Preliminary observations on Carolingian treatments of baptism as a sacramen-
tum reveal how they viewed the foundational Christian liturgical rite as an
interpretive key for a variety of complicated contexts. Carolingian thinkers repeatedly described three issues characteristic of sacramenta standing at the heart of baptism: the establishment of faith in the newly baptized, their incor- poration into a single unified community, and the new moral obligations incumbent upon the baptized. Rich capitulary evidence and the interpretive instincts of Carolingian thinkers like Alcuin and Paschasius Radbertus wit- nessed to the complicated significance of baptism for the Carolingian Renewal. Carolingian authors generally characterized baptism as the “sacramentum of faith” as Alcuin does in the mid-790s in several letters considering the baptism and the conversion of the Avars in correspondence directed to Charlemagne, Bishop Arn of Salzburg, and chancellor Meginfrid.120 In the letter to Charle- magne, Alcuin, in language borrowed from Jerome, described baptism as a sac-
ramentum of faith, just as the imperial oath would be described. Alcuin
elucidated the meaning of Jesus’ commissioning of the Apostles at the end of Matthew’s Gospel to baptize all the nations and wrote, “He [Jesus] instructed the apostles first to teach all peoples, and then to imbue them with the sacra-
mentum of faith.”121 The sacramentum was the foundation for a new life in the Church. In his massive commentary on Matthew, Paschasius Radbertus simi- larly described baptism as a sacramentum of faith, which the abbot tellingly used to describe both religious and civic commitments. Paschasius drew a con- clusion similar to Alcuin’s in identifying baptism with faith. “So then when they
120 This correspondence will receive detailed treatment in Chapter Three.
121 Alcuin, Epistola 110, p. 158. “Iussit apostolis, ut primum docerent omnes gentes, deinde fidei tinguere sacramento et post fidem ac baptisma, quae essent observanda, praeciperent.” Bede, Opera, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955) p. 235. Jerome, Opera, ed. D. Hurst and
[the catechumens] have been instructed, the sacramenta of faith are to be hand- ed over and thus a man should be imbued by baptism so that the whole man is renewed in the same sacramentum.”122 Baptismal sacramenta point not only to baptism itself, but to the many things which accompany baptism: theological convictions, the spiritual relationships, or the moral laws which framed Chris- tian life. Pluralizing sacramentum, indicating the multiple elements or teach- ings undergirding baptismal commitment, underscored the complexity of his conception. For Paschasius, baptism offered the context within which faith is first instilled in a person and it conveyed concomitant benefits and obligations.
The way Carolingian authors wrote about baptism drew on widely applied concepts of sacramenta. It was as much about establishing a disposition as it was communicating a dogma. As clerical leaders expounded the necessity of infant baptism, they often referred to this orientation or commitment of faith established by baptism. Because Carolingians were not breaking new ground, discussions of infant baptism not only highlight the wide conceptual range of
sacramentum, they also underscore Carolingian engagement with earlier tra-
ditions about sacramenta. The basic theology and sacramental foundation for infant baptism was found in the writings of Augustine, who articulated just this point about the faith of children in a celebrated letter to Pope Boniface.123 That Augustine’s thinking was well known to Carolingians is clear; for instance, Amalarius of Metz (780–850), the noted Carolingian liturgical commentator, cited this letter in his own discussion of baptism. Children, he wrote, “have faith on account of the sacramentum of faith, just as we read in the letter of Augustine to bishop Boniface.”124 Alcuin also referenced children to advance a position commonly held by Carolingian theologians. To Charlemagne, Alcuin wrote, “infants not able to use reason, guilty by the sins of another, are able to be saved by the faith and confession of another through the sacramen-
tum of baptism.”125 Many Carolingians thinkers taught that because all were damned by Adam’s original sin, children were allowed to be brought into the
123 Augustine, Epistola 98.9, ed. A. Goldbacher, CSEL 34 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1895) p. 531.
“. . . sacramentum fidei fides est. nihil est autem aliud credere quam fidem habere. ac per hoc cum
respondetur paruulus credere, qui fidei nondum habet affectum, respondetur fidem habere propter fidei sacramentum et conuertere se ad deum propter conuersionis sacramentum, quia et ipsa respon- sio ad celebrationem pertinet sacramenti . . .”
124 Susan A. Keefe, Water and the Word: Baptism and the Education of the Clergy in the Carolin- gian Empire, Vol. II (University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, 2002) p. 348. “. . . fidem habere propter fidei sacramentum, sicut legimus in agustini epistola bonifacium episcopum . . .”
125 Alcuin, Epistola 110, p. 158. “Igitur infantes— ratione non utentes, aliorum peccatis obnoxii— aliorum fide et confessione per baptismi sacramentum salvari possunt.”
122 Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo libri XII 12.5399–5312.5401, ed. Beda Paulus,
CCCM 56B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984) p. 1433. “Deinde his ita instructis tradenda sunt sacramenta
Body of Christ and receive the beneficial effects of baptism through the pro- fession of their sponsors or godparents. Alcuin here analyzed the liturgical
sacramentum as establishing bonds analogous to a Roman military sacramen- tum with its deeply personal aspect and strong obligations on both parties.
Furthermore, he imagined baptism being administered like the old Roman legal sacramentum, as explained by Isidore, which depended on the notion of surety, when one person took responsibility for another, and witnessed to another’s commitment.
The sacramentum of baptism helped Carolingian authors organize their thoughts on polity, which often intertwined secular and theological ideas, and carried broad implications for Carolingian understanding of social and politi- cal life. The notion of incorporation into the Body of Christ typified this instinct. Paschasius began his treatise On the Body and Blood of the Lord with a careful description of the importance of the sacramentum, and identified bap- tism and the eucharist as among the most important gifts of Christ to the church. “For Christ left to his church in a mystery nothing greater than this (the eucharist) and the sacramentum of baptism, as well as the Holy Scriptures.”126 For Paschasius, the significance of baptism—as well as the eucharist and the Bible—was defined by unity. He wrote that sacramenta, especially baptism and the eucharist, guaranteed that “participation in Christ may be granted to men in the unity of his body.”127 Paschasius understood baptism to be foundational: the sacramentum was intrinsically important, but also paradigmatic for think- ing about the person and the community. He continued, “thenceforth in Christ’s members, through that same rebirth freed from evil, we may be made one body.”128 For the great scholar of Corbie, the essential connection between baptism and the eucharist lay in unity. Baptism brought one into the unity of the Body of Christ, while the eucharist strengthened that body’s unity.
Sacramenta helped Carolingian thinkers both to distinguish their commu-
nity from that of others and to understand the distinctiveness of their own group. Even as it provided a general model for Carolingian thought, the dis- tinctiveness of its theological character remained pivotal. In his Dialogue Con-
cerning Rhetoric and Virtues, written specifically for Charlemagne, Alcuin
characterized the sacramentum as the essential difference between modern Christian thinkers and ancient pagan philosophers. In the middle of a section concerning the philosophic idea of moral duty and its relationship to Christi- anity, Alcuin added a telling exchange. Charlemagne inquired “what is the
126 Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore 1, p. 17. “Nihil enim Christus ecclesiae suae maius aliquid in mysterio reliquit quam hoc baptismique sacramentum, necnon et Scripturas Sanctas.”
127 Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore, 1, p. 18. “participatio Christi in unitate corporis concedatur. 128 Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore, 3, p. 25. “Porro baptismi sacramento intrandi ad eandem adoptionem ostium credentibus panditur, ut deinceps in membris Christi per eandem renascentiam liberati a malo unum corpus efficiamur.”
difference between such a philosopher and the Christians?” Alcuin replied “faith and baptism.” 129 Faith and the sacramentum of baptism distinguished Carolingian Christians from earlier heathen communities and framed how Carolingians ought to relate to each other. Carolingian descriptions of new Christian life highlighted and developed the importance of new relationships contracted through the sacramentum of baptism. Alcuin’s famous student Hra- banus Maurus, abbot of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz during the first half of the ninth century, synthesized in baptism both theological and social ideals in his treatise on priestly formation. Early in On the Training of Clergy, he explained that “the faithful partaking in the sacramentum enter into a pact of society and peace: by virtue of the sacramentum, however, all the members joined and united to their head will rejoice in eternal glory.”130 Hrabanus pointed to the new community established by baptism. He used political and legal terminology, drawn from Roman antiquity and now central to the Caro- lingian efforts in Europe. The concept of a social pact, the ideal of peace, and the qualification of fidelity speak to the mutually reinforcing theological and social dimensions that Carolingian intellectuals saw in the sacramentum of baptism.131 The goal of a society rooted in sacramentum was directed toward eternal glory characterized by unity with Christ. Theological convictions behind the sacramentum were to be incarnated—rendered visible—in social and political action.
Many thinkers also highlighted the moral demands placed on new Chris- tians as members in the community of the church. In his Commentary on Eccle-
siastes, Alcuin offered a sober warning to the followers of the Antichrist who
left the graces of baptism behind and returned to immorality. He emphasized not only the new community established by the sacramentum, but also the moral imperative for members of the community. “These are the ones who are reborn through the grace of the Holy Spirit and the sacramentum of baptism into the kingdom, but not remaining in it, returning to vices, they therefore waste away, consumed with want.”132 The theological stakes of immoral behav- ior were heightened by reference to the political community which one exited through the betrayal of one’s sacramentum. Nowhere were the Carolingian
130 Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum 1.31, ed. Detlev Zimpel (Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang, 1996) p. 331. “in sacramento fideles quique communicantes pactum societatis et pacis
ineunt: in virtute autem sacramenti omnia membra capiti suo coniuncta et coadunata in aeterna claritate gaudebunt”
131 For a more detailed presentation see Jean Chélini, L’aube du Moyen Âge, 2nd ed. (Paris: Pic-
ard, 2000).
132 Alcuin, Expositio in ecclesiasten, PL 100.0687. “Hi sunt qui nascuntur per gratiam sancti Spiritus, et sacramentum baptismi in regnum, sed non permanent in eo, revertentes ad vitia, ideo consumpti inopia tabescent.”
129 Alcuin, The Rhetoric of Alcuin and Charlemagne, ed. and trans. Wilbur S. Howell (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1941) pp. 146–7. “Karlus. Quid tunc distat inter philosophum
assumptions concerning the moral imperatives of baptism clearer than in capitulary legislation. The First Saxon Capitulary again provides a crucial win- dow into the importance of baptism as a sacramentum under the Carolingians, especially for Charlemagne and his court intellectuals. Its laws were designed in a general way to force integration of the conquered Saxons into the Carolin- gian world. One of its key mechanisms of integration was coercion. The capitu- lary dealt with this issue in two passages. The first appeared amid a series of capital offenses revolving around fidelity to God, such as sacrificing a person to the devil or conspiring with pagans against Christians, and the second around fidelity to political leaders, such as being unfaithful to the king or raping the lord’s daughter. Refusal to integrate oneself into Christian Carolingian society carried the highest penalty: “Hereafter if anyone among the people of the Sax- ons, lurking among them unbaptized, wishes to conceal himself and avoids coming to baptism and wishes to remain a pagan, let him be put to death.”133 The law’s concerns closely resemble those addressed by the oaths to Charle- magne, namely, basic social/political integration and a personal commitment by which one could be held accountable.
Baptism appears a second time amid legislation dealing with others in Caro- lingian society, such as paying the tithe or contracting marriage. Refusal to facil- itate the integration of others carried a substantial penalty, though short of capital punishment. “Similarly it was decided to write down these decrees that every infant be baptized within a year, and we establish that if anyone disdains to offer an infant for baptism within the course of a year without the counsel or the permission of a priest, if he is of noble birth he will pay 120 solidi to the fisc, if he is freeborn sixty, if a litus thirty.”134 The basic issue revolves around the social implications of theologically grounded commitments. In this case the direct concern revolves around responsibilities not to God or the king but to others and so carried steep, but not lethal, penalties. That the sacramentum of baptism appeared twice in this capitulary and in different circumstances shows its cen- trality to the Carolingians for organizing allegiance and creating community.
In conclusion, Alcuin’s description of Martin’s conversion with which this chapter began rested on a long tradition of ordering approaches to personal and communal life by means of the sacramentum. Alcuin draws upon a rich inheritance from Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity to fashion a tool for the construction of a new project in Europe. He wrote
133 Capitulatio de partibus saxoniae c.8, MGH Capitularia regum francorum I ed. A.p. 69. “Si quis deinceps in gentibus Saxonorum inter eos latens non baptizatus se abscondere voluerit et ad baptismum venire contempserit paganusque permanere voluerit, more moriatur.”
134 Capitulatio de partibus saxoniae c.17, MGH Capitularia regum francorum I p. 69. “Similiter placuit his decretis inserere, quod omnes infants infra annum baptizantur; et hoc statuimus, ut si quis infantem intra circulum anni ad baptismum offerre contempserit sine consilio vel licentia sacer- dotis, si de nobile generi fuerit centum viginti solidos fisco conponant, si ingenuus sexaginta, si litus triginta.”
But the holy man (Martin) chose to serve the heavenly God rather than to fight under an earthly emperor; he who was specially chosen to carry the flag of the holy cross in the western parts of the world, and exchanged the sacramenta of the military for evangelical edicts: not to contend with secular arms for the Roman Empire, but to enlarge the Christian empire with particular teachings; and not to throw wild peoples under the hard yoke of the Romans, but to put the light yoke of Christ on the necks of many nations.135
Alcuin’s juxtaposition of Martin’s military oath to the emperor with his baptis- mal pledge to God underscored what he believed to be the deep continuity between Martin’s military service and his career as a miles Christi which rested on an underlying conceptual framework of sacramenta. Even as he set the Roman sacramentum against Christian liturgical ones—here baptism—which are the sacramenta of the army of the Christian empire, the paradigmatic fea- tures of the sacramentum remained constant: visible exterior/invisible interior activity, allegiance to a community, and the fundamental importance of faith and fidelity. Importantly, the theological context shaped the political and social implications. He depicted Martin as applying the same means to a new end, elaborating on the implications of Christian sacramenta, and identifying two aspects central to Carolingian project of renewal. First, a Christian soldier expanded the imperium christianum through missionary preaching, through the teaching of Christian doctrine. Second, a Christian soldier brought wild people into social order through the application of Christian moral instruction. For Alcuin, Martin’s baptism was the defining sacramentum. It ordered his world at the most fundamental level. It framed his relationship to God, identi- fied his primary community, and defined his responsibilities within that community.
135 Alcuin, Vita Martini 2, PL 101.0659. “Sed vir sanctus magis elegit Deo coelesti servire, quam sub imperatore militare terreno; qui specialiter electus est, ut vexillum sanctae crucis occiduas orbis portaret in partes, et militiae sacramenta evangelicis mutaret edictis: non pro regno armis saeculari- bus certare Romano, sed specialibus doctrinis Christianum dilatare imperium; nec dura Romano- rum lege populos subjicere feroces, sed leve Christi jugum plurimarum collo injicere gentium.”