Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire: Ideals and Expectations during the Reign of Louis the Pious (813–828). By RutgerKramer. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 2019. 277 pp. €105. ISBN 9789462982642.

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-119
Author(s):  
Josh Timmermann
Keyword(s):  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Louis The Pious

scholarly journals Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Louis The Pious

By the early ninth century, the responsibility for a series of social, religious and political transformations had become an integral part of running the Carolingian empire. This became especially clear when, in 813/4, Louis the Pious and his court seized the momentum generated by their predecessors and broadened the scope of these reforms ever further. These reformers knew they represented a movement greater than the sum of its parts; the interdependence between those wielding imperial authority and those bearing responsibility for ecclesiastical reforms was driven by comprehensive, yet still surprisingly diverse expectations. Taking this diversity as a starting point, this book takes a fresh look at the optimistic first decades of the ninth century. Extrapolating from a series of detailed case studies rather than presenting a new grand narrative, it offers new interpretations of contemporary theories of personal improvement and institutional correctio, and shows the self-awareness of its main instigators as they pondered what it meant to be a good Christian in a good Christian empire.

I. Inquisitio as a Tool of Royal Governance under the Carolingian and Ottonian Kings

2016 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Bachrach
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
History Of ◽  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Louis The Pious

Abstract The inquest (Latin inquisitio) was an important administrative tool in the hands of government officials of the later Roman empire and of the Regnum Francorum. Imperial and royal officials used inquests to safeguard the fisc, and also to assure accurate tax assessments. Scholars long have recognized that the inquest also served similar roles in the hands of government officials in the Carolingian empire during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. By contrast, most specialists in the history of the east Frankish kingdom and of its German successor under the Ottonian dynasty have argued that the lands east of the Rhine lacked the sophisticated administrative institutions that were characteristic Carolingian government in the first half of the ninth century. This study offers a corrective to the traditional view that both the eastern Carolingians and the Ottonians presided over administratively backward realms. It was rather the case that the eastern Carolingian rulers and their Ottonian successors used inquisitiones to safeguard the royal fisc from misuse, neglect, and theft. In addition, these rulers used inquests to maintain control over the assets of ecclesiastical institution.

Witches, Female Weather Makers, and Poisoners in the Carolingian Empire

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-211
Author(s):  
Christoph Galle
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Witch Hunt

<?page nr="201"?>Abstract The question about the role of women within medieval societies associatively makes one think of witches who allegedly were up to mischief by using poison or all kinds of magic to inflict maliciously harm on other people. But this impression results too much from an uncritical reception of such propagandistic conceptions that arose from the later medieval and early modern witch-hunt ideology. This cliché of medieval witches neither does justice to the general situation nor can it be transferred to the entire Middle Ages, as a representative view into the Carolingian empire of the eighth and ninth centuries shows.

scholarly journals Gentile- und Reichsadel am östlichen Rand des Karolingischen Reiches

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-345
Keyword(s):  
Central Area ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
Eastern Border ◽  
Carolingian Empire

Abstract At the eastern border of the Carolingian Empire two different groups of elite emerged. When referred to, the individuals in one of the groups were called either by personal names, or by the name of the area they governed; individuals in the other group were called by the name of their people. Members of the first group administered the territorial units of the central area of the former Avar Khaganate just like the Carolingian chief officials and royal vassals in the interior of the Empire. The members of the second group were (indirect) allies of the Avars and had their own tribal prince and gentile nobles. The administrative centres of the Carolingian province Pannoniae developed in synchrony with the inner centres of the Empire, while the centres of power outside the Empire had their own special settlement structures showing a conglomerate of the courts of the tribal nobility.

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