Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Note on nomenclature
- 1 Neustria, Brittany, and northern Aquitaine
- 2 Redon and environs
- Introduction
- 1 Settlement and society in dark age Brittany
- 2 Neustria and the Breton march
- 3 The Bretons in the Christian empire of Louis the Pious
- 4 Carolingian hegemony and Breton revolts, 840–874
- 5 An anatomy of power
- 6 Churches and learning in Carolingian Brittany
- 7 The end of Carolingian Brittany
- List of manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought Fourth series
5 - An anatomy of power
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Note on nomenclature
- 1 Neustria, Brittany, and northern Aquitaine
- 2 Redon and environs
- Introduction
- 1 Settlement and society in dark age Brittany
- 2 Neustria and the Breton march
- 3 The Bretons in the Christian empire of Louis the Pious
- 4 Carolingian hegemony and Breton revolts, 840–874
- 5 An anatomy of power
- 6 Churches and learning in Carolingian Brittany
- 7 The end of Carolingian Brittany
- List of manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought Fourth series
Summary
On 17 April 869, some months after receiving Charles the Bald's gift of regalia, Salomon issued a formal charter to Redon. In language self-consciously modelled on that of a Carolingian royal diploma, Salomon, ‘by the grace of God prince of all Brittany and a large part of the Gauls’ gave the monks lavish gifts and legal privileges, and his beneficence was witnessed by forty-three members of his court. The gifts were jewel-encrusted gold altar furnishings together with liturgical books and relics, and among them was a chasuble worked with gold thread which Salomon declared had been a present to him from ‘my cofather Charles, the most pious king of the Franks’. As for the legal privileges, Salomon took Redon into his protection ‘in regal custom’, remitted all taxes, dues, and services payable to him in favour of the monks, banned all lawsuits against the monastery relating to the activities of the monks and their dependants during the abbacy of the recently deceased Con woion and freed the monks from all tolls liable on their trading activities. This charter is the fullest statement of how Salomon conceived his position at the height of his power. It alludes to his spiritual kinship with the Carolingian king and expresses his own quasi-royal position. Further, it gives us some hint of the scale of his wealth and of his powers of government. Above all, it is striking for presenting his position in explicitly Carolingian regal terms.
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- Province and EmpireBrittany and the Carolingians, pp. 116 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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