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Shrine and Idol Destruction in Three Carolingian Hagiographic Texts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2022
Abstract
Examination of shrine and idol destruction stories included in three hagiographic texts rewritten by élite Carolingian authors shows that this thematic element may illuminate the concerns and horizon of expectation of the revisers. Destruction episodes contributed to stories of eponymous heroes that shaped the heritage and identity of monastic communities, and even seemed worth projecting into the ancient Christian past. In the absence of uniform disciplinary and doctrinal guidance regarding relics, stories of the destruction of unholy matter may also have delineated the boundary separating legitimate from illegitimate devotional objects and practices.
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Footnotes
I am grateful for the criticism and suggestions provided by this Journal's anonymous, expert reader.
References
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28 Alain Dierkens, ‘La Christianisation des campagnes de l'empire de Louis le Pieux: l'exemple du diocèse de Liège sous l'épiscopat de Walcaud (c. 809–c. 831)’, in P. Godman and R. Collins (eds), Charlemagne's heir: new perspectives on the reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), Oxford 1990, 309–29 at p. 310. On Walcaud's father see Gilles d'Orval, Gesta episcoporum Leodiensium ii. 34, ed. J. Heller, MGH, SS xxv, Hannover 1880, 48.
29 Vita secunda Hucberti iv. 29, AASS Nov. 1, 817, appends remarks about Walcaud to an appreciation of the enthusiasm of Louis the Pious for correction and regulation of the orders of Frankish Church and society.
30 Walcaud's capitula, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH, Capitula episcoporum i/1, Hannover 1984, 43–9.
31 On Walcaud's reform of St Peter at Andages see Dierkens, ‘La Christianisation des campagnes’, 319–21.
32 Vita secunda Hucberti iv. 31–2, AASS Nov. 1, 817–18. One instance of the prohibition of unauthorised relic transferals appears in the acts of the Council of Mainz of 813, li, ed. Albert Werminghoff, MGH Conc. ii/1, Hannover 1906, 272.
33 Alain Dubreucq, ‘Ionas Aurelianensis ep.’, in Lucia Castaldi and Valeria Mattaloni (eds), La trasmissione dei testi latini del medioevo / Mediaeval latin texts and their transmission (Te.Tra), vi, Florence 2019, 403–39 at pp. 431–9.
34 Vita secunda Hucberti xxiv, xxvi, xxvii, AASS Nov. 1, 815–16, where Carloman is named three times, twice as rex and once as princeps, as opposed to the two references to him, once as princeps, in Vita prima Hucberti xviii, xx, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM vi, Hannover 1913, 494–5.
35 Arnold, Negotiating the landscape, 173–212.
36 Miraculorum i.1, AASS Nov. 1, 823, features the story of a blind man whose sight was miraculously restored after he came to Saint-Hubert ‘de longinquo’ during the abbacy of Alveus and was received ‘secundum morem hospitio’. On the two collections of miracles see Arnold, Negotiating the landscape, 204–9.
37 Miraculorum i. 18, AASS Nov. 1, 826, mentions a book taken by the party who removed the saint's body from the monastery in anticipation of the arrival of Vikings, but not which book. For other cases in which books were taken away from foundations threatened by raiders see Gameson, Richard, ‘Alfred the Great and the destruction and production of Christian books’, Scriptorium il (1995), 180–210 at pp. 185–97Google Scholar, and McKitterick, Rosamond, The Carolingians and the written word, Cambridge 1989, 159CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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42 Raphael Schwitter, ‘Vom Einsiedler zum Apostel Alemanniens. Karolingische Réécriture Hagiographique am Beispiel der Vita Sancti Galli’, in Schnoor, Schmuki, Tremp, Erhart and Hüeblin, Gallus und seine Zeit: Leben, Wirken, Nachleben, 267–81.
43 Krusch's comment, ‘Impudens mendacium’, about Walahfrid, Vita Galli ii. 10, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM iv, Hannover 1902, 320 n. 4, reflects a judgement already present in the scholarship. Sprandel describes the weaponisation of the past for the present conflict in Gozbert's time: Das Kloster St Gallen, 26.
44 ‘Inseremus quoque huic operi nonnulla quae non scripturae testimonio, sed veracium virorum relatione didicimus. In quibus omnibus, quantum ad nos attinet, veritatis lineam servare studebimus, neque per amorem falsi aliquid de nostro inserentes neque per invidiam veri quippiam ex voto celantes. Et quia nos scripta vel dicta sequimur aliorum, ad illos veritas rerum, ad nos pertinet adbreviato dictionum et adunatio rationum’: Walahfrid, Vita Galli ii. 9, MGH, SRM iv. 318.
45 ‘fana in quibus daemoniis sacrificabant, igni succendit, et quaecunque invenit oblata, demersit in lacum’: ibid. i. 4, MGH, SRM iv. 287–8. This corresponds to Wetti, Vita Galli iv, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM iv. 259.
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47 ‘Tres ergo imagines aereas et deauratas supersitiosa gentilitas ibi colebat, quibus magis quam creatori mundi vota reddendo credebat’: Wetti, Vita Galli vi, MGH, SRM iv. 260.
48 ‘Igitur, videntibus cunctis, sublatae imagines comminuit petris atque in profundum deiecit maris. Tunc ergo pars populi confitendo peccata sua credidit, parsque irata et indignata cum furore abscessit. Nam et vir Dei Columbanus aquam benedixit atque sanctificando loca contaminata ecclesiae sanctae Aureliae honorem pristinum restituit’: ibid.
49 ‘Repererunt autem in templo tres imagines aereas deauratas, parieti affixas, quas populus dimisso altaris sacri cultu, adorabat, et oblatis sacrificiis dicere consuevit: “Isti sunt dii veteres, et antiqui huius loci tutores, quorum solatio et nos et nostra perdurant usque in praesens”’: ibid. i. 6, MGH, SRM iv. 289.
50 ‘Columbanus itaque beato Gallo id iniunxit officii, ut populum ab errore idolatriae ad cultum Dei exhortatione salutari revocaret, quia ipse hanc a Domino gratiam meruit, ut non solum Latinae, sed etiam barbaricae locutionis cognitionem non parvam haberet. Cumque eiusdem templi solemnitas ageretur, venit multitudo non minima promiscui sexus et aetatis, non tantum propter festivitatis honorem, verum etiam ad videndos peregrinos quos agnoverant advenisse. Ergo dum ad horam orationis concurrerent, iussu venerandi abbatis Gallus coepit viam veritatis ostendere populo, et ut ad Deum converterentur admonere, utque vanis abiectis adorarent Deum Patrem, creatorem omnium rerum, et unigenitum Filium eius in quo est salus, vita et resurrectio mortuorum. Et in conspectu omnium arripiens simulacra, et lapidibus in frusta comminuens, proiecit in lacum. His visis nonnulli conversi sunt ad Dominum, et confitentes peccata sua, laudes Domino pro sua illuminatione dederunt. Alii propter imaginum comminutionem ira et furore commoti, gravi indignationis rabie turbidi recesserunt. Beatus autem Columbanus iussit aquam afferri, et benedicens illam aspersit ea templum, et dum circuirent psallentes, dedicavit ecclesiam. Deinde invocato nomine Domini, unxit altare, et beatae Aureliae reliquias in eo collocavit, vestitoque altari, missas legitime compleverunt. Omnibus itaque rite peractis, reversus est populus in sua cum gaudio magno’: ibid.
51 Diem, ‘Die Regula Columbani und die Regula Sancti Galli’, 93.
52 For ‘felix locus’, an expression that does not appear in Vetustissima or Wetti's recension, see Walahfrid, Vita Galli i. 34, MGH, SRM iv. 310; Diem, ‘Die Regula Columbani und die Regula Sancti Galli’, 90–5.
53 Walahfrid Strabo, Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarudam in observationibus eccleiasticis rerum ii, ed. Alice L. Harting-Correa, Leiden 1996, 52.
54 Ibid. 74.
55 Ibid. 79, using the translation of Harting-Correa.
56 Noble, Thomas F. X., Images, iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, Philadelphia, Pa 2009CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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58 Beat Matthias von Scarpatetti, Die Handschriften der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen I Abt, IV: Codices 547–669: hagiographica, historica, geographica, 8.–18. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 2003, 48–50.
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61 Brigitte Meijns and Charles Mériaux, ‘Le Cycle de Rictiovar et la topographie chrétienne des campagnes septentrionales à l'époque mérovingienne’, in Marie-Céline Isaïa (ed.), Les Premiers Temps chrétiens dans le territoire de la France actuelle: hagiographie, épigraphie et archéologie: nouvelles approches et perspectives de recherche, Rennes 2009, 19–33 at p. 25.
62 Passio Rufini et Valerii, AASS 3rd edn Jun. 3, 285–6; Gaillard, Michèle, ‘Un « Cycle » hagiographique du haut moyen âge en Gaule septentrionale: les passions des martyrs de Riciovar’, Hagiographica xxi (2014), 1–28Google Scholar.
63 De passione sanctorum Rufini et Valerii, PL cxx.1489–508 at 1494C, 1496C; Berschin, Biographie, iii. 307–8.
64 De passione, PL cxx.1489C–91B; Gerda Heydemann, ‘Relics and texts: hagiography and authority in ninth-century Francia’, in Peter Sarris, Matthew Dal Santo and Phil Booth (eds), An age of saints? Power, conflict and dissent in early medieval Christianity, Leiden 2011, 187–204 at pp. 197–9; Berschin, Biographie iii. 305–6.
65 De passione, PL cxx.1498D–1502A, with embedded passage attributed to Seneca quoted from Lactantius, Divinae institutiones ii. 2, ed. Samuel Brandt, CSEL xix/1, Vienna 1890, 101; Heydemann, ‘Relics and texts’, 196–7; Berschin, Biographie iii. 307.
66 ‘Parumque fuerat Christianorum plebem suos ritus suamque religionem tueri, nisi etiam pro fidei sinceritate, pro virtutum studio, pro pietatis cultu, reipublicae curis praeficerentur’: De passione, PL cxx.1491D.
67 ‘Palatinas igitur aedes Christi milites obtinebant, urbana negotia disponebant, provinciarum procurationes administrabant, cernebatur ubique sacer conventus, sanctitatis stolis et probitatis insignibus radiare; in foro, in plateis, in urbibus, in agris laus Christi personabat’: ibid. 1492A.
68 Ibid. 1492CD; Hannah W. Matis mentions Songs imagery in De passione in a chapter focusing on Radbertus: The Song of Songs in the early Middle Ages, Leiden 2019, 178.
69 ‘Destruebantur fana, simulacra confringebantur, luci succendebantur; templa vero superno Regi fabricabantur, altaria erigebantur, catervae populorum ad ecclesias innumerabiles confluebant, hymni cum gaudio celebrabantur, lectiones sanctae, cum timoris horrore divini recitabantur’: De passione, PL cxx.1492A.
70 The reference to Eusebius appears at the first of the account of the persecution: ibid. 1493D; but it is clear that even in discussing the peace of the Church (at 1491C–1492D), Radbertus consulted Rufinus: Historia ecclesiastica viii. 1. 1–6, ed. Eduard Schwartz and Theodor Mommsen, Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, Eusebius Werke ii/2, Leipzig 1908, 737, 739.
71 Berschin, Biographie iii. 307.
72 ‘Da nobis potestatem ut omnia idola, quae in domo tua invenerimus, lapidea confringamus, lignea incendamus, aurea et argentea vel aerea conflemus, et pretia eorum egentibus dividamus’: Passio Sebastiani xv. 52, AASS Jan. 2, 3rd edn, Paris 1863, 637. The ‘cubiculum holovitreum, in quo omnis disciplina stellarum ac methesis mechanica est arte constructa’ is the subject of Passio Sebastiani xvi, ibid. 638.
73 ‘quantoque fuerat prius gloriosa cunctis, tantum obscura et vilis dedita est universis. Etenim templa Dei vivi ab ipsis fundamentis destruebantur, Scripturae sacrae in plateis publice comburebantur, sacerdotes et principes Ecclesiarum nudati et vincti per foros et plateas trahebantur, et carceribus tradebantur’: De passione, PL cxx.1493D. This echoed the imperial decrees, which Radbertus quoted: ‘ut cunctae quae usquam erant ecclesiae usque ad solum destruerentur, Scripturae sacrae igni exurerentur’: ibid. The whole is based loosely on Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica viii. 1, 741.
74 Berschin, Biographie, iii. 307. On Radbertus’ attunement to contemporary power struggles see de Jong, Mayke, Epitaph for an era: politics and rhetoric in the Carolingian world, Cambridge 2019CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
75 Heydemann, ‘Relics and texts’, 197.
76 Flodoard, Historia Remensis ecclesiae iv. 52–3, ed. Martina Stratmann, MGH, SS xxxvi, Hannover 1998, 454–7.
77 Janneke Raaijmakers, The making of the monastic community of Fulda, c. 744–c. 900, Cambridge 2012.
78 Julia M. H. Smith, ‘Relics: an evolving tradition in Latin Christianity’, in Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein (eds), Saints and sacred matter: the cult of relics in Byzantium and beyond, Washington, DC 2015, 41–60 at p. 50, and ‘Portable Christianity: relics in the medieval West (c. 700–1200)’, Proceedings of the British Academy clxxxi (2012), 143–67; Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, Les Reliques des saints: formation coutumière d'un droit, Paris 1975.