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Charlemagne: the Making of an Image 1100-1300

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Charlemagne: the Making of an Image 1100-1300 CHARLEMAGNE: THE MAKING OF AN IMAGE, 1100-1300 By JACE ANDREW STUCKEY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2006 Copyright 2006 by Jace Andrew Stuckey My dissertation and all of my work is dedicated to my wife Shannon. Without her support none of this would have been possible. I would also like to dedicate this work to my daughter, Elizabeth, who was born the semester that I graduated. She has become an inspiration to me. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank my family and friends for their support while I was pursuing my graduate degrees. I want to thank all of my professors and especially my committee members, Dr’s Curta, Hasty, Hatch, Landes, and Sommerville for their dedication and invaluable advice while I was writing the dissertation. I especially want to thank Dr. Florin Curta, my advisor, for his tireless efforts in editing and advising me on my dissertation and for his dedication to training me as a historian. I will always consider him to be my mentor. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 Historiography ..............................................................................................................3 Sources, Theory and Methodology.............................................................................16 2 CHARLEMAGNE AND THE MILITES CHRISTI: MAKING MYTH INTO HISTORY...................................................................................................................27 Roland.........................................................................................................................33 The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle.....................................................................................35 Aspremont...................................................................................................................37 Elements of the Crusade .............................................................................................42 Interpretation and Adaptation of Roland ....................................................................49 Propaganda, Crusade, and Charlemagne ....................................................................57 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................69 3 CHARLEMAGNE AND MEDIEVAL KINGSHIP: THE MAKING OF AN IDEAL ........................................................................................................................78 Defining Kingship and the Limits of Power...............................................................80 Roland.........................................................................................................................82 The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle.....................................................................................90 Aspremont...................................................................................................................93 Kingship, Legitimacy, and Social Order ....................................................................96 The Crowning of Louis .......................................................................................96 Willehalm ..........................................................................................................104 Suger, the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and the Cult of Kingship.....................................109 Conclusion: Kingship and Memory..........................................................................119 v 4 THE ‘UNMAKING’ OF AN IDEAL: CHARLEMAGNE AND THE FEUDAL ORDER.....................................................................................................................123 The Rebel-Baron Cycle ............................................................................................125 The Song of Girart de Vienne and Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne.........................128 Contradictions of Kingship.......................................................................................136 Beyond France..........................................................................................................150 The Crusades ............................................................................................................152 Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne..........................................................................152 Girart de Vienne ................................................................................................155 Conclusion ................................................................................................................158 5 THE MAKING OF ROYAL HISTORY: THE CONVERGENCE OF TRADITION AND MYTH ......................................................................................162 Capetian Propaganda ................................................................................................164 Blood-Line and Medieval Statecraft.........................................................................169 Karolinus ...........................................................................................................172 Kaiserchronik ....................................................................................................176 Ethnicity and the Legacy of the Crusades ................................................................182 The Grandes Chroniques ..........................................................................................189 Charlemagne in the North: The Karlamagnus Saga.................................................203 Conclusion ................................................................................................................206 6 CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................208 LIST OF REFERENCES.................................................................................................228 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...........................................................................................239 vi Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy CHARLEMAGNE: THE MAKING OF AN IMAGE, 1100-1300 By Jace Stuckey May 2006 Chair: Florin Curta Major Department: History The image of Charlemagne represents one of the most highly developed historical and literary legends of the Middle Ages. His representation ranges from the majestic to the bland; from grandiose to weak and from a saint to a despot. He exemplified the greatest of military heroes and stood as the champion of Christianity, while at the same time his character and the sources in which it appears illustrated many of the problems of an unstable feudal world. By the twelfth century, the former Carolingian King and Emperor represented the greatest attraction of any historical character of the medieval period. The image of Charlemagne extends from early Latin panegyrics such as De gestis Karoli Magni by the Monk of St. Gall of the ninth century to the grand epics and romance works of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries such as the Chanson de Roland. At the center of this dissertation is a study of the representation of Charlemagne in twelfth and thirteenth century literature. The focus of my analysis is on a representative collection of sources that were produced in France, Germany, Italy, and Scandinavia. They date from 1100 to 1300. I focus on popular images of crusading, religion, and vii kingship as linked with the portrait of Charlemagne. The emphasis is on the impact the image of Charlemagne had on crusaders’ ideals, crusading activities, and views on Christian kingship. The impact of the crusades forced three worlds into escalated conflict that would forever transform the political, cultural, and religious landscape of Europe and the Middle East. The impact on medieval literary genres was nearly as dramatic. From epic to romance, churchmen and poets of this period quickly incorporated the crusading themes into their work. The literature of this period represents a militant and religious culture that found its ethos and role models in the lives of former kings, emperors and conquerors and especially in that of Charlemagne. The crusading ethos dominated some of the most popular genres of that time and acted as propaganda for a culture that embraced chivalric values, and increasingly became a society that exported its militarism in the name of religion. My research has yielded a number of conclusions. I argue that the literary sources had a tremendous influence on Western views of crusade, kingship, and the creation of vernacular history. The deeds of Charlemagne served as a precedent for the crusades and an example for future kings. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION “Charlemagne, claimed by the Church as a saint, by the French as their greatest king, by the Germans as their compatriot, by the Italians as their emperor, heads all modern histories in one way or another; he is the creator of a new order of things.”1 As late as the 1820’s, the legend
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