‘Public temper tantrums…frequent weeping and boisterous joy’: tears in text and ritual in Frankish kingship

D111 Medieval History;DC France;DD Germany

Thickpenny, Cynthia Rose ; Airlie, Stuart

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Humanities

关键词: Franks, kingship, bishops, weeping, ritual, penance, Merovingian, Carolingian, emotion;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4723/1/2013thickpennymres.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

In recent decades, historians have reassessed scholarly assumptions about the primitiveness of medieval emotional life.For example, Barbara Rosenwein’s exploration of emotion words, Geoffrey Koziol and Gerd Althoff’s analyses of ritual gesture in political interaction, and Philippe Buc’s study of the partisanship in medieval accounts of such rituals have revealed the complexity of medieval modes of expression.However, while theological analyses of Christian tears abound, no historian has yet undertaken an extended investigation of weeping in early medieval kingship, and its role in textual debate and political performance.This dissertation is a study of royal weeping in the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, and also explores how Gallic and Frankish bishops used rhetoric on tears to formulate ideals for Christian kingship and put ideological pressure on their rulers.Chapters are divided into three chronological areas of inquiry.The first section examines two distinct streams of ecclesiastical thought emerging from late Roman changes in elite masculine comportment, one which criticized weeping as inappropriate, while the other praised tears as a sign of fitness for rule.The second chapter addresses Gregory of Tours’ contribution to the conceptual development of royal weeping, as the first Gallic bishop to unambiguously endorse tears as a kingly virtue.This dissertation then concludes with Emperor Louis the Pious’ penitential dethronement of 833, in which his weeping became a cause of political debate.Finally, on a methodological level, the following study demonstrates how analysis of royal tears can further illuminate the political biases of contemporary texts and the function of gestures in political ritual, while contributing to modern appreciation of the sophistication of medieval emotional expression.