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I N T R O D U C T I O N: P E R C E P T I O N S O F T H E E I G H T H C E N T U R Y A N D T H E R I S E O F T H E C A R O L I N G I A N S

Charlemagne’s forebears, the Pippinids, rather than the Merovingian kings, dominate court-associated history, family histories and local annals alike in the later seventh and the eighth centuries. Charlemagne’s great-grandfather and great-grandfather, Pippin II and Charles Martel, served as mayors of the Merovingian royal palace and were descended from the union between Ansegisel, son of Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Begga, daughter of Pippin I (hence Pippinids)¹ (see Table 1). Thus the court-associated narrative of the Annales regni francorum, discussed in the preceding chapter, begins in 741 with the death of Charles Martel, Charlemagne’s grandfather. Einhard, as we have seen, opened his Vita Karoli with the taking of the kingship by Pippin III, son of Charles Martel, and the notorious portrait of the last Merovingian king who merely sat on his throne and played at being a ruler. In this way, Einhard heightened the contrast between the strong Pippinids and the feeble dynasty of Merovingian kings that Pippin III replaced.² Even the narrative of the

1 E. Hlawitschka, ‘Die Vorfahren Karls des Großen’, KdGI, pp. 51–82, and see Table1. In the early ninth century this family is described as that of Pippin, hence the word ‘Pippinid’, though the term

‘Carolingian’ or ‘Karoling’, from Charles (Karl) Martel, is regarded by many as the name of the family consequent upon the union of descendants of Arnulf and Pippin. In describing the Neustrian pact with Radbod of the Frisians against the Pippinids, the Annales mettenses priores uses the phrase contra Pippinios: Annales mettenses priores, p. 20. This seems to be the earliest use of a collective name for the family. Some historians have preferred the term ‘Arnulfing’, stressing the descent from Bishop Arnulf. Apart from Ansegisel and Bishop Chlodulf of Metz, however, Arnulf had no other descend-ants, whereas the Pippinid family formed many links across the Frankish kingdoms. Carolingian/

Karlinger seems to be attested only from the tenth century.

2 Einhard, Vita Karoli, c. 1, ed. Halphen, pp. 8– 10, and see above, pp. 25–6. On the beginning of the Annales regni francorum see M. Becher, ‘Eine verschleierte Krise: die Nachfolge Karl Martells 741 und die Anfa¨nge der karolingischen Hofgeschichtsschreibung’, in J. Laudage (ed.), Von Fakten und Fiktionen: Mittelalterliche Geschichtsdarstellungen und ihre kritische Aufarbeitung (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna,2002), pp. 95–134.

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Table1ThefamilyofCharlemagne ChlodulfMartinArnulf Drogo, dux in Champagne JeromeCarloman Pippin died youngCarloman 768–71Charles (Charlemagne) 768–814 (see Table 3) Gisela, abbess of Chelles

Chiltrude m. Odilo of Bavaria

Pippin III 751–68 m. Bertrada

Theudoald, mayor of palace in Austrasia Grimoald II (643–56), mayor of palace in Austrasia m. Theudesinda

Charles Martel, mayor of the palace 714–41 m. (1) Chrotrude (d. 725)

Ansegisel m. Begga Wulfetrud,

Pippin I m. Itta Grimoald IGertrude founder of Nivelles Childebert adopted by K. Sigibert III k. ? 656–62 Childebrand NibelungGrifo d. 753

Pippin II (d. 714) mayor of palace in Austrasia m. (1) Plectrude, dau. of Hugobert and Irmina (2) Chalpaida (2) Sunnichild

Liber historiae francorum, completed c. 727 and usually classified as a non-Carolingian source, concedes much of its space in the later chapters of the work to the Pippinid mayors, and concludes with the initial triumph of Charles Martel over Ragamfred, the Neustrian mayor of the palace, and King Chilperic.³Carolingian scribes, moreover, such as the person respon-sible for the Frankish history book now in Paris, BnF lat. 10911, contrived by clever juxtapositioning to present the Liber historiae francorum from the Carolingian perspective.⁴ This codex also incorporated sections of the Continuations of Fredegar’s Chronicle, that is, the partial (in both senses) record of the triumphant careers of Pippin II, and of Charles Martel and his sons written under the auspices of Charles Martel’s half-brother Childebrand and Childebrand’s son Nibelung.⁵ These Continuations take up the story of the faction-ridden politics of Francia in the seventh century at the point of the Neustrian King Clovis II’s marriage to Balthild, and gallop in two chapters through forty years of Neustrian history before moving to recount the fortunes of Austrasia. It is at this point that Duke Martin and Pippin (II) son of the noble Ansegisel are introduced and the successes of the latter become increasingly prominent, with his death recorded as coming at the end of twenty-seven years of rule of the Franks: rexitque populum Francorum ann.27.⁶

Further assessments of the political success of Charlemagne’s family are indicated with the choice by annal compilers of alternative beginnings for the Pippinids’ political prominence, even if the account of the Pippinids after 741 is usually heavily dependent on the information summarized in the Annales regni francorum. Thus the Annales fuldenses start with the death of Pippin II, Charles Martel’s father, in 714, but texts of the ‘Murbach group’ of local annals, such as the Annales alemannici, and Annales naz-ariani, record as their first entry the death of Drogo (708/9), Pippin II’s legitimate son by Plectrude.⁷The so-called minor annals group, compris-ing the Annales petaviani, Annales sancti Amandi and Annales laubacenses, start with brief entries for 687 and 708 in the case of the first two, and 707

3 R. Gerberding. The rise of the Carolingians and the Liber historiae francorum (Oxford,1987).

4 McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 13–19.

5 See R. Collins, Fredegar, Authors of the Middle Ages 4, No. 13 (Aldershot,1996); and R. Collins,

‘Deception and misrepresentation in early eighth-century Frankish historiography: two case studies’, in J. Jarnut, U. Nonn and M. Richter (eds.), Karl Martell in seiner Zeit, Beihefte der Francia 37 (Sigmaringen,1994), pp. 227–48.

6 Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Continuationes, ed. H. Haupt and H. Wolfram, Quellen zur Geschichte des7. und 8. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt,1982), pp. 274–80, cc. 3–8, especially c. 8, p. 280.

7 W. Lendi, Untersuchungen zur fru¨halemannischen Annalistik: die Murbacher Annalen, mit Edition, Scrinium Friburgense 1 (Freiburg in der Schweiz,1971), pp. 146–7.

and the death of Duke Hildulf in the case of the third. The fourth member of this group, the Annales tiliani, starts like those of the ‘Murbach group’

with Drogo’s death in 708.⁸

Eighth- and ninth-century perceptions of Charlemagne’s background, therefore, give different weight to the contribution and importance of particular members of the family and mark different events as turning points. Pippin II’s sons by his first wife Plectrude are superseded by the son of the woman claimed as his second wife, Chalpaida.⁹ That Plectrude’s own family remained in the political arena and the Pippinid social orbit, however, is suggested by the subsequent marriage between Plectrude’s great-niece Bertrada to Charles Martel’s son Pippin III and support given Charles Martel and his heirs by kinsmen of his half-brothers and step-mother, such as Hugh, archbishop of Rouen, and Count Theoderic.¹⁰ Given that the various narratives highlight the careers and claims to leader-ship of some members of the family at the expense of others, the various opinions about who established the family’s fortunes may be attributed to different branches of the family, if not factions. ¹¹

Still another assessment is implied by the Annales mettenses priores, which starts with the career of Pippin II. It claims, for example, that Pippin I had no sons, so that it was the son of his daughter Begga to whom he bequeathed his name and his leadership (nepoti suo Pippino superstiti nomen cum principatu dereliquit). Further, in the next generation, it sets the line of Pippin II’s sons Drogo and Grimoald aside by stating that Grimoald’s son Theudoald had died after a revolt among the Neustrian

8 N. Schro¨er, Die Annales S. Amandi und ihre Verwandten. Untersuchungen zu einer Gruppe karolin-gischer Annalen des 8. und fru¨hen 9. Jahrhunderts, Go¨ppinger Akademischer Beitra¨ge 85 (Go¨ppingen, 1975); and S. Kaschke, Die karolingischen Reichsteilungen bis 831: Herrschaftspraxis und Normvorstellungen in zeitgeno¨ssischer Sicht (Hamburg,2006), pp. 145–68; Annales sancti Amandi, Annales Petaviani, Annales Tiliani, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS 1 (Hanover, 1826), pp. 3–13; and M. Becher, ‘Drogo und die Ko¨nigserhebung Pippins’, Fru¨hmittelalterliche Studien 23 (1989), pp. 131–51.

9 I. Wood, ‘Genealogy defined by women: the case of the Pippinids’, in L. Brubaker and J. M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender in the early medieval world, east and west, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 234–56.

10 On Hugh, see Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium c. 8, MGH SS 2, p. 280; and Gesta fontanellensis coenobii, ed P. Pradie´, Chronique des abbe´s de Fontenelle (Saint-Wandrille) (Paris,1999), pp. 58–66;

and on Count Theoderic see above, pp. 29, 30.

11 Compare also the letter of Boniface to Pope Zacharias in 741 referring to the killing of an uncle of the Frankish dux by a member of Plectrude’s family: Boniface, Epistolae, No. 50, ed. M. Tangl, Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, MGH Epp. Sel. 1 (Berlin,1916), p. 82; and see M. Tangl, ‘Studien zur Neuausgabe der Briefe des Hl. Bonifatius und Lullus, Teil 1’, Neues Archiv 40 (1916), pp. 639–790 at pp. 767–71. For essential background see M. Werner, Adelsfamilien im Umkreis der fru¨hen Karolinger: die Verwandschaft Irminas von Oeren und Adelas von Pfalzel, Vortra¨ge und Forschungen Sonderband 28 (Sigmaringen,1982).

nobility.¹²The Annales mettenses priores is ostensibly a family history, and is certainly distinctive for the amount of independent information it provides about both Charlemagne’s great-great-grandfather and late Merovingian politics, the inclusion of what amounts to a biography of Pippin II, and a eulogistic affirmation of the legitimacy of Charles Martel. The first phase of the narrative, composed c. 805, runs from 687 to 805. A second stage, largely taken over from the Annales regni francorum, was added for 806–29, and a dramatic and totally independent entry about the Empress Judith was added for the year 830.¹³

The composition of the Annales mettenses priores has been attributed most persuasively to someone in the convent of Chelles, presided over by Charlemagne’s learned sister Gisela.¹⁴This would certainly accord with the knowledge and interests expressed in the text in relation to the resources and capabilities of Chelles. It is known to have been an active centre of book production, quite apart from housing Charlemagne’s sister, two of his daughters, and other high-ranking women.¹⁵Yet Chelles was not the exclusive possessor of royal or court connections or of a scriptorium. Nor were members of its community the only ones with sufficient political knowledge and levels of intellectual activity, let alone an interest in the chief protagonists of the narrative, such as the Pippinid leaders, or less prominent figures, such as the queens Bertrada and Hildegard or Charlemagne’s son Charles the Younger. Although the vocabulary used is indeed ‘thick with royal innuendo’, it has this in common with the other narrative accounts of the Pippinid mayors of the palace of the late eighth and early ninth centuries already mentioned.¹⁶There are, in short, other

12Annales mettenses priores, pp. 2–3; Collins, ‘Deception and misrepresentation, pp. 229–35; and Y. Hen, ‘The annals of Metz and the Merovingian past’, in Y. Hen and M. Innes (eds.), The uses of the past in the early middle ages (Cambridge,2000), pp. 175–90.

13 For a useful summary of scholarship on the Annales mettenses priores see P. Fouracre and R. Geberding, Later Merovingian France: history and hagiography,640–720 (Manchester,1996).

14 H. Hoffmann, Untersuchung zur Karolingischen Annalistik, Bonner Forschungen 10 (Bonn,1958), pp. 55–61, supported by I. Haselbach, Aufstieg und Herrschaft der Karolinger in der Darstellung der sogenannten Annales mettenses priores, Historische Studien 12 (Lu¨beck,1970) and J. L. Nelson,

‘Gender and genre in women historians of the early middle ages’, in Nelson, The Frankish World, 750–900 (London,1996), pp. 183–97, and ‘Perceptions du pouvoir chez les historiennes du haut moyen aˆge’, in M. Rouche (ed.), Les femmes au moyen aˆge (Paris,1990), pp. 77–85.

15 B. Bischoff, ‘Die Ko¨lner Nonnenhandschriften und das Skriptorium von Chelles’, in Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Studien,I(Stuttgart,1966), pp. 16–34; and R. McKitterick, ‘Nuns’ scriptoria in England and Francia in the eighth century’, Francia 19/1 (1992), pp. 1–35, repr. in McKitterick, Books, scribes and learning in the Frankish kingdoms,6th–9th centuries (Aldershot,1994), Chapter VII; and McKitterick, ‘The Rorigo Bible in its ninth-century context’, in L. Gatto and P. Supino Martini (eds.), Studi sulle societa` e le culture del medioevo per Girolamo Arnaldi (Rome,2002), pp. 409–22.

16 See Fouracre and Gerberding, Later Merovingian France, pp. 340–1.

centres, not least St Denis or even Metz,¹⁷ for which a case for the production of the Annales mettenses priores could plausibly be made in what Thomas Faulkner has described as ‘a context of widespread interest in, support for, identification with, or commemoration of’ the Pippinids’.¹⁸ Thus the Annales mettenses priores could have been produced in any one among a number of leading centres closely associated with the royal court.

Nevertheless, Chelles remains the strongest possibility. The Annales met-tenses priores, while not so court-centred as the Annales regni francorum, can be read as a further witness to the creative response to the latter, its principal source, with a readiness to adapt, modify and augment that text to reflect an alternative point of view. ¹⁹

Even so, the Annales mettenses priores only superficially resembles the other court- or family-associated histories from the later eighth and early ninth centuries already mentioned, not least the Continuations of the Chronicle of Fredegar and the Annales regni francorum. Despite the organ-ization into year-by-year entries, there is a clear thematic structure under-lying the text, and strong arguments have been mounted for its ideological importance. It has, for example, been associated with the thinking behind the Divisio regnorum of 806 and is thought to have been intended for an aristocratic audience needing to be persuaded of the legitimacy of Carolingian power in the early ninth century.²⁰ Certainly, the principal focus of the Annales mettenses priores is the glorious success of the male leaders of the Pippinid family. Yet it offers very distinctive comments on the legality and fitting nature of Pippinid rule of the Frankish kingdoms, both in the time of the Merovingian kings and after Pippin’s usurpation of the throne, on rulership in general, on the specific line of succession from Pippin II, Charles Martel and Pippin III to Charlemagne, and on the much wider network of support from the female and other male members of the family. As a version of the Frankish past which claims the front of the

17 On St Denis see above, pp. 43– 9. On Metz see O.-G. Oexle, ‘Die Karolinger und die Stadt des heiligen Arnulf ’, Fru¨hmittelalterliche Studien 1 ( 1967), pp. 249–364; and D. Kampf, ‘Paul the Deacon’s Liber de episcopis Mettensibus and the role of Metz in the Carolingian realm’, Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004), pp. 279–99, arguing against W. Goffart, ‘Paul the Deacon’s Gesta episcoporum mettensium and the early design of Charlemagne’s succession’, Traditio 42 (1986), pp. 59–94.

18 I am grateful to T. W. G. Faulkner for permission to cite his unpublished essay which discusses this wider context, ‘The representation of the past in the Annales mettenses priores’, submitted as part of the requirements for the MPhil in Medieval History in the University of Cambridge (2005).

19 See above, pp. 7–27, with reference to other ninth-century representations of Charlemagne which also drew on the Annales regni francorum.

20 See Hen, ‘The annals of Metz’; and Kaschke, Die karolingischen Reichsteilungen, pp. 203–48; see also below, pp. 96–8.

political stage for an entire family it merits fuller attention, but it also has important implications for any assessment of the strength of Charlemagne’s position in the later eighth and early ninth centuries. I shall focus in what follows, therefore, less on the unfolding of early eighth-century events, for this is adequately covered elsewhere, than on the themes which emerge.²¹

T H E P I P P I N I D S A N D T H E I R R I S E T O P O L I T I C A L P R O M I N E N C E

The first section of the Annales mettenses priores begins with an exultant sketch of Pippin II, son of Ansegisel, and his military successes, including a heroic account of the battle of Tertry in 687. The author makes very specific claims about the extent of the authority of the Pippinid mayors of the palace, to the extent of representing the Merovingian kings as ruling under the Pippin mayors rather than vice versa. After the defeat of the Merovingian king of Neustria at Tertry, for instance, Pippin II, up to then the mayor of the palace in Austrasia, is described as taking over the sole leadership of the Franks and reserving the name of king for Theuderic ‘with unimaginable faithfulness . . . lest he should seem to exercise tyranny or cruelty. But he retained the right to judge cases in the placitum or judicial court, the governance of the whole kingdom, the royal treasure and the command of all the army.’²²In a similar definition of the relative degrees of power Charles Martel graciously conceded the royal throne to Chilperic II under Charles’s own authority after his success in 716.²³

The Annales mettenses priores also reflects the author’s understanding of rulership. The account of the preparation of Pippin II as a leader of the family enterprise refers as a matter of course to the crucial contribution of the women of the family. Begga, Pippin’s mother, is described as teaching him the responsibilities of rule and supporting him in the administration of the kingdom after the murder of her husband Ansegisel. Pippin II may

21See I. Wood, The Merovingian kingdoms (London,1994); P. Fouracre, The age of Charles Martel (Harlow,2000); P. Fouracre, ‘Observations on the outgrowth of Pippinid influence in the ‘‘Regnum Francorum’’ after the Battle of Tertry (687–715)’, Medieval Prosopography 5 (1984), pp. 1–31; the various essays in J. Jarnut, U. Nonn and M. Richter (eds.), Karl Martel in seiner Zeit, Francia Beihefte 37 (Sigmaringen, 1994); and T. Ko¨lzer, ‘Die letzen Merowinger: rois faine´ants’, in M. Becher and J. Jarnut (eds.), Die Dynastiewechsel von751: Vorgeschichte, Legitimationsstrategien und Erinnerung (Mu¨nster,2004), pp. 33–60.

22Annales mettenses priores, p. 12. I have used the translation of Fouracre and Geberding, Later Merovingian France, p. 359, but note the difficulty of translating what is meant by propriae facultatis iure disponenda. They translate this phrase as ‘he retained the ordering of private property in law’ and add that this perhaps means the placita, the formal law cases heard in the royal court.

23 Ibid., p. 370.

even have been still a minor, with mayoral authority in the hands of his mother, who acted as a kind of regent at this stage. Arnulf, Pippin’s grandfather, though described here merely as a ‘close relative’, appears to have ‘strengthened him with sacred admonitions and divine and human learning’, while his maternal aunt Gertrude, abbess of Nivelles, took care of her nephew’s spiritual and religious instruction and ‘watered the young man’s spirit with her fruitful stream of heavenly teaching’. The theme of education for princes is maintained later in the narrative in the account of Pippin’s grandson Hugh, who was taught by his maternal grandmother Ansfled.²⁴

By 687 Pippin II was ready to rule and assumed leadership of the eastern Franks, or Osterliudos (eastern people). More training for a princeling is implied in the vivid descriptions of battles. Most crucial among these are the account of how as a youth Pippin II had sought out his father’s murderer, the ‘tyrant’ Godoin, and killed him, like David destroying Goliath. Once he had assumed the leadership of the eastern Franks, however, he conducted a righteous war against King Theuderic which culminated, as already stated above, in Pippin’s triumph at the Battle of Tertry in 687. The importance of war leadership is reiterated in the passages concerning Charles Martel’s wars, with a zest reminiscent of the combat scenes in the epic poem Waltharius.²⁵

The careers of Pippin II and Charles Martel are clearly used by the author of the Annales mettenses priores to provide a series of precedents for the actions and status of the Carolingian ruler in the author’s own day. The themes are continuity and a long tradition. Thus Pippin II receives dele-gations from Greeks, Romans, Lombards, Slavs and Saracens, and inflicts defeat on the Frisians. Pippin II and his son Charles Martel set out to restore Frankish control over the Saxons, Frisians, Alemans, Bavarians, Aquitainians, Gascons and Bretons; all of them had once been subject to

The careers of Pippin II and Charles Martel are clearly used by the author of the Annales mettenses priores to provide a series of precedents for the actions and status of the Carolingian ruler in the author’s own day. The themes are continuity and a long tradition. Thus Pippin II receives dele-gations from Greeks, Romans, Lombards, Slavs and Saracens, and inflicts defeat on the Frisians. Pippin II and his son Charles Martel set out to restore Frankish control over the Saxons, Frisians, Alemans, Bavarians, Aquitainians, Gascons and Bretons; all of them had once been subject to