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An Essay I Wrote For HIST 222: Barbarian Kingdoms of Early Medieval Europe.

  • Kathryn
  • Dec 10, 2015
  • 5 min read

“It makes a difference, of course, where you look from: what is your vantage point. I am going to shift it from a teleologically determined, Charlemagne-centered, male-monopolized one. First of all I am going to take my vantage point among the Lombards rather than the Franks … Adding the women to the genealogies makes a further difference. But putting royal women back in the political picture, where they do absolutely belong, means examining what is specific to their activities and importance, seeing just what difference gender makes.”

  • Janet L. Nelson, “Making a Difference in Eighth-Century Politics: The Daughters of Desiderius.”

The interior of San Salvatore, Brescia, Italy.

No one will deny that prejudice against women was a social force in early medieval Europe. This prejudice can be seen in such works as the Precepts of Theodulf of Orléans, in which the bishop counseled his fellow priests that “women ought to be mindful of their weakness and of the infirmity of their sex.”[1] It can also be seen in the attitudes of the general society where a man’s failure to maintain control of his wife disqualified him from holding a position of authority,[2] and a woman ruling as emperor had her office regarded as being empty by her opponents.[3] However, the modern image of early medieval royal women as passive wives, disengaged from their husbands’ or fathers’ politics, is not true. Royal women held important political roles in early medieval society, serving as co-rulers alongside their husbands as well as rulers in their own right.

The wife and daughters of the Lombard king Desiderius are compelling examples of the political importance of royal women. The epitaph written for Ansa, Desiderius’s wife, by Paul the Deacon lauds her as a ruler: one who “made firm and augmented” the kingdom, “raising it up” from ruin. By praising her for the birth of Desiderius’s sons and daughters, Paul the Deacon makes her womanhood explicit, but he continues on to cast her as an unambiguously powerful figure: the broker of peace between nations, the founder of churches, and even the protector of the kingdom.[4]

These political roles are also ones taken up by her daughters. Ansa and Desiderius had established the convent of San Salvatore, Brescia with their daughter Anselperga as the abbess. Nelson suggests that this convent was a creation specifically of a center of prayer for the support of the Lombard family and kingdom. If so, then the fact that this was entrusted to women suggests a higher regard for the gender than modern historians may expect to encounter. Suggestions aside, the investigation of charters from the time show Ansa herself endowing San Salvatore with lands she had inherited from her own family. They also show the abbess Anselperga engaged in buying and trading property as well commissioning projects for the church, such as new iron doors and a hydraulic system. Evidence of such active management shows Anselperga to be an involved and capable leader.[5]

All three of Ansa’s younger daughters were strategically married: Adelperga to the duke of Benevento, Liutperga to the duke of Bavaria, and the last to Charlemagne himself. Little is known of the youngest, except that Charlemagne traded her, and the Lombard alliance she had represented, for a Swabian woman within a year.

The Tassilo Chalice, kept at Kremsmünster Abbey.

Of Adelperga and Liutperga, however, there is much evidence to support the theory that they were powerful co-rulers. Adelperga commissioned literary and religious projects, such as Paul the Deacon’s Italian history and, with her husband, a church in Benevento. Upon the duke’s death, several papal letters and a report by one of Charlemagne’s missi all confirm that Adelperga continued to rule in Benevento. In fact, under her Benevento kept its independence from Charlemagne, and for this Nelson cites her as the embodiment of Lombard continuity. Liutperga too was a strong political force. The duchess is the subject of both Bavarian and Frankish records, and depicted as a scholar’s patron, an authority capable of punishing a disobedient subject, and as the advisor of her husband. A chalice, possibly a gift of the two, names Liutperga as virga regalis, “the royal branch,” while her husband Tassilo is dux fortis, “the brave leader.” Frankish sources such as the Annales Mettenses priores and the Royal Frankish Annals place the blame of Tassilo’s rebellion against Charlemagne upon “the urging of his wife Liutberga” and make a particular point of her own connection to the Lombards. Her fate is unknown; she was not as lucky as her sister.[6]

These women were not Lombard anomalies on the political scene, but are representative of royal women in a more general sense. For example, the Frankish Dhuoda, wife of Count Bernard, held power in her husband’s absence, fulfilling his administrative and military responsibilities. Dhuoda is most well-known for her work, Handbook for William, in which Dhuoda assumes the role of a teacher and authority of moral conduct, and not just for her children, for several lines of hers indicate her hope for a wider audience.[7] A woman in a position of such authority was not exceptional among the Carolingians, nor elsewhere.[8]

Specific to the activities and importance of royal women, then, are the patronage of scholarship, public projects, and religious works. Women served as unambiguous authority figures, ruling competently and with social approval. Returning to Nelson, it is fair to conclude that her point is valid. It is not the absence of women themselves, but rather the expectation for that absence that has moved women out of the historical picture. Since a historian knows that Charlemagne was the victor in his conflict with the Lombards, it becomes tempting to overlook the role of the women in the narrative. Reassessing expectations for women of the early Middle Ages, then, seems, as Nelson suggests, necessary to put the role of royal women back into perspective. These were powerful political authorities, and to dismiss them is to dismiss a vital part of medieval history.

Endnotes

[1] Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Carolingian Civilization. Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, 2004. pp. 108

[2]Nelson, Janet L.. "Making a Difference in Eighth-Century Politics: The Daughters of Desiderius." After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Ed. Alexander Callander Murray. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1998. pp. 186

[3] Collins, Roger. Early Medieval History 300-1000. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. pp. 290

[4] Nelson, pp. 175-6.

[5] Nelson, pp. 173-4.

[6] Nelson, pp. 177-89

[7] Neel, Carol. Handbook For William, A Carolingian Woman's Counsel For Her Son, by Dhuoda. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of American Press, 1991. pp. ix-42.

[8] Neel cites Suzanne Fonay Wemple for this information: Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister. 500-900 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 98-99.

Works Cited

Collins, Roger. Early Medieval History 300-1000. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Carolingian Civilization. Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, 2004.

Neel, Carol. Handbook For William, A Carolingian Woman's Counsel For Her Son, by Dhuoda.

Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of American Press, 1991.

Nelson, Janet L.. "Making a Difference in Eighth-Century Politics: The Daughters of

Desiderius." After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Ed. Alexander Callander Murray. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

 
 
 

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