Paul the Deacon – between sacci and marsuppia

Abstract

Paul the Deacon -between sacci and marsuppia 1 Paul has puzzled many historians, although we are reasonably well informed about his basic biography. 2 He was born in the 720s in Cividale, the capital of the duchy of Friuli, from a Lombard family proud of its lineage. When Duke Ratchis became king in 744, he took young Paul along to the royal court in Pavia, where he received a thorough intellectual education from the grammarian Flavianus. 3 We know that Paul eventually became a deacon, and a monk at Montecassino, although we can only speculate about the exact chronology. 4 In any case, he served as a teacher and adviser of Adelperga, the daughter of King Desiderius and later wife of Arichis II, Duke of Benevento. 5 After the fall of the Lombard kingdom, Paul's brother Arichis was implicated in the Rodgaud rebellion in 776, taken as a captive to Francia, and his possessions were confiscated. About seven years later Paul wrote to Charlemagne in his favour. 6 This letter roughly coincides with the king's invitation to Paul, who had meanwhile won a reputation for his scholarship, to come to the Frankish heartlands. Paul spent about four years between Quierzy, Thionville, Metz and Poitiers in the early 780s, and then returned to Montecassino.He was a prolific writer, and almost invariably worked on commission by members of ruling families, or by leading clerics. As the letter of dedication shows, his Roman History, a revision of Eutropius, was written at the request of Adelperga, duchess of Benevento. 7 Most of his works were commissioned by noble Frankish 1 This work is part of the project made possible by the award of the Wittgenstein prize by the FWF (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung in Österreich), and carried out at the