Saturday at Kalamazoo: Monks and Goths

Following breakfast Saturday morning I headed back to the exhibit area and spent an hour or so at Powell’s, finishing up my book purchasing. Then I headed for Schneider and Session 376, Contexts of Early Medieval Monasticism I: Architectural Concepts. Before I begin I want to mention that the organizers had put together a booklet which included abstracts of all three Contexts of Early Medieval Monasticism Sessions. Even though I only went to one of these, it provided me with some information which may prove useful once I finish my Early Christianity Reading.

First up was Gregor Kalas from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville presenting, “The Residences of Carolingian Abbots and the Afterlife of the Late Antique Villa.” This was a really interesting paper. Kalas opened with a discussion of the Plan of St. Gall showing how the Abbot was expected to live in his own house, not communally. This was supported by the Aachen synod of 817 where Benedict of Aniane amended the Benedictine Rule to have some separation from the community. This separation mimics the villa plan where the owner and his family live in a residence separated from the rest of the estate. Farfa and San Vincenzo al Volturno are examples of monasteries which were formerly villas. The Plan of St. Gall, with its private residence for the Abbot and a private route to the basilica seems to have been modeled after villa construction. Ultimately, Kalas believes that Late Antique villas provided models for monastery plans and that by the 9th century an abbot’s residence could be considered a less luxurious villa. An interesting factoid (to me anyway) was his discussion of Farfa where in the 8th century the abbot lived as something of a recluse but by the 9th century they became increasingly worldly, which he attributes to the evolving relationship with the Carolingian rulers where the monastery became subject to greater royal control and a reduced Papal influence. Good paper and I’m hoping what he talked about is published someplace so I can get a closer look at his evidence.

Kirsten Ataoguz of Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne (IPFW for those of us in Indiana and yes, other than in basketball Purdue and IU collaborate a LOT!) followed with, “Overlapping Contexts of the Last Judgement at the Monastery of Saint John in Müstair, Switzerland.” Now I have a page-and-a-half of notes for this one. Even so, I have a feeling this summary will suffer as much from temporal distance as any because she showed a lot of really cool images which I can’t precisely recall – oh, for an eidetic memory. Müstair is one of several 9th century churches in the Alps with a similar image of the Last Judgement. This image tells a story (in looking for images in Müstair, the Last Judgement is just a piece, though an essential one, of the frescoes in the church) showing Christ as judge. He is depicted as the gatekeeper to an apostolic city (a local apostle, Vigilius, is among those shown) and with his right hand up and left hand down shows that he will choose between the saved and damned. These images, prominently displayed in the church, are for the benefit of the laity, not the monks. Ataoguz discussed how this type of story-telling differed from very literal eastern representations. Due to the prevalence of similar images in local 9th century churches she believes it is very possible that this type of representation originated in the region. Another very good paper.

Monastery of Saint John in Mustair, Switzerland. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The final paper was by Annika Rulkens from the University van Amsterdam, “Monastic or Not? The Architecture of Rural Churches in Ninth-Century Hessen.” This was a comparative examination of the architecture of churches to support her thesis that smaller churches should be considered monastic. She believes that smaller satellite churches of Fulda and Sturm, built from the mid-eighth through mid-ninth century were modeled after the larger Abbey churches. These churches were built with the approval of the mother house and while she does not believe they were directed to use similar architecture, they chose to do so. Again, lots of images used for this paper which I don’t recall well enough to describe here.

For lunch I had the opportunity to sample the marvelous cuisine in Schneider (said menu choices consisted of pre-wrapped sandwiches – still better than past years and it provided calories) and chatted with The Cranky Professor (TCP) and ADM. Actually, ADM was working for the most part but I had a lot of fun with TCP. I had sort of a theme for the week I went with which was pretty much, “The way I do my job is very different from you,” With an emphasis on the fact that Purdue does not expect me to know how to write – we have a communications department which edits everything we put together. At the time I was in the middle of putting together a fairly short publication which seemed to be taking forever to finish (seriously – I took maybe 12 hours to write the draft, which was 95% of the end product). I’m pretty good at laughing at myself and TCP was willing to join in. I’m in the middle of a 150-page agrosecurity project right now and I dread how long that one will take.

I went Goth for the rest of the day, starting with Session 429, Early Medieval Europe II. Louis Shwartz, a Phd candidate from the University of Toronto opened with, “What Rome Owes to the Lombards: Devotion to Saint Michael in Early Medieval Italy and the Riddle of Castel Sant’Angelo.” Michelle Ziegler has already covered this paper nicely and I don’t have much to add. In talking about why Saint Michael came to be associated with Sant’Angelo he discusses mentions of him in Paul the Deacon and believes that ultimately Saint Michael’s association with the church likely dates from Cunibert who was King from 688-700 and Liutprand who succeeded him. Cunibert was a strong promoter of Saint Michael and when Liutprand allied himself with the Papacy and converted the Lombards, this association was solidified. Good paper and be sure to read Michelle’s more detailed summary.

Erica Buchberger, a Phd student from the University of Oxford followed with, “Gothic Identity in Spain Before and After the Arab Conquest.” She believes (and I agree with her) that people identifying themselves as Goths disappeared fairly quickly after the Arab Conquests. I regret that I didn’t write down the specific sources she used however she argued that examples of people identifying themselves as Gothic is hard to find after the end of the 7th century. In narratives, Goths disappear as an entity after 754 and afterwards people may say that they were of Gothic descent but they did not identify themselves as Goths. She believes this may have been a sign of loyalty; that they were true to their heritage but loyal to their Arab rulers. However she did say that in the North Gothic identity lasted longer and can be found up to 883 in a chronicle (again, I apologize for not noting which one).

The final paper was by Helen Foxhall Forbes of the University of Leicester, “Suicides and the Damned in Anglo-Saxon England.” I recall this being a very interesting paper though it was as much about damnation overall as about the attitude toward suicides. However it is interesting that A-S sources almost never mentioned contemporary suicides but instead focused on those taking place in the past and that suicide is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon law codes. Aelfric speaks strongly against suicide and one of the Vercelli Homilies states that “Jews, heathens and suicides” won’t be saved. According to the Old English Penitential and the OE Handbook the body of a suicide cannot be sung over or buried in consecrated ground. In contrast, the Blickling Homily states that a murderer can be saved and there was an Old English belief that even an executed criminal could be saved. Aelfric disapproves of priests fighting and says that one killed in battle will not be prayed for but may be buried in consecrated ground and that he will be judged by God. Good stuff in this one.

Following this I headed to Valley II and Session 461, Sixth-Century Italy I: Representing the Ostrogothic Kingdom. I was very pleased to see the sessions on the Ostrogoths this year, in particular that they were organized by Deborah Deliyannis of Indiana University. I decided I was a fan of hers after reading Ravenna in Late Antiquity last year.

The first scheduled speaker didn’t arrive so Shane Bjornlie of Claremont McKenna College started things off with “Princeps Illiteraturs: The Political Polemic of the Gothic War and Sources for Theoderic the Great.” This paper discussed how Theoderic was portrayed after his death, primarily during the Gothic War. It was a detailed examination of the sources which, while unsurprising in content, was quite interesting and informative. As might be expected, sources such as Ennodius and Cassiodorus portrayed him as a successful ruler of a Roman province while sources associated with Justinian’s court such as Procopius and Marcellinus Comes depicted him as an illegitimate barbarian. The Anonymous Valesianus describes Theoderic’s death as being the same as Arius’ with his bowels bursting as he was relieving himself. While there wasn’t anything particularly revolutionary here, I enjoyed it because of how many sources were covered, including later ones such as Gregory the Great, Fredegar and Paul the Deacon.

Another paper dealing extensively with sources and Theoderic followed as Christine Radtke of The University zu Kõln presented, “Theoderic the Great: Auctor Civilitas, Pius Princeps, Virtuous King.” With the help of a very useful handout she covered the various ways in which Theoderic was portrayed as a legitimate Roman ruler. These included Ennodius’ Panegyricus where he is praised in a fairly standard way as a successor of the Roman Emperors. On the Senigallia Medallion (the only certain image we have of Theoderic) he is titled as Rex and Princeps, titles by which he would have wanted to be known. In Cassiodorus’ Variae, each letter shows a different aspect of Theoderic as ruler and as a whole they stress his civilitas and depict him as someone highly engaged with the past to legitimize his rule and portray him as a Gothic ruler interested in peaceful cooperation between Romans and Goths. I don’t think there was anything new, different or surprising in either of these papers but I appreciated both of them for their examination of the sources.

Following this session I headed back to the exhibit area to pick up my book purchases. I’ve gotten better at this over the years and now I rarely leave one behind. It was interesting to find that several publishers are aware of this blog and one person told me that she appreciated my book reviews, particularly when it was one of theirs. Possessing a book from Brill and folks recognizing me all in the same day? That put me in happy camper mode, a good attitude to have when I went to the Pseudo Society Session, had a sub and some beer for dinner (I’d had enough pizza for one week the previous evening) and laughed for a couple of hours. As always, I don’t report on Pseudo, mainly because you have to be there to appreciate it but all of the “papers” were good though I don’t think any make my Hall of Fame.

That was enough for me as I skipped the dance, as I do every year, and made it to bed fairly early, only rarely being woken up by the late partying which went on in the courtyard outside my window. Probably didn’t hurt that it was cold enough that said window was closed.

 

Kalamazoo 2011 – Day 3

I’ve decided to insert anchors to help people find individual session reports more easily. I’ve added those to my reports from the first two days.

Session 398, Early Medieval History

Session 455, Early Medieval Europe I

Session 511, Early Medieval Europe II

If you’re wondering what happened to day two, I used a different nomenclature. So Saturday dawned, er, dark and gloomy. Had a nice drizzle going on which occasionally strengthened to a full-on rain with periodic moderation to a cold dampness. And the high for the day was about 30 degrees less than it had been the previous two days. Typical May in Michigan weather.

All my books were bought and I for darn sure wasn’t going back to the Exhibit Hall after I’d taken account of the damage the previous evening so I headed up to Bernhard as soon as I finished breakfast and grabbed a spot for myself so I could pull out the laptop and work until it was time to head to, Session 398, “Early Medieval History.”

The first presenter was Benjamin Wheaton of the University of Toronto with a paper on, “Reasons for Byzantine Support of Gundovald through 584 CE.” OK, it’ll come as no surprise that the Merovingian nobility fought a lot. This paper looks at the events of 582-4 and how the Byzantines may have influenced them. This is another paper that stresses my self-imposed space limitations because of the detailed way Wheaton presented his argument. In this paper Wheaton discusses Gundovald from 582-584 and the Byzantine role in his activities. According to Gregory of Tours Gundovald was born, raised and educated in Gaul and once he was grown, was presented as the son of Lothar/Clothar. This was the start of his troubles. He got kicked around and eventually fled to Constantinople. In 582 he returned, apparently with Byzantine support but was quickly defeated by Guntram Boso and retreated to a Mediterranean island. In 584 he showed up again, after King Chilperic’s death and was hailed as King. He tried to set up in Aquitaine but got along even worse than the previous time and was eventually killed. Wheaton believes that initially the Byzantines had supported him so that he would act against the Lombards and help protect their Italian possessions however in 584 the Byzantine goal was for him to intervene in Spain in support of Hermenegild against his father, Leovigild. Interesting stuff. 1

Luigi Andrea Berto from Western Michigan University gave the next paper, “In Search of the First Venetians: Some Notes and Proposals for a Prosopographical Study of Early Medieval Venice.” I’m not very familiar with the rise of the Italian City-States. In fact, my knowledge of the Italian peninsula is pretty sparse for the years after 774. Berto discussed a study he is beginning where he’s going to try to trace the evolution of Venice by tracking the establishment and rise of the great families of the city. There was a fair amount of prosopographical information given; not specific names but how names often evolved from offices and occupations and how early on three names dominated Venice; Iohannes, Petros and Dominocos, which makes tracking their evolution a bit tough. Berti will be scouring Byzantine sources for name information to help determine how power structures and powerful families evolved. He also provided a fair level of detail regarding how study information will be displayed, which I won’t go into here.

What makes a settlement a town? Sébastien Rossignol, an Independent Scholar and someone whose papers I have enjoyed in past years, took at look at this with, “New Perspectives on the Origins of Towns in Early Medieval Central Europe.” I took two full pages of notes for this but basically Rossignol looked at references in charters and literature as well as archaeological finds to examine settlement status prior to the issuance of charters which began in the 12th century. He went into a fair amount of detail with this discussing whether a settlement was described as a civitas, castra, castellan, vicus, urb, etc. Most of these places had little military significance but were primarily the dwelling places of Frankish elites. Even when a place was fortified it was usually described in non-military terms and fortifications may have been as much a status symbol as a defense. Ultimately, he believes that before charters were issued it is very difficult to determine if a place should be considered a town. He suggests using the term, “early urban phenomenon” to describe a settlement. He makes a good argument re the difficulty of determining the “townness” of a place but I’m not terribly enthusiastic about inventing an arcane term because of this. The idea of a town is a relatively recent one and this may be something which just needs to be set aside however Rossignol’s term seems to be as problematic and lacking usefulness. Even with that, I enjoyed this paper very much and considered the entire session quite good. Yet another example of the difficulty of interpreting what people meant when they said something a thousand years ago.

Maintaining my status as hermit in the midst of people, after pecking away at my laptop for a while I returned to the same room for Session 455, Early Medieval Europe I. The first speaker was Walter Goffart, now of Yale University. There are a few folks who won’t need an introduction to anyone familiar with this period and he’s one of them. His paper was, “An Introduction to Christianity for Today’s Novices in Medieval History: An Experiment.” Goffart provided an outline of how he would approach teaching Christianity in the fourth to sixth century to a beginning student of Medieval History. He had seven main points in his outline and the following will only make sense to those who were in the room. It was actually pretty good but I have two areas where I have a difference of opinion with him. One of his seven items was, “Intransigence.” For this point Goffart returned a couple of times to Christianity being a forced, sometimes violent conversion. And it was, but I don’t believe the evidence shows that this is where the bulk of the bloodshed took place. Where the violence really got going was in forcing all Christians to believe the same thing – part of the transition from an underground (though large) movement of scattered groups to a cohesive religion with one belief. This involved the suppression of entire churches, such as in North Africa, or belief systems, such as Arianism (does anyone really believe Arius was the first person to come up with this?). Now once you get into the 6th century, particularly in the East with Justinian, the suppression of paganism became much more hard core but for much of this period, the bulk of the violence was about enforcing orthodoxy/suppressing heresy within Christian groups. The area he left out is the transformation of Christianity from a religion which was practiced largely at homes, in private places, either by families or in small groups, to one which was practiced largely in a communal setting in authorized, holy spaces. I’d need a whole post to really cover this one paper, maybe because I think the evolution of Christianity is absolutely fascinating but I want to stress that this was overall very good, there are just a couple of areas I would change.

The next paper was by Glenn McDorman of Princeton, “Diplomacy in the Post-Imperial West and the Gallic War of 507-510.” This was an examination of Clovis and his actions in the war in which, ultimately, Clovis drove the Visigoths out of Gaul. McDorman argued that Clovis’ actions were perfectly acceptable according to the standards of the time. He did this by framing the discussion around three areas; 1)That there were established practices determining acceptable conditions for engaging in warfare; 2)That Clovis followed these practices and; 3)Examining Clovis’ motivations for the war with the Visigoths. Within this framework, Clovis and his Burgundian ally, Gundobad, had no familial affinity with Alaric (the Visigothic ruler) so warfare was acceptable. McDorman also argued that it is very possible that Clovis did not initiate hostilities and that there is evidence for Alaric being enraged at Clovis to the point where Theoderic (the Ostrogoth ruler in Italy) asked Alaric to allow him to mediate. He believes, contrary to Theoderic’s claim, that while Clovis wanted to remove Alaric’s influence, he had no desire to harm the Visigoths as a people. Ultimately, McDorman wanted this specific war to be viewed as part of a broader set of relations between polities.

The final paper was by Jonathan J. Arnold of the University of Tulsa, “Theodric’s Invincible Moustache.” The purpose of this paper was to provide evidence against the theory that the portrayal of Goths and Theodric with a moustache without a beard was a convention in depicting Goths. The theory is that only Goths are shown with a moustache sans beard. Arnold provided a variety of images to show that this is untrue, including images of Emperors with moustaches, as well as other Barbarians. 2

I really enjoyed this session. Goffart’s and McDorman’s papers were about issues I find very interesting and Arnold’s was just plain solid and another example of people sometimes reading too much into certain pieces of historical evidence.

Next up was Session 511, Early Medieval Europe II. I think this was probably my favorite session this year. Even though it was a bit later than my core period, I was fairly familiar with the issues covered in the papers, yet not so much that I already knew what the speakers were talking about. I have a page and a half of notes from each paper which is going to make a single paragraph summary interesting.

Jennifer Davis from the Catholic University of America was first up with, “Charlemagne and Tassilo in 794: A Final Encounter.” Tassilo was Duke of Bavaria and Charlemagne’s cousin. In 788, after various treacheries, according to the Royal Frankish Annals, he was tried, deposed, sentenced to death with the sentence commuted to his being tonsured and stowed away in a monastery, St. Jumièges. His wife and daughters were also “nunnerized” in a package religiosity sort of deal. In 794 Tassilo reappeared when Charlemagne dragged him out of the monastery back to his Council where he was again condemned and then shipped back. The conventional wisdom has been that Charlemagne’s bringing Tassilo out the second time is a sign of weakness; he was having trouble with Bavaria and paraded Tassilo to provide a visible sign of his authority. Davis believes this should be interpreted differently. She thinks Tassilo’s reappearance should be looked at as Charlemagne feeling comfortable enough with Bavaria to risk bringing him back out, that he could be brought back out and the old memories stirred up precisely because Bavaria was no longer a threat. This also gave Charlemagne the opportunity to use him as an object lesson, sort of a, “See what happens if you screw with me?” Davis provided a fair amount if evidence in support of her interpretation. Good paper, one of my favorites of Congress. 3

Courtney Booker of the University of British Columbia followed with another really cool reinterpretation in, “The Fama Ambigua of Ebbo, Bishop of Reims and Hildesheim.” Ebbo was one of the many people who got caught up and yanked around in the events of Louis the Pious and his sons which took place from 830-840. When the sons rebelled, Ebbo initially remained loyal but eventually joined the rebellion and presided over a synod where Louis admitted to crimes and did public penance. A couple of years later, Louis got the upper hand and Ebbo was forced to admit at another synod that Louis was innocent of what he’d confessed earlier. For a few years Ebbo got shuffled around, confined to monasteries. He got a brief respite when Louis died but then was deposed as Bishop of Reims by Charles the Bald before later being named Bishop of Hildesheim by Louis the German, a position he held until he died. Ebbo was portrayed fairly negatively by contemporaries and Booker took a detailed look at this. Plenty of others took basically the same actions as Ebbo but he was singled out for punishment. Booker believes he was a scapegoat and a primary reason for this is that Ebbo was born to servile status which made him an easy target. However he showed considerable abilities and was sort of a rising star until the events of the 830’s derailed him. Once that was sorted out he again attained pretty significant status. I don’t recall this being mentioned but to me, a key point in all this is that Ebbo was one of the last to remain loyal to Louis. His heading the synod may have been as a way for the rebels to say, “If his most loyal follower is willing to run this, what Louis did must have been really bad.” And for Louis, to have been publicly denounced by his last loyal follower may have felt like a betrayal of the worst type, on a personal level. Ebbo had a lot of chips stacked against him.

The final paper was, “Constructing a Queen: Adelheid’s Great Escape and the Ottonian Image,” by Phyllis Jestice of the University of Southern Mississippi. Before I get started let me say that Dr. Jestice gives a great presentation. I heard a paper she gave in 2009 on heresy during the Ottonian period which I still recall vividly (the basic premise was that according to the Ottonian chroniclers, in particular Thietmar of Merseburg, the Ottonians weren’t too worried about heresy). In this paper she explored the “making” of a person, Adelheid. Adelheid married Otto I in 951 after the death of her first husband, Lothar II, King of Italy. This was almost certainly to provide Otto with legitimacy to claim Italy. A poem (I neglected to note by whom – Odilo?) was influential in the evolution of her cult and a focus of Jestice’s paper. In this poem she is imprisoned, starved, tortured, and held in chains by Berengar of Italy who was attempting to rule Italy. She escaped and married Otto, gave him Pavia and helped him subjugate Berengar. The torture is mentioned in some accounts but not in others. Jestice believes this reads as a fairly tale and while she may have been imprisoned, was not tortured or held in chains, as evidenced by the fact that she later forgave Berengar. Another good paper to close an excellent session. 4

That evening I went to the Pseudo Society Session, something I do every year. I won’t give an account of the papers because, well, you had to be there. They were all very good. Most years it seems that there are two good ones and one clunker but nothing clunked. They were funny, we laughed, drank (beer for me), ate (I had a sub but there was plenty of pizza). The highlight, other than the papers, was meeting Chris Armstrong, Professor of Church History at Bethel Seminary and author of the blog, Grateful to the Dead. He was sitting behind me and I was having one of those, “trying to stare without staring” moments because I thought he looked familiar. Fortunately, from his vantage point behind and above me, he figured out who I was and we chatted for a bit before things got started.

I had thought I might make the dance this year for the first time since my initial Kalamazoo in 2001 but in the end I went back to my room and to bed. I know how to live large, don’t I? Good day, lots of info, I mostly stayed a hermit.

1 For Gundobad, see Gregory of Tours, Historiae, VI.24 for the events of 582 and VII.10-38 for 584-5.

2 Yup – two different spellings for Theoderic/Theodric. I’ve always spelled it with the second “e” but Arnold did not so for his paper I’ll respect his spelling. I still like the extra “e.”

3 For Tassilo see the Royal Frankish Annals for the years 787-8. Pretty much any book on Charlemagne will mention the Tassilo incident. Most recently (that I have anyway) see Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press (2008), pp. 118-127 with the “traditional” perspective of this incident on p. 126.

4 I’ve seen Adelheim referred to as Adelaide of Italy. Though less renowned, she’s sort of a 10th century parallel to Eleanor of Acquitaine. She was extremely influential. For accounts of the imprisonment see Adalbert’s Continuation of Regino’s Chronicle for the year 951 and Thietmar of Merseburg’s Chronicle, II.5.

 

Quick K’zoo Saturday Update

Today I spent at the three Early Medieval Europe Sessions. The First included my Continuing Carolingianization but the second two were a bit earlier – more in my “wheelhouse.”

Per usual for Saturday, the day’s highlight (or lowlight) was the Pseudo Session. The first and third “papers” were excellent. I didn’t care for the second – a bit too risqué for my taste. As for the others, it was truly inspiring to listen as two of the World’s Great Medieval Mysteries were solved and to learn the ultimate fates of the Knights Templar and Richard the Deer, er Dragon – uh, Lionhearted. One can only marvel at the endless months of research and archival detective work with which they devoted to the unraveling of such important questions – followed by their presenting to us the results with such gravitas.

I debated doing a Live Blog From Kalamazoo while waiting for the Pseudo Session to begin – I have my digital camera here as well as my laptop. Could’ve posted a picture of folks eating pizza and enjoying libations prior to the start. Then again, I don’t believe there’s a “What Happens in Michigan Stays in Michigan” credo associated with ICMS but I suspect there may be one for the Pseudo Session and I’d like to come back next year. Besides, I may have been just slightly libated myself.

Skipping the dance – as I have every year since the first time I attended 10 or so years ago. I saw something there at my first Congress that scared me so much that I plan never to attend that particular event again. Instead I intend to be at an 8:30 session tomorrow morning and head south after Noon.