The Poeta Saxo at Paderborn: episcopal authority and Carolingian rule in late ninth‐century Saxony

Abstract

This paper argues that the Poeta Saxo's epic poem about Charlemagne was composed at the bishopric of Paderborn as part of a wider literary programme that included both the Translatio sancti Liborii and the Vita sancti Liborii. Near the close of the ninth century, when Paderborn's renown and resources were at their lowest ebb, these three works articulated an image of episcopal authority, touted the pre‐eminence of Paderborn, and made a bid for royal patronage.

Quasi una gens: Saxony and the Frankish world, c. 772–888

“…In the field of religion, Hedwig Röckelein has illuminated the Christianization of the region, with particular attention paid to the role of relics in society, and Theo Kölzer has refined our view of Carolingian involvement in fledgling Saxon foundations through the diplomatic analysis of imperial charters (Kölzer, , , ; Röckelein, , , , , , , , , ). The last 20‐odd years have also marked the emergence of interest in Carolingian Saxony by English‐language historians such as Ian Wood, Eric Goldberg, Eric Knibbs, and Robert Flierman, among others (see here especially Appleby, ; Bachrach & Bachrach, ; Carroll, ; Flierman, , , forthcoming ; Goldberg, ; Hen, ; Karras, ; Knibbs, ; Mayr‐Harting, ; Palmer, , , ; Rembold, , , forthcoming , ; Shuler, ; van Egmond, ; Wood, , , , ). Finally, it is worth noting that the role that published conference proceedings and exhibition catalogues have played in the field, especially those resulting from an 1999 exhibition and associated conferences organized by the Diözesanmuseum Paderborn, and likewise from a conference held in the same year by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress in San Marino (Green & Siegmund, ; Hässler, Jarnut, & Wemhoff, ; Stiegemann & Wemhoff, ).…”

“…The development of monastic estate management has been addressed by Werner Rösener (Rösener, , ), and the politics of monastic memory have been explored by authors such as Karl Krüger, whose skillful analysis of how and why ninth‐century authors rewrote Corvey's foundation narrative bears productive comparison to Knibb's 2011 publication (Krüger, , ). A wide array of scholarship looks at Saxon hagiography and historical writing, whether charting the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung or seeking to elucidate the context of specific works, such as the studies of the Poeta Saxo by Bernhard Bischoff and Krüger (for the Poeta Saxo, see Bischoff, ; Krüger, ‐2002 see also Rembold, ; Steine, ). The popular Saxon genre of relic translation narratives, meanwhile, has been expertly addressed by Röckelein, who examined both the act of relic translation and its literary representation in a work whose methodology encompassed both literary analysis and network theory (Röckelein, ; see also Honselmann, ; Schieffer, ).…”