Buc - Ritual and Interpretation. Early Medieval Case PDF

Ritual and interpretation:
the early medieval case1

Philippe Buc
In dealing with early medieval `rituals' (whatever this category may

mean), historians have to take into account that they were written about,
staged, and participated in by members of a culture that was steeped in
interpretation, and especially by the exegetical dialectic between letter
and spirit. The consequences for narrative techniques, and therefore for
our approach to the sources depicting `rituals' are plural. The narratives
can heighten or de-emphasize the `ritualness' of an event, as well as
heighten or hide conflict (or consensus) within the ritual event, regardless
of what actually happened. Rituals in texts, therefore, should seldom be
taken at face value. Such techniques suggest that often enough the textual
rendition (or even imagination) of a solemnity had more political impact
than its performance.
For the sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing at the very beginning of this
century, for Karl Marx before him, and for many social scientists since
him, religious beliefs and rituals all have a function. This function is most
often hidden to the very natives who entertain these beliefs and perform
these rituals, but it is accessible to the specialist of society:
When all we do is consider the formulas literally, these religious beliefs

and practices appear disconcerting, and our inclination might be to
1
To advance this speci®c argument (the importance of interpretation), I have chosen to employ
the broad and vague term `ritual' even though other lines of inquiry lead me to question the
appropriateness of the concept. For an explanation of this stance, see P. Buc, `Political Ritual:
Medieval and Modern Interpretations', in H.-W. Goetz (ed.), Die AktualitaÈt des Mittelalters
(Bochum, in press); idem, `Political Rituals and Political Imagination in the Medieval West,
4th±11th Centuries', in J. Nelson and P. Linehan (eds.), The Medieval World (London, in
press); idem, The Dangers of Ritual (Princeton, NJ, forthcoming). See as well J. Goody,
Àgainst Ritual: Loosely Structured Thoughts on a Loosely De®ned Topic', in S.F. Moore and
B.G. Meyerhoff (eds.), Secular Ritual (Assen, 1977), pp. 25±35. The study closest to my current
viewpoint may be D.A. Warner, `Thietmar of Merseburg on Rituals of Kingship', Viator 26
(1995), pp. 56±76. Timothy Reuter discusses with great sensitivity some of the issues analyzed
here in his `Pre-Gregorian Mentalities', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45:3 (1994), pp. 465±74,
at pp. 470±4.
Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) 183±210 # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000, 108 Cowley
Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
184 Philippe Buc
write them off to some sort of inborn aberration. But we must know
how to reach beneath the symbol to grasp the true reality it represents
and that gives the symbol its true meaning. The most bizarre and
barbarous rites and the strangest myths translate some human need
and some aspect of life, whether social or individual. The reason the
faithful settle for in justifying those rites and myths may be mistaken,
and most often are; but the true reasons exist nonetheless, and it is the
business of science to uncover them.2
Durkheim was familiar with Marx, who expressed even more strongly
that for the analysis of past societies, their self-conceptions constituted the
worst starting point.3 Marx and his colleague Engels berated earlier
thinkers for having `share[d] the illusion each speci®c era' had enter-
tained about itself. This had led to a radical mistake: `The ``conceit'' or
``self-image'' of these speci®c human beings is transformed into the
sole determining active force that governs and determines the praxis of
these humans'.4 Hence, `To arrive at the ¯esh-and-blood human being,
one shall not start out from what humans say, conceive, represent
themselves, or from the human being spoken about, thought about,
conceived, represented'.5 Social reality lay hidden behind, and obfus-
cated by, native culture, political ideology and religion.
Despite convergences, Durkheim had not borrowed from Marx. Their
common position stood ®rmly rooted in a stratum of European intel-
lectual history deeper than the nineteenth century. Durkheim's state-
ment, especially, can be seen as the social-scienti®c rephrasing and
conceptualization of a basic notion shared by the religious specialists of
2
E. Durkheim, Formes ÂeleÂmentaires de la vie religieuse (Paris, 1912), p. 3, English trans.
K.E. Fields, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York, 1995), p. 2.
3
This is axiomatic for twentieth-century Marxist anthropology and the historians who use it,
see, e.g., E. Flaig, `Repenser le politique dans la ReÂpublique romaine', Actes de la recherche en
sciences sociales 105 (1994), pp. 13±25, at pp. 13±14. The analogies between Marxist and
functionalist understandings of religion have been pointed out by many, e.g., R. Firth, `The
Sceptical Anthropologist? Social Anthropology and Marxist Views on Society', in M. Bloch
(ed.), Marxist Analyses and Social Anthropology (London, 1975), pp. 29±60 at pp. 31±2.
4
K. Marx and F. Engels, Die deutsche Ideologie. [Kritik der neuesten deutschen Philosophie] # 1.25
(Marx-Engels Gesamtsausgabe 1.5, Berlin, 1932), pp. 28±9: `... die Geschichtsauffassung ... hat
daher in die Geschichte nur politische Haupt- und Staatsaktionen und religioÈse und
uÈberhaupt theotherische KaÈmpfe sehen koÈnnen, und speziell bei jeder geschichtlichen Epoche
die Illusion dieser Epoche teilen muÈssen ... Die `Èinbildung'', die ``Vorstellung'' dieser
bestimmten Menschen uÈber ihre wirkliche Praxis wird in die einzig bestimmende und aktive
Macht verwandelt, welche die Praxis dieser Menschen beherrscht und bestimmt'. Translation
mine; but cf. K. Marx and F. Engels, Feuerbach. [Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist
Outlooks], 2nd. edn (Moscow, 1976), p. 52.
5
Die deutsche Ideologie # 1.5b, p. 15: Ès wird nicht ausgegangen von dem, was die Menschen
sagen, sich einbilden, sich vorstellen, auch nicht von den gesagten, gedachten, eingebildeten,
vorgestellten Menschen, um davon aus bei den leibhaftigen Menschen anzukommen'. Trans-
lation mine; cf. Feuerbach, p. 31.
Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

Ritual and interpretation: the early medieval case 185
Christian Europe. Behind the letter of the Old Testament, and especially
behind its apparently irrational ceremonies there is a spirit ± identified
with the really real, res or veritas. It is the task and duty of the Christian
exegete to decipher this mysterium.6 This notion was widely shared in
late antiquity. Writing at the beginning of the third century, Hippolytus
of Rome inveighed against a Gnostic group, the Naassenes, that they
had ìnvented a new art of grammar' (teÂchneÃ grammatikeÂ) allowing them
to see how Greek Poets like Homer and the Christian Holy Scriptures
darkly told of their own Gnostic truth. For the Naassenes, all deeds and
words, even a play at the theatre, presented a truth invisible to the eyes
of the common audience, but endowed with a pneumatic or spiritual
meaning. For this reason, they gladly attended religious solemnities such
as the Great Mysteries of Magna Mater, `thinking that by means of what
is enacted there, they perceive their [own] whole mystery'.7
Hippolytus mocked the Naassenes, but his Christian contemporaries
could watch Roman civic rituals through similar lenses. The late antique
understanding of the relationship between letter and spirit shared by
all factions of the Christian movement allowed the hijacking, actual or
imaginary, of the Ancient World's most potent symbolic practices. The
Acts of the Martyrs can be seen as a Christian appropriation through
interpretation of a Roman civic ritual, the execution of criminals. The
death of a condemned Christian in the arena, a theatre, or an amphi-
theatre, was transformed into a new ritual, speaking of the Christian
mystery, and serving the formation of a Christian community.8
Interpretation, thus, was and is about authority and power, in the
present the authority of the social scientist over the cultures he or she
studies, in late antiquity the power of the marginal religious group, be it
mainstream Christian or gnostic, over the broader community in which
it was embedded. To be able to impose one's reading on a ritual endows
one with power or authority. Hippolytus' polemical description of the
Naassenes shows that the `natives' themselves understood well this rule.9
What does this mean for the student of early medieval political
culture, a culture that emerged from the matrix of late antiquity? First, it
6
G. Caspary, Politics and Exegesis (Berkeley, CA, 1979), pp. 12±19 and 40±71.
7
Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 5.9.7 and 5.8.1, ed. M. Marcovich, Patristische Texte
und Studien 25 (Berlin, 1986), pp. 154:1±4 and 166:33±9.
8
See P. Buc, `Martyre et ritualiteÂ dans l'AntiquiteÂ Tardive. Horizons de l'eÂcriture meÂdieÂvale des
rituels', Annales 48:1 (1997), pp. 63±92, as well as J. Salisbury, Perpetua's Passion: the Death and
Memory of a Young Roman Woman (New York, 1997).
9
The link between late antique theology and early sociology will be explored in my Dangers of
Rituals. J. Assmann, Àegypten als Argument. Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit und
Religionskritik im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert', Historische Zeitschrift 264 (1997), pp. 561±85, has
already shown the hold of the idea of a double message (with socially stabilizing functions) in
early modern sciences of Religion.
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

186 Philippe Buc
means that there is some validity to what some recent studies have
claimed: that a political ritual can make visibly present an eternal,
invisible order, which in turn legitimizes (in a Durkheimian vein) the
worldly-order.10 But it means much more than that. And what it means
over and above this first consequence effectively renders problematic the
functions of legitimation and social stabilization that this first model
attributes to ritual. It means that medieval political rituals, once per-
formed (or even already at the moment of their performance), were
subjected actively to interpretations. Observer, participant, and audience
of oral or written reports searched behind appearances, asking what kind
of spirit had animated the event, and whether it pointed to a mysterium.
The participants, steeped in a religious universe, believed that a liturgical
or para-liturgical practice (that is, one which called on God and His
saints) would be effective, they also thought that its impact would
depend not so much on performance but on interpretation, and acted
accordingly. Thus, if we consider narrative texts, it means that the rituals
we find in them usually come to us conditioned by, and within, an
interpretative strategy. It means as well that many of these texts owe
their existence to purposeful attempts to guide towards the right
interpretation of a political event that involved a ritual.
Here the criticism of the functionalist and Marxist traditions in
anthropology borrows a leaf from other anthropologists' observation
that societies with religious specialists (including interpreters of rituals)
deal with rituals differently than societies in which this social role does
not exist. Dan Sperber warned us almost a quarter of a century ago that
we should distinguish between three kinds of societies: societies without
exegetical lore concerning their rituals, societies with experts in such
lore, and societies where not only is there a lore but also a tendency for
this lore to be contested. It is critical as well to be aware that some
societies have beliefs concerning, for example, symbolism, and that `this
indigenous theory in turn reacts on symbolic practices'.11
To illustrate the importance of interpretation, and to suggest some of
its effects, I shall look at a number of cases showing ®rstly the ways in
which authors deny the existence of a transcendental meaning to the
10
See G. Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor. Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France
(Ithaca, NY, 1992), and H. Keller, `Die Investitur. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der
``Staatssymbolik'' im Hochmittelalter', FruÈhmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993), pp. 51±86, both
drawing on the `model of and model for' notion of C. Geertz, `Religion as a Cultural System',
repr. in his The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays (New York, 1973), pp. 87±125, at
pp. 93±4, who in this aspect of his thought is quite Durkheimian. While Koziol, in his
ecclectic ®nal chapter, distances himself from attributing a legitimizing function to ritual, the
bulk of his book presupposes it (see, e.g., pp. 305±7 and 23).
11
D. Sperber, Du symbolisme en geÂneÂral (Paris, 1974), pp. 29±32 and 60±1.

rituals of a community they oppose or want to disempower; secondly

the inverse strategy, of insistence on the presence of a mysterium in
ritual; thirdly the struggle over a ritual's specific interpretation; and
finally the desire to paper over and hide the presence of such struggles.
I shall conclude that while rituals were understood to point to a reality
beyond themselves, this by no means led to a legitimation of the existing
order.
Firstly, at one extreme of the logical spectrum, we ®nd two almost
equivalent strategies: denying to the rituals of the groups one opposes or
tries to subordinate any transcendental meaning, or even avoiding the
mention of these groups' rituals. Gregory of Tours was extremely
reluctant to mention royal Merovingian rituals, even though some of his
own lapses and the poetry of his friend Venantius Fortunatus testify to
their existence.12 Hincmar of Reims, who, according to Karl F. Morrison,
in an Augustinian vein did not assign a spiritual reading to secular events
in his Annals of St Bertin, also rarely emphasized royal liturgy, at least
after an initial honeymoon with his king, Charles the Bald, was over.
The clearest exception after 861±2 is found in 869, when king and
archbishop found themselves at one concerning the annexation of
Lotharingia. Then, Hincmar gives full details. He was after all the main
of®ciant at the coronation that sought to ®nalize this Anschluss, and a
bene®ciary of the new ecclesiastical map.13 Yet other authors resolutely
avoided informing their narratives with sacrality.14 Thus Hincmar's
contemporary, Erchempert, a Monte Cassino monk: in his Short history
of the Lombards dwelling in Benevento, completed shortly after 889,
Erchempert avoided all institutional sacrality. God was, in his text,
present solely to give providential meaningfulness to the ambient
political disorder. He described political ceremonies only when they
were manipulated, the arch-villain being the bishop-duke of Naples. In
Erchempert's Ystoriola, this Athanasius II (reigned 875-98), eager to
12
I discuss this in ch. 3 of Dangers of Ritual. But see already B. Brennan, `The Image of the
Frankish Kings in the Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus', Journal of Medieval History 10:1 (1984),
pp. 1±11.
13
K.F. Morrison, Ùnum ex Multis: Hincmar of Rheims' Medical and Aesthetic Rationales
for Uni®cation', repr. in his Holiness and Politics in Early Medieval Thought (London, 1985),
pp. 583±712, at p. 633: `(...) only in the City of God did events signify something beyond their
own temporal present. Those in the city of man signi®ed nothing beyond themselves'.
Compare J.L. Nelson, `Hincmar of Reims on King-making: The Evidence of the Annals of
St Bertin, 861±882', in J. BaÂk (ed.), Coronations. Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual
(Berkeley, CA, 1990), pp. 16±34, esp. pp. 22±6. For Hincmar's potential gains, see eadem,
Charles the Bald (London, 1992), p. 218.
14
For the Augustinian understanding of sacred history, see R. A. Markus, ``Saeculum''. History
and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine 2nd. edn. (Cambridge, 1988); for its modi®cations,
see R.W. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Britain. From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth
(New York, 1966), esp. pp. 1±43.

188 Philippe Buc
acquire neighboring Capua, engineers alliances with, or plots against,

each of the comital branches in power there, leading to much pro-
fanation of sworn oaths, blood-links, and the sacrality of holy days.15
But this was a partisan choice. Contemporary Napolitan hagiography
(which Erchempert probably had access to) presents Athanasius in a
very different light, in the exalting narrative framework of relic
translations.16
Secondly, I shall give three examples of the opposite attitude, two
short, from the tenth century, the last from the ninth. The ®rst one is
from the Annals of Lobbes, ad annum 961:
Our lord Otto, his father's namesake, is made to share in the paternal
kingship, and is given the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit in the
palace of Aachen, seven weeks from Easter, on the day of Pentecost
and at the hour on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the
disciples, on the seventh of the Calends of June, and on the seventh
moon, when Otto was in his seventh year of age.17
Here the link is to the Apostolic age ± perhaps owing to the Ottonian
kings' self-understanding as bringers of Christianity to the gentes.18 The
numerology hammers in the presence of the Holy Spirit at the
coronation. That such a vertical axis linking up a ritual and the Heavens
was critical is attested in another contemporary text bearing on a
princely accession. In southern Italy, the anonymous author of the
Chronicon Salernitanum told how Duke Arichis, founder of Salerno,
had been pre-elected by the Spirit. When still a young man, he had
15
See, e.g., Erchempert, Ystoriola 50, 53, 57, ed. G. Waitz, MGH Scriptores Rerum
Langobardicarum (Hanover, 1878), pp. 256: ll. 3±14, 257: ll. 32±11, 257: ll. 42±258: l. 4.
16
16Cf. the Translatio Athanasii episcopi [primi], MGH SRL, pp. 449±452, especially
p. 451: ll. 24±38. See N. Cilento, `La storiogra®a nell'Italia meridionale', in La storiogra®a
altomedievale, Settimane di studio 17, 2 vols. (Spoleto, 1970), II, pp. 521±56, at p. 545.
17
Annales Lobienses ad an. 961, in MGH, SS 13 (Hanover, 1881), pp. 234: ll. 26±9: Dominus noster
Otto, aequivocus patris, consors paterni regni asciscitur, et septiforma gratia Spiritus sancti
donatur in palatio Aquensi, septem hebdomatibus a pascha transactis, die pentecosten et hora qua
Spiritus sanctus super discipulos venit 7. Kalend. Iun., luna 7, anno aetatis suae 7 [26 May 961].
The general tone of these Annals is highly pro monarchic, see ad an. 924, MGH, SS 13,
p. 233: ll. 28±9, where Charles the Simple is made a merkwuÈrdiger Martyr, or ad an. 901,
MGH SS 13, p. 233: ll. 6±9, where Zwentibold's death, even if owed to his dissolute habits, is
miraculously avenged. Remark as well from 969 to 982 the yearly mention of where the king
celebrates Christmas and Easter. See H. Seibert, `Lobbes', Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich±
Zurich, 1991), V, cols. 2061±2, and Wilhelm Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen,
vol. 1 (Berlin, 1893), p. 381.
18
The Continuatio Reginonis ad an. 961, ed. F. Kurze, MGH, SRG, 50 (Hanover, 1890), p. 70,
places the occasion close to the anointing of Adalbert (the author?), a monk of St Maximin, to
be missionary bishop to the Rugi ± but this is weak evidence. For the Ottonians and `mission',
see H. Beumann and H. Buttner's twinned essays, re-edited in Beumann and BuÈttner, Das
Kaisertum Ottos des Grossen. Zwei VortraÈge (VortraÈge und Forschungen Sonderband 1,
Sigmaringen 1963).

entered St Stephens of Capua to pray. When he reached the words

`Spiritus principalis con®rma me', all of a sudden he felt his sword
vibrate. As the wisest of his companions explained, it was the Holy
Spirit's in¯uence, and a prophecy that `You shall not depart from this
life (...) before the Lord leads you to the of®ce of prince'. And indeed
after Duke Liutprand's death all unanimously acclaimed him; àll,
gathered in one (even though not by their own agency but by that of He
Who said, ``Where two or three gather, I shall be at their center''
[Matthew XVIII.20]), raised him up to be their prince'.19
The early-ninth-century Chronicle of Moissac gives a third example
of the purposeful insistence on the presence of a mysterium in ritual.20
The Chronicle of Moissac paralleled, on the one hand, for the year 813,
Charlemagne's coronation of his son Louis, and for the year 817, Louis'
coronation of his own eldest son Lothar, with, on the other hand, the
royal accession rituals of the Ancient Law of the Old Testament, in an
effort to underline what this self-same source, for 817, calls the mysterium
consilii of the king.21 Speci®cally, the text makes the ritual into an image
of Solomon's accession: the people shout Vivat rex and rejoice;
Charlemagne (and Louis) thanks the Lord in David's words, saying,
`Blessed be you, o Lord God, who gave me today to see with my own
eyes someone sitting on my throne.' The father teaches the son to obey
the Law and transmits to him the law of the kingdom ± a collage of the
prescriptions in Deuteronomy and of the narratives of the accessions of
Saul, Solomon, and Joas in Kings and Chronicles. But the Moissac
Chronicle exempli®es as well the strategy of de-emphasizing a ritual's
charge in meaning. The dense clustering of vertical referents for these
two coronations contrasts with the same chronicle's account of the
meeting between Louis and Pope Stephen in 816 in Reims:
In these days the apostolic lord Leo, pope of the city of Rome,
departed from this world. Lord Stephen succeeded him in the
ponti®cate, and this very year this apostolic Stephen came to the lord
emperor Louis in Francia. He found him in the city of Reims and
19
Chronicon Salernitanum 19, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS 3 (Hanover, 1839), pp. 481±2, or ed.
U. Westerbergh, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia 3 (Stockholm-Lund, 1956), pp. 23±4: `Cunctis
uno agmine coactis, licet non a se set ab illo qui dixit, Ubi duo vel tres congregati fuerint, ibi
sum in medio illorum, illum principem sublimarunt '. I translate in medio as it was understood
in exegesis; see P. Buc, L'ambiguõÈteÂ du Livre: Prince, pouvoir, et peuple dans les commentaires de
la Bible au Moyen Age, TheÂologie historique 95 (Paris, 1994), pp. 335±8.
20
I discuss this text as well in `Political Rituals and Political Imagination'.
21
Chronicle of Moissac ad an. 813 and 817, ed. G. Pertz (based on two rather different
manuscripts), MGH, SS 1 (Hanover, 1826), pp. 280±313, at pp. 310±12, which probably does
not postdate by much 818. The Solomonic parallels were already noticed by B. de Simson,
JahrbuÈcher des fraÈnkischen Reichs unter LuÈdwig dem Frommen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1874±6),
I, pp. 3±5. See the appendix for the exact text of the Moissac chronicle unencumbered by
corrections taken from the Aniane version.

190 Philippe Buc
brought him a gold crown. The emperor received him with great
honor. Stephen blessed the emperor and put on his head the gold
crown he had brought. The lord emperor gave him in return many
presents, and thus he returned to Rome and his see.22
Here, there is no biblical referent and no marked ritualization of the

event. In the 817 narrative, Louis will order a three-day fast and litanies
before electing and crowning his son. For 816, the Chronicle hints at
liturgical aspects only ¯eetingly, with the word `benedixit'. Stephen's
visit looks like the journey of a new faithful to his lawful lord with a
costly present, given in sign of recognition of his authority. But all
narratives of the event, and especially ones written in the 830s, did not
deny a liturgical charge to 816. MarieÈlle Hageman has recently compared
with one another three divergent accounts of this same event in Louis
the Pious' three biographies (Ermold Nigellus, Thegan, the Astronomer),
written at a progressively greater distance from 816. She argues convin-
cingly that as the emperor's power weakened, the narratives came to
insist more and more on the pope's presence. Louis' humility before
Stephen became for his partisans a mark of his election. It also signalled
papal approval in an era when popes had begun to intervene in the
Carolingian civil wars.23 Were we to try to know what actually happened
in 816, the authenticity and dating of two diplomata, preserved only in
the usually reliable tenth-century historian Flodoard of Reims, would be
critical. In the one, Louis praises the church of Reims ìn which we
received the imperial insignia through the laying-on-hands of Lord
Stephen, highest Roman pontiff '. In the other, the Carolingian mentions
Clovis' anointing in the same basilica, where `we ourselves deserved,
thanks to God's benignity, to be crowned and obtain the imperial of®ce
and power by the hand of Lord Stephen, highest Roman pontiff'.24
22
Chronicle of Moissac ad an. 816 (edited in the appendix).
23
M. Hageman, `Louis the Pious Meets the Pope. Different Sources, Different Rituals', Text
and Identities Conference I (Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, Wassenaar,
12 October, 1997).
24
See Flodoard, Historia remensis Ecclesiae 2.19, ed. M. Stratmann, MGH, SS 36 (Hanover,
1998), p. 181: ll. 11±12, p. 180: ll. 6±7. The whole chapter is framed around Reims' eternal
privilege regem vel imperatorem constituendi; it begins with a description of a public
iconographic rendition of 816: `Huius ecclesie pinnaculum talem videtur praemonstrare
titulum, personis etiam vel imaginibus Stephani papae, ac Ludovici imperatoris insignitum:
Ludovicus Caesar factus coronante Stephano / Hac in sede papa magno ...' (p. 467: ll. 22±5).
M. Sot, Un historien et son Âeglise. Flodoard de Reims (Paris, 1993), does not discuss the issue of
potential forgeries. J.F. BoÈhmer and E. MuÈhlbacher, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs ... 751±918
(2nd edn., Innsbruck, 1899), # 835±6 and 801, consider the one interpolated, the other they
date to 828 owing to the existence of a forgery that seems to have employed it. But see
M. Stratmann, `Die KoÈnigs- und Privaturkunden fuÈr die Reimser Kirche bis gegen 900',
Deutsches Archiv 52:1 (1996), pp. 1±55, at p. 16, and P. Depreux, `Zur Echtheit einer Urkunde
Kaiser Ludwigs des Frommen fuÈr die Reimser Kirche (BM2 801)', Deutsches Archiv 48:1 (1992),
pp. 1±16.

If these diplomata are authentic, they may indicate that Louis agreed to
publicize the version that necessity had forced his partisans to weave. Yet
one does not have to know what actually happened to extract political
information from our Chronicle of Moissac. The text was composed well
before the Field of Lies or even Attigny ± the inception of troubles for
the emperor. Its author seems to have wanted to highlight a non-Roman
conception of empire and downplay the papal role in Frankish politics.
This hypothesis finds confirmation in the Chronicle's account of the
754 meeting between Stephen II and Pippin at Ponthion. The Liber
Pontificalis puts most demonstrations of abeisance (especially prostra-
tions but also honorific reception within the ceremony of the adventus)
on the Frankish side; the Moissac narrative on the papal side.25 The
different degrees to which the liturgy was emphasized or even simply
made present in 816 and 813/17 respectively point to a continuing
struggle, in 818-19, over the nature of the imperial office.
The examples just discussed show how, when authors considered that
a king (or kingship) belonged to the ecclesia, they insisted on rituals'
providential meaning; when they wanted to keep a king (or kingship)
within the mundus, they removed all reference to sacred meaning or
sacred history.26 They employed the same technique to give (or deny)
meaning and authority to an event, such as 813/17 (or 816). In exegetical
terms, authors either connected rituals to a spirit or mysterium, or kept
them to the realm of pure ¯esh, carnality without spirit. One sees this
very clearly in Liudprand's Antapodosis, a tenth-century text that
combines a strategy of denial of mysterium (for enemies) and strategy of
emphasis on mysterium (for patrons).27 Here, rituals centering on Otto
the Great's rivals for the Italian crown lose all sacrality and become
instead ideological shams; on the other hand, Ottonian rituals are
systematically tied to a mysterium through references to the Scriptures.
Many of the preceding examples have concerned coronations. In the
Antapodosis, the Saxon dynasty's accessions are liturgi®ed; those of their
rivals rejected in the realm of violence, naked power, or manipulation.28
25
Chronicle of Moissac ad an. 754, ed. G. Pertz, MGH, SS 1 (Hanover, 1826), pp. 292: ll. 43±293:
l. 9. See T.F.-X. Noble, The Republic of Saint Peter. The Birth of the Papal State, 680±825
(Philadelphia, 1984), p. 80, who notes the contrast with the Liber Ponti®calis, ed.
L. Duchesne, 3 vols. (re-ed. Paris, 1955), I, p. 447: ll. 10±15. Admittedly this information
comes from the Chronicle of Aniane, a text closely related to the Chronicle of Moissac. The
Moissac manuscript lost the folios covering the years 717±77.
26
On ecclesia and mundus, see the key study by G.B. Ladner, `The Concepts of Ecclesia and
Christianitas and their Relation to the Idea of Papal plenitudo potestatis from Gregory VII to
Boniface VIII', Miscellanea historiae Ponti®ciae 18 (1954), pp. 49±77.
27
For this and the following, see P. Buc, `Writing Ottonian Hegemony: Good Rituals and Bad
Rituals in Liutprand of Cremona', Maiestas 4 (1996), pp. 3±38.
28
See as well G. Gandino, Il vocabolario politico e sociale di Liutprando di Cremona (Rome,
1995), pp. 72±6.

192 Philippe Buc
Liudprand himself made clear the relationship between providential

event, liturgi®cation and mysterium. The central chapter, which recounts
the battle of Birten in 939, hinges around a liturgi®ed prayer by Otto for
his warriors' victory ± like Moses against Amalech. This ritual is itself
linked in Liudprand's narrative to a lengthy reference to the Scriptures,
the story of St Thomas touching Christ, the Spirit made Flesh. The
pericope had been linked by the Apostle Paul to a contrast between the
Ancient Law and the New Law, between letter and spirit, between truth
written darkly on stone and truth written on ¯esh. The Pauline exegesis
could miniaturize itself in stone, as shown by an ivory plate now in
Trier, and produced in the last decade of the Ottonian century.29 In the
case of Liudprand, the pericope pointed out explicitly that something
was to be sought under the letter of his text. Interestingly, Hincmar of
Reims had invoked the ®gure of Thomas to justify the trial by ordeal.30
Birten was such a trial, but by battle. Just as in touching the visible ¯esh
Thomas had been able to see the invisible divinity in Christ, the ordeal
made visible in this carnal world God's eternal justice, the normally
invisible justice that would manifest itself fully at the Last Judgement.
But one social actor or author's interpretation of a ritual was always
open to contention. It is in fact because rituals, by themselves, are not
univocal, that interpretation was critical. One may have known what, for
example, coronations are supposed to effect in general, but disagreed
about a speci®c performance's shape and meaning.31 Nor should we be
latter-day functionalists. A ritual's performance in and of itself did not
shape political society one way or another; the way in which the
performance was `read' did or might. Here we come to the third point ±
the issue of struggles over interpretations. A lengthy episode in the
eleventh-century Casus Sancti Galli suggests their existence. It depicts
two sets of characters, the parties to a tenth-century political dispute,
who posture within a ritual in order to in¯uence the manner in which it
will be read by its immediate and secondly, mediated, audience (the
people who will hear or read reports of the event). The story is essentially
a ®ction, yet read, for heuristic purposes, às if it had happened', it
29
See the catalogue Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen, 2 vols. (Hildesheim,
1993), # IV±35, II, pp. 191±3; see Paul, II Cor. III.3±8.
30
Hincmar of Reims, De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, ed. L. BoÈhringer, MGH
Concilia 4, suppl. 1 (Berlin, 1992), p. 159: ll. 20±8, excerpted in idem, Letter 25 to Hildegar of
Meaux, PL 126, cols. 161c±71d, drawing on Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia 2.6.9,
PL 76, col. 1202a. I see however no direct connection between Hincmar and Liudprand, and
as far as I can count, all the formulas for the ordeal collected in K. Zeumer, Formulae
merowingici et karolini aevi, MGH, Leges 5 (Hanover, 1886), invoke Thomas only once.
31
One should distinguish as well between `new' rituals, as the royal anointing in 751±4 or the
imperial coronation in 800±17, and rituals once routinized.

conveys that a struggle over meaning could be imagined and how such a
struggle might be fought out. The tentative conclusions of this naive
reading are confirmed by other evidence; as we shall see later, one can
find texts which depict a single historical solemnity but disagree over its
interpretation.
Ekkehard IV of St Gall's imaginative narrative may have been based
on actual fact. In an entry redacted between 912 and 918, the Annales
Alamannici report polemically an event, which other annalistic sources
also mention, but often more neutrally. Anno domini 916: Èrchanger,
Berthold and Liutfrid are killed by treachery' (Erchanger, Peratholt et
Liutfrid occiduntur dolose).32 Two brothers, Counts Erchampert and
Berthold, in charge of the royal ®sc in Swabia, had come into con¯ict
with King Conrad I and his Chancellor Salomo III, Bishop of Constance
and Abbot of St Gall.33 They were backed by their nephew Liutfrid. One
mid-eleventh-century Reichenau source develops the treachery so lacon-
ically mentioned in the Annales Alamannici.34 Hoping to achieve a
reconciliation, the counts agreed to undergo a ritual of surrender
(deditio), but were beheaded at the king's orders.35
For Gerd Althoff and Timothy Reuter, this story is an exception that
tellingly reveals the rigid `rules' of the ritual of surrender.36 We owe to
32
Annales Alamanici ad an. 916, MGH, SS 1, p. 56, or ed. W. Lendi, Untersuchungen zur
fruÈhalemannischen Annalistik (Freiburg, 1971), p. 190 (see also ad. ann. 913±14, noting a
discordia between King Conrad and Erchanger, Salomo's capture by Erchanger, and the king's
capture of Erchanger who is then exiled). The Annales Alamannici were produced in or
around St Gall (see W. Wattenbach, R. Holtzmann and F.J.Schmale, Deutschlands
Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Die Zeit der Sachsen und Salier 1.1 (Darmstadt, 1967),
pp. 226±7, and Lendi, Untersuchungen, for the date of the scribal strata).
33
All the sources are gathered by U. Zeller, Bischof Salomo III von Konstanz, Abt von St. Gallen
(Leipzig, 1910), p. 93, n. 3 (whose speculations about the actual guilty party we don't need to
follow). To wit, Annales Alamannici ad an. 916 (as in the preceding note); Annals of Reichenau
ad an. 917, MGH, SS 1, p. 68, Erchanger et Perahtolt decollati sunt; Annals of St Gall ad an.
916, MGH, SS 1, p. 77, Erchanger et frater eius Perehtold et Liutfrid capti et occisi sunt. On this,
see T. Reuter, Ùnruhestiftung, Fehde, Rebellion, Widerstand: Gewalt und Frieden in der
Politik der Salierzeit', in S. Weinfurter et al., Die Salier und das Reich, 3 vols. (Sigmaringen,
1991), III, pp. 297±325, at pp. 320±1.
34
The Annales Sangallenses maiores ad an. 925 (of one hand until 956), MGH, SS 1, p. 78, also
laconically attribute to dolus the death of Duke Burchard of Swabia in Italy: Burchardus dux
in Italia dolo occiditur. In Liudprand of Cremona's no doubt much romanced narrative, it
consisted as well in a manipulation of rituals, this time of friendship, and this by an
archbishop. See Antapodosis 3.14±15, ed. P. Chiesa, Liudprandi Cremonensis Opera Omnia,
CCCM 156 (Turnhout, 1998), p. 74, with Buc, `Writing Ottonian Hegemony', pp. 12±13.
35
Hermann Contractus (Reichenau, c. 1049±54) ad an. 917, MGH, SS 5 (Hanover, 1844), p. 110,
Èrchanger, qui ducatum Alamanniae invaserat, cum fratre Bertholdo regi Counrado
rebellantes, eique tandem ad deditionem spe pactionis venientes, ipso iubente apud villam
Aldingam decollantur 12 Kal. Febr' [21 Jan. 917].
36
See Reuter, Ùnruhestiftung', p. 321 (an exception that highlights the rule), and G. Althoff,
Spielregeln [der Politik. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde] (Darmstadt, 1997), pp. 16±17
(a case representing practices that antedate the Ottonian rules for deditio).

194 Philippe Buc
these two historians, and to Janet Nelson, Geoffrey Koziol, Hagen Keller
and Karl Leyser,37 a wonderful mapping of rituals in early medieval
political culture, but their notion of Spielregeln is problematic. There are
just too many manipulated, failed, or broken rituals in the sources to
categorize them as revealing exceptions to a rule. Any rule has to
encompass, and account for, phenomena which were this frequent (and
therefore non-exceptional). If one is willing to employ medieval
narratives of rituals as trustworthy summaries of what actually
happened, as Althoff does, it is tempting to call on Bourdieu's `logic
of practice' or `praxeology' to explicate frequent deviations from (what
seem to be) norms, as Stephen D. White has in his analysis of the ordeal.
The `rules of the game' then can be understood as one among several
strategic resources that social agents call upon and manipulate to reach
their ends.38 But this approach ultimately leads to another, very different
stumbling block. Simply put, one cannot apply a praxeological approach
to a medieval narrative. For Bourdieu, texts systematically obfuscate the
practices they claim to depict, as well as their micro-local context.
Praxeological analysis, while taking into account the social agents'
subjective renditions of reality as an integral component of `the logic of
practice' (and indeed as a practice itself ), necessitates direct ethnological
observation that can uncover the unspoken and often unconsciously
dissimulated reasons why they act as they do.39
Yet let us accept, provisionally and for a heuristic purpose, the false
premise that an early medieval narrative is not too different from an
ethnographer's log. It will still lead to conclusions that complicate
Althoff's model. Even read as `what actually happened', the Casus Sancti
Galli version of the 916 events suggests that there was constant conten-
tion over the meaning of a given ritual, with two consequences. Firstly,
there must have been enormous tension when a ritual was performed,
and the constant fear that the opposing party would not play by `the
rules'. Secondly, contention over meaning expressed itself both when
acting out the ceremony and later on when recounting it. Althoff rightly
underlines that when some participants disagreed too much with the
37
See most recently Althoff, Spielregeln; T. Reuter, Òttonian Ruler Representation in
Synchronic and Diachronic Comparison', in G. Althoff and E. Schubert (eds.),
HerrschaftsrepraÈsentation im ottonischen Sachsen, VortraÈge und Forschungen 46 (Sigmaringen,
1998), pp. 366±80; H. Keller, `Die Investitur'; G. Koziol, Èngland, France, and the Problem
of Sacrality in Twelfth-Century Ritual', in T.N. Bisson (ed.), Cultures of Power: Lordship,
Status and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 124±48; J.L. Nelson,
Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986); K.J. Leyser, `Ritual, Ceremony
and Gesture: Ottonian Germany', ed. and trans. T. Reuter in Leyser, Communications and
Power in Medieval Europe, 2 vols. (London, 1994), I, pp. 189±213.
38
S.D. White, `Proposing the Ordeal and Avoiding It: Strategy and Power in Western French
Litigation, 1050±1110', in T.N. Bisson (ed.), Cultures of Power (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 89±123.
39
See P. Bourdieu, Le sens pratique (Paris, 1980), pp. 34±5, 135±42 and 162±3.

meaning that seemed to be imposing itself univocally in the performance

of a ritual, an obvious solution was either to withdraw or break the
ritual.40 But the fact, that rituals could be reinterpreted also needs to
be taken into account: indeed, interpretation could alter the social effects
of a ritual. A ritual could be performed with an eye to potential
reinterpretation. The unwritten `rules of the game', then, must be con-
ceptualized in a way that takes into account the pressure to create
polysemy that such foresight entailed.
Ekkehard's Casus Sancti Galli is much more favourable to Salomo
than are the Annales Alamannici. The latter text actually hints that a few
other Swabian nobles of the greatest rank owed their death to Salomo's
politicking.41 In Ekkehard's rendition of the events, however, the counts'
death constitutes the endpoint of a lengthy narrative segment. It
recounts long-standing con¯icts and rituals involving Salomo and the
three noble relatives. A ®rst brush had led King Arnulf to condemn the
two brothers for maiestas , but Salomo mercifully intervened in secret,
and convinced the monarch to reinstate them in their of®ces. Still, they
had to prostrate themselves in public at the bishop's feet ± an act that
left them humiliated. After this, the bishop invited the counts ad
convivia et munera, for banquets and gifts, a festive get-together that
turned bad. Somewhat later, Salomo duped them into taking their hats
off before unfree shepherds belonging to St Gall. Then the relatives
countered by capturing the abbot-bishop and forcing him to lick
swinesherds' feet. It is the second episode, the banquet and the attendent
gift-giving, that I want to focus on here. Salomo had intended a
reconciliation, so he honoured his guests Berthold and Erchempert with
costly foods served in the most wondrous of precious dishes. But then
the Abbot-Bishop got carried away and began to boast, ®rst that he had
in St Gall an oven large enough to bake in one go enough bread to feed
the two men for a year, and ®nally that he had shepherds so worthy that
the counts would take their hats off to them. Erchempert and Berthold
had borne patiently all of Salomo's boasts to this point, but now had to
protest themselves. It was time for them to leave. Salomo then brought
in and proferred the gifts ± two glass vases that the counts had greatly
admired during the banquet. Simultaneously, to demonstrate scorn for
their irritating host, the two men dropped the vases, which broke into
shards. Salomo chided them: `They were yours to do what you wanted',
40
Althoff, Spielregeln, pp. 291±2 and passim; as already noticed by A. Borst, Lebensformen im
Mittelalter (Frankfurt, 1973), p. 486: `Jeder meint was er tut [in rituals], und wer es nicht tun
will, bleibt fern'.
41
Under the year 911, they note that the comes et princeps Alamannorum Burchard was executed
iniusto iudicio, and that his brother Adalbert nutu episcopi Salomonis et quorundam aliorum
interemptus. They do not however attribute directly Erchempert's death to Salomo.

196 Philippe Buc
he said, `but you should have sold them and given the product to the
poor for your soul's salvation'. Erchempert and Berthold retorted with a
proverb: Òne gives gifts of glass to friends made of glass. Since we are
not men of glass, we could not accept them'.
What happened here? The Casus presents what we may want to call
an aggressive ritual, capped with a gift. The two counts sought to
demonstrate disagreement by breaking the offerings. Salomo then
changed the cultural register with a reference to the vertical, providential
axis of salvation, and tried to impose his interpretation of the ritual and
therefore win. The two counts countered with another change of register
and another interpretation.
The Casus Sancti Galli is not an ethnographer's log. The actual events
remain clouded in the distance separating Ekkehard's days, in the late
eleventh century, from the second decade of the tenth century, clouded
as well in the distance separating St Gall's understanding of its dif®cult,
but ultimately accepted, abbot, from the Annales Alamannici's negative
portrait of the same man. In fact, the incident's own meaning for
Ekkehard is to be sought by mapping the full episode. It pairs this
disrupted ritual with a good ritual, also a banquet, which projects an
image of harmony between the highest aristocrat ± the king ± and the
monastic community. Here as often the role of ritual in the economy of
the text is to dramatize (literally) bad and good relationships, placed in
the past but exemplary for the eleventh-century interaction between the
monastery of St Gall and its lay aristocratic neighbours.42
Yet the narrower incident itself demonstrates the cultural possibility,
at least in the eleventh century when Ekkehard wrote, of a struggle over
a ritual's meaning. At the very least, Ekkehard imagines such a con¯ict
over interpretation. However, such struggles do not belong merely to
the realm of the imaginary, as a ninth-century case shows. Here, an
42
The rituals have their function, a narrative function, to underline the age-old bond between
the kings and the monastery and hallow the latter's property and judicial rights. Conrad visits
St Gall, is greeted with new laudes, con®rms the monastery's immunity, showers it with gifts,
acknowledges his ancestors' guilt (and those of eleventh-century Welfs) in persecuting
St Otmar, establishes a commemorative meal for himself, and obtains to be made frater
conscriptus (on which see K. Schmid, `Von den fratres conscripti in Ekkeharts St. Gallen
Klostergeschichte', FruÈhmittelalterliche Studien 25 [1991], pp. 109±22). The contrast between
the counts and the king revolves around contrasting banquets, the one just described marked
by competition, the king's marked by gentle joking and brotherhood. Cf. Casus c. 14, ed.
H.F. Haefele (Darmstadt, 1980), p. 42: Rediit igitur ad suos, Salomoni et omnibus nunquam se
laetius convivatum gloriatus, and c. 16, p. 44, where the joyful feast is characterized as `love ...
lawfully spurning [monastic] discipline'. The two stories are made to be contrasted: they
intertwine since Conrad meets the two counts, disgruntled at Salomo's latest joke, during his
visit, and since the king's gift to the monastery of ®scal goods heretofore under the counts'
management triggers a renewal of hostilities between them and Salomo. Cf. G. Althoff,
Verwandte, Freunde und Getreue (Darmstadt, 1990), p. 207.

attempted humiliation of the saints, aiming at mustering public

opinion, was painted in dark colors by the opposite party. It is
documented in the Annals of Fulda's account of the struggles over the
imperial crown opened up by Charles the Bald's death:43
Lambert son of Wido [margrave of Spoleto] and Adalbert son of

Boniface [margrave of Tuscany his brother-in-law] entered Rome
with a strong band of armed men. They put John, the Roman pontiff,
under guard, and forced the leaders of the Romans to swear an oath
of ®delity to Karlmann. Once they had left Rome, the pontiff entered
St Peter's church and transported all the treasures he found there to
the Lateran. He covered the altar of St Peter with a hair-shirt and
closed all this same church's doors. And no service pertaining to
God's cult was celebrated there for several days, and, dreadful to say,
entry was denied to all those who came from everywhere in order to
pray there. And everything was turned upside down there.44
John's own letter-collection con®rms ± up to a point ± the Fulda

Annalist's report. Early in 878, he had written to `his beloved son count
Lambert' to announce that he would in no way receive in Rome his
`manifest enemy' Adalbert. In the same letter, the pope had warned
Lambert that he would gladly grant him an occursus (honori®ce recipere)
as long as the margrave did not come to Rome with the intention of
restoring the enemies of the pope (who were accused of in®delitas) to
their positions and possessions.45 By Spring 878, several papal letters
indicate that the `beloved son' had con®rmed his spiritual father's worst
fears. John had received with suitable pomp (honori®ce) Lambert in
St Peter, but the margrave had treacherously seized the gates of Rome
and prevented the movement of food and people. He and the pope's
manifestus in omnibus inimicus Adalbert then `troubled and evilly
dispersed by beating them with sticks' monks and clergy who were going
to the basilica singing `hymns, spiritual canticles, and the holy litanies'.
These evil men would not let them sacri®ce to God in St Peter. The
pope's sole recourse was to demonstrate his grief and to weep, `for
during these days neither was there any cloth (vestis) covering St Peter's
altar nor was any day or night of®ce solemnly (ex more) celebrated there'.
43
This paragraph duplicates a segment in ch. 2 of my Dangers of Ritual, at nn. 91±5.
44
Annales Fuldenses ad an. 878, ed. F. Kurze, MGH, SRG 7 (Hanover, 1891), pp. 91±2,
translation mine ± see as well T. Reuter's, The Annals of Fulda (Manchester, 1992), p. 84.
Cf. the master narrative in E. DuÈmmler, Geschichte des OstfraÈnkischen Reiches, 3 vols. (Leipzig,
1887±8), III, pp. 72f.
45
Ep. 83, ed. E. Caspar in P. Kehr, MGH Epistolae Karolingici Aevi 5 (Berlin, 1928), p. 79,
ll. 2±4, 7±10 and 16±18.

198 Philippe Buc
John leaves unclear whether the stripping of the altar and the cessation
of offices directly resulted from the marquesses' blockade or (as in the
Annals of Fulda ) were elements in a liturgical protest.46 By May 878, he
may even have decided that it was better to claim that the cessation of
offices was owed to the evil marquesses' blockade rather than admit the
failure of his clamor: `(...) They did not fear to surround in arms (...)
blessed Peter's church (...) for thirty days, with the result that no one was
allowed to light any lamp or give praise to God'.47
Note here the importance of written propaganda in the struggle
against Adalbert and Lambert. Litanies would reach God, Who would
react according to His hidden purposes. But given Rome's excentric
geographical position vis-aÁ-vis the human audience that mattered
(Carolingian princes situated North of the Alp) the pope could not rely
on the performance of liturgy alone to in¯uence key players on this
earth. Some of the letters John wrote to inform princes and prelates of
the marquesses' behaviour mention ànother little work directed to the
attention of all Christians' that recounted in full the misdeeds.48
Further, the pope informed the 878 Synod of Troyes that Lambert and
Adalbert's excommunication was written on the walls of St Peter `so that
those who come in and out may read it and grieve, and consider them
under sentence of anathema'. The text presumably detailed the
sanction's causes, including lack of respect for the litanies and the
liturgy of protest. Clearly, John hoped to inform visitors, gain their
backing, and pro®t from their spreading the news.49
John's ritual, and the propaganda work that went along with it, may
have failed even in the West Frankish kingdom, where at the time the
46
Cf. Epp. 73±4, 87±8, 96 and 107, esp. Ep. 73, pp. 67±9, at p. 68: ll. 15±22: `... venerabiles item
episcopos, presbyteros atque diaconos et religiosos monachos cum ymnis et canticis
spiritalibus sacrisque letaniis ad ecclesiam principis apostolorum venientes, heu pro dolor!
more paganorum conturbaverunt et fustibus cedentes nequiter disperserunt, non sinentes illos
exire debitumque deo sacri®cium offerre'. Further, pp. 68: ll. 30±69: ll. 1: `... ut nequaquam
nobis aliud agere nisi ¯ere liceret; nam ipsis diebus nec vestis fuit super altare sancti Petri nec
aliquod ibi nocturnum vel diurnum of®cium ex more celebratum'. Ep. 74, p. 70: ll. 13±17
reports the same misdeeds and complains that Lambert's blockade resulted in the pope's loss
of urbis Romae potestatem. Like the Annales Fuldenses, John's Ep. 87, pp. 82:39±83:1, to Louis
the Stammerer, mentions forced oaths.
47
Ep. 107, p. 99: ll. 30±3: `... beati Petri... ecclesiam ... armis triginta diebus circumdatam tenere
non formidaverint, ita ut nec ibi aliquam alicui lucernam illuminare nec laudes deo conferre
liceret...'
48
Ep. 87 (to Louis the Stammerer), ed. Caspar, p. 83: ll. 4±7; cf. Ep. 89, p. 85: ll. 23±9.
49
Mansi, vol. 17, col. 348ab: `Quodque decretum in praedicta beati Petri ecclesia scriptum, ut
ingredientes et exeuntes legant et doleant, eosque [Lambert, Adalbert, and their followers]
anathematizatos teneant, posuimus.' On this practice, see, e.g., A. Grabar, L'iconoclasme
byzantin (Paris, 1957), pp. 55±8. For pilgrims as agents in the publicization of a clamor, see
P.J. Geary, `Humiliation of Saints' (1983), repr. in his Living with the Dead in Medieval Europe
(Ithaca, NY, 1994), p. 106.

pope had his friendliest contacts. None of the West Frankish sources
mention this clamor.50 It certainly failed in the East, where Lambert's
allies were. The Annals of Fulda interpreted the pope's stripping of
St Peter's altars as a bad, manipulative ritual. Under a closer reading, the
functionalist model of ritual clamores or humiliations dissolves to reveal
a plurality of strategic moves and re-interpretations.51 Contemporaries
did not deceive themselves. It was understood that liturgical clamores
and humiliations could be instrumentalized for nakedly competitive
urges ± as the Visigothic episcopate already knew when it attempted to
legislate and monopolize them.52
Interpretation was critical for any ritual. It would remain so beyond
the period under study here. In the early modern era, concerns that a
ceremony would be misinterpreted could be voiced, and measures one
hoped to be appropriate, taken.53 Indeed, faster diffusion of writing
owing both to the newer medium of the printing press, and to dense
50
Annals of St Vaast ad an. 878, ed. B. de Simson, Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, MGH,
SRG 12 (Hanover, 1909), p. 43: ll. 1±3: Iohannes papa ab Lamberto duce Spolitanorum iniuriatus
Franciam venit; Hincmar, Annals of St Bertin ad an 878, ed. F. Grat et al. (Paris, 1967),
pp. 222±7, gives in detail the proceedings of the Synod of Troyes which, led by the pope,
con®rmed his excommunication of Lambert and Adalbert (pp. 223±4), but neither his
narrative nor the acts mention the liturgical clamor.
51
I am of course thinking of Patrick Geary's early articles, now re-edited in his Living with
the Dead, a scholar to whom my generation of historians should be grateful for having
brought such phenomena to light, and proposed a model with which later scholars could
build or debate, in the wake of Heinrich Fichtenau's pioneering `Zum Reliquienwesen im
fruÈheren Mittelalter', Mitteilungen des Instituts fuÈr O È sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 60 (1952),
pp. 60±89.
52
Toledo XIII (683), c. 7, ed. J. Vives, Concilios visigoÂticos e hispano-romanos (Barcelona, 1963),
pp. 423±4, condemning to deposition and enslavement `those men who, troubled by their
obstinate mind's deceitfulness, when they feel damaged by some quarrel with their brethrens,
are immediatly seized by an insane temerity, strip the altars, take off the sacred vestments, take
away the luminaries, and impelled by their evil-mindedness withdraw the cult of divine
sacri®ces. Thus, unable to avenge themselves on human beings, they [instead] impinge against
God's rights, which is worse (...)'. The council also condemns those clerics who would `cover
the sacred altar with any other vestment of lugubrious nature'. Compare Carolingian
legislation trying to forbid a strategic, extra-judicial usage of the ordeal, as noticed by
H. Nottarp, Gottesurteilstudien, Bamberger Abhandlungen und Forschungen (Munich, 1956),
p. 110. Charlemagne in a capitulare missorum of 803, c. 11, forbade ut nullus praesumat
hominem in iuditio mittere nisi iudicatum ®at (MGH Capitularia Regum Francorium, eds.
A. Boretius and V. Krause I, p. 115); cf. already the Novella legis Salica 2, c. 4: `Si quis alterum
ad calidam provocaverit preter evisionem dominicam, 600 dinarios qui faciunt solidos 15
culpabilis iudicetur'.
53
See the Recebiemento que la Imperial ciudad de Toledo hizo a ... dona Ysabel .... (Toledo, 1561),
f. 3. The author of this libretto recounting Isabelle of Valois' entry into Toledo (1560) explains
that he writes it to correct the false interpretations that have already been published about
them. Cited by C.A. Mardsen, ÈntreÂes et feÃtes espagnoles au XVIe sieÁcle', in J. Jacquot (ed.),
Les feÃtes de la Renaissance, vol. 2: FeÃtes et ceÂreÂmonies au temps de Charles Quint (Paris, 1960),
pp. 389±411, at p. 400. See as well Le double et copie d'unes lettres envoyees d'Orleans a ung abbeÂ
de Picardie contenant ... le triomphe faict audit lieu d'Orleans a l'entree et reception de L'empereur
(Paris, 21/01/1539 [modern 1540]), p. Aiiii (preserved in Paris, BibliotheÁque Nationale, ReÂserve
Lb30 83), cited by J. Jacquot, `Panorama des feÃtes et des ceÂreÂmonies du reÁgne. Evolution des

200 Philippe Buc
interpersonal networks still beholden to ink-and-quill, ensured that the

competition between versions of a single event, some libellous, some
official, was acute.54 But already in the early middle ages, the key
importance of interpretation meant that interested parties sought to
impose their reading on any ceremony, and present this reading as
uncontested ± especially by participants in the ritual, since the Spirit's
presence attested itself through unanimity, unity of spirit. And
contention existed. We find hostile renderings of rituals and their
implicit or explicit message in texts, as in the Annals of Fulda. We also
have texts that hint that disruptions of rituals could happen (as in the
Casus Sancti Galli ). Other sources suggest that the impresarios of rituals
sought to avoid either such disruptions or hostile interpretations that
contended that such disruptions had occurred. One last text allows
examination of this fourth and last strategy.
The memorandum drawn up in Reims for Philip I's 1059 anointing
and coronation is famous for being a rare intermediary form between a
liturgical coronation order and a narrative.55 It follows in broad outline
the prescriptions of an Ordo, but reports which bishops, abbots, and lay
aristocrats were present. It even purports to give a rendering of speeches
± the young king's oaths and Gervase of Reims' exhortations. The
memorandum's form is explained by its purpose. It was meant to
enshrine the archbishop of Reims' prerogative to direct the coronation
ceremony and crown the king, as well as the archiepiscopal see's terri-
torial and jurisdictional rights. It ends by noting that the event took
place without any disturbance or challenge (facta sunt hec omnia cum
omni devotione et alacritate quam maxima, sine omni disturbatione et
nullatenus alicuius contradictione vel aliquo rei publice dampno) ± without
any challenge to the king-making, which would have constituted eo ipso
a challenge to the archiepiscopal privileges which Gervase sought to
theÁmes et des styles', in ibid., pp. 413±91, at p. 435. The author explains why there were no
inscriptions on the triumphal arches and portals erected for Charles V's entry into OrleÂans:
Èt est a noter qu'il n'y avoit aulcunes devises, seulement y avoit Antiquailles. Car lesdictz
habitans qui toujours de sont conduitz par prudence, et bonne pollice, ne voulurent y mectre
alcunz escriptz, ne devises, pource que lung ou laultre des Princes, ou de leurs subiectz eussent
peu sur icelles gloser, ou deviner choses, ou lung, ou laultre des Princes neust prins plaisir.
Dont ilz misrent seulement Armoyries de lung, et de laultre desdictz Princes en unions. Qui
signifioit leur amitie simplement, dont ils scavoient sagement user et sans que leurs subiectz en
entrassent en disputes'.
54
See A. Bellany, `Libels in Action: Ritual, Subversion and the English Literary Underground,
1603±1642', in T. Harris (ed.) Politics of the Excluded (New York, forthcoming), as well as
B.S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge,
MA., 1999).
55
Ed. R.A. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae I: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of
Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 217±32.

enshrine in the 1059 ceremony.56 Not only did Gervase and his suffragans
want to make the ritual the medium of a very specific message, they also
wanted to impose the idea that this interpretation had been uncontested
during the ritual performance itself.
Some historians have underlined the iconicity of kingship. By this
they mean that a royal ritual made present an eternal order that in turn
legitimized the this-wordly order.57 This is indeed what rituals (and/or
authors describing them) could seek to attain. But Gervaise of Reims'
memorandum points to the fundamentally contentious nature of this
desire. When we ®nd, then, a text seamlessly structured by the
exemplary mirroring of the heavenly order by the this-worldly order
(which has been called an Urbild-Abbild dialectic),58 we are free to
suspect that it masks a struggle for authority. Conversely, narratives
depicting a disrupted ritual do not necessarily point to a dysfunctional
society. They are ®rst and foremost the product of an author's desire to
attack a precise facet of power arrangements. In other words, because of
the widespread medieval awareness that ritual found its ef®cacy in
interpretation, the medievalist should avoid positing too simple a
relationship between descriptions of ritual and the political order.*
Department of History, Stanford University
Appendix
Appendix: diplomatic transcription of Paris, BNF, Latin 4886, 52v±54v,
the so-called Chronicle of Moissac for the years AD 913±918.
For an authoritative discussion, see W. Levison and H. LoÈwe,
Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Vorzeit und Karolinger 2
(Weimar, 1953), pp. 265±6. G. H. Pertz edited the so-called Chronicle of
56
SteÂphane Lebecq reminds me that contradictio could mean a `legal challenge'. The af®nity
between ritual challenges and legal challenges is the obverse of that observed between
liturgical and legal sanctions, and a general consequence of the coinherence of religion and
law in the societies that emerged from the matrix of Roman culture; cf. J. Bowman, `Do Neo-
Romans Curse?', Viator 28 (1997), pp. 1±32, at pp. 6±7 and passim.
57
Keller, `Die Investitur'; Koziol, Begging. The notion of ìconicity' derives from C. Geertz,
Negara. The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. (Princeton, NJ, 1980), pp. 130, 131 and
136.
58
Cf. H. Hofmann, RepraÈsentation. Studien zur Wort- und Begriffsgeschichte von der Antike bis in
19. Jahrhundert, Schriften zur Verfassungsgeschichte 22 (Berlin, 1974).
* I presented versions of this text to audiences in MuÈnster, Wassenaar and Nice during 1997±8. My
thanks to them for suggestions and comments, and especially to Gerd Althoff, Arnold Angenendt, Rosa
Maria DessõÁ, Luc Ferrier, Igor Gorevich, Mayke de Jong, Hagen Keller, Michel Lauwers, Stephane
Lebecq, ReÂgine Le Jan, Kathryn A. Miller, Janet Nelson, Danuta Shanzer and Patricia, most of whom
disagree with me on this or that theory or textual interpretation. I thank as well the Netherlands Institute
for Advanced Studies, under whose generous auspices this article was conceived and written.

202 Philippe Buc
Moissac mixed with a closely related text, the twelfth-century Chronicle of

Aniane (Paris, BNF, Latin 5941, ffos. 2r±37r) in MGH, SS 1 (Hanover,
1826), pp. 280±313. He then retranscribed and corrected it for the years
AD 804±13 in MGH, SS 2, pp. 257±9. Patrick Geary edited in 1978 a
short fragment from yet a third related Parisian manuscript, and more
than a century ago LeÂopold Delisle underlined the genre to which this
text belongs ± continuations of Bede's Chronica.59
The Chronicle of Aniane was composed to serve the property and
libertas claims of the southern French monastery of Aniane. It did not shy
from interpolating into its Urtext diplomata in favour of the institution,
and insert a whole chunk of Einhard's Vita Karoli for the purpose of
claiming the emperor as a founder ± and making Aniane a key bene®ciary
of Charles' Testament. Most of BNF, Latin 5941's signi®cant variations
from BNF, Latin 4886 are dictated by a desire either to amplify the text or
(more often) to exalt Aniane and its other founders, the saintly Witiza-
Benedict and William of Orange.60 The Chronicle should be called,
according to its incipit, `Genealogia ortus sive Vita Karoli gloriosi atque
piissimi imperatoris.' Given the focus of my article, and the fear of
adducing evidence tainted by Aniane's twelfth-century agenda, I have
chosen maximum prudence. I resort to Paris, BNF, Latin 5941 only to
clarify, in the footnotes, Paris, BNF, 4886's Latin. Paris, BNF, 4886
seems closer to the (now lost) Carolingian original on many of grounds,
including its archaisms and its identity as a self-conscious continuation of
Bede's Chronica.
The so-called Chronicle of Moissac is preserved in only one manuscript,
from the eleventh century, Paris, BNF, Latin 4886. On its ®rst folio, a
®fteenth-century note indicates that the codex belonged to a monk of
Moissac, the prior of Rabastens (an institution not attested to before the
thirteenth century). This is not (as Geary and others have pointed out) a
ground to place the manuscript in Moissac before the 1400s or Rabastens
before the mid-thirteenth. Luc Ferrier kindly informs me that Americ
de Peyrat, abbot of Moissac (1377±1406), did not use this or any closely
related text for his Chronicle (Paris, BNF, Latin 4991A), but drew (along
with many other sources) on the Annales regni Francorum and Einhard.
Still, we shall keep the name `Chronicle of Moissac' for convenience's
sake. The dating of the manuscript to the eleventh century is generally
accepted on the basis of the list of popes on fo. 67v, that ends with
Alexander II (d. 1073).61 The computational considerations framing the
59
See as well P.J. Geary, Ùn fragment recemment deÂcouvert du Chronicon Moissiacense',
BibliotheÁque de l'Ecole des chartes 136 (1978), pp. 69±73, who called for a critical edition of the
Moissac Chronicle.
60
See A.G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past. Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval
Southern France (Ithaca, NY, 1995), pp. 74±5, 276ff. and 310.
61
As pointed out by J. Dufour, La bibliotheÁque et le scriptorium de Moissac (Geneva, 1972), p. 139.

whole chronicle (it continues Bede seemlessly and ends by returning to

Bede's discussion of the novissima) show that it cannot be a truncated
text, and that the ninth-century original was therefore redacted very
soon after 818, the last year whose events the text recounts.
Paris, BNF, Latin 4886 begins with Bede's Chronica, speci®cally with
the end of the preface (since the ®rst folio is missing), ed. PL 90, col. 296a,
or ed. T. Mommsen, MGH, AA 13 (Berlin, 1898), p. 247 (...insinues.
At ubi ordinate ac rationabiliter ... iura custodit), followed immediately
by `De sex huius seculi etatibus Bede Presbyter' (PL 90, col. 520c;
Mommsen, p. 247). The author or authors wove into Bede's text Frankish
informations, borrowed especially from the Liber historiae Francorum
(ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM 2, Hanover, 1888). One shall compare, e.g.,
BNF, Latin 4886, fos. 44v±45v with Bede (PL 90, cols. 569c±71b; or
Mommsen, pp. 317±20) and LHF 49±52 (Krusch, pp. 323±6). After Bede,
it followed other sources, repertoried in MGH, SS 1, p. 281. The events
the Moissac Chronicle recounts end in 918, at which point Bede's text
picks up again.62 The manuscript lost folios here and there: the ®rst
(which one should number 0 since the ®rst surviving folio is numbered 1),
then folios between 45v and 46r, then between 55v and 56r.
One will note on the last folio, 71v, the copy of consiliar decisions
against the Jews and lapsed converts from Judaism, which a modern
hand later identi®ed as Visigothic in origin. Luc Ferrier, who kindly
checked my transcription, generously brought to my attention that
many of the idiosyncrasies of the Moissac manuscript could be due to a
now lost original abbreviated in the Visigothic manner that the evidently
not highly literate Moissac scribe failed to understand when he re-
expanded them. The heavy reliance in Visigothic writing on consonants
explains the scribe's errors in vowels; radical Visigothic abbreviations
of endings (with tildes and bars above the letters) explain mistakes in
endings. This dovetails with Geary's belief in a Septimanian origin of
the archetype. The many archaic features of the Moissac manuscript
suggest great proximity to this original ± even if its abreviations seem to
have been misunderstood by the eleventh-century scribe.
It is dif®cult to determine the precise relationship of two witnesses,
particularly when the sample of variants available is limited. But the
following observations can be made about Moissac (M) and Aniane
(An). Ferrier noticed their almost identical punctuation: in the text
covering the years 813±18, An has all of M's signs but four. This might
62
For these citations from Bede, Dufour refers to A.-D. von den Brincken, Studien zur
lateinischen Weltchronistik bis in das Zeitalter Ottos von Freising (DuÈsseldorf, 1957), pp. 115±16.
Continuations of Bede in such a format are not rare; see L. Delisle, `Note sur un manuscrit
interpoleÂ de la Chronique de BeÁde conserveÂ aÁ BesancËon', BibliotheÁque de l'Ecole des chartes 56
(1895), pp. 528±36, and the manuscript as described in the Catalogue geÂneÂral des bibliotheÁques
publiques de France, DeÂpartements 32 (Paris, 1897), p. 128.

204 Philippe Buc
indicate that the two texts were copied from the same exemplar or that
one is derived from the other. An, however, does not seem to be simply
a corrected copy of M, even though An often has grammatically correct
readings against evident errors in M. There is an omission in M, sub
A.D. 815, starting at Clotarium: M has et constituit duos ®lios suos reges
Pipinum et Clotarium super Bagoaria against An's more complete et
constituit duos ®lios suos reges . Pipinum . et Clotarium . Pipinum super
Aquitaniam et Uuasconiam . Clotarium super Baioariam. This informa-
tion, missing in M but present in An, shows that An is not a pure apo-
graph. Although the interpolation is in conformity with the substance of
the Annales Regni Francorum ad an. 814, it is not identical to it (the
Annales Regni Francorum does not mention Gascony); hence An cannot
have simply borrowed from the Annales in a hypothetical rewriting of
M. Finally, it is unlikely that M copied An or An's exemplar. First, M's
format as a continuation of Bede's Chronica, is more archaic than An's.
It is unlikely that M recast An's information into this characteristically
late Merovingian and Carolingian genre. Second, M's chronology is
more in conformity to what one can reconstruct of the 810s than An's.
An's dates are off by a few years. The author possibly wanted to ®t into
the historical materials available to him, which ended in 818, data on
Benedict of Aniane from the year 821, the attested year of Benedict's
death (see historical note l).
This is merely a diplomatic transcription of years 813±18 in the
Moissac manuscript. A full analysis of the relationship between Paris,
BNF, Latin 4886 (`Moissac') and 5941 (Aniane) remains to be done;
it may lead to the reconstruction of their common archetype. Yet I
indicate in the footnotes the apparently correct reading when the
Chronicle of Aniane gives it. This is meant only as an admittedly
imperfect help to the modern reader. Furthermore, I have avoided
giving a historical apparatus, which can easily be drawn from
J.F. BoÈhmer and E. MuÈhlbacher, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs ... 751±918,
2nd edn (Innsbruck, 1899). Finally, I have capitalized proper names,
Deus, Dominus, as well as place-names, and letters highlighted in red in
the manuscript (they usually come after a punctuation mark).
Chronique de Moissac (M), Paris, BNF, Latin 4886, ff. 52v±54v:

52v: (...) Anno dcccxiii . Hoc anno sedit piissimus Karolus imperator
apud Aquis palatium et habuit ibi consilium magnum cum Francis . et
decrevit quatuor synodos ®eri ; id est ad Magoncia civitateË63 unum .
alterum in Remis . Tercium Turonis . Quartum Arelato civitate .
mandavitque ut quidquid in unum quemquem synodum de®nissent ad
63
An: Magonciam civitatem.

placitum constituti64 imperatori renunciassent .65 quod ita factum est .

Et in ipso anno mense septimbrio66 iamdictus imperator Karolus fecit
conventum magnum populi apud Aquis palatium de omni regno vel
imperio suo .a* Et convenerunt ad eum episcopi abbates comites et
senatus Francorum ad imperatorem in Aquis . et ibidem constituerunt
capitula numero67 xlvi . de causis queË in <53r> necessarieË68 eËcclesieË Dei
et christiano populo .b Post heËc consilium cum praefatis episcopis
et abbatibus et comitibus et maiores natu Francorum . ut constitueret
®lium suum Lodovicum regem . ymperatorem . Qui omnes pariter
consenserunt dicentes hoc dignum esse . omnique populo placuit . Et
cum consensu et adclamatione omnium populorum . Lodovicum ®lium
suum constituit imperatorem secum . ac per coronam auream tradidit
illi imperium . populis aclamantibus et dicentibus . vivat imperator
Lodovicus .69 et facta est leËticia magna in populo70 in illa die. Nam et
ipse imperator Karolus benedixit Dominum dicens . Benedictus es
Domine Deus qui dedisti hodieË sedentem in solio meo videntibus occulis
meis .71 Docuit autem eum pater ut in omnibus preceptum Domini
custodiret .72,c Tradiditque ei ius regni .73 commendavitque ei ®lios suos
. Drocone . Theuderico . et Hugone .74 Et cum omnia perfecisset .
dimisit unumque ut haberet75 in locum suum . Ipse autem resedit in
Aquis palatium . Exierunt autem Nortmani ipso anno cum navibus in
Frisia et fecerunt ibi grande malum . capuerunt76 viros et mulieres et
preda magna .77,d Postea venerunt ®lii Gotafredi cum exercito
expuleruntque Beraldum et Reganfredum atque Amingum de regno
ipsorum . et illi fugierunt usque ad Abdriti .78 inde per milicia79 domni
imperatoris Karoli . accepit ab eo dona multa et remisit eum cum
* Alphabetical footnotes on page 210.

64
An: constitutum.
65
An: nunciassent.
66
An: februario.
67
nomero M ante correctionem numeru M post correctionem [Mpc].
68
An: que necessaria erant.
69
Cf. I Reg. X.24: et clamavit cunctus populus et ait vivat rex; III Reg. I.39: et dixit omnis populus
vivat rex Salomon; IV Reg. XI.12: et plaudentes manu dixerunt vivat rex; II Par. XXIII.11.
70
Cf. III Reg. I.40: et populus canentium tibiis et laetantium gaudio magno.
71
3 Reg. I.48.
72
Cf. III Reg. II.1±3: praecepitque Salomoni ®lio suos dicens ... et observas custodias Domini Dei tui
... et custodia caerimonias eius et precepta eius ...
73
An: tradiditque ei regnum. Cf. I Reg. VIII.10: hoc erit ius regis qui imperaturus est vobis; 1 Reg.
X.25: locutus est autem Samuhel ad populum legem regni; II Par. XXIII.11: dederuntque in manu
eius tenendam legem.
74
An: Drogonem . Theodericum . et HugoneË.
75
An: unumquemque ut habiret. Lege: abiret.
76
An: capierunt. Lege: ceperunt.
77
Lege: predam magnam.
78
Lege: Abodritos.
79
Lege: pro milicia? See the historical note.

206 Philippe Buc
honore adiutorio ad fratrem suum ut iterum adquirerent regnum

ipsorum .e In illo anno obiit beateË memorieË Karolus imperator magnus
et paci®cus xv Kal. Feb. . et sepelierunt eum in Aquis grandi80 palatio
seniore in eËcclesia quam ipse fabricare iusserat .f Regnavitque annis xlvii
. Lodovicus autem ®lius eius . sedit super tronum patris sui Karoli .81 et
acceptis thesauris illius fecit elemosinam magnam pro patreË ;82 divisitque
inter eËcclesias monasteria et pauperes. Secundum Hebreos anni . iiii.dcccx
. Secundum lxx ; vi . xii . anni. Lodovicus imperator regnavit .g
Anno dcccxiiii . Lodovicus imperator resedit apud Aquis palacium et
ibi celebravit pascha . Et in ipso anno venerunt ad eum episcopi abbates
et comites et duces .h et locutus est cum eis de causis necessariis et
utilitatem83 sancteË eËcclesieË .i et venit ad eum Barnardus ®lius Pipini rex
Langobardorum . suscepitque eum benigniter domnus imperator
Lodovicus hac84 remunerato remisit ad propria . Disposuit autem et
marchas suas undique . nam et presidia posuit in litore maris ubi necesse
fuit . Et ipso anno apud Aquis hiemavit .
Anno dcccxv . Ludovicus imperator apud Aquis palatium celebravit
pascha . Et in ipso eËstateË85 collecto magno exercito86 Francorum . et
Burgundionum . Alamannorum . et Bagoariorum <53v> et introitur
Saxonia87 et venit ad partes Bruna .88 Et ibi venit ad eum Barnardus rex
Langobardorum cum exercito .89 et habuit ibi imperator placitum
magnum . et misit sacras90 suas ubi necesse fuit per marcas . et presidia
per litora maris et post heËc reversus est in Francia ad Aquis palacium . Et
iii Kal. Aug. habuit consilium magnum in Aquis . et constituit duos
®lios suos reges Pipinum et Clotarium super Bagoaria .91 et decrevit in
ipso synodo domnus imperator Ludovicus ut in universo regno suo
monachi regulariter viverent secundum regulam . et canonici secundum
canonum auctoritateË .92 Mandavit etiam93 missis et comitibus suis ut
iusticias facerent in regno ipsius . Et si aliqui homines iniusteË94 privati
fuissent de hereditate parentum per cupiditatum95 comitum aut divitum
80
Lege: Aquisgrani.
81
Cf. III Reg. II.12: Salomon autem sedit super thronum David patris sui.
82
An: patre.
83
An: de utilitate.
84
An: ac.
85
An: ipsa eËstate.
86
An: exercitu.
87
An: Baioariorum . introvit in Saxoniam.
88
An: Brunna [for Paderborn; an accusative is in order here].
89
An: exercitu.
90
An: scarras (German: Scharen).
91
An: Clotarium . Pipinum super Aquitaniam et Vuasconiam . Clotarium super Baioariam.
92
An: auctoritatem.
93
Add. interl. An: m. etiam.
94
An: iniuste.
95
An: cupiditate. Lege: cupiditatem.

ut reddere facerent . Nec non et si aliqui homines iniusteË in servituteË96

redacti erant . ut iterum acciperent libertatem . Eodem anno Vuascones
revellant contra imperatore .97
Anno dcccxvi. Piissimus imperator Ludovicus apud Aquis palatio
celebravit pascha . Et estatis tempore venit ad eum Barnardus rex
Langobardorum . His diebus domnus apostolicus Leo papa urbis RomeË
migravit a seculo . Successitque illi98 in sacerdocium domnus Stephanus
. et99 in ipso anno ipse100 apostolicus Stephanus101 venit ad domnum102
imperatorem Ludovicum in Francia . Invenitque eum apud Remis
civitatem et103 adtulit illi coronam auream . suscepitque eum imperator
cum magno honore . Benedixitque ipsum imperatorem . et inposuit
illi104 coronam auream quam adtulerat105 in capite .106 remuneravitque
eum domnus imperator muneribus multis . et sic rediit Romam107 ad
sedem suam . Imperator vero piissimus Ludovicus de Remis habiit108 ad
Conpendio palatio et ibi habuit consilium cum episcopis abbatibus et
comitibus suis . deinde reversus est ad Aquis palatium sedem regiam .
ibique hiemavit . Prefatus autem Stephanus papa . cum redisset Romam
. in ipso anno migravit a seculo . Successitque illi Paschalis in sacerdocio
. Vuascones autem rebelles Garsiamuci .109,j super se in principem
eËlegunt ;110 sed in secundo anno vitam cum principato111 amisit . quo112
fraude usurpatum tenebat .
Anno dcccxvii .k Ludovicus imperator apud Aquis palatium celebravit
pascha . Et inl ipso eËstateË113 iussit esse ibi conventum populi de omne
regno vel imperio suo apud Aquis sedem regiam . id est episcopos abbates
sive comites et maiores natum114 <54r> Francorum et manifestavit eis
misterium consilii sui quod cogitaverat . ut constitueret unum de ®liis
suis imperatorem . Habebat enim tres ®lios ex uxore Ermengarda
regina . nomen uni115 Clotarius . nomen secundi . Pipinus . nomen tercii
96
An: iniuste in servitute.
97
An: rebellaverunt contra imperatorem.
98
An: deest.
99
An: deest.
100
An: deest.
101
An: anno papa Stephanus.
102
An: deest.
103
An: deest.
104
An: deest.
105
An: quam adtulerat deest.
106
An: super caput eius.
107
An: Rome.
108
An: sic. Lege: abiit.
109
An: Garciammuci.
110
An: eligunt.
111
An: principatu.
112
Lege: quem.
113
An: ipsa eËstate.
114
An: natu.
115
Lege: unius.

208 Philippe Buc
Lodovicus . Tunc omni populo placuit ut ipso se viventem116

constitueret unum ex ®liis suis imperare117 sicut Karolus pater eius
fecerat ipsum . Tunc tribus diebus ieiunatum est ab omni populo .
Hac118 leËtanieË facteË .119 post heËc iam dictus imperator Clotarium qui erat
maior natum .120 ymperatorem elegit . Hac per coronam auream tradidit
illi imperium . populis121 acclamantibus et dicentibus vivat imperator
Clotarius . Facta est autem leticia magna in populo in die illo . et ipse
imperator benedixit Deum dicens . Benedictus es Domine Deus meus
qui dedisti hodie ex semine meo consedentem in solio meo videntibus
occulis meis .122 Quartum vero ®lium habuit ex concubina . nomine
Arnulfum . Cui pater Senonas civitatem in comitatum dedit . Audiens
autem Barnardus ®lius Pipini regis rex ItalieË quod factum erat ; cogitavit
consilium pessimum . voluitque in imperatorem et in ®lios eius insurgere .
et per tyrannidem ymperium usurpare . Quo conperto . imperator misit
confestim nuncios per universum regnum et imperium suum . ut pariter
conglobati occuparent omnes additos ItalieË . quod ita factum est .
Barnardus autem cum heËc audisset . terruit eum Dominus . ipsum et
omnes qui ei consenserant . Et conprehensi sunt ab exercitu quod
imperator miserat ante faciem suam . et conprehensos cum ipso rege
adduxerunt ad imperatorem qui erat tunc apud Cavalonno123 qui124 est
super Sagonna ¯umen . Tunc sub custodiam125 missus est praefatus rex
cum Achiteo comite qui auctor consilii maligni fuerat . et aliis qui
illis consenserant . et ducti sunt Aquis . Post heËc ipse imperator fecit
conventum Francorum . et retulit eis hanc causam ut videret quid
iudicarent Franci vel126 ®deles eo127 vel de his qui consenserant ut
insurgerent contra imperatorem . Tunc pariter iudicaverunt eos omnes
dignos ad mortem . Sed piissimus imperator pepercit viteË illorum .
iussitque ipsi regi Barnardo occulos erui . Sed cum factum fuisset die
tercio mortuus est . Achiteo vero similiter occulos erui et ceteris sociis128
eius . Teudulfum vero episcopum Auriliense129 qui et ipse aucto130
predicti maligni consilii fuit . synodo facto episcoporum vel abbatum nec
116
An: ipse se vivente.
117
An: imperatorem.
118
An: ac.
119
An: letania facta.
120
An: natu.
121
An: ac coronam auream t. illi populis.
122
An: b. Dominum [sic] d. B. D. D. m. q. dedit h. in solio meo sedentem v. o. m.
123
An: Cavalonem.
124
An: que.
125
An: custodia.
126
An: Franci vel deest An.
127
An: fideles sui de eo.
128
sociis Mpc.
129
An: Teulfum vero episcopum Aurelianensem.
130
An: auctor.

non et aliorum sacerdotum iudicaverunt tam ipsum quam omnes de

ordine <54v> eËcclesiastico episcopos abbates vel ceterum clerum qui de
hoc maligno consilio conscii venerant131 a proprio deciderent gradu .
quod ita factum est . Nonnulli etiam in exilio missi sunt . Fratres vero
suos ex concubinis natos . id est Drogone Theuderico et Ugone132 quos ei
pater commendaverat clericos ®eri iussit . et per singulos misit
monasterios .133 et regnum quievit imperator134 ab ira .
Anno dcccxviii . Lodovicus imperator apud Aquis celebravit pascha .
Et eËstivo135 tempore introiit cum exercitum136 magno in Britania . et
occiso regem137 terreË illius venerunt maiores natu Britanorum138
tradiderunt se illi . et acceptos obsides . reversus est prospere . cum
triumpho victorieË ad propria . In ipso iter Ermengarda regina obiit .139
Nam et exercitus eius quem miserat partibus orientis . cum triumpho
reversus est et ipse ad imperatore .140 Similiter et tercius exercius
exercicus141 quem miserat super Vuascones revelles cum triumpho
victorieË reversi sunt ad imperatore . occisos tyrannos et terra quievit.142
DE RELIQUIS SEXTEË ETATIS143
Haec de cursu praeteriti saeculi ex Ebraica veritateË prout potuimus
elucubrareË curavimus . Aequum rati ut sicut Greci . lxx translatorum
eËdicione utentes de ea sibi suisque . temporum libros condidere . Ita et
nos qui per beati interpretis Hieronimi industriam puro EËbraice veritatis
fonte potamur . Temporum144 quoque rationem iuxta hanc scire
queamus . quod si qui laborem hunc nomen culpaverint esse super¯uum
. Accipient hii quicumque sunt iustum salva karitateË responsum (...)
131
An: consilii socii fuerant.
132
An: Drogonem Theodericum et Ugonem. Mpc: HugoneË.
133
An: singulos monasterios corr. singula m. monasteria.
134
An: imperatoris.
135
An: estivo.
136
An: introivit cum exercitu.
137
An: rege.
138
An: Britaniorum.
139
This sentence is missing from An. Lege: itinere pro iter.
140
An: imperatorem.
141
Word struck out ± the wrong one. Lege: exercitus.
142
This sentence is missing in An, 37r, which closes by jumping to Louis' death: Ànno dcccoxlo .
Imperii vero prephati imperatoris anno xxoviio obiit Ludovicus piissimus imperator . xiio .
Kalendis Iulii . indictione tercia . Regnaveruntque filii sui post eum cum magna gloria . Amen.'
143
The Moissac manuscript returns to the text of Bede's Chronica, PL 90, cols. 571d±3d, or ed.
Mommsen, pp. 321±3. Bede's last sections were not copied, i.e., 69±71, `De temporibus
Antichristi, De die Iudicii, De septima et octava aetate saeculi futuri.' The text is glossed
between the lines with simple word explanations (not reproduced here).
144
Moissac: Tempor corrected into temporeË with addition of final eË.

210 Philippe Buc
Remarks on major variants and cursory historical notes

a
September is the right month according to Bohmer±MuÈhlbacher, Regesten, pp. 216±17, and
B. [de] Simson, JahrbuÈcher des fraÈnkischen Reichs unter Ludwig dem Frommen, vol. 1 (Leipzig,
1874), p. 4, n. 2.
b
Here An diverges in a major way, as Pertz, p. 310:20±56, noticed.
c
For a near contemporary understanding of Old Testament accessions, see Wigbod, Paris,
BNF, Latin NAL 762, fo. 124r, on IV Reg. XI.12: `Posuit super caput eius diadema et
testimonium. id est legem . vel laminam sanctam ubi quatuor littere erant sculpte (...) Pepigit
fedus . id est . constituit legem inter Deum et homines'. The same on I Reg. XI.15, fos. 110v±111r:
Èt fecerunt ibi regem Saul, id est paraverunt sibi optimam <111> sedem . et vestierunt Saul
regalibus vestimentis . et tunc adoraverunt eum pro rege . et humiliati sunt coram illo.'
d
Here An, fos. 31v±34v, cuts, clearly uninterested in Norman/Danish and northern matters.
It ampli®es instead Charlemagne's death, funerals, and will. Cf. Pertz, p. 310.
e
The text is unclear. Perhaps one should read: ìnde pro milicia domni imperatoris Karoli .
accepit ab eo [Amingo or Karolo?] dona multa et [Karolus] remisit eum [Amingum] cum
honore [et or in] adiutorio' (in return for entering Lord emperor Charles' ®delity he received
from him many gifts and he [Charles] sent him back with honour and help [for his brother?]).
The suggested pro milicia would indicate that Aming became Charlemagne's ®delis (as Hariold
later Louis's). The Annales regni Francorum ad an. 812±13, ed. F. Kurze (Hanover, 1895),
pp. 137±9, propose the reverse sequence of events: Charlemagne returns Hemming to his
brothers Hariold (here Berald) and Reginfred; after having received Hemming (here Amming)
they are expelled from the Danish kingship by Godfrid's sons.
f
That is, in the main church (senior ecclesia) of the palatial compounds at Aachen. An, fos.
33v±34r, ampli®es Charlemagne's death through massive borrowings from Einhard's Vita
Karoli, themselves interpolated in Aniane's favour.
g
Here An inserts information on Smaragdus, Benedict of Aniane's disciple.
h
Here An has a striking et mulieres ac viduas [sic].
i
Here An has an equally striking . Et in ipso loco mandavit ut mulieres in servitute redactas [add
interl.: non] fuissent . et acciperent libertatem .
j
De Simson, JahrbuÈcher, pp. 65 and nn. 8±10, as well as p. 141 and n. 4 doubts whether or not
Garsiamuci is identical with the brother of Lupus Centulli Wasco, one Garsandus, whose
death is mentioned in Annales regni Francorum early ad an. 819, ed. Kurze, p. 150, but
Moissac's stated delay of two years between ùsurpation' and death ®ts.
k
Here the text describes with some verbal convergences (in bold) events also recounted by
Louis' own Ordinatio of 817, ed. A. Boretius, MGH, Capitularia 1 (Hanover, 1883), pp. 270±1.
In the Ordinatio, p. 270: ll. 34±5, Louis himself speaks of a God-sent decision: ... subito divina
inspiratione actum est, ut nos ®deles nostri ammonerent ...
l
An inserts between pascha and in the mention and date of Benedict of Aniane's death: In ipso
anno obiit beate memorie Benedictus Vuiteza abbas religiosus . monasterii Anianensis . III o Id.
Februarii . Anno . viii o. regnante Ludovico piissimo imperatore . Et in ipsa ... An gives the day
and month (rightly) as 7 February and the year (rightly) as 821 (cf. Bohmer±MuÈhlbacher,
p. 295), but in the process, here as in 815 and 816, An distorts the chronology of the Moissac
Chronicle and of its exemplar. Perhaps the author of An felt the need to stretch the chronology
of his original to insert dated events relating to Aniane.

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Ritual and interpretation:

the early medieval case1

In dealing with early medieval `rituals' (whatever this category may

When all we do is consider the formulas literally, these religious beliefs

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

rituals of a community they oppose or want to disempower; secondly

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

acquire neighboring Capua, engineers alliances with, or plots against,

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

entered St Stephens of Capua to pray. When he reached the words

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Here, there is no biblical referent and no marked ritualization of the

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Liudprand himself made clear the relationship between providential

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

meaning that seemed to be imposing itself univocally in the performance

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

attempted humiliation of the saints, aiming at mustering public

Lambert son of Wido [margrave of Spoleto] and Adalbert son of

John's own letter-collection con®rms ± up to a point ± the Fulda

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

interpersonal networks still beholden to ink-and-quill, ensured that the

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

Department of History, Stanford University

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Moissac mixed with a closely related text, the twelfth-century Chronicle of

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

whole chronicle (it continues Bede seemlessly and ends by returning to

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Chronique de Moissac (M), Paris, BNF, Latin 4886, ff. 52v±54v:

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

placitum constituti64 imperatori renunciassent .65 quod ita factum est .

* Alphabetical footnotes on page 210.

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

honore adiutorio ad fratrem suum ut iterum adquirerent regnum

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

ut reddere facerent . Nec non et si aliqui homines iniusteË in servituteË96

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Lodovicus . Tunc omni populo placuit ut ipso se viventem116

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

non et aliorum sacerdotum iudicaverunt tam ipsum quam omnes de

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000 Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2)

Remarks on major variants and cursory historical notes

Early Medieval Europe 2000 9 (2) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000

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