7. 40 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 88v: ‘Alii quotiens ligaturas ipsas ad clericis ac religiosis accipiunt, sed illi non sunt religiosi vel claerici, sed adiutores diabuli.’ 41 On the use of biblical passages as amulets, see Wiśniewski, Christian divination, p. 86. A fabulous example of a lead text amulet (probably copied from a manuscript example) from the Carolingian period, which features a cross, the invocation of the Holy Trinity and several other Christian elements is described by Daniel Vavřík, Konrad Knauber, Daniela Urbanová, Ivana Kumpová, Kateřina Blažková and Zdenĕk Šámal, ‘Unveiling magic from the Middle Ages: tomographic reading of a folded lead amulet from Dřevíc fortress (Czech Republic)’, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 12 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00976-4 42 A very interesting and well-documented analogue to this can be found in late antique/early medieval Egypt, where it was the local clergy who produced charms, exorcisms and ‘magical’ formulae at the request of their flocks, even though their bishops disapproved. See David Frankfurter, ‘Sortes, scribality, and syncretism: ritual experts and the great tradition in Byzantine Egypt’, in: Annemarie Luijendijk and William E. Klingshirn eds, My lots are in Thy hands: sortilege and its practitioners in Late Antiquity, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 188 (Leiden/ Boston, 2019), pp. 211–31 at p. 221. 43 See n.28. On the sermons ascribed to Eligius see James McCune, ‘Rethinking the Pseudo-­ Eligius sermon collection’, Early Medieval Europe 16 (2008), pp. 445–76 at pp. 445–6.

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such as ‘pagan’ or ‘diabolical’ at all to express his disapproval. The sermon opens rather brusquely with a list of things that good Christians should do: rest on Sundays, be chaste on the feast days of the saints, clothe the naked, receive pilgrims, et cetera. Then it changes tack quite drastically by stating that ‘you’ (the Christian audience of this sermon) should not practice usages of the pagans (paganorum consuetudines) or consult diviners, lot-casters or enchanters, for this will lose them their baptism immediately.44 Then follows an elaborate list of other things they should not do, such as getting drunk, believing in dreams, singing ‘diabolical’ songs or invoking Neptune. Interestingly, we again encounter ‘false clerics’ similar to those we met in the first sermon, who hang little cards (cartellas) around the necks of people or animals with the promise that they were holy and would bring health, but would instead cast those wearing these things into the depths of hell. Among the many practices mentioned, only a single further one is labelled, this time as ‘stupid’: here it concerns horoscopes and other ways of reading the future.45 Unlike the pagans and heretics we encountered before, then, those involved in unacceptable practices were described as part of the present. The language of the texts suggests that there were women out there who put their feverish children in their ovens or on the roofs of their houses, and that some people were interested to know their horoscopes. What is more, the availability of such expertise seems to have been at least conceivable. Sometimes even clerics were accused of being involved. Throughout these examples, however, practices of different natures are mixed together: what they all share is not their ‘paganness’ or ‘superstitious’ nature, but the fact that it was invariably Christians who needed guidance to avoid them. In this last sermon, for instance, getting drunk was mentioned in the same breath as the invocation of Neptune, and those believing in the meaning of dreams rubbed shoulders with people who swore perfectly acceptable oaths in the wrong places. Remarkably, the authors of these texts called very few items on their lists ‘pagan’, and in the preceding examples, the term superstitious has not come up at all. It is invariably clear that, at least in the eyes of bishops and other figures of high ecclesiastical authority, everything listed was considered to be wrong and unfit for good Christians who cared for their souls. That such practices may have stemmed from a distant, pagan past, however, seems to have interested these authors less than the fact that these ways of doing things were around in the first place, and that Christian flocks, who seem to have been rather eager to obtain amulets and know what the stars said, should be warned away from them.

44 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 125v: ‘… ante omnia denuntio atque contestor ut nullus paganorum consuetudinis observare debetis. Non carazos, non divinos, non sortilegos, non precantatores, nec pro ulla causa eos interrogare presumatis, quia qui facit hoc malum statim perdit baptismum sacramenti.’ 45 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27, f. 126v: ‘Nullus sibi preponat fatum, quod stulti faciunt, nec ut dicent quale nascentia habuit taliter erit si aliqua infirmitas supervenerit.’

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This brings us to the second part of this chapter, which focusses on a number of texts included in pastoral manuscripts that can be read as exactly the type of knowledge against which some authors of normative texts and sermons warned. One manuscript in the collection, for instance, contains an incomplete set of Sortes sanctorum (‘Lots of the saints’), the text explicitly mentioned as harmful in the Paenitentiale additivum pseudo-Bedae-Egberti cited above. How can we explain the presence of such prognostic texts in Carolingian pastoral manuscripts?

4  The voice of the thunder, the age of the moon Prognostic texts offer knowledge that invariably pertains to events that will happen in the future, and are therefore still hidden from human observation. Their basic assumption is that Creation is full of signs. If only one knows where to look for these signs and how to interpret them, small glimpses of God’s plan may be revealed. The signs that were considered to be meaningful could vary hugely: the age of the moon was highly relevant, as was the sound of the thunder from a certain direction, as well as dreams, and even the numbers shown on three dice could be read as a message sent by God.46 The term ‘prognostic’ is an umbrella term used by modern scholars for all such texts, even though the word now describes rather different forms of knowledge than its early medieval primary meaning would allow.47 In medical manuscripts of the ninth century, the term describes the way in which a doctor examined the sick person looking for signs on the basis of which he could offer a prediction (prognosis, meaning foreknowledge) of how the disease would develop.48 This is ‘prognosis’ in its original meaning, as it was for instance already used by Hippocrates.49 The modern term ‘prognostic texts’ borrows the idea of fore-knowledge, but applies it to a wide range of signs that can be read to gain knowledge about a wide range of subjects; however, it usually does not refer to medical prognosis in the original sense of the word. 46 For general background and an inventory of texts for the entire medieval period see Matthias Heiduk, Klaus Herbers and Hans-Christian Lehner eds, Prognostication in the medieval world. A handbook, 2 vols. (Boston/Berlin, 2021). There is no study yet of prognostic texts in early medieval Latin manuscripts outside Anglo-Saxon England, but I intend to change that over the next years. 47 For other definitions and descriptions of these texts see László Sándor Chardonnens, Anglo-Saxon prognostics, 900–1100. Study and texts, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 153 (Leiden, 2007), pp. 5–8; R.M. Liuzza, Anglo-Saxon prognostics. An edition and translation of texts from London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 1–2; Tony Hunt, Writing the future. Prognostic texts of medieval England, Textes Littéraires du Moyen Âge 24 (Paris, 2013), p. 13. 48 A good example can be found in an anonymous ‘Epistula de flevotomia’ in the medical compendium Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 11219, f. 34rb–34vb, in which the art of medicine is subdivided into four parts: chirugy, farmacy, dietics and ‘pronosticon que et simeuticon, hoc est recognoscens vel signa advertens’. 49 Hippocrates’ Prognosticon was widely known in a Latin translation in early medieval Europe, see Hippocrates, ‘Prognosticon’, in: The genuine works of Hippocrates, transl. Charles Darwin Adams (New York, 1868).

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Many early medieval prognostic texts indeed offer knowledge about health on the basis of signs, but not those signs provided by the body: it was not a person’s pulse or temperature that was taken into account, but mostly the age of the moon, the sign of the zodiac or other elements of the natural world which allowed the keen observer to understand what would happen next. The macro-­ cosmos of stars, planets and constellations was, after all, intimately connected to the micro-cosmos of the human body, so whatever was observed in the night sky held meaning for one’s personal fate. Knowledge about health is only one of the many themes covered in these texts. While some give instructions about the good and bad times for bloodletting, other texts tell the reader how a new-born child will turn out, how the cattle will do in the coming year, whether there will be war, if the king will die or even whether or not stolen goods will be found back. It is not my intention here to provide further background to this fascinating material, for this would require a separate study; suffice it to say that prognostic texts mostly have roots in various cultures of the Ancient world, that the texts we find in Latin manuscripts often have (much earlier) parallels in Greek, Coptic, Hebrew, Syriac and/or Arabic, and that they form a cultural phenomenon of which we see only one small part in the Latin early medieval record.50 Because of their claim to offer knowledge about the future, older (but also some newer) scholarship has generally considered prognostic texts as anything but part of Christian culture. Early scholars of the subject such as Heinrich Henel and the Reverend Thomas Cockayne, for instance, were convinced that these texts belonged to the realm of ignorance and superstition,51 while researchers such as Max Förster perceived at least some of these texts as windows on indigenous pre-Christian Germanic cultures.52 What these older approaches have in common is that they do not allow for prognostic texts as part of mainstream Christian culture: writings that instructed people to observe the moon or listen to the thunder were deemed to be non-Christian per definition, and ecclesiastical prohibitions against star-gazing, divination and the like only reinforced this idea.53 More recently, scholars such as Roy Liuzza and Lorenzo DiTommaso have started to rethink these notions, and have come to the conclusion that such texts and the knowledge they provided ‘occupied a central, rather than a peripheral place within medieval culture’.54 50 For an impression of prognostication as a global phenomenon see Heiduk, Herbers and Lehner eds, Prognostication; a volume about prognostication in East Asia is in the making. 51 Heinrich Henel, ‘Altenglischer Mönchsaberglaube’, Englische Studien 69 (1934–5), pp. 329–49; Thomas Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, wortcunnin, and starcraft of early England, 3 vols. (London, 1864–66, reprinted 2015), I, p.xi. 52 See Förster’s many contributions called ‘Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Volkskunde’ about prognostic texts in the journal Archiv for the years 1908–1916. 53 On the interpretation and framing of prognostic texts in scholarly literature see Van Rhijn, ‘Pastoral care and prognostics’, pp. 277–80. 54 Liuzza, Anglo-Saxon prognostics, p.196, quoted by Lorenzo DiTommaso, ‘Greek, Latin and Hebrew manuscripts of the Somniale Danielis and Lunationes Danielis in the Vatican Library’, Manuscripta 47/48 (2003–2004), pp. 1–42 at p. 2.

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What I will argue below is much in line with these newer findings: even though in the early medieval period there existed various opinions about prognostic texts (not all equally positive), the manuscript evidence shows how these texts were widely studied, copied, used and adapted as part of the same Christian, knowledge-hungry culture that stimulated the study of so many other subjects. Prognostic knowledge, rooted in learned traditions of Antiquity, was received eagerly in the Carolingian world. Prognostic texts found their way into manuscripts ranging from sacramentaries to medical compendia, legal codices and collections of the writings of the Fathers. That, to mention just one example, the late eighth-century Sacramentary of Gellone (Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 12048) contains a text on the Egyptian Days (among computistic material, f.260v–261v) is illustrative of the fact that this knowledge was not seen as per definition non-Christian or objectionable at all. Some compilers considered such material to be useful and fitting for pastoral care, which is how some prognostic texts ended up in pastoral manuscripts, rubbing shoulders quite comfortably with the penitentials, expositions and sermons full of warnings we have encountered previously. What kinds of prognostic texts did the compilers of pastoral compendia consider interesting enough to include in these manuscripts? It is probably no surprise that we find such material mostly in the more elaborate collections: seven manuscripts contain one or more prognostic texts, which is enough to assume that they were envisaged as knowledge relevant for (future) pastors. Much of this material is related to fields of pastoral expertise that we have encountered before, and shows yet again how wide-ranging priestly knowledge could be: the most frequent are those prognostics offering knowledge about health, while others concern a mixture of everyday themes such as the weather, the harvest, the fate of humans and their farm animals, or simply answers to any everyday question that could trouble a person’s mind. In several instances, later hands have added short prognostic texts to existing manuscripts (in most cases brief lists of Egyptian days), which also points to the relevance of such knowledge to those using these manuscripts. In the cases where prognostic texts are part of the original compilation, they do not stand out in any way (for instance, by marginal annotations or warning signs such as oboli55) from the rest of the manuscripts. This is all the more interesting since our exploration of problematic practices above indicated that activities such as reading signs and trying to look into the future were condemned in no uncertain terms by the authors of penitentials and sermons. What I would therefore like to show in the rest of this chapter is how, in these cases, the presence of prognostic texts in pastoral manuscripts indicates that such 55 On strategies to signpost suspicious content in the margins of a manuscript see Irene van Renswoude, ‘The censor’s rod: textual criticism, judgment, and canon formation in late antiquity and the early middle ages’, in: M. Teeuwen and eadem eds, The annotated book in the early middle ages. Practices of reading and writing (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 555–95.

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activities were not considered dubious or wrong by definition, but were indeed part of mainstream Christian culture. Even though, as we have seen, there were people with outspoken negative opinions regarding the acceptability of trying to read signs of the future (voiced most clearly by ecclesiastical authorities in those texts that condemned mathematici and haruspices and their ilk), priestly expertise was clearly deemed solid and reliable enough to read and use these texts. After all, priests themselves were most certainly no suspicious mathematici or sortilegi but religious experts, and what they did with these texts was not dubious divination, but attempts to discover God’s plan via signs. This bona fide religious expertise was, moreover, in all probability exactly the reason why lay Christians came to their priests to ask for guidance, and where texts such as birth lunaries or longterm weather forecasts may have come in useful. Prognostic texts advising about important elements of daily life (harvest, cattle, health, children) were surely very valuable indeed for the kind of ‘extended’ pastoral care that developed during the ninth century. Trust in prognostication could, in other words, be an extension of trust in pastoral care. The best way to illustrate what exactly prognostic knowledge offered to priests and to their lay flocks can be best illustrated with a few examples. The manuscripts used for this book contain more prognostic texts than can be discussed individually here, so I will use three priests’ manuscripts to shed light on this material. The first is a manuscript we encountered before as a book that also contained some medical knowledge: the ‘bonus liber’ Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485.56 In the same block of texts where we previously encountered a regimen with advice about what one should eat and drink in any given month, there are two texts that likewise concern medical advice, but this time of a prognostic nature. Like the regimen, these texts were part of the original compilation and written in the same hand that wrote most of this quire. The first is a set of Egyptian days, organised by month, listing two days for each month on which one should neither let blood nor take any medicine, for instance ‘In the month of March, on the third and the twentieth day’.57 Texts such as this one are nothing special in early medieval manuscripts. We find knowledge about Egyptian days in many shapes and forms: they are often marked on the appropriate days in calendars, or added in verse form at the beginning or end of each month, they appear as separate texts in prose or verse, and they are sometimes combined with similar lists of unlucky days (for instance the Three Critical Mondays) into new texts.58 Sometimes, Egyptian

56 See above pp. 70–1. 57 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, f. 13v. The title of the text reads: ‘INCIPIUNT DIES AEGYPTIACI qui omni tempore servandi sunt, nec sanguinem detrahant nec medicamenta accipias quae tibi utilissime esse videantur non accipias nec facias.’ The entry for March: ‘Mense martii, ubi facit dies iii et dies xx.’ 58 On Egyptian Days and their historical background see Don C. Skemer, ‘Armis gunfe: remembering Egyptian Days’, Traditio 65 (2010), pp. 65–106.

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Days are specifically health-related, while in other cases these lists come with the advice to their readers to do nothing at all on such days. The Egyptian Days in calendars, however, do not have any interpretative frame, which suggests that readers just knew what to do with them. This sheer variation shows clearly how common it was to know that each month contained unlucky days. The Egyptian Days in the Vatican manuscript are specific about the fact that they concern bloodletting and taking medicine, and therefore they are perhaps best understood as a kind of medical knowledge among other short texts about the same theme. The Egyptian Days and the regimen look very similar and offer complementary knowledge about health for each month: both texts are lists that organise the relevant information by month. That to our minds one text is of a different category than the other (health-related; prognostic) is in all probability observed only by the modern reader, and not obvious at all to any early medieval user. The second prognostic text in the Vatican manuscript is a so-called illness lunary, which foretells if, how and when a person who falls ill on a given day of the moon will recover. The lunary comes as a list very similar in organisation to the two other health-related texts just mentioned. For the first few days of the moon it reads The first day of the moon. Who falls ill will escape [death] with difficulty. The second day of the moon. [He/she] will recover soon. The third day of the moon. [He/she] will not escape [death].59 These predictions centre on the age of the moon. This may well have set off alarm bells for people familiar with the sermons of Caesarius of Arles, the decisions of early church councils and other texts that frame the observation of the moon as dubious and un-Christian divination. On the other hand, the observation of the age of the moon has affinity with the texts close to the lunary in the manuscript. The texts preceding the three health-related ones are computistic and focus on the moon in conjunction with the calculation of the Easter date, which was a thoroughly Christian and bona fide reason to observe the night sky and keep track of the moon’s age. The manuscript also contains several tables that offer lunar calculations, such as the earliest possible Easter date for each year of the lunar cycle, or the beginning of the fast that preceded Easter (f.13r). Doubt about the validity and Christianity of observing the age of the moon, in other words, is not part of this manuscript. It is likely that the proximity of computistic material in which the moon featured ‘rubbed off ’ on the way in which the illness lunary was read, and made it into an unproblematic and useful text that was part of a small cluster of medical knowledge. Interestingly, 59 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485, f. 13v: ‘Lunae i qui ceciderit in infirmitatem difficile evadit. Lunae ii cito resurgit. Lunae iii non evadit. Lunae iiii laborabit et resurget….’

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the illness lunary does not seem to have been at all connected by the students of this compendium with the penitential later in the codex that forbids divination. The priest who consulted the illness lunary to offer advice to a worried member of his flock, in other words, operated within another universe than the diviner or stargazer in the penitential, whose practices endangered the soul. The context of reliable Christian knowledge that a local ecclesiastical authority could share with his flock was surely what made the prognostic material in this manuscript into Christian knowledge that had no connection with bad beliefs and suspicious practice. The second example takes us to a somewhat more exotic kind of text: that of the brontology, which interprets the sound of the thunder.60 Two such texts with a total length of just under 200 words were added (probably not long after the composition of the manuscript) as one block in an empty space of the manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82.61 What we see here is something quite different from the situation in the Vatican manuscript, for there is no obvious connection at all between the brontologies and the surrounding material. The first brontology begins on f.16v, just after the end of a so-called Ordinal of Christ (a short didactic text on the ecclesiastical grades62), whereas the last lines of the second brontology are added to the right-hand and bottom margins of the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua (a canon law collection) on f.17r. The first of the two offers interpretations of the ‘voice of the thunder’ (vox tonitrui) heard from the cardinal directions, for instance The voice of the thunder from the East reveals the death of a king, or war.63 60 On early medieval brontologies see Roy M. Liuzza, ‘What the thunder said: the Anglo-Saxon brontologies and the problem of sources’, The Review of English Studies 55 (2004), pp. 1–23; Marilina Cesario, ‘Weather Prognostics in Anglo-Saxon England’, English Studies. A Journal of English Language and Literature 93 (2012) pp. 391–426; David Juste and Hilbert Chui, ‘The De tonitruis attributed to Bede: an early medieval treatise on divination by thunder translated from Irish’, Traditio 68 (2013) pp. 97–124. It has long been assumed that brontologies were originally Anglo-Saxon, but newly-discovered material in Continental manuscripts has now shown that this is not the case. See now Bram van den Berg, ‘Early medieval brontologies. Thunder prognostication in medieval thought, from the ninth to the eleventh century’, Unpublished RMA Thesis, Utrecht University 2020. 61 This manuscript now contains the second half of a pastoral manuscript. The first half is now the second part of Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 116. For a description of the Florence manuscript see Cesare Paoli, I Codici Ashburnhamiani della R. Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana di Firenze (Rome, 1887) pp. 42–4. 62 For the tradition of these texts (but without mention of this manuscript) see Roger E. Reynolds, The Ordinals of Christ from their origins to the twelfth century, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 7 (Berlin, 1978). 63 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82, f. 16v: ‘Vox tonitrui ab occidente mortem regis uel bellum ostendit.’ To the best of my knowledge, this text has not been edited. See Van den Berg, ‘Early medieval brontologies’.

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The second brontology interprets the thunder by day of the week: If it thunders on the second day of the week, a layman will murder another laymen and both will die.64 Neither text makes for cheerful reading: thunder should generally be interpreted as a sign of approaching death (of kings, the king’s men, sheep, women, laymen, slaves, young men, calves) or – less frequently – conflict. The only exceptions to this pattern of disaster are the thunder from the North, which promises the birth of ‘more sons than daughters’, and the vox tonitrui ‘from the heavens’ that points to ‘good fruit’, albeit after ‘great snow’.65 That early medieval people were very interested in the signs that God gave them via natural phenomena is well known and well-attested: chronicles of the time noted comets, lunar and solar eclipses, earthquakes, atypical kinds of rain (frogs, fish, blood) and the like as forewarnings for things to come.66 Such a way of reading natural signs, however, existed side by side with modes of interpretation that again brings us to the world of the suspicious characters who inhabit the sermons and penitentials discussed above. One famous case, recorded by Archbishop Agobard of Lyon, illustrates how local Christian beliefs could develop around extreme weather conditions, thunder included. In a short tract, the worried (and somewhat annoyed) Agobard complains about the stupidity of local Christian communities who were prepared to spend good money on people (socalled tempestarii, storm-makers) who claimed that they were able to cause, but also to prevent thunder- and hailstorms that could destroy the harvest.67 We only have Agobard’s word for it, but in this case, fear of a lost harvest may well have given rise to these beliefs; Agobard does not suggest at all that they might be divine signs or make any attempt to interpret them. The tempestarii he mentions, on the other hand, do appear in the catalogues of dubious people in ­penitentials and 64 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82, f. 16v: ‘Si fuerit tonitruis secunda feria, iugulabit laicis alium laicum et perebitur simul.’ 65 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82, f. 16v: ‘… si est ab aquilone, filii nascentur plu quam filiae…; Vox tonitrui de tribunalis, nivem magnam et fructum bonum…’. Note that ‘tribunalis’ is not a cardinal direction, but may well refer to God’s throne in heaven. 66 See Scott Ashley, ‘The power of symbols: interpreting portents in the Carolingian empire’, Medieval History 4 (1994), pp. 34–50; Sarah Foot, ‘Plenty, portents and plague: ecclesiastical readings of the natural world in early medieval Europe’, in: Peter D. Clarke and Tony Claydon eds, God’s bounty? The churches of the natural world: papers read at the 2008 summer meeting and the 2009 winter meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 15–41. 67 See Agobard of Lyon, ‘Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinionem de grandine et tonitruis’, ed. Lieven van Acker, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 3–15; Rob Meens, ‘Thunder over Lyon: Agobard, the tempestarii and Christianity’ in: Carlos Steel, John Marenbon and Werner Verbeke eds, Paganism in the middle ages. Threat and fascination (Leuven, 2012), pp. 156–166 with references to most relevant literature; and see the remarks by Hen, ‘The early medieval West’, pp. 204–6.

236  Beyond pastoral care

sermons. A very interesting theory about the identity of Agobard’s storm-makers has recently been proposed by Rob Meens, who thinks that these people may well have been local clerics, who are, after all, also known to have had prayers in their pastoral compendia to influence the weather.68 The fact that Agobard calls them tempestarii and not clerici could then be interpreted as rhetoric: if Meens is right, we are looking at Christian clerics who used their knowledge for the wrong purposes according to their archbishop. We have already encountered clerics who handed out amulets, so it is no great leap to imagine them offering protection against storms too. That this upset bishops is just one aspect of a broader story, for apparently these priests were meeting local demands and it can be easily imagined that they perceived such services as part of their pastoral duties. The interpretation of the thunder with the two brontologies in the Florence manuscript fits well into this context. But how did the voice of the thunder fit into a Christian understanding of natural signs? Thinking about the meaning of thunder was neither confined to intellectuals nor a niche subject: to those who lived in a world of small agricultural yields, thunderstorms were threatening by definition. That, according to the two brontologies, thunderclaps usually did not bring good news may have made their interpretation by a local authority all the more important. The key to understanding how brontologies make sense in a Christian, pastoral context is this interpretation of thunder as a sign, combined with the fact that in the Old Testament, God Himself frequently speaks with the voice of the thunder. The book Job, for instance, writes: God shall thunder wonderfully with his voice, He that doth great and unsearchable things. ( Job 37,5)69 The divine voice of the thunder rolling from the sky was, however, something that His enemies should fear: The adversaries of the Lord shall fear Him: and upon them shall He thunder in the heavens. (1 Kings 2,10).70 It is exactly this notion of thunder as a threatening voice, promising divine wrath to God’s adversaries that seems to have informed the largest part of both brontologies. A Christian asking his priest for the meaning of the thunder would, therefore, usually not get a cheerful or encouraging answer (the tendency of doom and disaster is particularly strong in these two texts, but also in other

68 Meens, ‘Thunder over Lyon’, pp. 163–4. 69 Job 37, 5: ‘Tonabit Deus in voce sua mirabiliter, qui facit magna et inscrutabilia.’ Latin and translation from the Douai Rheims bible, www.drbo.org (last consulted 11.4.2021). 70 1 Kings 2, 10: ‘Dominum formidabunt adversarii eius, et super ipsos in caelis tonabit.’ Latin and translation from the Douai Rheims bible.

The edges of orthodoxy  237

Latin brontologies71), but the person who added these small texts to a pastoral compendium seems to have been convinced that they provided useful Christian knowledge to a priest and his flock. Our third and final example is a pastoral manuscript that contains part of the only prognostic text that was ever explicitly and repeatedly rejected by fifth- and sixth-century church councils and other normative texts. In the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796,72 at the end of the first section (f.107r), we find the first ten entries of the Sortes sanctorum, the ‘lots of the saints’,73 added by a slightly later hand in an empty space after some computistic material. This time it is not the age of the moon or the voice of the thunder that promises a glimpse of God’s plan, but the explanation of three die-throws. Perhaps in order to avoid any doubt about the question whether God would manifest His will through mere dice, the sortes open with a clear message to the reader: These are the sortes sanctorum that never lie, therefore ask God and you will get what you desire.74 What is immediately striking is how – unlike the previous examples – this prognostic text begins with an explicitly Christian message, which also offers a hint about the working of the procedure: its starting point was the wish to ask a question to God. One of the tenth-century copies of the Sortes sanctorum mentions how this should be accompanied by fasting and prayer,75 which suggests a formal, solemn occasion. We may, then, imagine a lay person tormented by doubt about an important question in his life sitting down with the priest, who then helped him to consult God’s will by rolling the dice (the assumption here was that God guided one’s hand and thereby determined the outcome), and probably

71 Van den Berg, ‘Early medieval brontologies’, Appendix B. 72 See chapter 6, pp. 184–5. 73 On so-called ‘dice-oracles’ see Fritz Graf, ‘Rolling the dice for an answer’, in: Sarah Iles Johnston and Peter T. Struck eds, Mantikê. Studies in ancient divination, Religions in the Graeco-­ Roman world 155 (Leiden/Boston, 2005), pp. 51–97. On the sortes sanctorum specifically pp. 78–82, and William Klingshirn, ‘Defining the Sortes Sanctorum: Gibbon, Du Cange, and early Christian lot divination’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 10 (2002), pp. 77–130; Wiśniewski, Christian divination, pp. 115–27. 74 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796, f. 107r: ‘Haec sunt sortes sanctorum quae numquam falluntur, ideoque Deum roga et optinebis quod cupis. CIΛHΩ.’ The sortes sanctorum have been edited by Enrique Montero Cartelle ed., Les Sortes sanctorum, Étude, édition critique et traduction, Textes Littéraires du Moyen Âge 27 (Paris, 2013) using this manuscript as its earliest witness in Latin Europe. The edition however omits two complete tenth-century witnesses of this text (showing many variant readings) in the manuscript Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 2723, the first on f. 130v–132v, and the second on f. 133r–135v. 75 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 2723 f. 130v opens as follows: ‘Haec sunt sortes sanctorum quae numquam falluntur recta scrutantes si cum ieiunio et oratione peraguntur.’

238  Beyond pastoral care

also assisted in the interpretation of the answer.76 The role of the priest in the proceedings was, then, not fundamentally different than in ritual occasions he presided: consulting the Sortes and explaining its outcome to a lay person cast him in the role of mediator. Since the Sortes could be consulted about any question at all, its pastoral potential was, I think, substantial. The ten entries that follow in this manuscript (the full text consists of 56 entries) are organised as a list. Each answer begins with a combination of three numbers from six to one, representing three throws with a six-sided die; the order of the numbers does not matter. The answers are all unspecific enough to fit any question, and they could be both positive (this is the outcome most of the time) and negative, for instance: CCIII (=6.6.3) What you ask will now happen to you with great joy. You will be safe, ask the Lord, do not fear, God will help you. CCII (=6.6.2) You wish to put yourself from the light into the shadows, where there is no straight road, and you want to lose your life. I advise you not to follow this plan.77 Answers of this kind did, indeed, need further interpretation, so it is not very likely that the outcome was just read out to the lay person, after which he was seen to the door without any further ado. Instead, one can imagine a process where the priest elaborated on the answer with the original question in mind, not unlike the way in which he would turn ‘embryonic’ sermons into full-flung ones that took the local audience into account. Of course there is no way to prove that this is how the Sortes sanctorum worked in an early medieval context, but the study of its late antique predecessors suggests that clerical mediation and explanation is not unlikely.78 The text itself, even the short extract in the Paris manuscript, contains so many Christian elements and ideas that it surely gave the impression of offering trustworthy knowledge. On the other hand, however, we have seen before how 76 See Graf, ‘Rolling the dice’, p. 62, who emphasises that texts such as these always need human interpretation. On the importance of doubt as a context for the consultation of any oracle or form of divination see now Anne-Marie Luijendijk, ‘Only do not be of two minds’: doubt in Christian lot divination’, in: Luijendijk and Klingshirn eds, My lots, pp. 309–29. 77 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796, f. 107r: CCIII Quod postulas non (lege nunc) ita venit tibi cum magno gaudio, securus esto, domini roga, noli timere, deus autem adiuvabit tibi. CCII De luce in tenebras mittere que, ubi nulla directa est via et vita tua carere cupis, moneo te ne incurras hoc consilium. Compare the rather different versions in Montero Cartelle’s edition, Les Sortes sanctorum, p.74, there with the numbers CCI and CCIII. 78 See Wiśniewski, Christian divination, pp. 115–27; Graf. ‘Rolling the dice’.

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divination of all sorts was considered to be un-Christian. What is more, several church councils of the fifth and sixth centuries pronounced against the use of this text explicitly. This is, then, a good example of a text about which several opinions co-existed. Since this fragment of the Sortes ended up in a pastoral manual, we may assume that the scribe decided to interpret the text positively, which underlines once again how the world of bishops’ normative texts and prohibitions tells just one side of a bigger story. What makes the earliest prohibitions, that date from the second half of the fifth century, especially interesting is that they concern the practice of consulting the Sortes sanctorum by clerics. The Concilium Veneticum, that convened between 461 and 491, expresses strong disapproval that …some clergymen apply themselves to divination which, under the name of feigned devotion, they call ‘the lots of the saints’ and claim to have knowledge of divination and [an ability to] predict the future by examining some writings…79 There is not a word about prayer in this canon, nor does it mention faithful Christians asking God for help with a problem: the frame is outright negative, and somewhat reminiscent of the way in which local priests in the diocese of Lyon were labelled ‘tempestarii’ by their disgruntled archbishop Agobard. Even though these norms found their way into Carolingian canon law collections and episcopal statutes that cite such old canons,80 the fact that the sortes were used and copied throughout the Middle Ages (albeit on a modest scale), shows how the text met with interest too, and can be well imagined in the context of Carolingian-­style pastoral care. All in all, the prognostic texts we find in pastoral manuscripts are no foreign bodies, but, to the contrary, fit in very well with the pastoral purpose of these books. Their presence does not indicate superstition or other lack of knowledge on the part of the books’ readers, even though the authors of normative texts may sometimes tar such clerics with this brush. What the three examples just discussed have made clear is how by the compilers of these codices, prognostic material was considered to be clearly within the range of orthodoxy, even if

79 ‘Concilium Veneticum’ (461–491), c. 16, ed. C. Munier, Concilia Galliae a.314–a.506, CCSL 148 (Turnhout, 1963), p. 156: ‘…quod aliquanti clerici student auguriis et sub nomine confictae religionis, quas sanctorum sortes uocant, diuinationis scientiam profitentur, aut quarumcumque scripturarum inspectione futura promittunt…’. Translation slightly adapted from Wiśniewski, Christian divination, pp. 116–17. 80 For instance the episcopal statute by Radulf of Bourges, c.18 ‘De observatione vanitatum’, MGH Cap.ep. I, p. 262.

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bishops in the past held other opinions. This made prognostic texts potentially ambivalent, but at least in the Carolingian period, the possibility of different opinions on the subject does not seem to have led to measures stronger than the infrequent repetition of centuries-old norms. On the basis of the prognostic texts we find in pastoral compendia it is evident that they were considered useful, unproblematic and could fulfil a function in pastoral care – since educated priests were no divini or malefici but experts of bona fide Christianity, the warnings about such suspicious people did simply not apply.

EPILOGUE

At the very end of the manuscript Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 38bis, one of the more elaborate pastoral compendia of our collection, a twelfth-century hand added a sentence that reported the capture of Jerusalem by the Franks during the First Crusade: ‘In the year 1100 minus one, the Franks captured Jerusalem through the virtue of their leaders’.1 By that time the codex had been in use for a long time: since its composition in the middle of the ninth century more than two centuries had elapsed. Europe was a very different place than it had been in the ninth century, and the Carolingian dynasty and its empire had been gone so long that especially Charlemagne had become a near mythical figure of the past.2 All the same, the manuscripts that bear witness to the pastoral programme of the ninth century and to the Carolingian efforts to lead their people to heaven were still around. Many were still being read and studied, some of them were copied from cover to cover, and Carolingian expositions on the cornerstones of pastoral care still found their way into new compilations.3 Some of these texts would find readerships throughout the entire middle ages. Whether the Albi codex had been in constant use between the ninth and twelfth centuries we do not know, but the mere fact that somebody saw fit to add this little note shows us that the book had not disappeared to some forgotten, cobwebbed corner of the library. 1 Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 38bis, f. 64v: ‘Anno millesimo centeno quo minus uno Iehrusalem Franci capiunt virtute pot[enti]’. This sentence seems to be a version of a verse found more often in the context of the Historia Hierosolymitana expeditionis by Albert of Aachen. In the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud.Misc. 563, for instance, it has been added after the end of this work.). 2 On the Nachleben of Charlemagne, see Matthew Gabriele, An empire of memory: the legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade (Oxford, 2011) and William J. Purkis and Matthew Gabriele eds, The Charlemagne legends in medieval Latin texts (Cambridge, 2016). 3 The development of pastoral compendia between the Carolingian period and the Gregorian Reforms is now the subject of a new research project ‘Priests in a post-imperial world, c.900–c.1050’, see https://www.postimperialpriests.eu/home (last consulted 29.9.2021).

242  Epilogue

The ­k nowledge it contained was still alive and useful to some people in some ways. There is no doubt that the pastoral manuscripts of the Carolingian period were part of its inheritance to many later generations of clerics and lay Christians. What I have tried to reconstruct in this book are the circumstances that gave rise to the idea that a Christian kingdom required pastoral care for all, and that its priests should be educated with tailor-made manuscripts so that they, in turn, could educate their illiterate lay flocks. The pastoral compendia housed in many different manuscript collections today are no doubt just a small proportion of what once existed, but these books are our witnesses to an extraordinary set of ambitions, first formulated in royal circles, but pursued and put into effect energetically by a small army of mostly anonymous authors, compilers and readers. Through the existence of these books to begin with, but also through a close examination of their contents we have been able to see how royal initiatives taken around the year 800 were embraced by a group much wider than that connected to the royal court, and how these ideals took on a life of their own. The Christian Carolingian empire needed a population pleasing to God, and to this end priests were educated and sent out to local churches in order to create a Christian population worthy of God’s approval and support. But what exactly was this indispensable knowledge that would raise the moral standards of the kingdom and guarantee salvation for all and divine support in all eternity? Like pastoral care, becoming a good Christian was a never-ending process: admonished, corrected and advised by their priest, every individual needed to fight sin, correct their thoughts and behaviour continuously, do good works, and in that sense ‘reform’ themselves. The pastoral compendia show how the priests’ role was structured most of all via the main ritual moments in a layperson’s life, which at the same time offered opportunities to teach: in preparation for baptism, during the Sunday Mass, in the context of confession and penance. At the same time it is clear that these were probably just the focal points in a steady stream of less formal pastoral care – since there were right and wrong ways of doing more or less everything, the most mundane of daily activities could be made into occasions for sharing knowledge and showing the right way of doing things. Pastoral care ‘Carolingian style’, then, was intended to become fully integrated into local lay daily life. This also meant that a priest’s duties came to be understood as something more extensive than the religious core responsibilities of his ministry. Some pastoral manuscripts offer glimpses into a world in which priests came out into the field to bless newly planted vegetables, mediated when married couples went through a difficult period, helped defuse local conflicts or produced a cure for sick pigs and sheep. Although the details of the expertise recorded in the manuscripts vary considerably, the image of the priest as an expert in all kinds of written knowledge is evident throughout. The people responsible for the compilation of pastoral compendia took their jobs seriously and gathered a surprisingly wide range of material. That there was no uniform ‘core curriculum’, nor a centralised, detailed master plan that was unfolded in a top-down fashion, has come clearly to the fore. What we see instead is a large network of compilers, writers, copyists and others who shared texts and were inventive and creative when putting together useful books. Throughout it is

Epilogue  243

clear that there was a high level of trust in the expertise of those to whom writing, compiling and choosing the right kind of material was entrusted, in the same way that the priests’ expertise itself was trusted. The pastoral dossiers now allow us to understand how seriously we should take the Carolingian ‘pastoral project’, the level of education of priests and the kind of Christians that were the result of their pastoral care. At the end of this book, it is these questions that remain: what are the most important results, and where are the opportunities for further research? The first and perhaps most obvious observation is that, contrary to what was the scholarly consensus for a long time, there is quite a lot that we can know about the education and knowledge of priests, and therefore also about the potential (religious) knowledge of their illiterate lay audiences. Even though we can never know what exactly each priest shared with his flock, and although there must have been a huge variation in the contents and intensity of pastoral care throughout the Carolingian world, the intensification of pastoral care via a flurry of church-­building, as well as the training and appointment of better educated priests, is undeniable from ca. 800 onwards. Pastoral care became as self-evident a feature of local life as educated, literate and knowledgeable priests became a self-evident feature of normative assumptions in royal and episcopal admonishments. This book has offered a set of case-studies about the central themes of pastoral care and a few less central ones; this certainly does not exhaust the contents of the pastoral compendia, but it does show the outlines of the kinds of knowledge and know-how that was at least possible in the small worlds of the Carolingian world. The second point builds on the first, but focuses on what one may call the logistics of the pastoral project, and especially the question of where we should locate the people and the agency that made all of this possible. When we try to reconstruct the various steps through which the very general terms in which kings and court intellectuals, mostly in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, formulated ideals about the moral improvement of all were turned in to practical pastoral compendia, it is immediately striking that this was in its essence no topdown process in which the royal court played a central role. Even though our first witnesses of the ideas and ideals that would set the wheels in motion are most certainly a series of normative texts produced at the court, the agency that moved everything forward did not primarily come from there, but was in the hands of a much wider group of people. The most visible agents were diocesan bishops, but much more numerous were all those anonymous authors, compilers, teachers and copyists (amongst whom perhaps even priests themselves); each played their parts in the efforts to create a working pastoral infrastructure. To interpret all these efforts as part of a court-led ‘renaissance’ or even a ‘reform’ does not do justice to the work of all these people, I think, for it is impossible to separate them in any meaningful way from the wider ideals of creating an ever-lasting Christian kingdom, whose members would enter the perpetual kingdom of heaven after their earthly existence. This was one of the most central characteristics of Carolingian culture, which inspired intellectuals to write sophisticated biblical commentaries and study the most erudite of patristic writings: the very same ideas also stimulated all those anonymous authors and compilers to produce the texts on which

244  Epilogue

pastoral care for all could be built. In essence, all these people acted on the same set of ideals, albeit each in their own ways. The contents of the priests’ manuscripts, in third place, help us discover some of the central features of knowledge that was deemed essential and useful for raising moral standards and offering education to all who needed it. Perhaps other than expected on the basis of normative texts that emphasise the crucial importance of ‘correct’ knowledge, it has turned out that ‘correct’ was not the same as ‘uniform’. Reliable knowledge and correct ritual (that is: the kind of ritual that God would accept) could take many different forms, but nevertheless hinged on a few immutable elements that were the heart of the matter. A priest could perform a correct baptism with just a handful of prayers, without washing the candidate’s feet or dressing him in white, but without triple immersion it was not a correct ritual. The bandwidth of possibilities was wide but not infinite; nevertheless, there was ample space for local variations and interpretations, all of which could count as ‘correct’ in the eyes of king, bishop and God Himself. Variation is, then, the refrain we hear throughout: variation in the explanations of rituals, variation in the kinds of texts chosen for the education of priests and laypeople, and also variation in what each surviving pastoral compendium contains. Another important feature of all these texts is the striking anonymity of most of the material by far – surely all the texts had authors, but their names or credentials were only in rare occasions mentioned. This element of the story needs further investigation, for how can it be that a culture that considered reliable and correct knowledge so important did not much care about mentioning authorship in those books that were intended to help the lay population to heaven? If reliability was not dependent on authorship, how did it work and why did people trust what they read or heard? In the same way that no ninth-century Christian was ever finished learning about the finer details of his religion, there is always more to be studied and learned about the manuscript culture and the history of knowledge of the early middle ages. It would, for instance, be fascinating to submit all known pastoral compendia to a detailed network analysis at the level of both individual texts and entire manuscripts. In this way, we may begin to understand how (blocks of ) texts travelled, were adapted and distributed and how all these connections taken together show the networks of knowledge that connected the entire Carolingian world plus some areas beyond it, such as Anglo-Saxon England, South Italy or Spain. An additional advantage of such an approach would be that it may help us date and localise some of the more elusive texts and manuscripts, and that it may also show change over time – or lack thereof. Another item high on the wish list are detailed analyses of the palaeographical and codicological features of these manuscripts, for instance to understand better the manuscript culture that existed outside the well-studied scriptoria and libraries. Perhaps the most important thing of all, however, is that researchers of the Carolingian period become more alert to the fact that there is so much unknown, unedited material out there that we need to take into account to understand Carolingian written culture in its full depth and extent. This world was not just populated by highly accomplished intellectuals whom we happen to know by name: for every Alcuin or Theodulf there are many unknown authors whose writings await investigation.

APPENDIX 1 The Carolingian priests’ manuscripts featuring in this book

These descriptions follow those in Keefe, Water and the word and A catalogue, and the most recent description if the manuscripts are not in one of her lists. Conflicting dates and provenances have been maintained.

Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek msc.lit.131 Basel, Universitätsbibliothek F III 15e + N I 13:c Corbie 230* Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ash. 82** Gent, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit 506 (83) Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 288 London, British Library Add. 19725 Merseburg, Dombibliothek 103 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, sec. Médecine H 387 Monza, Biblioteca Capitolare e-14/127 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6324 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6325 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 14410

‘linksrheinish’, bibl.Trier eastern France, Laon? Rheims/e.France northern Italy? prob. northern Italy (northern?) France northern Italy Freising area Freising Bavaria/n.Italy

s.IX 3/4 or s.IX/X s.IX 3/4 –4/4 s.IX1/3 s.IX1/3

270×170, 113f. 219×145, 106f. 205×130, 142f. 258×173, 102f.

southern France southern France prob southern France southern Germany Fulda ne.France Italy or Switzerland Senlis

s.IX med or3/4 s.IX1/2 s.IX4/4 s.IX 2/3 or4/4 s.IX med +s IX1/4 s.IXex s.VIII/IX 860–70

s.IX 3/4 s.IX1/3 or2/4 s.IX/X s.IX1/2 or2/4 s.IX 3/3 s.IX 2/3 or3/4

origin

date

210×155, 222p. 210×140, 91f. 190×155, 129f. 186×126, 162f. 170×125, 105f 137×116, 105f.

see : Orléans BM 116

38bis 228/240×160/175, 65f. 40 249×162, 88f (incompl.) 43 198×165, 116f. 198×129, 177f. 260×155, 55f+160×130,8f 250×190, 156f. 155×90/95; 140f. 230×172, 189f.

size

246  Appendix 1

Freising/Regensburg ne.France/Regensburg Tegernsee? Freising (w. or nw.) France France unknown northern France France Switzerland Lorsch W-Frankish eastern France Mondsee (not) Weissenburg;Worms?

s.IX or2/4 s.IX 3/4 s.IX in s.IX1/2; 811–36 s.IX 3/4 or2/3 or3/3 s.IX/X s.IX1/3 s.IX med 813/15 s.IX 2/3 and3/3 860–75 s.IXex s.IX 2/3 S.IX1/4–2/4 s.IX1/2

245×145, 150f. 226×154, 148f. 230×140, 88f. 205×138, 127f. 190×138, 105f. 146×100, 104f. 194×129, 92f. 162×107, 117f. 190×115, 153f. 295×213, 57p. 268×178, 113f. 186×127, 85f. 136×100, 126f. 180×130, 120f. 210×122, 176f.

* what once was Corbie 230, has now been divided into three parts, all in the library of St Petersburg: RNB Lat Q V I 56 + I 34 + II 5 ** the manuscript Orléans BM 116 consists of two separate manuscripts for priests, later combined. The second half of the second book is now Florence, BML Ash. 82

Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 14461 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 14508 f.64r–146v Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 27152 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135 Orléans Bibliothèque Municipale 116** Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1008 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1012 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 1248 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 2796 St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 40 p.301–357 Vatican library, pal.lat 485 Vatican library, reg.lat. 612 Verdun, Bibliotheque Municipale 27 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 1370 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek 91 Weiss. Part IV

Appendix 1  247

APPENDIX 2 Contents of pastoral compendia

This overview shows the presence (grey box) or absence (white box) of key pastoral texts in the manuscripts listed in Appendix I. The order of the list is (roughly) chronological.

Prognostic texts

Sermons, homilies

Penitential

Canon law

Episcopal statute/priest’s exam

Mass exposition

Exposition Lord’s Prayer

Creed exposition

Baptismal exposition

250  Appendix 2

Einsiedeln, SB 27 Munich, BSB clm 27152 Paris, BN lat. 2796 Vienna, ÖNB 1370 Munich, BSB clm 6325 Munich, BSB clm 14410 Paris, BN lat. 1012 Munich, BSB clm 28135 Laon, BM 288 Merseburg, DB 103 Wolfenbüttel, HAB 91 Weiss.IV Munich, BSB 14461 Albi, BM 40 Basel, UB F III 15e + N I 13:c Paris, BN lat. 1248 Albi, BM 38bis Gent, UB 506 Munich, BSB 14508 El Escorial, BRSL L III 8 Vatican BAV pal.lat 485 Verdun, BM 27 Bamberg, SBi msc.lit.131 Montpellier, Bib.Int.sec.Méd.387 Orléans, BM 116 Florence, BML Ash. 82 St Gallen, SB 40-III Munich, BSB clm 6324 Monza, BC e-14/127 Milan, Bibl.Amb. L 28 sup. Albi, BM 43 Corbie 230 London, BL Add. 19725 Paris, BN lat. 1008

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscripts For an overview of the priests’ manuscripts discussed in this book, see Appendices 1 and II Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale ms 38bis Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale ms. 40 Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale ms. 43 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek lit. 131 Barcelona, Biblioteca de la Universitat 228 Basel, Universitätsbibliothek F III 15e+ N I 13:c Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 10127–44 Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale 600 (559) Cologne, Dombibliothek cod. 15 Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek B 113 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8 Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82 Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek ms. 506 Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. XVIII Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. CCXX Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 288 London, British Library Add. 19725 London, Lambeth Palace 414 Merseburg, Bibliothek des Domstifts 103 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 Monza, Biblioteca Capitolare e14/127 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6324 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6325 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6330 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410

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INDEX

Admonitio Generalis 3, 4 and n.9, 5, 8, 10–11, 48–50, 73, 88, 92; on priests 56–8, 124, 140, 155 adoptionist controversy 109 n.75, 212, 218 Agobard of Lyon, archbishop 204, 208, 235, 239 Alcuin of York 6, 70, 72 n.61, 107, 244; De trinitate 77; De vitiis et virtutibus liber 169 n.61, 170–2; Primo paganus 7, 91, 94–7, 99, 105 almsgiving 165 altar 8 Amalarius of Metz 72 n.61, 121, 129; baptismal exposition 97; Eclogae 70; Liber officialis 69–70 Ambrose of Milan 110 n.76, 147 Ampère, Jean Jacques 30–2, 35 and n.23, 37 amulet 224–5, 227 and n.41, 228, 236 Andrieu, Michel 69 Angilmodus of Soissons, priest 96 anonymous texts 74, 107, 126, 196, 244; see also Creed, exposition of, Mass commentary, medicine, penitential St Augustine 47, 68, 70, 96; Enchiridion de fide, spe et caritate 105; sermons 142–3, 147; wrong ascription to 142–3, 172 and n.77, 222, 226 baptism 87–116, 145, 146, 178; of children 89; ‘correct’ 53, 90–3, 96, 100, 244; education before 18, 243; explanation/ exposition of 7, 13, 58–9, 65, 68–9, 71, 74, 82, 91–102, 113, 217; knowledge

about 52, 57, 68, 97, 100, 113; ordo of 93–4, 100; ritual of 90, 92; and salvation 7, 10, 47, 89; and white clothes 92; see also catechumenate, triple immersion Barrow, Julia 43 ‘battle against ignorance’ 8–11, 14–16, 19 Bede 107, 217; De temporum ratione 69 Bible 22, 213 Bischoff, Bernhard 22, 69, 78–80, 112, 175, 217 bishops: and the education of priests 5, 12, 15, 58–9, 140; duties and responsibilities of 5, 6, 8, 14, 58–9, 124, 140, 243; instructions for priests see episcopal statutes bloodletting 198–200, 210, 230, 232 Boniface 10, 47 book see manuscript Bozzolo, Carla 60, 64, 112, 185 Brown, Peter 8, 40 Burckhardt, Jacob 31, 34–5, 38 Caesarius of Arles, bishop 227, 233 calendar 71, 233 canon law (canones) 4, 9, 17, 19, 48, 52, 58, 65, 68, 71, 111–12, 121, 154, 161, 189, 210 capitula episcoporum see episcopal statutes capitularies 4, 8, 13, 15, 25, 39 and n.39, 53, 57, 120; as laws 4–5; interpretation of 4, 27; see also Admonitio Generalis Carolingian court 5–6, 11, 15, 58; and reform 19, 27, 41; as an intellectual hub

270 Index

6, 38; intellectuals 7, 13, 30–1, 38, 49; study of the Classics at 30–1, 35 Carolingian dynasty 1 Carolingian kingdom: inhabitants of 8; size of 8 Carolingian project 1 and n.1, 15, 46–51, 83 Carolingian reform(s) 19, 20, 25–51, 243; as an anachronism 43–5; definition of 41–4 Carolingian renaissance 19, 25–51; as a rebirth of Classical culture 30, 32; as an elite phenomenon 31, 38; definition of 30–1 and n.14, 35, 37 n.34, 243; ‘invention’ of 30–3 catechumen 94, 97, 100, 114; ingestion of salt 99; instruction of 101, 113, 168; see also godparents catechumenate 89–90, 98, 103 Charlemagne 2–3, 6–7, 11, 92, 110, 137, 241; and correctio 28, 40; agency of 16 and n.38, 38; as Josiah 48–9; ‘battle against ignorance’ 8–12; image of 36–8, 41; and the imperial title 36, 39; as inventor of the primary school 28–9; letter about baptism (813) 91–2, 96, 98, 105; reactive politics of 28 and n.9 Charles the Bald 40 charms 227 and n.42 charters 11–12, 184 n.8 church: access to 10; dedication of 14, 63–4; as a holy place 120; inventories 11, 141, 155; local 10, 87, 183; network 8, 10–11; numbers 10, 14; owner of 11 Church Fathers 9, 14, 70, 78, 95, 145, 161; as sources of correct doctrine 36, 39–40, 47, 154, 219; study of 36; see also St Augustine, Gregory the Great Clemens, pope 71 Cockayne, Thomas 230 Collectio Bigotianum 185 Collectio Dacheriana 154 and n.12 Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana 57 Collectio Hibernensis 194, 206 n.94 Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum 112, 114–15, 193–4 Collectio 53 titulorum 112, 115, 193 Collectio Vetus Gallica 122 n.18 communion 118–19 and n.7 commutations 162, 165, 167, 176 computus 52, 66, 71, 182, 185, 200, 217, 222, 233 confession 89, 149, 157, 162, 178, 242 Contreni, John 37, 79 Corbie, monastery 79

‘cornerstones’ of pastoral care 87, 88 n.3, 119, 121, 149, 178, 241; see also baptism, the Mass, penance correctio 1, 19, 25–51; definition of 38–40; see also Schramm, Percy Ernst council: of Chalon (813) 157; of Epaon (517) 155; of Nicaea (325) 134; of Orléans (511) 123, 154; of Paris (829) 157; of Rome (721) 190; of Tours (567) 122; of Venice (461–91) 239 court see Carolingian court Creed: expositions/explanations of 13, 20, 58, 65, 68–9, 73, 81, 113, 145–7, 177, 217; interrogation 75–6; knowledge of 18, 20, 68, 74, 89; understanding of 74; see also Fortunatus commentary Cyprian 105 Damasus, pope 70 Davies, Wendy 22 Davis, Jennifer 15, 22, 28 and n.9 devil 8, 221 Disputatio puerorum 105, 113 n.89, 127 n.34, 145 disputes: settlement of 12, 202–10; see also ordeals, judicial DiTommaso, Lorenzo 230 divination 213–14, 222–3, 225–8, 230, 234, 239 divine: anger 10, 53, 101, 152, 236; favour 2, 5–6, 10, 42, 47, 120; will 7 Dominus Vobiscum see Mass commentary duel 203 education: and salvation 46–51; of lay people 6, 9, 12, 14, 16–18, 20, 87–9, 106, 121, 126, 129, 153, 167–74; of priests 8, 10, 12–13, 16–17, 21, 50, 53, 57, 65–7, 87–9, 106, 121, 129, 161, 181, 210, 243 Egbert of York 71; see also penitentials Egyptian days 112, 200 and n.70, 215, 231–3 Engelbert, priest 55 episcopal statutes 11, 13, 16–17, 19, 50, 53, 66, 68, 71, 112, 122–3, 175, 217; Capitula Bavarica 125, 156 and n.24; Capitula Corbeiensia 155 n.20; Capitula Frisingensia I 56; Capitula Frisingensia II 56; Capitula Moguntiacensia 155 n.21; Capitula Parisiensia 218; Capitula Silvanectensia prima 223; Gerbald of Liège 74 n.65, 101 n.46, 113–14, 223; Haito of Basle 69, 103; Hincmar of Rheims 125, 157; Radulf of Bourges 17 n.40; Ruotger of Trier 117 n.1; Theodulf of Orléans 58,

Index  271

69, 72, 88 n.1, 102–3, 113–15, 119, 156, 171, 193 eternal life see salvation Eucharist 125; eaten by a mouse 120 Eucherius of Lyon 76 exorcism 221, 227 n.42 expositions see baptism, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Mass exposition, penance fasting 158–9, 163, 165 Fathers of the Church see Church Fathers Fichtenau, Heinrich 39 n.39 fides 90 filioque-controversy 77, 135 Flint,Valery 215 Florus of Lyon 121, 129 Förster, Max 230 Fortunatus commentary 113; see also Creed, exposition of Fulda, monastery 79 Ganshof, François-Louis 4, 27, 40 Ganz, David 79 Gennadius of Marseille: De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis 217, 219–20 Gerbald of Liège 71, 104 n.57; see also episcopal statute Gibbon, Edward 36 godparents 74 n.65, 89–90; knowledge 74, 101, 168 Gregory the Great 47, 51, 70, 147; Libellus Responsionum 195; Regula Pastoralis 48, 51, 53–5 Guntramn, king 49 Haberl, Doris 42 Haito of Basle, bishop 70; see also episcopal statutes Hammer, Carl 54 Harmening, Dieter 215 heaven see salvation Hen,Yitzhak 61 Henel, Heinrich 230 heretics 21, 115, 155, 211 and n.1, 212, 218–20 Hincmar of Rheims 40 n.43, 46 n.60, 125, 190; see also episcopal statutes Holy Trinity: correct understanding of 18, 75, 89, 135, 137–8; explanation of 14, 76, 134–6, 217–18; nature of 74 homilies 17, 54, 58, 78, 89, 141 Howe, John 43, 182 Hrabanus Maurus 78, 121, 129, 190; De institutione clericorum 96

ignorance, battle against 8–11, 14–16, 19 ‘instruction readers’ 20–1, 63, 65–8 Isidore of Seville 51, 70–1, 141; De ecclesiasticis officiis 48, 51, 53, 76, 78, 95, 130–1 n.41, 146–7; Etymologiae 77, 186 St Jerome 71, 96, 141, 144 John Chrisostom 107 Jonas of Orleans 190 Keefe, Susan 13, 19, 21, 22, 42, 62–7, 69, 74, 77–8, 94, 98, 129 king: as pastor 46; duties of 6, 48; see Charlemagne, Guntramn, Louis the Pious, Pippin the Short kingdom: eternity of 2, 48; salvation of 5, 7–8, 28, 47–8, 83, 88, 118, 242 knowledge: correct 16, 38–9, 53, 73; exchange of 15, 83, 89; of lay people 13, 15, 18, 74; of priests 4, 10, 12, 20, 53, 56, 65, 68, 73–4, 120, 123, 155, 161, 181, 231, 243; religious 1, 7, 12, 13, 39, 56, 89, 111; about the future see prognostication Kohl, Thomas 203 Ladner, Gerhard 43 laity: behaviour of 14; knowledge of 13, 15, 18, 74; education of 9, 12, 14, 16–18, 20, 87–9, 106, 121, 126, 153, 167–74; salvation of 7, 19, 137, 146, 152, 154, 206 Latin 35; correct 3, 31, 45; knowledge of 53, 59; quality of 22, 61 law 5, 17; see also capitularies Leja, Meg 196 Lex Salica 151 Liber de numeris 174 library 10–11, 77, 182 liturgy 3, 14; Roman 26; Romanisation of 26 Liuzza, Roy 230 Lord’s Prayer: exposition of 18, 20, 58, 65, 70, 74, 104–6, 145, 177–8, 217; knowledge of 20, 57, 89, 106–10, 113, 115; teaching 102–4, 110 Lorsch, monastery 66 Louis the Pious, king 40, 77 lunary 200, 215, 232–3 Magnus of Sens, archbishop 91; see also baptism, exposition of malefici 213 manuscripts: number of 7, 11, 36 n.30; priests’ ownership/use of 11, 55, 120, 123, 182; production of 7–8, 53; for priests see pastoral compendia

272 Index

manuscripts (by signature): Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 38bis 105 n.61, 162 n.48, 241; Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 40 142 n.81, 143 n.86, 144; Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale 43 69 n.51, 75 n.67, 141 n.75; Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek lit. 131 69–70, 78, 80, 110 n.78; Barcelona, Biblioteca de la Universitat 228 75 n.66, 169 n.62; Basle Universitätsbibliothek F III 15e + N I 13 c 50 n.67, 105 n.60; Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 10127– 44 67 n.45; Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale 600 (559) 105 n.64, 130 n.43; Cologne, Dombibliothek cod. 15 148 n.105; Düsseldorf, Universitätsund Landesbibliothek B 113 95 n.23; Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 27 76 n.68, 81, 108 n.70 and n.73, 143 n.86, 173 n.77, 216, 222, 226; El Escorial, Real Biblioteca di San Lorenzo L III 8 78, 79 n.79, 143 n.86, 191 n.32, 197, 216–18, 222–3; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 82 127 n.34, 161 n.45, 234; Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 506 95 n.25, 128 n.36, 140 n.74, 151, 171 n.72, 191– 3; Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.perg. XVIII 80 and n.80, 105 n.60 and n.64; Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Aug.Perg. CCXX 55; Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale ms. 288 58–9, 141–3, 143 n.87, 144, 173 n.77; London, British Library Add. 19725 21 n.47, 163, 166, 197, 207–8, 216–21; London, Lambeth Palace 414 148 n.106; Merseburg Bibliothek des Domstifts 103 161 n.45, 172; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana L 28 sup. 161 n.42, 162 n.47, 169 n.62; Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, section Médecine H 387 82, 104 n.54, 149 n.1, 161 n.45, 162 n.48, 165, 175–8; Monza, Biblioteca Capitolare e14/127 82–3; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6324 130 n.41; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6325 130 n.41; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 6330 67 n.47; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14410 63 n.34, 64 and n.38, 156 n.24, 169 n.62; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14461 78, 80 n.81. 220 n.18; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14508 110–16, 193–5, 206–9,

220 n.18; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14532 163–4; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 27152 50 n.67, 173 n.77; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 28135 79, 143 n.86, 172, 173 n.77, 174; Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 116 127 n.34, 234 n.61; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 93 105 n.64, 130 n.93; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1008 65, 75 n.67; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1012 64 n.38, 68–9, 77; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1248 126 n.31, 128 n.35; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 2796 50 n.67, 184, 220 n.18, 237–8; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 10861 147 n.104; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 12048 231; St Petersburg, Publichnaja Biblioteka im. M.E. Salotykova Schedrina Q.V.I no. 34 130 n.43, 198; Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek ms. 40 66 and n.42, 90, 144–8; Séléstat, Bibliothèque Humaniste 132 64 n.38, 79, 155 n.21; Troyes, Mediathèque Jacques Chirac 1979 76 n.69;Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, pal.lat. 485 64 and n.38, 66, 70–1, 79, 130 n.43, 161 n.44 and n.45, 198, 205, 232–3;Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg.lat. 612 200 n.70, 207–8;Verdun, Bibliothèque Municipale 27 76 n.68, 82, 107 n.69;Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 1370 17 n.41; Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Weiss. 91 150 n.3 marriage 14, 187 and n.20, 188–95, 210, 224 martyrology 220–1 Mass 7, 10, 104, 117–48; canon 129, 131, 146; celebration of 117, 121, 123, 204; ‘correct’ 120–1, 138; explanation/ exposition of (see Mass commentary/ exposition); in a female monastery 117 n.3, 123; knowledge about 57, 68, 119, 123–4, 126–8, 131, 144; lay attendance 118; ordo 120, 124, 129; ritual 118; role of lay people 119, 123; validity of 120; variation 118 Mass commentary/exposition 58, 65–6, 69, 71, 74, 121, 145, 218; anonymous 74, 121, 129; Dominus vobiscum 72 and n.61, 107, 108 n.74, 121 n.17, 129–38, 145–6, 177–8; Primum in ordine 105 n.64, 129–38; Missa pro quid dicitur 128 n.35; Quotiens contra se 128 n.36, 130 n.42

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Maxentius of Aquileia, archbishop 92, 98–9 and n.39; see also baptism, exposition of McCune, James 106 n.66, 142 McKitterick, Rosamond 41 medicine 14, 17, 21, 31, 70–1, 182, 187, 195–202, 210, 215, 232; see also recipes, medical Meens, Rob 61, 153, 160, 236 Mériaux, Charles 54 Merovingian: church 10 and n.29, 11; culture, image of 35; kingdom 10; pastoral care 10–11; priests 10–11 Michelet, Jules 30, 32, 34 monasteries: Corbie 79; Fulda 79; Lorsch 66; Reichenau 54, 79 Montesquieu 35 n.24 Mulsow, Martin 184 Nelson, Jinty (Janet L.) 28, 36 n.33 oath, swearing an 226 Odo of Beauvais, bishop 96 ordeal, judicial 188, 202–10; prayers for 21, 112; trial by 202–10 Ordinal of Christ 55, 145, 234 ordo 126; baptism 93–4, 100; baptism of the sick 145; Mass 120, 124, 129; penance 162, 164–5 Ornato, Enzio 60, 64, 112, 185 Otolt, murdered priest 54 pagans/paganism 8, 9 and n.26, 21, 211 and n.1, 220–3, 226; knowledge 212–13, 222; practices 212, 222 Palmer, James 215 pastoral care 2, 6–7, 57, 220, 242; access to 8, 10; ideas about 46, 140, 210, 242; infrastructure of 10, 15, 25, 47, 50, 87, 182, 243; and marriage 14, 187 and n.20, 188–95, 210, 224; medicine as part of 195–202; organisation of 8, 11, 87; and prognostication 198, 201, 215, 229–40; round-the-clock 11, 87; and salvation 3, 19, 46, 156, 212; scope of 15, 140, 182 pastoral compendium/manual 12–15, 19, 53–83; anonymous contents of 18, 65, 70–2, 78, 81–2, 242; authority of 72; compilation of 16, 58, 64, 72, 242; contents of 13, 15, 17, 20, 45, 61–2, 64, 73, 88, 111, 121, 129, 144, 161, 197, 216, 244; definition of 14, 19, 21, 60–5; emergence of 16, 29, 39, 45–6, 50, 53; ‘families’ of 70, 81–3; geographical distribution of 78–81; hands 80; material aspects of 61, 65; medical texts in

70, 195–202; number of 13, 14, 21; prognostic texts in 215, 229–40; size 60–2; as snapshots 14, 59, 73, 111; variety 13, 60, 65, 71–2, 243; see also manuscripts; manuscript (by signature) pastoral project 1, 3–4, 6, 16, 83, 241 patronage 6 Patzeld, Erna 34–6 Patzold, Steffen 11, 28 n.6, 104 Paxton, Fred 66 penance 7, 104, 149–78, 212, 225; as a second baptism 114, 150; deathbed 150; doing 158, 167, 173, 217; education during 20, 89, 243; explanation of 74, 162; for illegitimate sex 189, 191–2, 195; as medicine 163; Merovingian 154; ordo 162, 164–5; practice of 156, 159; priests’ knowledge about; prescriptions about 153–8; and salvation 10, 205, 207; social function of 152; see also penitentials penitentials 52, 54, 58, 61, 66, 71, 149–78, 213; anonymous 157, 160; of pseudoBede 159, 176; of pseudo-Egbert 71, 153 n.11, 174; of pseudo-Gregory 151, 164, 191; of Halitgar of Cambrai 160–1 and n.40, 170, 191–2; of Hrabanus Maurus 160 and n.40; Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae-Egberti 163, 224, 229; Paenitentiale in duobus libris 149 n.1, 165, 176, 188 n.22; Paenitentiale pseudo-Romanum 163; Paenitentiale pseudoTheodori 172 n.74; prologues to 163, 165; ‘reform’ 160 and n.39, 161; of Theodore of Canterbury 71; see also commutations Pippin the Short 7, 10, 46, 48–9 Pokorny, Rudolf 62–4, 66–7 pope 47, 49 prayers 104, 206, 227; collection of 17, 21, 71, 199 preaching 14, 57, 121, 141; in the vernacular 119 and n.8, 139; themes 140, 175; see also sermon priests: as ‘doctors of souls’ 153, 163, 165, 176, 195–202, 210; as experts 9, 13, 21, 188, 242; as ‘hinge people’ 182–3, 202; as intermediaries 117–18, 164–5, 182, 207, 209–10; as models 2, 57; and superstitious practices 228; duties of 14, 125, 206, 236; education of 8, 10, 12–13, 16–17, 21, 50, 53, 57, 65–7, 87–9, 106, 121, 129, 161, 181, 210, 243; knowledge of 4, 10, 12, 20, 53, 56, 65, 68, 73–4, 120, 123, 155, 161, 181, 231, 243; living in lay settlements 2, 10–11, 50, 87, 183, 210; Merovingian 10; modern reputation of

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19; responsibilities of 53, 57, 87, 115, 164; see also pastoral care, priest’s exam priest’s exam 12, 50–3, 58, 68, 71, 120, 124, 140, 145–6; see also Waltcaud of Liège priest’s manuscript see pastoral compendium Primo paganus see Alcuin of York Primum in ordine see Mass exposition prognostic texts 198, 201, 215, 229–40; brontology 234–7; Egyptian Days 112, 200 and n.70, 215, 231–3; lunary 200, 215, 232–3; Sortes sanctorum 186, 229, 237–8; Sphere of Apuleius 200 and n.73, 201 prognostication 17, 229–40 Quotiescumque 163–4, 176 and n.89; see also penitentials, prologues to Radulf of Bourges, bishop see episcopal statutes Rasmussen, Niels Krogh 61–2 recipes, medical 21, 185, 197–8; see also medicine regimen 198, 232–3 Reginbert, scribe 79 Reichenau, monastery 55, 79 renaissance see Carolingian renaissance Richardus, priest 55 ritual 10; ‘correct’ 20, 90–3, 244; variation 20, 89, 92–3, 118; see also baptism, Mass, penance Roman culture, revival of 34, 36–9 sacrament see baptism, Mass, extreme unction Sacramentarium Gregorianum-Hadrianum 131 salvation 1, 5 and n.18, 7, 45, 221; individual 7, 19, 137, 146, 152, 154, 206; of the kingdom 5, 7–8, 28, 47, 83, 88, 118, 242; responsibility for 3, 47 school(s) 11, 14, 59; at the court 35

schoolbook 21, 63, 65–8 Schramm, Percy Ernst 38–40, 42 sermons 4, 17, 68, 73, 106 n.66, 112, 118, 121, 141, 144, 156, 168, 213, 217; teaching the laity through 20, 89, 121, 139–44, 172, 226; Sermo de penitentiae 169–71; see also preaching sin 138, 149, 153, 177, 191, 212; and crime 151; as a system 169–70; fighting 170, 217, 242; knowledge about 168; teaching about 57, 153, 167–75; unintentional 167 sodomy 158–9 Sortes sanctorum 186, 229, 237–8 Specht, F.A. 35 Sphere of Apuleius 200 and n.73, 201 Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua 234 Stone, Rachel 189 Sunday rest 9, 224 superstition 21, 201, 215, 230 teaching see education Theodore of Canterbury 71; see also penitentials Theodulf of Orléans 71, 97, 157, 171, 244; see also episcopal statutes triple immersion 53 n.5, 98, 100–1, 114, 244; see also baptism Vergilius Maro: Epitome 133 Veronesi, Francesco 190 vices 89, 140, 143, 168, 170; eight principal 169–71 virtues 57, 89, 140, 143, 168, 170 visitation, episcopal 12 Walahfrid Strabo: Liber de exordiis et incrementis 69 and n.56, 78 Waltcaud of Liège 52–3, 58, 71, 124, 155; see also priest’s exam Wilmart, André 129, 133 Wolfman, priest 55