Magistra et Mater

Given I am now, in theory, interested in charters, I have started reading some and come across a collection which has the highest proportion of weird eighth century stuff that I've seen so far (though the better informed about charters may want to dispute this). The collection is of Italian charters, mainly preserved in the original in Siena: Wilhelm Kurze and Mario Marrocchi, eds. Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus: Urkundenbuch der Abtei S. Salvatore am Montamiata: von den Anfängen bis zum Regierungsantritt Papst Innozenz III. (736-1198) (Tübingen, M. Niemeyer, 1974-2004) and it contains Latin so proto-Italian that initially I just lay down and whimpered.

However, fortified by a dawning realisation that, of course, "bouis" really means "uobis", and the helpful suggestion that you just go for the general drift of the language and don't worry if the endings don't match up, I have now started working my way slowly through some of them.

I've also discovered that many of the private charters from the Lombard kingdom from before 774 (as edited by Luigi Schiaparelli in the first two volumes of Codice diplomatico lombardo) are online both at the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften and at the Perseus Project, the latter thanks to Timo Korkiakangas. So the full text enthusiasts among you can feast your eyes on most of what I'm going to discuss. Though, not unfortunately the boundary clause of one (forged) charter from King Ratchis, in which there is a boundary clause reference to "locum, ubi dicitur rivulo Putrido", which my inadequate proto-Italian is convinced must be the Putrid River.

Some of the material associated with San Salvatore is reasonably well-known: I'd come across the case of Baroncello and Boniperga before in Andrea Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau? Konkubinen im frühen Mittelalter. Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 52. (Cologne, Böhlau, 2002), where two brothers Audipert and Baroncello jointly buy a slave (Boniperga) and her baby son, and then seven years later there's a charter in which Audipert makes Baroncello's two sons by Boniperga (Bonipert and Leopert) his heirs. (nos. 11 and 17 in this edition, CDL no. 174 and no. 248).

But there are also types of charter I'm not used to, such as a revocable lease which included labour services, charter no 2 (CDL no. 57, where Pertulo promises to live in the casa of the centenarius Taso. What's particularly interesting to me is the penalty clause to end the agreement:

si exinde exire uolueris, cum tantum exeat quantum adduxet ipse aut fili eius; et si eum Taso aut filiis eius menare uolueris, exeas cum medietatem de omnem res mouile.

Which I think can be translated as: "If you [Pertulo] wish to go from there, let him [Pertulo] or his son go with as much as they brought; and if you Taso or his sons should want him [Pertulo] to stay, you [Pertulo] may go with half of all the movables". This seems logical to me – that a contested wish to leave is penalised, but I'm not sure if it's what the Latin actually says, or indeed quite what the Latin actually says. It also raises all kinds of awkward questions about what exactly it means to be tied to the land.

As does an even more weird charter, which Kurze describes as a "cartula reprmissionis" and I'd describe as sort of a lease, but not really. This is no. 8 in Kurze's edition, CDL no. 104, in which Arnifrid (who also has a surname "Arnucciolu", which is unusual), promises to Fusciano to live all his life in the casa of Arnifrid's dead father-in-law's house. If he doesn't work the land or tries to leave it or if he tries to leave Fusciano's jurisdiction (aut de iudiciaria uestra Suaninse exire uoluero) he has to pay a huge fine. But the charter doesn't say anything about dues payable or any kind of labour services that Arnifrid has to provide. So is it a lease or is it something else entirely?

Finally for today, there's a text that completely stumps me (and the real reason I'm doing the post, in the hope that someone can work out what this one means). This is Kurze's no. 18, CDL no. 253 from Chiusi in 771, which is a "carta promissionis", and goes like this (with my rough attempts to understand it underneath):

+ In nomine Domini. regnantibus domnis nostris Desiderio et Adelgis filio eius uiri excellentissimi regibus, anno regni eorum Deo ausiliante quinto decimo et duodecimo, mense aprilis, indictione nona.
[Dating clause]

Promitto adque spondeo me ego Ansifrid marisscalco uobis Saxo et Piperello seo Anschaidi diacono, ut de uinditione illa quas mihi Ansifridi seo Friduni hominibus tres id est Grossulus et Bonipertus seo Domninulo fecerunt de terrula in casale Brocciani uel silba qui et Grippo Ipsolo uocatur, qui eorum ex conparatione a Brittulo, qui et Fuscianus, et ipsa uinditione quas eorum Brittulo fecit, omnia nobis Ansifridi et Friduni uenundauerunt et cartulam nobis exinde fecerunt;
[Sale to Ansifrid and Frido by Grossulus, Bonipert and Dominulus of piece of land they'd bought from Brittulo]

unde promitto ego Ansifridi, tam pro me quam et pro Fridune, uobis Saxo et Piperello seo Anschaidi diacono seo Grossulo filio Fusculo adque Bonipert filio Bonuald adque Domninulus filio Tussiolo,
[Ansifrid promises on behalf of himself and Frido to the three sellers and three other men...]

ut si quoquo tempore cum ipse cartula uinditionis causare uoluerimus, ipsis ribus nobis defensandum uel contra uos dicendum, ut ipsis ribus uos mihi Ansifridi et Friduni defendatis, et ego Ansifridi uos non potuero da Fridune defensandum, ut cum ipsa cartula contra uos nunquam agam;
[Absolutely NO IDEA here]

nec ipse Frido nec eius heredes neque ego Ansifridi nec meos heredes nullo contra uos omnes suprascriptis nunquam agamus dicendum, ut uos nobis ipsa uinditione defendatis da qualiuet homine;
[neither myself, Frido nor our heirs will ever act against you by saying you ought to defend this sale from whatever person (there is often a penalty clause in charters saying the seller is liable if they don't defend the sale if it's queried, so I presume, Ansfrid's saying that won't apply)]

nec cum ipsa cartula quas nobis ipsis Grossulus, Domninulus et Bonipert fecerunt, neque sine ipsa cartula per nullum argumentum ingenii exinde agamus, nisi ipsis ribus qualiter potuerimus nus ipsa defendamus uinditione.
[neither with or without this charter, except to defend these things with the charter as much as we are able]

nam si agere uoluero ego Ansifrid uel meus heredes, et uos non potuerimus da Fridune uel eius heredibus defensare, tunc conponere promitto ego Ansifridi uobis Saxo, Piperello, Anschaidi, Domninulo seo Bonipert adque Grossulo u…….. ipsis ribus unde uobiscum agimus, id est uinditione ipsa unde uobis dixerimus ut …….. .
[If I or my heirs should want to do this, and we are not able to defend you from Frido and his heirs, then I promise to pay you concerning this transaction]

Quem enim promissionis nostre cartulam Firmo notarium scriuere rogauimus. Actum Clusio.
+ Ego Ansefrid in ac cartula promissionis a me facta propria manu mea subscripsi.
+ Ego Rodcari diaconus rogitus a suprascripto manu mea propria subscripsi.
Signum + manus Aduald curaturi testis.
+ Ego Cuntulus presbiter testis.
+ Ego qui supra Firmus notarius pos traditione conpleui et emisi.
[witness clauses]

Any help on this (along with any other comments or discussion) particularly welcome. And in return I'll try and dig out some more strange and wonderful stuff for you.

Last month at the IHR Earlier Middle Ages seminar we briefly contemplated the end times, when James Palmer from St Andrews talked about "Apocalyptic Outsiders and their Uses in the Early Medieval West". As James pointed out, there's been a lot of recent study on medieval apocalyptic thought, which he divided into four main camps:

1) Maximalists such as Johannes Fried or Richard Landes, who have argued for the very great influence of apocalyptic thought.

2) Denialists, such as Dominic Barthelemy, who claim that there was very little of such thought, and that we have misinterpreted symbolic discussions. (Barthelemy is also sceptical about the "feudal mutation", making me start to wonder if he thinks anything at all happened in the tenth and eleventh centuries).

3) Psychological apocalyptism, which James associated with Bernard McGinn, Paul Magdalino and Robert Markus: a view which focuses on the continuing tradition of the anxiety that the world might end at any time, rather than focusing on particular dates such as 800 or 1000 or 1033.

4) People who are largely denialists, but who have also done work on apocalyptic literature, such as Anke Holdenreid on the Sibylline prophecies, or Simon Maclean (who's written on Adso of Montier-en-Der).

One of the most perceptive comments about these different strands I ever heard, incidentally, was the late Tim Reuter in 1999, saying that how commonplace you took apocalyptic thought to be looked very different if you were Jewish in the pre-Year 2000 USA (like Landes), than if you were an Englishman in late twentieth-century Britain (Reuter).

I suspect James himself would probably come under one of the two latter categories, though he stressed that his paper was coming at the question from a rather different angle, looking at one particular aspect of apocalyptic thought: how were external enemies (those outside the borders of Christianity) incorporated or not into apocalyptic thought? What was interesting was seeing how different the responses could be, especially when most authors were drawing on the same few verses of the Bible.

The key passages for those who did want to stress apocalyptic outsiders were Revelation 20: 7-8: "And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle", and Ezekiel 38-39 which talks about Gog as coming from the north.

How people interpreted these names varied greatly. Augustine, in City of God, for example, saw "Gog" (= Latin "tectum") as meaning "roof" and "Magog" as "from the roof or uncovering" – implying that it means open hatred being revealed from its hiding. Jerome said that Gog and Magog were not the Scythians, and, in response to the sack of Rome in 410 AD, that the passages were not to be taken literally. On the other hand, Quodvultdeus a contemporary of theirs, driven out of North Africa by the Vandals, describes Gog and Magog as "Goths and Maurs, Getes and Massagetes".

To be more accurate, this is how Quodvultdeus describes them in his Liber promissionum; as James pointed out, in his homilies, he focuses on heretics and pagans, not Gog and Magog, and encouraging these groups to conversion. Regarding barbarians as a sign of the end times was only one option. It was also possible, as Salvian of Marseilles and Gildas did, to regard barbarians as punishing Christians for their sins without demonizing them. Writers in a prophetic tradition could see such events as warnings: it was still possible to avoid the final disaster by reform. (In contrast, once the end times have started, that's it – they just keep on coming).

It was even possible to interpret Gog and Magog positively, as Isidore of Seville does in his History of the Goths, Vandals and Suebi. In this, Isidore says that some people say the Goths originated from Magog. However, the meaning of that name is "tectum", implying strength, and this was correct, because the Goths had exhausted the Roman empire in a way no other people had ever been able to do.

In the rest of the paper, James looked at other examples of how texts were worked and reworked for apocalyptic or non-apocalyptic ends. In the early seventh century, after the siege of Constantinople in 626, Fredegar claimed that the Emperor Heraclius had opened the Caspian Gates which Alexander had created to keep out armies from the north. At the end of the seventh century, Pseudo-Methodius in Syria produced a text in which the Arab conquest the region had suffered was a providential test, to be followed by an attack by northern nations when these gates were opened. These were appalling foes, cannibals and eaters of scorpions.

Yet an eighth century Latin text, Pseudo-Ephraem's Scarpsum uses parts of Pseudo-Methodius, but has no mention of Alexander, the north or Arabs. Its main concern was instead to encourage penance. Some eighth-century Latin recensions of Pseudo-Methodius kept Gog and Magog, but Ambrose Autpertus, writing on Revelation 20:7, said that Gog and Magog couldn't be historicised as the Getes and the Massagetes, because the text said that the gentes following Satan came from all four corners of the earth. Therefore Gog had to mean "tectum" etc, etc.

Finally, James moved onto the Vikings, who were relatively easy to borealize (in James' terms of "associate with the North"). But again, the first reactions to them weren't necessarily apocalyptic. Alcuin, for example, saw the attack on Lindisfarne in 793 as fulfilling a prophetic warning, and requiring repentance, but not necessarily as signifying the end times. Gradually, however, there was dehumanising and borealization of the Vikings, as the raids continued. Paschasius Radbertus, for example, saw the building of churches in Scandinavia as a sign that the end was near. Matthew 24:13, after all had called for the preaching of the gospels to all gentes, (not all homines), and this was now happening. Hincmar, however, was sceptical. Rimbert, James reckoned, switched between prophetic and apocalyptic modes, depending on whether he was trying to get support for his mission.

Meanwhile, there is little evidence for copies of Pseudo-Methodius in England before the twelfth century, and Gog and Magog didn't play an important role in Anglo-Saxon thought, even among apocalyptic writers such as Wulfstan. It seemed to be necessary to have certain texts to hand for such demonisation of outsiders to happen.

What James' talk showed very effectively, I thought, was a continued tension in the period 400-1000 between typological and historical interpretations of Gog and Magog. It also showed how careful we need to be in distinguishing apocalyptic from prophetic ideas. The apocalyptic message is essentially a passive one: these things are going to happen. The prophetic message, applied more and more to the idea of "the north", is a call to action: reform and/or convert the heathen and all can still be well. The northerner is a providential instrument of God; he is not in himself a sign of necessary disaster.

I'm trying to catch up on blogging some of the IHR Earlier Middle Ages seminars and next on the list is a paper I heard at the start of February: Sarah Hamilton from Exeter on "Bishops, books and excommunication in England and France, 900-1200". Sarah's starting point was that we ought to take excommunication - the "bishop's bloodless sword" rather more seriously. (She also explained the difference between excommunication – a broader term for a time-limited exclusion from church community and anathema – which in theory excludes a person from salvation for all eternity).

From a modern secular standpoint, excommunication tends to be taken as obviously ineffective, but Sarah started by pointing out that a lot of cultures have cursing/excluding rituals, and that the key to the effectiveness of excommunication was widespread communication, which was why publicising it was important. Hincmar of Rheims, for example, says that sentences of excommunication should be read out in church before the gospel, because some people leave church before the gospel and then claim they haven't heard about the sentence. Sarah also made the point that excommunication was often a contended sentence – one's peers might not accept it, and by the central Middle Ages there are formal appeals against the process. (A man called Falcric appeals to the pope when he gets excommunicated by Hincmar in the mid-ninth century, as I've discussed in a previous article).

Excommunication should be seen as a tactic in disputes, Sarah reckoned and cited an example from Flodoard's Annales from 953, where excommunication is used to bring a certain Count Ragenald to a synod to negotiate about church goods he's "invaded". She was arguing that there ought to be more study of such disputes, especially as visible through charters, but that this is a neglected field (though she mentioned work done by Brian Pavlac and Jeffrey Bowman).

What Sarah then went on to do was to use the evidence from one of her specialist interests: liturgical sources. In the late ninth and early tenth centuries you have the emergence of pontificals, which are books of rites specifically for bishops, which cover the things that only bishops are supposed to be doing, including ordination, the administration of public penance and excommunication (which had been reserved to bishops since before the sixth century). Sarah was pointing out that there's now a move towards seeing such pontificals as locally produced rather than as standardised top-down products. And when she looked at excommunication rites, she found a particularly wide variety. Excommunication rites have a conspicuously looser format than for other liturgical events, and though there's a lot of formulaic language, the texts are very rarely identical. What they suggest, she argued was "a vibrant, living tradition".

Regino of Prüm, for example, right at the start of the tenth century, gives an elaborate liturgy for excommunication, which includes having twelve priests standing around the bishop holding lights. At the end, they throw down the lights and trample them under foot:

Debent autem duodecim sacerdotes episcopum circumstare et lucernas ardentes in manibus tenere, quas in conclusione anathematis vel excommunicationis proicere debent in terram et pedibus conculcare
(Regino, Libri duo de synodalibus causis ed. W. Hartmann, 2-413)

Rgeino, also however, gives a "excommunication brevis" which is just 33 words long. Sarah's found about 35 examples of occasional formulae of excommunication, some of which look like they've been practically used. For example, in a tenth-century Noyens Sacramentary now in the British Library (MS Additional 82956), a formula has been added to the first folio. This has the names scratched out and a later hand adds in singular terms, suggesting that a specific excommunication was later intended for more general reuse. There are other texts that seem to have been reused and excommunication formulae also get copied into different types of text: there's one lurking in the Textus Roffensis, for example, a twelfth-century collection of legal texts.

The "bloodless sword" then, looks potentially quite sharp, effective as a tool: we probably ought to look more seriously at exactly how it's used across the varied political structures of differing central medieval societies.