The lonely life of a medieval leper

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I would not wish leprosy on anyone. It is an insidious disease, taking anywhere from months to many years to manifest itself.1.World Health Organization – Leprosy. You, too, can become an expert on anything with the help of the internet. Once it takes hold nerve damage causes victims lose sensation in their skin. An inability to feel pain results in untreated injuries, which eventually leads to significant damage as infections take hold and destroy tissue. As fingers and toes are lost other symptoms include degraded eyesight and terrible skin lesions. The victim’s appearance gradually becomes grotesque.

While today a highly effective multi-drug therapy cures leprosy, for most of human history there was no treatment. In the absence of a treatment and the horrific effects of the disease, the medieval church and state enforced a strict policy of exclusion. A leper’s life was one of stigma and ostracism.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 World Health Organization – Leprosy. You, too, can become an expert on anything with the help of the internet.

Disease-ridden peasants?

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A recent paper deserves our attention for the light it sheds on the day-to-day realities of early medieval diet, disease, and mortality. Spoiler: it wasn’t a great time to be alive.

The journal Genome Biology published “Pathogen genomics study of an early medieval community in Germany reveals extensive co-infections” in December of 2022. The team of sixteen authors performed DNA analysis on the bones and teeth of individuals buried between 650 and 800 (the dating is rough) in a German town now called Lauchheim (part of Frankish Allemania). Their findings illustrate a population ravaged by disease and hardship.

Of the seventy remains investigated, twenty-two had active infections (31% of the population!), of four different viral and bacteriological diseases. Seven individuals had two infections, and one unfortunate young man had three different diseases going on. Just what were these diseases, how prevalent were they, and what were the immediate and long-term effects?

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The king’s voice, written

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Today let’s climb into the wayback machine and revisit a topic I first wrote about back in 2015. Capitularies are a critical resource for understanding society, government, the economy, and religion in the eighth century. This new post is necessary to better understand the definition of capitularies, introduce some scholarly opinions about their overarching purposes, as well as. Finally we’ll take a look at a new section to the Resources link: a list of every capitulary you can find in English translation, the generally accepted title, a number (which we’ll get into in a moment), probable date of issue, and where you can find it. Let’s jump in.

It is critical to remember that Pepin the Short and Charlemagne were not the pomp and circumstance figureheads we today call kings. Their authority was absolute, and their word was law, straight from God. In consultation with their leading men the king would ponder, debate, and then make his will known. Strictly speaking the law went into effect as soon as the words were spoken. As a practical matter scribes wrote down each of these decisions and directives, generally in no more than a few sentences. Each entry was given a new heading, called a capitula in Latin. We have come to call these documents capitularies, although that wasn’t generally a term used contemporaneously.1.Innes, Charlemagne’s Government, in Empire and Society, p. 77.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Innes, Charlemagne’s Government, in Empire and Society, p. 77.

Betrayal in the family

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Now let’s crack open a tale of deformity, hatred between brothers, scheming wives and priests, broken promises, and family betrayal. The place is not Mar-a-Lago, but Francia in 769. Pepin the Short, the first true Carolingian king, is dead, felled by a fever after eight years waging a war of scorched earth against Aquitaine.1.Covered extensively, starting here. Before Pepin’s death in 768 both Charles and his brother Carloman, “by your father’s order, joined in lawful marriage” two good Frankish women.2.King, Caroline code, Letter 2, 770, p271. Charles first pulled the trigger, so to speak, and sometime in 7693.No one really knows, but the consensus is prior to 770. his wife Himiltrude gave birth to a healthy son, whom Charles named Pippin, for his father.4.Yes, I know I spell them differently. But it’s the same name.

Naming his first-born son after his father showed that Charles intended this boy to inherit the kingly title in some form or another. Carloman’s wife Gerberga, not to be outdone, gave birth to a son in 770.5.King, Petau Annals, 770, p.149. What name did they bestow? I’m sure you can guess – the conflict between Charles and Carloman had started before their father had cooled in his crypt. Carloman will get his own post soon, but suffice it to say that after a visit from his mother in 772 Carloman died, and his wife and children (including Pippin) fled to Lombardy.6.As noted before, I think this family is much darker than do conventional historians.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Covered extensively, starting here.
↑2 King, Caroline code, Letter 2, 770, p271.
↑3 No one really knows, but the consensus is prior to 770.
↑4 Yes, I know I spell them differently. But it’s the same name.
↑5 King, Petau Annals, 770, p.149.
↑6 As noted before, I think this family is much darker than do conventional historians.

Treachery in the East

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While everyone loves the good King Charles today, much of that goodwill is retrospective. The hagiographies by Einhard and Notker, and the plentiful platitudes in the Annals were written after his death, and intended to both burnish the past and reinforce the future. But no one is universally loved, particularly not those who impose their will on others, even with the best of intentions.

In 786, Thuringian nobles launched some sort of a rebellion against Charles and his rule. They were found out, confessed, and punished. And that is the extent of what is known with any certainty. Before we get too deep into an analysis of what might have happened, who might have been involved, and other such questions, let’s take a look at the sources.

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