Pepin the Hunchback

Charlemagne's first known child was Pepin the Hunchback by his concubine Himiltrude. Born about 768, he was raised at his father's court. Charlemagne had strong feelings about his children, insisting that they all be raised well, educated, and given advantageous positions and marriages.

The chronicler Paul the Deacon refers to Pepin being born ante legale connubium ("before legal marriage"), but does he mean Charlemagne and Himiltrude were eventually married? Or that perhaps they had a Germanic form of marriage bond (called Friedelehe, "lover marriage") that was less formal than what we now think of as marriage? Pope Stephen III in a letter to Charlemagne refers to him being married at a time when Himiltrude was the only female in his orbit. Himiltrude disappears from records in 770 when Charlemagne marries Desiderata of the Lombards, and then Hildegarde a year later.

Whatever the case, questions of legitimacy were raised about Pepin. About 781, on a visit to Italy, Charlemagne has another son, Carloman, by his wife Hildegarde, baptized by the Pope and rechristened "Pepin of Italy." This seems to signal that he was "replacing" the older Pepin.

Perhaps anger about being replaced built in the older Pepin, and in 792 he and a group of Frankish nobles rebelled against Charlemagne. 792 saw a famine after a poor harvest, and Charlemagne had been making some legal changes to consolidate his authority and prevent abuse in local courts. He also created a new loyalty oath and insisted that it be taken by all nobles. The Royal Frankish Annals (mentioned here) also cite the cruel Queen Fastrada as a reason to make changes at the top.

Pepin and the nobles planned a coup while Charlemagne was away in Bavaria. A Lombard learned of the plot and informed the king. (The informant was named Abbot at St. Denis for his loyalty.) The plotters had their lands confiscated, and some were executed. Pepin's life was spared, but he was tonsured and forced into a monastery. The Lorsch Annals state in 793 that, post-rebellion, Charlemagne lavishly rewarded all those nobles who were still loyal to him.

Pepin's monastery was Prūm, far from court. When Charlemagne decreed that, upon his death, his kingdom would be divided into three for his three "remaining" sons, it was clear that the still-living Pepin was being completely ignored.

The Royal Frankish Annals list his death as 8 July 810.

The musical Pippin is a highly fictionalized account of his life.

Those three "remaining" sons who would each inherit one-third of the kingdom were Charles the Younger, Pepin of Italy, and Louis. I'll tell you about them next time, and whether they managed to be satisfied with only one-third of the father's realm.

Charlemagne's Wives & Concubines, Part 2

Continuing with Hildegard of Vinzgau, Charlemagne's official second wife (as opposed to a concubine like Himiltrude): with her he had nine children (including twins). As with many women at that time, what we know about her is only what is known related to her connection with her husband.

They were married 30 April 771, the same year that he repudiated Desiderata and sent her home, and months before his brother and co-ruler Carloman died. She came from Carloman's territory, and so Charlemagne may have married her for the political value of having an ally in the midst of his brother's (and rival's) land.

Because the Franks and the Church followed Roman law, a girl reached marriage age at 12; it is thought that Hildegard was likely 12 or 13 when they were wed. She went through eight pregnancies (they had twins) between 771 and 783. Charlemagne took her on campaign with him; their first daughter, Adelaide, was born at the Siege of Pavia. She also went with him and the family to Rome in 780-81, where their sons Louis (later "the Pious" and king) and Carloman (named after Charlemagne's brother but renamed "Pepin" at Rome) were baptized by Pope Adrian I. A 2019 biography of Charlemagne expresses the belief that Hildegarde was interested in astronomy and is referred to as the "Astronomer" in a chronicle about Charlemagne's campaign in Spain.

Hildegarde was devout: she was a friend of St. Leoba, and made many donations to the monasteries of St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, and others. A Hildegarde Chapel at the Monastery of Kempten commemorates her, and they mention her as a founder. She managed to gain benefits for her siblings through her husband. She is the only wife of Charlemagne who was still married at the time of her death. She died on 30 April 783 and was buried on May Day in the Abbey of Saint-Arnould in Metz.

This series started yesterday on International Women's Day, but is far from a one-day sequence. More tomorrow.

Theophilus the Penitent

Let me tell you about Theophilus the Penitent, a Christian cleric who was the archdeacon of Adana in Cilicia (now Turkey). He was known for being generous to the poor, eloquent when preaching, sympathetic to others, and for his asceticism. When the bishop died, Theophilus was offered the position, and was very strongly urged by all to take it.

Out of humility, he refused the position, presumably with the standard Latin phrase nolo episcopari, "I do not wish to be made bishop." (It is traditional that the candidate say this at least twice when offered a bishopric before finally accepting; if he says it a third time, he really means to refuse the promotion.)

Unfortunately for him, some people decided to malign him, spreading rumors that turned the populace against him and so unnerved him that he started spending all his energy in combatting the four rumors being spread, and attempting to find the sources of the rumors. The current bishop, hearing the rumors against him, fired him from his archdeacon position.

Finally, Theophilus appealed to a necromancer for help, who led him to a crossroads in the dark of the night and conjured up Satan. Satan offered a deal: in exchange for his soul, all calumnies against him would disappear. Theophilus agreed, and signed a contract with his own blood. The next day, he was summoned to the bishop's presence; the bishop had discovered that the rumors were false, Theophilus was a good man after all, and the bishop re-instated him in his position.

But Theophilus had no peace of mind. He paced his room night after night, regretting the foul bargain he had made, and he prayed. He undertook a fast of 40 days, praying every night, all night, until the 40th day when the Virgin Mary appeared to him. She rebuked him for his poor decision, and he asked her to intercede for him. This she agreed to do, and the following night she appeared in his dream and told him that her son had forgiven him. When he woke up the next morning, the static contract was with him.

That day being Sunday, he went to church, threw himself at the feet of the bishop to make his confession, and showed the congregation the contract. They destroyed the contract, Theophilus went home feeling unburdened...and died three days later.

People love a comeback story, and sinners repenting. Theophilus became the subject of poems and plays as well as sermons. The earliest version of the story claims to come from Eutychianus, a disciple of Theophilus who was an eyewitness. (The only Eutychianus who makes it into Christian records is a 3rd-century pope.) Legend tells us that Theophilus died in 538CE. There is a Latin version of the story (the original is Greek) from Paulus Diaconus.

It is in the 11th century that art depicting his story first appears, in carvings, but it really takes off in the 13th century in stained glass windows and illuminations. Above is supposed to be Theophilus building a church in his capacity as archdeacon. The usual portrayal is in four panes: signing the contract, Theophilus repenting, the Virgin recovering the contract from the devil, the Virgin returning the contract to Theophilus. Other than the Theophilus story, all examples of Marian art in churches and cathedrals are Bible stories.

One of the better-known composers of Theophilus-based poetry was Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, a name that is so familiar to me that I'm shocked to find that I have never mentioned her before in this forum. I aim to correct that defect tomorrow.

Medieval Re-Births

Far from being a complete intellectual vacuum in the years between the decline of Rome and the Renaissance, Europe experienced three distinct periods when the slow slog of culture enjoyed a short sprint forward. Two of them were connected specifically with royal patronage and the attempt on the part of a ruler to create something academically impressive and politically lasting. Scholars dispute the accuracy of calling them "renaissances" because their impact was not as lasting as the shifts in the 14th century that sparked an uninterrupted (so far) progression in all human endeavors. Erwin Panofsky, a 20th century German art historian, produced a slim tome in 1944 called Renaissance and Renascences in which he used the latter term to distinguish those other periods in history. Let's do that.

Charlemagne

The first Renascence took place during the reigns of Charlemagne (c.742-814) and his son, Louis the Pious (778-840). Charlemagne was not only King of the Franks. He managed to unite much of western and central Europe, and once he conquered Italy, he was in a position to be named Holy Roman Emperor.

Empires require a great deal of bureaucracy, however, and the dearth of literate men to serve as court scribes and secretaries was problematic. Literacy was also a problem because many parish priests could not read the Bible. In fact, the lack of widespread formal training in Latin meant that its common use—what now is referred to as vulgar Latin—was developing into regional dialects. Some of these dialects would evolve into what we call the Romance languages.

Sample of Carolingian Minuscule

With the chance to re-create the glory that was the Roman Empire, Charlemagne gathered scholars to promote the proper use of Latin. While establishing schools to accomplish this and—and along the way developing a new script called "Carolingian minuscule" that was more legible than what came before—he promoted learning, art, law, architecture, and Christianity. In order to do this, he brought together many top scholars of the day, such as:

• Peter of Pisa, who taught Charlemagne Latin
• Paulinus of Aquileia
• Paulus Diaconus
• Alcuin of York
• Joseph Scottus

These men and others helped to create a "bright spot" in a time so often called "dark." There were still dark times to come in western Europe, but thanks to the Carolingian Renascence, Western Civilization survived—in the words of Sir Kenneth Clark in his epic Civilization: "by the skin of its teeth."

Julie Andrews & St. John

Paul the Deacon

Paulus Diaconus (c.720-c.799) wrote the hymn of St. John, and it goes like this:

Ut queant laxis resonāre fibris
Mi ra gestorum famuli tuorum,
Sol ve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes.
So that your servants may,
with loosened voices,
resound the wonders of your deeds,
clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John!

What does this have to do with Julie Andrews? Nothing, until the 11th century, when Guido of Arezzo (c.992-1050) proposed an ascending diatonic scale for music.* He realized that the hymn was a perfect mnemonic for the scale, and so he described the scale using the syllables on which the ascending tones fell: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. Around 1600, in Italy, a musicologist named Giovanni Battista Doni refined the scale by changing "ut" to "do" because he preferred the open vowel sound it created, and added a seventh note which he called "si" because of the SI initials from "Sancte Iohannes." So we had do re mi fa sol la si.

It was a long time later that a Norwich, England music teacher named Sarah Glover (1785-1867) developed a method she called Sol-fa for teaching a capella singing, and changed si to ti so that each syllable would start with a different consonant sound.

Glover published her ideas, and they were further refined (and sometimes independently developed) by people like John Curwen, Pierre Galin, Aimé Paris, Emile Chevé. I cannot draw a direct line from any of these to Rodgers and Hammerstein, but by the time R&H came along, "singing the scales" was a commonplace way of teaching the rudiments of music to children. When R&H needed a number for a scene in the 1959 musical "The Sound of Music" when Maria teaches the children to sing—after discovering they knew nothing of singing because their father had forbidden it—what was more natural than using the sung scales that had been developed over the past thousand years? Hammerstein turned each note to a homonym to flesh out the lyrics, and the rest is theatrical/cinematic history.

Hammerstein should be grateful that he didn't have to write a lyric for "ut."

*"Ascending" is important here: previously, the scale was described as a series of descending notes.