A Frankish River Boat

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In June of 2022 INRAP (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) began excavating the remains of a boat discovered south of Bordeaux, on the Garonne river. Based on the size (about fifty by twenty feet), construction (crude but sturdy), and location (abandoned in a creek that emptied into a navigable river), it is most probably a seventh or eighth century riverine cargo vessel. While that may sound mundane, this is a major find! Most of our water-borne archaeological record is of warships like the Sutton Hoo vessel – sleek, polished, fit for a king.

The Garonne ship is, most assuredly, not sleek or polished. Take a look at the overview picture, below. And while you’re taking it all in, let’s get some terminology out of the way.

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Where Might a Queen Sit?

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(Sorry for the delay – I’ve been learning the WordPress editor that was introduced during my hiatus)

I bet you thought my first post after a four-year absence would be a blockbuster. Did I discover Pepin’s personal diary while rummaging through a ruined church in Budapest? Found an early Roland manuscript that explains what “AOI” is all about? Oh no, my friends, something much better:

A chair! Well, actually, a stool.

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I’m back!

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After taking a few years off to try my hand at fiction, the market has told me to go back to the real world. Not that I do particularly well with that either, but it is better. I’ll be posting here more frequently as ideas pop up. Feel free to suggest topics that you’d like to see covered. It’s always fun seeing what folks are thinking about or working on. See you soon!

Sainted lives

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In my never-ending quest to bring you, dear reader, the very best in primary source material, let me present a list of translated early medieval saint’s lives!

The life of a saint, or vita (plural vitae),1.Both singular and plural are pronounced wee-tah. is a posthumous biography written both to celebrate the saint and to instruct the reader. The lives can feel a little formulaic, and usually include a childhood marked by a piety that promised future greatness, then some trials and tribulations, followed by either a peaceful or a martyr’s death. The miracles the saint performed, both before and after death, are a necessary element. Vitae were usually written by another ecclesiastic, such as a monk or an abbot.

The most notable exception to the rule that vitae are written about saints is Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne. Einhard was not a monk, and Charles was certainly no saint.

As a primary source vitae can be fruitful, but it really depends on what you’re looking for. Generally they are pretty weak on political history, but occasionally you’ll get a glimpse of the great and powerful striding outside the monastery walls. The lives sometimes present little bits of social history, as you watch a young boy or girl grow up in a bad world before finding the Light. I’m told that the the careful reader can find plenty of ecclesiastical and theological history in the lives, but that’s not really my area.

I’ve arranged the list by chronology of the saint, insofar as I can determine it. As with many facts from the era, birth and death dates are approximate. The “Source” is the book where the life is published, which you can reference in the Bibliography (I suppose I should link from each title to its entry, but maybe later). There are multiple translations available for some vita, which can be handy if you’re trying to figure out what the author really meant.

The list includes all of the lives in the sources that I have, but of course there are more out there. Vitae are handy subjects with which to train Latinists, as I learned with great pleasure here in Boulder working with Dr. Scott Bruce. I imagine there are a lot of lives sitting in doctoral supervisors’ file cabinets.

I’ll add to the list as I find the sources. If you know of any that I don’t have, please send along a link. Enjoy!

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Both singular and plural are pronounced wee-tah.

Widukind, Saxon thorn

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Widukind is one of those odd characters from history whose historical personae is much larger than his own achievements probably merited. Regular readers may remember mentions of him here and here, when he led various rebellions against the Franks during their decades-long conquest and Christianization of the Saxon people. He was a fearsomely effective military leader, as we shall see, and must have been a powerful force in Saxon society. In the end, however, even he submitted to Charlemagne, and then faded from view. More than a thousand years later, in a bizarre twist of fate, he became a hero to the nascent Nazi regime. A tangled path indeed.

Widukind first appears in history in 777, at the fateful spring assembly at Paderborn that launched King Charles on his path to Roncevalles. “All the Franks gathered there and, from every part of Saxony whatsover, the Saxons too, with the exception of Widukind, who, with a few others, was in rebellion and took refuge in Nordmannia with his companions.”1.Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 79. “For they all came to him with the exception of Widukind, one of the primores of the Westphalians, who, conscious of his numerous crimes, had fled to Sigfred, king of the Danes.”2.Revised Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 113.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 79.
↑2 Revised Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 113.