King, Clergy and War at the Time of the Carolingians
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KING, CLERGY AND WAR AT THE TIME OF THE CAROLINGIANS Friedrich E. Prin z As the Normans besieged Paris in 886, Bishop Gauzlin, though describ ed by Abbo in the Bella Parisiacae urbis as presul domini et dulcissimus heros , stood on the walls of the city taking active part in the battle . His nephew , Abbot Ebo lus of St. Ge rmain-des Pres , is celebrate d in the same account as fortissimus abba and is credite d with having killed seven Normans with his spear in a single sortie . It is some thing akin to "b lack humour" fo r us that Ab bot Ebolus shouted laughingly at the same time : "Carry them in to the kitchen!"l How could such active par ticipa tion in war by the higher clergy come ab out? Indeed, it seems inconceivab le . 2 Anyone who examine s the ph enomenon of participation in war by clergy durin g the Middle Age s is con fron te d with a paradox, the an tinomie s of which are pe rh aps to be balanced out in though t an d belief but do little to explain the weather beaten bedrock of his torical life . There is an element of the paradoxical inherent even in official expressions of the Church 's attitude . As a result of the creation of the post-Cons tantinian State Church, the ecclesias tical hierarchy found an apparent solution, epitomized by St. Augus tine 's teaching on the "jus t war," which was as elegan t as it was dan ge rous . 3 Carl Erdmann has an alyzed this change in the Church on the cen tral question of war in his brilliant book on the eme rgence of the ide a of the crusade , now availab le in English transla tion.4 Erdmann de scrib ed most imp ortant ph ases of this ide a whereb y jus tification of war agains t pagans dwe lling on the edge of the orbis chris tianus an d the attitude of Pope Gregory VII emerge as powe rful driving forces . Since the Church tended toward a position which may be de scribed as pacifis tic--one could no t us e this term too re stricte dly in a mo de rn sense!--it was bound to prove difficult for it to de al with the re al prob lem of war in its system of teaching an d to deve lop a positive res pon se to them. Thus we may imagine how difficult it mus t have been for the Church to tole rate active participa tion in war by the clergy an d even to make participation possible unde r canon law! Naturally enough we find in do gma and ecclesiastical �2 Friedrich E. Prinz canones no t inconsiderable resistance to these developments . Indeed late r in the Middle Age s such opposition surfaced repeatedly in the epochs of ecclesias tical se lf-contempla tion and regeneration. Th is oppos ition in the final analysis however was without lasting success, as illus trated by the famous lame nt by Richard of Cornwall: "Look what 5 hostile and warlike archbishops the re are in Ge rmany!" In addi tion to discussing such activi ty, this paper will attempt to asce rtain wh at his torical fo rces and circum stances led to the active participation of the clergy in war since the middle of the eighth ce ntury and the process by wh ich this became legitimate and insti tutionalized unde r the Carolingian rulers . A warlike spirit among the highest represe ntatives of the Imperial Church ? How could it happe n that such an ecclesias tical type, wh om one would be most inclined to comp are wi th the warlike priest cas tes in other cultures, came into being in a Christian culture ? Is it perhaps he re--as is now and the n suggested in Erdmann's book--a question of exceptions wh ich, even though nume rous, simp ly represent a perversion by indivi duals? Or is it possible that certain social and intellectual circums tances combined to me ld Church service and Imperial military service into a to tally indissolvab le union th at created a mode approaching standardi zed conduct among those wh o rose to high ecclesias tical rank ? If we compare ecclesias tical regula tions and their developme nt wi th real conditions in order thus to ob tain a sort of sys tem of coordinates from which the real conduct can be ascertained, the efforts at jus tifying the reality of clerical military service more or less convincingly by canonical regulations and the flexible inte rpre tation of these become visib le . At a firs t glance this seems to cause great difficulty. for the ecclesias tical canones leave no doubt that the clerical estate is incompatib le with the profession of arms and of hunting. Even the officially recogni zed pagan cults in the Roman Empire exemp ted their priests from military service , and after it had become state re ligion Christianity ob tained the same position of exemp tion for its clergy. 6 Accordingly the Council of To ledo in 400 laid down in Canon VIII: Si quis post baptismum militaverit et ch lamydem supserit, aut cingulum, etiams i graviora no n admiserit, si ad clerum admissus fui t, diaconii non accipiat dignitatem . 7 The Council of Chalcedon in 45 1 also excludes clergy and monks from military service . 8 Th e individual decrees of the KING, CLERGY AND WAR 30 3 great Imperial councils of late antiqui ty passed on into the synodal decisions of the kingdom of the Franks that we re proclaime d by the king . If one only proceeds from the normative settleme nts , then one gains the impression th at the Church had consistently expanded the prohib ition of mi litary service for clergy into a ge neral prohibition on bearing arms and logically also of hunting for all clergy. The councils of Agde (5 06), Epaon (5 17) and Macon (5 85) forbid all cle rgyme n down to deacons from hunting with hounds and falcons ; for offences against this a bishop is excommuni cated for th ree months , a presb yter for two , and a deacon for one month . What is remarkab le here is the re gulation th at deacons are also re lieved of their clerical duties for this period, whereas in the case of the bishops and presbyte rs no thing is said on this point . 9 Is a hierarchical and perhaps even a social strati fication implied here , at least in the sphere of ecclesias tical administrative practice? Th is question is raised without attempting an answer at this point; but it will conce rn us in ano ther connection. What appears to be consistent escalation of penal provisions agains t clerics for their participation in hunting or war suffers a clear break towards the end of the sixth century. The Council of Macon established in 585 that the clergy migh t no t keep hunting hounds and falcons; ye t instead of the th re at of puni shme nt the re is only a paraenetic exp lanation of the prohib ition.lO Th ree gene r ations later a Court of Borde aux (663-75) forbids in the firs t of its canone s the bearing and use of arms , and also in this case no concre te pe nal provisions follow ; the prospect of penalty is merely suggested in ge neral remarks of an ecclesias tical sente nce and coupled with a theological admoni tion. ll One is almos t tempted on the basis of this wording to accord the prohibition a declamatory rather than a practical value ; th at it is at the head of the council 's decisions however points unmistakab ly to the fact that the council. fathers were dealing here with a really urge nt problem. The same is true of the last important council in the age of the Me rovingians which took place in 673/75 in St. Jean de Lo sne and luridly illumina tes the state of the Frankish Church . Canon II prohibits all bishops and clergy more seculario from bearing arms . Th is re gulation is particularly important above all because alongside the clerici the bishops are me ntioned separately. At first glance this seems to be no thing more than a trivial specification of the re cipient of this prohib ition . A 304 Friedrich E. Prinz comparison with the prohib itions of arms for the cle rgy in Carolingian capitularies shows however, as will be discussed below more fully, that there the bearing of arms was generally prohibited for the clergy, but that the bishops have a clearly recognisable special status in this matter which again reveals a characte ristic feature of the Carolingian Imperial Church . But here in the las t third of the seventh century the prohib ition of arms is still explicitly dire cted agains t the bishops an d indeed not without good reason as shown by the warlike an d almos t sove reign behaviour of the bishops of the late Me rovingian pe riod . 12 Penal provisions for the event of an infringement are also lacking in canon II of St. Jean de Losne . Did the king an d council not have the power an d authority here to take dras tic measures? Th is question can not be conclusively an swere d for the moment; but the three councils of 517, 585 an d 663/75 occur in the great epoch of Gaul's Germanisation, an d thus in an age of re turn to barbarism, on which Carl Erdmann has correctly ob served "that the deve lopment of the Ch ristianisation of the state among the Germanic peop le had to be carried out once again under less favourab le condi tions .