German Life and Letters 38:4 July 1985

0016-8777 $2.00

T H E LUDWZGSLZED IN T H E CONTEXT O F COMMUNICATION

BETWEEN T H E CONTINENT AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

K. OSTBERC

Studies of the Ludwigslied hitherto have largely focused on the Continental,

especially the West Frankish, context. This essay, which assembles data familiar
to historians and students of O E literature, is an attempt to broaden the
perspective.
We will begin with the English relatives of Louis I11 and his brother
Carloman. In 856 Judith, their father’s sister, married the widowed King
Aethelwulf of the West Saxons. Two years later, after his death, she married
Aethelbald, his eldest son and successor. In 862, following Aethelbald‘s death,
she returned to her father (Charles the Bald) and lived securely at the West
Frankish court until she eloped with Baldwin, Count of Flanders. Their son,
Baldwin 11, married the West Saxon princess Aelfthryth. As Aethelwulfs second
wife she had been Alfred’s stepmother; as Aethelbald’s wife, his sister-in-law;
upon her son’s marriage to Aelfthryth, she became the mother-in-law to Alfred’s
third daughter. Little is known about the contacts between members of the
West Saxon and the West Frankish royal families. How did they communicate
with one another when they met?
We do not know how long and to what extent it continued to be possible
for people from England speaking an English dialect to communicate with
people on the Continent speaking a Low German or even one of the Central
German dialects. There exists a certain amount of material for speculation,
but little solid evidence to support it.
Bede’s report1 that Augustine and his company, setting out from Gaul to
preach in Britain, took with them de gente Francorurn interpretes, might as Ch.
Plummer observed,* be taken to mean that at that time (AD 597) Frankish
speech and the Kentish dialect ‘were still so near akin as to be mutually intellig-
ible’, whereas fifty years later when the West Saxon king Cenwalh, also
according to Bede, got rid of the Frankish Agilbert, being exasperated by his
‘barbarous ~ p e e c h ‘ this
, ~ did not apply to Frankish and West Saxon speech.
But, Plummer went on to point out, this passage had also been understood
in the sense that the Franks who accompanied Augustine had probably, through
trade or otherwise, acquired some knowledge of the Kentish dialect. As regards
Agilbert about whose linguistic background no details are available, it is difficult
to believe that the king would have employed him as a preacher in the first
place and kept him in employment ‘for many years’ if he found his sermons
unintelligible. It was more probably Agilbert’s outlandish speech that prompted
his dismissal, especially when the king found a successor who could speak
English fluently.
In 719 Boniface, charged by the Pope with the reorganization of the Frankish
Church, began to preach in Thuringia. The fact that his biographer, Willibald,
396 THE LUDWIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

does not mention interpreter^,^ is no proof that Boniface did not have any.=
Indeed, while Boniface, preaching in Old English, might very well have made
himself understood in North Germany and, with more difficulty, in the Central
German-speaking region at the phonological level, it is at the lexical level that
one would expect him to have needed some assistance from interpreters, since
items of the English religious vocabulary, even though there might be cognates
in German, would have been incomprehensible to his listeners insofar as they
denoted unfamiliar concepts.6 But within a few years of starting his mission
Boniface appears to have possessed a command of one of the Central German
dialects. Ludger, in his uita of Gregory of Utrecht, relates how, in 721, during
a meal at Pfalzel at which Boniface was present, Gregory (then 12 or 13 years
old), the grandson of the abbess and foundress of the convent, was asked to
read a passage from the Bible. When Boniface asked the boy whether he could
interpret the Latin text in his own native tongue ,7 Gregory confessed himself
unable to do so. Boniface then interpreted the text himself, whereupon Gregory
decided instantly to become his disciple and follow him.
We may also note an incident mentioned by Asser in his Lqe of King Ayred.
I n the context of this biography the unfortunate words exchanged between
Charlemagne and Eadburh, the daughter of Offa, king of Mercia, are given
in Latin.g According to Einhard, Charles spoke Latin like his native tongue. l o
John Scotus Eriugena could count on Charles the Bald to appreciate a pun
in Latin. l 1 But it is questionable to what extent this applied to other Germanic
princes. If the incident related by Asser has a factual basis, it seems not unlikely
that Charles spoke in his native Middle Franconian and the princess in her
native Mercian dialect, with interpreters - in attendance at the court -
assisting in the communication.
Most of the encounters, during the eighth and ninth centuries, of native
speakers of English and of people speaking some form of German must be
supposed to have taken place without the presence of interpreters. I a m referring
to the constant stream of pilgrims from England to Rome and back which,
throughout the period, provided the chief opportunities for communication.
A letter which Boniface in 745 sent from Milan to Archbishop Cuthbert of
Canterbury, asking him to stop women and nuns going on a pilgrimage in
view of the large number of female pilgrims from England encountered in
Continental cities who had come adrift and were a disgrace to the English
Church,’* does not appear to have made any impact. As pilgrims were exempt
from the payment of duties, Englishmen posing as pilgrims went to the
Continent to do business. In 796 Charlemagne addressed a letter (in Latin)
to King Offa to say that if any of these were caught they would be deprived
of their privileges.13 So strong was the urge to go on a pilgrimage that the Old
English Chronicle entry for 889 recorded as noteworthy the fact that ‘this year
there was no pilgrimage to Rome’; only two couriers went there, sent there
by King Alfred to deliver letters, possibly to take Romescot (v. below), to the
Pope. Pilgrimages from England to Rome continued unabated even when the
Vikings had started their incessant raids on NW Europe and the Saracens,
having taken possession of Alpine passes, rendered the journey unsafe. l 4
 THE LUDWIGSLZED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 397
The pilgrims’ destination was the Schola Saxonum or, as the OEC calls it, ‘the
School of the English people’. l 5 The term denotes the English colony in Rome.
There was a hostel there, and after a great fire in 847 had swept through the
district a church was built which came to be known as S. Maria-in-Saxia.16
From the time of King Offa’s visit, money (so-called Romescot or Peter’s Pence)
was sent from England to Rome at fairly regular intervals, some of which may
have gone towards the upkeep of the English settlement.17
Like other travellers from England crossing the Channel in the eighth and
the ninth century, most of the English pilgrims would land at Quentavic, at
the mouth of the Canche, in what is now the Pas de Calais.’* They would thus
first of all traverse ground where people spoke a form of Low German. (A
comparison of a passage from the ninth-century 0s Genesis with an English
adaptation of the same passage which was interpolated in the O E Genesis shows
how similar, in many respects, the dialects still were in the ninth century, 19)
The only complete itinerary of an Anglo-Saxon pilgrim to Rome is that of
Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, who travelled there in 990.20 He listed the
places he passed through on the return journey. Though over a hundred years
later than the period which directly concerns us, we may assume that this was
the route followed more or less by ninth-century English pilgrims travelling
in either direction. Proceeding from Quentavic they might accordingly be
expected to pass through ThCrouanne (v. below), Arras, Laon, Reims,
Besangon, Lausanne, St. Maurice, Martigny, crossing the Alps near the modern
Grand St. Bernard, descending to Aosta and from there to Pavia, the former
Langobardic capital where they could recover from the exertions of the arduous
journey before going on to Rome.Z1 Beyond BesanGon the route was dotted
with monasteries and hospices where English pilgrims, showing the requisite
letters of recommendation, could expect to be given board and lodging and
where, occasionally, they might even meet an English abbot.**Once they reach-
ed the Lombard plain they would once again find themselves in a partly
Germanic-speaking environment.
To the stream of pilgrims from England we must add the many West Saxons
who in 878, according to Asser ( $ 5 5 ) , when the Vikings descended on Wessex,
sought refuge on the Continent,23speaking almost certainly none but their own
dialect.
There are records also of movements in the opposite direction. Vikings
settling in Frisia induced local inhabitants to flee to England where some of
them came to serve as mariners under Alfred. Asser ($ 76) mentions the presence
of Franci. . . multi, Frisones, Galli at Alfred’s court as well as the fact ($ 78) that
Alfred, in his endeavour to raise the standard of learning in England, sent mes-
sengers to Gallia to seek out learned men and in this way obtained the services
of Grimbald and a certain John, both of them priests and monks (v. below).
Communication, then, at various levels which existed between England and
the Cortinent in the eighth and ninth centuries, was not confined to those able
to correspond with one another in Latin. We assume that a section of the
common people had some knowledge of what was going on on the other side
of the Channel.
398 THE L L’D WZGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

We now turn to the Ludwigslied, first to its historical b a c k g r ~ u n dIt. ~had

~
been the intention of Louis I1 (the Stammerer) that both Louis and Carloman,
his sons by his first wife, should succeed him. But Hugh the Abbot, foreseeing
the partition of the kingdom and the consequent lessening of his influence,
prevailed on the king to change his mind and designate only Louis as his heir.
When the king died in 879, Gauzlin, the archchancellor, abbot of St Amand,
bishop of Paris, and the Frankish nobles around him opposed the coronation
of Louis as the sole successor and called on Louis 111 (835-882) of the East
Frankish kingdom to intervene, which he did. As the East Frankish army began
to move westward, Hugh the Abbot gave in. He had Louis and Carloman
jointly anointed and crowned at Ferrikres by the archbishop of Senlis.
P. Schramm has shown that the form of the ceremony established the parity
of the two kings so unequivocally that no further ecclesiastical rite was required
when in 882, after his brother’s death, Carloman became the sole r ~ l e r . 2This ~
division was, however, not enough to satisfy the claims of the East Frankish
king. He agreed to recognize the kingship of his two young West Frankish
relatives only after they had consented to the cession of that part of the former
Lotharingia which their grandfather, Charles the Bald, had acquired for the
West Frankish kingdom ten years earlier. The treaty of Ribemont which sealed
the agreement involved the restoration to the East Frankish kingdom of a large
part of modern Belgium. In March 880 the West Frankish nobles divided the
kingdom: Louis received the northern, Carloman the southern part.26Much
of Louis’s short reign was taken up with his quarrels with Hincmar, the aged
archbishop of Reims, over the appointment of bishops to the sees of Noyon
and Bea~vais.2~ In both cases Hincmar’s candidates prevailed over Louis’, and
it was in the context of these quarrels that Hincmar, in his correspondence,
showed his contempt for Louis, reminding him directly that the king had no
right to interfere in Church matters,Z8or complaining to Hugh the Abbot about
the two young kings’ inexperience and unsuitability for the kingship, suggesting
even that Hugh should appoint tutors for them or that Charles, the brother
of the East Frankish king, who had no child of his own, might adopt one of
them and by a strictly disciplinarian upbringing train him for the succession.*9
In 881 Louis, who had been in the South helping his brother to quell the
rebellion of Boso, Duke of Provence, returned to his kingdom which had been
invaded and was being ravaged by Vikings who had crossed the Channel from
England. The ensuing battle on August 3rd at Saucourt which, after a
temporary reverse for the Franks, ended with the flight of the few remaining
Vikings, was reported in several Frankish annals.
Hincmar’s hostility to Louis was such that the Annales Bertiniani (edited by
him), in the entry for 881, referred only to the reverse suffered by the Franks,
describing it as a manifestation of divine judgment; Louis and his men, it said,
had takei, flight. Louis’s eventual victory was not mentioned.30
The Annales Vedastini, however, in their entry for 881, gave fuller details of
the engagement; they mentioned the locality, in pago Witmau, in villa quue dicebatur
Sathulcurtis, noted that, thanks entirely to the king’s leadership, the temporary
setback had been reversed, the Vikings decisively beaten, and added that
 T H E LUDWlGSLZED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 399
from then on the Vikings came to fear the young King Louis.31According to
the entry for 881 in the Annules S. Benigni Diuionensis (Dijon, in the realm of
Carloman), it was above all Louis’ leadership which, with God’s help, had
achieved the victory. 34
The Annales Fuldenses, too, recorded Louis’ victory: the defeated Vikings had
lost nine thousand ‘ h o r ~ e m e n ’According
.~~ to Regino of Priim, Viking casualties
amounted to over eight thousand.33
After the battle Louis tried to enlist Breton support for his further campaigns
to oust the Vikings from his kingdom. But meeting with no response he started
negotiations with the Vikings at Tours in the summer of 882. It was then that,
riding out one day, he caught sight of a girl, the daughter of one Germund,
and pursued her iocundo, ‘in jest’. The girl took refuge in her father’s house;
Louis, still on horseback, followed her, but underestimating the width of the
gateway, injured himself fatally and died on August 5th,35just over a year after
the battle of Saucourt, deeply lamented by the Franks.36 The circumstances
of his death, which Hincmar might have considered to be in accord with his
own assessment of the king’s character, were passed over in the Ann. Bert. entry
for 882 which merely stated that Louis had fallen ill at Tours and had been
taken to St. Denis where he died and was buried in August.37 Hincmar himself
died a few months later.
The first thing we learn about Louis in the Ludwigslied38 is that he is a godly
king; this is a theme which informs the lay from beginning to end. The king
serves God gladly, and God rewards him for this. As a youth, a kind (in fact,
probably between 14 and IS), Louis loses his father, and God, we are told,
becomes his tutor. It is from God that he has received his splendid band of
men and the kingdom which he promptly divides with his brother Carloman.
To test Louis, to see whether he can stand hardship, God allows pagans to
cross the sea and invade his realm. (Louis, the Ann. Bert. inform us, is at Vienne
at the time to help his brother subdue the rebellious Boso.) As the pagans ravage
Northern France and the people undergo a moral regeneration, God, speaking
to Louis as to Moses39 or to an OT king, bids him ride home to help ‘my (viz.
God’s) people’. Louis does so forth~ith.~O When the people see their king return
they give thanks to God. Louis assembles the Frankish army, calls on all those
loyal to God to follow him and do God’s will by fighting the Northman. As he
rides into battle he intones a hymn, and the men join in the refrain Kyrie eleison.
Louis outshines all others by his valour in the fight. The poet praises the Lord
who has helped Louis defeat the foe, he gives thanks to the saints for their
intercession, and concludes with the prayer that the Lord may preserve Louis
in his mercy.
The Ludwigslied, as is well known, thus agrees in some respects with the
material we find in contemporary sources; in other respects it diverges from
them. No mention, for instance, is made of the parity of the brothers: Louis
takes precedence over Carloman. It is not the Frankish nobles who partition
the kingdom, but Louis who, having received his throne from God, presently
divides the kingdom with his brother. What concerns us here is the image of
the king emerging, already in his life-time, from the Ludwigslied in which the
400 T H E LUDWZGSLZED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

most prominent features are his authority as a leader, acknowledged elsewhere,

and his special relationship with God. E. Berg, in her article, has discussed
this conception of Louis in great detail.
For our main sources of information about events in England and about King
Alfred we turn to the Old English Chronicle41 and to Asser’s Lye OfKinf Alfred.
The sources of these works have not so far been fully established, nor have
the circumstances of their genesis been clarified.42
Dorothy Whitelock and, more recently, Janet Bately in a closely documented
paper43have argued against an earlier view that Alfred was directly involved
in the compilation of the OEC. At the same time it seems unlikely that the
king could have been unaware of the compilation of a chronicle which made
special reference to events in Wessex and, being written in the vernacuIar, was
clearly intended for a wider readership than the Latin annals in the Frankish
kingdoms. In view of the compiler’s familiarity with events across the Channel
it has been thought likely that Grimbald, one of the two learned Franks men-
tioned by Asser, who arrived in 886 or shortly after from St Bertin where the
Annules Bertiniuni had originated, might have been involved, directly or
indirectly.
Asser’s life begins with the birth of Alfred in 849, fourteen years after the
Vikings began their constant raids on England. He relates (§ 8) that in 853
Alfred was sent by his father, King Aethelwulf of Wessex, to Rome, in the
company of a large number of nobles and commoners, and that Pope Leo
anointed the boy as king, ordained him, adopted him as his son, and confirmed
him. This is in agreement with the OEC entry for 853 according to which Alfred
was ‘consecrated king’ and was received by the Pope as biscepsunu, his spiritual
It is this passage in particular which has raised doubts concerning Alfred’s
part in the compilation of the OEC. D. Whitelock remarks that Alfred could
not have mistaken the ceremony that took place at Rome when he was a child,
his investment with the insignia of a Roman consul, for a coronation ceremony,
and that for this reason the attribution of the OEC to Alfred‘s instigation cannot
be upheld.45
Both the OEC and Asser (§ 11) mention King Aethelwulfs journey in 855
to Rome where he spent a whole year. Asser adds that the king took Alfred
with him. Both sources note that, on his return from Rome, Aethelwulf, passing
through the West Frankish kingdom, was the guest of Charles the Bald whose
young daughter Judith he took to wife (having apparently recently been
widowed).46Asser ($I 12) mentions the rebellion of Aethelbald, Aethelwulfs
eldest son, during his father’s absence. According to the OEC the kingdom was
divided upon Aethelwulfs death (two years after his return from the Continent)
between Aethelbald who got Wessex and his young brother Aethelberht who
got Essex, Surrey, and Sussex, but was reunited under Aethelberht when
Aethelbald (who had married his father’s widow died in 860. In 865
Aethelberht died, and Aethelred, the next brother in the line of succession,
became king of Wessex. Three times (§§ 29, 38, 42) Asser refers to Alfred,
Aethelred’s only surviving younger brother, as secundurius, a title unknown in
British sources. Keynes and Lapidge translate it as ‘heir apparent’.48An earlier
 THE LUDWIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 40 1
suggestion, in view of Alfred’s active part in government during Aethelred’s
lifetime, was ‘viceroy’.49For already in 868 (according to the OEC) the king
of the Mercians, oppressed by the Vikings, sent messengers to both Aethelred
and Alfred asking for help. It was in 871, at Ashdown, when two Viking armies
approached and Aethelred was in his tent, attending mass and refusing to come
out till mass was finished, that Alfred, as secundarius, alone led the Saxon army
into battle, ‘supported by divine counsel and strengthened by divine help’.50
Later that year, upon Aethelred’s death, Alfred (again referred to as secundarius)
became king of the West Saxons.
Early in 878, after Twelfth Night, the Vikings stealthily came to Chippenham
and proceeding from there occupied the land of the West Saxons, driving many
people across the sea and subjecting most of the others. Alfred, however,
managed to escape by going underground. For several months he ‘journeyed
in difficulties with a small force through woods and moor-strongholds’, then
surfaced again after Easter to continue the fight, and several weeks later, at
Egbert’s Stone, he met all the people of Somerset and those of Hampshire ‘who
had not for fear of the heathens sailed overseas’ (v. above). They all rejoiced
at seeing their king.51Two days later Alfred and his men beat the Viking army
decisively at Edington: they put them to flight, pursued them as far as ‘the
fortress’ (viz. Chippenham) and stayed there a fortnight, till the Vikings gave
hostages and made solemn promises that they would leave the kingdom and
that their king would receive baptism. Asser (S 56) elaborates this OEC account:
When the next morning dawned he moved his forces and came to a place
called Edington, and fighting fiercely with a compact shield-wall against
the entire Viking army, he persevered resolutely for a long time; at length
he gained the victory through God’s will. He destroyed the Vikings with
great slaughter, and pursued those who fled as far as the stronghold,
hacking them down he seized everything he found outside the stronghold
- men (whom he killed immediately), horses and cattle - and boldly
made camp in front of the gates of the Viking stronghold with all his
army.52
It is in the latter part of the biography, mainly devoted to Alfred’s private life,
that Asser speaks of the king‘s concern for raising the standard of learning in
England which made him call for scholars from the Continent (and Asser
himself) to his court so that they might assist him with the translation of edifying
works into English.53
T o obtain Grimbald’s services necessitated an exchange of letters between
Alfred and Fulco who had succeeded Hincmar as archbishop of Reims; he had
to give his permission for Grimbald to go. It is clear from Fulco’s reply54that
while paying tribute to Alfred’s excellence he was reluctant to part with
Grimbald for whom he had intended a distinguished career. Janet Bately has
shown55that earlier scholars had assumed too readily that Grimbald’s native
speech, since he came from the region of St. Omer, must have been Frankish.
Fulco, in a letter which he sent to the Pope, described the inhabitants of the
diocese of ThCrouanne (in which St. Omer and St. Bertin were situated) as
402 THE LUD WIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

people ‘of boorish manners and uncouth speech‘,56by which he probably meant
that they spoke a form of Low German. This was the region through which
pilgrims from England would regularly pass on their way to Rome. But the
monks would usually stay within their cloisters, and we must also remember
that by the ninth century it had become fashionable among the Romance-
speaking inhabitants of Gallia to bestow Germanic names on their children.
It may have been through Grimbald whom he would have met at the king’s
court that Asser, whose first prolonged stay in Wessex has been dated 887,57
came to be exceptionally well informed about Frankish affairs and acquired
his familiarity with the Frankish-Latin terms which he incorporated in his text,
some of which occur nowhere else in England at this time.
Asser (5 13) gives details about Judith‘s marriage to Alfred’s father which
are found in no other source. He relates that when Aethelwulf brought his
young wife to England he made her sit beside him on the throne, which was
contrary to West Saxon custom, but in accordance with the practice of all the
Germanic peoples. In this context he uses the term theotiscus, which had arisen
among the Franks in the eighth century to denote the vernacular, as opposed
to Latin or Romance speech, but had early in the ninth century on the Continent
come to be applied to the speakers of German dialects.58
Another Frankish-Latin term Asser uses, and one which is not met in England
at the time, is senior5g in the sense of ‘lord’, ‘master’, the Middle Latin word
on which O H G herro had been modelled.
Naturally, the possibility that Asser obtained his information about the
Frankish kingdoms and Frankish linguistic habits in the course of one or more
visits to the Continent cannot be excluded.
English records dating from the second half of the ninth century differ from
Frankish ones of the same period in one important respect. They do not refer
to the Vikings as instruments of God sent to punish an unworthy people.60
It is true that Alfred, in the preface to his translation of Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis,
obliquely speaks of the Viking raids as punishments, but he attributes these
to the decline of learning.61It may also be inferred from Fulco’s reply to him,
in their correspondence about Grimbald, that according to Alfred the ecclesias-
tical order in England had ‘fallen into ruins in many respects, whether by the
frequent invasion and attack of pagans, whether by the great passage of time,
or the carelessness of prelates or the ignorance of those subject to them’.6*But
nowhere in Asser’s biography or Alfred’s writings do we meet anything com-
parable to Hincmar’s insistence that the whole people must do penance as a
prerequisite for victory, a thought which occurs repeatedly in ninth-century
Frankish records and which, as W. Schwarz was the first to point out and
E. Berg, following him, has corroborated with ample quotation^,^^ provides
a historical context to the Ludwigslied. Nor does the OEC state that God’s will
is made manifest in history, as do the Frankish annals on several occasions.
For instance, in the entry for 877 the Annales Bertiniani, referring to the eve
of the battle of Andernach (at which Charles the Bald was to be defeated by
his East Frankish nephew Louis 111), recall how Louis and his men, by fasting
and litanies, prayed for God’s mercy while being taunted by Charles’s men,
 THE LUD WIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 403
and how thirty of Louis’ supporters submitted to, and survived, various ordeals
which were to prove that right was on their side.64
Yet such thoughts were not unfamiliar to people in England. Pope John VIII,
writing to Burgred, king of Mercia, in 874, attributed the adversities suffered
by his kingdom to the sin of fornication said to be especially rife among his
subjects. 65 Earlier, Alcuin, commiserating with King Ethelred of Northumbria
after the sacking of Lindisfarne by the Vikings in 793, had written ‘Consider
carefully, brothers, and examine diligently lest perchance this unaccustomed
and unheard-of evil was merited by some unheard-of evil practice’.66And in
another letter on the same subject Alcuin had drawn the attention of Aethelhard,
archbishop of Canterbury, to the fact that Gildas, the sixth-century historian,
had blamed the iniquities of the British for the loss of their country to the
Saxons.67At the beginning of the eleventh century Wulfstan, archbishop of
York, quoted this passage from Alcuin’s letter, translated into English, in his
Serrno lupi ad Anglos.68
The OEC mentions the battle of Saucourt and refers to events which preceded
it. According to the OEC the [Viking] army69 in 879 went from Chippenham
to Cirencester and stayed there for a year. In the same year ‘a band of Vikings
gathered at Fulham by the Thames’. In 880 the former moved from Cirencester
to East Anglia, whereas those at Fulham went overseas to Fronclond and stayed
for a year at Ghent. In 881 ‘that [same] army moved further inland into
Fronclond, the Franks fought against them, and after that battle the Vikings
provided themselves with horses’.
Asser (§§ 57 ff.) agrees substantially with this version, except that he refers
to the ‘band’ at Fulham as ‘a great army of heathens’ who had come from
overseas, adding that they made contact with the army at C i r e n c e ~ t e r Refer-
.~~
ring to the battle of Saucourt neither the OEC nor Asser speaks of a victory,
and neither mentions Louis. Indeed, the OEC’s only reference to Louis occurs
in the entry for 884 which records Carloman’s death in a boar-fight, adding
erroneously ‘one year after his brother’s death‘. Asser, in the corresponding
passage of his Life, mentions Louis by name.71
According to the Latin heading of the Ludwigslied - Rithmus teutonicus
de piae memoriae Hludovico rege filio Hluduici aeque regis - the single
surviving copy of the lay commemorating his short-lived victory was made some
time after Louis’ death. The Frankish annals, having recorded his death, make
no more mention of him. The OEC entry for 900 records the death of Alfred,
referring to him as ‘King over the whole English people except for that part
which was under Danish rule’. Then, as far as can be judged from extant
documents, there also follows a period of official silence.
Some hundred years pass before the late ninth-century battles are recorded
once more, this time in the Latin Chronicle ofAethelwea~d’~2 the ealdoman. The
author who, in his dedicatory epistle, refers to himself as a descendant of the
House of Wessex, has used a variety of sources, including the OEC to which
he keeps fairly closely. His chronicle extends to the death of Edgar in 975; it
thus covers the wars of Alfred. But it also mentions the battle of Saucourt,
referring to it, unlike any other known earlier English source, as a victory,
404 THE LUDWZGSLZED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

though without mentioniong Louis’ name.73 Since in other parts of his work
Aethelweard is thought to have used an otherwise unknown version of the
OEC,74might this have been his source or could the reference to ‘victory’have
been prompted by the fact that the memory of the victory, as we shall see
presently, was still alive, certainly in Northern France?
This brings us to the French chanson de geste about Gormund and Isembard.
Hariulf, a monk of St. Richier en Ponthieu, in a chronicle of the abbey,
composed in 1088, revised in 1104,75gives his readers a brief summary of the
story of these two ‘historical’ personages, adding that any day the people of
the region can be heard reciting the events in tale or song. 76 Whether this can
be taken as an early reference to the existence of the chanson77 is an open
question. The chanson is preserved in the ‘Brussels fragment’, two parchment
sheets dating from the thirteenth century,78and additional sources have been
drawn upon to piece the story together.79
Isembard, a young nobleman, serves at the court of his uncle Louis, king
of France, son of Charles.8o He becomes the victim of a courtly intrigue. The
king sides with Isembard’s enemies. There is bloodshed, a fight, Isembard is
vanquished and reprieved only on condition that he leaves France for ever.
H e goes overseas, is given asylum by Gormund, king of the Saracens, and
forswears his Christian faith. H e then persuades the pagan king to fit out a
fleet and sail with a great army to France to avenge the wrong done to him.
They make for that part of France in which Isembard used to own property,
and proceed to ravage the countryside, sacking, amongst others, the abbey
of St. Richier. In the ensuing battle between Franks and Saracens King
Gormund is killed in a duel by King Louis who, though shielded by God from
Gormund’s blows,81 dies himself within thirty days, as a result of an internal
injury sustained at the end of the fight. Isembard, lamenting Gormund when
he finds his dead body on the battle-field, recalls how back in Cirencester he
had repeatedly told the Saracen king about Frankish prowess in war:
470 ‘Ahi!’ dist il, ‘rei emperrere,
tant le vus dis, plusures fiez, a
Cirencestre, a voz cuntrees,
que Franceis sunt gent aduree.. .’82
The battle rages on. Eventually Isembard, too, is mortally wounded: as he
dies he prays to Christ for mercy and to Mary for her intercession.
J. BCdier has examined and evaluated in considerable detail the theories on
the genesis of the chanson with reference to a variety of historical and pseudo-
historical data. The memories of several Frankish rulers named Louis appear
to have merged in the King Louis of the chanson. He has been identified, already
in the Middle Ages, with Louis the Pious, Louis the Stammerer, Louis IV
‘d’outremer’ (all of them sons of a Charles) as well as Louis 111.83
There exists an obvious similarity between the king of the chanson who died
of internal injury not long after fighting and defeating the Saracen king
Gormund (usually thought to be based on the figure of Guthrum, Alfred’s adver-
sary at Edingtona4)and Louis I11 who died a year after his victory at Saucourt
of an injury resulting from a mishap when chasing Germund’s daughter in jest.
 T H E LUD WIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 405

Insofar as he is the vanquisher of the pagans who had come over from England,
the Louis of the chanson reflects King Louis I11 who beat the pagan Vikings,
concerning whom the OEC annal for 880 tells us that, of two groups of Vikings,
they were the ones who crossed from Fulham to Fronclond while the others moved
from Cirencester to East Anglia; Asser (55 57, 58)85adds that the two groups
had been in touch. We may then regard the Turks, Persians, Arabs in flight,
surging through Vimeu and PonthieuE6 in the chanson, as the metamorphosed
Vikings of 881, all of them pagans.
The point has come for us to attempt some conclusions. We have very little
certain information about the dissemination in the late ninth century of the
OEC (of which a number of MSS., varying in several respects, are extant) or
of Asser’s L$e of King Alfred (written in 893, now known only from mediaeval
and post-mediaeval extracts and transcripts, since the only MS. which survived
into modern times, written about 1000, was destroyed in the Cottonian fire
of 1731). Both sources, however, contain a great deal of material that must
have been common knowledge.
The Viking raids, the destruction they caused, the battles they provoked,
above all the decisive victory at Edington, aspects of Alfred’s personality -
his prowess in the field, his religious devotion - were part of that common
knowledge, and as the pilgrimages to Rome continued, year after year, while
the war or the preparations for war went on, travellers from England, clerics
and laity, would - we assume - carry it with them and convey it to those
in Northern France with whom they were able to communicate and from whom,
in turn, they would learn about such generally known facts, mentioned in
contemporary Frankish sources, as the exhortations from the pulpits to do
penance, the battle of Saucourt, the universal mourning for Louis 111.
As regards the Ludwigslied, all we know about its dissemination is that the one
and only copy of it which has survived was written some time after Louis’ death,
probably not far from St. Amand where it was found. Ruth HarveyE7has made
a strong case for assuming that in spite of the predominantly Rhenish Franco-
nian features of the dialect the lay was not composed in Rhenish Franconia,
but in the West Frankish kingdom, perhaps in the region of the battle-scene,
and that in view of its allusions to feudal custom it was intended for members
of the Frankish nobility who, according to the substantial evidence she was
able to quote, still cultivated German at the time, though living in a Romance-
speaking environment. The fact that the surviving MS. was written - almost
without a fault - by the same hand that wrote the Old French sequence of
St. Eulalia on the reverse page, seems to confirm this: the scribe appears to have
been a native of the region, equally conversant with German and French. Even
so, the size of the public able to appreciate the lay remains an open question.
The Ludwigslied makes no mention of the githigini, those accompanying the
king when, having raised his standard of war, he rode home from Vienne. The
majority of the men with whom he was to fight at Saucourt were accordingly
those who after a long waiting-period gave thanks to God when they saw
him return, those whom he addressed as notstallon, ‘companions in hardship’,
seeking their advice, commanding them to follow him into battle, promising
406 THE LUD WIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

them rewards. We cannot tell what actually happened at Saucourt. According

to the lay (v. 45 Ther kuning red kuono) the king rode into the battle and (v.
49 Spilodun ther Vrankon) the Franks ‘tummelten sich’, moved about unhindered,
disported themselves on the battlefield, which seems to imply that they were
mounted, while the Vikings were not. The OEC annal for 881, remarking with
reference to Saucourt that after the battle the Vikings provided themselves with
horses, does not contradict this. O n the other hand, it is difficult to imagine
that the few Vikings who, according to the Annales Vedastini,88 at a time when
the Franks thought they had already won the battle, suddenly emerged from
villa. . .Sathulcurtis and put the whole Frankish army to flight, were foot-soldiers
while the Franks were on horseback, Besides, the Annales Fuldenses refer to the
‘nine thousand’ Vikings as equites. 89 Even if we allow for the number of casualties
being vastly exaggerated, it is questionable whether all the Franks who fought
at Saucourt were members of the still German-speaking nobility whom Ruth
Harvey had in mind. More probably the bulk were local men, freemen, some
of them speaking Romance,go others a form of Low German, markedly different
from the dialect of Louis’ call to arms in the Ludwigslied. Louis himself may
well have known some Low German to communicate with his German-speaking
subjects in Northern France as well as with those, just the other side of the
political border, e.g. at Ghent, who until the treaty of Ribemont in 880 had
also been his subjects. There is no echo in the lay of the difficulties Louis
encountered after Saucourt in manning his defences,g1which prompted him
in 882 to cross the Loire and seek Breton support and, when this failed, open
negotiations with the Vikings.
E. Berg has demonstrated how deeply the Ludwigslied, even in its divergence
from recorded facts, is rooted in its time. This applies particularly to the poet’s
view of Louis as the good Christian king, a view that was beginning to form
in Northern France and was to feed the legend of Gormund and Isembard.
If, as ninth-century Frankish sources state on several occasions, God’s will is
made manifest in history, God had evidently been with Louis at Saucourt (as,
according to Asser 5 56, he had been with Alfred at Edington), had indeed,
according to the lay, been with Louis since he had lost his father. However
short-lived, it was as a decisive victory that the battle of Saucourt was regarded
when the lay was composed, when the copy was made, when it was obliquely
remembered in the chanson de geste, and it was as such that Aethelweard recorded
it in his Chronicle.
Two features in the OEC and in Asser’s L$ require comment. The first
concerns the figure of Alfred. It was a verifiable fact and probably well-known
that as a West Saxon royal child he had spent a year at Rome. The OEC annal
for 853 asserts that, while he was at Rome, Pope Leo had ‘consecrated him
king and stood sponsor to him at confirmation’, made him his biscepsunu. It
has been pointed out that Alfred must have known this entry, in its reference
to ‘consecration’, to be false and could therefore not have been directly involved
in the compilation of the OEC.92 What concerns us here is the fact that this
formulation did find its way into the OEC and would therefore have reached
a section of the reading public for works in the vernacular which, according
 ‘THE LUD WIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 407
to Alfred’s preface to his translation of Cura Pastoralis, existed in England.
The second feature is the association of the Vikings who sailed from Fulham
to the Continent and were eventually beaten at Saucourt, with Cirencester.
According to the OEC they had nothing to do with Cirencester. But in the OEC
(and, following it, Asser’s Life) the annal referring to them was immediately
preceded by the annal referring to another group of Vikings at Cirencester.
Asser says that the two groups had been in touch. J. BCdier suggested that
only a cleric familiar with the OEC and/or Asser’s Life could have been instru-
mental in introducing ‘Cirencester’ into the French popular legend about
Gormund and I ~ e m b a r dJ..~de ~ Vries drew attention to the fact that, according
to the OEC annal for 879, the Vikings, after their defeat at Edington, had spent
one year under their king Guthrum at Cirencester and, though this had
concerned the other group only marginally, that this fact was sufficiently
important to allow for other channels whereby ‘Cirencester’ had become
associated with the legend.94
We assume, in view of the frequent traffic between England and the Conti-
nent, that not long after the battle of Edington news of Alfred’s victory over
the Vikings reached the Continent and that after the battle of Saucourt there
was an awareness, in Northern France, of the two victories inflicted on the
common foe under the leadership of the West Frankish and the West Saxon
king. This was the period in which the Ludwigslied was composed. We know
nothing definite about its poet. But if our assumption is correct, some of the
above-mentioned items of common knowledge brought from England could
have reached him, and in the light of this possibility we shall now consider
the portraits of the two kings.
Louis, the lay tells us, was a kind when he lost his father and the Lord became
his tutor or guardian. In fact, the death of Louis’ father had occurred two years
before Saucourt when Louis was about sixteen, hardly a kind. Alfred had not
lost his father in early childhood, but he was indeed a kind when, at the age
of five, he was adopted by the Pope as his godson. Both Louis, according to
the lay, and Alfred, according to Asser, have a special relationship with God.
God tests Louis, converses with him, protects him, and Louis serves Him gladly.
There is no historic evidence to confirm this aspect of his character, apart from
the recorded fact of his victory and Regino’s obituary remarks.95 Alfred emerges
from Asser’s Life as a deeply religious man with a strong sense of justice, and
even without knowing all the details available to Asser, many of Alfred’s subjects
must have been aware of the king‘s frequent attendance, since his youth, at
divine services, his excellent relations with Pope Marinus who was a benefactor
of the Schola Saxonum at Rome, his donations to the Church, his willingness
to listen to complaints from nobles and commoners in judicial matters.96 The
topos of the forlorn people in distress, relieved at the return of their king, is
present in both the lay and the OEC. The description of the king‘s part in the
massacre at Saucourt is similar to Asser’s account of Alfred’s role in the slaughter
outside Chippenham; news of the latter would have spread soon after the
battle and would not be dependent on the dissemination of the Life. When
the Vikings at Chippenham sued for peace and their king Guthrum declared
408 THE LUDWZGSLZED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

himself willing to be baptized, Alfred relented. He received Guthrum and a

substantial number of other Vikings who also presented themselves for baptism,
and entertained them for twelve days at W e d m ~ r e This
. ~ ~ would be of no
relevance to the Ludwigslied. The hospitality and liberality shown by Alfred
towards his recent deadly enemies would have befitted a king in the age of
chivalry.
In conclusion we note the following features:
The Ludwigslied, when it first introduces the Vikings, and the OEC entry for
835 (MS.: 832), the year in which the Vikings began their incessant harass-
ment of England, refer to them as ‘heathen men’:
Ll. 11 Lietz her heidine man Obar SEO lidang8
‘He allowed heathen men to travel across the sea’
OEC Her hgpne men oferhergeadon Sceapige
‘In this year heathen men overran Sheppey’
In his other three references to them the Ludwigslied poet calls them Northmang9
in line with the usage of the Frankish annals which speak of them as Nort-/
Nordmanni. 100 The OE term has occurred already in the OEC entry for 793,
the first mention of the Vikings in connection with their raid on Lindisfarne.
It occurs also on a few subsequent occasions.lol Other terms for the Vikings
in the OEC are ‘Vikings’ (879) and ‘Danes’ (896). Most frequently the OEC
refers to them simply as se here, ‘the [Viking] army’.lo2
O H G dugid usually means ‘power’, ‘strength‘, ‘manliness’, ‘virtue’.
L1. 5 Gab her imo dugidi Frcnisc githigini
has been translated as
‘He endowed him with manliness, gave him a splendid
company of followers’.
But dugidi in this context could also, it has been suggested, be translated as
‘retinue’; dugidi/githigini would then be an example of ‘variation’ which had been
a characteristic feature of ancient Germanic poetry. However, this meaning
of dugid does not occur in the other O H G texts,lo3 but is confined to its O E
cognate. lo4
O n several occasions the Frankish annals give details of the destruction,
especially the material damage, caused by the Vikings. The annal for 881 in
the Annales Vedastini mentions murder and arson on a huge scale as well as the
capture of livestock. 105 The Carmen De Pippini Regis VictoriaAuarica, lo6 the Latin
poem which celebrates Pippin’s victory over the Avars in 796 and to which
the Ludwigslied has been compared in respect of its genre, mentions the destruc-
tion by the pagans of churches, monasteries, altars, vestments, and sacred
vessels. The OEC annals for the second half of the ninth century, apart from
noting casualties, particularly death in action of prominent men on the English
side, lo7 refers to the damage done by the Vikings only in the most general terms
(e.g. they ‘overran Sheppey’).lo8So does the Ludwigslied; it contains only the
following references:
 THE LUDWZGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 409

v. 21 Uuisser alla thia not ‘He (God) knew all the distress’
v. 24 Heigun sa Northman Harto biduuungan
‘the Northmen have them hard pressed’.
Ludwigslied 53/54, describing the way in which Louis I11 raged on the battle-
field at Saucourt, says that ‘he poured out bitter wine to his enemies’:
Her scancta cehanton Sinan f;nton
Bitteres 1;des. . .
There is no reason to assume that the poet did not use the phrase in a purely
figurative sense, with strong Biblical associations. Otfrid IV 33 19f. uses the
same phrase in his paraphrase of Mark 15, 23:
Sie nan ouh quiltun, mit Czzichu dringtun, mit bitteremo lide. . . 1°98
However, wine, mass wine, was one of the main targets of the Viking raids
on the churches. J . Wallace-Hadrillllo knows of several reports of Vikings in
the ninth-century France helping themselves to mass wine stored in sacristies.
Though there is no contemporary English source to confirm it, it has been
inferred that they did the same in England. From Heliand 2015 f.
ac thiu scapu uuarun I l8es alZrid112
‘but the vessels were emptied of wine’
we see that the Old Saxon poet, in his account of the Marriage of Cana, could
use the 0s equivalent of O H G lid (usually glossed as ‘Obstwein’) as a synonym
of win which occurred in v. 2012. Is it possible that in the context of the Viking
outrages contemporaries of the Ludwigslied poet could also perceive a topical
allusion in that passage from the lay?
N o conclusions can be drawn, on the basis of the material here considered,
with regard to any causal connections between certain similarities which we
have noted. Our purpose has been to reconstruct in outline, with special
reference to the many non-literary contacts that evidently existed between the
Continent and Anglo-Saxon England, the climate in which the Ludwigslied was
composed.

NOTES

1 Hist. Eccl., lib. 111, cap. 7 .

2 Bede, Hist. Eccl., ed. Ch. Plummer, vol. I1 (1896) 41.
3 pertaesus barbarae loquellae; cf. ed. Ch. Plummer, vol. I(1896) 140.
* Vita S. Bonifacii, cap. VI, Migne P.L. 89, c. 614 C/D.
Sanctus itaque vir Dei in Thuringia juxta insitum sibi mandatum apostolici pontificis,
senatores, denique plebis totius populi principes verbis spiritualibus affatus est, eosque ad
veram agnitionis viam et intelligentiae lucem provocavit.
5 According to J. Schmidlin, Catholic Mission History (Engl. translation from the German, ed.
M. Braun, 1933), p. 186, Boniface made use of the popular or national language without an
interpreter.
410 T H E LUD W I G S L I E D AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

Thus the assimilation of OE g a t , in its reference to the Holy Ghost, or of OEfrCJOr ‘comfort’
(which lacked a High German cognate) t o j u o b r a , recorded several times in the OHG Tatian, might
have required the help of people conversant with both English and German. In the latter case
it is noteworthy that the East Franconian form appears to be modelled on the frequently recorded
DSg. of the English one, jro3e.
’ Vita S. Greprii P.L. 99, c. 754 B/C.
secundum proprietatem linguae tuae, et secundum naturalem parenturn tuorum loquelam.
* All references to this work, unless stated otherwise, are to W H. Stevenson (ed.), AsserS-LifeofKzn~
A p e d . . . (1904, repr. 1959 with an article by Dorothy Whitelockon recent work on Asser’s Ltje). Itali-
cized passages represent interpolations in Florence of Worcester’s (d. 11 18) transcript of the text.
( 5 15) Ad quam, cum ante solarium multa regi afferens dona staret, Karolus ait: ‘Elige, Eadburh,
quem velis inter me et filiurn meum, qui rnecum in solario isto stat.’At illa, sine deliberatione stulte
.respondens, [dicens] ait: ‘si mihi electio conceditur, filium tuum, in quantum te iunior est, eligo.’
Cui Karolus respondens et arridens, ait: ‘Si me eligeres, haberes filiurn meum: sed quia filium
meum elegisti, nec me nec illum habebis.’
Vita Karoli Magni § 25
11 One day at mealtime Charles the Bald, commenting on John’s foreign table manners, asked
his boon companion what was the difference between a sottus (drunkard) and a Scottus. ‘Quid distat
inter sottum et Scottum?’John, who was sitting opposite the king, took distat in the sense of ‘stands
between’ and replied ‘Tabula tantum.’ Cf. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontifium Anglorurn, lib.
V, ed. N.E.S.A. Hamilton in the Rolls Series (1870), 392.
‘2 MHG Epist. 111, 355, 2f.
perpaucae sunt civitates in Longobardia vel in Francia aut in Gallia in qua non sit adultera
vel meretrix generis Anglorum; quod scandalum est et turpitudo totius ecclesiae vestrae.
l3 Epistola Caroli Magni ad Offam Regem P.L. 98, c. 907.
l4 Flodoardus Annales 921 P.L. 135, c. 425 B
Anglorum Romam profiscientium plurimi inter angustias Alpium lapidibus a Sarracenis
sunt obruti.
15 Ongelcynnes scol (cf. Old English Chronicle 885).
‘6T h e church which now stands on the site is known as S. Spirit0 in Sassia. Most of the medieval
church was destroyed in the Sack of Rome in 1527.
cf. Stevenson, op. cit., 211 n.2.
P. Grierson, ‘Relations between England and Flanders before the Norman Conquest’, Trans-
actions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, 23 (1941), 77.
l9 Old Saxon Genesis, cf. Braune/Ebbinghaus, Ahd. Lesebuch’6 (1979), 156.
Uuela, that thu nu, Eua, habas’, quad Adam, ‘ubilo gimarakot
unkaro selbaro sid. N u maht thu Sean thia suarton hell
ginon gradaga; nu thu sia grimman maht
hinana gihorean
Old English Genesis (791-794), ibid., 157.
Hwaet, pu Eue, haefst yfele gemearcod
uncer sylfra sid gesyhst pu nu pa sweartan helle
graedige and gifre. nu pu hie snrnman meaht
heonane gehyran.
*O v. Memorials o f s t . Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, Rolls series (1874), 391 ff.; for a commentary on this
itinerary, v. W. J. Moore, The Saxon Pilgrims to Rome and the Schola Saxonurn, diss. Fribourg 1937,
pp. 86 ff. Sigenc reached the Channel at Sombres; Quentavic had been destroyed in 900 and vanished
during the tenth century as a result of the silting up of the port, cf. Grierson, op. czt., 78 f.
*l According to the O E C a n n d for 888, Queen Aethelswith of Mercia, Alfred’s sister, was buried
at Pavia; earlier in the century, according to Asser § 15, Eadburh (v. above) spent the last years
of her life there as a beggar woman.
 T H E L U D W I G S L I E D AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 41 1
22 cf. W . J . Moore, op. cit., 87 f.
23 Asser, referring to those inhabitants of Hampshire who had not fled abroad, writes:
omnes accolap Hamtunensis pagae qui non ultra mare pro metu paganorum navigaverant.
There had been previous movements df settlers from Saxon England to the Continent. Gregory of
Tours, Hist. Franc., lib. X.9, mentions the presence of Saxons in Gaul, Baiocassinos Sarones (in the
region of Bayeux), in the sixth century. E. Ekwall, The Concise OxfrdDictionary ofEnglish Place-Names4
(1960), p. 482, in the article on OE tLn, refers to place-names ending in ‘-inston’ in Normandy and
the Boulogne district, ‘apparently due to early Saxon colonization’, such as Todincthun (Totingetun)
recorded in 807. C h . Verlinden, Les Orzgines de la Frontikclinguistiqueen Belgigueet la Colonisation Franque
(1955), pp. 87 ff., disputes that these place-names were bestowed by Anglo-Saxon settlers, but prefers
to speak, without elaborating, of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Frisian influences.
24 cf. W . Schwarz, ‘The “Ludwigslied”, a ninth-century poem’, M o h Language Reuiew, 42 (1947),

467 ff., who drew attention to certain topical allusions in the lay; E. Berg, ‘Das Ludwigslied und
die Schlacht van Saucourt’, Rheinische Vierteljahrsblatter, 29 (1964), I75ff., who, following Schwarz,
examined contemporary sources in detail; H. Homann, ‘Das Ludwigslied - Dichtung im Dienste
der Politik?’, Traditions and Transitions - Studies in Honor ofHaroldJantr (1972) pp. 17ff., who drew
attention to certain parallels between the lay and Exodus.
2 5 P. E. Schramm, ‘Die Kronung bei den Westfranken und Angelsachsen van 878 bis um lOOO’,

Zeitschrij der Sauigny-Stiftungfir Rerhtsgeschichte, 54 (Kanonistische Abteilung XXIII, 1934), 11 7 ff.

26 According to the A n d e s Vedasini880, Louis receivedpursFrunciaeetomn~sNeuStru, Carloman received
Aguitania atquepars Burgundiae necnon et Gothtia; cf. Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, 2. Teil, ed.
R . Rau, 296; v. also K . F. Werner, ‘Gauzlin von Saint-Denis und die westfrankische Reichsteilung
von Amiens (Marz 880)’, Deutsches Archiv f u r Erfrschung des Mittelaltms, 35 (1979), 395 ff.
2’ v. Gerhard Schmitz, ‘Hinkmar van Reims, die Synode van Fismes 881 und der Streit um das
Bistum Beauvais’, ibid., 463 ff.
** Epistola XIX, quoted according to P.L. 125, c. 1085 B
quid vobis sit agendum attendite, qui adhuc in aetate immatura estis, et tantos compar-
ticipes atque aemulos in ista particula regni habetis, ut nomine potius quam virtute regnetis.
29 cf. Flodoardus, Hist. eccl. R e m . , lib. 111, cap. 24 P.L. 135, c. 235 B/C
Item mittens ei [viz. Hugh the Abbot] exemplar epistolae, quam regi Karolo Ludovoci
Transrhenensis filio direxerat , pro regibus adhuc pueris Ludovico et Karlomanno, hortansque
ut si potuerit obtineat, quatenus idem Karolus (quia filium non habebat) unum ex his regulis
sibi adoptet in filium, et sub manu boni et strenui bajuli a d hoc eum nutriri faciat, ut sibi
haeredem aut in totum, aut in partem statuat.
30 Qui vastantes omnia in suo itinere, Corbeiae monasterium et Ambianis civitatem aliaque
sancta loca occupaverunt, de quibus non modicam partem occisis ceterisque fugatis, et ipse
Hludowicus una cum suis retrorsum, nemine persequente, fugam arripuit, divino
manifestante iudicio, quia quod a Nortmannis fuerat actum non humana, sed divina virtute
patratum extiterit. Iterum namque Nortmannis regredientibus in partem regni sui, isdem
Hludowicus cum quibus potuit obviam eis perrexit et castellurn materia lignea quorundam
consiliariorum suorum hortatu in loco qui dicitur Stromus clausit; quad magis ad munimen
paganorum quam ad auxilium christianorum factum fuit, quoniam ipse rex Hludowicus
invenire non potuit, cui illud castellum ad custodiendum committere posset.
cf. R . Rau (ed.), op. cit., 282.
31 Contra quos rex ire perrexit obviatque eos in pago Witmau, in villa quae dicebatur
Sathulcurtis, et commissum est proelium. Moxque Nortmanni fugam ineunt atque dictam
villam deveniunt; quos rex insecutus est gloriosissimeque de eis triumphavit. Et patrata
victoria ex parte coeperunt gloriari suis hoc actum viribus ef non dederunt gloriam Deo.
Paucique Nortmanni ex dicta villa egressi, omnem exercitum vertit in fugam, pluresque
ex eis, videlicet usque ad centum homines, interfecerunt; et nisi rex citius equo descendens
locum resistendi et audaciam suis donaret, omnes turpiter ex eodem loco fugiendo abirent.
Hac vero patrata victoria, quia multos contigit ibi ruere Nortmannos, rex ovans repedavit
trans Hisam, perpauci vero Dani, qui evasere. interitum suorum nuntiavere in castra,
412 T H E LUDWIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

indeque Nortmanni Hludovicum regem adolescentem timere coeperunt.

cf. R . Rau (ed.), op. c i f . , 300.
32 Rex [viz. Louis I1 of the East Frankish kingdom] cum suo nepote Hludowico [viz. Louis
111 of the West Frankish kingdom] apud villam Gundolfi congruum habuit colloquium;
inde transiens, omne tempus aestivum in Baioaria moratus est. Nepos vero illius cum Nord-
mannis dimicans nobditer triumphavit; nam novem milia equitum ex eis occidisse perhibetur.
At illi instaurato exercitu et amplificato numero equitum plurima loca in regione regis nostri
vastaverunt . . .
v. R. Rau (ed.), op. cit., 3. Teil, 114.
3 3 Anno dominicae incarnationis 883 [sic] Hludowicus rex, frater Carlomanni, moritur apud

sanctum Dionysium, ibique honorabiliter tumulatur, quem omnes Galliarum populi nimio
planctu lamentati sunt. Fuit enim vir virtutis maximae, regnumque sibi subditum a
paganorum infestatione potenter viriliterque defendit. Inter caetera quae strenue gessit,
illud praecipue proelium commendatur, quod adversum Nordrnannos in loco qui vocatur
Sodaltcurt summis viribus exercuit; in quo certamine, ut ferunt, plusquam octo milia
adversariorum gladio prostravit.
Regino, Chronicon; v. MGH Scripfores, I (1826), 593.
3* inierunt bellum Franci contra paganos; Lodowico. . .primum exeunte ad pugnam Deoque
donante potiti sunt victoria.
MGHSm$ores, v (1844), 39. NB not (E. Berg, op. cit., 190) from Annales Blnndinimes (Ghent).
35 Hludowicus vero rex Ligerem petiit Nortmannos volens e regno suo eicere atque Alstingum

in amicitiam recipere, quod et fecit. Sed quia iuvenis erat, quandam puellam, fdiam cuiusdam
Germundi insecutus est; illa in domo paterno fugiens, rex equo sedens iocando earn insecutus
scapulas superliminare et pectus sella equi attrivit eumque valide confregit. Unde egrotare
coepit et delatus apud Sanctum Dionisium, Nonis Augusti defunctus maximum dolorem
Francis reliquit, sepultusque est in aecclesia sancti Dionisii.
v. R . Rau (ed.), op. cit., 2. Teil, 302.
36 for Regino’s obituary tribute, v. above, n. 33.
37 Et ipse ultra Sequanam, acsi recepturus Brittonum principes et bellaturus contra Nortmannos
usque Turonis perrexit. Ubi infirmatus est corpore, et lectica deportatus usque ad
monasterium Sancti Dionysii, mense August0 ibi mortuus est et sepultus.
v. R . Rau (ed.), op. cit., 2. Teil, 282.
38 Braune/Ebbinghaus, AlfhochdeufschesLesebuchI6 (1979), no. XXXVI.
39 H . Homann, op. c i f . , 20 f.
40 cf. annales Bertiniani:
Anno incarnationis dominicae 881. rernanente Karlomanno cum suis contra Boscnis
seditionem, Hludowicus, frater eius, reversus est in partem regni sui contra Nortmannos.
v. R. Rau (ed.), op. cit., 2. Teil, 282.
*l Ch. Plummer (ed.), Two offhe Suxon Chronicles Parallel, 2 vols, 1892, 1899. For a translation
into modern English, v. D. Whitelock, English Historical Documenfs, I (1955). v. also A. H. Smith
(ed.), The Parker C h r o n i ~ krepr.
, ~ 1966. NB From 754 to 845 the events recorded in the Parker Chronicle
occurred later than the date given at the beginning of each annal.
** For a detailed commentary on the OE Chronicle, its origin, sources, MSS., v. C h . Plummer
(ed.), op. cil. For a detailed discussion concerning the authenticity and sources of Asser’s work,
v. Stevenson, op. cit.
+3 ‘The Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 60 B.C. to A.D. 890: Vocabulary as Evidence’,
Proceedings of the British Academy, 64 (1978, published in 1980), 93 ff.
44 But cf. also Leo’s letter to Alfred‘s father, extant in BL Add. 8873 n. 13, printed in MGH Episfoloe

Karolzni Acui, 111 (1899), 602: Edelvulfo regi Anglorum

Filium vestrum Erfred quem hoc tempore ad sanctorum apostolorum limina destinare
curastis, benigne suscepimus et quasi spiritalem filium consulatus cinguli honore,
 T H E L U D WZGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 413
vestimentisque, ut mos est Romanis consulibus, decoravismus, eo quod in nostris se tradidit
manibus.
45 Whitelock, op. cit., 115.
46 s. Stevenson, op. cit., 194 & 200.
47 Asser 5 17
48 S. Keynes & M. Lapidge, Alfied the Great: Assert ‘Lije of Kinz Alfred‘and Other Contemporary Sources
(Penguin Classics 1983), 77, 79, 80.
49 Stevenson, op. cit., 227.
50 Asser S 38 divino fretus consilio et adiutorio fultus
51 This topos of the people in distress rejoicing at the return of their king has occurred in S 13
where Asser describes Aethelwulfs return from Rome in the midst of Aethelbald‘s rebellion. v.
below, n. 59.
52 transl. by Keynes & Lapidge, op. c d . , 84 f
53 $9 76 ff
54 extant in BL Add. 34890, fols. 158r-160v. For a translation into English, v. Keynes & Lapidge,
op. cit., 182 ff.
55 ‘Grimbald of St Bertin’s’, Medium Aeuum, X X X V (1966). 1-10,
56 barbaricae feritatis et linguae
The letter is quoted by Flodoardus, H i d . eccl. Rem., lib. iv, c. 3, P . L . 135, c. 275D; v.
also Stevenson, op. cit., 3 11.
57 P. Grierson, ‘Grimbald of St. Bertin’, The En&h Historical Review, LV (1940), 547.
58 T h e West Saxon habit of not permitting the queen to sit beside the king on the throne was
ultra morem Theotiscorum; v. Stevenson, op. cit., 200 ff.
59 Adveniente igitur Aethelwulfo rege a Roma, tota illa gens, ut dignum erat, in adventu

senioris. . . gavisa est.

v. above, n. 51.
6o N.P. Brooks’s statement to the contrary that ‘Writers like Asser, or Alfred himself, or the author
of the Ludwigslied composed to celebrate Louis III’s victory at Saucourt, saw the Vikings as the
instruments of God’s punishment of an unworthy people’ is modified in the subsequent passages
of his article which focus on the excessive wealth of English monasteries.
v. ‘England in the Ninth Century: the Crucible of Defeat’, Transactions ofthe Royal Historical Society,
Fifth Series, 29 (1979), 12.
61 v. the translation of the O E text into modern English by Keynes & Lapidge, op. cit., 124 ff.
62 transl. by Whitelock. E H D , 814.
63 e.g. op. cit., 179, from Hincmar, Capitulu in synodo apud S. Macram P . L . 125, c. 1082 C ff.
Ergo si sub tunicis nostris . . .habemus conscientiam malam de rapinis, de avaritia, . . .de
luxuriis, de invidia, de fraternis odiis, et de homicidiis, de sacrilegiis, et de incestibus, et
de caeteris criminibus ac peccatis, expurgemus illa mala per puram confessionem, . . . et
per eleemosynas et dignas satisfactiones, et quantocius tempus fuerit, faciamus omnes in
commune. . . publicam poenitentiam et triduanum jejunium. . . Nam aliter. . .contra paganos
habere non poterimus victoriam.
64 v. R . Rau (ed.), op. cit., 2. Teil, 246.
v. P . L . 80, c. 607; translation in E H D , 810.
66 transl. by Whitelock, E H D , 776.
67 Legitur vero in libro Gildi Brettonum sapientissimi, quod idem ipsi Brettones propter rapinas
et avaritiam principum, propter iniquitatem et iniustitiam iudicum, propter desidiam et
pigritiam praedicationis episcoporum, propter luxoriam et malos mores populi patriam per-
diderunt. Caveamus haec eadem nostris temporibus vitia inolescere; quatenus benedictio
divina nobis patriam conservet in prosperitate bona, quam nobis in sua misericordia
414 T H E L U D WIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

perdonare dignata est.

in: Alcuini Epistolae 17, v. M G H Epistolae Karolini Aeui, I1 (1895), 45 ff.
6* In the modern English translation by D. Whitelock, E H D , 859:
There was a historian in the times of the Britons, called Gildas, who wrote about their
misdeeds, how with their sins they angered God so excessively that finally he allowed the
army of the English to conquer their land and to destroy the host of the Britons entirely.
69 se here, v. also below, n. 101
70

$ 57 Anno Domini Incarnationis DCCCLXXIX natiuitatis autem Ae@edi regis trigesimo primo, praeftus
paganorum exercitus d e Cippanhamme, ut promiserat, consurgens, Cirrenceastre adiit,
quae Britannice Cairceri nominalur, quae est in meridiana parte Huicciorum, ibique per unum
annum mansit.
58 Eodem anno magnus paganorum exercitus de ultramarinis partibus navigans in Tamesin
fluvium venit, et adunatus est superiori exercitui, sed tamen hyemavit in loco, qui dicitur
Fullonham, iuxta fluvium Tamesin.
5 59 Eodem anno eclipsis solis inter nonam et vesperam, sed proprius ad nonam, facta est.
5 60 Anno Dominicae rncarnationis DCCCLXXX nahitatis autem Aeljredi regis trigesimo secundo, saepe
memoratus paganorum exercitus Cirrenceastre deserens ad Orientales Anglos perrexit,
ipsamque regionem dividens coepit inhabitare.
5 61 Eodem anno exercitus paganorum qui in Fullonham hiemaverat, Britannicam insulam
deserens, iterum ultra mare navigans, ad Orientalem Franciam perexxit, et per unum annum
in loco, qui dicitur Gendi, mansit.
$ 62 Anno Dominicae Incarnationis DCCCLXXXI, natiuitatis autem Aelfredi regis trigesimo tertio praefatus
exercitus superius in Franciam perrexit. Contra quem Franci pugnaverunt, et. finito proelio,
pagani, equis inventis, equites facti sunt,
71

5 68 Eodem quoque anno Carlomannum, Francorum Occidentalium regem, aprorum venationem

agentem, singularis congressione horrendo dente dilacerans miserabili funere percussit. Cuius
frater Hlothuuicus superiori anno defunctus est; qui et ipse erat etiam Francorurn rex: ipsi
etenim ambo filii H!othuuici regis Francorum erant.
72 v. A. Campbell (ed.), The Chronicle of Aethelweard (1962). The text is extant in a M S . dating
from the early eleventh century, which was severely damaged in the Cottonian fire in 173 1 and
is preserved as Cott. Otho A x and xii at the British Library.
73 ibid., 43/44.
Scilicet post annum ulterius progredi petunt, agmina Francorum e contra insiliunt armis,
uictoriaeque fungunfur numen, barbaro exercitu fugato.
(the italicized letters represent fragments legible in the MS., the Roman ones have been
supplied from a copy of the text published in Henry Savile’s Rerum Anp.licorum scripforespost
Bedam praecipui (1 596).
74 ibid., xxxii ff.
7s Hariulfus, Chronicon Cmtulmse in F. Lot (ed.), Hariulf, Chroniqw de IAbbaye de Saint-Ripin (1894).
76 ibid., 141
At post mortem Hludogvici [filii ejus Hludogvicus et Karlomannus regnum inter se disper-
tiunt] . His ergo regnantibus, contigit , Dei judicio, innumerabilem barbarorum rnultitudinem
limites Franciae pervadere, agente id rege Guaramundo, qui multis, ut fertur, regnis suo
dirissimo imperio subactis, etiam Franciae voluit dominari, persuadente id fieri quodam
Esimbardo Francigena nobili. qui regis Hludogvici animos offenderat, quique genitalis soli
proditor, gentium barbariem nostros fines visere hortabatur.Sed quia quomodo sit factum
non solum historiis, sed etiam patriensium memoria quotidie recolitur et cantatur, nos,
pauca memorantes, caetera omittamus, ut qui cuncta nosse anhelat, non nostro scripto,
sed priscorum auctoritate doceatur.
77 v. J . BCdier, Les Lkgmdes Epiques - Rechnche sur la Formation des Chansons de Geste3, IV (1929), 21 f.
78 edited by A. Bayot in Gormont el Zsembart - Fragment de Chanson de Geste du XIZe siicle (1914).
 THE LUDWIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 415

All our quotations are taken from this edition

7 9 W. G. van Emden, ‘Isembart and the Old French Epic of Revolt’, Nottinsham Mediaeval Studies,

VIII (1964), 24 ff., questions the validity of such a reconstruction.

8o vv. 276, 289 le fiz Charlun op. cit., pp. 9 & 10
vv. 385 ff. Gorm[un]d li ad trek darz lanciez;
Deu Ie guarri, par sa pitit,
k‘il ne l’ad mie en char touchii.
op.cit., 13.
op. cat., 16
83 J. BCdier, op. cif., 79.
E. E. Metzner, ‘Wandalen im angelsachsischen Bereich? Gormundus Rex Africanus und
die Gens Hestingorum - Zur Geschicbte und Geschichtlichkeit des Gormund-Isembard-
Stoffs in England, Frankreich, Deutschland’, PBB (Tubingen), 95 (1973), 230ff., has iden-
tified him with Clovis I (d. 511). v. below.
a* v. J. Bedier, op. cit., 59 ff.
85 v. above, n. 70.

86 La bataille durra trek dis

entre Gormund e reis Lowis.
A1 quart, comencent a fuir
Turz et Persanz e Arabiz
par mi Vimeu e par Pontif,
Vers les alots Saint Valeri.
op. cit., 14. ‘The Provenance of the Old High German Ludwigslied, Medium Aeuum, XIV (1945),
1 ff.
v. above, n. 31
89 v. above, n. 32. J . Gyori, ‘Epaves archaiques dans Gormand el Ismbarf’, Mdanges o&ts d Rend
Crozef (1966), pp. 675 ff., has drawn attention to the fact that in the chanson degeste the Saracens
are depicted as having landed on French soil without horses and making it their prime objective
to capture horses from their enemies.
90 like the men of Charles the Bald who participated in the swearing of the &$burger Eide in 842,
v. Braune/Ebbinghaus, op. cit., no. XXI.
9 i v. above, n. 34 and 35; cf. particularly F. Vercauteren, ‘Comment s’est-on dtfendu au IXe
sikcle dans l’empire franc, contre les invasions normandes?’, Annafes du XXXe congris de la Fddhafion
Archidogague de Bcigiquc (Bruxelles 1936), 117-32.
92 v. above, n. 45.

93 op. cit., 81.

g4 ‘La Chanson de Gormont et Isembarf‘, Romania, 80 (1959), 34 ff. In the opinion of E. E. Metzner,

op. cif., the chanson is based on two separate complexes of legends, the one surrounding the battle
of Saucourt, the other surrounding a legendary African king Gormundus (mentioned by Geoffrey
of Monmouth) who came to Britain in the fifth century, at a time when Cirencester may be sup-
posed to have been a town of considerable importance, and subsequently fought Clovis I.
9 5 v. above, n. 33.

96 v. Asser 5 106.

97 v. OEC 878 and Asser 5 56

98 the O H G phrase translates ethnici in Tafian, viz.

32, 7 (: Mt. 5, 47) heidane man
34, 3 (: Mt. 6, 7) thie heidanon man
Tatian: Lateinisch and attdeutsch mit a u s ~ h r l z c hGlossar,
~ ed. E. Sievers2 (Nachdruck 1960).
416 T H E LUDWIGSLIED AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

99 vv. 24, 28, 44

loo v. above, n. 31 and n. 32
Iol e.g. OEC 851, 855
Io2cf. P. H . Sawyer, The VikingAge2 (1971), 18
103cf. E. Urmoneit, Der Wortschatz des Lndwigsliedes im Umkreis der althochdeutschen Literatur (1973),
120 ff.
e.g. OEC 626 MS. E: 'and within twelve months the king was baptized at Easter with all his
retinue' - mid eallum his dug&.
I o 5 Nortmanni vero cum infinita multitudine monasterium nostrum ingressi VII. Kal. Ianuarii
ipsum monasterium et civitatem, exceptis aecclesiis, et vicum monasterii et omnes villas
in circuitu V. Kal. Ianuarii, interfectis omnibus quos invenire poterant, igne cremaverunt,
omnemque terram usque Sumnam pervagati sunt, capta praeda infinita hominum, pecudum
et iumentorum. v. Rau (ed.), op. cit. 2. Teil, 298.
lo6 MGH Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, I (1881), 116 f.

Io 7 cf. OEC 896; this includes Frisian mariners.

lo* NB however this passage from Alfred's preface to his translation of Cura Pastoralis (transl. by
Keynes and Lapidge, op. c i t . , 125):
'When I reflected on all this, I recollected how - before everything was ransacked and
burned - the churches throughout England stood filled with treasures and books.'
Io9 OEfrids Evangelienbuch, ed. 0. Erdmann ( = Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Nr. 49), 5th ed. by
L. Wolff (1965).
'Io The Vikings in Francia, Reading 1975, p. 9.
sedecim ex paganis intraverunt in secretarium basilicae biberuntque de vino qucd illic positum
erat ad missas. Mox ut gustaverunt, in rabiem omnes sunt conversi, et ad castra sua deducti
ill0 die simul mortui sunt.
from: Ex gestis Conwoionis abbatis Rotonensis MGH Scriptom, X V (1887), 459.
*I2 Heliand und Genesis, ed. 0 . Behaghel ( = Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Nr. 4).