Urban Blight

While other history sites were celebrating the anniversary of the coronation of King Henry II yesterday, I was thinking about the anniversary of the death of Pope Urban V (1310-1370).

Born William de Grimoard to an aristocratic family, he became a Benedictine monk and later was abbot at the Abbey of St. Victor, where he made a tribute to John Cassian. He was sent to several universities to exercise his clever mind, and became an expert in Canon Law, the laws of the Church. He taught Canon Law at Avignon, Montpelier, and Paris. Returning to Avignon from a trip to Naples, where he had been sent by Pope Innocent IV, he found the pope dead. In the conclave that followed, no clear winner could be found, and Abbot William found himself being put forward as a compromise candidate. At this point, election of a pope required that the candidate be a cardinal, and William wasn't even a bishop. A hasty ordination was arranged.

Not a fan of ostentation, he continued to wear his Benedictine habit. A fan of education, he restored a school of medicine in Montpelier. His personal physician was the most-renowned surgeon of the day. He tried to restore the papacy to Rome from Avignon. He tried to get England to pay several years' worth of payments due the papacy, and clashed with Wycliffe over it. He attempted a Crusade against the Turks, which never got off the ground.

He also took a strong stand against heretics.

In 1363, he proclaimed the papal bull In caena Domini (At the table of the Lord), a collection of pronunciations of popes that merited excommunication for transgressors, and for which only the pope could give absolution. This bull, amended to include later papal injunctions, was repeated annually on Holy Thursday or Easter Monday. It listed infringements against papal authority as well as heresies, sacrileges, and other crimes. It was used to justify many an inquisition.

Over the centuries, rulers of Europe—both Catholic and Protestant—considered In caena Domini to be an infringement on their rights as sovereigns and complained. The annual recital of it was finally ended in 1770 by Pope Clement XIV.

A Tale of Two Pots

What do a Jewish philosopher, a Greek fabulist, and a Latin poet have in common? The following story and its moral.

The Book of Ecclesiasticus (c.200-175 BCE), also called the Wisdom of Sirach, is one of the disputed books of the Old Testament. It is included in the 2nd century BCE Jewish Septuagint (the Greek version of Jewish scriptures used by Diaspora Jews), but is not considered canonical in Judaism, only in Christianity. In it there is a piece of advice:

"Have no fellowship with one that is richer than thyself. What agreement shall the earthen pot have with the kettle? For if they knock one against the other, it shall be broken." [13.2-3]

Is it possible that Sirach was a fan of the fables of Æsop (c.620-564 BCE)? Æsop has a Tale of Two Pots, one earthenware and one metal:

Two Pots, one of brass and the other of clay, stood together on the hearthstone. One day the Brass Pot proposed to the Earthen Pot that they go out into the world together. But the Earthen Pot excused himself, saying that it would be wiser for him to stay in the corner by the fire.

"It would take so little to break me," he said. "You know how fragile I am. The least shock is sure to shatter me!"

"Don't let that keep you at home," urged the Brass Pot. "I shall take very good care of you. If we should happen to meet anything hard I will step between and save you."

So the Earthen Pot at last consented, and the two set out side by side, jolting along on three stubby legs first to this side, then to that, and bumping into each other at every step. The Earthen Pot could not survive that sort of companionship very long. They had not gone ten paces before the Earthen Pot cracked, and at the next jolt he flew into a thousand pieces.

The same story crops up again in the early Middle Ages in the fables of Avianus (5th century CE). In Avianus' version, two pots are floating downstream.* The metal pot suggests that they stick together, but the clay pot wants him to keep his distance, explaining "Whether the wave crashes me into you or you into me, in either case I will be the only victim."

The moral is that one should deal with equals; socializing (or going into business) with those above your station was risky. In cultures where society was sharply divided into different classes, this was advice worth repeating.

*Apparently, Avianus was fine with pots having a conversation, but walking on legs was too unrealistic for him!

Avicenna

In 1527, when the healer and alchemist Paracelsus wanted to display his contempt for tradition, he burned a book in the town square in Basle, where he had been appointed to the university by the town council. That book, allegedly, was The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna. Paracelsus had gone too far in rejecting what was still considered a fundamental work in western medicine. He was ejected from his post at the University, and from the town itself. Avicenna was too respected, even 500 years after he wrote his books.

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā, called by the West Avicenna (c.980-1037), was mentioned here in the context of medicine. About 40 of the 240 surviving texts that he wrote (of a total of about 450!) deal with medicine. The encyclopedic Book of Healing and the Canon became standard textbooks for centuries.

The Canon assembled the best known medical knowledge to date, including Galen (129-c.200 CE) and Hippocrates (c.460-c.370 BCE) and adding a great deal of information that seems new to Avicenna. For instance:

The 'Qanun' is an immense encyclopedia of medicine. It contains some of the most illuminating thoughts pertaining to distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis*; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments. [George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science]

Another reason why Paracelsus would want to burn Avicenna: Paracelsus was advertising his reputation as an alchemist, and believed that with salt, sulphur and mercury you should be able to produce anything. Avicenna, however, was completely opposed to the idea of alchemy, rejecting the notion that man could improve on Nature.

One could still work with Nature, however. Besides dealing with disease and injury (such as explaining how to judge how much healthy tissue could be removed during an amputation or the removal of cancerous tumors), Avicenna promoted restoring health, not just treating disease. He believed in the importance of physical exercise, of a good diet, and of a healthful environment.

Among other innovations, he lays the groundwork for modern ophthalmology, even suggesting that the optic nerves cross over each other. He laid out careful ground rules for the preparation, administration, and testing of drugs.

It has been called "one of the most significant intellectual phenomena of all times."** The Canon of Medicine is an essential part of any curriculum that studies the history of medicine.

*tuberculosis
**Swiss tuberculosis expert, Arnold Klebs

Wassail!

We don't talk enough about Anglo-Saxon, but the Yule season and Christmas traditions evoke Old English images and customs (at least, in the Western Hemisphere) rather than Latin/Roman culture. So let's talk about wassail.

Wassail was originally spelled Wæs hæl ("Be hale/healthy!" [pronounced with short a, to rhyme with lass gal]). The "modern" spelling became current in the late 12th/early 13th century. It is not only an imperative to be well, but also the drink used to toast each other's health in the bleak midwinter. Ralph Holinshed (1529-1580) in his Chronicles quotes a story from Geoffrey of Monmouth's (c.1100-c.1155) Historia Regum Britanniæ (History of the Kings of Britain):

A great supper therefore was prepared by Hengist at the which it pleased the king [Vortigern] to be present, and he [Hengist] appointed his daughter [Rowen], when every man began to be somewhat merry with drink, to bring in a cup of gold full of good and pleasant wine, and to present it to the king saying; “Wassail.” Which she did in such comely and decent manner, as she that knew how to do it well enough, so as the king [Vortigern] marveled greatly thereat, and not understanding what she meant by that salutation, demanded what it signified. To whom it was answered by Hengist, that she wished him well and the meaning of it was, that he should drink after her,...

Currently, many who make wassail start with red wine, but originally it was based on heated cider or ale with spices and fruit thrown in. Ale or cider mixed with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg was common. The hot concoction would have toasted bread tossed on it to sop up the liquid for easy consumption. A traditional carol alludes to this:

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our bread it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee.

 If you are interested, there are countless recipes online for wassail. For a modern take on old recipes, Alton Brown is always reliable. A recipe that sticks more to its roots can be found at Nourished Kitchen. For an inauthentic recipe that attempts to make wassail easy for the modern cook, you could do worse than Gode Cookery.

Wæs hæl!

A Collection of Notkers

Notker Balbulus (the Stammerer)

Yesterday's post on cheese included an anecdote about Charlemagne, attributed to Notker the Stammerer. One would think that "Notker" was an unusual name in any day and age, but it turns out to have been very popular—especially at the Abbey of St. Gall. Ekkehard IV (c.980-1056), a monk of St. Gall, continued a chronicle that had been begun by others. Through the Casus sancti Galli (Doings of Saint Gall), we learn about the history of its inhabitants.

Notker the Stammerer (c.840-912) was called "delicate of body but not of mind, stuttering of tongue but not of intellect, pushing boldly forward in things Divine, a vessel of the Holy Spirit without equal in his time" by Ekkehard. He was a prolific writer, but the work he is most known for is a collection of anecdotes about Charlemagne that has been called a "mass of legend, saga, invention and reckless blundering." Supposedly, Notker wrote De Carolo Magno (Concerning Charles the Great) in honor of a visit to St. Gall by Charlemagne's great-grandson, Charles the Fat.* It is riddled with errors, such as when it claims that the Venerable Bede (672-735) devoted a book of his Ecclesiastical History to King Pepin the Short (714-768), who did not become a king until 752; when Bede died, Pepin's grandfather, Charles Martel, was king.

Notker Labeo ("the Thick-Lipped") was a nephew of the Ekkehard clan. He lived from c.950-1022 and had a reputation in the monastery as a voracious reader. He took up translating various philosophical texts into German, for which he was later called Notker Teutonicus ("the German"). When he died, he asked that he be buried in the same clothing he had always worn, to hide the fact that he wore a heavy chain around himself to mortify the flesh.

Notker Physicus, who died in 975, was called thus (according to the Catholic Encyclopedia) because of his very strict discipline. His knowledge of medicine is praised by Ekkehard, and he is probably the same Notker who was called Notarius (notable) who was known at the court of Emperor Otto I for his skill in medicine.

There was a Notker who was a nephew of Notker Physicus, of whom we know little except that he became Abbot of St. Gall in 971 and died 15 December 975. He was considered exceptionally pious.

Yet another Notker (c.940-1008) was the provost of St. Gall and became the Bishop of Liège. He established schools that became famous and drew numerous students. He is responsible for architectural projects, such as St. John's in Liège, designed after the Aachen Cathedral.


*Charles was the son of Louis the German, the son of Louis the Pious.

Time To Talk of Cheese

Cheese-making; molds can be seen on the left.

Warm up some milk, add an acidifying agent, let it cool, drain off the whey to leave the curds, and the result is cheese. We don't know who first made cheese—the best guess is that milk stored in a vessel made from the stomach of a ruminant became cheese accidentally—but it has been around for thousands of years.

The Romans loved cheese—especially fresh goat cheese—and Pliny has much to say about the different kinds from different parts of the Empire. As cheese-making spread—often by the expansion of Roman culture into Europe—local varieties developed due to differences in climate and bacteria.

Cheese was a good addition to the Christian diet, since it was protein-heavy and could be consumed on days when meat was not allowed. A Monk of St. Gall (identified as Notker the Stammerer) wrote a biography of Charlemagne called De Carolo Magno (On Charles the Great), full of glorifying anecdotes. It has a revealing story about the emperor that involves cheese:

Now on that day, being the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of beast or bird; and the bishop, being by reason of the nature of the place unable to procure fish upon the sudden, ordered some excellent cheese, rich and creamy, to be placed before him. And the most self-restrained Charles, with the readiness which he showed everywhere and on all occasions, spared the blushes of the bishop and required no better fare: but taking up his knife cut off the skin, which he thought unsavoury, and fell to on the white of the cheese. Thereupon the bishop, who was standing near like a servant, drew closer and said, "Why do you do that, lord emperor? You are throwing away the very best part." Then Charles, who deceived no one, and did not believe that anyone would deceive him, on the persuasion of the bishop put a piece of the skin in his mouth, and slowly ate it and swallowed it like butter. Then approving of the advice of the bishop, he said: "Very true, my good host," and he added: "Be sure to send me every year to Aix two cart-loads of just such cheeses." [Book I, Chapter 15]

We cannot say which variety of cheese tickled Charlemagne's palate. Gorgonzola is mentioned in 879, and cheddar around 1500, but we don't know if 9th century Gorgonzola or 16th century Cheddar tasted the same as the varieties we eat today.

Medieval Cookery has a recipe for fresh cheese, and you can find more at the Medieval Cheese Forum.

The Rotating Earth

Nicholas Oresme

While re-examining Aristotle, Jean Buridan used observation and brainpower to anticipate some of the ideas we attribute to Galileo and Newton. He carried his ideas further when he put his mind to the question of the Earth's movement.

For most scholars of the Classical and early Medieval eras, the Earth was fixed, and the Heavens rotated around the Earth once each day. Buridan didn't like this: the Heavens are so much larger than the Earth; why would God design such an inelegant system? Moving the Earth would be easier.

Ptolemy knew this could not be, because if the Earth were rotating, there would be a constant rushing of wind as the air of the atmosphere passed over the land underneath it. Buridan scoffed at this: the atmosphere would be rotating just as the land does. There was no reason to dismiss the idea that Earth rotated daily.

For Buridan, however, empirical evidence was crucial. Of course, his predecessors argued, the Earth clearly does not move; we can see that. Buridan, however, likened the situation to being in a boat on a river. An observer on a second boat that was tied to the bank would see the first boat moving, but if the observer on the second boat could not see the surrounding landscape, then he would not know which of the boats were moving. The problem, Buridan knew, was that without an outside frame of reference, one cannot tell if it is the Earth or the Heavens that is moving. He needed an experiment, and he thought of one.

...and that's when he made his mistake.

Here was his idea: shoot an arrow straight up above your head. If it comes back down where you are standing, then the Earth is stationary. If the Earth rotated under it, then the arrow would come down somewhere off to the side.

He didn't realize that the same property that moves the atmosphere along with the ground would carry the arrow along as well. It would be Buridan's most brilliant student, Nicholas Oresme (c.1325-1382), who would realize and state that the arrow moves along with the Earth and atmosphere. Lacking a way to definitively prove his ideas, however, Oresme would ultimately fall back on the Bible for guidance on this issue.

One Soul To Guide Them All

Averroes (1126-1198) undertook to explain and comment on the works of Aristotle, in an attempt to clarify the Greek philosopher's concepts. One of those concepts was the idea of man's intellect, the debate over which was both stimulating and shocking for the medieval world.

Averroes (in turban); detail, "School of Athens" (Raphael)

Aristotle distinguished between a passive intellect, which is man's predisposition to accept and hold ideas, and an active intellect, which was the agent of analysis and creativity.* The active intellect was an outside force, and the blending or convergence of the external active intellect with the internal passive intellect differed in individuals, which is why we could strive to learn and think and better ourselves intellectually, but we were still different from each other. The connection between active and passive was not the same in each person. This accounted for different and individual personalities.

This was an obvious parallel to Aristotle's Realism: the idea that there exist "universal" abstract concepts—such as "dog"—outside of our direct experience, that allow us to directly experience multiple different dogs with different characteristics (which he called "particulars") and yet understand that they were all dogs.

Averroes explained this further, and created a religious controversy.

If the active intellect was external (and from a divine source) but the less-powerful passive intellect resided in man, and it was the blending of the two that created personality and human intelligence, then what happens at death when the external active intellect is removed? As a divine and lasting and (presumably) unchanging force, it stays as it is, unaffected by its temporary connection to an individual. The human-centered passive intellect dies with the human, the active intellect withdraws, and therefore there is no individual personality that exists anymore.

For Averroes, understanding Aristotle meant that there was no survival after death of a personality. Your personality—what makes you "you"—is gone when you die, and there is no room here for a soul with your personality to exist in an afterlife.

Orthodox Mohammedan theology did not agree with this, nor did Christian theologians such as St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Averroes defense against the charge of heresy? That reason forced him to express these thoughts, but that of course he adhered to the truth as explained by his faith.

*Aristotle used the term "intelligences" to refer to the non-physical (divine, or spiritual) forces that moved the celestial spheres. Christian thinkers would later call these "angels."

Nominalism vs Realism

Realism [link]

At the foundation of philosophy is a question: what defines reality? There are several questions that are connected to this. Let us start with: when we say that a lot of different animals are all dogs, to what quality are we referring that makes the Dachsund and the Great Dane both dogs? Is there an essential quality of "dog-ness"? Some universal concept that is inclusive of all dogs, despite the particular differences between breeds?

There it is: universals and particulars.

Realism says that both universals and particulars exist. That is, we recognize that different dogs/houses/trees are those things because, although they have different particulars, there is a universal essence of dogs/houses/trees that exists. Plato and Aristotle were Realists.

Nominalism says that the world is made only of particulars. Things we see are put into categories by our thought processes and our language, not by the existence of some abstract universal. William of Ockham and Jean Buridan were Nominalists.

In the two diagrams shown, we see that in Realism, although John and David have different Particulars, they are defined by their Universal quality as human beings. Nominalism, however, shows John and David only defined by their Particulars. The category of Humanity is created by us. There is no abstract "Humanity" essence that exists independent of John and David.

Nominalism [link]

Getting at the truth produced some fascinating thought experiments. One—The Puzzle of Theseus' Ship—was posed by Plutarch (46-120 CE). The ship of Theseus was preserved in Athens for several generations. As pieces of it decayed, they were replaced with new wood, so that the ship would stay intact. If a thing is based on its particulars, then with the particulars of this ship having changed over the years, is it still Theseus' ship? If there is some universal of Theseus' ship (as Realism says) then it is still his ship. If there are only particulars (as Nominalism says) then it isn't.

British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) took this a step further: if all the removed pieces were assembled into a complete ship, then which is Theseus' ship? Are they both Theseus' ship? He concludes that this would be absurd.

Even the early scholars understood that there were problems with these concepts, and struggled to reconcile the issues. Still, they did their best to understand how reality worked, and how that would help them to understand everything else.

...such as whether we have individual souls. That discussion will take us back to Averroes tomorrow.

The Commentator

Statue commemorating Averroes in Córdoba

Averroes (1126-1198) was born in Córdoba into a family of distinguished jurists and scholars at a time when Islamic culture was flourishing in Spain. He probably would have spent his life as a judge if not for his mentor and friend, the physician Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl, who told him that he should write commentaries on the works of Aristotle. The problem seen by ibn Tufayl was that Aristotle was too obscure either because of the ambiguity of his own writing or the shortcomings of his translators.

Averroes, whose real name was ʾAbū al-Walīd Muḥammad bin ʾAḥmad bin Rušd, embraced the task so thoroughly that, to the West, he became known as "The Commentator." His scholarship was embraced across cultures: Jacob Anatoli translated Averroes' Commentaries into Hebrew. Anatoli's colleague and friend Michael Scot translated some directly into Latin.

He analyzed and promoted most of Aristotle (and Plato's Republic) to the known world, as well as writing dozens of books of his own. So far as we know, he did not have access to original texts—there is no evidence that he knew Greek—and so his commentaries are based on Arabic translations of Aristotle.

Unfortunately for him, his rationalist views often got him into trouble when they came up against Islamic theology (which he had studied extensively). He was, in fact, banished by a caliph to whom he had been the personal physician, because some side remarks in Averroes' writing (such as "that Venus is one of the gods") struck the caliph as blasphemous. Fortunately, Averroes was allowed to return home prior to his death.

One of his most radical ideas, based on Aristotle, was that there were multiple intellects, but only one shared soul for all of mankind. To explain that raises more questions, however, unless first we look at a debate I have been putting off for months. Tomorrow, therefore, we will (finally) discuss Nominalism vs. Realism.

Jacob Anatoli

Daily Medieval has frequently mentioned the importance of Arabic texts in the transmission of knowledge to Western Europe. Arabic, however, was not a commonly known language, and Arabs did not have a strong presence in Western Europe. Arabic culture often brushed up against Latin culture in the southern Mediterranean, as mentioned Salerno, or when a scholar such as Michael Scot made it a point to learn Arabic. Scot probably had help in the form of Jacob Anatoli.

Jacob ben Abba Mari ben Simson Anatoli (c.1194-1256) grew up in southern France, and gained such a reputation for scholarship that he was invited to Naples by Frederick II, who gathered several other academics to his court, such as Scot and Fibonacci. Anatoli became known for his translations of Arabic texts into Hebrew, and he very likely aided Michael Scot in his Arabic translations. Roger Bacon explains that Scot was aided by a Jew named Andreas, and some scholars believe "Andreas" to be a misunderstanding of "Anatoli."

Of his non-translations, the greatest work is the Malmad ha-Talmidim (the title is a pun, being interpreted either "Teacher of the Students" or "Goad to the Students"). The Malmad shows a wide range of knowledge, incorporating the Old Testament and Jewish commentators, but also the New Testament, Aristotle, Plato, and Averroes. His egalitarian approach to Christian and Muslim matters was refreshing, but Judaism still had special status; he wrote "the Greeks had chosen wisdom as their pursuit; the Romans, power; and the Jews, religiousness." He tells us that a non-Jew who seeks religious Truth should be respected by Judaism and not mocked.

Anatoli extended this intellectual courtesy to Frederick II, incorporating remarks by the emperor in his works. He also mentions a Christian whom Anatoli considers a second master (after Anatoli's own mentor, Samuel ibn Tibbon); this "master" has been equated to Michael Scot.

As for his Arabic translations, Anatoli's crucial contribution was exposing the West to the work of Averroes, one of two Arab scholars (the other was the medical expert Avicenna) whose work is considered fundamental to the Middle Ages.We'll look at Averroes tomorrow.

Defeating Eternity

How long has the universe existed? Has it been around forever? Did it have a beginning? Could it have a beginning? These questions troubled the ancients.

Aristotle in his Physics tried to answer this through reason. Everything that comes into being does so from something that already exists; matter is made from matter, after all. The matter of the universe would have to come into being from some underlying matter; it couldn't come from nothing. For the matter of the universe to come into being, some matter must have existed before it. This statement is ridiculously self-contradictory, and therefore could not be taken seriously. The universe must have always existed.

Others supported Aristotle. Critolaus (c.200-c.118 BCE) couldn't believe that human beings would ever stop simply procreating into eternity. In the Early Medieval Period, Proclus (412-485) produced De Æternitate Mundi (On the Eternity of the World) with 18 proofs.

This belief was about to collide headlong with Christianity, however. The Bible makes it clear that there was a moment of Creation. That being the case, the universe cannot have been eternal.

John Philoponus (490-570) was a prolific and controversial writer who realized that Aristotle needed to be questioned on some things. Although he would be condemned after his death as heretical for interpreting the Trinity as three gods instead of one God, he was known in his lifetime for defending the Biblical necessity of a universe with a starting point. He wrote "Against Proclus" in which he challenged every one of Proclus' arguments. The basis for his argument is simple, and referred to now as the Traversal of the Infinite. If the existence of something relies on the existence of something else prior to it, then you need to account for the existence of the prior thing. That prior thing would rely on the existence of something before that, and so on. You have to have an infinite series of assumptions that something existed before the thing that came afterward, and never actually explain where any of the substances came from. The world could not possibly be infinite, and must have been created by a divine being.

The Ring of Fire vs. The Flood

15th century portrayal of Ptolemy's map

Prior to the Age of Exploration, human beings in the western hemisphere did not attempt to travel long distances by sea and discover distant lands.* This was partially because ships that could handle a very long voyage were not able to be built or provisioned easily for such a journey.** Another reason is that the world was "known" to be shaped so that long voyages were fruitless.

Eratosthenes (c.276-c.195 BCE) had established in the Classical Era the spherical nature of the Earth through simple and clear experimentation; no one disputed that. (His math on Earth's diameter was probably a little off: the unit of measurement he used probably gave him an Earth 4000 miles larger around than it is.) What was up for debate was the question of what existed "over the horizon."

Aristotle (384-322 BCE), upon whose scholarly shoulders the Middle Ages tried to stand, loved symmetry. It made sense to him that there were five zones (from the Greek word meaning "girdle") around the Earth. The extreme top and bottom were icy cold and uninhabitable. Just inside of them were the temperate zones where humans and animals lived—note: he believed both temperate zones were inhabited. In the middle it was so hot—and clearly, the further south you go from Greece and the Mediterranean the hotter it got—that it was uninhabitable. Pliny (23-79) said that this central zone was so hot that it was actually a ring of fire and was unlivable and impassable, so we would never be able to visit the people living in the southern hemisphere.

Wait, said Christianity. That can't be. The Flood covered the whole world, and when the waters receded, the Ark of Noah came to rest on Mt. Ararat in Turkey, from which all the animals strolled away and repopulated the world. If the ring of fire at the equator is impassable, how can there be animals living beyond it? Worse, if there are people living in the southern temperate region, how are we going to reach them with the Word of God?

Proving that classical scholars did not always agree, Ptolemy presented different problems in geography. His Geography was translated and made available to Western Europe in 1406. His map (depicted above in a 15th century version printed in Ulm) showed that all you had to do was sail far enough south to reach the southern lands in the world, but he also extended the bottom of Africa eastward, enclosing the Indian Ocean. This meant you could not sail to the Indian Ocean and therefore to India, but would forever have to use the Silk Road (and incidentally pay tolls at every border crossing, something sailors get to avoid).

The Age of Exploration changed all this. In 1473, Aristotle was proved wrong with a Portuguese ship exploring the west coast of Africa passed south of the Equator. In 1488, another Portuguese ship sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Indian Ocean. India and the east were accessible by ship after all, and the Portuguese quickly established those shipping routes.

Ptolemy's Geography was erroneous in another way. He estimated the Earth's circumference at thousands of miles smaller than Eratosthenes. Since no one cared to duplicate Eratosthenes' experiments and determine the distances involved, Ptolemy might have been taken as truth by some. His estimates of the size of a spherical Earth would put Asia thousands of miles closer to Europe by sailing west. With Portugal dominating southern routes to the East, was it Ptolemy's miscalculation that prompted Spain's Columbus to try a bold plan to establish a different and (he thought) shorter route?

*Perhaps some day we'll get to some of the rare cases of accidental discovery of previously unanticipated lands.
**I have been aboard replicas of Columbus' ships; they are frighteningly small considering the journey they made.

William of Ockham

The goal of Daily Medieval is to present a sampling of the infinite array of information about the Middle Ages in small, digestible amounts. It offers a taste of the thousand years of people, events, and ideas that don't get covered in the streamlined history books of standard academic courses. To that end, it tries to avoid those things that people "already know" and focus on the lesser-known lights that shone at the foundation of modern civilization. Sometimes, however, the obscure overlaps the well-known, and I find myself "forced" to write about something or someone that I worry is known well enough that the daily entry won't give the reader anything "new." My goal then becomes to broaden the reader's knowledge in unexpected ways.

Which brings us to William of Ockham. I would be surprised if readers of Daily Medieval had not heard of Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor, a guiding principle that says one should not make more assumptions than absolutely necessary to try to explain something.

William of Ockham (c.1285-1349) was responsible for so much more, however. Believed to have been born in Ockham in Surrey, England, he wrote about metaphysics, logic, theology, politics, and more. All this writing, however, happened when he left Oxford University in 1320 without a degree in theology. The prevailing theory for this unexpected departure is that he would not acquiesce to changing his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a common part of the final examination for university students.

The basis for the theory is how the situation blew up years later. Ockham was summoned to Avignon to appear before Pope John XXII and a committee that would examine his writings. The committee, chaired by John Luttrell (an ex-chancellor of Oxford) found 51 heresies among William's commentary on the Sentences. It is believed that William escaped punishment by appealing to the Holy Roman Emperor (at the time, Louis IV), who was not always on good terms with the pope, saying to him "You defend me with the sword and I will defend you with the pen." In effect, he placed at the disposal of the Emperor his intellectual gifts, which (if this story is true) must have been known to be considerable for this ploy to work.

How did William earn his intellectual reputation? Between leaving Oxford in 1320 and arriving in Avignon in 1324, he spent three years in a Franciscan monastery, writing prolifically. One of the topics he put his mind to was whether priests should be allowed to own property. Franciscans believed priests should live a life of poverty. This put them into conflict with Pope John XXII, so the summons to Avignon and condemnation may have had more to do with that question than his Oxford writings.

Besides challenging the Church's ideas about material wealth, he was also challenging the ideas of people like Thomas Aquinas that reason was sufficient to determine everything we needed to know about the world.

But that's a story for another day.

He Who Would Be Santa

15th century woodcut of Nicholas

In the introduction to Arian Christianity I mentioned how discussion at the Council of Nicaea in 325 became so heated that Bishop Nicholas of Myra slapped Arius' face. Much of what we think we know about Nicholas is difficult to substantiate, but this has not stopped historians from talking about him. In fact, it is the least-documented information we have that has developed his reputation the most.

Nicholas (c.270-6 December 343) was born at Patara, in Asia Minor. As a young man he made a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine; upon his return he was made Bishop of Myra, not far from his city of birth. During the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, Nicholas was imprisoned, but freed once the Christian Emperor Constantine came to power.

He attended the first ecumenical council of the new Catholic Church in 325, which was called by Constantine in order to determine the (in)validity of Arianism (see the link above). Nicholas is counted among the numerous men who assembled there, and (as mentioned) became passionate about the debate.

Well, that's the story anyway. There are some lists of participants on which his name is not found, casting doubt on his presence at Nicaea. But his importance to legend is unquestioned. His popularity as a saint in Greece and Russia began early. Emperor Justinian I (483-565) built a church to Nicholas at Constantinople. He was revered in Germany during the reign of Emperor Otto II (955-983).

And you know you're an important person when they dig up your body in order to keep it safe (as monks had done in England with St. Cuthbert). In 1071 the Turks took control of most of Asia Minor. Among other things, this meant losing control of the burial site of Nicholas. Byzantium regained control under Emperor Alexios I Comnenus, but sailors from Bari in southern Italy took it upon themselves to save the saint's bones. They brought the relics to Bari in 1087, where they have remained. (Actually, they brought the major bones, leaving fragments. Venetian sailors during the First Crusade brought the remainder to Venice where they were put in a church. Scientific investigation in the 1990s proved that the bones in Bari and Venice belong to the same man.)

Traditional pawnbroker sign

The chief story of his giving nature—the story that eventually gave rise to the legend of Santa Claus—is about a man with three daughters for whom he did not have enough money for dowries. Without a dowry, marriage was unlikely, and the fear was that they would wind up as prostitutes in order to support themselves. Nicholas passed by on three consecutive nights and each night threw a bag of gold in the window, saving the future of the daughters. Because of this he has been made the patron saint of (besides children and sailors, etc.) pawnbrokers; some think the traditional image of three golden balls for a pawnbroker shop is because of the three bags of gold. A 15th century woodcut now in the British Museum (see image above) shows Nicholas laying three gold balls instead of bags into the girls' bed. (An alternate theory has the three balls connected to the Medici family heraldry.)

His feast day is today, December 6. In some countries, children put their shoes outside their doors on the evening of the 5th, and on the morning of the 6th find chocolate, coins, or trinkets.

Final Exams

Early copy of the Sentences

In the Middle Ages, The Bible was recognized as the most important book in existence. No book was more discussed and commented upon. Many of the commentaries themselves, such as those of the Early Church Fathers, became only slightly less significant objects of study. The Early Church Fathers did not always agree, however, which led to confusion, and (if you weren't careful in your reading and expounding on what they said) to heresy. Into this dilemma stepped Peter Lombard.

Peter Lombard (c.1095-1160) was born in Italy. He studied at Reims and Paris, and taught for ten years in the cathedral school at Notre Dame where he would have met some of the greatest theologians of the time. He was ordained by 1156, and was made bishop of Paris in 1159.

At some point he found time to write. Although he wrote commentaries of his own, his great work was the Libri Quatuor Sententiarum (Four Books of Sentences), in which he attempted to cover the entirety of biblical scholarship and knowledge by laying out passages from the Bible with relevant commentary from the Early Church Fathers and others. He tries to show where there is agreement among the commentators; where there is disagreement, he tries to reconcile the opposing viewpoints.

The four books covered the Trinity, Creation (and the world), Christ and salvation, and the Sacraments. The Sentences became the standard theology textbook for the next 400 years, and formed the basis for understanding the Bible and Christianity.

Because of the fundamental position the Sentences takes in theology, it was at the center of most theological study. Therefore, students were given a simple task: write your own commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Your masters would read your commentary to see if you understood the Bible and its learned analyses properly. If you did not, you were told to correct your commentary. If you corrected your commentary, all was well and good. If you decided that you were right and that you should argue with your masters, you ran the risk of (at the very least) not having your degree conferred, or (at worst) being declared heretical.

...and that's what one of the most famous medieval thinkers—the one whose name everyone today knows—did, and it got him expelled from Oxford University.

But that's a story for another day.

Pre-Inertia

Expositio & questiones manuscript

Jean Buridan (c.1300-c.1361) was a University of Paris scholar who was not afraid to tackle some of the big scientific and philosophical issues of the day. That meant, in some cases, taking a critical look at one of the most revered figures in science and philosophy, Aristotle. Buridan, like William of Ockham (c.1288-c.1348),  believed in the observable reality around him, and believed that observation of the world was the key to understanding it. Challenging Aristotle could be risky, but as more and more scholars observed the world around them, they realized that Aristotle's theories needed amendment. He wrote Expositio & questiones (Expoition and questions) to analyze Aristotle's work.

For example, Aristotle believed that an object set in motion—let's say, a rock thrown by a human hand—continues to move after it has left the hand because there must be some continuous external force exerted on it. He theorized that, in the same way a hand swished through water creates little eddies and swirls in the water around it, so the rock's movement is continued by eddies and currents of the air. If there were no movement in the medium that helped carry the rock forward, he believed, the rock would stop its forward course (and presumable drop the the ground). The currents eventually faded, allowing the rock to end its forward flight.

Buridan was not satisfied with this. Building on the work of others (such as John Philoponus and Avicenna, both of whom deserve their own entries some day), he believed that there must be a property in the rock itself that accounts for its action once it has left the motive force of the hand. He called this property of the object impetus (from Latin impetere, literally "to rush toward, to attack").

The property or quality of impetus was clearly changeable. To hurl a heavy rock required you to give it more impetus than to hurl a pebble. Also, impetus was obviously used up over time, allowing the rock to cease its movement and fall. He also explained that a falling object gained impetus the longer it fell (are you paying attention, Galileo?). Unlike Aristotle, who believed that the medium of air in which the object moves helps it along, Buridan saw the air as resistance, causing the object to use up its impetus.

He expanded this theory by looking up. A question had bothered some philosophers for ages: why don't the planets slow down? Will they move forever? Buridan extrapolated his theory to say that a thrown rock in a vacuum would experience no resistance and its impetus would last indefinitely. If the planets were moving in a vacuum...

Well, actually, he couldn't go that far. He agreed with Aristotle that a vacuum couldn't exist in space, since there was no container to keep matter from rushing into the empty area. If above our atmosphere were filled with quintessence, however, Aristotle's "fifth element" that was pure, unchangeable, and frictionless, then the impetus imparted to the planets by whatever initial agency would continue to move forever! The idea of an eternal universe was supportable by science!

Buridan's Ass

Buridan's Ass is the name given to a paradox: that a hungry and thirsty ass placed exactly in the middle between water and hay will be unable to choose because neither choice is preferable or closer; he will therefore die of thirst and hunger. The paradox is named for Jean Buridan (c.1300-c.1361), who studied and taught at the University of Paris. He had a reputation for being a bright and charismatic figure who had a way with the ladies, but that last part might have been spread by his detractors.

But Buridan, who wrote several works including answers to puzzles such as the liar paradox, never discussed the dilemma of the ass; he might have, because it had been around for hundreds of years.

Aristotle mocked the paradox in his De Caelo (On the Heavens). There was an idea circulating that one could explain the unmoving nature of the Earth simply because it was round and centered among all that existed, and therefore all forces acted upon it equally, maintaining an equilibrium. Aristotle mocked this idea by saying it was as ridiculous as if to say that "a man, being just as hungry as thirsty, and placed in between food and drink, must necessarily remain where he is and starve to death." Other early philosophers commented in this dilemma as well.

Why did it get ascribed to Buridan? In his works, he does consider that a rational choice could not be made by a rational person between two equally good options:

Should two courses be judged equal, then the will cannot break the deadlock, all it can do is to suspend judgement until the circumstances change, and the right course of action is clear.

This was just a "thought experiment" for him, however. He did not believe this would in fact lead to total inaction: he believed in a moral determinism that would lead one to a choice, even though that choice or preference might come through an unknowable thought process. Later writers mocked him by laying the burden of the ass paradox on him.

Buridan and Aristotle would cross paths on another issue, however: when a thrown object leaves the hand of the thrower, what keeps it moving? Aristotle had a theory that was clung to by many for centuries. Buridan had a different idea, one that anticipated Newton by about 300 years.

But that's a story for another day.

A Byzantine Princess

Anna Comnena in Byzantine mosaic

Anna Comnena (1083-1153) was the daughter of an emperor (Alexios I), the wife of a Caesar, and the mother of a Grand Duke. For many princesses in history, that would have been a sufficient claim to fame. For Anna, however, these were merely incidental facets of her life; she was so much more than a link in a dynastic chain.

For one thing, like most Byzantine royal children, she was well-educated in history and literature, rhetoric, and the sciences such as astronomy and math. Medicine was to become her specialty, however: her father established a hospital in Constantinople where she taught medicine and treated patients, including her father in his final days. Her fame was known to Sir Walter Scott, who said of her:

During his latter days, the Emperor was greatly afflicted with gout, the nature of which has exercised the wit of many persons of science as well as of Anna Comnena. The poor patient was so much exhausted that, when the Empress was talking of most eloquent persons who should assist in the composition of his history, he said, with a natural contempt of such vanities, 'The passages of my unhappy life call rather for tears and lamentation than for the praises you speak of.' [Sir Robert of Paris]

Whether we can trust Scott's characterization of the Emperor's attitude toward his biography—and whatever her reputation for medicine—what is true is that Anna is best known to us for a fifteen-volume history of her times. True, it was begun by her husband, Nikephorus Bryennius, who was calling it Materials for History, but Anna turned it into an encomium for her father and his ancestors and finished it (as it has come down to us in history) as The Alexiad. Although she was not an eye-witness to much of what she describes, and is surely using hearsay (and filtering through her personal lens that saw her father in a better light), it is still the definitive first-hand work on that period in Byzantine history.

A rare example of political and military history produced by a woman, one of the insights it offers is the Byzantine horror at the masses of Western Europeans come on Crusade to disturb the peace of the Eastern Mediterranean. Although she wrote it decades after the fact, she would have seen the Latin armies approaching, and watched the siege of Constantinople in 1097, when her husband (at 14, she was already married) defended the walls of the largest city in the world against Godfrey of Bouillon (c.1060-1100), before Godfrey went on to conquer Jerusalem.

She also believed that she should have been empress and tried to make it so, but that's a story or another day.

A Mother's Advice

Online version of this translation

Dhuoda's Liber manualis (Manual/Handbook) is a unique work by a female author from the 9th century. Fragments of a Carolingian era manuscript exist in a library in Nîmes, and a single 17th century copy of the original exists in the Biliothèque Nationale in Paris.

The Manual teases some biographical detail, such as in the Prologue when she asserts:

I, Dhuoda, though frail in sex, living unworthily among worthy women, am nonetheless your mother, my son William. To you the words of my handbook are directed now. For, just as playing at dice seems for a time most comely and apt to the young, amid other worldly accomplishments, or again, as some women are wont to gaze in mirrors, to remove their blemishes and reveal their glowing skin, concerned to please their husbands hear and now—in the same way I want you, when you're weighed down by hosts of worldly and temporal activities, to read this little book I have sent you, often, in memory of me: don't neglect it—use it as if it were a matter of mirrors or of games of dice.*

We know (she mentions this herself) that she is in Uzés near Nîmes, and it is not uncommon for men to leave their wives in charge of their estates, but this passage suggests—even while she shows familiarity with material concerns—that she resides in an abbey or convent. Still, wherever she lives and with whatever company, she is apparently managing estates (though with some difficulty):

To help my lord and master, Bernard—so that my service in his cause, in the Marches and in many places, should not be flawed, and that he should not sever himself from you or from me, as some men are wont to do—I realize I have burdened myself with great debts. To meet his needs, I have often had to borrow large sums, not only from Christians but also from Jews. I have repaid them as far as I could, ...

She asks William that, after her death, he determine her debtors and repay anything still owed. Her husband seems to be exonerated for any "exile" she has suffered when she says (italics are mine):

But when I had resided a long time in that city, lacking your presence, at my lord's command, happy at his exploits and missing you both, ...

She also shows herself to be well educated: she quotes from or alludes to the Bible throughout, and even quotes the great scholar Alcuin when counseling William against the temptations of the flesh:

O, how short, short indeed is that moment of fornication by which future life is lost! And how great is the strength and the enduring splendor of chastity, which makes a mortal man like a fellow citizen of the angels. (Liber de virtutibus et vitiis [Book of Virtues and Vices])

It is a very personal attempt by a mother to guide her son in the ways of the world as well as a good Christian life:

Even if, more and more, you acquire books, many volumes, may it still please you to read frequently this little work of mine—may you have the strength to grasp it profitably, with the help of almighty God. [...] So it is altogether necessary for you, my son William, to show yourself, in both ventures, as one who can be of service to the world and at the same time can always, through every action, give delight to God.

How he will be able to achieve this balance—to keep his mind on God while oppressed with worldly cares—is the purpose of the Manual, and it is a better Manual than other instruction because it comes from her:

My son, you will have teachers who will give you more lessons, and more valuable ones—yet not in the same way, with the heart burning within, as I with mine, my first-born one... .

Emphasis on her special role as his mother in teaching him is mentioned throughout the work. She also asks that he pass the book along to his younger brother, recently born and taken into his father's care almost immediately. It is an amazing work, written by a woman who devoted herself to duty to her husband and to her sons, even though she spent most of her life without their presence.

*Some quotations from Women Writers of the Middle Ages by Peter Dronke.

A Carolingian Mother

Bernard of Septimania, whose fate interweaves the recent posts on Carolingian civil wars, married Dhuoda on 24 June 824. She bore him two sons: William on 29 November 826, and Bernard II on 22 March 841. Although she traveled with her husband for a few years, she spent most of the years between births in Uzés in what is now southern France. What little we know about her comes from details in the Liber Manualis (Book of instruction) which she wrote for her elder son. There are, however, assumptions we can make that are fairly safe and will serve to flesh out her background.

Liber Manualis, MS at Nîmes [source]

For one thing, it is likely that she came from a noble family, and that she and Bernard met through court connections. It was probably not simply a marriage of political convenience, since he not only bothered to have her with him for at least a few years, but also trusted her to run his estates from Uzés near Nîmes and visited her when he could—certainly in summer of 840, around the time of the death of Emperor Louis the Pious, just before Bernard ran off and got involved (disastrously for him) in the chaos fomented by Louis' remaining sons.

She would have seen her elder son very little, and her second son was taken from her by her husband before he was baptized or named. This separation, and concern for the shifting politics and her husband's risky involvement, may be what prompted her to write to William, to help him to steer clear of personal and professional dangers. She gives him practical advice for living, not just spiritual advice for the care of his soul.

We also know that Dhuoda learned Latin. This is not unusual, especially considering the emphasis Charlemagne put on education for all children. True, her Latin is far from polished, but she clearly knows the Bible as well as secular authors, and she manages to come across with both humor and gravity in 73 chapters. Her writing provides a unique glimpse into attitudes toward family structures. Unlike the Mirrors for Princes, her manual is highly specific: it focuses on her as a wife and mother caring and advising her son and only her son; she never suggests that this is a general purpose guide for anyone else. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "it is a treatise on Christian virtues, revealing the author's remarkable qualities of heart and mind, her intense affection for her sons and her husband."

Her position as his mother makes her uniquely suited to instruct him. As she says in the opening (I have added the italics):

You will be able to discover fully what rules you must fulfill for my sake. My son, you will have teachers who instruct you in many more useful lessons than I do but they do not have equal status with me or have hearts burning in their breasts as I, your mother, do, my firstborn child.

She tells us in the Liber that it was started 30 November 841 and finished 2 February 843. She speaks of herself as being weak and near death, and the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests that her death, probably shortly after completing the manuscript, spared her the news of her husband's execution by Charles the Bald in 844.

Tomorrow we shall look at some of her advice from the Liber.

A Carolingian Son

Uzés was founded around an early Roman aqueduct

Back here I mentioned that Bernard of Septimania married a woman named Dhuoda, whom he had travel with him for awhile; then he sent her to live at Uzés in what is now southern France. As is the case with many political figures involved in military or court jobs, he rarely spent time with her after that. This is not to say that he no longer cared for her; just that his job came first. The circumstantial evidence is that he wanted her there for her safety: he became involved in every civil strife caused by the sons of Louis the Pious. When not involved directly at Court (that is, when he was exiled), there is evidence that he returned to the south to see her. It is certain that he fathered a second son on one of these visits. Dhuoda wrote a book of advice for her elder son; there is, however, no evidence that he ever read or even received it. In fact, it seems highly unlikely, if he did read it, that he took any of it to heart.

William of Septimania (29 November 826-850), was first raised by his uncle, Theodoric of Autun, until Theodoric's death when William was four; then he was sent to the court of Louis the Pious, where his father was chamberlain. William stayed with Louis throughout the emperor's life, although he seems to have traveled to Toulouse with his father at times, and also spent time at Uzés with his mother. After Louis' death in 840, Bernard used his son as a go-between, sending him to pledge loyalty to Charles the Bald. William stayed with Charles, asking for (and eventually receiving) Theodoric's lands in Autun.

Barcelona castle from William's era

When Bernard was executed in 844 by Charles, William joined Pepin II in his attempt to keep control of Aquitaine (Louis had given it to Charles, but the Aquitaine nobles had preferred Pepin). Pepin offered him his father's territory of Toulouse, although Charles had given it to Fredelo (who was actually a cousin of William's: William of Gellone was grandfather to both men). William was present in Toulouse and was able to defend it, but in 849 he went to Barcelona to take control of an area his father had once ruled, leaving Toulouse unguarded for Charles to take over; Charles confirmed Fredelo in possession of Toulouse. William made no friends in Barcelona—having taken it, it was said, "more by cunning and lies than by force of arms"—and in 850 when he fled back there to escape the wrath of Charles after a later military defeat, Charles' supporters killed him.

Clearly, his political choices and personal behavior were no more commendable than his father's. Would he have made different choices if he had read his mother's book of advice? Let's look at what was in it and see what we think.

[continued]

Civil War Witness, 3

Charlemagne's grandsons were not satisfied with the way their father, Emperor Louis the Pious, divided up his realm while still alive so they could have territories to rule. They frequently rebelled against him and each other in order to grab more. On these occasions, a sometime adviser to Louis, Bernard of Septimania, once chose the losing side, once chose the winning side, and then tried a different approach.

In 837, Louis the Pious was becoming more devoted to Charles the Bald, his son by his second wife. He made Charles king of Alemannia and Burgundy, including a portion of the land that had been given to Louis the German, Louis' youngest son by his first wife. Louis the German (understandably) objected, invaded Alemannia (for the second time: he had invaded Alemannia as his part of the 2nd civil war). In 838, Pepin died, and Charles was named King of Aquitaine. Unfortunately, the nobles of Aquitaine decided to name Pepin's son, Pepin II, their new king. Lothair actually sided with his father this time; their combined forces quickly deposed Pepin II, forced Louis the German to retreat quickly (but gave him Bavaria), and then granted the whole eastern part of the Empire to Lothair, including Italy.

This was merely a prequel to the free-for-all in 840, when Louis the Pious died.

Pepin was gone, but there were still three (half-) brothers capable of alliance or discord, whichever suited their goals.* Louis the German, with little land, allied himself with the now-more-powerful ruler of the western half of the empire, Charles, and they attacked Lothair. While they marched their armies eastward, Pepin II reared his head again and claimed kingship of the now-deserted Aquitaine, offering his support to Lothair. A decisive battle was fought in June 841, in which Charles and Louis forced Lothair to flee.

Division after the Treaty of Verdun [link]

But where was Bernard? He and a small force had arrived at the battle to offer support, but he obviously knew that picking the losing side again would be disastrous. He sat out the battle, waiting to see who won so that he could offer support. After the battle, he sent his son to Charles with pledges of loyalty and promises that he could talk Pepin II into giving up. He apparently had no intention of doing this, however, nor did his tepid support please Charles. While Charles marched on Aquitaine, he deprived Bernard of Toulouse, his only remaining territory. Bernard, refusing to accept this, allied himself with Pepin II.

Events were not in Bernard's control, however. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 made an arrangement between the three brothers—Lothair, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald—to divide the empire. Pepin continued to make trouble in Aquitaine for many years. Bernard was captured a year later near Uzés in the south, where he had sent his wife years earlier when he became more involved in politics, and brought before Charles where his execution was arranged. A sad end for a man on the fringe of great events; if only he had been the recipient of good advice. For that, he would have had to spend more time with his wife; more on that tomorrow.

*Historians consider this the same war that began in 837-8.

Civil War Witness, 2

Lothair, rebel with a cause

After Louis the Pious dealt with an insurrection by his three sons (see yesterday's post), Bernard of Septimania was free to return from Barcelona, but any holdings that were given to him by Louis went to Berengar the Wise, the Count of Toulouse. The lands that gave Bernard the title Duke of Septimania were no longer in his possession.

A mere two years after the first civil war, however, filial trouble reared its head again. Pepin of Aquitaine, still smarting from his treatment after rebelling a few years earlier, was summoned to his father's court, where he was treated so poorly that he departed without permission. Louis assumed Pepin would start trouble, and so he gathered an army to quell what he was certain was an imminent uprising. Louis declared the Aquitaine to be now the possession of Charles the Bald, his son by his second wife; the rest of his empire was promised to his eldest, Lothair. This move, however, did not satisfy Lothair. Not only was he bothered by seeing lands go to his half-brother, but he was also anxious that he not have to wait to rule it all.

Lothair had a friend in the pope, Gregory IV (ruled 827-844), whom he had helped establish on the Throne of Peter—a slap to his father, since the choice of pope was supposed to be ratified by the emperor.* Lothair asked Gregory to join him and help reconcile the hostile posturing between father and son. Pope Gregory joined Lothair, which annoyed the bishops who had sided with Louis. The conflict between the pope and bishops became as significant as that between the temporal lords, as they threatened to excommunicate each other.

Gregory spoke to Louis, returned to Lothair to continue negotiations, and was prevented by Lothair of returning to Louis. The appearance this created was that the pope was supporting Lothair rather than peace, and Louis' troops began to desert him. Louis, his wife Judith, and son Charles were all sent to house arrest in different locations.

In the formal procedure for deposing Louis and transferring all power to Lothair, however, the treatment of the one-time emperor was so demeaning that the nobles turned against Lothair. Louis returned to the throne in March 834, less than a year after his exile.

Where was Bernard in all this? He and the dispossessed Pepin had remained loyal to Louis. After the return of Louis to his throne, Bernard requested the return of his lands. Louis was conflicted, because he didn't want to annoy Berengar. Fortunately, fate intervened: Louis summoned both men to his court in June 835, and Berengar died on the way. Bernard was free to take back his lands.

Bernard had joined one civil war on the losing side, then one civil war on the losing side that turned out to be the winning side. There was a third option, however, and he would try it a few years later, in the free-for-all that followed the death of Louis.

[continued]

*There was a fuss made, and Gregory needed to wait to be ratified by Louis, but Lothair's actions still rankled.

Civil War Witness, 1

Coronation of Louis the Pious, by Jean Fouquet (1455)

Yesterday's post about William of Gellone didn't mention his family at all, but he had four sons, Barnardo, Guitcario, Gaucelm, and Helmbruc. I want to talk about Barnardo, are as he is better known, Bernard.

Bernard (795-844) was Duke of Septimania by heredity and Count of Barcelona by conquest (once his father took it from the Moors, as mentioned yesterday). He was one of the closest advisers to Charlemagne's son, the Emperor Louis the Pious, who ruled from 814-840. He would have been well-known to Louis' sons, and would have known them well in return—this will become very important a little later.

On 29 June, 824, he was married in the Chapel of Aachen to a woman of whom little is known prior to this. Dhuoda was her name, and she was no doubt from a noble family. At first she accompanied her husband on his military missions: Louis asked him to patrol the Spanish Marches, in which trouble from Moorish incursions was only to be expected. In 826 they had a son, named William for Bernard's father. At some point afterward, Bernard sent her away to Uzés in southern France, keeping William to be raised at court. His reasons are unknown; we would like to assume it had something to do with her safety. (Reports that Bernard was having an affair with Louis' wife, the Empress Judith, are suspect because they were all made by known political enemies.)

Bernard seemed to make enemies when he was brought to court. The Emperor had sent his son Lothair to take up the Iron Crown of Lombardy in 829, and asked Bernard to take the position of chamberlain and watch over another son, Charles. Bernard asked his brother Gaucelm to handle his affairs in his absence. The choice to send Lothair away and give him a title was wise, because he was in frequent conflict with Louis' second wife Judith, who was trying to secure a realm for her son, Charles the Bald.

Louis did give Charles something: Alemannia, which reduced the size of what Lothair would inherit from his father. Lothair accused Charles of illegitimacy—of being, in fact, the son of Judith and Bernard. Lothair held his temper in check, and it was another son, Pepin of Aquitaine, who would be the first to start a war.He gathered an army and marched toward Paris; he was joined by his younger brother, Louis the German. Their father came home from a campaign in Brittany to find his country in turmoil; he was surrounded by Pepin's forces and captured. Judith was imprisoned. Bernard fled to Barcelona.

Lothair set out with an army to take control of the situation for his own ends. Louis, meanwhile, offered his two captors/sons a larger share of lands upon his death, so they freed him and swore loyalty to him again. This larger force now faced Lothair's army of Lombards; Lothair was forgiven his insurrection and sent to Italy for good. Pepin returned to Aquitaine. Judith was returned after swearing to her innocence. Bernard was exonerated. The civil war was over.

A few years later, it would happen again.

[continued]

From France to NYC

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is an area called The Cloisters. Built in the 1930s, it incorporated elements of several medieval abbeys. Part of the Cloisters comes from the abbey of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert (picture here), whose founder is the subject of today's post.

William of Gellone (755-814) was a cousin of Charlemagne's and the second count of Toulouse. When Hisham I of Cordoba declared a holy war against the Christians in southern France in 793, William was asked to respond to the threat. William met Hisham's army; he was unable to defeat them, but resisted so strongly that he wore down the invading Moors by attrition and they gave up their attempt to conquer southern France. Some years later, William was part of a large force that re-captured Barcelona. His military exploits are celebrated in literature and legend.

Piece of the True Cross

In 804 he founded a monastery in the valley of Gellone. Later named Saint-Guilhem after him, a village of the same name developed around it. He donated to the abbey a piece of the True Cross that had been a gift to him from Charlemagne. The location of the abbey and its possession of such an important relic made it a popular stopping place on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

Two years later, William himself became a monk there. He became well-known as the abbey's benefactor and a pious man; supposedly, upon his death the church bells rang without anyone touching them. His will left even more to the monastery. His legend grew so much that his body was eventually transferred to a spot in the abbey church where it could be seen better.

It was during the French Revolution that the abbey started to suffer; much of it was dismantled. Thanks to the interest and financing of John D. Rockefeller, part of the structures found a new home overlooking the Hudson River in New York.