Manuscripts
Manuscripts of his chronicle include:
- "Auxerre - BM - ms. 0091". Origin (Pontigny Abbey Notre-Dame)
- "Avranches - BM - ms. 0160". Origin (Mont-Saint-Michel)
Freculf (Latin : Freculphus Lexoviensis, "Freculf of Lisieux"; died 8 October 850 or 852), a Frankish ecclesiastic, diplomat and historian, was a pupil of the palace school of Aachen during the reign of Charlemagne and Bishop of Lisieux from about 824 until his death. He is now best remembered for his universal chronicle, the Twelve Books of Histories (Historiarum libri XII), which is a source of information about the conversion of Gaul and the history of the Franks. Chronicles such as that of Freculf attempted to show world history from Creation to the present, but most history writing in the eighth and ninth centuries was considerably more local and specific. [1]
Freculf's origins are unknown, but it is known that he became a bishop in either 823 or 825 until his death on 8 October 850 or 852. [2] He was a pupil of Louis the Pious' chancellor Helisachar and was involved in various issues of the time, including the question of image veneration. He was described as a 'busy, well-connected man'. [3] Some have observed that Freculf was the first medieval writer to see the post-Roman world as something different. He writes that:
The Romans had been expelled from Italy and the last great monument to Rome's state cults had been transformed. It was Roman, however, but Roman ecclesiastical. Gregory I marked the way and even the Greeks acknowledged that Rome was the head of all churches. It was Catholic. The future of the West was safely in the hands of Catholic Franks and Lombards, the Visigoths had rejected heresy, and the English were on the way to conversion, What is more, the faith itself had been definitively defined. [4]
Freculf was sent by Louis to Rome to negotiate with Pope Eugene II about the veneration of images in 824. This issue was one of the main points of contention in the Church at the time. The East Roman Emperor at the time, Michael II, was initially tolerant towards those who venerated images (see Iconoclasm). However, later on in his reign he started persecuting all those who worshiped these images. However, the Franks allowed for veneration, although not adoration, of images. He asked Louis the Pious to persuade Pope Eugene II to ban veneration. Louis complied and one of the envoys he sent was Freculf. However this Frankish embassy failed as Eugene II stated that the second Council of Nicaea had already decided that images can be venerated but should not be adored. [5]
One of Freculf's most important works was his Twelve Books of Histories in two volumes. When he wrote the second part 'he dedicated it to Empress Judith as a gift for her son Charles [the Bald]'. [6] He hoped that this book would 'enable princes to take precautions against disadvantages to themselves and to their subjects'. [7] In a letter to Empress Judith of Bavaria, Freculf flatters the empress while at the same time claiming that her son Charles was so like Charlemagne that 'his grandfather seems not to have died, but rather with the fog of sleep wiped away, to illumine the world anew, indeed his immortal wit, elegance and virtue shine in the grandson together with the name.' [8] Empress Judith encouraged this comparison of Charles to Charlemagne, something that he would be reminded of throughout his reign. However, the influence of Charlemagne was to go way beyond the reign of Charles the Bald. [9] Freculf also mentioned in his book that he hoped Charles would be 'our king of a new age'. [10] Freculf also sent Charles the Bald a copy of the military treatise De re militari by Vegetius. [11]
Freculf's work, along with Ado of Vienne's chronicle, are the only examples of chronicles encompassing world history until the late twelfth century. [12] It was only after the 13th century that world chronicles would become more numerous. This work provided an excellent example of how important tradition was for the Carolingians. Part One of the book narrates the history from the creation of the world to the birth of Jesus Christ. [13] The second part consisted of the history from incarnation of Jesus up until around 600AD. [14] His work was centered mainly religious aspects, such as the Visigothic conversion to Catholicism, admiration of Pope Gregory I as a 'defender of the faith', all the martyrs, and all six ecumenical councils up until that point. [15] This text, which is often neglected due to its lack of new factual information of contemporary events...crafts a history meant to address present concerns through the 'mirror' of the past. [16]
However, Freculf did not use the customary ages-of-the-world or chronological models for organizing his material. [17] Instead he traced history through the fall and rise of potentates, realms, and cults through pagan, pre-Roman antiquity, and then through Israel. [18] He only mentioned Rome because it allowed for peace and prosperity, paving the way for the Church to grow.
Manuscripts of his chronicle include:
Angilbert, Count of Ponthieu was a noble Frankish poet who was educated under Alcuin and served Charlemagne as a secretary, diplomat, and son-in-law. He is venerated as a pre-Congregation saint and is still honored on the day of his death, 18 February.
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800, holding these titles until his death in 814. He united most of Western and Central Europe, and was the first recognised emperor to rule from the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne's reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.
Louis the Pious, also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only surviving son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position that he held until his death except from November 833 to March 834, when he was deposed.
Louis the German, also known as Louis II of Germany, was the first king of East Francia, and ruled from 843 to 876 AD. Grandson of emperor Charlemagne and the third son of Louis the Pious, emperor of Francia, and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye, he received the appellation Germanicus shortly after his death, when East Francia became known as the kingdom of Germany.
Charles the Bald, also known as Charles II, was a 9th-century king of West Francia (843–877), King of Italy (875–877) and emperor of the Carolingian Empire (875–877). After a series of civil wars during the reign of his father, Louis the Pious, Charles succeeded, by the Treaty of Verdun (843), in acquiring the western third of the empire. He was a grandson of Charlemagne and the youngest son of Louis the Pious by his second wife, Judith.
The Carolingian Empire (800–887) was a Frankish-dominated empire in Western and Central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to transfer the status of Roman Empire from the Byzantine Empire to Western Europe. The Carolingian Empire is sometimes considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.
Irene of Athens, surname Sarantapechaena, was Byzantine empress consort to Emperor Leo IV from 775 to 780, regent during the childhood of their son Constantine VI from 780 until 790, co-ruler from 792 until 797, and finally empress regnant and sole ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire from 797 to 802. A member of the politically prominent Sarantapechos family, she was selected as Leo IV's bride for unknown reasons in 768. Even though her husband was an iconoclast, she harbored iconophile sympathies. During her rule as regent, she called the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which condemned iconoclasm as heretical and brought an end to the first iconoclast period (730–787). Her public figure was very polarizing during her 5 year reign, as most saw it as wrong for a woman to rule solely. Her reign as such made her the first ever empress regnant, ruling in her own right, in Roman and Byzantine imperial history.
Charles III, called the Simple or the Straightforward, was the king of West Francia from 898 until 922 and the king of Lotharingia from 911 until 919–923. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty.
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious till the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Judith of Flanders was a Carolingian princess who became Queen of Wessex by two successive marriages and later Countess of Flanders. Judith was the eldest child of the Carolingian emperor Charles the Bald and his first wife, Ermentrude of Orléans. In 856, she married Æthelwulf, King of Wessex. After her husband's death in 858, Judith married his son and successor, Æthelbald. King Ætheldbald died in 860. Both of Judith's first two marriages were childless. Her third marriage was to Baldwin I, Margrave of Flanders, with whom she had several children.
Carolingian art comes from the Frankish Empire in the period of roughly 120 years from about 780 to 900—during the reign of Charlemagne and his immediate heirs—popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The art was produced by and for the court circle and a group of important monasteries under Imperial patronage; survivals from outside this charmed circle show a considerable drop in quality of workmanship and sophistication of design. The art was produced in several centres in what are now France, Germany, Austria, northern Italy and the Low Countries, and received considerable influence, via continental mission centres, from the Insular art of the British Isles, as well as a number of Byzantine artists who appear to have been resident in Carolingian centres.
Judith of Bavaria was the Carolingian empress as the second wife of Louis the Pious. Marriage to Louis marked the beginning of her rise as an influential figure in the Carolingian court. She had two children with Louis, Gisela and Charles the Bald. The birth of her son led to a major dispute over the imperial succession, and tensions between her and Charles' half-brothers from Louis' first marriage. She eventually fell from grace when Charles' wife, Ermentrude of Orléans, rose to power. She was buried in 843 in Tours.
The Libri Carolini, more correctly Opus Caroli regis contra synodum, is a work in four books composed on the command of Charlemagne in the mid 790s to refute the conclusions of the Byzantine Second Council of Nicaea (787), particularly as regards the matter of sacred images. They are "much the fullest statement of the Western attitude to representational art that has been left to us by the Middle Ages".
Thegan of Trier was a Frankish Roman Catholic prelate and the author of Gesta Hludowici imperatoris which is a principal source for the life of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious, the son and successor of Charlemagne.
The Council of Frankfurt, traditionally also the Council of Frankfort, in 794 was called by Charlemagne, as a meeting of the important churchmen of the Frankish realm. Bishops and priests from Francia, Aquitaine, Italy, and Provence gathered in Franconofurd. The synod, held in June 794, allowed the discussion and resolution of many central religious and political questions.
Dhuoda was a Frankish writer, as well as Duchess consort of Septimania and Countess consort of Barcelona. She was the author of the Liber Manualis, a handbook written for her son.
The Byzantine Iconoclasm were two periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire when the use of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and imperial authorities within the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the temporal imperial hierarchy. The First Iconoclasm, as it is sometimes called, occurred between about 726 and 787, while the Second Iconoclasm occurred between 814 and 842. According to the traditional view, Byzantine Iconoclasm was started by a ban on religious images promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, and continued under his successors. It was accompanied by widespread destruction of religious images and persecution of supporters of the veneration of images. The Papacy remained firmly in support of the use of religious images throughout the period, and the whole episode widened the growing divergence between the Byzantine and Carolingian traditions in what was still a unified European Church, as well as facilitating the reduction or removal of Byzantine political control over parts of the Italian Peninsula.
Claudius of Turin was the Catholic bishop of Turin from 817 until his death. He was a courtier of Louis the Pious and was a writer during the Carolingian Renaissance. He is most noted for teaching iconoclasm, a radical idea at that time in Latin Church, and for some teachings that prefigured those of the Protestant Reformation. He was attacked as a heretic in written works by Saint Dungal and Jonas of Orléans.
There was an Abbasid–Carolingian alliance during the 8th and 9th centuries, effected through a series of embassies, rapprochements and combined military operations between the Frankish Carolingian Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate.
Christianity in the 8th century was much affected by the rise of Islam in the Middle East. By the late 8th century, the Muslim empire had conquered all of Persia and parts of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) territory including Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. Suddenly parts of the Christian world were under Muslim rule. Over the coming centuries the Muslim nations became some of the most powerful in the Mediterranean basin.
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