NOTES

 

 

FATHERS OF POWDER AND MOTHERS OF AUTHORITY : DHUODA AND THE LIBER MANUALIS 

 

 

 

* Cet article a été initialement publié dans la revue French Historical Studies, vol. 19-3 (1996), p. 785-809. 

 

 

 

Philippe M. A. Claussen is assistant professor of history at the University of San Francisco. He is currently finishing a book on the eighth-century Regula canonicorum of Chrodegang, bishop of Metz.

The author thanks Derek Anderson, Tony Fels, Ted Muenck, and Thomas F. X. Noble for their careful readings and helpful advice, and the editors and anonymous readers of French Historical Studies for their criticism and suggestions. Kenny Buquen and Anne Landes provided translations of the abstract. An earlier version of the paper was read in May 1993 at the Twenty-eighth International Congress on Medieval Studies, at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

 

(1)  See Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751-987, London, 1983, p. 33-45 ; and Pierre Riché, The Carolingians : A Family Who Forged Europe, (trans.) Michael Idomir Allen, Philadelphia, 1993, p. 51-69.

 

(2) On the origins of this renewal see Pierre Riché, "Le Renouveau culturel à la cour de Pepin III," Francia t. 2 (1974),  p. 59-70.

 

(3) Janet Nelson, "On the Limits of the Carolingian Renaissance," Studies in Church History n°14 (1977), p.51-67. See also Giles Brown, "Introduction : The Carolingian Renaissance," Carolingian Culture : Emulation and Innovation, (dir.) R. McKitterick, Cambridge, 1994, p. 1-51, with the attendant historiographical bibliography ; John Contreni, "The Carolingian Renaissance", Renaissances before the Renaissance, (dir.) W. Treadgold, Stanford, Calif., 1984) p. 59-74 ;  Peter Godman, The Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance ,Norman, Okla., 1985), p. 1-80 ; Lawrence Nees, A Tainted Mantle : Hercules and the Classical Tradition at the Carolingian Court, Philadelphia, 1991, p. 3-17 ; Walter Ullmann, The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship, Oxford, 1969 ; and John-Mickael Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, Oxford, 1983, p. 205-225 and 258-389.

 

(4) Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789-895, London, 1975, examines several methods the Carolingians used in their efforts to reform society. See also Cyrille Vogel, "La Réforme Cultuelle sous Pépin le Bref et sous Charlemagne",  Die karolingische Renaissance, (dir.) E. Patzelt, Graz, 1965, p. 171-242.

 

(5) For an introduction to this genre see Hans Hubert Anton, Fiirstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonner Historische Forschungen 32, Bonn, 1968. 

 

(6) The best study on the actual effect of their instruction is Jean Chdini, L'Aube du Moyen  Age : Naissance de la chrétienté occidentale :  La Vie religieuse des laics dans l'Europe carolingienne, 750-900, Paris, 1991) The specula themselves remain most easily accessible in the Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Latina, (éd.) J.-P. Migne, 221 vols., Paris, 1844-1864 (hereafter cited as PL)- Paulinus of Aquiliea, Liber exhortationes ad Henricum, PL 99, p. 197-282 ; Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis, addressed to count Wido, PL 101, p. 613-638 ; Smaragdus, Via regia, to Louis the Pious, PL 102, p.131-970 ;  and Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali, to count Matfred, PL 106, p. 121-278.

 

(7) See Bonifatius Fischer, Lateinische Bibelhandschrzften im friihen Mittelalter, Aus der Geschichte der lateinischen Bibel 11, Freiburg, 1985, p. 101-202 ; and Rosamond McKitterick, "Carolingian Bible Production : The Tours Anomaly", The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration, and Use, (dir.) R. Gameson, Cambridge, 1994, p. 63-77.

 

(8) The last decade has witnessed a veritable explosion of scholarship on the work of Dhuoda. The best in English remains Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages : A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to Marguerite Porete (+1310), Cambridge, 1984, p. 36-54 ; see also the titles listed below.

 

(9) Dhuoda, Manuel pour mon fils, (éd) P. Riché, Paris, 1991,11.2, p. 368-70 (hereafter cited as L[iber] M[anualis]), English translation by Carol Neel, Handbook for William : A Carolingian Woman's Counselfor Her Son, Lincoln, Neb., 1991. 

 

(10) LM, Incipit, 66.

 

(11) LM, praefatio, 86 : tuus Bernardus in manus domini te commendavit Karoli regis. 

 

(12) Among the few members of the laity who took up the pen and whose work survives was Einhard, though he probably wrote his famous biography of Charlemagne after he entered the monastery. The Astronomer, who wrote a life of Louis the Pious, was perhaps a layman. Nithard, who chronicled the series of wars after Louis's death, was certainly a layman.

 

(13) For other Carolingian women authors see Eduard Hlawitschka, Studien zur Abtissinnenreihe von Remiremont (7.-13. Jh.), Verdffentlichungen des Instituts für Landeskunde des Saarlandes 9, Saarbriicken, 1963 ; and Janet Nelson, "Perceptions du pouvoir chez les historiennes du Haut Moyen Age", La Femme au Moyen Age, (dir.)  M. Rouche and J. Heuclin, Maubeuge, 1990, p. 75-85.

 

(14) Dhuoda, like other early medieval writers, has been strangely ignored by feminist critics, although our understanding of her text would greatly benefit by such a reading. For techniques see Laurie A. Fink, Feminist Theory, Women's Writing, Ithaca, N.Y., 1992, esp. p. 1-28 ; Karen Offen, "Defining Feminism :  A Comparative Historical Approach", Signs 14 (1988), p. 119-57 ; Elaine Showalter, "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness", Critical Inquiry 8 (1981), p.179-205 ; and especially Patrocinio Schweikart, "Reading Ourselves : Towards a Feminist Theory of Reading", Gender and Reading :  Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts, (dir.) E. Flynn and P. Schweikart,  Baltimore, Md., 1986, p. 31-62.

 

(15) See Josef Fleckenstein, Die Bildungsreform Karls des Grossen als Verwirklichung der norma rectitudinis, Freiburg in Br, 1953, esp. p. 7-23 ; and Donald Bullough, "Roman Books and Carolingian Renovatio", Studies in Church History 14 (1977),  p. 23-50 ; rpt. in D. A. Bullough, Carolingian Renewval :  Sources and Heritage, Manchester, 1991, p. 1-38.

 

(16) Dhuoda's use of Scripture as a whole, a very complex topic, has not received the systematic examination it merits, but several brief studies have appeared on the way she uses certain biblical books. See Marie Anne Mayeski, "The Beatitudes and the Moral Life of the Christian Practical Theology and Biblical Exegesis in Dhuoda of Septimania", Mystics Quarterly 18, 1992, p. 6-15 ; Glenn Olsen, "One Heart and One Soul (Acts 4:32 and 34) in Dhuoda's 'Manual", Church History 61 (1992),  p. 23-33 ; Bernadette Janssens has examined Dhuoda's use of wisdom literature in "L'Etude de la langue et les citations bibliques dans le Liber Manualis de Dhuoda : Un Sondage", in Aevum inter utrumque : Melanges offerts à Gabriel Sanders, (dir.) M. Van Uytfanghe and Roland Demeulnaere, Steenbruge, 1991, p. 259-275. Janssens has also carefully studied Dhuoda's use of a nonbiblical author in "L'Influence de Prudence sur le Liber Manualis de Dhuoda", Studia patristica 17 n°3, Oxford, 1982, p. 1366-1373.

 

(17) Dhuoda relies on a number of Carolingian texts as well, most notably, the De usu psalmorum liber ascribed to Alcuin, PL 101, p. 465-68, in book 11 and more generally Alcuin's De virtutibus et vitiis. She is clearly aware of the speculum genre, and, as Mayeski suggests, Dhuoda clearly intended to contribute to the written tradition of moral theology ("Beatitudes and the Moral Life of the Christian", 6.

 

(18) On Carolingian biblical studies in general see Silvia Cantelli, Angelomo e la scuola esegetica di Luxeuil, Spoleto, 1990, p. 7-78 ; and Pierre Riché, "Instruments de travail et méthodes de l'exégète à l'époque carolingienne", Le  Moyen Age et la Bible, (dir.) P. Riché and Guy Lobrichon, Paris, 1984, p.147-161.

 

(19) Riché, in the introduction to his edition of the LM, p. 36-37, discusses Dhuoda's use of Scripture.

 

(20) Ibidem,  p. 37.

 

(21) Dhuoda's privileging of the psalms over all the other biblical books is typical of early medieval monastic writers. According to Marie-Christine Chartier, "Présence de la Bible dans les Règles et Coutumiers", Le Moyen Age et la Bible, p. 305-325, at 308, roughly a third of the biblical citations in the sixth- and seventh-century rules of Caesarius, Aurelian, Ferreolus, Donatus, and the Regula Tarnatensis are from the psalms ; in the mid-eighth century Rule for Canons by Chrodegang, about 20 percent are from the same book ; and in the ninth-century Rule for Solitaries by Grimlaic, about 13 percent.

 

(22) LM 5.1, 262 : aliud per funebra cantena restat nisi quasi. 

 

(23) Even this introductory text provides an interesting example of how she uses the Bible, for she writes, conflating Eccl. 1.14 and 1.2 (originally vidi quae fiunt cuncta sub sole et ecce universa vanitas et adflictio spiritus, and vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas) vidi omnia sub sole et ecce vanitas, vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas. 

 

(24) LM 5. 1, 262-264 : habes quasi cum somno vanitatis, vinculorum inretitu conexibus. Quare ? Quia, ut ait psalmista : turbati sunt omnes insipientes corde, dormitaverunt qui ascenderunt equos, expurgeacti a somno, nihil in manibus invenerunt suis, transierunt inrevocabili gressu. 

 

(25) See LM 1.5, p. 108-110.

 

(26) Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 1. 33. 46, (éd.) Marc Adriaen, Corpus christianorum, series latina (hereafter cited as CC) p. 143-143A-143B, Turnhout, 1979-1985, p. 143 ; 149-150. Here I follow Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory :  A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge, 1992, p. 156-188.

 

(27) She prescribes throughout the LM, and especially in book 11, a constant turning to the psalms in a program that, in the words of J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, op. cit., p. 286 "would have strained a monk".

 

(28) See her justification for rearranging the Beatitudes in LM 6.1, 286.

 

(29) See P. Schweikart, "Reading Ourselves :  Towards a Feminist Theory of Reading", p. 48-50.

 

(30) LM 3. 1, p. 136, and LM 3.7, p. 164, respectively.

 

(31) See Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories :  Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past, Cambridge, 1992, p. 101-111.

 

(32) See in particular the last three books of the Confessions for his earlier view of history, as credibilia.

 

(33) Augustine, De Trinitate, (éd). W. J. Mountain and F. Glorie, Turnhout, 1968, 50, p. 349-352 ; and J. Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories :  Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past, op. cit., p. 109.

 

(34) J. Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories :  Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past, op. cit., p.109-10.

 

(35) De Trinitate, (éd.) CIR., 11.8, CC  50, P. 351, translation adapted from Arthur West Haddan, "On the Holy Trinity", in The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Grand Rapids, 1956, 3, p. 152.

 

(36) This at least is the traditional interpretation of much "barbarian" history, but it has been strenuously challenged by Walter Goffart in The Narrators of Barbarian History (AD 550-800) : Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon, Princeton, 1988.

 

(37) LM 3.6, p. 160, and 3.8, p. 166-68.

 

(38) Although she was stationed in the southern part of Gaul during these tribulations, it seems clear that Dhuoda was well informed about the political events elsewhere in the kingdom. For instance, she asks William what he thinks will happen to those who insult their parents :  "There are many, they say, who seek to commit such crimes, ignoring past deeds, on account of current abominations" (LM 3.1, p. 136-38). Later in the same book, she speaks of evil counselors : "There were in the past many worthy, useful, and honest men, but indeed today men are unlike those in many ways" (LM 3.6, p. 160). We should recall that Dhuoda was writing during the exact time Nithard describes in his Histories, which offer a vivid description of the confusion and violence of the early 840s.

 

(39) On the Christianization of ancient history by the Carolingians see Matthew Innes and Rosamond McKitterick, "The Writing of History","Carolingian Culture : Emulation and Innovation, op. cit., p. 93-220, at p. 200-202.

 

(40) For a concise examination of Louis's last decade see P. Riché, The Carolingians : A Family Who Forged Europe, op. cit., p. 152-172.

 

(41) See Karl Brunner, Oppositionelle Gruppen im Karolingerreich, Vienna, 1979.

 

(42) H. W. Goetz, "'Nobilis':  Der Adel im Selbstverstandnis der Karolingerzeit", Vierteljahrschriftfir Sozial - und Wirtschaftgeschichte 70 (1983), p. 153-191 ; and Karl F. Werner, "Important Noble Families in the Kingdom of Charlemagne", The Medieval Nobility : Studies on the Ruling Classes from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, (dir. and trans.) T. Reuter, Amsterdam, 1978, p. 137-202.

 

(43) Egon Boshof, "Einheitsidee und Teilungsprinzip in der Regierungszeit Ludwigs des Frommen", Charlemagne's Heir : New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious, (dir.) P. Godman and R. Collins, Oxford, 1990, p. 161-89.

 

(44) LM 3.7, p. 162-164 ; here I follow Neel's translation, p. 30-31.

 

(45) Stephen G. Nichols, Romanesque Signs : Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography, New Haven,1983, p. 8-30, describes this as theosis, a historical and theological idea analyzed most thoroughly by Eriugena in the mid-ninth century.

 

(46) On the reforms of the text of the Rule see Ludwig Traube, Textgeschichte der Regula S. Benedicti,(Munich, 1910 ; Adalbert de Vogue, La Règle de saint Benoit t. 1, Paris, 1972, p. 320-333 ; Klaus Zelzer, "Zur Stellung des Textus receptus und des interpolierten Textes in der Textgeschichte der Regula S. Benedicti", Revue bénédictine 88 (1978), p. 205-246 ; idem, "Von Benedikt zu Hildemar", Frühmittelalterliche Studien 23 (1989), p. 112-130 ; Michaela Zelzer, "Zur Uberlieferung der Regula Benedicti im französischen Raum", in Franz Paschke, Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Berlin, 1981, p. 637-645.

 

(47) See LM 1.3. 4-7, p. 100 ; 2.3. 1-4 p.124-126 ; 2.3. 5-13, p. 126 ; 3.1.61, 64, 66, p. 138 ; 3.10.11-17, p. 172 ;   4.1.8-10, p. 198 ; 4.8. 261-270, 254 ; and 5.2.1-12, p. 272.

 

(48) T. F. X. Noble, "The Monastic Ideal as a Model for Empire: The Case of Louis the Pious", Revue bénédictine 86 (1976), p. 235-50, makes a good case that Louis at least knew the rule. But whether he read it or knew it through Benedict of Aniane, his friend and adviser, is more difficult to tell.  

 

(49) On the composition of Dhuoda's family see Constance Bouchard, "Family Structure and Family Consciousness among the Aristocracy in the Ninth and Tenth Century", Francia 14 (1986), p. 639-658, with attendant historiographical bibliography ; and Claudie Amado, "Pouvoirs et noblesse dans la Gothie :  Formation du reseau aristocratique biterrois au Xe siecle", Catalunya i França meridional a l'entorn de l'any mil / La Catalogne et la France meridionale autour l'an mil, (dir.) X. Barral i Altet et al., Barcelona, 1991, p. 160-173.

 

(50) The foundation charter places the donation in Dec. 804. In the charter, William names as his parents Teudericus and Aldana, as his wives Chunigundis and Guithbergis, and as his children Bernard, Guitcarius, Gothelmnus, and Helmbruc (L'Abbe Cassan, E. Meynial, and Paul Alaus, Cartulaires des abbayes dAniane et de Gellone, Montpellier, 1897, 1.160, p. 144-146. Dhuoda and other sources (and most modern writers) add to these a Theudericus, probably the same domnus Theudericus who signed the charter (LM 10.5, p. 354 ; 8.15, p. 320). Amado remains skeptical that this Theuderic was a member of the same family, though she does not discuss her reasons for excluding him from the stemma she constructs ("Pouvoirs et noblesse dans la Gothie", art. cit., p. 166).

 

(51) Ardo, Vita Benedicti abbatis Anianensis, (éd.) G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Hannover and Berlin, 1824) (hereafter cited as MGH), Scriptores 5, p. 211-213.

 

(52) L'Abbe Cassan, E. Meynial, and Paul Alaus, Cartulaires des abbayes d'Aniane et de Gellone, op. cit., 2.19, p. 75.

 

(53) C. Bouchard, "Family Structure and Family Consciousness among the Aristocracy in the Ninth and Tenth Century, art. cit.,  p. 653-656.

 

(54) LM 2.3, p. 124-132.

 

(55) Isidore, Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, (éd.) W. M Lindsay, Oxford, 1911, 1.5.3 ; see LM, 125, 9.

 

(56) LM 3.2, p. 124-126 : intimo cordis et puro rationis affectu quaerendum. Compare with R[ule of St.] B[enedict] 7.51, 181, p. 484-486 : si omnibus se inferiorem et viliorem non solum sua lingua pronuntiet, sed etiam intimo cordis credat affectu. Here and below, I am using the text established by Jean Neufville and Adalbert de Vogüé,  La Règle de Saint Benoit, Paris, 1972 : the citations will be to chapter and verse of RB, and volume and page of the edition.

 

(57) See LM, 126 n. 1.

 

(58) Marc van Uytfanghe, Stylisation biblique et condition humaine dans l'hagiographie mérovingienne (600-750), Brussels, 1987, p. 44-48, inter alia, discusses the difficulty of determining the sources of biblical citations in Merovingian hagiographic texts and determining whether the author knew the text cited or alluded to through the Bible itself, or the liturgy, or a monastic rule, or a saint's life, and so on ; the difficulty is the same with Dhuoda's knowledge of almost all the texts she uses, biblical and nonbiblical alike.

 

(59) LM 2.3, p. 126 : superbiendo nec in strepitu clamoris petimus murmurando, sed humiliando rogamus ; compare with RB 20.

 

(60) RobertJ. O'Connell, St. Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386-391, Cambridge, 1968, p. 14-15.

 

(61) On this topos of humility see P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages : A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to Marguerite Porete (+1310), op. cit., p. 40-41 ; M. A. Claussen, "God and Man in Dhuoda's Liber manualis", Studies in Church History 27 (1990), p.  43-52, at 50-52 ; and Carol Neel, Handbook for William : A Carolingian Woman's Counselfor Her Son,  éd. cit., p.  XX-XXII, with attendant bibliography. 

 

(62) See Philip Rousseau, Pachomius : The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt, Berkeley, 1985, p. 87-104. For the transmission of these ideas to the West see Cassian, Conlationes 19:6, (éd.) Dom E. Pichery, Jean Cassien, Confrences XVIII-XXIV, Paris, 1959, p. 43-44 ; and Institutiones 4.10, (éd.)  M. Petschenig, Vienna, 1888, p. 53-54 ; more generally, C. Capelle, Le Voeu d'obeisance des origines au XIIe siècle, Paris, 1958 ; and Franz Felten, "Herrschaft des Abtes", Herrschaft und Kirche, (dir.) F. Prinz, Stuttgart, 1988, p. 147-296.

 

(63) RB 2.6-17 ; 3.5-6 ; 4.61 ; 5;  7.34,44 ; etc. See also E. Heufelder, "Vom Gehorsam im Geist der Benediktus-Regel", Erbe und Auftrag 42 (1966), p. 477-481 ; J. Lebourlier, "Obeissance selon la Règle bénédictine", Lettre de Ligugé 120 (1966), p. 8-17 ; and most famously, Adalbert de Vogue, "Sub  regula vel abbate : A Study of the Theological Significance of the Ancient Monastic Rules",  Rule and Life : An Interdisciplinary Symposium, (dir.)  M. Basil Pennington, Spencer, 1971, p. 21-63.

 

(64) She constantly tells her son William to obey his father above all and commends him regularly to William's prayers. Moreover, when she lists those for whom William must pray, she names only, it seems, members of Bernard's family-William's paternal grandparents and their children (LM 10.5, 354). Bouchard has even claimed that the semi-mysterious Guarnarius and Rothlindis, whose names appear here and who are generally held to be Dhuoda's own parents, are in fact relatives of Bernard (C. Bouchard, "Family Structure and Family Consciousness among the Aristocracy in the Ninth and Tenth Century, art. cit., p. 655-656). On this see Joachim Wollasch, "Eine adlige Familie des friuhen Mittelalters: Ihr Selbstverstdndnis und ihre Wirklichkeit", Archivfiur Kulturgeschichte 39 (1959), p. 150-188; and more generally Karl Schmid, "The Structure of the Nobility in the Earlier Middle Ages", The Medieval Nobility, op. cit., p. 29-49. 

 

(65 LM 1.1, p. 96-98.

 

(66) LM, Incipit, 68-70. She has already compared her work to Paul's, quoting 1 Cor 3.6 : "I have planted, Apollos has watered, but God has given the increase."

 

(67) LM, Incipit, 70 :  Qui hic aliud possem dicere, filii, nisi quod [...] in hoc labore cum studio operis boni certavi, fidem servans cursu consumavi felici ?

 

(68) 2 Tim 4.7 : Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consumavi, fidem servavi. 

 

(69) LM 6.1 : where she uses the milk and solids analogy from Heb. 5.12-14, and LM 10.4, 348, where she uses Paul's phrase from 2 Cor. 11.26.

 

(70) She states her goals in writing the book in LM Incipit, 66. For a normative statement onthe roles alloted to  Carolingian women see the Libri Carolini 3.13, (éd.) H. Bastgen in MGH, Concilia 2 (Supplementum), 129. See also Janet Nelson, "Les Femmes et l'évangdisation au IXe siècle", Revue du Nord 68 (1986),  p. 471-485, at 474-476.

 

(71) LM Prologus, 80 : Invenies in eo quidquid cognoscere malis.  She urges William rather regularly to turn to her book often ; even in the opening pages she writes : legensque revolvat volumen ad tempus (LM Epigramme, 54, 76).

 

(72) Ibidem. 

 

(73) The equation by Dhuoda of her text with the Bible is most completely expressed in the very last line of the book : Finit hic, Deo gratias, liber manualis Wilhelmi, in eo quod ait Evangelium : consumatum est (LM 11.2, p. 370). Using Jesus' last words on the cross, she thus compares his passion and death, which ensured the salvation of humanity, with the pain and suffering by which she has brought forth her book, to an equally important end-the salvation of her son.

 

(74) LM Prol., 80 : Fragile sensu, inter dignas vivens indigna, tamen gentitrix tua. This phrase - inter dignas vivens indigna - might suggest that Dhuoda is living in a community of women, perhaps nuns, because she uses the feminine plural dignas, implying that there are only women present, rather than the more inclusive dignos.

 

(75) LM 1.1, p. 96-98. Compare her sense of unworthiness with her understanding of her authority :  Mis michi similem non habebit unquam/Quanquam indigna genitrixque sua (LM, Epigramme, 62-63, p. 76).

 

(76) LM 1.1, p. 96.

 

(77) LM 1.1, p. 98 : enim sensus. 

 

(78) LM 1.2, p. 98-100. The translation is from C. Neel, Handbook for William : A Carolingian Woman's Counselfor Her Son, éd. cit., 8. It is a touching image, and a telling one about the table manners of the Frankish aristocracy.

 

(79) LM 1.2, p. 100.

 

(80) Ibidem, p. 98. See also Prol., 80, where she says, alluding to Wis. 10.21, that God, who has opened the mouths of the mute and has made the tongues of children sagacious, also stands at her side.

 

(81) On the notion of correctio see Brown, "Introduction : The Carolingian Renaissance", and Janet Nelson : "Kingship and Empire in the Carolingian World", in Carolingian Culture:  Emulation and Innovation, op. cit.,  p. 60.  

 

(82) The source of both these quotations remains unidentified, although Riche suggests that the first one is similar to a maxim found in the Historia monachorum 1, 246 n. 1.

 

(83) LM 4.8, p. 246 :  I follow mainly Neel's translation (C. Neel, Handbook for William : A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son, éd. cit., p. 58-59).

 

(84) RB 2. 6-7.  The translation is from Timothy Fry, RB 1980 : The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, Collegeville, 1981, p. 173. Later on, Benedict claims that : "the abbot must know that anyone undertaking the charge of souls must be ready to account for them. Whatever the number of brothers he has in his care, let him realize that on judgment day he will surely have to submit a reckoning to the Lord for their souls, and indeed his as well" (RB 2.37-38 ; Fry, p. 179). On Dhuoda urging this same abbatial role on William see LM 4.8, p. 254-256.

 

(85) The traditional interpretation of Dhuoda, that she wrote to urge her son to obedience of father and king, stems probably from Riché's "Introduction," p. 27, where he writes that the LM "présente, à côté d'une mystique de la fidlité une religion de la paternité."

 

(86) In fact, Dhuoda tends-not quite consistently, but generally - to use genitor for Bernard, reserving pater for God, or those whom she will describe as "spiritual fathers" in book 7.

 

(87) LM 1.5, p. 108-110.

 

(88) Ibidem p. 110 : Considero quos audivi legere. 

 

(89) Ibid.

 

(90) Ibid., p. 108.

 

(91) LM 2.3, p. 132. Here I again follow Neel (C. Neel, Handbook for William : A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son, éd. cit.,  p. 20).

 

(92) J. Wollasch, "Eine adlige Familie des friuhen Mittelalters : Ihr Selbstverstdndnis und ihre Wirklichkeit", art. cit. p. 150-164.

 

(93) On Dhuoda's emphasis on obedience and loyalty, or rather dis-obedience and dis-loyalty, see J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History, New York, 1962) 10 ff. In LM 3.8, p. 166, Dhuoda tells William that he should : time, ama, venera, et dilige the family of Charles the Bald (the same constellation of words - excepting venera -  that she uses to characterize the attitude he should have towards his father Bernard, in 3.2, 140), and that he owed Charles and his family a : purum et abtum [...] obsequium, a word carrying much less burden than obedientia.

 

(94) For a traditional but convincing interpretation of these passages see Y. Bessmertny, "Le Monde vu par une femme noble au IXe siecle : La Perception du monde dans l'aristocratie carolingienne", Le Moyen Age 93 (1987), p.  173-718.

 

(95) LM 3.1, p. 134.

 

(96) Ibidem, p. 136.

 

(97) LM 3.8, p. 166-168.

 

(98)  LM 3.1, p. 138 :  Tu ergo, mi fili Wilhelme, audi me admonentem te, absculta et observa praecepta patris tui, nec sis inauditor dicta patrum sanctorum. Compare with RB Prol. 1 : Obsculta o fili praecepta magistri, et inclina aurem cordis tui, et admonitionem pii patris libenter excipe et efficaciter comple. Riché, of course, notes her use of this passage from the Rule on p. 139, n. 3.

 

(99) This is the only time Dhuoda quotes RB closely enough to allow us to establish a possible text, and she seems to be using not one of the reformed texts based on the Aachen Normal-exemplar and ultimately the Monte Cassino autograph but one that belongs to the "interpolated" families, specifically, the textual family that is characterized by the opening word Absculta : the Narbonne-Hispanic family of texts, exemplified by St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 110 (referred to as Sa in the critical apparatus of the Rule), Orleans, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 149 (Fy), and a number of other important texts (such as the H series-Escorial a I 13;   Escorial I II 13v ; and London, British Museum, Add. 30 055). This finding might help us to locate Dhuoda's origins. Scholars have never been able to agree on this question, some arguing she is from the north, while others see in her a more southern influence. If she learned RB as a child, educated by nuns, her use of this text might point to a southern place of origin. Second, perhaps more significant, is what her knowledge of the rule tells us about the way the reformed text of the Rule spread through Francia. We would assume, because of the close links between Aniane and Gellone, that Gellone, where Dhuoda perhaps might have found the rule, would have the same edition as Aniane. But if, in fact, Dhuoda does know the rule through her father-in-law's house, it is clear that Aniane did not exercise the amount of influence over Gellone that we might have thought (on the Gellone fragment of the rule, see de Vogüé, La Règle de saint Benoit 1  éd. cit., p. 345-347 and more generally, A. Wilmart, "Un Livret benedictin compose a Gellone au commencement du IXe siecle", Revue Mabillon 11 [1922], p. 119-133). On the other hand, given that her husband, the count of Septimania, was responsible for keeping Barcelona in Carolingian hands, a Spanish connection should not strike us as surprising :  B. Jansenns ("L'Influence de Prudence sur le Liber Manualis de Dhuoda", art. cit., p. 1369, has suggested Dhuoda probably also knows at least some of Prudentius through a Mozarabic cento.

 

(100) Unlikely, though not unheralded, that a child acted as and without an adult : the Astronomer tells us that Charlemagne dispatched Louis the Pious to become king of Aquitaine when he was three, and when he was seven, he had Louis brought to him dressed up as a little Gascon prince : see Vita Hludowici imperatoris 4, (éd.) G. Pertz, MGH Scriptores 2, Hannover, 1829, p. 609.

 

(101) Caroline Walker Bynum, in "Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother:  Some Themes in Twelfth Century Cistercian Writings", in eadem, Jesus as Mother : Studies in the Spirituality of the Middle Ages, Berkeley, 1982, p. 110-169, claims that abbots in the high Middle Ages would use female imagery and language to describe what they understood as typically "feminine" personality traits: gentleness, compassion, love, and nurturing.

 

(102) LM 3.3, p. 142-144.

 

(103) Ibidem, p. 144.

 

(104) Cf. LM 3. 5-6, p. 152-162.

 

(105) LM 3.3, p. 144-146 : Et in aula regali dignis pro meritis secundus refulgens, primatum prae ceteris meruit tenere altum. 

 

(106) Gen. 39:6-20 ;  LM 3.3, p. 144.

 

(107) On Bernard's rollercoaster career see the work cited above in n. 50, and Roger Collins, "Pippin I and the Kingdom of Aquitaine", Charlemagne's Heir, op. cit., p. 377-382. 

 

(108) Wala, in exile at Corbie, led the campaign against Bernard and Judith : see Paschasius Radbertus, Ex vita Walae abbatis Corbeiensis 2.7, (éd.) G. Pertz, MGH Scriptores 2, Hannover, 1829, p. 551 where, along with adultery, Bernard is accused of ruining the palace, gluttony, irrationality, and magic. The much more sober Nithard, Nithardi Historiarum libri IIII, (éd.) G. Pertz and E. Muller, MGH Scriptores rerum germanicum in usum scholarum, Hannover, 1965, 1.3, p. 3, simply states that Bernard was appointed Charles's guardian and considerably misused his power. On the value of the vita in general, known more usually as the Epitaphium Arsenii, see David Ganz, "The Epitaphium Arsenii and Opposition to Louis the Pious", Charlemagne's Heir, op. cit.,  p. 537-550.

 

(109) On Fontenoy and its effects see Nithard 2.9-3.3, 23-31 ; and Janet Nelson, Charles the Bald, Routledge, 1992, p. 116-121.

 

(110) LM 3.4, p. 150.

 

(111) In LM 8.14, p. 320, she says that Bernard does not have time to pray for himself, this after urging William for the previous thirteen chapters to pray constantly. She believes that prayer will help Bernard conquer his animus, and the words she uses to describe what will happen when he does so are pax and concordia (LM 8.7, p. 310).

 

(112) On Bernard's eventual execution see the Annales Bertiniani, (éd.) G. Pertz, MGH Scriptores 1, Hannover, 1826,  s. a. 844, p. 440.

 

(113) LM 3.5, p. 156-158.

 

(114) Y. Bessmertny, "Le Monde vu par une femme noble au IXe siecle : La Perception du monde dans l'aristocratie carolingienne", art. cit., p. 172-174. See, for instance, LM 1.6, where she says that even if everyone born to plough somehow became learned, they would not be able to understand God. But such an occurrence, she believes, would be unnatural. Dhuoda even implies that one cannot ever really change one's status : "There is the rich man envying the poor, there is the poor desiring the rich, just as the unlearned man, wishing to be literate, wants this and yet cannot completely have it" (LM 4.8, p. 238).

 

(115) LM 10.5 and 8.15, p. 354 and 321-322, respectively.

 

(116) LM 8.15, p. 320.

 

(117) Ibidem. 

 

(118)  Manuel pour mon fils, éd. cit., p. 322, n. 1 ; C. Neel, Handbook for William : A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son for William, éd. cit., p. 142 n. 28.

 

(119) Cartulaires des abbayes d'Aniane et de Gellone, éd. cit.,  1.160, p. 144-146;  2.289, p. 412-413.

 

(120) On the early use of dom and domnus as honorific titles see Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, Paris, 1840-150), sub verbo.

 

(121) LM 7.3, p. 300-302. Even before book 7, Dhuoda begins to stake out her claim to being a spiritual even more than a fleshly mother, by separating herself from certain biological functions, understanding them spiritually and not physically. In 4.8, p. 246-48, she interprets Jesus' admonition to the pregnant and nursing from Matt 24:19 in this way : "The pregnant is he [sic] who illicitly covets the goods rightly belonging to another; the nursing is he [sic] who does not bear his own, and possesses goods unjustly seized." Dhuoda, in other words, applies what the Carolingians (among others) felt was the most typical and defining of female physical activities to men who act in ways not keeping with her conception of good behavior.

 

(122) LM 7.3, p. 302.

 

(123) LM 3.10, p. 178-180. See Augustine, Ennarationes in psalmos 41.4, (éd.) E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont, Turnhout, 1956 38 p. 462 ; and Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 30.10.36, (éd.) Andriaen, 1515-1516. See also P. Schwiekert, "Reading Ourselves: Towards a Feminist Theory of Reading", art. cit., p. 43-44. 

 

(124) LM 3.10, p. 178.

 

(125) For instance, in the same chapter, she mentions lions, boars, and vines all providing humans with appropriate lessons ;  in 5.1, she sees songbirds as providing a useful model for humans.

 

(126) LM 1.7, p. 116 ; and 10.4, p. 352.