The Quierzy letter of 858 (extracts)

In the late summer of 858, King Louis ‘the German’ of East Francia invaded the kingdom of his younger brother Charles ‘the Bald’ of West Francia, in a bid to reverse the terms of the Treaty of Verdun that had divided the realm of their grandfather Charlemagne. Sweeping aside all resistance, Louis marched through Ponthion, Châlons, Sens and reached as far Orléans. He then invited the bishops of West Francia to a synod at Reims, near his winter base at the palace of Attigny, where a few weeks later he issued a charter dated to the first year of his rule in West Francia.[1]

The bishops met at the nearby palace of Quierzy. Refusing Louis’s invitation, they instead sent him an extended letter that offered some frank advice. The king, they warned, should examine his conscience and be wary of his counsellors, bearing in mind the fate of his father Emperor Louis the Pious; he should work for peace and to defeat the Vikings, rather than bringing about disruption; he should protect the church; he should organise his court as a model for everyone; he should appoint suitable counts and missi; he should manage his royal estates and their residents effectively. The letter was a collective one, in the name of all the bishops concerned, but in large part it was probably written by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, drawing on the decisions of recent Frankish councils. Later, Hincmar told Charles the Bald, the king of West Francia, that the letter had been written as much for him as for Louis.

Extracts from a provisional translation are presented here, which was prepared by Charles West, with the assistance of Richard Gilbert, Robert Heffron and Harry Mawdsley who attended a regular Latin translation class based on this text at the University of Sheffield, as part of a long-term initiative with Rachel Stone to make more of Hincmar’s work available in translation. The translation also draws on Jinty Nelson’s unpublished partial translation which she kindly made available, and has benefited greatly from her suggestions (any errors that remain are CW’s). It is based on the edition in Die Konzilien der karolingischen Teilreiche 843-859, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, MGH Concilia III (Hannover, 1984), pp. 408-427. Hyperlinks are provided to this MGH edition to ease comparison with the original Latin. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.
For a revised and complete translation, please see Charles West, The Fall of a Carolingian Kingdom: Lotharingia 855-869, University of Toronto Press, forthcoming.

The text is preserved in a number of manuscripts, of which much the earliest is Paris BnF lat. 5095, where it is ff. 130-137 (link to the manuscript on Gallica). The account of Bishop Eucherius’s vision of Charles Martel in chapter 7 is also transmitted independently in a further eleven manuscripts.

CW, February 2018 (edited February 2023]

***

TRANSLATION

[MGH] The chapters that follow were sent by the bishops of the provinces of Reims and Rouen from the palace of Quierzy, where they were meeting, to King Louis at the palace of Attigny, via Archbishop Wenilo of Rouen and Bishop Erchenrad of Châlons, in the year of the Lord 858, in the month of November.[2]

To the glorious king Louis, we the bishops of the provinces of Reims and Rouen who could be present send greetings.

Chapter 1. [The bishops send their apologies for the meeting]

Some of us have the letters of Your Dominion, in which you ordered that we should meet you on the VII Kalends of December [25 November] at Reims, so that you might discuss with us and with your other faithful followers the restoration of the holy Church and the state and wellbeing [salus] of the Christian people.[3] But we were not able to come to the meeting, on account of the inconvenience and the shortness of time, and the unsuitability of the place, and – which is more grievous – because of the confusion and disorder that has arisen.

And according to the divine laws (which with your brothers you told us that you would observe), it makes good sense that just as archbishops should not dare to do anything without the agreement of the suffragan bishops, so neither should suffragan bishops act without the agreement or order of archbishops, except about matters that concern their own dioceses. And, in such a short time, we were unable to arrange letters for the archbishops concerning an assembly.

Therefore let Your Excellence know that Our Humility has not disregarded your command, but as has been said long before us, ‘whoever orders the impossible makes himself ridiculous’.[4]

Chapter 4. [The bishops call on Louis to examine his conscience, comparing the situation with the rebellions against Louis the Pious] [MGH]

Firstly, look into your arrival into this kingdom in [your] heart of hearts, before the eyes of the Lord, to Whom according to the Psalms the thoughts of man are confessed [Ps 75:11], and weigh up the scales of justice. And whatever your encouragers and advisers and flatterers are saying to you, return to your heart [Is. 46:8]. And whatever you can find and say to justify and recommend your arrival, examine your conscience: and judge whether you wish to keep doing those things which you are doing.

And place before your mind’s eye that hour – of which you can be certain, since in no way can you escape it – when your soul will depart your body, and will leave behind the whole world and all power and all riches and the body itself, and will go forth naked and desolate, without the help of a wife or children, and without the support and company of your retinue [drudores] and vassals [vassi], and will leave unfinished whatever it thought about and decided to arrange: for as Scripture says, In that day all their thoughts will pass away [Ps 145:4]. And your soul will see and feel all its sins, watching as devils constrain and compel it. And whatever it thought, spoke and did against love and the faith owed on this earth, and has not made up for in the worthy fruits of penance, it will have before its eyes for ever, and will wish to escape, and will not be able to. For it is certain that devils come to all men when they leave their body, both to the just and to sinners; and [the devil] even also came to Christ himself, in whom he found nothing [of] his, as it is written: The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me [John 14:30]. And truly believe us, o king who we wish always to be good and Christian, that this hour is not far away, but near enough to you, and nearer than is hoped.

Therefore do not let those things that you see seduce you. In the time indeed of your father [Louis the Pious], we saw things begun and initiated by some people which we see in this time to be brought about by those who do this, and they will be completed by others. And just as they laugh now when they obtain from you what they want in the moment of their desire, so they will laugh when the hour of your death comes to you, and they will ask how they might hold through anyone else what they obtained from you. And it is possible that some are asking this while you are still alive. And unless they do worthy penance, they too will go miserably to that hour of their death, just as those went who abandoned your father with your brother [Lothar]. For just as they organised sedition against paternal reverence, so these are inciting you against fraternal love, in the name of peace and the state of the church and the salvation [salus] and unity of the people. And the poison was hiding under the honey.
 

[MGH] And the word of the psalmist was fulfilled in those, and is being fulfilled in these: Those who speak peace with their neighbour, but have evil in their hearts [Ps 27:3], and the rest which follows. And what they received in this world is well known, and what they will receive in the next world will be known in full in the Judgement. And seeing their fate [of the rebels against Louis], these [Louis’s followers] should have feared their deeds, and they should act as if the Lord looks down at them, He who looks down and protects the small and the humble; and so once the wicked man is beaten, as it is written, the child will be wiser [Prov. 19:25]. And they will understand that the Lord will neither spurn nor forget his people [plebs] in the end; since it is because of the misery of the needy and the groans of the poor that I will now arise [Ps 12;1], said the Lord. Besides, just as then He said to them, so now the Lord says to these: I was silent, but can it be that I will always be silent? I will shout out as if giving birth [Isaiah 42.14]; my hour has not yet come [John 2.4], but now it is your hour, when darkness reigns [Luke 22.53]; and if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes, because the days will come upon you [Luke 19.42ff].

Invite yourself, we beseech you, to such a place where you are able to concentrate, to read the homily of St Gregory on the reading of the Gospel: Jesus, seeing the city, wept over it [Luke 19.41].We beseech you, lord, that you may have before your mind’s eye that day when your soul will receive back its own body along with all other men, and you will come before the face of the eternal Judge in the sight of all angels and men; in which day, just as St Paul said, the Lord will judge everyone, not through another’s testimony but through everyone’s hidden thoughts that either accuse or defend them, when everyone receives their own body, according to his deeds, whether good or bad. And at that time, the words that we have written will not be despised by those who now hold them in contempt, when without doubt they will be repeated as evidence in that terrible Judgement. And none of those people will help you then. If they continue in this fashion, doing such things as we hear about and experience and lament, they will not even be able to help themselves, but will go into the eternal fire, while the just, who now suffer unjustly, will go into the life eternal.

Chapter 7. [The bishops call on Louis to protect the church, and give the example of Charles Martel as a warning]

And if you seek to restore the church of God, just as you wrote to us, then guard the privileges due to bishops and to the churches entrusted to them, as is divinely constituted. Take care to preserve the rights and immunities and the honour of these churches, as your grandfather and your father kept them. And what your brother, our lord [Charles], who received part of the kingdom by paternal gift and with the mutual undertakings of you and your faithful men, has done for the cult and honour of the churches, you should similarly maintain.

And cherish the rectors and pastors of the church as fathers and vicars of Christ, just as the Holy Scripture orders, saying: Treat the priests of God as holy, and lower your head to great men [Eccl. 7:31]. And obey their spiritual counsel, as the Scripture says again: Ask your father and he will tell you, ask your elders, and they will say to you [Deut 32:7]; and similarly: Ask my priests my law; and the Lord through the prophet Malachi: The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they should seek the law from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord’s flock [Malach 2:7]. And do not trouble them at an unsuitable and unfavourable time,[7] but allow them to carry out the sacred ministry, to which they were appointed, for the salvation [salus] of the people; and do not stir up those subject to them in domestic care, and do not permit them to dishonour or oppress the bishops.

Make sure that the fitting honour and owed rights, which the canons and the capitularies of your grandfather and father decreed, are preserved for the priests. Command that bishops shall have the peaceful freedom [libertas] to travel through their diocese, preaching, confirming and correcting. Ensure that, if the bishops order it, the missus of the realm, that is the officer of a count, goes with other people to compel incestuous freemen to come to the bishops’ court, if they are not willing to come through the admonition of priests. Establish an officer for this purpose [constitutum ministerio] through whom, if a bishop tells you about some ecclesiastical necessity for which his messenger has come, he may obtain what he reasonably seeks in your palace, just as the count of the palace acts in the matters of the realm.[8] Make sure that they are able in peace to have comprovincial synods with other bishops, and specific synods with priests. Do not allow church properties and goods [res et facultates], which are the offerings of the faithful, the price of sins, and the stipends of the male and female servants of God, to be plundered and separated from the churches[9] – but instead bravely resist and defend, as a Christian king and alumnus of the church.

Concerning that property consecrated to God, which the free men serving the church have through the disposition of the rector of those churches, the successors of the apostles established this arrangement: so that just as the offering of the faithful grew, and the wickedness of the unfaithful grew even more, so the armed forces [militia] of the kingdom might be augmented through the dispensation of the church to resist the wickedness of evil men, so the churches may have defence and peace, and Christendom [christianitas] may have tranquillity.[10] Therefore, just as the goods and properties from which the clerics have a livelihood are under the consecration of immunity, so too are those goods and properties from which vassals owe military service; and they ought to be defended with equal protection by royal power for the requirements of churches.

For indeed, the prince Charles [Martel], father of king Pippin, was the first among all the kings and princes of the Franks to separate and distinguish the goods of the churches from the churches: because of this alone, he is certainly doomed forever. [MGH] For the holy bishop Eucherius of Orléans, who rests in the monastery of St Trond, whilst kneeling in prayer was seized and taken to another world, and amongst other things that the Lord showed him, he saw Charles being tortured in deepest hell.[11] When Eucherius asked the angel leading him about it, the angel replied that by the judgement of the saints, who will judge in the future judgement with the Lord, and whose property he took and divided up: before that judgement, he [Charles] was condemned in soul and body to eternal punishment, and he receives penalties for not just his own sins but also for the sins of all those who gave their goods and properties in the honour and love of the Lord to the places of the saints for the lighting of the divine cult and for the sustenance of the servants of Christ and the poor, for the redemption of their souls. When Eucherius returned to himself, he summoned holy Boniface and Fulrad, abbot of the monastery of St-Denis and the high chaplain of King Pippin. He explained what he had seen to them, and gave as proof that they should go to Charles’s tomb, and if they did not find his body there, they should believe that what he said was true. And they went to the aforementioned monastery where Charles’s body was buried, and they uncovered and looked at his tomb and suddenly a dragon emerged, and the whole interior of the tomb was found to be blackened, as if it had been burned. We ourselves saw people who lived up to our time [MGH] and who were involved in this matter, and they attested truthfully in person to us what they had heard and seen.

Once aware of this, his son Pippin brought together a synod at Lestinnes,[12] of which George the legate of the apostolic see was in charge along with Saint Boniface – and we have [the records of] that synod – and he took care to return as much as he could of those churches’ properties that his father had taken to the churches. And since he did not prevail in restoring all the properties to the churches from which they had been taken, on account of the conflict which he was having with Waifar the prince of Aquitaine, Pippin thereafter asked for precaria grants to be made by the bishops and decided that ninths and tenths [of the revenues] were given to the restoration of the roofing, and with regards to each casata twelve pence were given to the church from which the properties were [held as] benefices, as it is recorded in the book of the capitularies of the king, until these properties could be returned to the church.[13]

And the lord emperor Charles, till now, established a decree in the royal name, that neither he nor his sons nor any of his successors would attempt to do things of these kinds.[14] He confirmed this with his own hand, of which [confirmations] we have very many, and there is an excerpted chapter in the book of his capitularies which anyone who has that book and wishes to read it will be able to find. [MGH]. We have this account in writing, and some of us have also heard the emperor Louis your father talk about this in person.

And the holy canons, written by the Holy Spirit, reckon those who plunder ecclesiastical property and unduly usurp for themselves ecclesiastical estates to be similar to Judas, the betrayer of Christ. And the saints in heaven, who reign with God in heaven and glitter with miracles on earth, will exclude them from the threshold of the Church and from the heavenly kingdom, like murderers of the poor. About these sacrilegious people, there is a prediction in the prophecy of the psalmist, who said My God, send them whirling this way and that, like leaves, like straws before the wind. See how the fire burns up the forest, how its flames scorch the mountain-side! So let the fury of thy onset rout them, thy fury dismay them. Fill their faces with shame [Ps 82:13-17].

Chapter 12. [Advice on how to run his court and kingdom]

Nourish, rule and arrange your domestic household [domum domesticam] in such a way that when the people of the kingdom assemble before you, they may see in you and in your retainers how soberly, how justly, how piously, and with how much humility and chastity, they ought to nourish, arrange and govern their household too; for, as a certain wise man once said, the family will be safe according the habits of its master. And that is why the king’s household is called a school, that is a disciplina; not so much because there are scholars like others there, that is disciplined and well-corrected people, but rather it is called a school, by which we mean disciplina, that is correctio, because they correct others in behaviour, progress, in word and deed, and in the preservation of all goodness.

And unless you are supported by the God of virtues, you will be like a peg which is not secure, and you will fall, and those hanging from you will slip. So therefore, as God taught when he was being tempted to render to those constituted under power, what is of Caesar to Caesar and what is of God to God – likewise you, who are under God and above men, render to God what is of God, and like a just Caesar, render to the subjects what belongs to them. Render to God a pure and immaculate faith and a most sincere observance regarding priests, the privileges of the churches, the holy places, ecclesiastical men and women, the defence of the Church and of christianitas, the equity and justice of the Christian people, the support, peace and consolation of all the needy, as we set out above. Render to God a daily payment in daily prayer, in just and assiduous alms. Give to Him your devotion in holy gifts and profuse tears according to the size and number of your daily sins. Render to your subjects judgement with mercy, justice with equity. Take care to exalt the humble and God-fearing, and to subdue and humiliate the proud. Try to be more loved than feared by the good. Take care that the wicked fear to do evil things, if not on account of God then for fear of you. Let not a lying tongue, a full hand or unearned subservience be worth more to you than truth, equity and sincerity, knowing that it is written he who draws his hand back from every gift will inhabit the heavens [Isaiah 33:15]. This must be understood aptly: [MGH] and the gift is no different from the spoken favour, from the hand’s donation, from the subjection of unearned subservience.

Appoint officers of the palace who know, love and fear God; who take the greatest care that the needy coming to the palace run to see you, their father and consoler when you pass through them, and do not – which we do not wish to say – flee whilst groaning and cursing. Appoint counts and officers of the res publica who do not love gifts, who hate avarice, who detest pride; who neither oppress nor dishonour the men of the country [pagenses]; who in no way devastate their harvests, vineyards, meadows and woods; who do not seize or plunder their cattle or pigs or whatever they have, nor take it away through violence and trickery; who do things that are of God and fitting to christianitas, by the counsel of the bishops; who hold courts not to acquire profit, but so that the houses of God and the orphans and people may have justice; who take more care to bring the litigants to peace, with justice preserved, than to commit them [to legal action] so that they can have some profit from it. But if they cannot placate them, then, as is just, let them make a just judgement with great care, knowing that it is written I shall judge you, o man, for what is good [Micha 6:8], that is doing justice and judgment, and for walking carefully with your God. So that what pleases Him also pleases you and you carry it out, but what is displeasing to Him is displeasing also to you, and you do not carry it out.

But if you do such a thing through frailty, do not stubbornly or obstinately persevere in your wicked deed, but at once pull back your foot as if from a hot iron, and tread in the path of the Lord’s will. And, as it written that there are paths which seem good to men and lead to the abyss, do as Scripture orders you as a man: ask for the right path and walk in it. For as it is said in the Gospels, the path that leads to perdition is broad, and many go through it; and the path that leads to life is narrow and strait, and few come upon it. Since you are a man, listen to the prophet and pray with him: Set before me for a law the way of thy justifications, O Lord: and I will always seek after it [Ps 118:33] and Lead me into the path of thy commandments [Ps 118: 29], and Remove from me the way of iniquity: and out of thy law have mercy on me. For as the prophet Jeremiah says, The path is not man’s, nor is it man who decides where to walk and direct his steps – but his steps are guided by the Lord, who directs his way. [Jer. 10:23]

Let those counts similarly, as far as they can, appoint as their officers those who similarly fear God and love justice, and who, when they see their lords acting kindly and affably to their countrymen [pagenses], [MGH] attempt according to their measure to imitate them in all goodness and justice.

Chapter 14. [Advice on managing royal estates][19]

And finally, appoint stewards [iudices] of the royal estates who are not greedy, and who neither love avarice nor usury nor carry it out; nor let them give royal money or their own as loans, nor let their subordinates be usurers – all these things you should hate and flee even more than your officers do. And do not let the stewards oppress royal servants [servi], nor demand more from them than they used to give in the time of your father, nor afflict them with carrying duties at inconvenient times. Nor let them condemn free tenants [coloni] through deceit or tricks or unsuitable loans. For if through such deeds or others you acquire a weight of silver or gold in the treasure chest, greater and heavier will be the weight of sin which you will have on your conscience and soul.

Let the stewards develop your estates with modest buildings [casticia], so that there should be the necessary decency and the familia should not be unduly burdened; let them work and farm the lands and vineyards at the appropriate time with the sollicitude that is owed. Let them preserve and distribute the products with faithful discretion; let them make the appropriate and necessary foodstuffs; let them guard the woods which provide foraging; let them defend and farm the meadows which provide grazing. [MGH] In this way it will be not be necessary for you for whatever reason and on whomsoever’s advice to travel through the possessions of bishops, abbots, abbesses or counts, nor to demand more hospitality than reason requires, or to burden the church’s poor [pauperes] and the farmers [mansuarii] of your faithful men by demanding carting and travelling duties contrary to what is owed, or to pile up sin on your soul through consuming these unowed resources.

Nor should you strive to demand more from the counts and your faithful men from what they take from the Franks than was the law and custom in the time of your father. You should rather have enough so that you can live with your domestic household [cortis] and receive legates coming to your palace, and as is written, enough so that you can give the necessary to those suffering from just labours. For the king ought to be generous, and what is given ought not to have been acquired from injustice or inequity.

The stewards, however, should discipline the free tenants [coloni] of the estates, so that they do not oppress the ecclesiastical men or the poorer Franks, or other servants by means of royal privilege, and so that they do not devastate the woods or those of others which are in their vicinity. For a just king, who should seek justice, should not have impious or unjust officers or tenants [coloni]; but he should demonstrate to everyone a worthy model in himself and in his [followers]. Because if he himself loves God, all good men will love him, and, if he himself fears God, all evil men will fear him. And the king as well as his officers should perform good deeds through love of God, and should teach everyone else to perform good deeds, and they should shun evil through fear of God, and should instruct everyone else to shun evil. Appoint envoys [missi] of such a kind throughout the kingdom, who know how counts and other officers of the state [res publica] administer justice and judgement to the people, and just as they are placed over the counts, so they should surpass them in knowledge, justice and truth.[20]

[1] This charter, no. 94 in the standard MGH edition, is available in French translation with commentary in S. Glansdorff, Diplômes de Louis le Germanique (817-876) (Limoges, 2009), pp. 241-8.

[2] The Paris manuscript has a slightly differently-worded version of this preface.

[3] These letters do not survive.

[4] The origin of this proverb is unknown, but Hincmar of Reims quoted it on other occasions too: e.g. PL 124 1072.

[5] Here the bishops are implying that Louis had a hidden intention in summoning the bishops to Reims – perhaps a plan to compel them to crown him as king?

[6] Perhaps a reference to Charles’s unsuccessful siege of the Vikings at Oissel in July/August 858, recorded in the Annals of St-Bertin, tr. J.L. Nelson, pp. 87-8.

[7] Cf. note 5.

[8] Cf. Hincmar’s comments in De Ordine Palatii, ed. Gross and Schieffer 1980, ch. 20.

[9] A quotation from Julianus Pomerius, a Late Antique author often cited in Frankish councils.

[10] Here christianitas seems to have a territorial meaning – ‘Christendom’. Elsewhere in this text however it seems more to mean the ensemble of Christian practices (‘Christianity’).

[11] Bishop Eucherius died around 738.

[12] Council of Lestinnes, 743, MGH Concilia I, pp. 5-7, summoned by the Mayor of the Palace Carlomann.

[13] This text is strangely not in Ansegis’s collection of capitularies, but rather in the collection of Benedict Levita, I.3

[14] Probably a reference to Ansegis I:77, ed. Schmitz, Die Kapitulariensammlung des Ansegis, pp. 475-6 (MGH).

[15] A reference to the meeting of the three Carolingian kings at Yutz/Thionville in 844: MGH Concilia III, pp. 29-35.

[16] A reference to the meeting of the three Carolingian kings at Meerssen in 847: MGH Capitularia II, pp. 69-72.

[17] Cf. a similar argument in Hincmar’s De Divortio, Appendix Responsio 1, tr. Stone and West, p. 284.

[18] See N. Staubach, ‘“Quasi semper in publico”. Öffentlichkeit als Funktions- und Kommunikationsraum karolingischer Königsherrschaft’, in G. Melville and P. Moos, eds, Das Öffentliche und Private in der Vormoderne (Cologne, 1998), 577-618.

[19] Cf. D. Campbell, ‘The Capitulary de Villis, the Brevium Exempla and the Carolingian court at Aachen’, Early Medieval Europe 18 (2010), pp. 243-64.

[20] Charles the Bald seems to have taken Hincmar’s advice, issuing in 860 detailed instructions to the missi or royal emissaries in his kingdom at the Capitulary of Koblenz travelling throughout his kingdom: MGH Capitularia II, pp. 269-270.

[21] Here the bishops hold out the possibility of coming over to Louis’s rule.

[22] King Lothar II indeed visited Louis while he was at Attigny, and made an agreement with him, the details of which have not survived – see the Annals of St-Bertin, tr. Nelson, p. 88.

[23] Cf. Hincmar’s calls for a general synod of the Frankish church in De Divortio, Response 3 and Appendix Responsio 1, tr. Stone and West, p. 122 and p. 284.

[24] This seems to be a reference to papal letters to Charles the Bald that have not survived.

[25] Cf. Nelson, Frankish World, p. 161, n. 39.