Annales laureshamenses
Encyclopedia
The Annales laureshamenses or Annals of Lorsch (AL) are a set of annals
of the history of Francia (called Reichsannalen
) covering the years from 703 to 803 with a brief prologue. They were perhaps begun as a continuation of the "Minor Chronicle" of Bede
, contained in his De temporibus. Entries for the years before 785 were written at the Abbey of Lorsch, and those for subsequent years form an independent source, especially important for the events surrounding the imperial coronation of Charlemagne
in 800. They have been translated into English.
, the monks of Sankt-Blasien moved, with their library, to the Abbey of Sankt-Paul im Lavanttal. In 1820 G. H. Pertz sought the manuscript for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica
, but it could not be found and so the MGH version was based on Ussermann's printed edition of 1790. The manuscript was recovered by 1889, when Eberhard Katz edited a new version. Katz described the codex (today lost again) and dated it to the ninth century, placing the origins of this particular manuscript at the Abbey of Reichenau because of a marginal notice of the burial of Charlemagne's brother-in-law Gerold of Vinzgouw
there.
A fragment of a manuscript conserved in Vienna (now no. 515 in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) also contains a section of the Lorsch annals for mid-794 to 803, copied around 803. This manuscript too appears to originate at Reichenau, as it is written in Alemannian script. It was discovered in Vienna in 1551 by Wolfgang Lazius
. Katz argued that both the Vienna fragment and the Sankt-Paul codex are derived from an earlier exemplar, and though the Sankt-Paul codex is later it is not a copy of the Vienna, containing as it does errors that must originate in some text intermediate between it and the original exemplar. There is an ongoing debate whether the Vienna fragment represents the original copy of its author, probably from the region of Alemannia. Four distinct scribal hands have been identified in the Vienna fragment, corresponding to different entries:
The post-785 annals in the Sankt-Paul and Vienna manuscripts do not show any special connexions with Lorsch and were probably composed elsewhere. They may have been written nearly continuously from 785, or conversely there may have passed months or years between spurts of writing.
and also with those of the Fragmentum chesnii
, which also shares a brief extension including the year 786 with the Sankt-Paul version. Under the year 785, the Lorsch annals introduce the mechanism of dating events since the death of Gregory the Great (605). This contains a reference to the "present", indicating perhaps that the original compilation was made in that year.
This original stem—the Lorsch Annals of 785—from which all three annalistic traditions diverge after 785 was probably composed at the Abbey of Lorsch. Textually it is related to the Annales nazariani, Annales guelferbytani
, and Annales alamannici
, all depending on the earlier, hypothetical "Murbach Annals", composed at Murbach Abbey
(founded 727) and cover the years up to 751. Since the Lorsch annals were based on an erroneous copy of these Murbach annals, events in the 750s are consistently mis-dated. The frequency of references to the abbey between the years 764 and 785 suggests that the work of compilation done in 785 was performed at Lorsch. The Abbey of Gorze is also mentioned, but less frequently, and the death of only one of its abbots is mentioned, whereas all the Lorsch abbots receive obituaries. The Lorsch annals may have been circulated in batches of years, before they were completed. The existence of the Sankt-Paul codex supports the contention that unfinished portions were circulated in libelli (booklets) composed of single quires.
The so-called "York annals" or "Northern annals" that cover the years 732 to 802 and which comprise a section of the Historia regum
of Simeon of Durham, contain a reference to the golden lettering of the poetic epitaph on the marble memorial Charlemagne provided to commemorate Pope Hadrian I. This may have been derived from the Lorsch annals, the only continental source which provides the detail, or from a source common to both.
A copy of the Lorsch annals eventually found its way into the Marca Hispanica
, where it was used by the compiler(s) of the Chronicle of Moissac
. The Belgian historian François-Louis Ganshof
believed that the Chronicle of Moissac represented a fuller version of the Lorsch annals, extended down to 818. More likely the years 803–18 in the Moissac chronicle are derived from another source, with a different geographic focus.
argued that the author of the Lorsch annals was Richbod
, a pupil of Alcuin of York and a member of Charlemagne's court circle until about 784. From 785 he was the abbot of Lorsch and from 791 the Bishop of Trier. He died in 804. His personal knowledge of the Synod of Frankfurt (794), which condemned adoptionism
in terms presented in a treatise of Alcuin's, is displayed in the annals under the year 794. That said, the annals not found in the original text tradition, which happen to be those best corresponding to Richbod's abbacy, do not necessarily originate from Lorsch, and so provide little support for Fichtenau's attribution.
The text of the oldest manuscript of the Annales regni francorum, discovered at Lorsch and long kept in the Bavarian ducal library, closely resemble the Lorsch annals for the years 789–93. The years unique to the Annales laureshamenses may have been written in the year 803 as a single coherent narrative in annal form, as a response to the "slant" of the Annales regni francorum. The omissions of the Lorsch annals for the years from 799 to 801 demonstrate its own slant, in stressing the legitimacy of Charlemagne's imperial title. The Lorsch annalist argues that the absence of the nomen imperatoris (name of the Emperor) in 800 and the femineum imperium (female empire) of the Byzantine
s at the time justified the Pope in granting Charlemagne, who already held Rome, the imperial capital, and all the imperial cities in Gallia
, Germania
, and Italia, the imperial title.
The complete version, from the library at Sankt-Paul, is a universal history
that begins with a preface
describing its dating scheme, adopted from Orosius' Seven Books of History Against the Pagans and counts the years from Creation
to the Nativity
, given as 5,199. The anno Domini
system is used to date events. The first sixty-five years (703–67) are described in a prose narrative that is not divided into single-year entries. Beginning with the year 768 the work is divided into chapters (1 to 36) and each entry receives a separate line. The manuscript also contains a calendar from 777 to 835 (folios 5r–7r) for the dating of Easter
, using the unusual 19-year cycles of Theophilus of Alexandria
. This calendar may suggest a provenance before 835.
Significantly, the Lorsch annals are the only primary source to contradict the statement of Einhard
that Charlemagne was ignorant of Pope Leo III
's intention to crown him Emperor on 25 December 800. Rather the Lorsch annals state that the idea was discussed at an assembly held in Rome after Charlemagne's arrival (24 November), probably beginning on 30 November or 1 December. This entry was drawn up only after Charlemagne's return to Francia in 801, since an entry under 799 reports how the conspirators who overthrew Leo in April that year were then in exile. They were only finally exiled early in 801. This entry has, however, generated as much controversy as Einhard's statement of Charlemagne's ignorance. While Ganshof argued that the Annales were more trustworthy than Einhard, others have argued that Charlemagne's policy towards the Byzantine empire both before and after 800 shows little support for the pope's initiative. What Einhard shows Charlemagne objecting to is the Roman imperial title, not necessarily equality with the Roman (i.e. Byzantine) emperors; thus the emphasis the Annales laureshamenses place on justifying the "name of the Emperor".
In the Lorsch annals, the year 802 ends with the arrival of the elephant Abul-Abbas
at Charlemagne's court. The year 803 is recounted briefly: Charlemagne held Easter at Aachen, held an assembly at Mainz, and did not go on campaign all year. And there the annals end.
Annals
Annals are a concise form of historical representation which record events chronologically, year by year. The Oxford English Dictionary defines annals as "a narrative of events written year by year"...
of the history of Francia (called Reichsannalen
Reichsannalen
The Reichsannalen are a class of annals composed anonymously in the Carolingian Empire throughout the 9th century. They first appeared under Pepin the Short in 741 and became ubiquitous at monasteries throughout the empire in the following decades...
) covering the years from 703 to 803 with a brief prologue. They were perhaps begun as a continuation of the "Minor Chronicle" of Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
, contained in his De temporibus. Entries for the years before 785 were written at the Abbey of Lorsch, and those for subsequent years form an independent source, especially important for the events surrounding the imperial coronation of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
in 800. They have been translated into English.
Manuscript history
An eight-leaf copy of the Lorsch annals for 703–803 was copied probably in 835 by a single scribe. The "Sankt-Paul codex", as it is now called, which is the sole surviving quire of an otherwise lost manuscript, was still in the library of Sankt-Blasien in 1790, when it was edited by Aemilianus Ussermann, Bishop of Bamberg, in his collection of documents illustrative of "Alemannian" German history, Germaniae sacrae prodomus seu collectio monumentorum res Alemannicas illustrantium. In 1809, as a result of the Napoleonic WarsNapoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, the monks of Sankt-Blasien moved, with their library, to the Abbey of Sankt-Paul im Lavanttal. In 1820 G. H. Pertz sought the manuscript for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
The Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...
, but it could not be found and so the MGH version was based on Ussermann's printed edition of 1790. The manuscript was recovered by 1889, when Eberhard Katz edited a new version. Katz described the codex (today lost again) and dated it to the ninth century, placing the origins of this particular manuscript at the Abbey of Reichenau because of a marginal notice of the burial of Charlemagne's brother-in-law Gerold of Vinzgouw
Gerold of Vinzgouw
Gerold of Vinzgau was a count in Kraichgau and Anglachgau. His daughter married King Charlemagne in 771.In 784 generous donations to the monastery of Lorsch by Gerold and Emma are recorded....
there.
A fragment of a manuscript conserved in Vienna (now no. 515 in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) also contains a section of the Lorsch annals for mid-794 to 803, copied around 803. This manuscript too appears to originate at Reichenau, as it is written in Alemannian script. It was discovered in Vienna in 1551 by Wolfgang Lazius
Wolfgang Lazius
Wolfgang Laz, better known by his Latinized name Wolfgang Lazius , was an Austrian humanist who worked as a cartographer, historian, and physician....
. Katz argued that both the Vienna fragment and the Sankt-Paul codex are derived from an earlier exemplar, and though the Sankt-Paul codex is later it is not a copy of the Vienna, containing as it does errors that must originate in some text intermediate between it and the original exemplar. There is an ongoing debate whether the Vienna fragment represents the original copy of its author, probably from the region of Alemannia. Four distinct scribal hands have been identified in the Vienna fragment, corresponding to different entries:
- A (fol. 1r, fol. 1v l. 18 to 2v l. 13): 794 (fragment), second half of 795, all of 796–97
- B (fol. 1v ll. 1–18, fol. 2v l. 14 to 3r l. 1): first half of 795
- C (fol. 3r l. 2 to 4r l. 17): all of 799–801
- D (fol. 4r l. 18 to 5r l. 10): all of 802–3
The post-785 annals in the Sankt-Paul and Vienna manuscripts do not show any special connexions with Lorsch and were probably composed elsewhere. They may have been written nearly continuously from 785, or conversely there may have passed months or years between spurts of writing.
Textual transmission
The Lorsch annals for the years up to 785 are almost identical with the Annales mosellaniAnnales mosellani
The Annales mosellani or mosellenses or Moselle Annals are a set of minor Reichsannalen covering the years 703 to 798. Its entries are brief and unliterary, but broad in scope and generally accurate. They have only partially been translated into English.J. M...
and also with those of the Fragmentum chesnii
Fragmentum chesnii
The Fragmentum ' chesnii or chesnianum, sometimes called the Annales Laureshamenses antiquiores, is a brief set of Reichsannalen describing the history of Francia during the years 768 to 790...
, which also shares a brief extension including the year 786 with the Sankt-Paul version. Under the year 785, the Lorsch annals introduce the mechanism of dating events since the death of Gregory the Great (605). This contains a reference to the "present", indicating perhaps that the original compilation was made in that year.
This original stem—the Lorsch Annals of 785—from which all three annalistic traditions diverge after 785 was probably composed at the Abbey of Lorsch. Textually it is related to the Annales nazariani, Annales guelferbytani
Annales guelferbytani
The Annales guelferbytani are a set of Latin annals covering the years 741–805 that were composed in Regensburg, the capital of the Duchy of Bavaria, in 812–13...
, and Annales alamannici
Annales Alamannici
The core text of the Annales Alamannici covers the years 709 through to 799. Spread over several Swabian monasteries, the annals were continued independently in several places, in the Reichenau Abbey up to 939 , in St. Gallen up to 926. The St...
, all depending on the earlier, hypothetical "Murbach Annals", composed at Murbach Abbey
Murbach Abbey
Murbach Abbey was a famous Benedictine monastery in Murbach, southern Alsace, in a valley at the foot of the Grand Ballon in the Vosges.The monastery was founded in 727 by Eberhard, Count of Alsace, and established as a Benedictine house by Saint Pirmin. Its territory once comprised 3 towns and 30...
(founded 727) and cover the years up to 751. Since the Lorsch annals were based on an erroneous copy of these Murbach annals, events in the 750s are consistently mis-dated. The frequency of references to the abbey between the years 764 and 785 suggests that the work of compilation done in 785 was performed at Lorsch. The Abbey of Gorze is also mentioned, but less frequently, and the death of only one of its abbots is mentioned, whereas all the Lorsch abbots receive obituaries. The Lorsch annals may have been circulated in batches of years, before they were completed. The existence of the Sankt-Paul codex supports the contention that unfinished portions were circulated in libelli (booklets) composed of single quires.
The so-called "York annals" or "Northern annals" that cover the years 732 to 802 and which comprise a section of the Historia regum
Historia Regum
The Historia Regum is a historical compilation attributed to Symeon of Durham, which presents material going from the death of Bede until 1129. It survives only in one manuscript compiled in Yorkshire in the mid-to-late 12th century, though the material is earlier...
of Simeon of Durham, contain a reference to the golden lettering of the poetic epitaph on the marble memorial Charlemagne provided to commemorate Pope Hadrian I. This may have been derived from the Lorsch annals, the only continental source which provides the detail, or from a source common to both.
A copy of the Lorsch annals eventually found its way into the Marca Hispanica
Marca Hispanica
The Marca Hispanica , also known as Spanish March or March of Barcelona was a buffer zone beyond the province of Septimania, created by Charlemagne in 795 as a defensive barrier between the Umayyad Moors of Al-Andalus and the Frankish Kingdom....
, where it was used by the compiler(s) of the Chronicle of Moissac
Chronicle of Moissac
The Chronicle of Moissac is an anonymous compilation that was discovered at the abbey of Moissac, but is now thought to have been compiled in the Catalan monastery of Ripoll in the end of the tenth century. Like most chronicles, it begins with Adam, but gains increasing interest for historians as...
. The Belgian historian François-Louis Ganshof
François-Louis Ganshof
François-Louis Ganshof was a Belgian medievalist. After studies at the Athénée Royal, he came to the University of Ghent, where he came under the influence of Henri Pirenne. After studies with Ferdinand Lot, he practiced law for a period, before returning to the University of Ghent...
believed that the Chronicle of Moissac represented a fuller version of the Lorsch annals, extended down to 818. More likely the years 803–18 in the Moissac chronicle are derived from another source, with a different geographic focus.
Authorship and viewpoint
Heinrich FichtenauHeinrich Fichtenau
Heinrich von Fichtenau was an Austrian medievalist best known for his studies of medieval diplomatics, social and intellectual history. He spent his academic career at the University of Vienna and from 1962 to 1983 served as director of the Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung...
argued that the author of the Lorsch annals was Richbod
Richbod
Richbod was the Abbot of Lorsch from 784 and Abbot of Mettlach and Archbishop of Trier from around 792. He held the two abbacies and the bishopric concurrently until his death. He was the first archbishop of Trier....
, a pupil of Alcuin of York and a member of Charlemagne's court circle until about 784. From 785 he was the abbot of Lorsch and from 791 the Bishop of Trier. He died in 804. His personal knowledge of the Synod of Frankfurt (794), which condemned adoptionism
Adoptionism
Adoptionism, sometimes called dynamic monarchianism, is a minority Christian belief that Jesus was adopted as God's son at his baptism...
in terms presented in a treatise of Alcuin's, is displayed in the annals under the year 794. That said, the annals not found in the original text tradition, which happen to be those best corresponding to Richbod's abbacy, do not necessarily originate from Lorsch, and so provide little support for Fichtenau's attribution.
The text of the oldest manuscript of the Annales regni francorum, discovered at Lorsch and long kept in the Bavarian ducal library, closely resemble the Lorsch annals for the years 789–93. The years unique to the Annales laureshamenses may have been written in the year 803 as a single coherent narrative in annal form, as a response to the "slant" of the Annales regni francorum. The omissions of the Lorsch annals for the years from 799 to 801 demonstrate its own slant, in stressing the legitimacy of Charlemagne's imperial title. The Lorsch annalist argues that the absence of the nomen imperatoris (name of the Emperor) in 800 and the femineum imperium (female empire) of the Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
s at the time justified the Pope in granting Charlemagne, who already held Rome, the imperial capital, and all the imperial cities in Gallia
Gallia
Gallia may refer to:*Gaul , the region of Western Europe occupied by present-day France, Belgium and other neighbouring countries...
, Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
, and Italia, the imperial title.
Contents
Universal history
Universal history is basic to the Western tradition of historiography, especially the Abrahamic wellspring of that tradition. Simply stated, universal history is the presentation of the history of humankind as a whole, as a coherent unit.-Ancient authors:...
that begins with a preface
Preface
A preface is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...
describing its dating scheme, adopted from Orosius' Seven Books of History Against the Pagans and counts the years from Creation
Creation according to Genesis
The Genesis creation narrative describes the divine creation of the world including the first man and woman...
to the Nativity
Nativity of Jesus
The Nativity of Jesus, or simply The Nativity, refers to the accounts of the birth of Jesus in two of the Canonical gospels and in various apocryphal texts....
, given as 5,199. The anno Domini
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
system is used to date events. The first sixty-five years (703–67) are described in a prose narrative that is not divided into single-year entries. Beginning with the year 768 the work is divided into chapters (1 to 36) and each entry receives a separate line. The manuscript also contains a calendar from 777 to 835 (folios 5r–7r) for the dating of Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
, using the unusual 19-year cycles of Theophilus of Alexandria
Theophilus of Alexandria
Theophilus of Alexandria was Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, from 385 to 412. He is regarded as a saint by the Coptic Orthodox Church....
. This calendar may suggest a provenance before 835.
Significantly, the Lorsch annals are the only primary source to contradict the statement of Einhard
Einhard
Einhard was a Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was a dedicated servant of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious; his main work is a biography of Charlemagne, the Vita Karoli Magni, "one of the most precious literary bequests of the early Middle Ages."-Public life:Einhard was from the eastern...
that Charlemagne was ignorant of Pope Leo III
Pope Leo III
Pope Saint Leo III was Pope from 795 to his death in 816. Protected by Charlemagne from his enemies in Rome, he subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him as Roman Emperor....
's intention to crown him Emperor on 25 December 800. Rather the Lorsch annals state that the idea was discussed at an assembly held in Rome after Charlemagne's arrival (24 November), probably beginning on 30 November or 1 December. This entry was drawn up only after Charlemagne's return to Francia in 801, since an entry under 799 reports how the conspirators who overthrew Leo in April that year were then in exile. They were only finally exiled early in 801. This entry has, however, generated as much controversy as Einhard's statement of Charlemagne's ignorance. While Ganshof argued that the Annales were more trustworthy than Einhard, others have argued that Charlemagne's policy towards the Byzantine empire both before and after 800 shows little support for the pope's initiative. What Einhard shows Charlemagne objecting to is the Roman imperial title, not necessarily equality with the Roman (i.e. Byzantine) emperors; thus the emphasis the Annales laureshamenses place on justifying the "name of the Emperor".
In the Lorsch annals, the year 802 ends with the arrival of the elephant Abul-Abbas
Abul-Abbas
Abul-Abbas, also Abul Abaz or Abulabaz, was an Asian elephant given to Emperor Charlemagne by the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, in 797. The elephant's name and events from his life in the Carolingian Empire are recorded in the annales regni francorum , and Einhard's vita Karoli Magni also...
at Charlemagne's court. The year 803 is recounted briefly: Charlemagne held Easter at Aachen, held an assembly at Mainz, and did not go on campaign all year. And there the annals end.
External links
- "Annals of Lorsch: The pope makes the Carolingians kings" at Medieval Sourcebook. From Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal (edd.), A Source Book for Medieval History (New York: Scribners, 1905), 37–38.