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Constructing the Past in the Early Middle Ages: The Case of the Royal Frankish Annals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Rosamond McKitterick
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Extract

HUMAN beings are in a perpetual dialogue with the past from their vantage point in the present. St Augustine put this most succinctly when he discussed what he thought of as ‘three times’, that is, ‘a present concerning past things; a present concerning present things and a present concerning future things. For these three are in the spirit and I do not see them elsewhere: the present concerning past things is memory; the present concerning present things is perception; the present concerning future things is expectation’.

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Research Article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 7 , December 1997 , pp. 101 - 129
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Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1997

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References

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13 Jacques Le Goff, ‘Time, Merchant's Time and Church's Time in the Middle Ages', in idem, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1980), 29–42.

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17 Rule of Benedict, c. 8, ed. and trans. McCann, Justin (1952), 48–9Google Scholar, and his notes 175–6.

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22 For lucid explanations see Harrison, Kenneth, The Framework of Anglo-Saxon History to A.D. 900 (Cambridge, 1976)Google Scholar, and Wallis, Reason and Reckoning. One lunar month = 29.5306 days; one solar year = 365.2422 days; excess lunar months in a solar year.3683. To reconcile lunar and solar years the computist or calendar maker must intercalate 3 lunar months every 8 years; 4 lunar months every 11 years; 7 lunar months every 19 years; (this is the Alexandrine cycle, which is the most nearly accurate); 31 months every 84 years (a cycle of 532 years, that is, the Victorine, was also used). Even the 19-year cycle needed correction and adjustment because it came to a total of 6440.75 days, one day more than 19 Julian years = 6939.75 days. To correct it the saltus lunae, one lunar day was omitted at the end of the nineteenth year. This fixed lunar XIV.

23 Leo the Great, Epistola 138, ed. Migne, J. P., Patrologia Latina cursus completus [hereafter PL] 54 (Paris, 1846), cols. 1101–2Google Scholar.

24 Compare Columbanus, Epistola 1, ed. Walker, G. S. M., Sancti Columbani Opera, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 2 (Dublin, 1970), 1–7Google Scholar.

25 Victurius, ed. Mommsen, T., Victurius Aquitanus Cursus Paschalis CCCLVII, MGH Chronica minora, 1 (Berlin, 1892), 676–84Google Scholar. See also Jones, C. W., ‘The Victorian and Dionysiac Paschal Tables’, Speculum, 3 (1934), 408–21Google Scholar, and Krusch, Bruno, ‘Studien zur christlichmittelalterlichen Chronologie’, Abhandlungen der Preuschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philhist. Klasse, 8, 1937 (Berlin, 1938), 4–57Google Scholar [hereafter, Krusch, ‘Studien’].

26 Dionysius, , Libellus de cycle magno paschae/Cyclus Pachalis, PL 67, 483–508Google Scholar, especially col. 487 and also ed. Krusch, , ‘Studien’, 59–87Google Scholar.

27 Bede, , Historia eccksiastica gentis anglorum, III. 25Google Scholar, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B.Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1969), 295–309.

28 Admonitio Generalis, 789, c. 72, ed. Boretius, A., MGH Capitularia regum francorum, I (Hannover, 1883), 60Google Scholar.

29 On all these, particularly manuscripts from Fulda and the Reichenau, see Stevens, Wesley, Cycles of Time and Scientific Learning in Medieval Europe, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot, 1995)Google Scholar, chapters I, VI–XI.

30 McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘The Perception of Time in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’, in The Transformation of Tradition ed. Mostert, Marco (Leiden, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

31 Dionysius Exiguus, ed. Wurm, H., Studien und Text zur Dekretalsammlung des Dionysius Exiguus, Kanonistische Studien und Texte 16 (Bonn, 1939Google Scholar; reprinted Amsterdam, 1964), and Peitz, W. B. M., Dionysius Exiguus Studien (Bonn, 1960)Google Scholar. For the background see McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘Knowledge of Canon Law in the Frankish Kingdoms before 789: The Manuscript Evidence’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 36 (1985), 97–117Google Scholar, reprinted in Rosamond McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th–9th centuries, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot, 1994), chapter II.

32 See, for example, Pippin's queries directed to Pope Zacharias, reported by Zacharias to Boniface in 747, ed. Tangl, Michael, Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, no. 77Google Scholar, MGH Epistolae Sekctae in usum scholarum, 1 (Berlin, 1916), 159–61Google Scholar, and responded to by Zacharias, , ed. Gundlach, W., Epistolae Meroivingici et Karolini aevi, MGH Epistulae, III (Hannover, 1892), 479–87Google Scholar.

33 Krusch, Bruno, ‘Däs älteste fränkische Lehrbuch der dionysianischen Zeitrechnung’, Mélanges offerts à Emile Chatelain (Paris, 1910), 232–42Google Scholar. For details on this and the other Carolingian ‘encyclopaedias of time’ see Borst, Arno, ‘Alkuin und die Enzyklopädie von 809’, in Science in Western and Eastern Civilization in Carolingian Times, ed. Butzer, Paul Leo and Lohrmann, Dietrich (Basle, Boston and Berlin, 1993), 53–78Google Scholar [hereafter Borst, ‘Enzyklopadie’].

34 Cologne, Dombibliothek, MS 83 II, fols. 59r–69r. Also unedited. Two copies of it from the middle of the ninth century: Karlsruhe Landesbibliothek, Aug. CLXVII fols. 6r–12r and St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 248, fols. 76–82. See Cordoliani, A., ‘Une encyclopedic carolingienne de comput: les Sententiae in laude computi’, Bibliothequt de I'Ecole des Chartres, 104 (1943), 237–43Google Scholar, and ‘Les traités de comput du haut moyen âge 526–103’, Archivum latinitatis medii aevi, 17 (1942), 51–72Google Scholar.

35 De ratione computandi, ed. Croinin, D. O and Walsh, M., Studies and Texts (Toronto, 1988)Google Scholar. Another manuscript is in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS n.a.lat. 456, fols. 189–90V.

36 Borst, , ‘Enzyklopädie’, 54Google Scholar, credits Alcuin with this.

37 Best manuscript, Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1831, fols. 116r–25V. See also London, British Library, Royal 13 A XI, fols. 126V–39V, and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 4860.

38 Borst, , ‘Enzyklopädie’, 71–3Google Scholar.

39 Discebat artem computandi: Einhard, , Vita Karoli, c. 25Google Scholar, ed. Holder-Egger, O., MGH Scriptores rerum germanuarum in usum scholarum sepamtim editi, 25 (Berlin, 1911)Google Scholar, and Rau, R., Quellen zur karolingische Reichsgeschichte i (Darmstadt, 1974), 196Google Scholar.

40 See Krusch, Bruno, ‘Ueber eine Handschrift des Victorius’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deulsche Geschkhtskunde, 9 (1883/1884), 269–82Google Scholar, Poole, Reginald Lane, Chronicles and Annals. A Brief Outline of their Origin and Growth (Oxford, 1926)Google Scholar [hereafter, Poole, Chronicles and Annals], Jones, C.W., Saints' Lives and Early Chronicles in Early England (Ithaca, 1947)Google Scholar, and McCormick, M., Les annaks du haut moyen âge, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, fasc. 14 (Turnhout, 1975)Google Scholar, especially 27. I, too, repeated this old orthodoxy in my The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987 (London, 1983), 2–6 [hereafter, McKitterick, Frankish Kingdoms]Google Scholar.

41 Gallen, St, Stiftsbibliothek 250, p. 14Google Scholar: Annales S. Gallenses brevissimi, 718–889, MGH Scriptores I (Hannover, 1826), 69Google Scholar.

42 For example, the tenth-century codex Einsiedeln Stiftsbibliothek MS 356: illustrated in Poole, , Chronicles and Annals, opposite p.6Google Scholar.

43 For firm support of the traditional view see Croinin, Daibhi O, ‘Early Irish Annals from Easter Tables: A Case Restated’, Peritia, 2 (1983), 74–86Google Scholar, but his case is undermined by his assumption that Easter tables are copied from exemplars and take over any annal entries from the exemplars. There would, however, be no necessity for a full exemplar when compiling a new set of Easter tables and the annal entries we find against earlier dates in tables in late ninth-, tenth-and eleventh-century manuscripts may be the result of a quite different interest in relation to the historical associations ot the centre in which the tables were compiled. Harrison also voices scepticism about the connection between Paschal annals and annals, in Framework, 45Google Scholar.

44 The exception is the eighth-century copy of Victurius, Canon paschalis from jouarre, now in Gotha, Landesbibliothek Mbr. 1.75, fols. 70–122, which has single non-historical entries in eighth-century Merovingian cursive on fols. 77V and 89v. Against the year 501 it has the note ‘Gundubadus fuit in Abinione’, recorded by Krusch, . ‘Ueber eine Handschrift der Victorius’, p. 277Google Scholar. On the manuscript's origin see McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘Nuns' Scriptoria in England and Francia in the Eighth Century’, Francia, 19/1 (1992), 1–35Google Scholar at 5, reprinted in McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning, chapter VII. It should be noted in relation to the point made in note 43 above that the event singled out in the Easter tables is also described in another manuscript belonging to this same Jouarre group, namely, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale lat. 17654, containing Gregory of Tours' Historiae.

45 See the codices listed by Cordoliani, A., ‘Contribution á la littèrature du comput ecclesiasticque au moyen âge’, Studi Meditvali, 3rd series, 1 (1960), 107–37Google Scholar, and 2 (1961), 169–73, and idem, ‘Les traites de comput du haut moyen âge (526–1003)’, Archivum Latinitatu Medii Aevi, 17 (1942), 51–72.

46 Lieftinck, G. I., Manuscrits dates conserves dans les pays-bas. Catalogue paliographique des manuscnts en icriture latine portant des indications de date, I. Les manuscrits d'origine étrangère (1816– c. 1550)(Amsterdam, 1964), 91–2 and Plates 1–3. I am very grateful to Dr A. Th. Bouwman of the Leiden Universiteitsbibliotheek for kindly answering my queries about this manuscript and sending me photographs. I am now preparing a study of Scaliger 28Google Scholar.

47 EdWaitz, G., MGH Scriptores, XIII (Hannover, 1881), 1–19Google Scholar.

48 Annales Flawiniacenses et Lausonenses, ed. Pertz, G., MGH Scriptores, III (Hannover, 1839), 149–52Google Scholar.

49 Innes and McKitterick, ‘Writing of History’.

50 See the comments by Noble, Thomas F. X., ‘Tradition and Learning in Search of Ideology’, in The Gentle Voices of Teachers. Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age, ed. Sullivan, Richard (Columbus, OH, 1995), 227–60Google Scholar.

51 I draw in this paragraph on Innes and McKitterick, ‘Writing of History’.

52 See Schmid, Karl,Gebetsgedenken und adliges Selbstoerständnis im Mitklalter: Ausgewählte Beiträge. Festgabe zu seinem 60. Geburtstag (Sigaringen, 1983)Google Scholar.

53 For example, ARF, s.a. 771, 32.

54 Fredegar, , ed. Wallace-Hadrill, John Michael, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar and its Continuations (1960), 85–6Google Scholar, 87–87, 90–90, 91–91, 24–24, 117–18.

55 It has always been assumed hitherto that the Royal Frankish Annalist drew on Fredegar. It may well be that the relationship for the section covering the years 741–68 should be reversed (from a practical point of view it is easier to write a chronologically diffuse account drawn from a precise year-by-year record than vice versa) but this needs further work, especially once the new edition of Fredegar, in preparation by Roger Collins, become available. See his preliminary essay: Roger Collins, Fredegar, Authors of the Middle Ages. Historical and Religious Writers of the Latin West vol. IV, no. 13 (Aldershot, 1996).

56 McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘The Audience for Latin Historiography in the Early Middle Ages. Text Transmission and Manuscript Dissemination’, in Scharer and Scheibelreiter, Historiographie, 96–114Google Scholar.

57 A notable exception is Matthias Becher's comprehensive exposure of the lies woven together in the ARF' account of Tassilo of Bavaria: Eid und Herrschaft. Untersuchungen zum Henscherethos Karls des Groβen, Vorträge und Forschungen Sonderband 39 (Sigmaringen, 1993)Google Scholar; especially 21–77.

58 For valuable discussions of these texts see, on the Annals of Bertin, St, Nelson, Janet L., ‘The Annals of St Bertin’, in Charles the Bald. Court and Kingdom, ed. Nelson, Janet L. and Gibson, Margaret (2nd edn, 1990), 23–40Google Scholar, and also reprinted in Janet L. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (1986), 173–94, and her Introduction to her translation, The Annals of St Bertin (Manchester, 1991)Google Scholar; on the Annals of Fulda see Reuter's, Timothy Introduction to his translation, The Annals of Fulda (Manchester, 1992)Google Scholar.

59 Ranke, L., ‘Zur Kritik fränkisch-deutscher Reichsannalen’, Abhandlungen der königluhen Akadettw der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1854), 415–56Google Scholar.

60 Innes, and McKitterick, , ‘The Writing of History’, p. 208Google Scholar.

61 On the possible understanding of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in the ninth century see Innes, Matthew, ‘Social and Political Processes in the Carolingian Middle Rhine Valley, C.750–C.875’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995Google Scholar, and Social Processes and the State: The Middle Rhine Valleyfromthe Merovingians to the Ottmians (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar.

62 See, for example, the comments in Nelson, Janet L., ‘Kingship and Royal Government’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, IIGoogle Scholar: 700–900 ed. McKitterick, Rosamond (Cambridge, 1995), 383–430Google Scholar, especially 417.

63 Halphen, Louis, Etudes critiques sur I'histoire de Charlemagne (Paris, 1921)Google Scholar.

64 Wattenbach, W., Levison, W. and Lowe, H., Deutschlands Geschichtsquelkn im Mittelalkr. Vorzeit und Karolinger, II (Weimar, 1953), 245Google Scholar –58, provide the general view and see also McKitterick, , Frankish Kingdoms, 3–4Google Scholar.

65 See the important discussion by Hoffman, Hartmut, Untersuchungen zur karolingische Annalistik, Bonner Historische Forschungen 10 (Bonn, 1958)Google Scholar, who also summarises the discussion up until then.

66 I have benefited here from the comments made by Timothy Reuter in his paper, ‘The Limits of Quellen-und Ideologic Kritik: The Case of the Revised Annales Regni Francorum and its Implications for Carolingian Historical Writing’, at the George Macaulay Trevelyan Colloquium, ‘New Perspectives on Ninth Century Francia’, Cambridge 30 November 1996, and wish to thank him for his permission to cite them here.

67 Dutton, Paul Edward, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln, NB, and London, 1994) 86–7Google Scholar.

68 Canisius, Heinrich, Antiquae Lectiones, III (Ingolstadt, 1603), 187–217Google Scholar; his text is based on a transcript in the Bavarian ducal library of an ‘old manuscript from Lorsch’.

69 ARF, ed. Pertz, Georg, MRH Scriplores (Hannover, 1826)Google Scholar.

70 The ARF were continued as the Annals of St Bertin to 882 in the West Frankish kingdom and as the annals of Fulda in the East Frankish version to 887/901, though neither of these is a contemporary title. See the references in n. 58 above. It is possible that when we find references to Gesta Francorum in library catalogues of the ninth century, it is the ARF that are being described. If I am right this in itself is significant. I discuss this manuscript more fully in ‘L'idéologie politique dans l'historiographie Carolingienne’ in Jan, R. Le, Lebecq, S., Judic, B. (eds), La royauté et les élites laiques et ecclésiastiques dans I'Europe Carolingienne (du début du XIe siècle aux environs de 920) (Lille, 1997)Google Scholar. English translation in Hen, Y. and Innes, M. (eds), Using the past in early medieval Europe: politics, memory and identity (Cambridge, forthcoming)Google Scholar; (hereafter ‘L'idéologie politique’).

71 Kurze printed the revised version on the recto pages of his edition. The English translation by Bernard Scholz preserved this differentiation, by printing the main addition of the Reviser in indented paragraphs in relation to the main text: Scholz, B., Carohngian Chronicles (Ann Arbor, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kurze lists the ‘E’ manuscripts, xii–xv.

72 ARF, s.a. 741, 743, 747, pp. 2, 4, 6.

73 For discussion of this date, McKitterick, ‘L'idéologie politique’.

74 ARF, s.a. 768, 769, 770, 771, pp. 26, 28, 30, 32.

75 Ibid., s.a. 768, 770, 771, pp. 27, 29, 31, 33.

76 Ibid., s.a. 785, p. 71, and McKitterick, , Frankish Kingdoms, 135Google Scholar.

77 ARF, viii–xix.

78 McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library; the Patronage of Learning’, English Historical Review, 95 (1980), 28–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in McKitterick, Frankish Kings and Culture, chapter V.

79 See Collins, , Fredegar, 119–31Google Scholar.

80 Bischoff, Bernhard,Lorsch im Spiegel seiner Handschrijien, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung, Beiheft (Munich, 1974), 54–7Google Scholar.

81 See McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘Royal Patronage of Culture in the Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians: Motives and Consequences’, in Committenti e produzione artisticoktteraria nell'alio medioevo occidentale, Setutimane di Studio del Centro Italiano de Studi sull'alto Medioevo 39 (Spoleto, 1992), 93–129Google Scholar, reprinted in McKitterick, Frankish Kings and Culture, chapter VII. Also, Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Unity and Diversity in the Carolingian Church’, in Unity and Diversity in the Church, ed. Swanson, Robert, Studies in Church History 32 (Oxford, 1996), 59–82Google Scholar.

82 McKitterick, Rosamond, ‘Zur Herstellung von Kapitularien: Die Arbeit des leges Skriptoriums’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 101 (1993), 3–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 This is in contrast to the Anglo-Saxons who lack the emphasis on a particular family: see Foot, Sarah, ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest’, TRHS, 6th series (1996), 25–49Google Scholar. On questions of identity see Pohl's, Walter excellent paper, ‘Tradition, Ethnogenese und literarische Gestaltung: eine Zwischenbilanz’, in Ethnogenese und Überlieferung. Angewandk Methoden der Fruhmitlelalterforschung, ed. Brunner, K. and Merta, B. (Vienna and Munich, 1994), 9–26Google Scholar.

84 Hraban Maur takes up this theme in his Liber de Oblatiom Puerorum, where he insists on the gens francorum as the legitimate succession of other imperial gentes, PL 107, col. 432.

85 Preliminary versions of different parts of this paper were presented to the Workshop, ‘Tracking down the Franks’ in King's College London, Denys Hay Seminar of the University of Edinburgh and the conference for Dutch graduate students in Medieval Studies at Driebergen, organised by the University of Utrecht, in February and March, 1996. I am particularly grateful to my audiences on these occasions, and to the Fellows of the Royal Historical Society assembled in Leeds in May for their lively discussion and suggestions. I wish also to thank Mayke de Jong most warmly for her critical reading and valuable suggestions for the final version of this paper.