Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:49:20.725Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Monothelete Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2020

SIHONG LIN
SIHONG LIN*
Affiliation:
University CollegeDublin
*
E-mail: sihong.lin28@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Monothelete controversy, a Christological dispute that seemingly consumed the Eastern Roman Empire in the seventh century, also left its mark in Latin texts composed in Merovingian Gaul. By integrating the western evidence and recent revisions to the controversy's history, this study presents a new overview of how Frankish observers viewed the eastern ‘heresy’ and papal efforts to condemn the doctrine in 649. Though negative on the surface, western attitudes towards this Christological debate in the 650s are much more mixed and new evidence can be adduced for the continuation of positive exchanges between the empire and the Franks.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 235 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Paul Fouracre, Chris Wickham and Laury Sarti for their helpful comments, as well as Katy Cubitt for sending me her work prior to publication.

References

1 Ewig, E., Die Merowinger und das Imperium, Opladen 1983, 52‒7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moorhead, J., ‘Western approaches (500‒600)’, in Shepard, J. (ed.), The Cambridge history of the Byzantine empire, c. 500‒1492, Cambridge 2008, 219‒20Google Scholar; Drauschke, J., ‘Diplomatie und Wahrnehmung im 6. und 7. Jahrhundert: Konstantinopel und die merowingischen Könige’, in Altripp, M. (ed.), Byzanz in Europa: Europas östliches Erbe, Turnhout 2011, 257‒8Google Scholar; Sarti, L., ‘From Romanus to Graecus: the identity and perceptions of the Byzantines in the Frankish West’, Journal of Medieval History xliv (2018), 131‒50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Herrin, J., The formation of Christendom, Princeton 1987, 207–11, 289‒90Google Scholar; A. Louth, ‘Byzantium transforming (600–700)’, in Shepard, Byzantine empire, 234–5; Hovorun, C., Will, action and freedom: Christological controversies in the seventh century, Leiden 2008, 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moorhead, J., The popes and the Church of Rome in late antiquity, Abingdon 2015, 178Google Scholar.

3 M. Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire politique du monothélisme, à partir de la correspondance entre les empereurs byzantins, les patriarches de Constantinople et les papes de Rome’, unpubl. PhD diss. Paris–Warsaw 2009; Booth, P., Crisis of empire: doctrine and dissent at the end of late antiquity, Berkeley, Ca 2014Google Scholar; Greenwood, T., ‘“New light from the East”: chronography and ecclesiastical history through a late seventh-century Armenian source’, Journal of Early Christian Studies xvi (2008), 197‒254CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tannous, J., ‘In search of Monotheletism’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers lxviii (2014), 29–67Google Scholar.

4 On the former see Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 270‒2; on the latter, Cubitt, C., ‘The Lateran synod, its course and aftermath’, in Price, R. (ed.), The acts of the Lateran synod of 649, Liverpool 2014, 78‒81Google Scholar. The full range of modern scholarship will be discussed below.

5 Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 223‒31, 249‒58, 284‒93.

6 Ibid. 128–60; Booth, Crisis of empire, 240–1.

7 Booth, Crisis of empire, 259–300.

8 Acts of the Lateran synod, ed. R. Riedinger, ACO ii/1, Berlin 1984; Price, Lateran synod, 59–68.

9 Martin, Letter to Amandus, ed. R. Riedinger, ACO ii/1, 422–4. See also LP lxxvi/3. On the letter's context see Pollard, R., ‘A cooperative correspondence: the letters of Gregory the Great’, in Neil, B. and Santo, M. Dal (eds), A companion to Gregory the Great, Leiden 2013, 306–9Google Scholar, and Price, Lateran synod, 391–3.

10 Scheibelreiter, G., ‘Griechisches – lateinisches – fränkisches Christentum: der Brief Papst Martins i. an den Bischof Amandus von Maastricht aus dem Jahre 649’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsfo0rschung c (1992), 97–100Google Scholar; Mériaux, C., ‘A one-way ticket to Francia: Constantinople, Rome and Northern Gaul in the mid seventh century’, in Esders, S., Fox, Y., Hen, Y. and Sarti, L. (eds), East and West in the early Middle Ages: the Merovingian kingdoms in Mediterranean perspective, Cambridge 2019, 146–8Google Scholar.

11 Martin, Letter to Amandus, 422, 424.

12 Life of Amandus of Maastricht, 6‒7, 10, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM, v, Hanover 1910.

13 Milo, Second Life of Amandus of Maastricht, 1‒2, ibid; Cubitt, ‘Lateran synod’, 79.

14 Wood, I., ‘The Franks and papal theology, 550‒660’, in Chazelle, C. and Cubitt, C. (eds), The crisis of the oikoumene: the Three Chapters and the failed quest for unity in the sixth-century Mediterranean, Turnhout 2007, 239‒41Google Scholar.

15 Banniard, M., ‘Latin et communication orale en Gaule franque: le témoignage de la “Vita Eligii”’, in Fontaine, J. and Hillgarth, J. (eds), The seventh century, change and continuity: proceedings of a joint French and British colloquium held at the Warburg Institute, 8–9 July 1988, London 1992, 58‒86Google Scholar; Westeel, I., ‘Quelques Remarques sur la Vita Eligii, Vie de saint Éloi’, Mélanges de science religieuse lvi (1999), 33‒47Google Scholar; Bayer, C., ‘Vita Eligii’, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde xxxv, Berlin 2007, 461–524Google Scholar; Berschin, W., ‘Der heilige Goldschmied: die Eligiusvita ‒ ein merowingisches Original?’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung cxviii (2010), 1‒7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 ‘quaedam causa inpedimenti fuisset’: VE i.33, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM, iv, Hanover 1902. On the Martin digression see L. Sarti, ‘The digression on Pope Martin i in the Life of Eligius of Noyon’, in Esders and others, East and West, 149‒64.

17 Bayer, ‘Vita Eligii’, 469–70, 475–8, 485–6; Heinzelmann, M., ‘L'Hagiographie mérovingienne: panorama des documents potentiels’, Beihefte der Francia lxxi (2010), 69–70Google Scholar; Sarti, ‘Digression on Pope Martin’, 154–8.

18 Borias, A., ‘Saint Wandrille et la crise monothélite’, Revue bénédictine xcvii (1987), 59‒61Google Scholar; Wood, ‘Papal theology’, 239–40; Cubitt, ‘Lateran synod’, 79–80; Fischer, A., ‘Orthodoxy and authority: Jonas, Eustasius, and the Agrestius affair’, in O'Hara, A. (ed.), Columbanus and the peoples of post-Roman Europe, Oxford 2018, 155Google Scholar. On dating see Pontal, O., Histoire des conciles mérovingiens, Paris 1989, 217Google Scholar.

19 Canons of the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône, ed. C. de Clercq, CG, CCSL cxlviiiA, Turnhout 1963, 303.

20 Duchesne, L., Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, Paris 1907–15, i. 372Google Scholar; Borias, ‘Saint Wandrille’, 60.

21 CG, 148–9.

22 Epistola Arelatenses, 45, ed. W. Gundlach, MGH, Epistolae, iii, Berlin 1982; Letter from the Church of Milan to the Frankish envoys, ed. E. Schwartz, in I Vigiliusbriefe; II Zur Kirchenpolitik Iustinians, Munich 1940, 18–25; Wood, ‘Papal theology’, 226–31.

23 CG, 148; Wood, ‘Papal theology’, 223–6; S. Scholz, ‘The papacy and the Frankish bishops in the sixth century’, in Esders and others, East and West, 134‒5; Stüber, T., ‘The Fifth Council of Orléans and the reception of the “Three Chapters controversy” in Merovingian Gaul’, in Esders, S., Hen, Y., Lucas, P. and Rotman, T. (eds), The Merovingian kingdoms and the Mediterranean world, London 2019, 93‒102Google Scholar.

24 Wood, ‘Papal theology’, 239.

25 Vacandard, E., Vie de Saint Ouen, évêque de Rouen (641‒684): étude d'histoire mérovingienne, Paris 1902, 223 n. 1Google Scholar.

26 Borias, ‘Saint Wandrille’, 60.

27 Acts of the Lateran synod, 157‒63, 207‒11; Martin, Letter to Amandus, 423‒4.

28 Acts of the Lateran synod, 208‒9; Booth, Crisis of empire, 291.

29 CG, 303.

30 PL lxxxvii.127, 141, 178, 191.

31 Spudaeus, Theodore, Narrations concerning the exile of the holy Pope Martin, 17, ed. Neil, B., in Seventh-century popes and martyrs: the political hagiography of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Turnhout 2006Google Scholar; Record of the trial of Maximus the Confessor, 135–53, ed. P. Allen and B. Neil, CCSG xxxix, Turnhout 1999.

32 Dispute at Bizya, 221–5, 629–45, CCSG xxxix.

33 Martin, Letter to Amandus, 423‒4.

34 Bede, Ecclesiastical history, iv.15, ed. M. Lapidge, in Beda: Storia degli inglesi, Milan 2008–10; CG, 148–9. Note also the Council of Clichy (626/7), which condemned the Bonosians (CG, 292), if Fischer is correct to link it to Christological debate: ‘Orthodoxy and authority’, 155; cf. Fox, Y., ‘“Sent from the confines of Hell”: Bonosiacs in early medieval Gaul’, Studies in Late Antiquity ii (2018), 336–9Google Scholar.

35 Pontal, Histoire des conciles mérovingiens, 218‒20.

36 VE i.33. The suggestion in Borias (‘Saint Wandrille’, 61) that Wandregisel of Fontanelle was delegated to take Eligius’ place by the council remains entirely speculative, as noted also by Mériaux, ‘One-way ticket to Francia’, 146.

37 Borias, ‘Saint Wandrille’, 61.

38 CG, 308‒9.

39 On their wider network see Fritz, W., ‘Universalis gentium confession: Formeln, Träger und Wege universalmissionarischen Denkens im 7. Jahrhundert’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien iii (1969), 84‒8Google Scholar; Fouracre, P. and Gerberding, R., Late Merovingian France: history and hagiography, 640–720, Manchester 1996, 149‒50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fox, Y., Power and religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian monasticism and the Frankish elites, Cambridge 2014, 69‒81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Anton, H. H., Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien der Päpste im frühen Mittelalter: unter Berücksichtigung der Privilegierung von St. Maurice d'Agaune, Berlin 1975, 93‒149CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 292‒3, 257‒8. Consider also VE i.33, on the ‘heresy’ finding support in Rome.

42 Theodore Spudaeus, Narrations, 7, 29.

43 Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 294; Booth, Crisis of empire, 320; Moorhead, Popes and the Church of Rome, 196.

44 LP lxxvii.2; Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 305.

45 Anton, Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien, 22.

46 Cf. C. Cubitt, ‘The impact of the Lateran council of 649 in Francia: the martyrdom of Pope Martin and the Life of St Eligius’, in S. DeGregorio and P. J. E. Kershaw (eds), Cities, saints, and scholars in early medieval Europe: essays in honour of Alan Thacker, Turnhout forthcoming.

47 Life of Amandus, 18; Price, Lateran synod, 392.

48 S. Esders, ‘“Great security prevailed in both East and West”: the Merovingian kingdoms and the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/1)’, in Esders and others, East and West, 249‒50.

49 Ildefonsus of Toledo, On illustrious men, 13, ed. C. Codoñer Merino, CCSL cxivA, Turnhout 2007; cf. Collins, R., Visigothic Spain, 409–711, Oxford 2004, 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moreno, L. A. García, ‘Una desconocida embajada de Quindasvinto al Africa bizantina’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia ccvi (2009), 461Google Scholar.

50 Epistola Arelatenses, 45; Letter from the Church of Milan; Austrasian letters, 7, ed. Gundlach, MGH, Epistolae, iii; Wood, ‘Papal theology’; Stüber, ‘The Fifth Council of Orléans’, 93‒102.

51 VE i.35.

52 Life of Sigiramn of Longoret, 9‒10, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM, iv. On Falvius as a ‘convenient literary solution’ see Fox, Y., ‘The political context of Irish monasticism in seventh-century Francia: another look at the sources’, in Flechner, R. and Meeder, S. (eds), The Irish in early medieval Europe, London 2016, 55‒6Google Scholar,

53 I. Wood, The Merovingian kingdoms, 450–751, Harlow 1994, 246; Fischer, ‘Orthodoxy and authority’, 155; Bayer, ‘Vita Eligii’, 478.

54 Vacandard, Vie de Saint Ouen, 75‒6; Pontal, Histoire des conciles mérovingiens, 216; Bayer, ‘Vita Eligii’, 486; Fischer, ‘Orthodoxy and authority’, 155.

55 Booth, Crisis of empire, 200–2; Acts of the Council in Trullo, 39, ed. H. Ohme, ACO ii.4; P. Sarris, Empires of faith: the fall of Rome to the rise of Islam, 500–700, Oxford 2011, 297.

56 Booth, Crisis of empire, 200–8.

57 Fredegar, Chronicle, iv.65, ed. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., in The fourth book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, with its continuations, London 1960Google Scholar; Esders, S., ‘Herakleios, Dagobert und die “beschnittenen Völker”: die Umwälzungen des Mittelmeerraums im 7. Jahrhundert in der fränkischen Chronik des sog. Fredegar’, in Goltz, A., Leppin, H. and Schlange-Schöningen, H. (eds), Jenseits der Grenzen: Beiträge zur spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung, Berlin 2009, 240–309Google Scholar; Esders, S., ‘Nationes quam plures conquiri: Amandus of Maastricht, compulsory baptism and “Christian universal mission”’, in Kreiner, J. and Reimitz, H. (eds), Motions of late antiquity: essays on religion, politics, and society in honour of Peter Brown, Turnhout 2016, 294‒6Google Scholar.

58 Braulio of Zaragoza, Letters, 21, ed. Terrero, L. Riesco, in Epistolario de San Braulio, Seville 1975Google Scholar; Ferreiro, A., ‘St Braulio of Zaragoza's Letter 21 to Pope Honorius i regarding lapsed baptized Jews’, Sacris Erudiri xlviii (2009), 75‒95CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Honorius and Monotheletism see Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 131–3, and Booth, Crisis of empire, 240–1.

59 VE i.10; Blet-Lemarquand, M., Bompaire, M. and Morrisson, C., ‘Platine et plomb dans les monnaies d'or mérovingiennes: nouvelles perspectives analytiques’, Revue numismatique clxvi (2010), 193Google Scholar; McCormick, M., ‘Coins and the economic history of post-Roman Gaul: testing the standard model in the Moselle, ca. 400–750’, in Jarnut, J. and Strothmann, J. (eds), Die Merowingischen Monetarmünzen als Quelle zum Verständnis des 7. Jahrhunderts in Gallien, Paderborn 2013, 357–8Google Scholar.

60 Martin, Letter to Amandus, 423; Booth, Crisis of empire, 200‒24.

61 Mériaux highlights the possible connections provided by Amandus’ missionary work: ‘One-way ticket to Francia’, 145‒6.

62 Life of Amandus, 6‒7, 10.

63 LP lxxvi.4.

64 Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 243; Booth, Crisis of empire, 300 n. 101.

65 Duchesne, Liber pontificalis, i.339 n. 6; Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 243 n. 300.

66 McKitterick, R. correctly argues that papal biographies were written in batches during moments of tension with the emperor to reinforce papal authority: ‘The papacy and Byzantium in the seventh- and early eighth-century sections of the Liber pontificalis’, Papers of the British School at Rome lxxxiv (2016), 241–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Brandes, W., ‘Orthodoxy and heresy in the seventh century: prosopographical observations on Monotheletism’, in Cameron, A. (ed.), Fifty years of prosopography: the later Roman Empire, Byzantium and beyond, Oxford 2003, 109Google Scholar.

68 Booth, Crisis of empire, 327‒8, 338‒9.

69 LP lxxvi.6‒7; Theodore Spudaeus, Narrations, 16‒17.

70 Booth, Crisis of empire, 300‒1; cf. Kaegi, W., Byzantine military unrest, 471‒842: an interpretation, Amsterdam 1981, 163Google Scholar; Haldon, J., The empire that would not die: the paradox of Eastern Roman survival, 640–740, Cambridge, Ma 2016, 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Pontal, Histoire des conciles mérovingiens, 217; Halfond, G., The archaeology of Frankish church councils, AD 511–768, Leiden 2010, 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 LP lxxvi.7. On dating see Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 270, and Haldon, The empire that would not die, 39. See also Theodore Spudaeus, Narrations, 7.

73 Howard-Johnston, J., The Armenian history attributed to Sebeos, II: Historical commentary, Liverpool 1999, 260Google Scholar; Sarris, Empires of faith, 284; Hoyland, R., In God's path: the Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire, Oxford 2015, 105Google Scholar.

74 Booth, Crisis of empire, 301.

75 Sarris, Empires of faith, 279‒93.

76 Fredegar, Chronicle, iv.81; Esders, ‘Herakleios, Dagobert und die “beschnittenen Völker”’, 293–4.

77 S. Esders, ‘When contemporary history is caught up by the immediate present: Fredegar's proleptic depiction of Emperor Constans ii’, in Esders and others, Merovingian kingdoms, 144, 146.

78 Idem, ‘Konstans ii. (641–668), die Sarazenen und die Reiche des Westens: ein Versuch über politisch-militärische und ökonomisch-finanzielle Verflechtungen im Zeitalter eines mediterranen Weltkrieges’, in Jarnut and Strothmann, Die Merowingischen Monetarmünzen, 211–15; Fischer, A., ‘Rewriting history: Fredegar's perspectives on the Mediterranean’, in Fischer, A. and Wood, I. (eds), Western perspectives on the Mediterranean: cultural transfer in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, 400–800 AD, London 2014, 69–72Google Scholar.

79 Bede, Ecclesiastical history iv.1; Bischoff, B. and Lapidge, M., Biblical commentaries from the Canterbury school of Theodore and Hadrian, Cambridge 1994, 130Google Scholar.

80 Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, v.5, ed. L. Bethmann and G. Waitz, MGH, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum, Hanover 1878; Bischoff and Lapidge, Biblical commentaries, 130; Esders, ‘Konstans ii.’, 215; Fischer, ‘Rewriting history’, 72.

81 Anastasius the Monk, Letter to the monks of Cagliari, 10–12, ed. P. Allen and B. Neil, CCSG xxxix; Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 331–5.

82 R. Whelan, Being Christian in Vandal Africa: the politics of orthodoxy in the post-imperial West, Oakland, Ca 2018, 217.

83 Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Anastasius the Monk, 4–5; Acts of the Third Council of Constantinople, ed. R. Riedinger, ACO ii/2, Berlin 1990–2, 610; Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 328–31; Booth, Crisis of empire, 320–2.

84 Jankowiak, ‘Essai d'histoire’, 334.

85 Stüber, ‘The Fifth Council of Orléans’, 99–101; S. Esders, ‘“Avenger of all perjury” in Constantinople, Ravenna and Metz: St Polyeuctus, Sigibert i, and the division of Charibert's kingdom in 568’, in Fischer and Wood, Western perspectives, 31–2.