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This thesis examines the relationship between politics and the writing of institutional history (cartularies and gesta) after the end of the Carolingian Empire (888) from the perspective of Folcuin of St-Bertin and Lobbes (fl. 948-90). After the empire collapsed, long-form narrative histories were mainly written about other centres of power than the royal court, such as religious institutions, and reflected local historical horizons as institutional identities became stronger nodes around which to write history in response to political fragmentation. This thesis nuances this view by placing Folcuin and his histories in as broad a context as possible for the first time. Chapters I and II explore how the politics of Folcuin's oblation to the Flemish abbey of St-Bertin related to the writing of what many consider to be the first cartulary-chronicle, the Gesta abbatum Sithiensium. Folcuin's partisanship in a hitherto unknown conflict between certain Baldwinid counts and their Unruoching relatives for power in St-Bertin and Flanders permeated the text, thus challenging the view that the earliest west Frankish cartularies necessarily created shared institutional identities in relation to reform. Chapters III and IV examine how the politics of Folcuin's promotion to the abbacy of Lobbes and Ottonian rule in Lower Lotharingia related to the composition of the Gesta abbatum Lobiensium. Folcuin's argument in favour of members of the Ottonian dynasty against their (pro-)Reginarid rivals for power over the abbey and region shaped his representation of monastic history, thus challenging the view that he initially wrote in response to his relations with Rather of Verona. Institutional history could offer contemporaries a means to situate themselves and their communities in a changed political landscape, not by re-establishing their identities around shared institutional pasts, but by aligning them with members of rival families, competing relatives, and still-inchoate political orders in the turbulent world of post-Carolingian politics.

Events characterised as "natural disasters" now had an impact on early medieval Europe (c. AD 476-1054), but previous attempts to measure said impact have been hindered by ambiguous terminology. This study reviews the modern mainstream concept of "natural disaster," defined most broadly by The Asian Natural Disaster Reduction Center, and redefines it to fit within a medieval setting. Since the only clearly discernible impact of early medieval natural disasters appears to be exploitative political responses, it emphasises their cultural rather than environmental impact. A brief review of a selection of written sources suggests two particularly high-profile links between disasters and exploitative raids by the Scandinavian raiders now known as Vikings: the first on Lindisfarne, Northumbria, in AD 793 and the second on Dorestad, Frisia, in AD 834. The two disasters, a famine and a flood, would have weakened each populace physically, but would have also weakened their resolve and capacity for defence. Informed by the emphasis of later military strategists, the focus of this study becomes the possible exploitation of disaster-induced weaknesses by these warbands. A range of medieval written sources is then examined, but because only annals provided by Continental Europe's contemporary Carolingian Empire provide the necessary extended run of precise data within a clear timeframe, the geographic focus is pinpointed upon the Empire. As the volume and detail of relevant data is at its peak before the Treaty of St. Claire-sur-Epte, when Charles the Simple granted the Viking leader Rollo of Normandy and that expanded to become the duchy of Normandy, the focus was further refined to the period before AD 911. By extracting, collating, coding, and then charting annalistic data for disasters and raids, and by using deaths of politically significant individuals and Frankish aggressions as controls, a methodology is devised to investigate the disaster/raid correlation. As the relative severity of these disasters remains unclear, corroboration is sought from non-narrative sources. While dendrochronology, (the science of tree rings), is used to help establish the broad climatic background, it does not allow for precise assessment of disaster severity. The embedded nature of Christian symbolism within Carolingian culture, however, allows for a subjective but more secure interpretation of severity through intertextual comparison of annalistic descriptions of disasters with the language of the Bible. The charted data is then revisited to find potential links between disasters and attacks, leading to the identification and presentation of four extensive case studies. The geographical, political, and climatic situation are all assessed along with the disaster's likely severity, then the attack is modelled in light of military theory to assess whether the disaster created an exploitable weakness. In all four examples this is found to be the case. Thus, the thesis confirms that one of the most visible impacts of natural disasters in Early Medieval Europe was their potential for exploitation for political gain. By then investigating the geopolitical significance of these exploited disasters, the study then points to a possible loosely coordinated military strategy against the Carolingian Empire, challenging current theories on the origins of the Viking Age in Continental Europe. Further studies into the exploitation of natural disasters would therefore provide a path into understanding political developments in early medieval Europe and especially the Viking Age.

Is language a tool of empire or is empire a tool of language? This thesis examines the cultivation of Carolingian hegemony on a pan-European scale; one defined by a renewed interest in the study of language and its relationship to Carolingian eagerness for moral and spiritual authority. Intended to complement previous work on Carolingian cultural politics, this thesis reiterates the emergence of active philosophical speculation during the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Prior research has ignored the centrality of linguistic hermeneutics in the Carolingian literate programme. This thesis addresses this lacuna, demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between spirituality, language, and politics within the Carolingian world. The work appropriates prior investigations into the connection of semiotics and Christian philosophy and proposes the development of a renewed interest into ontology and epistemology by Carolingian scholars, notably Alcuin of York and Theodulf of Orléans. The correlation between linguistic philosophy and spiritual authority is confirmed by the 794 Synod of Frankfurt, at which accusations towards both the Adoptionist movement of northern Spain and the repeal of Byzantine Iconoclasm were based on the dangers of linguistic misinterpretation. The thesis also explores the manifestation of this emergent philosophy of language within the manuscript evidence, witnessed by the biblical pandects produced by Alcuin and Theodulf. Desire for the emendation of texts, not to mention the formation of a uniform script (Caroline Minuscule), abetted the larger goal of both infusing a text with authority (both secular and divine) and allowing for broader spiritual and intellectual understanding of a text. Increasing engagement with classical philosophy and rhetoric, the nature of Carolingian biblical revision, and the cultural politics as seen at the Synod of Frankfurt depict the primacy of language to the Carolingians, not only as a tool of imperialism, but the axis of their intellectual and spiritual world.

This thesis focuses on Lombard Southern Italy during the early middle ages and it analyses the history of political and social conflicts between the eighth and ninth century, taking into account the transformation of Lombard political power and social practices in this area. Starting from the eight-century judicial sources, this work explores political and social competition in the Beneventan region by taking into account its geographical position at the center of the Mediterranean see. Southern Italy was considered as a periphery, and sometimes as a frontier, by both the Carolingian and Byzantine empires, and endured almost a century of Muslims' attempts to conquer the peninsula. The first chapter focuses on the ducal period and investigates the formation and consolidation of the duke of Benevento's political authority before 774. During the seventh and eight centuries, the dukes developed a military and political autonomy in Southern Italy. This was due to the geographical position of the Duchy of Benevento in the Lombard Kingdom: it was far from Pavia, the king's capital city, and it was relatively isolated from other Lombard territories. Since a dynasty was established here as early as the seventh century, these dukes developed a strong and precocious political consciousness. As a result, they were particularly concerned with the formal representation of their authority, which is early attested in both coinage and diplomas. In this chapter, the analysis of the eight-century judicial records opens two important perspectives on the duke of Benevento's practices of power. Firstly, judicial assemblies were one of the most important occasions for the duke to demonstrate and exercise his authority in a public context. In contrast to all other Lombard dukes, who rendered judgement together with a group of officers, the duke of Benevento acted alone before the competing parties. By behaving exactly as the Lombard king would in Pavia, the duke was able to utilise the judicial domain as a sort of theatre in which to practice, legitimise and represent his own public authority in front of the local aristocracy. Secondly, the analysis of seven judicial case-studies suggests that the duke was not simply the sole political authority in Benevento but also the leading social agent in the whole Lombard southern Italy. Almost all the disputes transmitted by the twelfth-century cartularies implied a ducal action, donation or decision in the past, which became the main cause for later conflicts between the members of the lay élite and the monastic foundations of the region. Consequently, the analysis of judicial conflicts reveals more about the duke of Benevento's strategies and practices of power than about the lay and ecclesiastical élites' competition for power. Since there are no judicial records between 774 and the last decade of the ninth century, both conflicts and representations of authority in Lombard Southern Italy are analysed through other kinds of sources for this period. Chronicles, hagiographies, diplomas, and material sources are rich in clues about political and social competition in Benevento. By contrast, the late-ninth-century judicial records transmitted by cartularies and archives are quite different from the eighth-century documents: they have a bare and simple structure, which often hides the peculiarities of the single dispute by telling only the essentials of each conflict and a concise final judgement. In contrast to the sources of the ducal period, the ninth- and tenth-century judicial records often convey a flattened image of Lombard society. Their basic structure certainly prevents a focus on the representation of authority and the practices of power in southern Italy. On the contrary, these fields of inquiry are crucial to research both competition within the Beneventan aristocracy during the ninth century, and the relationship between Lombards and Carolingian after 774. After the fall of the Lombard Kingdom in 774, Charlemagne did not complete the military conquest of the Italian peninsula: the Duchy of Benevento was left under the control of Arechis (758-787), who proclaimed himself princeps gentis Langobardorum and continued to rule mostly independently. The confrontation and competition with the Frankish empire are key to understanding both the strengthening of Lombard identity in southern Italy and the formation of a princely political authority. The second account the historiography on the Regnum Italiae, the third section of this chapter focuses precisely on the ambitions of Louis II in Southern Italy and it analyses the implication that the projection of his rulership over this area had in shaping his imperial authority. Despite Louis II's efforts to control the Lombard principalities, his military and political experience soon revealed its limits. After the conquest of Bari in 871, Prince Adelchi imprisoned the emperor in his palace until he obtained a promise: Louis II swore not to return to Benevento anymore. Although the pope soon liberated the emperor from this oath, he never regained a political role in Southern Italy. Nevertheless, his prolonged presence in the region during the ninth century radically changed the political equilibrium of both the Lombard principalities and the Tyrrhenian duchies (i.e. Napoli, Gaeta, Amalfi). The fourth section focuses firstly on the competition between Louis II and Adelchi of Benevento, who obstinately defined his public authority in a direct competition with the Carolingian emperor. At the same time, the competition within the local aristocracy in Benevento radically changed into a small-scale struggle between the members of Adelchi's kingroup, the Radelchids. At the same time, some local officers expanded their power and acted more and more autonomously in their district, such as in Capua. When Louis II left Benevento in 871, both the Tyrrhenian duchies and the Lombard principalities in Southern Italy were profoundly affected by a sudden change in their mutual relations and even in their inner stability. The competition for power and authority in Salerno and Capua-Benevento also changed and two different political systems were gradually established in these principalities. Despite the radical transformation of internal competition and the Byzantine conquest of a large part of Puglia and Basilicata at the end of the ninth century, the Lombard principalities remained independent until the eleventh century, when Southern Italy was finally seized by Norman invaders.

This thesis examines the relationships between royal convents and rulers in Saxony from 852 to 1024. The spate of female monasteries founded in Saxony in the ninth and tenth centuries, alongside the close relationships of major convents to the Ottonian dynasty, has led to Saxon female monasticism being described as unique. As such, Saxony's apparently peculiar experience has been used to make comparisons with other regions about the nature of female monasticism, commemoration and the role of women in early medieval societies. This thesis interrogates these ideas by tracking the development of two major royal convents: Gandersheim and Quedlinburg. By reassessing the origins of these convents, and their later rewriting in sources produced by these monasteries, we can consider how their relationships with the rulers of Saxony developed over time, and how their identity and function as royal monasteries evolved as the tenth century progressed. In doing so, this thesis challenges the dominant understanding of these convents as homes of the Ottonian memoria and provides a detailed view of how these institutions became so prominent in Saxony. The thesis is divided into four sections. After introducing the historiographical importance of this topic in the first chapter, in chapter two I assess the origins of the convent of Gandersheim in Carolingian Saxony. Chapter three turns to the rewriting of these origins by Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim in the 970s. Chapter four reconsiders the early history of the convent of Quedlinburg from 936 to 966. Chapter five tracks how the origins of Quedlinburg evolved into a new narrative across the tenth century, culminating in the version provided by the Quedlinburg Annals in 1008. Finally, the concluding section outlines the significance of this thesis for our understanding of early medieval female monasticism and the history of the Ottonian Empire.

My dissertation is a political and cultural history of corporal punishment in the Carolingian empire. I examine the shape and significance of discourses and representations of corporal punishment across various modes of ecclesiastical, royal, and monastic governance. I contextualize these discourses within contemporary understandings of power as a shared moral ministry as explored by scholars like Mayke De Jong. Within this concept of political power as a shared ministry, I argue that Carolingian corporal punishment was a communicative, symbolic that use the body of the condemned to express authority in a concrete sense. Physical punishment both materialized abstract discourses abstract about the responsibilities and prerogatives of official authority and provided ruling elites with a means to make this power visible to and felt by non-elites. Drawing upon the work of penal historians and theorists like Michel Foucault, Guy Gelter, and Philip Smith, I understand physical punishment as a multivalent phenomenon which performs various social and cultural functions. Disciplinary violence and the punitive alteration of the body functioned as a public spectacle which indexes an offender’s transgressive otherness through her or his punished body while making visible and repairing a society’s normative boundaries. In the early Middle Ages, these punitive spectacles further drew upon close cultural associations between personal honor and parts of the human body such as the skin, hair, and face in order to conspicuously shame and humiliate. I further contend that in Carolingian thought and normative practice, the spectacular dimensions of corporal punishment were influenced by and at odds with contemporary understandings of punishment, drawn from religious and monastic discourses, as a personally curative and didactic phenomenon. I ultimately argue that the interactions and tensions between these two modes reveal a shared Carolingian punitive imaginary through which ruling elites conceived of ways in which power and authority could be physically felt and expressed through the bodies of offenders against the moral order they saw themselves as responsible for enforcing.

This thesis undertakes an extensive study of the early medieval documentation extant for northern Italy in order to show how the period c. 888-962 represented a turning point for the engagement of bishops of the region with politics, both at a high and local level. Scholarship on the Kingdom of Italy has often neglected the post-Carolingian period and misrepresented this phase as a time of chaos after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire or a mere prelude to the central Middle Ages when the Italian communes were born. Only in the last few decades the history of the post-Carolingian Kingdom of Italy has been addressed as a period in its own right. These studies have argued that the period c. 888-962 did not represent a turning point in the history of the Peninsula, but it was rather characterised by a gradual transformation of social relations. Structures of power, behaviour of the élites and economic organization, all show a strong continuity with the Carolingian period, whilst the subsequent localization of power (during the twelfth century) was not caused by the collapse of the Carolingian Empire; it was instead its ‘natural’ evolution in the long term. However, the present study shows how by focusing on the documentation extant for the period, and especially on its graphic features it is possible to appreciate how that same period actually represented a turning point in the engagement of bishops of the region with politics. Milan, Novara, Bergamo and Vercelli have been chosen as four case studies owing to the relatively rich documentary material extant for those dioceses. Part I of the thesis is spilt in four chapters, one for each of the four dioceses selected as case studies, and focuses on episcopal diplomas. Each chapter first provides a detailed overview of the documentation extant for the diocese discussed as well as its archival history, and then tackles the early medieval episcopal diplomas extant for it. While showing how these charters represented a documentary typology in their own right, this section also stresses that graphic and textual features of those same documents enable to grasp both an enhancement of the political engagement of bishops of the region and the emergence of a specific representation of their role during the post-Carolingian period. Moreover, this section demonstrates how graphic features of episcopal diplomas can help to shed new light on further issues, namely the level of graphic education of northern Italian clergy and the debated existence of organised episcopal chanceries. Part II of the thesis is divided in two Chapters, dealing respectively with sovereign diplomas and episcopal charters of exchange. Chapter 5 tackles sovereign diplomas issued in favour of northern Italian episcopal churches. In agreement with recent scholarship, this section does not see these documents as a sign of an alleged onset of episcopal lordship, which supposedly saw bishops asserting their control over the cities of the Kingdom of Italy to the detriment of local representative of the public authority. Nevertheless, it is argued here that the analysis of the graphic features of these documents allows to see how, starting form the last decades of the ninth century, sovereign diplomas were at times actual instruments of episcopal politics, conceived by bishops of the region and written by members of their entourage. Finally, Chapter 6 focuses on the engagement of northern Italian bishops with local politics and the ways in which they represented their role. Textual and especially graphic features of episcopal charters of exchange shows how it was during during the post-Carolingian period that bishops of the region successfully asserted their pivotal role in local politics, at least from a patrimonial point of view. As revealed by the analysis of extant episcopal charters of exchange, during the period c. 888-962 these prelates established a tighter control over the patrimonial administration of the ecclesiastical institutions of their dioceses and the documentation pertaining to it. Overall the thesis demonstrates the importance of graphic features of extant post-Carolingian documentation from northern Italy in order to uncover how that period represented a turning point in the engagement of bishops of the region in both high and local politics. The appreciation of these so far little-studied features enables the present work to stress the existence of an enhancement in the political action of northern Italian bishops in the period c. 888-962. Furthermore, the thesis shows how that enhancement of episcopal engagement in high and local politics also resulted in a shift in the ways in which those prelates represented their role at the time. During the central decades of the tenth century both episcopal diplomas and episcopal charters of exchange reveal that bishops of the region no longer conceived and represented their role as a shared responsibility of bishop and diocesan clergy, but rather as the domain of the bishop alone.

This dissertation explores how the regulation of sound and silence in the early medieval monastery formed a distinct soundscape imbued with personal, communal, and theological resonances. More narrowly, this investigation focuses on the Frankish empire of the ninth century, which saw a series of monastic reforms led by the Carolingian royal family and ecclesiastical figures and consolidated in imperial legislation and treatises on the monastic life. These ninth-century reforms witnessed not only the promotion of a single rule and custom to guide monastic life, but also a great flowering of liturgical texts, including the earliest treatises on musical theory. These developments were critical to the development of monasticism in the Latin church, and as this dissertation will argue, formalized a sonic regime where sounds within the monastery were judged by their perceived benefit or harm to both producer and consumer. Although monastic rules, such as the sixth-century Rule of Benedict, counsel silence at all times and express pessimism about human vocalizations, liturgical and devotional material lauds the human tongue for its power to bring the self into harmony with the divine, as well as the community. This tension forms the starting point for the dissertation, which begins with the suppression of noise in the daily routines of manual labor as expressed in commentaries on the Rule of Benedict, as well as the relation between the physical spaces of the monastery and the sounds that fill them. From there, the dissertation turns to an examination of how ninth-century commentaries on the Divine Office by Smaragdus of St. Mihiel, Hildemar of Corbie, and Amalarius of Metz identified the activation of the self in relation to the divine through the sounds of the liturgy, as well as the role of the Office in facilitating the mutual support that bound the monastic community together. Finally, the dissertation looks to how sound was encountered and represented in manuscripts of the Book of Psalms, which served not only as the music of the Divine Office, but also as the first text students in the monastic schola learned to read from. The resulting conclusions are that "silence" in the Carolingian monastery was neither a complete absence of sound nor an entirely negative attitude toward human utterances; rather, a hierarchy of sounds characterized sonic perception in the monastery, where sounds were understood in relation to one another depending on context, physical space, and purpose. At a time when the monastic life was under close scrutiny by Frankish emperors and authors, a sonic regime formed where vocalizations signaled salvation and inclusion or exclusion from the monastic, and more broadly Christian, body.

The musical notation of the northern Italian Benedictine abbey of St Sylvester in Nonantola has hitherto been neglected by most scholarship on early music scripts, mainly because of the paucity of surviving music manuscripts and their limited geographical diffusion. A new study was needed in order to develop a full understanding of the abbey’s role and importance in the first phases of development of the writing of music in the early Middle Ages. A Lombard foundation, Nonantola acquired much of its prestige from the links with the Carolingian court as early as the late eighth century. From the first decades after its foundation, the Po Valley abbey also benefited from an active scriptorium; this shaped a local type of text script that endured until after the fall of the Carolingian empire, when the abbey, including most of its library, was destroyed by the Hungarian invasion in 899 (§1). The study of the earliest surviving notated liturgical manuscripts revealed that, by the late ninth century, Nonantola already developed an institutional type of musical notation, making it the earliest known music script ever to be written in the Italic peninsula and, thus, among the earliest in Carolingian Europe (§§2–3). The unique design and use of musical signs showed that this northern Italic notation developed, for the most part, independently from a basic repertory of graphs derived from grammatical accents (§4). Finally, observations of the influences of the central Italic nota romana, which this study only began to explore, opened up the possibility that Nonantolan notation may preserve the oldest traces of graphic conventions for the representation of sound that can be associated with the city of Rome (§5). Placed between the northern and southern fringes of the Carolingian empire, the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola played an important role in the early history of music writing, and this study contributes to the breaking of new ground for further explorations.

This project is a comprehensive military history of East Francia during the reign of King Louis the German (c. 825-876). It interrogates annals and chronicle sources, royal and ecclesiastical charters, Carolingian capitularies, and papal letters to study all aspects of Louis’s military machine. These include grand strategy, military organization, tactics, training, leadership, morale, and logistics. The work fills a notable lacuna in scholarship between the heavily studied militaries of Charlemagne and the Ottonian period. Louis was not a military innovator. Rather, he looked to his Carolingian predecessors for examples in nearly every aspect of military policy and strategy. His main intent was defensio patriae, which he achieved successfully through a system of what modern scholars would classify as defense in depth and the doctrine of overwhelming force. Both of these essential strategies can be traced readily to the reign of Charlemagne, when offensive warfare aimed at territorial conquest largely gave way to more defensive strategies. Contrary to much of the prevailing ninth century scholarship, the central East Frankish administration did not suffer as a result of the perceived consolidation of power in the hands of local magnates. Rather, Louis proved capable of putting very large armies—often several at once—into the field simultaneously. He fielded well-supplied troops from all across his substantial realm and was able to project effective military force into various theaters. He led his armies on well-organized campaigns to the west of his kingdom, against his Carolingian father, brothers, and nephews, and he defended the long eastern frontier against various Slavic peoples, most prominently the Moravians, whom he subsumed to the Carolingian state through a system of tributary relationships. Louis’s military systems, deliberately modeled upon those established by the early Carolingians and Charlemagne, ensured that East Francia remained intact throughout the course of his reign. The institutions by which he fielded effective armies survived after Louis’s death, during the notable void in royal power in the late ninth and early tenth centuries, to be utilized in recognizable form by the early Ottonian kings.

This thesis centers on Theodulf of Orléans and the themes of love and food throughout his episcopal statutes and poetry. These two themes are connected to the larger Carolingian landscape, in which Theodulf interacts with society, culture, and religion. In covering these two themes, a more nuanced picture of Carolingian religion and society emerges, at least from the way Theodulf viewed the world around him. In considering these two themes, I further encourage the process of intertextual analysis as formulated by Rosamond McKitterick and M. A. Claussen. Furthermore, I argue that the general reforms of the Carolingian empire penetrated a variety of avenues than previously considered. In essence, I argue that the correctio, for Theodulf, was primarily motivated by his conceptions of love and the need to strengthen the communal bonds of love. As for food, Theodulf utilized this concept to disperse social and religious commentary in which the standards of the Carolingian court, religion, and society are further realized through this unconventional avenue. The impact of this study centers on how historians consider medieval authors, sources, and the Carolingian empire. As demonstrated throughout the study, if medieval authors are considered collectively then their individualistic nuance is often lost. This bleeds into the interpretation of sources, in which crossing genre lines in the medieval landscape leads to further refined pictures of the societies under study. Finally, in pursuing the themes of love and food, further inquiries into Theodulf are opened, alongside studies of other medieval authors in which historians have not wholly considered the author's entire corpus of work. Presently, outside of dissertations, there exists no English monograph centered on Theodulf alone, and while this thesis is by no means a book, it at least encourages further study of Theodulf.

Using textual and archaeological evidence to examine patterns of interaction and relationship between Francia and Scandinavia from 700-840 this dissertation demonstrates that the Viking attacks of the ninth century were not a sudden rupture of relations between Scandinavia and the wider world, nor a demonstration of unbridled violence. Rather, the attacks were part of an ongoing narrative of commerce, diplomacy, and strife between the Frankish Empire and its northern neighbors which began long before the Viking Age. Coin finds and excavations, accounts of merchants bearing luxury goods between trade sites, and stories of Frankish slaves taken from their homes connect Francia and Scandinavia across the North Sea. Chapter One of this dissertation focuses on these long lasting commercial links. At the heart of this trade lay Frisia, home of the emporium of Dorestad. Dorestad's location as the cross roads between the North Sea and the heart of the Frankish Empire allowed Frankish, Frisian, and Scandinavian merchants to carry goods back and forth across the North Sea while at the same time facilitating the movement of ideas and cultural exchange. Annalists gathered information from these merchants, kings used them for diplomatic communication, and missionaries traveled with them. The steady growth of economic activity facilitated contact and communication between Franks and Scandinavians of all stations over several centuries. Chapter Two describes the political, diplomatic and military relationship between Scandinavia and Frankia until the death of Charlemagne in 814. It examines the first Frankish contacts with the North, the growing influence and impact that this contact had on Scandinavia and the North Sea area, and the ways in which these two peoples forged new diplomatic and political relationships. By the end of Charlemagne's life, the Danes had moved from a shadowy people on the margins of Frankish consciousness to key players in the works of Frankish historians and poets. Both Frankish sources and archaeological evidence from Scandinavia demonstrate that Danish leaders, in large part due to increased contact with their powerful southern neighbors, became intent not only on wielding wider power in Scandinavia but on challenging Carolingian supremacy over the North Sea area at large.Beginning with the death of Charlemagne, Chapter Three examines the heightened intensity of relations between Francia and Scandinavia until the death of Louis the Pious in 840. In an effort to cement Frankish hegemony over northern Europe Louis attempted to bring Scandinavia firmly under Frankish control through diplomacy and missionary work. These efforts created new opportunities for interaction and engagement as Franks, Danes, and Swedes travelled back and forth across the North Sea. Though Louis' work failed to last beyond his death, the raids and later interactions between Franks and Scandinavians were directly shaped by the policies of Louis and Charlemagne. When we look at the networks of trade forming across the North Sea in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, and at the growth of political and social meetings on the borders of Frisia, Saxony, and the Jutland Peninsula, we come away with a narrative of communication and contact that is far more vibrant and complex than our primary sources reveal at first glance. The relationship between Scandinavia and Francia during this time actively informs the conflict that follows. During the raids and strife of the ninth century, the conquering Franks became victims; in their quest for the wealth and power of their southern neighbors, the disparate and diverse Scandinavian tribes became, for lack of a better word, Vikings.

This dissertation investigates the flight and exile of Christian clergy during the Viking attacks along Europe’s Atlantic coasts during the ninth and early tenth centuries. These displaced clerics invariably brought the relics of their saints with them as they fled into exile. Because of this, these flights into exile carried broad repercussions in societies that looked on relics as healers, guarantors, patrons, and protectors. This dissertation argues that the movements of churchmen and their relics had vast religious, political, economic, and ideological significance that resounded far beyond churches and monasteries. The wanderings of dislocated Carolingian relic cults have been overlooked as a coherent phenomenon, but studied as a group, relic transfers c. 830-c. 930 offer a counterpoint to the triumphal narrative of Christian expansion in Europe. The unwilling movements of relics also help chart the political changes that unfolded in the West Frankish Kingdom as Carolingian hegemony gave way to the feudal age. The dissertation examines the literary traditions surrounding the movements of relics in three key Atlantic provinces of the Carolingan empire (Brittany, Neustria, and Aquitaine), and argues that relics, in addition to being material objects of devotion, provided a stable source of “spiritual capital” during the Viking attacks. Such "capital" could be leveraged by monks and clerics seeking to recoup losses sustained during the Viking raids, and also by local political leaders eager to legitimize themselves through protection of cult institutions threatened by the attacks. The dislocation of West Francia’s relic cults facilitated widespread re-localization of cult patronage relationships, weakening central Carolingian authority and empowering new groups of aristocrats to replace them.

The historians writing in the Carolingian Empire, with a few important exceptions, frequently ascribed events in recent history to God. Where they have been noticed at all, these statements of God’s agency have usually been explained as political propaganda, to demonstrate God’s favour towards the reigning dynasty. Alternatively, they have been explained by the legacy of late antique Christian historians, from which this language supposedly derived. This thesis aims to demonstrate that this language was a distinctive and innovative feature of the emerging tradition of Carolingian history writing and is best explained in religious terms. It argues that Carolingian historians reflected the emphasis on God’s agency found throughout contemporary culture and that they deliberately reshaped the Christian language bequeathed by their Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Frankish predecessors. It offers a text-by-text analysis of how God’s agency functioned within each major Carolingian history, to further show the versatility of this language over the period. Taken together, these texts suggest that Carolingian historians wanted to teach their audiences about God’s agency and its implications for their own beliefs, identities, and behaviour. As a result, these histories and their depictions of God’s agency can be seen as a distinctive contribution to Carolingian religious renewal. This thesis thus aims to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between religion, history, and culture in early medieval Europe.

This thesis examines the representation of weeping rulers in early medieval sources, focusing on the Carolingian empire between 790 and 888. The meanings applied to tears are culturally specific: thus, exploring how, why, when and where rulers cried can illuminate the dynamics of power and ideals of kingship in this period. This thesis provides a survey of a poorly understood phenomenon. It also challenges several assumptions about the nature of early medieval power. Rulers wept not only over their own sins (a well-recognised phenomenon), but also over the sins of others and out of a desire for heavenly glory. Thus, they wept in a ‘monastic' or ‘priestly' way. This was something associated more with certain rulers than others. As such, tears can be used as a lens through which developments in ideas about the relationship between secular rulers and the ecclesiastical hierarchy can be traced. The thesis is divided into six sections. The historiographical importance of this topic is discussed in the introduction. Chapter one assesses the understanding of tears in biblical, Roman and Merovingian sources. Chapter two focuses on the representation of tears in texts associated with the court of Charlemagne (d. 814). Chapter three explores how authors loyal to Louis the Pious (d. 840) used tears to respond to criticisms of him and his wife, the Empress Judith (d. 843). Chapter four turns to exegetical material written between 820 and 860 and examines how biblical rulers were represented weeping. In particular, the reception of these previously unrecognised images in royal courts and their influence on narrative sources will be considered. Chapter five explores sources from the later ninth century, focusing particularly on the writings of Hincmar of Reims (d. 882) and Notker of St Gall (d. 912). Chapter six considers tears in three case studies drawn from post=Carolingian sources. Finally the concluding section outlines the significance of this thesis for our understanding of Carolingian and post Carolingian political culture and the history of weeping in the middle ages.

For more than a hundred years, from the last quarter of the eighth to the end of the ninth century CE, the Carolingian empire held sway over most of western Europe. Sovereignty and the Environment in Charlemagne’s Empire argues that making better Christians (correctio) intertwined with controlling nature in the imperial ideology of this new pan-European polity. The thesis describes how Charlemagne, the first Carolingian emperor, and the ecclesiastics who advised him, fashioned this ideology of ecological control to justify their authority and hold together the fissile, recently annexed imperial peripheries. In the late eighth century supervision and domination of the environment became integral to the Carolingian mission to Christianize and “redeem” lands and peoples. The dissertation uncovers a complex of ideas about righteous control of environments that helped to justify Carolingian domination that it calls “Carolingian ecological sovereignty.” It presents the key Carolingian notion of the empire as a human-managed garden or gamepark in its introduction. Chapter one examines the “constitutional” documents of the Carolingian empire to demonstrate that the pursuit of “better” biblical exegesis (especially commentaries on the book of Genesis) was a political undertaking meant to bolster Charlemagne’s role as the “new Adam,” who would master nature. Chapters two and three expound a commentary on Genesis (Explanatio sex dierum) written by Wigbod, one of the most important ecclesiastics at the royal Frankish court from the 780s. Chapter two argues that trees were the ideal metaphor for obedience both to God and to Carolingian lords, while chapter three examines Wigbod’s exposition of sentience in humans and animals to show how the subjugation and supervision of both upheld correctio in the Carolingian realm. Chapter four examines the writings of Alcuin of York and Theodulf of Orléans, like Wigbod close advisors of Charlemagne, to expose a discourse of “happy kingdoms.” This discourse represented the empire as a garden-paradise, reflecting Wigbod’s exegesis, and saw in prevailing environmental conditions the measure of Charlemagne’s success or failure. The remaining two chapters assess the impact in practice of “Carolingian ecological sovereignty.” Chapter five establishes that abstract notions of eco-authority influenced Charlemagne’s program of bridge building and canal trenching in Frankish waterways. Reading Carolingian texts (like the capitulary De villis) alongside paleoclimatology and bioarchaeological data, chapter six traces the dissemination of peaches and peach trees as outcomes of the Carolingian “renewal” (renovatio) of Roman culture, arguing that Charlemagne wanted to grow peaches in northern Europe because of their Roman “imperial” attributes and prestige. This dissertation demonstrates the Carolingians employed control of the environment to reinforce Frankish sovereignty over vast territories, permanently transforming European ecosystems and modeling practices for subsequent empires.

This thesis investigates the role of queens in ninth and tenth century Italy. During the Carolingian period the Italian kingdom saw significant involvement of royal women in political affairs. This trend continued after the Carolingian empire collapsed in 888, as Italy became the theatre of struggles for the royal and imperial title, which resulted in a quick succession of local rulers. By investigating Italian queens, my work aims at reassessing some aspects of Italian royal politics. Furthermore, it contributes to the study of medieval queenship, exploring a context which has been overlooked with regard to female authority. The work which has been done on queens over the last decades has attempted to build a coherent model of early medieval queenship; scholars have often privileged the analysis of continuities and similarities in the study of queens' prerogatives and resources. This thesis challenges this model and underlines the peculiarities of individual queens. My analysis demonstrates that, by deconstructing the coherent model established by historiography, it is possible to underline the individual experiences, resources and strengths of each royal woman, and therefore create a new way to look at the history of queens and queenship. The thesis is divided into four main thematic sections. After having introduced the subject and the relevant historiography on the topic in the introduction, in Chapter 2 I consider ideas about queenship as expressed by narrative and normative sources. Chapter 3 deals with royal diplomas, which are a valuable resource for the understanding of queens' reigns. Chapter 4 analyses queens' dowers and monastic patronage. Chapter 5 examines the experience of Italian royal widows. Finally, the conclusive chapter outlines the significance of this thesis for the broader understanding of medieval queenship.

Paul the Deacon wrote at a time when the Regnum Langobardorum was on the cusp of downfall and attachment to the Carolingian empire. Paul’s narratives (the Historia Langobardorum in particular) have become vital sources for Italian medieval history and a window on the world of the eighth century in the West. Recent approaches to Paul have projected modern perceptions onto his works in the quest to identify his politico-ethnic viewpoint. Consequently his personal ‘voice’ has been lost in modern treatments. The narrative structure of his work, and analysis of the kind of dramatic events that interested him, are areas that have hitherto been largely ignored by scholars. This thesis seeks to provide the context for both Paul’s Life and Works and to present an analysis of what it was that Paul actually said rather than trying to conjure an analysis from what he did not say. It will demonstrate that there is not only a ‘multi-vocality’ within the works of Paul, but links, connections, even contradictions that in themselves serve to present and show Paul’s singularity as both a writer and an individual in challenging times for both him personally and for Italy generally. Yet analysing Paul by using Paul alone is a teleological cul-de-sac and thus this thesis will seek to compare his narrative approach with that of other early medieval authors.

When people today think of the end of the world, whether from a secular or religions, serious or fictional perspective, the role of human agency and responsibility in how apocalyptic events occur is often of central concern. In many cases, humans believe that we have some control over if, when, or how we meet our collective end, being able to cause, prevent, delay, accelerate, or alter the course of the End Times. In the early Christian Church, however, this was not a common assumption. Instead, Christians believed they were passive witnesses to God’s unfolding plan. There was nothing humans could do to change this divine plan in one way or the other. All that humans were capable of was preparing themselves and their neighbors for the common Last Judgment that everyone would face, whether or not they ever experienced the apocalyptic drama. If one were to find themselves living in the last days, Christian advice to that person was the same as if they lived under normal times. No special actions were necessary regarding the apocalypse. This “tradition” lasted for hundreds of years into the Middle Ages. In the 10th and 11th centuries, however, a new tradition emerged in the Latin West. This traditional, inspired by seventh-century Byzantine politics and Irish penitential missionary work, coalesced in the Ottonian and Capetian remnants of the Carolingian empire. Through a combination of political and religious concerns, especially involving preaching throughout the extended Gorze monastic network within and beyond Lotharingia, a new apocalyptic tradition emerged alongside the old, one that both assumed and argued for the necessity of human participation in the divine plan in order for the apocalyptic drama to begin. This tradition was involved in many large-scale social movements throughout the 10th and 11th centuries, culminating in the start of the First Crusade in 1095. From that point onward, though the old tradition never vanished, this new tradition of humans believing they could be responsible for causing, preventing, or otherwise altering the timing and course of apocalyptic events became endemic in European Christianity. This study demonstrates when, how, and why this tradition emerged.

This dissertation explores concepts of the self in the ninth century, specifically in the Carolingian Empire. This work begins with a review of scholarship on the medieval self. Much scholarship on this concept has tended to focus on the twelfth century. As I hope to demonstrate, however, ninth-century writers were just as interested in their own constructions of the self. Ninth-century treatments of the self were unique and thus offer us a great deal of insight into the mentalities of the time. I also examine the ninthcentury vocabulary of the self, focusing on the language inherited from patristic and early medieval writers, especially Gregory the Great, and the way in which this vocabulary was adapted by Carolingian writers. Throughout the body of the dissertation, I focus on two main bodies of texts: ninthcentury uses of Augustine's De Trinitate and the ninth-century baptismal expositions recently edited by Susan Keefe. Both sets of texts illustrate the ways in which the moral self was both defined and shaped in the ninth century. The treatments of De Trinitate were mainly concerned with the monastic self, while the baptismal expositions allow us a glimpse of the way in which churchmen perceived the lay self. I conclude by briefly looking ahead to the middle of the ninth century and the controversies surrounding Gottschalk. The question of the moral self was at the centre of these debates, and this thus demonstrates the importance of the concept of the self to the ninth century. I have included as an appendix my translation of sections of the baptismal expositions.

This thesis examines Norman bishops and abbots, and their involvement in warfare, either as armed combatants, or commanders of military forces in Normandy, and later in England after William the Conquerors invasion in 1066. While it focuses primarily on the roles of the secular bishops, other relevant accounts of martial feats by other Norman militant clergy are also introduced where appropriate. The foundation for the use of justified force and later the sanctioned use of violence by these militant secular clergy is explored to better understand the rational perceived by the clergy when acting as ‘soldiers of God.’ The use of religious imagery, sacred writings and text, and the incorporation of militant metaphors, the Church prayers and hagiographies of militant saints, provided a background for a tradition of militancy that formed not only with the secular bishops, but, perhaps more importantly, monastic communities that were often the destination for repentant knights and nobles raised in a warrior society. This provided an outlet for transforming the martial spirit of warriors into spiritual weapons, thereby promoting the militant expression that was found in monastic communities. The collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the lack thereafter of centralized authority elevated the Church to the role of peace maker, however churchmen in the former Capetian kingdoms were ill equipped to enforce the peace and turned to local secular rulers who utilized force to gain adherence to proclamations set forth by the Peace of God in the late tenth century and Truce of God movements in the early to mid-eleventh century. Normandy, under the dukes, however had no need to enact such measures due to strong centralized control and established institutions within the duchy. Finally, the Norman secular bishops were an extension of ducal power and highlighted the domination the dukes held over the Church. While encouraging Church and monastic reforms within their lands, the dukes continued a policy of lay investiture in stark contrast to the Gregorian reforms that were being implemented. The accounts selected of Norman bishops participating in combat or leading troops as military commanders show a natural progression of a tradition that was discouraged by reformers but embraced by secular rulers and bishops

This thesis examines the curious depictions of demons found in the biography of Charlemagne written by Notker the Stammerer in the late ninth-century. The demons appeared in tales that were unrelated to the biography’s subject matter. Historians of earlier generations dismissed the biography altogether as uninformative to a historical understanding of the late Carolingian empire. More recent historians, however, have revived Notker’s text to show that it has much to offer modern readers in understanding the ninth-century. This study shows that the demon stories are informative for a historical understanding of the period as well. They illustrate a special relationship between the author and his patron, Charles the Fat, the Carolingian emperor who himself was reported to have suffered demonic assault. Written at Charles’ request, Notker seems to have inserted the tales as enjoyable horror stories which served to instruct and entertain simultaneously. This thesis analyzes the Latin terminology used by Notker and applies the philosophical theories of phenomenology and horror in order to recreate the experience that these tales might have had on their intended audience.

This dissertation examines Raymond of Saint-Gilles’ regional affiliation in Occitania (modern southern France) and the effect of that identity on his conduct of the First Crusade. Crusade historiography has not paid much attention to regional difference, but Raymond’s case shows that Occitanians approached crusading in a fundamentally different manner from other crusaders. They placed apocalyptic eschatology in the forefront of the First Crusade and portraying the First Crusade as bringing about the New Jerusalem. To be Occitanian was not merely to be a speaker of Occitan. It was to be part of a Mediterranean culture, halfway between classical Roman and medieval Frank, with a religious culture influenced by Greek saints, Egyptian monasticism, an intellectually and culturally vigorous Jewish population, and repeated Arab invasions and pirate raids. It was also to be imbued with romanitas, a close connection to Rome, to both the Papacy and the material, legal, and cultural legacy of the Roman Empire. At the same time, Raymond was not the only important figure to go on the First Crusade from Occitania. The papal legate, Adhemar of Le Puy, came from the Auvergne, a radically different region where the reaction to the collapse of the Carolingian empire led to a region ruled by the clergy, supported by idol-like statues of saints and organized through the Peace of God. These two disparate identities came together in the First Crusade, a Gregorian Reformist venture conceived and organized with Occitanian leadership. This team, the new Moses and Aaron of the crusaders, effectively followed papal policy in the early stages of the crusade. With the traumatic siege of Antioch and the “discovery” of the Holy Lance, however, a radical shift in the crusade occurred, following the eschatological visions of a handful of Occitanian priests. Though the Kingdom of God did not, in the end, appear, the apocalyptic eschatology that the Occitanians brought with them on the First Crusade led to Raymond of Saint-Gilles refusing the crown of Jerusalem, preferring to leave empty-handed than risk becoming the Antichrist.

Examination of long-term exchange patterns involving northern Europe and neighboring regions of western Eurasia reveals that the world of the North has, typically, played an important role both as producer and consumer. Especially in the Carolingian period (AD 700 - 900), the system as a whole can be characterized best as a vast circuit of exchange flows rather than in terms of center - periphery relationships. The major regions participating in the western Eurasian exchange circuit were the North (Scandinavia - Baltic), Latin Christendom, European Russia, Byzantium, and the Islamic world of the Middle East and North Africa. Exchange within the circuit always operated at multiple levels, including elite and non-elite gift giving and resource sharing, but also including independent, professional merchant-adventurers who redistributed goods and materials for profit. This class of entrepreneurs can be analyzed further into long-distance wholesale traders, who linked the top-level nodal places in the system, and others who linked the nodal places with points in the local area down to the capillary level of individual producers and consumers. Typically, members of the mercantile class traveled armed and formed ad hoc aggregations for mutual protection. In the Carolingian Empire, their activities were governed by rules and administrative practices derived, ultimately, from the Late Roman. Commercial exchange can and does operate successfully even in pre-state and non-urbanized societies, i.e., without elite direction or coercion. The evidence shows that pre-commercial societies will incorporate commercial modes of behavior into their socio-economic value systems when opportunity to do so arises. Even "peasants" will behave entrepreneurially, feeding into the larger exchange system both as producers and consumers.

Following the Christianization of the crumbling Roman Empire, a wide array of disparate Christian traditions arose. A confusion of liturgical rites and musical styles expressed the diversity of this nascent Christendom; however, it also exemplified a sometimes threatening disunity. Into this frame, the Carolingian Empire made a decisive choice. Charlemagne, with a desire to consolidate power, forged stronger bonds withRome by transporting the liturgy ofRome to the Frankish North. The outcome of this transmission was the birth of a composite form of music exhibiting the liturgical properties ofRome but also shaped by the musical sensibilities of the Franks—Gregorian chant. This Frankish project of liturgical adoption and the appearance of Gregorian chant raises two important questions: How did the Carolingians transmit and incorporate Roman chant, and why did they feel drawn to this tradition in the first place? This thesis utilizes musicological studies by scholars like Leo Treitler and Anna Maria Busse Burger, epistemological arguments by analytic philosopher Richard Fumerton, and memorial scholarship by Mary Carruthers and Maurice Halbwachs to provide an analysis of Gregorian chant’s emergence. My investigation into the medieval art of memoria reveals that chant was transmitted through the use of the principles of music theory as mnemonic devices. Modal theory itself becomes a mnemonic by creating an abstract musical location in which the singer and listener can meet. Further, the impulse that drove this project was the desire for a collective memory that would resolve underlying tensions of group identity within 8th- and 9th-century early Christendom. This desire finds its resolution in modal theory itself because the musical location of chant is also a public location where corporate identity is articulated. Finally, I interpret both musical and memorial functions of chant via epistemic scholarship, showing that they both exhibit a remarkable structural similarity to the principles of acquaintance epistemology, thus unifying the questions of “how” and “why” in chant into a single answer. The quest for self-knowledge becomes part of the particular object used to make it—a material testament to a way of knowing.

St. Michael the Archangel performed three key roles in medieval western Christendom, as outlined by religious historian Richard Johnson: guardian, warrior, and psychopomp. The roles of intercessor and military leader derive from scriptural references to St. Michael, while the psychopomp role derives from the Jewish and Christian apocryphal tales that compose the Saint’s vita. Beginning with Charlemagne, liturgies dedicated to Michael were nationally sanctioned in the Carolingian Empire. The Frankish region would remain devoted to the Archangel well into the fifteenth century. Mont-Saint-Michel in particular would develop its own foundation myth, leading the surrounding area in angelic patronage during the late middle ages. Michael’s three key roles directly correlate with the rise and fall of the Cult’s popularity, which notably coincides with the coming and going of wars. Fresh off the campaigns of the Hundred Years War, fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish countries produced music dedicated to St. Michael that predictably demonstrate a militaristic tone. Franco-Flemish composer Johannes Regis (c.1425-c.1496), in particular, represents this tradition in his Missa L’homme armé. The prominence of the Archangel in this work reflects the historically Michael-devoted environment in which Regis composed his mass. Regis’s Missa L’homme armé portrays St. Michael as protector and military leader through tropes focusing on the expulsion of the dragon from heaven and depictions of the apocalyptic trumpet. Musically, the piece relies not only on dramatic text but also the popular L’homme armé [Armed Man] cantus firmus, which carried its own military theme and history, including frequent use in fifteenth-century polyphonic works to symbolize warrior figures such as St. Michael. Searches for the tune’s origins lead to Phillip the Good’s Order of the Golden Fleece, as well as Louis XI’s Order of St. Michael, organizations that significantly blended chivalric ideals, knightly practice, and votive devotions. Missa L’homme armé reflects St. Michael’s western military and devotional functions in Franco-Flemish society through its treatment of text, choice of cantus firmus, and compositional techniques. My study of this piece illuminates the musical expression of the Cult of St. Michael during one of its most popular periods in history.

At the heart of much scholarship on the Central Middle Ages (c. 950-1150) in western Europe is a debate about the rapidity and nature of change after the disintegration of the Carolingian empire. On the one hand, there is the traditional “mutationist” position, represented by such scholars as Marc Bloch, Jean-Pierre Poly, Eric Bournazel, Georges Duby, and T.N. Bisson. Scholars who adopt this position argue that a revolution, a radical and sharp break with the past, occurred in the structure of western European society around the turn of the millenium. On the other hand, a diverse group, including Dominique Barthélemy, Susan Reynolds, Timothy Reuter and Chris Wickham, has either argued for less rapid change or questioned key aspects of the traditional position. In Phantoms of Remembrance, Patrick Geary has suggested that the debate over the mutationist interpretation has ceased to bear positive fruit, and that the important question in studying the Central Middle Ages is “why and how generations perceived discontinuity, and how these perceptions continued to influence the patterns of thought for a thousand years.” According to Geary, although people in the eleventh century were surrounded with the residue of the previous two centuries, they were unable to make sense of the structures that had given this residue its coherence. Nevertheless, people in the period still attempted to make sense of the past, shaping it to fit contemporary needs. This process is important because it determined both the information people chose to make available to future generations and the form it would take. Put simply, how they chose to remember their past influences how we remember it. My dissertation examines how the hagiography produced for the eleventh-century, Flemish abbey of Saint-Winnoc remembers the past. More specifically, it approaches these texts from three perspectives. First, it identifies the literary strategies their authors employed to construct the past. Second, it examines how these strategies would have operated in the historical context in which they were composed. Finally, it points to some of the ontological, epistemological and ideological implications of recording the past in hagiographic narratives.

This dissertation looks at divinely inspired dreams as a literary trope within the genre of early medieval Latin hagiography. In examining a representative sample of saints' vitae composed between 396 and 1006, in England and the area which came to constitute the Carolingian Empire, I have found that the chronological position of a dream within a narrative indicates its literary function within the text. Dreams associated with the birth, life, and death of saints each serve distinct literary purposes. Dreams which accompany a saint's birth are generally prophetic, and as such inaugurate a narrative construction which is centered around the reiterative demonstration of an already established sanctity. In contrast, dreams experienced by a saint during his or her lifetime are virtually always conversion dreams, marking an important turning point in both the plot of the story and the character of the protagonist. As a result, such dreams are constitutive of a developmental narrative structure, in which the text recounts internal growth and change in the character of the protagonist. Dreams surrounding the death of a saint occur in both static and developmental narratives, as death dreams serve the literary purpose of making explicit the theological status of the saint, consistently straddling the earthly and heavenly realms both before and after death. These categories account for over 90% of dreams studied in this dissertation; those texts which do not adhere to these standards can be best understood by looking at the ways in which they adhere to, and depart from, established generic standards for the literary use of dreams. Overall, this examination of dreams as a characteristic trope helps to elucidate the parameters of the hagiographic genre as a whole.

The only governmental institution to outlast the demise of the Roman Empire in western Europe was the episcopal council. From the fifth to the tenth century and beyond, bishops met on a regular basis. The acts of these councils, essentially a form of legislation, lie at the heart of my dissertation. The councils were the work of a cultural elite which gradually transformed Frankish society in line with its own social thought, developed from the writings of Isidore of Seville and from liturgical and exegetical traditions. The missionary bent of these bishops turned the attention of the first Carolingian king beyond Frankish borders. A generation later, Charlemagne followed mission by conquest, thus harnessing episcopal social ideals to an imperial program. The bishops accordingly became cooperative governors of an expanding kingdom, and in a series of empire-wide councils incorporated their own with royal legislation. The resulting alliance between kings and bishops transformed the kingdom into a sacred structure. The sacral nature of Carolingian kingship therefore arose not (as has often been asserted) from any sacrality of royal blood or lineage, but from the nature of Carolingian government. By documenting the dominant cultural influence of bishops in the genesis of the Carolingian Empire, I challenge long-held assumptions that this empire constituted a Roman renovatio (renewal) and an implementation of Augustinian political ideas. Instead, I show that the political ideas of kings were derived, for the most part, from episcopal councils. The acts of these councils in turn were imbued, not so much with such political doctrines as might be derived from Augustine, but with the post-Augustinian ideas of Isidore of Seville. Another central dimension in conciliar acts is a certain continuity of legislative aim that extends from the Frankish period to the ninth century. As a result, Carolingian government and expansion are seen to have been the product not of a sudden ideological transformation, but of a governmental theory and practice that developed continuously over generations and centuries.

The course of Jewish history in western Europe is varied. Beginning in small communities located in the Roman provinces at the beginning of the Common Era, the Jews spread northward into Germany and France and slowly increased both their population and the number of towns in which they were settled. The expansion of Christian influence among the Gothic tribes created hardships for the Jews, but the rise of the Carolingian empire, Charlemagne's abilities as a statesman, and his desire to create an empire in the style of Rome, helped to enhance the stature of the Jews. But the advent of the feudal period provided an obstacle to the development of Jewish culture. Feudalism embodied Christian values, utilized an oath heavily laced with Christian symbolism, and granted landed estates to officials of the feudal hierarchy. These elements of the feudal system excluded non-Christians. Jews presented an exceptional problem, however; Roman tradition and Church policy supported the existence and autonomy of the Jewish people, but the social system froze them out of the landed economy. To keep their culture alive, the Jews had to adapt their lifestyle to these new social conditions. The Jews responded economically by engaging in trade. Some Jews traded in slaves. Others distributed the products of Europe by peddling merchandise around the continent and by trading at commercial fairs. Jewish businessmen also imported the merchandise of other continents— Africa and Asia— to Europe, and exported European products to these areas. Through these endeavors, the Jews helped to promote commerce among the Europeans and increase their knowledge of other peoples worldwide. Culturally, the Jews responded by developing institutions to structure and regulate the communities in which they lived. Jewish scholars were instrumental in this process. They established the principle of majority rule, developed an effective judicial system, and strengthened the role of the community in Jewish government. The creativity of these scholars enabled the Jews to adapt to the feudal environment and flourish in northern Europe.

This dissertation offers a comparative cross-cultural investigation into the imagination of space in three sibling centers of civilization driving the formative expansion of Europe in the early Middle Ages: the Frankish court, the papacy and Byzantium. At its center stands the Slavic world of eastern Europe, which in the eighth and ninth centuries attracted the expansive energies of a young Carolingian empire, a newly aggressive papacy and a resurgent Byzantine Empire. A close reading of Latin, Greek and Church Slavonic records reveals three models of imagining space, and three ways of conceptualizing power. Frankish authors at the courts of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious represented areas of the world under Frankish power as territories, and areas beyond Frankish reach as ethnicities. Their "imagined territoriality" of power included the Slavic world at those times and in those places when and where Frankish imperial reach was possible. At the same time, and especially in moments of crisis, court authors represented Frankish space as a heterogeneous network of nodes of landed wealth. This complex Frankish imagination of space was ultimately shaped by an exercise of power that was fundamentally economic in nature. Meanwhile, Roman authors at the ninth-century papal court imagined the spaces of eastern Europe very differently as homogeneous areas clearly delimited by strong borders. They reveal a geopolitical brand of territoriality as defined by geographers and historians of the modern nation-state. This papal vision of space was influenced by a power that was jurisdictional in nature. Finally, and in stark contrast, Byzantine authors imagined a non-territorial space of peoples in Eastern Europe: instead of drawing border lines to distinguish territories, they drew lines of faith to distinguish peoples. In the Church Slavonic sources, the most important principle ordering this ethnographic space was jezykb, a term meaning both "language" and "people," emphasizing both a Byzantine imperial ideology that was fundamentally ethnographic in nature as well as an exercise of power grounded in written cultures and even alphabets. This dissertation both exposes the critical role played by eastern European Slavlands in the origins of European conceptions of territoriality and demonstrates the power of cross-cultural investigations to deepen our understanding of the medieval past., History