Some Assorted Thoughts on Elites in the Late Ninth Century

My dissertation spent a whole lot of time on Arnulf and how he fit into the broader constellation of Carolingian politics and tradition, but I had relatively little time to spend on things from the perspective of the local and regional elite. This was partially a function of time and space, but as I work on turning it into a book, I have been interested in what was happening below the court, on the ground so to speak. I don't have any fully formed ideas yet, but I do want to work through them a bit here.

Yet as with so many areas involving the late ninth century, we have a bunch of noise (competing sources) that makes it hard to find the signal (what is happening). Historians have seen this as a period of collapse and "devolution."^[1] By this it is usually meant that as the Carolingian empire/kingship declined, power devolved to local elites, who then were prompted to secure this power by building fortifications and castles.^[2]

Recent work has called a lot of this into question, in particular the idea that the kings gave way to an increasingly powerful elite.^[3] When it comes to castles themselves, Simon MacLean has questioned the utility of fortification building as evidence for a change in the status of the Carolingians, noting that the mentions of fortifications were highly impacted by political considerations.^[4] It is worth remembering that walls themselves were not particularly common at Carolingian palaces in the ninth century, and walls rely on social conditions that determine what trespassing means.^[5] Some Carolingian palaces were embedded within larger centers such as Regensburg and Frankfurt, while others existed independently as a way to stamp Carolingian supremacy on the landscape itself.^[6] As MacLean notes, fortifications were "othered" in historical sources; they were associated with external peoples and "secretness", a negative thing in Carolingian political ideology.^[7]

Viking Trouble

It is undoubtedly true that pressures from Viking incursions caused problems, not just the devastation and tribute paid, but the psychological impact.^[8] The magnates of West Francia may have called Charles the Fat to assume the throne because he had the resources and capability to deal with the Vikings.^[9] Viking attacks were also cited as the reason Louis (later known as the Blind) should become king of Provence.^[10] It seems likely that the attacks prompted some communities, including monastic centers, to invest in fortifying.^[11] We do know that some walls continued to be maintained (for instance, at Worms), and some even rebuilt in response to crises such as the Leonine walls in Rome. Misleadingly, a series of constructions in Regensburg named after Arnulf were built by Arnulf the Bad in the 10th century, so outside my period.

I think it's reasonable to include fear of the Vikings as one element for Arnulf's ability to gain the throne in 887, even if it isn't the only reason. Not only that, the Vikings saw the instability in East Francia as a chance to invade, reaching all the way to Reims which was saved when St. Remigius surrounded the city with a dense fog.^[12] But also, Viking raids, which now began to also incorporate year-round encampments, meant a different relationship to Viking power on the ground too.^[13] The deaths in battle of magnates such as Sunderold, the archbishop of Mainz, would have not only caused local and regional elite networks to shift, but gave Arnulf the opportunity to directly intervene and install his favored candidates. After Sunderold's death Arnulf would replace him with Hatto, a courtier and abbot of Reichenau who would go on to be so influential he was described as the "heart of the king" (cor regis). That is, pressure from the elite may have prompted retaliation against the Vikings, but also led to opportunities for Arnulf himself.

Slavic Integration

On the other side of the kingdom, the frontier, there was a complex interplay between the Frankish realm and its Slavic neighbors, particularly in Moravia. We know that some Bavarian magnates had cross-border connections, and there is archaeological evidence for Slavic copying of Frankish belts, buckles, etc. In some cases this was likely a case of elite groups trying to capitalize on connections to the Carolingians for expressing status, such as acquiring/copying swords.^[14] By the late ninth century some Slavic elites were integrated with Frankish-Bavarian elites as well.^[15] A man named Heimo appears in an early charter of Arnulf and is given the charter because of his "repeated and devoted service."^[16] Heimo's sister was married to a converted Slav, and he may have been a go-between for Arnulf and the Moravian dux Zwentibald during the Wilhelminer War.^[17] This integration can also be seen in linguistic data, in particular place names.^[18] It is perhaps these connections that Arnulf relied on when he sought to become king in 887. The Mainz annalist, writing the Annales Fuldenses, relates that Arnulf came upon Charles the Fat with an army of Bavarians and Slavs.^[19]

Some Concluding Thoughts

Everywhere you look in the sources, Arnulf was running into powerful elites. In some places it was easier for him to accomplish this goal, and my thought is that it directly relates to his ability to shape local material resources. This requires, on some level, an administrative apparatus that can successfully determine the boundaries of a property, their names, etc.^[20] Whether that comes from the court or the recipient (probably more likely) isn't always clear.^[21] In places like Italy Arnulf had to deal with hugely important magnates like Berengar and Adalbert II, who had their own extensive resources to draw on. Arnulf's comparative lack of Italian resources meant it was harder to shape local power, as he tried to do in Alemannia and Lotharingia.

It seems possible that elite display borrowed elements of the Carolingian language of power, including estates, as part of their differentiation from other social classes.^[22] Some of the changes within the elite, greater regionalization for instance, look to be a post-Carolingian phenomenon.^[23] While I mentioned the fortifications above, it does seem that it also might be more of a 10th century event.^[24] I want to know a bit more about the settlements themselves, are cities expanding at this time? Are they contracting? How do the elite see themselves? (If you have good recommendations for this, drop me a comment or message!) One problem, based on my initial searching, is that so much of the archaeological work concentrates on the reign of Charlemagne (which is a more general problem too). There is not much specifically about the late ninth century, and what does exist often assumes the Carolingian collapse model that historians have largely dismantled. Needless to say, I got plenty more to look at!

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1. See specifically the literature on the "stem duchies" (as they were called in the German historiography), J. Fleckenstein, Early Medieval Germany, pp. 108-109. For an argument against the term see H.-W. Goetz, “Dux” und “Ducatus”: begriffs- und verfassungsgeschichte Untersuchung zur Entstehung des sogenannten “jüngeren” Stammesherzogtums an der Wende vom neunten zum zehnten Jahrhundert. ↩︎
2. See for instance, M. Bloch, Feudal Society, pp. 394-420. For more modern takes see T. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government, pp. 22-83.↩︎
3. C. West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution and S. MacLean, Kingship and Politics at the End of the Ninth Century. ↩︎
4. S. MacLean, "The Edict of Pîtres, Carolingian Defence Against the Vikings, and the Origins of the Medieval Castle," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 30 (2020).↩︎
5. R. Samson, “Knowledge, Constraint, and Power in Inaction: The Defenseless Medieval Wall.” Historical Archaeology 26, no. 3 (1992): 26–44 at pp. 32-34.↩︎
6. M. Innes, "People, Places and Power in Carolingian Society," in M. De Jong, F. Theuws, and C.van Rhijn, eds. Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 397-438 esp. pp. 420-424.↩︎
7. S. MacLean, “Frontiers and Fortifications in the Carolingian Imperial Imagination.” In Carolingian Frontiers: Italy and Beyond, pp. 141-159.↩︎
8. On payments see S. Coupland, "The Frankish Tribute Payments to the Vikings and their Consequences," Francia 26, no. 1 (2000): 57-75 suggesting they would have been a drain but not as dramatically as previously seen. S. Coupland, "Holy Ground? The Plundering and Burning of Churches by Vikings and Franks in the Ninth Century," Viator 45, no. 1 (2014): 73-97 arguing that what differed between Frankish and Viking plundering was scale.↩︎
9. MacLean, Kingship, pp. 124-129.↩︎
10. "Hludowici regis Arelatensis electio," eds. Boretius and Kruse, MGH Capit. 2, no. 289, pp. 376-377.↩︎
11. N. Christie and R. Hodges, "Anxious Abbots? Questions of Monastic Security and Insecurity in Early Medieval Europe," in Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Europe, pp. 139-157. Yet this does seem to focus more on the English context.↩︎
12. AF (M), s.a. 887, p. 107.↩︎
13. On the change, C. Cooijmans, Monarchs and Hydrarchs: The Conceptual Development of Viking Activity Across the Frankish Realm (c. 750-940), pp. 141-150.↩︎
14. G. Bilogrivić, “Carolingian Weapons and the Problem of Croat Migration and Ethnogenesis,” in D. Dzino, A. Milošević, and T. Vedriš (eds), Migration, Integration and Connectivity on the Southeastern Frontier of the Carolingian Empire, pp. 86-99.↩︎
15. P. Šith, “Integration on the Fringes of the Frankish Empire: The Case of the Carantanians and their Neighbours.” in Dzino et al, Migration, Integration and Connectivity, pp. 103-122.↩︎
16. D A 32: crebri devotique eius obsequii.↩︎
17. Wolfram, Arnulf, pp. 121-124.↩︎
18. V. Janovská, N. Jansens, M. Janovský, and T. Klír, “Spatial Analysis of Archaeological and Linguistic Data Reveals the Boundaries of Frankish Power in Northern Bavaria.” In Power in Numbers: State Formation and Christianization on the Eastern Edge of Europe, pp. 285-300.↩︎
19. AF (M), s.a. 887, p. 106.↩︎
20. This is a point I first started considering after hearing Elina Screen's talk, "Life in a Royal Landscape: Evidence from Ninth-Century Carolingian Royal Charters" at IMC 2021. Her emphasis was on how royal estates structured the landscape at a local level, but it prompted me to wonder how the court knew the names of workers on estates, etc. ↩︎
21. I am not sure it is as developed as suggested by David Bachrach, Foundations of Royal Power in Early Medieval Germany.↩︎
22. See C. Loveluck, "Problems of the Definition and Conceptualisation of Early Medieval Elites, AD 450-900: The Dynamics of the Archaeological Evidence," in F. Bougard, H.-W. Goetz, and R. Le Jan (eds), Théorie et Pratiques Des Élites Au Haut Moyen Âge: Conception, Perception et Réalisation Sociale, pp. 21-68.↩︎
23. S. Airlie, “Review Article: After Empire - Recent Work on the Emergence of Post-Carolingian Kingdoms.” Early Medieval Europe 2, no. 2 (1993): 153–61.↩︎
24. See A. Boschetti, “The Beginnings of Medieval Fortifications in the Late Carolingian Period from a Swiss Perspective.” In Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Europe, edited by Neil Christie and Hajnalka Herold.↩︎