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Carolingian Bavaria, 700-900 UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Land and Landscape: The Transition from Agilolfing to Carolingian Bavaria, 700-900 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4j80j1t5 Author Good, Leanne Marie Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Land and Landscape: The Transition from Agilolfing to Carolingian Bavaria, 700-900 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Leanne Marie Good 2012 © Copyright by Leanne Marie Good 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Land and Landscape: The Transition from Agilolfing to Carolingian Bavaria, 700-900 by Leanne Marie Good Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Patrick Geary, Chair This dissertation examines the transformation of the political, social, cultural and physical landscape of eighth-century Bavaria as this region was absorbed into the expanding Frankish kingdom, following the deposition of its quasi-regal duke, Tassilo, in 788. My study aims to elucidate the wider process by which the Carolingian dynasty united most of Western Europe under its control in the course of a few decades. It is my contention that changes made during this period to the organization of agricultural land and ecclesiastical jurisdictions - the physical use of land resources, and their mental demarcations - changed perceptions of identity and supported changes in rulership. ii At the beginning of the eighth century, the family referred to by historians as the Arnulfings or Pippinids, increased their power greatly through a variety of strategems (the term Carolingian, from the name of its most famous scion, is often projected back). This family controlled the office of Mayor of the Palace to the Merovingian kings; in that role, Charles Martel essentially functioned as the political leader of the Franks. His son Pippin inherited the office, and took the title of King of the Franks, as well, which threatened the balance of aristocratic power in the kingdom and the peripheral duchies. Thus, Pippin’s sons, Charlemagne and Carloman, strove to maintain and legitimize the position their father had bequeathed them. One of their strategies was to pull the peripheral duchies more strongly under Frankish control. For the first half of Charlemagne’s reign, Duke Tassilo of Bavaria continued building his independent rule of that province, while the Frankish king concerned himself with political problems closer to home. Tassilo came from a family so illustrious, they had been recognized as a leading family and designated as the Agilolfings even in the early Middle Ages. The Bavarian Law Code specified that the Duke of the Bavarians must always come from this family, therefore, Tassilo was a legitimate ruler in a way that Charlemagne, as the son of the usurper of the Frankish throne, was not. To further complicate matters, Duke Tassilo was a product of both families: his father, Duke Odilo, had married the daughter of Charles Martel, and Charlemagne was his cousin. Bavaria in the eighth-century was uniquely at the crossroads between Christianity and paganism, between a common Romano-Germanic linguistic and cultural zone, and the undefined Slavs and Avars across the Danube. It was also caught between two powerful rulers who represented two different justifications of legitimacy (birth versus anointing). This dynamic of intersecting and sometimes competing systems of organization and representation presents a iii fertile field for the study of the language and representation of land in its political context, and its relationship to the concept of legitimate authority. In Topographies of Power (2001), Frans Theuws raises the question of how the Carolingians transformed the Frankish royal topography despite its long cultural heritage. He suggests that research on the rhetoric of landscape in the creation and representation of power relations in contested areas could yield insight into this question. I am asking a similar question by looking at an area outside the Frankish heartland: the advantage of looking at an area peripheral to the Frankish center is that it presents two comparable systems of establishing legitimacy, two “rhetorics of landscape,” brought into conflict with one another, and then examines how one is transformed by the other. I examine the changes that take place in the region, in the delineation and possession of boundaries, rights, and of the terra itself, some of which succeeded in furthering the royal claims to the region, and some of which failed. There were, in fact, two transformations which the region underwent in the eighth century: that undertaken by the Agilolfing dukes Odilo and his son Tassilo, and that begun after the takeover by Charlemagne. Therefore, I first appraise how the Agilolfing dukes strengthened their authority through a particular policy of land donations to the Church, and through the control of church councils and monastic foundations. The dukes chose the places for episcopal seats, synods, and monasteries carefully, marking a sphere of ducal action not only in jurisdictional terms, but also in a spatial sense. While these activities built consensus, they simultaneously underscored the authority of the dukes; both Odilo and Tassilo kept control over land donated, councils convened, and monasteries founded, limiting episcopal jurisdiction over these three areas. I then consider how the Carolingians expanded their control into the newly acquired Bavarian landscape following the deposition of Tassilo, through the distribution and use iv of aristocratic and fiscal lands, the co-opting of local monasteries and churches, the creation of new offices, a new interpretation of land ownership which favored the episcopal church, and through changes in the vocabulary used in the definition and representation of space. The unique geographical and political position of Bavaria suggests a fertile testing ground for a study of the representation of land and space in its political context. The transformation of the ducatus Baiuvariorum involved the alteration of existing views on the relative legitimacy of Carolingian and Agilolfing rule. This was a transformation in both a physical sense, and through the manipulation of various representational forms that make up the “landscape” of authority. I argue that the “mapping” involved in constructing a network of meaningful places by its very action legitimates. By articulating how various factors can and should be perceived as a unity, and presenting a rhetoric of control over the land, a ruler made that control acceptable and defined the identity and roles of his followers. Chapter one surveys the existing literature on the organization and re-organization of Bavaria in this period, while chapter two looks at the organization of land in terms of politically, agriculturally, culturally, and socially imposed uses, and the terms used to describe it. This chapter argues that the model of Landschaften, as communities constructed by interdependence and shared law, was already undergoing alteration under the leadership of the Agilolfing dukes. Chapter three focuses on the conceptual and linguistic construction of space and control in Agilolfing Bavaria, comparing the various conceptual categories used in Bavarian sources to describe land, and chapter four investigates the challenges facing the bishops in Bavaria in this period. Through the oversight of the Bavarian church councils and his hegemony over both donated land and monastic foundations, Duke Tassilo maintained control of the Bavarian episcopacy, limiting their roles to some degree. Chapter five surveys the surge in monastic v foundations under Dukes Odilo and Tassilo, arguing this was one of the main methods by which the dukes constructed consensus and defined the landscape of the Bavarian community, and Chapter six examines the fate of the Agilolfing monasteries under the Carolingians. Finally, chapter seven considers the rhetoric of control over land in Carolingian-sponsored texts such as capitularies, diplomata, and annals, as well as in church councils and letters, describing the new unifying, legitimizing rhetoric developed by Charlemagne and his advisors: kingship as the defense of Christendom. The conclusion summarizes how claims to hegemony over space and its ordering were a foundation of claims to political authority in this period. This study contributes to an understanding of how one region was shaped and transformed by ducal leadership, and illuminates how the Carolingians transformed areas formerly outside their control and brought them under the umbrella of a hegemonic ideal. It demonstrates the dynamic of intersecting and sometimes competing systems of organization and representation, which Charlemagne was challenged to bring together, employing the concept of empire. vi The dissertation of Leanne Marie Good is approved. Michael R. Curry Ronald J. Mellor Claudia Rapp Teofilo F. Ruiz Patrick Geary, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 vii To Olivia, Die Zukunft viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: The Historiography and Sources for Early Medieval Bavaria ............... 28 CHAPTER TWO: Physical Organization: Landscape and Landschaften ............................ 53
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