101 Lecture 5 Feb 7

Question 1

1. Come to Jesus: onCourse. Also, reply within the discussion I start. Less messy

Review of things with Dana

Reminder analytical paper 1 due Feb. 21. Two weeks.

Answer 1

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Question 2

2. Merovingian Gaul

Thugs and Miracles

Answer 2

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Question 2

3. We follow the Franks become they are successful and because their own self- consciousness as the rightful rulers of the former western empire.
   Clovis sees himself as a representative of the eastern empire, but one who does not have to do anything. He receives the title of Consul. Not binding.

Answer 2

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Question 3

4. Merovingians an example of barbarian kingship, barbarian states, and the post-Roman world.
   Post- Roman meaning the empire is gone but social connections not severed. Especially seen in the Church.
   Need to start asking about what held society together.

Answer 3

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Question 4

5. 5th to 12thc. Various socities held together not by government as we understand it but by informal social ties and networks: kinship, vengeance, religion. By having to ask the question you are making a statement about the kind of society you are examining.

Answer 4

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Question 5

6. Defense of Christianity not just as a religion but as what holds society together. Kings the immediate enforcers of God. Okay if ruler is violent.

Answer 5

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Question 6

7. Kingship based on inherited status. Aura of sacredness and prestige that made it impossible to conceive of anyone not of their bloodline ruling
   Prestige of Clovis seen as father of his people
   Prestige is pre- christian: long hair (scissors or the sword anecdote, Clothilda), riding around in four wheeled carts, kings practice something like polygamy.

Answer 6

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Question 7

8. Loyalty of king’s entourage based on his ability to reward them with plunder. King has to reward his followers. No patriotism. Reward; plunder or land. Not enough revenue for salaries. If king does not expand, then he has to give away his own lands.
   Kings very wealthy due to plunder and taxes.

Answer 7

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Question 8

9. Taxation (requires records and administration)
   Public land
   Administrative network
   Kings appoint bishops

Answer 8

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Question 9

10. Clovis’ father: Childeric

His grave was dug up in the 17thc. All the stuff stolen in 1831. Drawings had been made. Show a cloak embroidered with cicadas, a crystal globe, gold bracelet, Frankish amulet, his horse’s head covered with precious metal, 100 gold coins, 200 silver coins, signet ring showing him with long hair and inscribed as king Chilperic. Much from Byzantium as bribes or good will gestures in keeping at least nominal loyalty of the tribes in the wake of the collapse of the western empire.
Long hair a symbol of the power of these rulers, a dynastic charisma.

Answer 9

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Question 10

11. Clovis. Greatly expanded the territory ruled by the Franks.

Clovis succeeded Chilperic as the head of this federated tribe. All that remains of the empire in the west is a lone commander. Syagrius. Rival for Clovis and one of his first targets. Sya probably not liked by Byz. Killed in 486

Answer 10

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Question 11

12 Clovis’ next target for expansion the Visigoths. Arians

Answer 11

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Question 12

13 Clovis Pious prior to conversion. Story of plundering of a church. Bishop asks for a silver bowl to be returned. Clovis says he must consult his men. Clovis says so his men he wants the bowl in addition to his half of the spoils. Soldier says no, takes out his axe and splits bowl in two. Clovis does not immediately do anything. Later muster says that soldier’s kit is a mess. Knocks something to the ground. As soldier bends to retrieve it, cleaves him in 2. Saying thus you did to my basin in Soisson.
Story shows both power and limitations of ruler and his style of piety. Leader of a band, not a state. Personal leadership.

Answer 12

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Question 13

14 For Gregory of Tours, Clovis is the new Constantine

Thuggish but pleasing to God

Answer 13

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Question 14

15 Clovis consolidates a large kingdom. Visigoths pushed into Spain.
Clovis’ conversion is 90 years before Visigoths become Catholic. Aids him: church has learned people, financial resources, and spiritual power.

Answer 14

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Question 15

16. what is the Church?
    Represented by bishops and monasteries
    Bishops deal with regular life
    Bishops in cities
    Bishops represent a continuation of the Roman order; members of prominent (Roman) families.
    Bishops and monks associated with saint protectors. Saint protects churches that have relics of the saint.

Answer 15

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Question 16

17. Mobilization of sacred power
    Conception of the saint in part a fear of a living presence
    multiplicity of sacred sites: is this polytheistic?
    Bishop a religious leader. Most are land owners and patrons, not preachers. Not a religion of deep introspection.
    The poor: have God’s ear. Ordinary people.
    Church on the one hand an extension of the kings’ power and on the other it defies the kings.

Answer 16

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Question 17

18. The vestiges of Rome
    Bishops
    Seat of the bishop of Tours. All but 5 of the 18 preceding bishops related to him. Being a bishop was an elite Roman office. Bishops have inherited Roman offices and responsibilities. They are part of the government and in a sense opposed to the more brutish aspects of Merovingian Frankish gov’t.

Answer 17

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Question 18

19. Need to take seriously the fact that the kings are at least amenable to the influence of the bishops and saints.
    Saint is not seen as dead. Saints are touchy. They can act against you. Holy figures, alive or dead, able to mobilize supernatural power.

Answer 18

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Question 19

20b. Clovis divided his kingdom equally; sons; Clothar, Childebert, Clodemer, Theudebert
Sons are crudely violent

leads to a gradual weakening. pattern we will return to with Carolingians

Answer 19

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Question 21

21. England and Ireland

Predominantly will focus on England as we know less about Ireland. We know relatively more about England because of the historian Bede who wrote in the early 8th c. Monk of Jarrow. Northumbria.

Answer 21

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Question 22

22. Bede’s history
    Full of miracles
    Very pro -christian
    About the conversion of England and the establishment of the Church

Answer 22

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Question 23

23. Britain: England, Scotland, Wales
    Britons: collective term for the Celtic population
    Celtic: the pre-Roman population. Not Angles, Saxons, or Jutes (know nothing about these last)
    Anglo-Saxons conquer much of the island, but not Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall

Answer 23

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Question 24

24. Ireland
    Celtic
    In contact with the Roman Empire but never occupied

Answer 24

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Question 25

25. Roman impress on Britain nearly fully wiped out once the Romans withdrew
    In contrast to Gaul which has bishops, cities, tax records, Latin, written legal codes. Roman inheritance visible and influential.
    Britain a frontier, symbolized by walls like Hadrian’s wall
    Invaders wipe out the Roman remnants. Celts don’t save much in terms of a Roman legacy
    Invaders pagan
    Celts have few large centers

Answer 25

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Question 26

26. Bede the most cultivated scholar in Europe in the early 8thc.
    Most cultivated of the late 8th c also from England: Charlemagne’s councillor Alcuin

How do you go from a barbarian region to having the largest libraries and most cultivated scholars?

Answer 26

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Question 27

27. Story of England and Ireland centers on conversion because it represents a change in orientation toward a larger world

Answer 27

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Question 28

28. Conversion of England
    England: begins in 597 with a missionary known as Augustine of Canterbury. Sent by Gregory the Great. Motivated to do this by seeing British boys for sale in the Roman slave market and asking who they were and on being told they were Angles he is reputed to have said ‘we should make them angels not Angles’ Angeli non Angli.

Answer 28

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Question 29

29. Augustine landed in Kent. First place to be converted. Canterbury the first bishopric.
    Off again, on again pace of conversion. Edwin converts. Successor in 633, goes back to paganism. Next king, Oswald, reestablished Christianity. Killed in battle in 642 by the pagan king of Mercia.

Answer 29

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Question 30

30. 660s,670s England pretty definitively converted.
    Transition visible in Beowulf: some christian themes, but the atmosphere and rituals are descriptions of a warrior society of Denmark

Answer 30

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Question 31

31. Also visible in Sutton Hoo treasure. Burial ship found in East Anglia. 1939. Probably the king was Redwald the king of East Anglia died 627. Pagan burial. Lots of grave goods. Hard to tell if really pagan or christian because he has a lot of either foreign gifts or plunder. 2 Byz silver spoons made around Constantinople. Gold coins mostly from Merovingian kingdom - all different. Treasure. Helmet that is unique. Sword. Mail. Paraphenelia some with christian symbols like crosses others pagan.

Answer 31

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Question 32

32. Both are a world of treasure, weapons, and drinking halls.
    Drinking hall the center of civilization and gov’t.

Answer 32

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Question 33

33. Ireland
    First place in Europe to convert to Christianity by the English missionary St Patrick
    600 Ireland catholic

Answer 33

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Question 34

35. In class writing

How is the church starting to act as a societal glue?

Answer 34

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Question 34

34. Irish Christianity lacked strong bishops. Rural background. Monasteries more powerful and generally the monks ruled over the bishops.
    Monasticism very austere here. Less fixed in one place. More wandering. Emphasis on exile especially to uncomfortable environments.
    Great missionaries.

Answer 34

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