The Institute of Historical Research does seminars other than the Earlier Middle Ages one, of course, though you might not know it from this blog. One in particular that I have been known to trot along to is the London Society for Medieval Studies, but in recent terms they’ve been quite late medieval, so I haven’t gone. On 19th February however they had one of the seminar’s founders, no less a figure than Emeritus Professor Dame Janet Nelson, talking to the topic “Charlemagne Revisited”.
What this actually meant however was that we got a paper about the various women around Charlemagne, the so-called ‘monstrous regiment’ whose rôles in court life were so important but so often forgotten. In particular she emphasised his mother Bertrada, pointing out that the Continuator of the Chronicle of Fredegar seems to pay great attention to her but that all this means is that we can briefly see her at full strength, as court-builder (frequently left to organise a new royal base while her husband Pepin was on campaign), receiver of diplomats (including Muslim ones; there was some debate about how the Muslims might have taken being received by a barbarian queen!) and even international peace envoy, most of these rôles before Pepin’s death too, in contradistinction to the idea that says medieval women only get to do anything once they’re widowed. She seems, also, to have remained at court until she died, so that her influence continued long after one might have expected. No retirement to a nunnery for Charlemagne’s mum!
The other woman who came in for discussion, apart from the nameless Lombard Queen whom Jinty and Rosamond McKitterick don’t seem to agree about (and whom I hadn’t realised was probably at Pavia when Charlemagne captured it), was Hildegard, Charlemagne’s principal queen and mother of Louis the Pious. Hildegard was with Charlemagne when he captured Pavia and therefore perhaps the princess whom he’d repudiated so as to marry Hildegard; she also did a fair amount of building and organisation; and in the aftermath of the Lombard conquest she was associated, unusually, in a donation of land and a castle in one of the Alpine passes to Saint-Martin de Tours. This, Jinty suggests, was because that castle and the associated monastery were foundations of the ousted Lombard queen Ansa. Ansa is mentioned in the document with no title; Hildegard is Queen of the Lombards now, and they make sure this point has gone home by making her the new patron. Not only have we captured your city, deposed your husband and taken over your properties, we are now passing them on through another queen, your whole family is replaced in history by ours, sort of thing. As Jinty observed, almost like a deep secret, “they weren’t nice people, you know”. Jinty’s particular talent is to bring these people close enough, by appealing to their human qualities and the sort of family strife and ties that most of us feel we can relate to, that we can make this sort of observation with a historical basis. I’m glad she hasn’t let retirement slow her down at all. Much like Bertrada! Except nicer, obviously…
