1 - Introduction: sources and interpretation

Summary

the Frankish dominance of the period covered by this volume poses special problems for the historian, not least because of the apparent concentration of a great diversity of sources from the Frankish heartlands and the relative paucity of material from everywhere else. Indeed, if our understanding of the years between 700 and 900 depended on the historical narratives produced in this period alone, we would be obliged to accept a largely Frankish proclamation of self-confidence and greatness on the part of the ruling elites of Carolingian society, and the Carolingians’ distinctive celebration of the intellectual and cultural vigour of their scholarship and art, as the central points of interest for the eighth and ninth centuries.

Fortunately, however, an enormous range of other categories of evidence, drawn on in all the chapters below – charters, secular and ecclesiastical legislation, law-codes, saints’ Lives, estate surveys, treatises on a wide variety of subjects, liturgical, school and library books, script, letters, tax-lists, poems, relics and relic labels, inventories, penitentials, seals, coins, library catalogues, inscriptions, confraternity books and artefacts of all kinds, ranging from pictures in manuscripts to weapons, jewellery, sculpture and buildings - redress the balance. The archaeological evidence has played a crucial role in adjusting and augmenting our understanding of many developments in this period, most notably in the economic and ecclesiastical spheres, as is clear from the chapters by Blackburn, Verhulst and de Jong.