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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.