Fines Imperii: the Marches

Abstract

This chapter offers an inverse picture of the Carolingian polity. The brief survey of all the frontier regions of the Carolingian empire reveals some persistent themes in Carolingian frontier policy which transcend the individuality of each peripheral region. In the first place, negotiation combined with a readiness to use force to prosecute Carolingian interests always characterised Frankish strategy. Secondly, the Carolingians participated in the common early medieval diplomatic practices of receiving, entertaining and dismissing envoys; royal gift-exchange; demanding hostages to keep at court; extracting tribute and oaths of loyalty; welcoming and sheltering political exiles from other kingdoms; and concluding truces and treaties. Thirdly, the Carolingian imperial rhetoric of a Christian, Latin empire broke down at the frontier. The nineteenth-century efforts by the French and the Germans each to appropriate Charlemagne for themselves contributed to their respective efforts to build the historiography of the nation-state.

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