Charlemagne's courtier : the complete Einhard

Abstract

Short, pithy, and entertaining, Einhard’s Vita Karoli has long served as a mainstay of the introductory Western civilization course—an emblematic primary reading that complements the “Carolingian civilization” lecture with great economy. Yet, for many college undergraduates attending schools that adhere to a quarterly schedule, Carolingian society is often encountered only through this famous ninth-century biography of Charlemagne. Little more space can be afforded sources pertaining to the relatively brief history of the Franks under the rule of the Carolingians, given both the ten short weeks of an academic quarter, and the staggering chronological and cultural sweep to be sketched by the course (usually running from Pre-history to the year 800 C.E.). Within such an unfortunate, circumscribed configuration (Carolingian history is generally outlined in the final lecture), Lewis Thorpe’s introduction to and English translation of the Vita Karoli (Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne [Harmondsworth 1969]) has functioned admirably; inexpensive and readily available as a Penguin Classic edition, it has remained steadily in print, and in the hands of students, for the last thirty years. But in 1993, Paul Edward Dutton provided both instructors and students with an inviting alternative. Published by Broadview Press as a modestly priced paperback, Dutton’s judiciously edited volume, Carolingian Civilization, A Reader, (henceforth Civ.) offers a broad and variegated spectrum of Carolingian primary texts in translation, including the Vita Karoli in its entirety. Readers now have the opportunity both to explore the Carolingian world through a variety of sources—many hitherto unavailable in English translation—and to evaluate critically the stories and representations found in these same sources through comparison, contrast, and “triangulation.” But if Dutton’s collection problematizes by its diversity the culture that, for Western civilization courses, Thorpe’s volume has long been used to typify, its wide range lacks the “manageability” of the latter. Students are left wondering, “Who were all of these (un)interesting people writing these (un)interesting texts, and why were they writing them?”—questions, Dutton claims, he himself raised

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