Blinding the King

When Louis the Pious inherited the empire after the death of his father, Charlemagne, he took steps to organize his kingdom and ensure the succession. In 817 he chose how the kingdom would be divided among his sons. His nephew, King Bernard of Italy, was left in his current position, but was to become a vassal of Louis' son Lothair.

Bernard, a grandson of Charlemagne through Pepin of Italy, saw this as a potential threat to ultimately take over Italy. Some of his counselors advised him to act, even though he had always had a decent relationship with his uncle Louis. Louis started hearing rumors that Bernard was planning to make Italy independent, so he marched an army south.

Bernard met him at Chalon to talk, but was captured and taken to the palace at Aachen where he and others were tried for conspiracy and treason. Although an appropriate sentence was execution, Louis decided to simply remove Bernard's ability to rule by blinding him and his co-conspirators. This was done by pushing a red-hit stiletto to the eyeballs. Unfortunately, the procedure went too far, and Bernard died in agony within two days. Above you see his tomb, along with his consort, Cunigunda of Laon. As mentioned here, Louis also forced other relatives who might have become the focus of rebellion into monasteries.

One of the supposed co-conspirators was Theodulf of Orléans, but proof was lacking. Still, Theodulf was removed from his bishopric and imprisoned in a monastery in Angers in 818. Released in 820, he tried to go to Orléans, but died along the way, on 18 January 821. His body was taken back to Angers for burial.

The Kingdom of Italy was given to Lothair. Italy's feared fate had become fact, perhaps because Bernard tried to prevent it.

Not long after, in 822, the affair of the blinding had an epilogue, which would require a trip to Attigny in northeast France. I will take you there tomorrow and explain.

Theodulf of Orléans

When speaking of the Carolingian Renaissance, the most common name mentioned is Alcuin, but there were many other scholars involved. One of them was Theodulf of Orléans, mentioned here years ago as a maker of acrostics.

Born in the mid 8th century in Visigothic Spain, the Moorish occupation drove him to Aquitaine, eventually joining a monastery in Gaul under Benedict of Aniane. Traveling to Rome in 786, he was impressed by the numerous schools he saw, and wrote letters to abbots and bishops in Gaul, encouraging them to create public schools.

Back in Gaul, Charlemagne was impressed by Theodulf's appreciation of learning and made him Bishop of Orléans and put him in charge of many monasteries. Charles relied on him for theological advice and to establish many schools. Theodulf knew Greek and Hebrew, and was tasked by Charlemagne to make new translations of many works into Latin. He produced many original works as well, including one reminding priests of the importance of manual labor and chastity, poems and hymns, and a codification of what penance was necessary for different sins.

It is also very likely that Theodulf was the author of the Opus Caroli regis contra synodum ("The work of King Charles against the Synod"), known usually as Libri Carolini ("Charles' Books"),  commissioned by Charlemagne to counter the work of the Second Council of Nicaea regarding the use of sacred images. (You can purchase an English translation here.)

In 806 he built an oratory at Germigny-des-Prés (the remaining part is pictured above), patterned after Charlemagne's palace at Aachen. It was mostly destroyed by the Normans after 1066, which deprived the modern world of all its art except the only surviving Carolingian mosaic (badly restored in the 1860s) depicting the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was probably an important image because it represents God's approval of religious images. 

Theodulf was a witness to Charlemagne's will, and after the emperor's death in 814, served his son, Louis the Pious. An incident involving Louis' nephew, King Bernard of Italy, led to Louis accusing Theodulf of conspiring against him, and the bishop was imprisoned.

But that's a story for tomorrow. See you then.

Charles' Books

The Opus Caroli regis contra synodum ("The work of King Charles against the Synod"), also known as Libri Carolini ("Charles' Books"), was a series commissioned by Charlemagne to counter the work of the Second Council of Nicaea. It was specifically written to argue against the Council's decrees about icons.

Held in 787, this Council reversed Emperor Leo III's decree decades earlier that religious images were forbidden. The Council decided that religious images were not only allowed, but the reverence and prayers aimed at them actually transferred to the saint or member of the Trinity which they represented. In fact, every altar should have in it a saint's relic.

Charlemagne, a devout Christian, had a different approach to the subject of religious icons, and decided it should be made known. In the 790s (prior to him being named Holy Roman Emperor in 800), he ordered an elaborate statement on the subject. 

The opening statement is rather strong:

In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ beginneth the work of the most illustrious and glorious man Charles, by the will of God, king of the Franks, Gauls, Germany, Italy, neighboring provinces, with the assistance of the king, against the Synod which in Greek parts firmly and proudly decreed in favour of adoring images recklessly and arrogantly, ...

The argument was a compromise between Leo III's strict iconoclasm and the Council's "reckless and arrogant" acceptance of honoring images. Charlemagne believed in religious images, but not treating them as anything more than images: do not burn incense before them, or votive candles. Do not pray to them, but to the figure they represent.

Was this document necessary? What was Charles' reason for arguing against the Council? The iconoclasm debate was considered a Byzantine issue; Nicaea was deep into the "Greek parts," as far from Gaul as one could get. It is possible that Charlemagne was partially motivated by the desire to oppose what he considered decisions coming out of the Eastern Empire, since it had offended him over the rejection of his daughter's marriage to its emperor and its decision to support his rival in Lombardy.

Charles did not have this statement sent to the pope after all; it is assumed that he decided not to antagonize the Church by arguing that Nicaea was wrong in its conclusions. The document did not disappear, however, and was found and published centuries later, in 1549. Calvin and the Protestant reformation found in it support for their beliefs. Christian churches these days almost all contain some images.

So who was the author? To whom did Charlemagne turn for this important work? Some assume Alcuin had a hand in it, but there is a better candidate. Some of the Latin language matches the style of Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, one of Charlemagne's "puzzle masters." Clearly, he was good at more than acrostics, and we'll talk about him next time.

Medieval Acrostics

The simplest form of acrostic is a poem or other writing in which the first letter of each line spells out a word (presumably on that is related thematically to the writing). They are frequently used in education today because they are fun, but 2000 years ago they were considered valuable learning tools because of their embedded layers of meaning, especially the type of acrostic called carmina figurata ("shape poem"); it could either be a poem with words constrained to a shape such as a chalice or dragon, or it was designed so that various letters could be highlighted to make shapes or focus the reader on certain words or names.

This practice had been elevated to a high art by Roman poets. The sample on this page is from Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius, who was writing to please the Emperor Constantine in order that Optatianus might be recalled from exile. Optatianus is credited with inventing this type of carmina figurata, where the shapes to be found are internal to the poem, which is written out as a block (or other symmetrical shape) of text to aid in finding the lines. You can see not only the chi-ro symbol, but the name "iesus" spelled around the outside of the square. An interesting scholarly examination of Optatianus' figure poems can be found here.

But away from the 4th and back to the 8th century: as part of Alcuin's academic push, he gave various assignments to the men working with him at Charlemagne's palace school at Aachen. One of the men working with him was Joseph Scottus.

We know almost nothing about Scottus outside of his connection with Alcuin. He was Irish, and probably studied at the monastery in Clommacnoise. It is assumed that at one point he studied under Alcuin at York, and that connection drew him to the Frankish court when Alcuin took over. Despite his background and anti-Irish sentiment at the time, he was on very friendly terms with Charlemagne, and Scottus took over for Alcuin in 790 when Alcuin had business back home.

Very little writing by Joseph has survived, most of which is acrostics. Alcuin apparently tried to revive the form, and a manuscript of acrostics exists in Switzerland that clearly came from Charlemagne's school: the majority of acrostics are by Joseph Scottus, with others by Alcuin himself and Bishop Theodulf of Orléans. (Alas, I can find no pictures of the manuscript to share!)