On the so called Capitulary of Frankfurt and
communication between Charlemagne and Bavaria
at the end of the 8th Century[1]

Takurô Tsuda

Abstract

The traditional view maintains that a document called the Capitulary of Frankfurt was a capitulary, a type of royal decree, issued at the assembly of Frankfurt in 794. Some historians further that it, like the Admonitio generalis of 789, was systemically copied and spread to every corner of the Frankish Kingdom. Such an assumption leads to the conclusion that political communication under Charlemagne was highly systematic and institutionalized. Building on recent research that has changed our understanding of the so-called capitularies in the Carolingian era, in this article, I focus on the context of the so-called Capitulary of Frankfurt and reevaluate previous understandings of it. Through this, I show the ad hoc nature of the political communication under Charlemagne, especially with respect to the use of the documents which have been traditionally called capitularies by historians.


1. Introduction

In this article I focus on the text, which is usually called the Capitulary of Frankfurt[2] and reevaluate previous understandings of this text and its context in order to revise our picture of political communication under Charlemagne. Along with the Capitulary of Herstal of 779 and the Admonitio generalis of 789,[3] historians have usually seen this as one of the representative capitularies of Charlemagne during the first half of his reign. The generally accepted view is that the so-called Capitulary of Frankfurt was a royal decree, namely a capitulary, which was issued at the assembly of Frankfurt of 794 (as a summary of its discussion).[4] Some historians also assume it was systematically copied and spread to every corner of the Frankish Kingdom,[5] as we know happened with the Admonitio generalis.[6] Such an assumption leads to conclusion that political communication under Charlemagne was highly systematic and institutionalized. But recent research has changed our understanding of the so-called capitularies in the Carolingian era and has undermined this traditional picture.

Traditionally, a capitulary was seen as the decrees of the Frankish rulers, but recently some historians have started to doubt this interpretation[7]. Recent work emphasized the diversity of capitularies with respect to their forms, contents and contexts of production[8] and some historians have even come to the view that, in addition to not seeing capitularies in general as royal decrees, that at least during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, we should not talk about capitularies as a distinctive category of text.[9] In light of this research, we, therefore, have to also reconsider the nature of the so-called Capitulary of Frankfurt.

Given my position in this paper, continuing to use the term “the Capitulary of Frankfurt” is both confusing and misleading, since this gives the document the character of being a decree. Until now I have used the cumbersome term “the so called Capitulary of Frankfurt”. For simplicity, I will use the neutral Latin term capitula, meaning the text that is divided in chapters in the rest of this article.


2. The context of the capitula of Frankfurt

To understand the nature of the capitula of Frankfurt, we must analyze not only its contents, but also its context. As far as I know, only Hartmann and Mordek have conducted intensive research on the circumstances of the capitula’s production, emission, and manuscript tradition.[10] I owe much of my information to both researchers, but I reach different conclusions.


2.1. The Assembly of Frankfurt of 794

The capitula of Frankfurt was purportedly written down at the assembly of Frankfurt of 794. Historians have repeatedly and appropriately emphasized and continue to emphasize the religious and political significance of this assembly. The Royal Frankish Annals calls it a synodus magna and explains that it discussed the theological problems of Adoptionism and Iconoclasm.[11] From the capitula itself we also know that this assembly dealt with the deposition of Tassilo III of Bavaria and that many other religious and political topics, notably those in line with the ecclesiastical reform of the Admonitio generalis of 789. The fact that many contemporaneous annals mentioned this assembly,[12] makes us assume that its contemporaries paid it special attention.

Historians traditionally called this assembly in 794 the Synod or Council of Frankfurt. This word, however, connotes an exclusively religious character, which seems misleading to me. We cannot and should not draw a sharp distinction between a secular royal assembly and a religious synod in the era of Charlemagne and it is highly probable that Charlemagne’s contemporaries also had no such a distinction.[13] Therefore, I think the more neutral term “assembly of Frankfurt” better captures and translates the nature of the gathering than using the word “synod” or “council”.


2.2. Very weak manuscript tradition

The capitula of Frankfurt does not survive in original, as is usual with this sort of text from the Carolingian Age. The oldest manuscript which contains a copy of it is one that was owned by Hincmar of Reims from the late 9th Century.[14] All of other three surviving manuscripts, which contain this text, are its derivatives (or derivative of its derivative).[15] Therefore we have a very weak manuscript tradition for this text.

The sparsity of copies of any given capitula is always explained with the argument, that there must have been many copies lost accidentally and we have many cases where important capitularies survive in only a few manuscripts.[16] However, it is difficult to immediately accept such an explanation, when we take into consideration the fact that, among the documents which have been regarded as “capitularies”, certain texts with a certain formal character survive in a large number of manuscripts,[17] such as the Capitulary of Heristal from 779, the Admonitio generalis and so-called capitulare legibus additum from 803.[18] As mentioned above, it is now clear that the Admonitio gene ralis was systematically copied and spread by the court, and it is considered that such conduct of the court is also reflected in the surviving number of the Admonitio generalis. Besides such capitula in decree-like style, we have some examples of the capitula for missi dominici with many surviving manuscripts.[19] In those cases, we can also assume systematic copying and distributing of those capitula, although their texts seem less formal and look like some kind of memoranda. On the other hand, the so-called capitulare missorum generale (or “programmatic capitulary”) from 802,[20] which has been regarded as a typical example of the important capitulary surviving in only a few manuscript, is now regarded not as a royal decree, but rather as an amalgam of various fragments from the discussions in Aachen 802.[21] It seems to me that in most cases the manuscript tradition reflects the original nature and treatment of the text and we should avoid attributing the number of surviving manuscripts of each texts absolutely to accident.


2.3. The absence of any trace of later consultation in medieval sources

Another factor lends weight to denying that the very weak manuscript tradition for this capitula is merely accidental. While we have many examples for the later consultation and see verbatim quotation of the Admonitio generalis in other documents, historians still have not found any later consultations to the capitula of Frankfurt in medieval sources. Hartmann has tried to explain this situation by arguing that the contents of the capitula of Frankfurt are practically a repeat of the regulations in the Admonitio generalis.[22] I do not, however, find his explanation convincing. Anyone who reads the capitula of Frankfurt can easily notice that it includes several original chapters. Furthermore, Mordek has rightly proved by careful comparison of texts that not only the Admonitio generalis, but also the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana was consulted in order to compose the capitula of Frankfurt. This means that at the assembly of Frankfurt the participants did not simply reaffirm the regulations of the Admonitio, but rather tried to reevaluate and improve upon it by consulting their original source, i.e. the canons preserved in Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana.[23] One fruit of this process of reflecting and improving on the Admonitio along with discussions on other topics might be the capitula of Frankfurt.

But now we should be careful not to simply conclude from the capitula’s production in response to the Admonitio and the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana that the capitula was composed as an “official” document of this assembly or a royal decree. Although the weak manuscript tradition and the absence of later consultation are enough to spark doubt about the official status of this document, I will offer further evidence that the capitula is not a royal decree.


2.4. The absence of any reference to the capitula of Frankfurt
in contemporaneous sources

While in the entry for 794 the Royal Frankish Annals mentions the production of a liber at the assembly of Frankfurt, which condemned the heresy of Felix, i.e. Adoptionism,[24] we have no medieval historiography which mentions the production of any other documents at this assembly.

Of course, the absence of such historiographical evidence does not compel the conclusion that royal decree was not produced, systematically copied, and spread. The Admonitio and the Capitulary of Herstal are not mentioned in any contemporaneous annals, although we can assume in both cases the systematic copying und distributing by the court. However, we must take into account the difference between these two cases and the assembly of Frankfurt. For the two former texts, the historical sources mention neither their actual production nor the venues of their productions.[25] In contrast, we have many contemporaneous annals which refer to the assembly of Frankfurt as described above, but all of them are silent about the capitula. On the other hand, we have some examples of several entries in the contemporaneous historiographies which mention the production of a document at an assembly and, in some cases, their systematic distribution, such as: a series of capitula of 802-803; the so-called institutio canonicorum aquisgranensis of 816; a series of capitula of 818-819.[26] All these texts share the distinctive feature of having an abundant manuscript tradition.

Therefore if the capitula of Frankfurt was actually a sort of royal decree that had been issued, systematically copied and distributed at the assembly of Frankfurt, we ought to find at least some reference to this act in contemporaneous sources. The absence of such an information makes the traditional claim that this is a royal decree highly suspect.


2.5. The unusual form of the capitula of Frankfurt

Many historians have already noticed that the capitula of Frankfurt is a heterogeneous text in its contents and the forms of its chapters: some chapters are very elaborate following the style of annalistic sources[27] and others are hardly more than a list of keywords.[28] Moreover chapters in which the King himself speaks in the first person coexist alongside those with the sentences in the third person which refer to “our lord King Charles”.[29]

Mordek argues that the diversity of forms and contents is a familiar characteristic of capitularies and this should not make us to see the capitula of Frankfurt as a private and unofficial text.[30] It is true that MGH-edition of capitularies include many texts with a heterogeneous character with respect to their forms and contents. But does this allow us to draw the conclusion that the capitula of Frankfurt was issued as an official text, i.e. a royal decree? I think that Mordek’s argument evidences a typical problem with the traditional studies of “capitularies”, which sees capitularies as a distinctive category of text and attribute to all “capitularies” characteristics which have only been detected in some texts without thinking about whether the category “capitulary” existed contemporaneously or has been artificially constructed by modern researchers. My suggestion is that we should tentatively abandon the text-category “capitulary” and evaluate the distinctive features of each of the individual texts in the MGH-compilation.

From my perspective, the unusual forms and varied contents in the capitula of Frankfurt are distinctive enough to make the official character of the text suspect, especially when we compare it to the texts that we have strong reasons to see as have some of the characteristics of royal decrees, such as the Capitulary of Heristal and the Admonitio generalis, which both have better organized structures and more consistently edited contents.


2.6. Summary of this section

When we take into account the weak manuscript tradition, the absence of any trace of later consultation in medieval sources, the absence of any reference in contemporaneous sources and the unusual form and varied contents, the traditional idea that the capitula of Frankfurt was issued as a royal decree and systematically copied and spread to every corner of the Kingdom, must be abandoned.

But now we must cast our attention on a Bavarian text which allegedly mentions the capitula of Frankfurt and has been offered as the very evidence of the capitula’s systematic copying and spreading. This text and the claim that it refers to the capitula are widely known, but the veracity of the claim has been assumed rather than proven and needs to be more carefully analyzed.


3. Bavaria and the capitula of Frankfurt at the end of 8th Century

3.1. The preface of the so-called triple synod

In the summer of 798 Arn of Salzburg, after he received pallium from Pope as the Bavarian first archbishop in April of that year, announced a synodale conlocuium (i.e. a provincial synod) at Reisbach on 20th August in his letter to his suffragan bishops.[31] As the reason for this announcement Arn states that a synodale conloquium was already held in Francia by bishops of the Kingdom.[32] Arn also demanded the capitula which was produced in the synodo in Francia be brought to the announced provincial synod.[33] However, this synodale conlocuium seems to have not been held in August, perhaps because of the illness of Arn,[34] and to instead have been put off until next year. Then three provincial synods, the so-called triple synod, were held in succession at Reisbach, Freising and Salzburg.[35] The decisions of all three synods survive as a united text.[36] The preface of this text[37] refers to capitulis collectis in loco nuncupato Francorum vado, which Simpert, one of the suffragan bishops of Arn, brought to the synod in Reisbach. Because the Latin of this preface has grammatical flaws (vis-à-vis classical Latin), the meanings of sentences are sometimes unclear, as its Editor, A. Werminghof, already indicated.[38] What follows is the transcription of the edition of Werminghof with his punctuation:

[…] Simulque etiam in unum revolventes quod gloriosissimus rex constituerat ad emendationem totius ecclesiae, - hoc per virum venerabilem Sintbertum episcopum usque ad nos dirigere studuit cum aliis relegiosis viris, - quicquid ad Aquis de religionis statu vel vitae morum oportunitate, discerpsit pariterque et illud, quod in magno concilio cum capitulis collectis in loco nuncupato Francorum vado quae per omnes provincias observare decrevit, nosque haec in medium deferentes studuimus ea per singula recitare et, in quantum potuimus, quae illic inserta non fuerant nos canonum auctoritate augere curavimus.[…][39]

We might safely conclude that the first mentioned text, which Charles at Aachen brought together, means the Admonitio generalis, since the Admonitio had actually been composed at Aachen and the decisions of the triple synod echo the reform program of the Admonitio.[40] Although some historians believe that this passage mentions an assembly in Aachen[41] besides that of Frankfurt, in fact, the magnum concilium is mentioned only in relation to Frankfurt. Thus, this passage is consistent with the circumstances of the production of the Admonitio generalis, which was written in a small circle centered on Charles in Aachen.[42]

The interpretative task we need to consider is the sentences that follow. Historians have generally believed the capitula, which the preface describes as having been collected at Frankfurt, to be the capitula of Frankfurt and they have assumed from this parts of text that Charlemagne sent the Admonitio generalis and the capitula of Frankfurt through Simpert to the synod of the recently founded Bavarian church province, because both texts should be observed at all church provinces in his kingdom. This assumption could easily lead us to the conclusion that the administration and political communication under Charlemagne was highly systematic and institutionalized, because it means that not only the Admonitio generalis, but also the capitula of Frankfurt had been systematically distributed to all church provinces and thereafter their original exemplars were preserved at the court archive for the future consultation or possible redistribution.

However this assumption conflicts with the very small number of surviving manuscripts of the capitula of Frankfurt mentioned above and the silence of contemporary annals about the capitula. Moreover the contents of the capitula of Frankfurt appear to have had no influence upon the decisions of the triple synod. Then how should we interpret the sentences of this preface? To answer this question we must look at the situation in Bavaria at the end of 8th Century.


3.2. Bavarian bishops and the assembly of Frankfurt

During much of 8th Century, Bavaria had some sort of semi-autonomous status under the Agilolfingian dukes, but in 788, when Charlemagne defeated the last duke of Bavaria, Tassilo III, it was annexed to the Frankish kingdom. Nevertheless the Bavarian bishops survived this political change and after 788 they emerged as de facto agents of Charlemagne used to control this region.[43] This was especially true of Arn of Salzburg who already had had some ties to Francia even before 788,[44] and after Bavaria’s annexation into the Frankish Kingdom he became one of the most loyal servants of Charlemagne there. This might have lead Charlemagne to raise Salzburg, instead of the traditional Bavarian capital Regensburg, to the status of an archbishopric in 798.[45]

Did the Bavarian bishops participate in the assembly of Frankfurt in 794? The capitula does not provide a list of participants, but the Annales Maximiniani tell us, “King Charles held a great synodus with all bishops from Gaul, Aquitaine, Italy and Bavaria […]”.[46] Although this information is not definitive, since “the Bavarian bishops” are not named in the Royal Frankish Annals and other contemporaneous annals,[47] it is hard to imagine, that there were no Bavarian bishops at Frankfurt, where the resignation of the former Duke Tassilo was on the agenda. It is also noticeable that some minor annals from Bavaria mention the assembly of Frankfurt,[48] although they refer only rarely to assemblies.

On the other hand, the preface of the triple synod suggests that Arn did not possess the Admonitio generalis and capitula collecta in loco nuncupato Francorum vado of Frankfurt until 798, because the preface of the decisions of the triple synod describes Simpert as the one who brought these capitula to the synod. This information does not accord with the idea that the capitula of Frankfurt was systematically distributed after the assembly.

One possible explanation, which many historians seem to adopt, in most cases implicitly, is that the capitula had only been handed out to the archbishops at Frankfurt and after 798 Charlemagne sent it along with the Admonitio generalis to the newly raised archbishop through Simpert. But when we take into account the activity of Arn at the end of 8th Century, this idea cannot be sustained.


3.3. Activities of Archbishop Arn of Salzburg
at the end of 8th Century[49]

Perhaps after participating in the assembly of Aachen in October 797, Arn was dispatched to Rome by Charlemagne as one member of a twelve person Frankish legate at the end of this year. He received pallium from Pope Leo III in April 798 there. On his way back from Rome while heading to the north of the Alps, the Charlemagne’s envoy arrived to him with a letter (epistola sua), which demanded Arn go directly to the region of the Slavs (partes Sclavorum) in order to proselytize them.[50] But he did not follow this demand and went instead to Charlemagne in order to report the recent situation in Rome. After reporting to Charlemagne, Arn finally headed to the mission area.[51] The invitation letter of Arn to the provincial synod at Reisbach was probably issued around this time. According to the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum Arn then reported the results of his missionary activities to Charlemagne. It is unclear whether Arn was face-to-face with Charlemagne or Arn interacted with Charlemagne through envoys.[52] Since it is recorded that the two exchanged messages several times,[53] if the exchanges were conducted through messengers, there must have been multiple contacts.

The activities of Arn mentioned above show that he was in contact with Charlemagne many times directly and indirectly in 798. This means that Charlemagne had several chances to give Arn the Admonitio generalis or his other capitula. The traditional idea is that he had sent the capitula which are mentioned in the preface of the triple synod to Arn through Simpert and, setting aside the capitula of Frankfurt, there is no doubt that the Admonitio generalis was actually brought to the synod of Reisbach in January 799 by Simpert. But this leaves the question of why Charlemagne had not directly handed the Admonitio generalis to Arn.

The invitation letter from Arn at the summer of 798, which demands capitula be brought to the announced provincial synod, is also notable. It suggests that in this time Arn had strongly felt the need to acquire capitula which could prove useful for enacting the ecclesiastical reform in his church province. From this we could possibly infer that Arn himself was not previously in possession of the documents necessary to accomplish the reforms Charlemagne had directed. This raises the question: Why did not he then request such capitula directly from Charlemagne? Perhaps Arn did, but Charlemagne did not or could not respond to this request!

This situation leads us to the conclusion that Simpert brought capitula not by the initiative of Charlemagne, but in response to the demand of his archbishop, highly probably contained in the invitation letter of 798. And Simpert’s capitula could not have be handed to him in this year by Charlemagne, because in this case we cannot explain why Charlemagne did not give these capitula directly to Arn. Simpert seems to have brought the Admonitio generalis from the archive of his bishopric. The last question we have to think about is why it was Simpert who brought the Admonitio.


3.4. Bishop Simpert of Augsburg/Neuburg (†807)

While Vita sancti Magni [54] tells us, that Simpert was appointed bishop of Augsburg by Charlemagne,[55] Simpert is also referred to as Bishop of Neuburg in two sources: a letter of Pope Leo III in 798 which tells Arn’s suffragan bishops that Arn has been elevated to metropolitan,[56] and the list of participants in the triple synod.[57] Simpert thus seems to have held two bishoprics at the end of 8th Century.[58] Neuburg is a Bavarian diocese which lay in the east part of the Lech and under Simpert it would be absorbed into Augsburg, probably at the first decade of 9th Century.[59] On the other hand Augsburg had not belonged to Bavaria during the 8th Century.[60] As evidence, take for example that no Bishop of Augsburg participated in the assemblies under Bavarian Dukes unlike the Bishop of Neuburg.[61]

The precise year of Simpert’s appointment as the Bishop of Augsburg is not clear, but generally historians think it took place the year around 778 because he died in 807 and Vita sancti Magni states that after his coming to Augsburg he led his church per annos fere xxx.[62] It seems safe to think that he was already Bishop of Augsburg in 789 and the Admonitio generalis, which was systematically distributed through the Kingdom, had also been sent to him. On the other hand we might imagine that the Admonitio was not distributed to Bavaria which had just recently been merged into the Frankish Kingdom. We know that the full integration of Bavaria was not immediately accomplished after the surrender of Tassilo in 788, but began only after the visitation of Charlemagne from 791 to 793[63]. The first surviving evidence for the activities of Arn of Salzburg as missus dominicus of Charlemagne emerged only after this time.[64]

As we have seen, it is highly probable that at the end of 8th Century Arn of Salzburg did not possess an exemplar of the Admonitio generalis or any other capitula of Charlemagne which could be useful for a planned provincial synod,[65] even after some direct or indirect contacts with Charlemagne and the Frankish court. This is why Arn demanded his suffragan bishops to bring capitula to the announced provincial synod. The only bishop who could respond to this demand was Simpert, because he was a bishop in the Frankish kingdom at Augsburg and a suffragan bishop to the Bavarian archbishop of Salzburg as bishop of Neburg. This means he might have been sent an exemplar of the Admonitio based on the former and been obligated to supply it based on the latter.

The manuscript tradition of the Admonitio generalis from Bavaria also does not conflict with this speculation that the Bavarian archbishop lacked copies of the documents. We have two 9th Century manuscripts from Regensburg and Niederalteich which are considered to be based on a lost exemplar of the Admonitio.[66] Although the modern editors of the Admonitio assumed that the lost exemplar was brought to Bavaria (Regensburg) by Charlemagne at his visitation from 791, this assumption cannot explain why (only) Simpert is mentioned as the person who brought the Admonitio to the Bavarian synod in 799. Therefore I would like to propose another scenario: that the Admonitio generalis brought by Simpert functioned as the exemplar of the surviving Bavarian Admonitio.

The reasoning behind this speculation is that we can see marginal notes identifying the original sources of each chapters of the Admonitio generalis from the Bavarian manuscript.[67] According to Landau, of the decisions of the triple synod, only the decisions from Freising used the old canons, especially those from Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana.[68] Therefore the church leaders of Bavaria had first held their discussions on the basis of the Admonitio generalis, which Simpert had brought, in Reisbach. Then, in Freising, they consulted not only the Admonitio generalis but also Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana, the main original source of the Admonitio. This method is exactly same as what was done in Frankfurt and perhaps the Bavarian bishops imitated what they had seen in Frankfurt. The Admonitio generalis with source information in the marginal notes, which only survives from Bavaria, is probably a by-product of this process in Freising.[69] From the manuscript tradition, we might expect that each participant in the triple synod received, besides its decisions, a copy of the Admonitio generalis.[70]

The problem which we cannot yet resolve is concerning capitulis collectis in loco nuncupato Francorum vado that is mentioned in the preface of the synod of Reisbach. As argued above, it is unlikely that this mentioned capitula is the same text as the capitula of Frankfurt surviving in the manuscript of Hincmar. It can only be said that the text which is mentioned in the preface might be some document related to the assembly of Frankfurt. One candidate is the briefs which emerged from the assembly that condemn Spanish Adoptionism,[71] because those briefs are preserved in a Bavarian manuscript along with the Admonitio generalis which contains marginal notes[72] and the manuscript containing the decisions of the triple synod[73], although this speculation cannot be proved definitively. In any case it is hard to imagine that only Simpert possessed this mentioned capitula collecta in loco nuncupato Francorum vado, because it is highly probable that other Bavarian bishops had also participated in the assembly of Frankfurt. Perhaps what the author of the preface of the synod of Reisbach was trying to explain as “what Simpert brought” was only quicquid ad Aquis de religionis statu vel vitae morum oportunitate decerpsit, namely the Admonitio generalis.


4. Conclusion

In concluding this article, I wish to summarize two points. First, the capitula of Frankfurt should not be seen as a royal decree and it was not systematically copied and spread in 794.[74] This capitula might be a private and unofficial text which emerged from the discussion of the assembly.[75] Second, Simpert brought the Admonitio generalis to the synod of Reisbach in response to the demand of his archbishop, not by the initiative of Charlemagne. What is especially notable is that before the synod of Reisbach Arn could not even obtain the Admonitio generalis, which was once systematically copied and spread in the Kingdom, despite interacting with Charlemagne directly and indirectly several times in 798. About ten years after its promulgation the Admonitio was not in a state where it could easily be referred to and copied in Charlemagne’s court.[76] This means, we should not assume that political communication under Charlemagne was highly systematic and institutionalized, at least with respect to the use of the documents which have been traditionally called capitularies by historians.

Jennifer Davis has recently emphasized that “the court obviously prompted the Bavarian regional reform councils” and seen those councils as part of the “experimentation” of Charlemagne,[77] but I think her argument is misleading if “experimentation” is to mean controlled well-thought attempts to see how different approaches went.[78] Although we can assume that in 798 Charlemagne instructed Arn not only to engage in missionary activity in the area of “Slavs” but also to accomplish ecclesiastical reform in Bavaria, we are to believe Charlemagne did not or could not give Arn any capitula that would help his reform activities in Bavaria. It was not Charlemagne’s promotion or his “experimentation”, but the presence of Simpert who was a Bavarian bishop as well as a Frankish one that enabled Arn’s ecclesiastical reform activities in Bavaria, and his presence was merely a coincidence, not based on a careful consideration. Thanks to this coincidence, Arn could promote active church reform activities in Bavaria, and could implement the decisions of the triple synod and the Admonitio generalis throughout Bavaria. Davis has written elsewhere that “the Franks under Charlemagne employed the tools available to them … in an ad hoc fashion, in reaction to events.”[79] In this point, I can agree with her fully.

(This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 15K16863)

Hokkaido University of Education
Asahikawa, Japan

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