Waltharius at Fontenoy? Epic Heroism and Carolingian Political Thought

Abstract

This article argues that the Latin epic poem Waltharius is best understood as a political commentary on the years following the civil war of 840-843. The poem does not, as has been suggested, mock or undermine lay warriors as heroic figures, but neither does it present their behavior as inherently unproblematic. It should be read instead as a complex meditation on the impossibility of heroism under deficient royal leadership, and as a wistful portrayal of the contradictions and dilemmas affecting the lay elite of the generation who had lived through the battle of Fontenoy. Its criticism of the character of Gunther, and its overall pessimism about kingship, finds echoes in the prose political literature of this time. This article traces some of these echoes, and reads the poem as part of the wider political conversation of the 840s to 870s.

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