Charlemagne's HeirNew Perspectives on the Reign

of Louis the Pious(814-840)

EDITED BY

PETER' GOD MANAND

ROGER COLLINS

CLARENDON PRESS . OXFORD

1990

5

Bonds of Power and Bonds of Association in the CourtCircle of Louis the Pious

STUART AIRLIE

I TAKE my text from Thegan, from the well-known moment in his Life ofLouis the Pious when the exasperated chorepiscopus of Trier rounds upon thewretched Ebbo, archbishop of Reims: 'The king made you free, not noble,since that would be impossible." I am not concerned with what Thegan's texttells us about concepts of nobility in the Carolingian world. That question hasalready been well handled by many other scholars, including JaneMartindaleand Hans-Werner Goetz.! Rather, I intend to consider what Thegan's text,and others like it, can tell us about power in the reign of Louis the Pious. Forwhile Ebbo remained, in Thegan's eyes, unable to transcend his origins, a factthat his treacherous behaviour clearly demonstrated, politically (and cultur-ally, one might add) Ebbo towered above his acid-tongued opponent. He wasenabled to do this through his possession of the archbishopric of Reims and hehad gained this through the largess of Louis the Pious. If neither Louis norCharlemagne, who had freed Ebbo, could make him noble they could, thanksto the resources of patronage at their disposal, make him powerful, one of thepotentes.Itwas this mis-use, as he saw it, of royal patronage that worried Thegan and

it worried him because he thought that the rise of Ebbo was not a unique case.Thegan noted that Louis was not solely responsible for one of the blemishes ofhis reign: 'quod ilIe non incipiebat.' This was the long-standing bad custom('iamdudum ilia pessima consuetudo erat' ) of appointing the 'summi ponti-fices' from the ranks of the 'vilissimis servis';' Other ninth-century writerslater than Thegan fretted about social mobility. The mid-century author of thePassio Ragneberti, as Paul Fouracre has recently pointed out, projected backinto the Merovingian period, in language that seems to echo Thegan's, hiscontemporary worries about men rising from the dust ('ex infimo genere' ) into

I Thegan, Vita Hludooici imperatoris, cd. R. Rau, Quellen zur Karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, i(Darmstadt, 1955), ch. 44, p, 240: 'Fecit te liberum, non nobilem, quod impossibile est.'

2 J. Martindale, 'The French Aristocracy in the Early Middle Ages', Past and Present, 7S (1977),5-45, esp. PP·5-6 and 16-17; H. W. Goetz, '''Nobilis'': Der Adel im Selbstverständnis derKarolingerzeit', Vierteljahrschrift for Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 70 (1983), IS3~I, esp.pp. 170-1 and 187~.

J Thegan, Vita Hludovici, ch. 20, pp. :u8-30.

Stuart Airlie

a position of power from which they could oppress the old nobility." Adrevaldof Fleury, like Thegan, blamed the Carolingians for encouraging such trends.He claimed that Charlemagne was suspicious of his noble following and so hadentrusted the cura regni to some of his seroi of the fisc.!

The picture presented by these sources is interesting but problematical. Arewe really to believe that Charlemagne and Louis set out to create a nobility ofservice in opposition to an aristocracy of birth? Surely not. Any attempt to doso was, as Karl Ferdinand Werner has emphasized, scarcely conceivable at thattime." The argument of jürgen Hannig that such an attempt was doomed tofailure is therefore irrelevant." After all, the Carolingians respected thenobility. They felt keenly the misfortunes of their leading followers. Whenplague swept away Lothar's great men in 836-7, 'quorum recessu Frantianobilitate orbata', Louis the Pious was grief-stricken." Their death was a blowto an aristocratic community, a community temporarily divided by politicaldispute but fundamentally united by membership of the noble class, and bysharing similar status of birth, a similar way of life, and set of values.

The great magnates, therefore, cannot have been very troubled at the givingof routine tasks to a small number of court functionaries. Sometimes, in acrisis, a relatively lowly member of the court hierarchy found himself dealingwith the great men of the realm. In 839 the venator Dagolfus was responsiblefor carrying Louis's mobilization orders to Counts Hatto, Pop po, andGebhard." These counts were being summoned to deal with trouble threa-tened by Louis the German. In such an emergency Dagolfus, presumably aroyal huntsman at court and thus conveniently at hand, was a natural choicefor the mission. His selection was no infringement on the rights of a resentfularistocracy, as F. Staab claims.l'' In fact, Dagolfus may have had a perfectlyrespectable position at court. There is a place, and it is not the lowest, forhunters and falconers in the De ordine palatii. 11 Furthermore, magnates did notshrink from entrusting important messages of their own to such figures.

• Passio S. Ragneberti martyris, ed. B. Krusch (MGH SRM 5; Hanover and Leipzig, 1910), eh. 3,pp. lOC)-IO; P. Fouracre, 'Merovingian Mayors of the Palace and the Notion of a "Low-Born" Ebroin',Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 57 (1984), 1-14·

• Miracula s. Bmedicti, ed. O. Holder-Egget (MGH SS 15), eh, IS, P·486.• K. F. Werner, 'Bedeutende Adelsfamilien im Reich Karls des Großen', in H. Beumann (ed.),

Karl der Große, i.Persö'nlichkeit und Geschichu (Düsseldorf, 1965), 83-14l, also available as 'ImportantNoble Families in the Kingdom of Charlemagne', in T. Reuter (ed.), The Medieval Nobility (Europe inthe Middle Ages, Selected Studies, 14, ed, R. Vaughan; Amsterdam &c., 1979), 137-l0:Z, from whichcitations are taken; see esp. pp. 17~'

7 J. Hannig, Consensu«jidelium (Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, :Z7, cd. K. Bosl;Stuttgart, 198:z), :zoo.

• Astronomer, Vita Hludovici imperatoris, ed, Rau, eh. 56, p. 36:z.• MGH Epist. 3, nO.41 (letter of Einhard), pp. 130-1. .I. Untersuchunge« zur Gesellschaft am Mit/drllein ill der Karolingerzeil (Geschichtliche Landeskun-

den, 11; Wiesbaden, 1975),341." Hincmar, De ordine palatii, ed, T. Gross and R. Schieffer (MGH Fontes), chs. 16 and l4, pp. 64-

and 76.

Bonds of Power and Bonds of Association 193

Magnates at the palace of Charlemagne used Gerricus, the falconer, to conveytheir advice to Louis the Pious in Aquitaine." Gerricus was a messenger forthe power-brokers; he was not a power-broker himself. Gerricus and Dagolfushad a degree of access to the king and it was upon that that their usefulnessdepended.It is, however, the role of men like Dagolfus and Gerricus that will be

considered in this paper. Beside the great magnates, the natural companions ofthe king, such men were small figures. But their association with the court,with the person ofthe king, gave them importance and, crucially, identity. Anidentity gained almost exclusively through royal service, an identity gainedthrough what one might call the bond of association with the king, meant thatsuch figures shared something with the more exalted of the king's following.At court both the great nobles and the humbler royal servants were theministeriales palatini. Hincmar in the De ordine palatii shows us a variety ofofficers of differing rank busily engaged in tasks of differing importance in thepalace but all united in that they shared the identity of ministeriales palatini. 13

Recently Johannes Fried has argued that such ministri rei publicae were not theofficials of an abstract community, but, very specifically, the servants of theking." Bearing this in mind, and against the background of Thegan's andAdrevald's comments cited above, I intend to explore three aspects of royalservice in the reign of Louis the Pious to see what we can learn about theconcrete manifestations of royal power. These three aspects are, firstly, thecourt itself, the community of the palatini; secondly, the administrators of theroyal fisc; and finally the career of Ebbo, who combines, as we shall see, theworld of the court and the world of the fisc.IS

First, then, the world of the palace. If the king's courtiers did not seethemselves as ministri of an abstractly conceived res publica, did they definetheir essential identity as consisting in their work for the king? How far didcourtiers wear, as it were, the livery of Louis? To begin with, we know thattheir enemies considered the palace chaplains as a distinct group of men whosought to monopolize the high ecclesiastical appointments in the empire.Walahfrid Strabo denounced such figures in his Visio Wettini and PaschasiusRadbertus tells us that Wala also attacked corrupt cape/la ni, a charge taken up

12 ' ••• Gerrieo capis praclato, cum in palatio morarctur, ... monitus est tarn a Franeis quam aGermanis, ut ad pat rem rex vcnirct .. .', Astronomer, Vita Illudovici, ch. 20, p. 286.

IJ De ordine palaui, passim, but see esp. chs. 16-19, pp.61-8, and chs.29-36, pp.61-{)4; cf. J.Nelson, 'Legislation and Consensus in the Reign of Charles the Bald', in P. Wormald, D. Bullough,and R. Collins (eds.), Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M.Wallace-Hadril! (Oxford, 1983), lIS.I. J. Fried, 'Der Karolingische Herrschaftsverband im 9. Jh. zwischen "Kirche" und "Königs-

haus" ',Historische Zeitschrift, 235 (1982),11-12, but on which also see the warning note in J. Nelson,'Public Histories and Private History in the Work of Nithard', Speculum, 60 (1985), 258 n. 28.. 11 What follows is essentially an impressionistic survey of part of the careers of some of Louis's courtpersonnel; I hope to analyse more fully the relations between court and government in a forthcomingbook on Carolingian politics. There is a profile of Louis's court in B. Simson, Jahrbücher desfriinkischtnReiche) unter Ludwig dem Frommen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1874--'76), ii. 231-{iS.

194 Stuart Air/ie

by the reforming synods of the 820S.16 Lupus of Ferrieres also grumbled aboutthe greed of the cleric; pa!atii.17 I am not really concerned here with thequestion of how many capellani did manage to secure a plum job. After all,Lupus probably was not really too worried about that either; he was quitehappy when Judith was using her queenly influence on his behalf (perhapsthus turning him into an honorary palace clerk)." The point to be stressedhere is that the palace clergy were perceived to be a group apart, a special andprivileged body of men. It might be worth noting, in this context, JosefFleckenstein's observation that not all of the palace clergy of this period wereof equally distinguished birth."

But outsiders who feel themselves to be excluded from the centres of powercan be wilfully subjective in their attributing existence to a privileged group.Thus for Thegan the court was dominated by low bishops like Ebbo and bybishops 'ex barbaris nationibus', by which he probably meant, as Egon Boshofhas suggested, men like Agobard of Lyons, who was from Spain." But weknow from some poignant expressions in his own writings that Agobard felthimself to be at some distance from the inner circles favoured by Louis."

Did the insiders, the people who actually worked in the palace, perceivethemselves to be a distinct group? There is evidence to suggest that they did.The figure and writings ofEinhard are crucial here. We know how close he feltto the royal dynasty. As the famous opening words of the Vita Karo!i tell us,Charlemagne was not only his 'dominus' but his 'nutritor'_22 The Vita Karo!iis very much a courtier's text. We know that Louis's court had a copy and wepossess the dedicatory verses written by another courtier, the bibliothecariusGerward, to whose career we shall return." The text was edited by anothernotable occupant of the palace, Walahfrid Strabo, who praised Einhard, in

11, Walahfrid, Visio Wettini (MGH Poetae, 2), 11.328-31, p. 314, and see P. Godman, 'Louis thePious and his Poets', Fruhmittelalterliche Studien, 19 (1985), 273-4. Paschasius Radbertus, EpitaphiumArsenii, cd. E, Dümmler (Abhandlungen der Königlichen Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaft zuBerlin; Berlin, 1900), ii, chs. 4 and 5, pp. 6S-{i, and sec L. Weinrich, Wala: Graf, Miinch und Rebell(Historische Studien, 386; Lübeck and Hamburg, 1963), 66ff.; J. Flcckenstein, Die Hofkapelle derdeutschen Könige, i. Grundlegung: Die Karolingische Hofkapelle (MGH Schriften 16.1, Stuttgart, 1959),IJJ.

17 Lupus de Fcrriercs, Correspondance, cd. L. Levillain (Paris, 1927), i, no. 16 (s.a. 840), P.96.'" Ibid., no. 11 (s.a. 837), p. 84·,. Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle (as in n. 16), pp. 49, 87~0.zo Thegan, Vi/a, eh.43, P.238; E. Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard von Lyon (Kölner Historische

Abhandlungen, 17; Cologne and Vienna, 1969),31.2' Sec Agobard's letter to Adalard, Wala, and Helisachar: 'Vos ingressi estis in conspcctu principis,

ego steti ante ostium; post paululum fecistis, ut ingrcder, sed nihil audivi, nisi absolutionemdisccdcndi .. .' (MGH Epist. 3), nO.4, p. 164, and cf. no. 5, ch. 4, p. 168.

22 Vi/a Karoli Magni, ed, O. Holder-Egget (MGH SRG I). The nutritor-nutritus bond was anextremely important relationship that helped unite the Carolingians and their followers; see T. Reuter,'Plunder and Tribute in the Carolingian Empire', Transactions of/he Royal Historical Society, 5th ser.35 (1985), 84· The Carolingians were not always the active partners in this bond, as I hope todemonstrate elsewhere.

2J Vita Karoli, Praefatio, p. xxix; H. Löwe, 'Studien zu den Annales Xantcnses', Deutsches Archil" 8(195°),9°.

Bonds 0/ Power and Bonds 0/ Association 195terms that reveal a courtier's perspective, as one of the most outstandingpalatini of his time, and Walahfrid also thought it worth recording thatEinhard survived the disturbances that racked Louis's court.f"

Another remarkable work by Einhard casts considerable light on to theworld of the palace. This is his bizarre account of the translatio of the relics ofSaints Marcellinus and Petrus to Seligenstadt." Einhard was an importantman and I do not wish to suggest that any courtier could attain Einhard'sstature simply by virtue of being at court, but his text here reveals theexistence of a way of life that must, at least in part, have been common toeveryone there, both the great and the less great, a way of life conductedaccording to rhythms that must at least in part have been shared by all.Einhard's text is punctuated with the phrase 'according to custom' ('secun-dum consuetudinem' ). For example, 'In the month of November, as usual, Iwas preparing to travel to court' and 'rising early in the morning, according tothe custom of courtiers', a phrase that is backed up by the description ofCharlemagne in the Vita Karoli hearing court-cases (and delegating businessto his ministri) while dressing.f Part of Einhard's text recounts how much hewanted his fellow courtiers ('aulici') to take note of the miracles of 'his'saintsY The world of the court, its rhythms and processes, inform the text somuch that even the angel Gabricl, when he wishes to send an urgent spiritualmessage to Louis the Pious, is described as going through the proper channelsand as understanding the need to have a patron at court."

The text reveals that Einhard did win the attention of his companions atcourt. When Gerward, the palace librarian, was travelling from Nijmegen toAachen, he stopped off at «fundus regius, some eight leagues from Aachen. Wesee here, incidentally, how the royal palace extends its fabric over space;likewise, it was at a villa regia that Einhard and his companions stayed for anight on their way to Aschen." Gerward asked his host for the latest palacegossip and his host, interestingly enough, was able to tell him it. It was, ofcourse, the story of miracles worked by Einhard's relics."

So, Einhard's Translatio shows us a world of a community, the palatini, theaulici, with habits, like getting up early in the morning, and gossip common toall. It is a world that is not confined to Aachen, or the immediate environs of

" Vita Karoli, Pracfatio, pp. xxviii-xxix,l! Translatio et miracula ss. Marcel/ini et Petri, ed. G. Waitz (l\lGH SS 15), 238--{i4.z••••• cum ego mense Novembrio secundum cosuetudinem in palatio hiematurus ad comitatum ire

disponerem', Trans/atio -llarcel/ini et Petri, iii. 11, P.251; 'secundum consuetudinem aulicorummaturius surgcns, primo mane palatium petii', Translatio, ii. I, p. 245, and cf. iv. 7, p. 258; Vita Karoli,eh. 24, p. 29·

11 Translatio Marul/ini et Petri, iv, p. 256." Ibid. iii. 13, P.253. Einhard's text is here counterpointed by Agobard's description to Count

Matfrid of the corrupt forms of access to the court (MGH Epist. 3, no. 10, pp. 201-3).,. Translatio Marcel/ini et Petri, iv. 7, p. 258, and iii. 11, p. 251.JO Ibid. iv. 7, Gerward asks his hospes 'si aliquid novi de palatio nuper audisset. Cui ille: "Nihil",

inquit, "modo apud aulicos tarn celebre est quam signa et virtutes, quae fiunt in domo Einhardi"',

P·258.

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whatever palace the king is in, as the stays in oillae regiae demonstrate. It is aworld of a political community, centring upon the king. All members of thiscommunity have at least one thing in common, viz., their royal service. It isnot surprising that, in the Vita Karoli, Einhard notes that even the lowly door-keepers ('janitores') of the church at Aachen so benefited from the royal largessthat they did not need to perform their duties ('ministrare') 'in privatohabitu'."

Further examples can be added. Gerward, who was probably, according toJosefFleckenstein, one of Einhard's closest friends, did not lose his interest inthe court when he retired from there into a monastery.F There he wrote (partof) the Annates Xantenses. This text reveals his continuing interest in membersof the royal family like Judith, and Louis's half-brother Hugh, as well as inother ex-courtiers like Theodulf of Orleans and Ebbo of Reims.P Similarly,Abbot Grimald of St Gallen, long after the death of Louis and Judith,remembered them in his prayers.P The court of Louis the Pious thus extendedover time as well as space. Nor can such links be perceived only among theclerical members of Louis's court. The ostiarius Gerungus retired from court,probably around 830 (a wise decision, one might think), and became a monk atPrüm." But to be at Prüm of course did not mean that he had severed his linkswith the royal house. We know that Gerungus turned out to welcome Louiswhen the emperor visited the abbey in 836. We also know that Gerungus hadsome form of contact with Count Richard, who was ostiarius for a while in the830s.36Old officers of the court did not forget each other. Nor did the courtforget them. Some time in the second half of the 830s, Louis granted abenefice to one Atho, who had been ostiarius under Charlemagne." Even inretirement the great ministeriales palatini preserved a closeness to the dynasty,just as the lesser ones like the mid-century author of the Vita of St Hughpreserved the memory of joyful feasts at court with his conpalatini.38

But while it is possible to see in the careers of these men the idea of serviceto the Carolingians, such men were not ordinary palatini. Nor was the courtthe only focus for their self-perception. Einhard's Translatio is in fact partially

]I Vila Karoli, eh. 26, p. 31.J2 Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle (as in n. J6), p. 69; Löwe, 'Studien' (as in n. 23), pp. 87ff.JJ Annates Xantenses, in Annales Xantenses et Annates Vedastini, cd. B. Simson (MGH SRG), s.a.

843,844, p. J3 and s.a. 8J8, 823, p. 6; Löwe, 'Studien', pp. 93,·J< See B. Bisehoff 'Bücher am Hofe Ludwigs des Deutschen und die Privatbibliothek des Kanzlers

Grimalt', in his Mille/allerliche Studien (Stuttgart, 1981), iii. 208; Grimald had strong connections withthe courts of Charlemagne and Louis: 'a prima aetatis f1osculo inter aulicos beatorum augustorummores decentissimos enutritus' (MGH Epist. 3), 536.

rs On Gerungus at court, see the letters of Frotharius of Toul (MGH Epist. 3), nos. 6, 10, 18,23,pp. 280, 283, 288--i}, 292.

,. Louis and Gerungus at Prüm: Wandalbert, Miracula S. Goaris, ed. H. Stiene (LateinischeSprache und Literatur des Mittelalters, 11; Frankfurt, 1981), eh. 31, p. 79; Richard: see a charter ofLothar I in Lotharii I et Lotharii 11 diplomata, cd. T. Schieffer (MGH Diplomata, 3), no.68.

)7 Hincmar, De villa Noviliaco (MGH SS 15.2), 1168.J' 'Vie inedite de S. Hugues, eveque de Rauen', ed, J. Van der Straeten, Analeeta Bollandiana, 87

(1969), chs.7 and 8, pp. 238--i} and see van der Straeten's comments at P.230; cf. P. Riche, 'LesRepresentations du palais dans les textes litteraires du haut moyen age', Francia, 4 (1976), 165.

Bonds of Power and Bonds of Association 197

about his withdrawal from the world of the court." Men like Einhard,Grimald, Gerward, and Gerungus were big men with a multiplicity ofconnections. Grimald, for example, was a nephew of Archbishop Hetti ofTrier. Gerward came from an aristocratic family that patronized Lorsch."Such men were not exclusively dependent upon the Carolingians for their rise.They could bring resources to the dynasty that rewarded them. The bondsbetween such figures and Louis are therefore what one might call 'bonds ofpower', bonds that linked a lord with the stronger members of his following.These were two-way bonds.'!

But if these men are not the upstarts described by Thegan and Adrevaldwhere can we find men who did depend for their power upon their associationwith the ruling dynasty, an association that found expression in the offices theyheld? Here we turn to the second group on our list, the administrators of thefisc. As we have seen, Adrevald of Fleury had complained that Charlemagnehad promoted lowly seroi of the fisc. While as a statement of fact this is untrue,it is perhaps significant that Adrevald singled out this group of men as beingpotentially powerful.f A study by Franz Staab of estates near Mainz andIngelheim, including an analysis of the position of Hagano (exactor of the fiscat Ingelheim in 835), suggests that royalfiscalini could enjoy a privileged statuswith important chances of promotion." Our concern here is not so much withthe servi of the fisc as with its administrators. While the aristocracy providedmany of the men who ran the fiscs, these men were not all equally aristocraticand were by no means only members of an imperial aristocracy, the so-calledReichsaristokratie .44

39 See }. Fleckenstein. 'Einhard, seine Gründung und sein Vermächtnis in Seligenstadr', in K.Hauck (ed.), Das Einhardkreuz (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Phil.-Hist. Kl., jrd ser, 87; Göttingen, 1974), 114-19; but Einhard is still anxious in this text to have hisexperience validated by his fellow courtiers, see n. 30 above .

.. Grimald: Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle (as in n. 16), p.89; Gerward: Löwe, 'Studien' (as in n.23),pp. 87-9· There is an interesting investigation of Einhard's family connections in K. Brunner,Oppositionelle Gruppen im Karolingerreich (Veröffentlichungen des Inst. für österreichische Geschichts-forschung, 25; Vienna, 1979),83 ff. Gerungus had spent time in Italy with Wala and Lothar in the 820S,Astronomer, Vita, ch. 35, p. 314, and in his retirement in Prüm was known to Lupus of Ferneres,Correspondance, i, nO.33, P·152. It may be worth noting that a Count Gairungus was active inProvence in the 8505, L. d'Achery, Spicilegium sice collatio ueterum aliquot scriptorum qui in Galliaebibliothecis debtueran: (Paris, 1723), iii. 343.

41 See G. TeIlenbach, 'Die geistigen und politischen Grundlagen der karolingischen Thronfolge',Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 13 (1979), 245--6·

42 Wemer, 'Important Noble Families' (as in n. 6), pp. 179 and 197-8 n. 83.4J F. Staab, 'A Reconsideration of the Ancestry of Modern Political Liberty: The Problem of the So-

Called "King's Freemen" (Konigsfreie)', Viator, 11 (1980),67-8 ... C. Brühl, Fodrum, Gistum, Servitium Regis (Cologne and Graz, 1968), i. 96-]; and for description

of the status and background of the (predominantly aristocratic) fiscal administrators, W. Metz, DasKarolingische Reichsgut (Berlin, 1960), 144-55. K. F. Werner over-emphasizes the extent to which aCarolingian king's choice of officials was limited by the existence of a Reichsaristokratie, see his'Missus - Marchio - Comes: entre l'administration centrale et I'administration locale de l'empirecarolingien', in W. Para vicini and K. F. Werner (eds.), Histoire comparie de I'administration,IV'-XVIII' siecles (Beihefte der Francia, 9; Munich, 1980), 222-3, though he draws attention todiffering levels within that aristocracy, p. 224.

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Hagano at Ingelheim in the 830S, for example, is a very hard man to placewith certainty in any known noble grouping. Even if he can be so placed, hedoes not seem to have derived all his power on the ground from whatevernoble connections he had, but from his position in the royal administration.vIt is perhaps worth recalling here that in the Capitula re de villis Charlemagnehad looked for men of modest status to be maiores of the fisc: 'These men areby no means to come from the ranks of the powerful, but from the ranks of thelesser sort who are faithful. ,46 One man of seemingly lowly origins does appearin the fiscal service under Louis. From a charter of 827 we learn of a disputebetween the abbot of Stavelot-Malmedy and Albricus, actor of the fisc atTheux. The dispute was settled when Louis, interestingly enough, sent twocourt officials to investigate, Iasto, count of the palace and Wirnitus, magisterparvulorum nostrorumf It is worth noting here, incidentally, that WolfgangMetz has observed that in the reign of Louis royal control of fiscal administra-tion, as seen in the records of disputes, remained tight.t" The actor Albricusinterests us here because he had been a serous of Charlemagne but had beenfreed by him and Louis had confirmed that he could transmit his own propertyto his descendants.f Connections with the royal house had paid off for thiszealous fiscal official. It is possible that a relationship exists between this manand one Alberichus, vassal ofLothar I, who, according to a charter of855, heldproperty in the Eifelgau." It is known that this latter Alberichus was amember of a Lotharingian magnate family whose ranks included Hunfrid,bishop of Therouanne and which had connections with the abbey of Prürn." IfMetz is right, and the vassal of Lothar I was a descendant of the actor ofTheux, one would then have an indubitably aristocratic family of interestingly

'5 On Hagano's family, Metz, Reichsgut (as in n. 44), pp. 152-4, M. Gockel, Karolingische Kö'nigshoftam Mille/rhein (Veröffentlichungen des Max-Plancks Inst. fur Geschichte, 31, Göttingen, 1970), 296n. 733, Staab, 'Reconsideration' (as in n.43), p. 68. It may not be possible to establish a connectionbetween this man and some bearers of the name among 8th-cent. vassals of the Carolingians butmaterial suggestive of such a connection is assembled in D. Bullough, 'Albuinus deliciosus Karoli regis:Alcuin of York and the Shaping of the Early Carolingian Court', in L. Fenske, W. Rösener, and T.Zotz (eds.), Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschafl im Mitte/alter: Festschrift fur Josef Fleckenstein(Sigmaringen, 1984), 87 n. 48 .

.. 'Nequaquam de potentioribus hominibus maiores fiunt, sed de mediocribus, qui fideles sunt'(MGH Capit. I), no. 32, eh. 60, p. 88; cf. Brühl, Fodrum, Gistum (as in n. 44), i. 97, and F. L.Ganshof,Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne, transl. B. and M. Lyon (New York, 1968),38 and nn.278,279·

" Recuei! des chartes de rabbaye Stavtlot-Malmidy, ed. J. Halkin and Ci-G, Roland (Brussels, 1909),i, no. 29.

.. Metz, Reichsgut (n. 44), pp. 147-8 .

.. MGH Formulae, Formulae imperiales, no. 38, p. 316. The text refers to 'fidclis noster Albricusactor'. The identification is made by Metz, Reichsgut (n. 44), pp. 145, 154.

so Lotharii I diplomata, no. 137, and Mctz, Reichsgut, p. 154.SI See the 868 charter of Heriric for Prüm, which names his parents Albricus and Huna and his

brothers Hunfrid, Heriricus, and Albricus, Urkundenbuch zur Gachichte der jetzt die PreußischenRegierungsbezirke Coblenz und Trier bildenden mitte/rheinischen Territorien, ed. H. Beyer et al. (Coblcnz,1860), i, no. 110; cf. R. Hennebicque, 'Structures familiales et politiques au IX' siede" Revue historique,265 (1981), 294 If.

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low origins, at least on one sideY The direct evidence for such a connection is,however, lacking. The family of Lothar I's vassal can be traced to regionssouth and east of StaveJot, to Echternach, Bidgau, and Lobdengau, as well asto Prüm.53 The common feature of the name Alberichus is not enough by itselfto establish a link between the actor and the vassal. Nevertheless, the fact thatboth men appear in royal service is interesting and Stavclot is not too far fromPrüm.

Another record of disputes over fiscal property dating from Louis's reign(from the year 823) reveals to us an over-zealous fiscal official whose power, Isuspect, was very much bound up with the resources his rank gave him. This isthe actor at Frankfurt, Nantharius, who was active there from some time in thereign of Charlemagne until some time before 823.54 This man seems to havebeen so keen, not to say acquisitive, in his watching over royal property that heactually infringed on his own family's property rights. He had appropriated forthe fisc property belonging to Hornbach, a monastery that was dominated bythe 'Widonid' family, of which Nantharius was a member. He would thusappear to be acting against his family's interests. 55 But in taking its property,Nantharius was striking at rival members of his own family who werecompeting with him for a share of finite resources. His position as actor atFrankfurt gave him a lever which could raise him, at least in this region, abovethe generally more exalted members of his kin. Whether this type of behaviouractually benefited the royal administration is another question. 56

Such men found that their position as administrators of the fisc could bringthem rewards that might have been difficult otherwise to obtain. But sincesuch rewards were bound up with their position in royal service it obviouslypaid them to work in that service. This might make us reconsider WolfgangMetz's interpretation of a passage in Hincmar's famous letter to Louis theGerman in 858. In this letter Hincmar artfully explained to Louis why theWest Frankish episcopate would not back him in his attempt to invade hisbrother's kingdom, but he also outlined to him what a good king's actionsought to be, and we know that Hincmar meant this part of the message tostrike home to Charles the Bald. Metz thought that Hincmar's demand that agood king restrain the activities of his fiscal officials showed that these officialswere escaping from royal control.F But perhaps it shows the opposite, namely,

sz See Hennebicque, 'Structures', p. 296.53 Ibid. 297-8.54 J. F. Böhmer, Regesta Imperii, i. Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern. 751-"918,

revised by E. Mühlbacher and J. Lechner (Innsbruck, 1908), no. 770; Metz, Reichsgut (n. 44), p. 149.55 Metz, Reichsgut, pp. 151-2; on this family W. Metz, 'Miszellen zur Geschichte der Widonen und

Salier, vornehmlich in Deutschland', Historisches Jahrbuch, 85 (1965), 1-27.56 See Metz, 'Miszellen' (as in n. 55), pp. 20--1; for a broader discussion of this case, with references,

S. Airlie, 'The Political Behaviour of the Secular Magnates in Francia, 829-879' (Oxford Univ. D.Phil.thesis, 1985), 132-{).

" MGH Capit. 2, no. 297, eh. 14, pp. 437-8, Mctz, Reichsgut (n. 44), p, 148.

200 Stuart Airlie

that these men were still very much under royal supervision and that theirexaction of services due reflects the will of the king at the centre. 58

That the Carolingians might wish to bind such relatively 'low' servantsclosely to them is surely understandable without our having to resort toThegan's and Adrevald's explanations. Any politically shrewd dynasty willwant, and indeed must have, powerful followers like the important palatinidiscussed above; such figures constitute political muscle. But it also makessense for such a dynasty to have some servants who owe everything, or at leasta lot, to it; loyalty and self-interest here fuse in the interests of the patron. It isin this light that I wish to consider the third aspect of royal service underLouis, the case of Ebbo of Reims.It might be possible to use Ebbo's career to explore notions of social

mobility in the Carolingian period, to see whether Thegan had any realgrounds for worrying that the sons of goatherds were rising to the highestecclesiastical offices in the empire. We know that Thegan's views were noteverybody's views. His editor Walahfrid Strabo, for example, suggested thatThegan was almost obsessed with this topic: 'quod de indignitate viliumpersonarum dolor suggessit, tacere non potuit.' Walahfrid himself, it is worthpointing out, was a man of humble origins who rose through royal patronage atcourt." His career suggests the existence of a network of intellectual connec-tions in Carolingian political society alongside the more familiarly visible oneof aristocratic family links. Such networks often, indeed perhaps normally,overlapped, but not always.I" Thegan complained that Ebbo and other base-born types used education as a means of social advancement: 'aliquos eorumliberalibus studiis instruunt."! Ebbo himself, of course, gained the see ofReims because of his intellectual superiority to the original nominee.f Toother thinkers of Louis's reign, such as Agobard of Lyons, the law of Christmeant the disregarding of many earthly social distinctions: 'non est gentilis etIudeus, circumcisio et preputium, barbarus et Scitha, Aquitanus et Langobar-dus, Burgundio et Alamannus, servus et liber, sed omnia et in omnibusChristus.t'" This in almost exact contrast to Thegan, who saw the troubles ofLouis's reign as springing from the overturning of old boundaries, whether ofbirth or of nationality. Louis's bishops were 'ex viiissima servili conditione ...

sa Perhaps it is in this context that we should understand how Eberhard of Friuli's negligentia of hisproperty in West Francia resulted in its reversion to the fisc, Recuei! des actes de Charles Il le Chamie,ed. G. Tessier, 3 vols. (Paris, 1947-55), ii, no. 323 bis.

59 Walahfrid's Preface to Thegan, ed. G. H. Pertz (MGH SS 2), p. 589; on Walahfrid's origins, F.Graus, 'Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der Hagiographie der Merowinger- und Karolingerzeit', in A.Borst (ed.), Mijnchtum, Episkopat und Adel zur Cründungszeil des Klosters Reichmau (Vorträge undForschungen, 20; Sigmaringen, 1974), 168... See the relevant remarks of K. Schmid, 'Religiöses und Sippengebundenes Gemeinschaftsbe-

wußtsein in frühmittclalterlichen Gedenkbucheinträgen', Deutsches Archiv, 21 (1965),39-40.01 Thegan, ch. 20, p. 230.62 See the letter of Charles the Bald (PL 124), cols. 872-3.6J MGH Epist. 3, p. 159, nO.3.

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ex barbaris nationibus'." Later, Hincmar was sensitive to such accusations. Inhis letter to Louis the German of 858 he urged the king to listen to the bishopsand not to the sneering comments of his lay followers, who, according toHincmar, were saying, 'Non tibi sit curae, rex, quae tibi referunt iIli fellonesatque ignobiles [i.e. the bishops]; hoc fac, quod tibi dicimus, quoniam cumnostris et non cum istorum parentibus tenuerunt parentes tui regnum. '65

Hincmar, as Janet Nelson has pointed out, could have responded that thebishops were in fact noble to a man. Instead he claimed that God chose for'gubernandum ... non ... divites et nobiles, sed pauperes et piscatores' andthat the parentes of bishops were the Aposrles.t" The line of episcopalsuccession could involve 'une filiation dans la saintete' as well as, or sometimesinstead of, 'une filiation biologique'."? Certain capitulary and conciliar texts ofLouis's reign stress that all men were equal before God, their common father.It was, after all, the bishops assembled at Paris in 829 who reminded Louisthat 'it was not his ancestry but God who had given the kingdom to a ruler'."Ebbo's office elevated him and so claims of noble blood could appearirrelevant.69

But such examples are not strictly relevant to the purpose of this paper.After all, how many bishops of lowly status can we put beside Ebbo? He didnot gain the see of Reims just because he was intelligent but because he wasclose to the king. A story in the Gesta Karoli ofNotker will focus our attentionon the appropriate issues here. Notker tells us that Charlemagne on a visit to a'school' found that the best scholarly work had been performed by the'Mediocres ... et infimi' while the 'nobiles ... primorum filii' had neglectedtheir studies. Disappointed in these aristocratic slackers, Charlemagne told theothers to stick in at their work and he would reward them with bishoprics andmonasteries: 'dabo vobis episcopia et monasteria.v"

Now, Notker's anecdote is not about social mobility as such, but aboutpower, and about the power that stemmed from royal patronage, the power

.. Thegan, eh. 43, p. ::38.65 MGH Capit. 2, no. ::97, P.440 ... MGH Capit.a; no. ::97, pp. 440-1; J. L. Nelson, 'The Church's Military Service in the Ninth

Century: A Contemporary Comparative View?', in W. J. Sheils (ed.), Th« Church and War (Studies inChurch History, ::0; Oxford, 1983), ::6--].

61 M. Sot, 'Historiographie episccpale et modele familial en Occident au IX' siede" Annales ESC 33(1978), 439·

.. K. Leyser, Rule and Conflia in an Early Mediet'al Society (London, 1979),78 and see p. 168 at n. 7for references; cf. I\1GH Capit, I, no. 154, ch.c, p. 313.

III Relevant contemporary texts are conveniently gathered together in J. Roelink, 'Standesverschil enChristendom in de negende eeuw in het Frankische Rijk', Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, 88 (1975), 6-::6.Sce also H. Mayr-Harting, The Venerable Bede, th« Rule of SI. Benedict and Social Class (IarrowLecture, 1976). I am grateful to D. Ganz and P. Wormald for helpful discussion on this topic.

10 Notker, Gesm Karoli magni imperatoris, i. 3, ed. H. Haefele (MGH SRG NS 12; Berlin, 1959),4,and H. W. Goctz, '''Nobilis'' , (as in n. a), pp. 162-5. But Notker's text also contains an anecdote toillustrate the difficulty of breaking certain social barriers, Gesta Karoli, ii. 4, p. 5:: and cf. K. Leyser,'Early Medieval Canon Law and the Beginnings of Knighthood', in lnstitutionen, Kultur undGesellschaft ••. Festschrift flir J. Fleckenstein (as in n. 45), 563.

202 Stuart Air/je

that came to you if you were close to the king. I t was precisely this closeness, asmuch as his undoubted intelligence, that was the real secret of Ebbo's rise to'power. His family, though servile, was a family of the royal fisc: 'regii fiscifamilia'; and it was from this family that his mother, Himiltrudis, gainedaccess to court as wet-nurse and foster-mother to the young Louis the Pious.Once Ebbo had gained his freedom (from Charlemagne) and profited from hisupbringing at court ('palatinis negotiis ... annutritus'), his career wasassured." In some respects Thegan's analysis of that career was correct. Partsof it were thoroughly conventional. For Thegan the bad thing about peoplelike Ebbo was that they strove to advance their 'Turpissimam cognationern'"Similar accusations were made against Charles the Fat's favourite, Liutwartbishop of Vercelli, who was raised 'ex infimo genere'." In Ebbo's case, the'accusations' can be substantiated.

Flodoard has preserved the epitaph of Ebbo's mother and the fact that hecould do this surely indicates either that she was buried at Reims (as the text ofthe epitaph would suggest), or that a dossier of information on Ebbo and hisfamily was available at Reims." From this angle, Ebbo's career appearsfamiliar. It is the career of a family that used Kdnigsndh» to acquire honoreswhich then became the basis of family power and around which it couldorganize itself. Honores offered security and Ebbo realized this fact andexploited it as much as members of the secular nobility did. His bond with theking was especially intimate, and he had been with Louis in Aquitaine." WhenLouis came to power Ebbo received Reims. He worked on the improvementand embellishment of his church and this work was a family concern. Ebbo'spious duty, rich patronage, and sense of family appear fused in the epitaph ofhis mother:

Presul erat urbis huius mihi natus unicus;Idem me conduxit sibi sociamlaboribusProximum ruinae locum renovandocupidus.Decem ferme nuper annos simul hie peregimus,Ebbo rector, ego mater Himiltrudis humilisFundamenta sedis sanctae pariter ereximus."

So we can see that Himiltrudis accompanied her son to Reims and in someway, while living there, participated in his work of restoration. She was thenburied there, judging by the existence of the epitaph itself and the phrases in it

71 PL 124, col. 871; cf. P. R. McKeon, 'Archbishop Ebbo of Rheims (816-83S)', Church History, 43(1974), 437-8.

12 Thegan, eh, 20, p. 228.7J Annales Fuldenses, 5.3. 887, ed. F. Kurze (MGH SRG), pp. IOs---f>.

7. Flodoard, Historie Remensis ecclesiae, ii. 19 (MGH SS 13), P.467; the epitaph is also in MGHPoetae, 2, p. 93.

75 McKeon, 'Ebbo' (as in n. 71), pp. 437-8·76 Flodoard, Historia, ii. 19, p. 467.

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like 'urbis huius' and 'simul hie peregimus'. Reims was an honor whichprovided a fixed basis of power and residence for the family in life and death.Reims functioned thus for different generations of the family: for Himiltrudis,then Ebbo himself, and then for his nephew Ebbo. This latter Ebbo was'nutritus in Remensi ecclesiae monasterio' and was then made abbot there byhis patron, his uncle; he later became bishop of Grenoble." Ebbo of Reimsalso used his patronage to advance another nephew, one Gauzbertus, whom hedesignated, with the permission of Louis the Pious, as an assistant to Anskar inhis missionary work in the North." This Gauzbertus, who seems to havebecome a bishop, also had a nephew whose existence was noted in the Life ofAnskar.79

The name 'Gauzbertus' is perhaps rather surprising to encounter in thiscontext. I t is well known as characteristic of a branch of the powerfularistocratic family, the so-called 'Rorigonids'r" It would be absurd to claimkinship or even alliance between Ebbo and this clan on this basis alone, but itmay be worth noting that the name Ebbo, together with its variants AbbolEbulus, does occur in some Rorigonid contexts. Count Rorico did have akinsman called Ebbo and Count Ramnulf I of Poitiers had three sons, calledRamnulf, Ebulus, and Gauzbert." The names Abbo/Ebbo/Ebulus can befound in Aquitaine, around Poitou." Such seeming parallels and connectionsmayor may not be suggestive. The current state of research does not permitcertainty and the very nature of this material makes certainty hard to come by.Such material, however, may help show how wide Ebbo's circle became oncehe had attained eminence.

Ebbo's career, therefore, had much that was normal or traditional, asThegan would have understood it, about it, despite its surprising starting-point. That starting-point, however, together with the relatively lowly socialposition of a number (but only further investigation can reveal how significantthat number might be) of the administrators of the fisc, and the fact that bothhigh and low members of the royal court had a common identity as palatinishould make us think hard about the nature of power and patronage in thereign of Louis. Perhaps, as Donald Bullough has suggested, the Carolingianswere rather less 'restricted in the choice of men through whom they sought tocarry out their policies' than the current fixation with the Reichsaristokratie.

77 Letter of Hincmar in Flodoard, Historie, iii. IS, p. S03.71 Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, eh. 14, ed. G. Waitz (MGH SRG), P.36.,. 'nepotem venerabilis Gauzberti episcopi Erimbertum nomine', Vita Anskarii, ch.28, p. S9 and

see eh, 33, p. 64·10 On this family, K. F. Werner, 'Bedeutende Adelsfamilien' (n. 6), Exkurs, pp. 137-42.11 O. G. Oexle, 'BischofEbroin von Poitiers und seine Verwandten', Frühmittelalterliche Studie», 3

(1969), 174·82 Ibid. A Count Aeblus was active in Spain under Louis the Pious, Annalu regni Fra"corum,

5.1. 824, ed, F. Kurze (MGH SRG), 166.

2°4 Stuart Airlie

for example, might suggest.f This is not to claim that Louis the Piouspossessed a form of 'civil service', but the lower grades of Louis's following dorepay investigation, not least because the career of such figures reveals muchabout Louis's power of patronage. This is what Thegan's complaints aboutEbbo really point us towards, namely, the hunger of the Carolingians fortrustworthy and talented servants, and their ability to give such men cloutthrough their patronage. Reading Thegan we know that Carolingian nobileswere patentes, but he also reveals to us that not all patentes were nobiles.

BI D. Bullough, 'Europae Pater: Charlemagne and his Achievement in the Light of RecentScholarship', English Historical Review, 85 (1970), 75; cf. H. K. Schulze, 'Reichsaristokratie, Stammes-adel und Fränkische Freiheit', Historische Zeitschrift, 227 (1978),353-73.