Correctio: Expressions of Nostalgia in Carolingian Europe

Emotions history has been dominated by modern historians and there has been very minimal engagement with the historiography of an emotions-based analysis of the Middle Ages, which has led to modern-centric views and theories that undermine the histories and societies classified as medieval. As Barbara Rosenwein remarks, many historians including John Huizinga, who spoke of the childlike and violent nature of medieval emotional life, as well as Peter N. Stearns and Carol Z. Sterns, both of whom assert that virtually anything pre-modern cannot be considered true emotionology, are used to perceiving the Middle Ages as a convenient foil to bolster the grand narrative of progress. It is clear that the Stearnsian/Huizingian illustration of pre-modernity are based on false assumptions and overgeneralizations about a world, as now and in modernity, expressed many different feelings; and these emotions can be understood from the social, political and cultural setting that gave rise to them. By building on Rosenwein’s recommendation of striving for a more refined emotions narrative based on the interactions and transformations of emotional communities, I will use the Carolingian period (751–888) to explore the ways in which nostalgia was expressed by contemporaries during the late ninth century. In particular, I will employ Svetlana Boym’s framework of “restorative nostalgia,” the kind of nostalgia where individuals seek to rebuild the lost society by engaging in a nationalist revival or “an antimodern myth-making of history.” Since restorative nostalgics believe that collective remembrance is about truth, they do not think of themselves as nostalgic at all. Thus, after a critical analysis of the ways in which contemporary writers during the late ninth century alluded to Charlemagne’s “golden age,” this paper will argue that the cultural and political literature produced in the late ninth century was prompted by a restorative nostalgia vis-à-vis the criticisms of kingship and the fear of an inevitable end to the Carolingian royal line.

Before examining how restorative nostalgia functioned, it is essential to first establish the historical context of the early ninth century during the reign of Charlemagne and the golden age that late ninth century writers sought to restore. One of one the major reasons the Carolingians were able to establish themselves as a legitimate ruling family was their ability to cooperate with the Church and initiate ecclesiastical reforms, hence working toward the salvation of the empire. By continuing his father’s (Pepin the Short) strong desire to carry out these reforms, Charlemagne’s project was on an even larger scale, where he tried to reform almost all aspects of life toward a Christian ideal. Most scholars today would characterize this conscious and ambitious political project as correctio, a moral reform programme intended to correct all aspects of life, including the behaviours and acts of lay and ecclesiastical subjects. Thus, Charlemagne issued a piece of legislation in 789 known as the Admonitio Generalis (“General Correction”), which addresses how the clergy are to correct all subjects of the empire toward a Christian ideal through correct teachings of Christian doctrine: “schools should be established for teaching boys the psalms, notas (writing, shorthand, or musical notation), singing, computation, and grammar in every monastery and episcopal residence.” It is important to note that this project existed symbiotically with Charlemagne’s military success, since the kingdom had almost doubled in size since he inherited it and remained the largest stable political entity in Western Europe since the Roman Empire.

Although one may ask how the motivation to achieve a Christian ideal was related to educational reforms — given that the admonitio generalis only outlined the goals but not the logic informing the implementation of this project — Alcuin of York, one of the leading figures of the systematic education program, acknowledged that the Bible was inaccessible to the general population as it was full of figures of speech which had to be decoded: “good behaviour and spiritual understanding were impossible without a literary education, for ‘knowing comes before doing.’” Thus, Charlemagne issued another document known as the Epistola de Litteris Colendis (“Epistle about fostering letters”), which urges monks and clerics to learn and master a standardised version of Latin in order to prevent errors in language which could potentially breed errors in the practice of faith. In his letter to Baugaulf of Fulda (c. 780–800), Charlemagne proclaims:
And so it came about that we began to fear that the lack of knowledge of writing might be matched by a more serious lack of wisdom in the understanding of Holy Scripture. We all know well that, dangerous as are the errors of words, yet much more dangerous are the errors of doctrine. Therefore, we exhort you not only to neglect the study of letters, but also with most humble mind, pleasing to god, to study earnestly in order that you may able more easily and more correctly to penetrate the mysteries of the divine Scriptures. For since there are figures of speech, metaphors and the like to be found on the sacred pages, there can be no doubt that each man who reads them will understand their spiritual meaning more quickly if he is first of all given full instruction in the study of literature. Let men be chosen for this work who have the will and ability to learn and also the desire to instruct others; and let it be pursued with an eagerness equal to my devotion in prescribing it.

It becomes clear that the aim was to establish uniform religious practice and understanding throughout the Frankish realm by copying and disseminating approved and authorised versions of liturgical and ecclesiastical texts. Therefore, it is not surprising that late ninth century writers perceived Charlemagne’s moral reforms and his reign as a golden age of correct learning and religious practice, given that the production of books was prodigious, while serving the needs of religious worship, the organisation of administrative structures, intellectual behaviour and educational activity.

The following section will be a discussion of the political realities of the late ninth century which were completely absent from the early ninth century. By establishing a general historical overview of the contemporary issues during the late ninth century, we can see why contemporary writers implicitly expressed restorative nostalgia when criticising the decline and disarray of Carolingian politics in comparison to a favourable past. The reputation of Charles the Fat (the last Carolingian emperor) was usually viewed synonymously with the eventual decline of Carolingian authority in Francia. Since the Annals of Fulda remains to be one of the principal sources for east Frankish history in the second half of the ninth century and provides a sufficient framework for the kingdom’s politics at the time, it will be used not as a source to examine Charles the Fat’s reception but rather to pinpoint how the annalist may have criticised the political landscape with Charlemagne’s golden age in mind. Bearing in mind that the Annals were written contemporaneously in the circle of Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz from the mid-860s and onwards, it is not surprising that the annalist would cast Charles the Fat and his archchaplain Liutward in a negative light, since Liutbert lost his position at the east Frankish court and was reluctant to accept his demolition. As a result, the annalist furthered three major criticisms of Charles: that he was dominated by his advisors, militarily inadequate when dealing with the Viking invasion and stood out as an inactive and immobile king. Thus, although it is not within the scope of this paper to evaluate the historiography of the decline of Carolingian rule, the Annals still provide a perspective of how this particular annalist understood the political structure during Charles’s reign. Moreover, Simon MacLean argues that the annalist’s judgements included all sorts of comparisons with traditional benchmarks of Carolingian kingship, Frankish tradition and biblical archetypes and that the text’s dialogue with “the now semi-mythological reign of Charlemagne” was to strengthen his attack. The political agendas embedded within the annalist’s narrative, therefore, demonstrated an engagement with a restorative nostalgia for Charlemagne’s traditional norms of Carolingian kingship.

As the annalist mentioned, the Viking invasion from the mid to late ninth century exacerbated the political structures of Carolingian rule and even contemporaries have cited Charles the Fat’s inability to fend off invasions at Asselt in 882 and Paris in 886 as reasons for his eventual deposition. Simon Coupland asserts that the increase in Viking raids led to the interference of internal political disputes within the Frankish realm, either by planning strategic attacks while the royal host was absent, or by joining forces with the king’s enemies such as the Bretons. Despite scholars downplaying the impact of Viking invasions, it is undeniable that the Scandinavian presence put a serious strain on the relationship between the king and his regional commanders, upon which the structures of the empire depended. For example, from 843 onwards, Aquitaine was never secure from a potential raid, with fleets camped on the Loire almost every year and even more fleets attacking multiple areas at once, including Hamburg, Frisia, Paris and Saintes in 845. This highlights such a pressing trend that contemporary writers like Fulk, the archbishop of Rheims, warned Charles the Fat that Paris’ capture would be at the cost of the suffering of the whole empire. Thus, Viking raids were nonetheless a troubling interference for Carolingian unity and a reality unique to the late ninth century.

Apart from the Scandinavian threat, Charlemagne did not experience familial complications and threat of aristocratic usurpations in the same manner that plagued the late ninth century. Ever since the division of the empire in 843, the stability of Carolingian ruling structures could not be maintained and was frequently disrupted by power struggles between family members. In particular, the attempted usurpation led by Count Boso of Vienne (a non-Carolingian) in 878–880 posed serious problems to the Carolingian family, since dispute over successions, in the case Louis the Stammerer, often created a vacancy, which prompted times of high tension due to the manoeuvring and realignment of political positions. As the Regensburg continuator of the Annals of Fulda noted:
Many kinglets rose up in Europe in the kingdom of Charles the Fat. For Berengar, the son of Eberhard, was making himself king in Italy. Rudolf, the son of Conrad, resolved to hold onto the upper part of Burgundy in the fashion of a king. Louis, the son of Boso, and Guy, the son of Landbert, therefore proposed to hold as kings the Belgian parts of Gaul and Provence. Odo usurped for his use the land up to the Loire River and the province of Aquitaine.

Paul Dutton even argues that no period witnessed such a dramatic swing of fortunes than occurred in the years between the two Charleses. To add insult to injury, the unpredictable deaths of the heirless Louis the Younger, Louis III, and Carloman II decimated the chances of Carolingian continuity making the 870s and 880s an unusual and turbulent period for the family. Thus, given the political disturbances that aggravated the late ninth century, it becomes apparent that expressions of restorative nostalgia were able to flourish in this particular setting, especially considering the idealised society that once existed only one or two generations ago.

Before diving into the individual analysis of primary sources, it is first worth comparing how writers during the early ninth century understood Charlemagne and how those of the late ninth century perceived Charles the Fat. In light of Charlemagne’s golden age, Alcuin, arguably the most influential scholar during the period of correctio, praised Charlemagne as the Frankish peak of human achievement: “He is catholic in faith, king in power, prelate in preaching, judge in justice, philosopher in the liberal arts, distinguished in his habits, and excellent in all good character.” Most court scholars shared the widespread belief that Charlemagne was an ideal example of a Frankish/Christian king. To cite several of these authors, Angilbert, Theodulf, Einhard and Paul the Deacon all praised the man, who they saw, represented the “paragon of virtuous kingship.” Moreover, Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne contains a section which commends Charlemagne’s interests:
[Charlemagne] most zealously cultivated the liberal arts, held those who taught them in great esteem, and conferred great honours upon them. […] The king spent much time and labour with him studying rhetoric, dialectics, and especially astronomy; he learned to reckon, and used to investigate the motions of the heavenly bodies most curiously, with an intelligent scrutiny.

Compare this perception to the annalist’s (of the Annals of Fulda) view of Charles the Fat and the stark differences become clearer. In addition, Notker the Stammerer, another biographer of Charlemagne but writing in the 880s, expressed pessimism and doubt vis-à-vis the ill-fated royal line after Charles the Fat as well as the intensification of Viking threats: “I will not describe the [destruction of the most noble monastery of that time] until I see your little son Bernard with a sword girt to his thigh.” Notker included this in his anecdotal account of Charlemagne to emphasize that Charles the Fat’s unresolved succession plans were an agitating concern while he was writing.
Now that the historical context of kingship during the early and late ninth centuries are established, I will analyze a set of primary sources composed during the late ninth century, which were representative of restorative nostalgia — the nationalist restoration of the past. One of the leading ecclesiastical figures, who attempted to restore the Carolingian royal government to the form of Charlemagne and his successor, Louis the Pious, was Hincmar of Rheims. Given the lack of a sophisticated administrative system and frequent deaths of Carolingian kings, Hincmar wrote the treatise, De Ordine Palatii (“On the Governance of the Palace”) in 882, intended to instruct the new young king Carloman II on how to properly rule and operate the palace in the same fashion Charlemagne did. Before assessing the text, it is necessary to examine Hincmar’s own emotions of restorative nostalgia in order to better understand his treatise. As one of the annalists of the Annals of St. Bertin, Hincmar emphasized Rheims as the traditional place of coronation, by alluding to the previous successful kings such as Louis the Pious as a standard that must continue. On 9 September 869 at Metz, Hincmar addressed Charles the Bald as he waited to be crowned king:
[Your] father of holy memory the Lord Louis, the pious and august emperor, was descended from Clovis, famous king of the Franks, who was converted through the catholic preaching of St. Remigius the apostle of the Franks […] on the vigil of the holy Easter at the metropolis of Rheims, and anointed and consecrated king with chrism got from heaven.

As Dutton argues, Hincmar surrounded Charles’s coronation with Rheimsian connections and deliberately mentioned Clovis and Louis to indicate the inaugural line and that the most fitting place for Frankish coronation was in front of the alter of the Virgin in Saint-Mary’s of Rheims. Due to the flux of the late ninth century, the feelings of clinging conservatism in response to the increased weakness of Carolingian royal power was severely felt in Rheims. Hincmar and his successor Fulk obstinately held the church of Rheims the traditional right to constitute kings, by rejecting Odo, a non-Carolingian, who would have been the natural choice for the king of western Francia in 888, since he was acclaimed as hero of Paris after the Viking invasions. For a society that cared so much about the authority of royal blood as the Carolingians did, it is without question that Hincmar was restoratively nostalgic: the stronger the rhetoric of continuing a historical past, the more selectively the past is preserved.

The text most representative of Hincmar’s restorative nostalgia is the De Ordine Palatii. In his opening paragraph, Hincmar alludes to the golden age of Charlemagne and uses the past as an authority by which to follow:
I was present at the deliberations concerning the church and palace, when the realm flourished in size and unity, and I then heard the counsels and the wisdom both those who ruled the holy Church in sanctity and justice and of those who felicitously in these past times presided over the strength of the empire. By their instruction, I learned the customs of our ancestors.

Hincmar even explicitly expresses the purpose of his tract that it was for “for the restoration of the honour and the peace of the church and the kingdom, the governance of the church and the administration of the royal household within the sacred place, as I heard of it and saw it.” The mere fact that Hincmar reiterates the responsibilities of the king and how no ecclesiastical figure is permitted to be ignorant of the canons and sacred laws, attests that the reforms of correctio during Charlemagne’s reign were no longer carried out: “For the name “king” intellectually signifies that he should fill the office of “corrector” for all his subjects.” In particular, Hincmar was particularly nostalgic for the capitularies that were issued by Charlemagne, which were written legal documents/laws used by the central administration. MacLean corroborates this notion that even though Frankish kings did issue capitularies, the abiding impression is that the conduct of politics was less reliant on the written word and thus functioned less as formal legislation. To further stress Hincmar’s deliberate attempts to restore the means of governance during the early ninth century, from Section 12 onwards, he incorporates into his treatise an earlier work composed by a contemporary of Charlemagne, Adalhardus of Corbie: “In my youth I knew Adalhard an old and wise man, a relative of the Emperor Charlemagne, […] who was first among the emperor’s chief councillors. I read and copied his work “On the Governance of the Palace.”” This not only shows that Hincmar was nostalgic for the way in which standardised the governmental structures of his time, but also that the current state of affairs evidently lacked the strength and maintenance that once existed under Charlemagne. Finally, at the end of his work, Hincmar again restates his purpose to “restore those institutions which now have decayed” and constantly refers to the era of correctio as an authoritative justification to advise Carloman on what ought to be recovered: “May they seek not to be deficient in morals, virtue, wisdom, and the liberal arts, as their years and the times may allow.”

Another major historical work that highlights the restorative sentiment of the Carolingian golden age, is one written by Notker the Stammerer, a monk of St. Gall, called Gesta Karoli (“The Deeds of Charlemagne”), which is an anecdotal and humorous account of Charlemagne. This text is vital in our discussion of restorative nostalgia since it references many idealised vignettes about Charlemagne, constituting what MacLean cites as a Fürstenpiegel or “mirror of a prince,” a genre of exhortatory texts that stresses the classical ideals of Christian kingship. Since Notker is writing in the mid-880s, it will be argued that Notker’s restorative nostalgia can be understood from the perspective of this implicit agenda prevalent throughout the text. In Book I, Notker writes about “the Lord Charlemagne’s piety and care of the church” and cleverly inserts criticisms of the bishops during his time (880s), by placing them in dialogue with Charlemagne. Chapters 16–19 all concern the same “bad” bishop, who had to be constantly chastised and humbled by Charlemagne. Given the contemporary allusions in the work, it seems clear that the bishop Notker severely criticised was Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz, as mentioned earlier, the most important churchman in east Francia from the 860s to 880s. Chapter 16 deals with the theme of pride and how the bishop of Mainz fell into Charlemagne’s trap of being too “covetous” and guilty of the indulgence in luxuries. This lesson, as MacLean argues, is couched in the language of ideal and appropriate behaviour. Moreover, chapters 17 -18 both cover the sins of kingly aspirations and inappropriate royal pretensions, particularly Charlemagne continuous upbraiding of the bishop in public to show how incorrect episcopal behaviour was not tolerated. And finally, chapter 19 underscores the bishop’s stupidity and arrogance when he ridicules Charlemagne’s relative’s singing of Alleluja like a “country bumpkin ploughing the fields.” Since Notker openly criticizes the bishop in an anecdotal account with Charlemagne as the symbol of justice and righteousness, it infers Notker’s reflection on a past wherein moral and appropriate standards were governed to its fullest. Therefore, it seems apparent that these criticisms are couched in terms of failed ideals. MacLean would also note that the establishment of ideal types was a staple rhetorical strategy for writers to express criticism in the early Middle Ages.

In addition, the way in which Notker structured his work tells us about his implicit nostalgia for Charlemagne’s ecclesiastical care. Book I, for example, can be read as the height of Carolingian achievement in piety and learning. Whereas chapters 16–19 represented the epitome of individual sin and the bishop of Mainz’s faults, the previous chapters 14–15 contained positive examples of humble and obedient bishops who are constantly rewarded by Charlemagne for their behaviour. Therefore, by contrasting the two typologies of right and wrong, the bishop of Mainz became the “punchline of the joke,” since the chapters preceding these criticisms only served to sharpen the focus on the bishop. To illustrate this further, Notker made this transition explicitly clear: “We have shown how, in his wisdom, Charlemagne exalted the humble. Let us now tell how he humbled the proud.” Moreover, MacLean makes a compelling argument about the ways Notker revised St. Jerome’s notion that Rome would last until the end of history, by claiming in the first chapter of Book I, that Charlemagne represented the “golden head of a second and no less remarkable statue.” By taking a broader view of Book I, it seems deliberate that Notker would apply this metaphor to suggest that the Frankish empire of Charlemagne was universal and marked a significant place in world history. Furthermore, the idealised concept of family presented by Charlemagne to Greek envoys in chapter 6 of Book II is also striking in the context of nostalgia. Notker introduced these idealised images of family solidarity in Carolingian history to underscore how sharply they differed from his current state of affairs. Thus, it is evident that Notker’s implicit expressions of restorative nostalgia stand as hopeful attempts to get Charles the Fat to reconsider his policies in order to emulate the successes of Charlemagne. Given the historical inaccuracy and almost satirical styles that Notker employed, this particular literary genre allows him to express his criticisms more creatively in a nostalgic fashion.

To address more fully the sentiments of restorative nostalgia during the late Carolingian period, we are fortunate to have the “Annals of the Deeds of Emperor Charlemagne in Five Books” (c. 888), written by an anonymous Saxon poet. Although the Saxon poet’s understanding of Charlemagne was drawn primarily from Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, it nonetheless demonstrates a curious case of a Saxon praising Charlemagne of his people’s conquer. Taken from Book V, the poet longs for the good deeds of Charlemagne and his presence as emperor:
Here elegies in the true sense of that word make their plaintive note; it is not necessary to compose some sad fiction; the very subject matter itself has its own appeal to our emotions. Who, when he reflects what kind of a person Charles was, would not mourn and grieve that such splendor as he represented would now be gone from the world? But the following fact is the sole comfort of the faithful whom death has ever robbed of their own loved ones; they believe happily that these departed ones, by virtue of their own just acts, are sharers of the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, it is pleasing for us to sing of the good that Charles wrought, in return for which we think that he is living with Christ.

The poet even specifies his nostalgia for Charlemagne in the form of his success in converting Saxony to Christianity as well as paying homage to the spread of the educational reforms from correctio:
“If no little spark of letters or any tiny knowledge or art illuminates my mind, shall I not justly give to Charles a eulogy of praise, since it was through him that I was privileged to acquire this good? […]My bold barbarian language takes up this great subject with the strength of slender genius; but great love, which is the true author of this poem, does not permit me to be silent, even though I do not know how to express it. I owe Charles an ever-ardent love and a perpetual homage, for it was he who caused my nation to know the light of faith and to cast off the darkness of perfidy, by his battles over how long a period, by suffering how many dangers, by what hard work, and by what zealous watching!”

As Dutton notes in his preface, by acknowledging that Saxony was entirely pagan and Germanic before Charlemagne conquered them, the remarkable fact that a Saxon poet wrote a Christian Latin poem just a century after the conquest is testament to the impact of Charlemagne’s ecclesiastical and educational achievements.

Svetlana Boym’s framework of restorative nostalgia appears to be a useful tool to examine the sentiments that circulated among contemporary authors during the late ninth century. Given that the Carolingians understood Charlemagne’s “golden age” of correctio almost as a quasi-mythological period, the annalist of Fulda, Hincmar of Rheims, Notker the Stammerer and the Saxon poet all seemed to base their contemporary criticism of kingship on the idealized moral society that once existed. Through these primary sources, it is apparent that these authors were living in a political situation under which these indirect criticisms and feelings of restoration could thrive. It is important to note that these authors understood the concept of history as a flat canvas or a typological tool to be used to pass judgment on the present. As a result, each author’s evident bias should caution us not to take their judgements at face value, but rather to examine how the emotions of restorative nostalgia motivated their agendas. Therefore, the idealised vision that late ninth century writers attempted to restore was a particular kind of nostalgia which functioned as a rhetorical complaint on current affairs.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

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Admonitio Generalis. Translated by P.D. King. In Charlemagne: Translated Sources. Lambrigg, 1987.

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Charlemagne. “Letter to Baugaulf of Fulda, c. 780–800 (Espistola de litteris colendis).” Translated by D.C. Munro. In Internet Medieval Sourcebook, by Paul Halsall 1996. http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/carol-baugulf.asp.

Einhard. “Life of Charles the Great.” In Readings in Medieval History: Volume 1. Edited by Patrick J. Geary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.

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