This book is the third in a series of six edited volumes examining how the writing of history related to the construction of identity in Eurasia from antiquity to the early modern period. Like its siblings, it emerges from the ‘Visions of Community: Comparative Approaches to Ethnicity, Region and Empire in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (400–1600 ce)’ research cluster based in Vienna.
The remit of this volume is the writing of history in the Carolingian Empire. This relatively narrow subject compared to other entries in the series brings with it a number of advantages. Although the contributors rightly stress the variety in Carolingian history-writing, being able to focus on a fairly clearly defined moment helps in the creation of a tight and cohesive volume. Nor does it hurt that the contributors, who range from established luminaries to new voices in the field, are well-versed with each other's work. This familiarity has the potential to become forbidding to the outsiders this volume is presumably also aimed at (one might question whether Frechulf of Lisieux and Walahfrid Strabo are quite the household names the introduction implies, p. 3). For the most part this danger is avoided, and the result is an extremely productive conversation that can be very profitably read as a whole by those with non-Carolingian specialisms.
Despite the advantages outlined above, the editors should receive considerable credit for their labour, particularly for the tight structure of the volume. We begin with Helmut Reimitz's introduction, which usefully outlines the role of modern scholarship in constructing a distinctively Carolingian corpus of history-writing through the early publication of these texts by the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. This is followed by four chapters on the use of earlier histories in the Carolingian period. Mayke de Jong considers the rhetorical employment of the Roman past by Paschasius Radbertus in the Vita Adalhardi and the Epitaphium Arsenii. Matthias Tischler examines the legacy of the Ostrogothic past in the Carolingian world. Robert Evans and Rosamond McKitterick investigate the vision of the past revealed by an epitome of Orosius preserved in Leiden, ms VLQ 20, while Richard Corradini explores the personal relationship to history found in Walahfrid Strabo's personal handbook.
The next section is concerned with the writing of Carolingian history, particularly with texts that have often been marginalised in earlier scholarship. A neglected eighth-century Chronicon universale receives some much needed attention from Sören Kaschke. The Chronicon moissiacense provides a Septimanian perspective to the coronation of Charlemagne in Rutger Kramer's chapter. Also from the southern edge of the Carolingian world is the work of Ado of Vienne, which Sukanya Raisharma analyses as a universal chronicle adapted for the needs of a single city. Frechulf brings this part to a close, as Graeme Ward perceptively examines the question of why the bishop of Lisieux's world history ends in the seventh century.
Despite their diversity of subject, these chapters fit neatly with each other because of their shared concern with a number of important themes related to the way people in the period engaged with and used the resources of the past. We encounter many different types of history-writing, with their authors and compilers making careful decisions in the expression of their understanding of the past. Many of the chapters bring out the significance of manuscript studies and textual transmission, the importance of examining texts as a whole and the value of considering interpretations of the writing of history in the period that do not centre the agenda of the ruling dynasty. Although these points are not new in Carolingian scholarship, they become all the more compelling from the variety of the case studies provided and the demonstration of their value for the practising historian.
If these two sections have a weakness, it is a tendency in some of the contributions to leave interpretation of their findings as an exercise for the reader. To unfairly single out one example among several, towards the end of his otherwise excellent study of the Chronicon universale, Kaschke observes that the decision to include the preface and final section of Bede's De temporum ratione in all manuscripts containing the Chronicon ‘is a vital clue for the intentions and perceptions of contemporary compilers, editors, and readers of the text alike’ (p. 219). The conclusion this clue leads us to remains unstated, leaving the reader trapped in the role of Dr Watson, waiting for a solution that never comes. This recurring issue is a particular problem for a volume with aspirations to be read by non-Carolingianists.
The final section of the volume is billed as a consideration of evolution of history- writing in the later Carolingian period. The two chapters it contains are among the strongest in the volume, but neither fit neatly with the other pieces. Walter Pohl examines the importance of Lombard identity in Erchempert's southern Italian Historiola, while Eric Goldberg reopens the cold case of the ‘accident’ in 864 that ended the career of Charles the Bald's son, also called Charles, by examining the discrepancies in the annalistic sources. Both are fascinating, but they come slightly awkwardly after the cohesion of the previous sections. This is particularly noteworthy in the case of Pohl's chapter, which is one of the few to really make the theme of history and identity its major focus, despite this being one of the stated aims of the volume.
In spite of the minor difficulties mentioned above, this is a very impressive volume that manages to create a whole greater than the sum of its (already very strong) parts, and repays reading from cover to cover. Assessing how well it fits in with the rest of the series will have to wait until all the other volumes are published, but anyone interested in the writing of history in the early medieval period will benefit from this book.
