Chapter One: The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society 718-1050
THE LIBRARY
OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ONLINE
The Development
of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718-1050
Archibald R. Lewis
1
Southern France
in the Early Eighth Century
[3]
In the year 718 that part of France south of the Loire and Burgundy lay
between two powers which were to affect its destiny for more than a century.
To the north we find regions which were dominated by the Carolingian family
-- a family which Pepin of Heristal had established in power over Austrasia
and Neustria and whose authority was being further increased by his able
son, Charles Martel. To the south lay Spain, conquered by the Arab and
Berber forces of Musa and Tarik -- forces which were about to cross the
Pyrenees in an advance toward the heartland of Western Europe.
The Midi which faced these two adversaries
in the early eighth century was a region without any over-all political
cohesion of its own. It consisted of four relatively distinct areas. The
largest of these was an Aquitaine which lay south of the Loire and west
of the Rhone Valley, with its southern borders reaching the Narbonnaise
in the east and a Gascon frontier along the Garonne in the west. Aquitaine
had been part of the Merovingian Frankish state since the time of Clovis,
but by the eighth century was controlled by a duke or
princeps
called
Eudes. He and his heirs, Hunald and Waiffre, were to control its destiny
for the next fifty years.
We find a second rather amorphous
principality known as Provence, which probably consisted of the Rhone Valley
south of Lyon and east of Aquitaine and the Narbonnaise, up to the crests
of the French Alps -- roughly the area occupied by the old Roman Provincia.
Provence was controlled by a series of local magnates who bore the title
of patrician. We know little about these patricians beyond their names
with one exception, and we do not even know whether or not they belonged
to the same family like the
principes
of Aquitaine. Provence, like
Aquitaine, had long been nominally a part of the Merovingian Frankish state,
though soon
[4]
after the death of Dagobert it had managed to achieve
a large measure of autonomy under native princes.
(1)
West of Provence along the shores
of the Mediterranean we find the third distinct region of Southern France,
the Narbonnaise or Septimania, as it was called. Unlike Aquitaine and Provence,
the Narbonnaise had never been conquered by the Merovingians. Instead,
for three hundred years it had been under Visigothic rule. Its boundaries
seem to have been the Rhone on the east, a series of fortified cities like
Uzès, Lodève, and Carcassonne on the north, the Pyrenean
high country inhabited by the Basques on the west, and the Pyrenees and
Mediterranean to the south.
(2)
Though it
had not shared the political history of Aquitaine and Provence, like them
it seems to have had an instinct for autonomy, which in the late seventh
century led to a serious revolt by a local Gothic magnate called Paul,
a rising which had to be suppressed by Wamba, king of Visigothic Spain.
(3)
The fourth region of the Midi was
Gascony which occupied the remaining region of Southern France north of
the Pyrenees. It is difficult to give Gascony's boundaries in any exact
way. A later Carolingian writer summed it up by saying that the Gascons
lived across the Garonne and among the Pyrenees. Following his lead we
might hazard the opinion that Carcassonne and Roussillon formed the eastern
boundary, the Garonne its northern border, the Atlantic its western one,
and the Pyrenees its southern one. On the other hand it is uncertain whether
Bordeaux and the Bordelais were part of Gascony or part of Aquitaine during
this period.
(4)
It is equally difficult
to be sure that the Pyrenees formed Gascony's southern border, since other
Basques lived south of them in Northern Spain. These Spanish Basques, who
were similar in race and culture to their French Gascon compatriots, occupied
an expanse of Spanish soil northwest of Saragossa in Pallars, Ribagorça,
Aragón, Navarre, and Asturias and were generally independent of
and at times hostile to the Visigothic
[6]
rulers of Spain. They
appear to have maintained close ties with those Gascons who lived north
of the Pyrenees. That this represented any formal political unity, however,
appears doubtful, for it seems clear that during this period the Basques
of France were ruled by a native family of dukes or
principes
who
bore the name of Loup or Lupo. They, like the Spanish Basques, were independent
of their Narbonnaise and Aquitanian neighbors.
(5)
One more region might also be mentioned
-- Catalonia, which was to be closely associated with the Midi after 778,
though not before. In 713-714, however, Catalonia had been overrun by the
Moors who occupied all of it with the possible exception of the Urgell
region, where there is some evidence of the survival of an independent
native Church and monastic tradition. Yet even here one must be careful,
for there is some evidence that all of this part of Northern Spain was
less conquered outright by the Moslems than handed over to them by dissident
Visigothic nobles, one of whom, a certain Cassius, apostatized from the
Christian Church and set up an important Islamic dynasty in the region,
the Banu Kasi.
(6)
During the period covered
by this chapter Catalonia followed the destiny of the rest of Moslem Spain
rather than that of the Midi.
So much for the political geography
of Southern France and the Spanish borderlands. But what of its ecclesiastical
divisions? Only in Septimania do we find political and ecclesiastical boundaries
coinciding. The Narbonnaise consisted of seven bishoprics: Elne, Carcassonne,
Béziers, Agde, Maguelonne, Lodève, Nîmes, and Uzès
under the archbishop of Narbonne.
(7)
Provence
on the other hand seems to have had a positive plethora of metropolitans:
Aix, Embrun, and Arles near the lower Rhone, and Lyon and Vienne further
north.
(8)
Even more complex seems to have been
the situation in Aquitaine and Gascony. By the late seventh century there
were three archbishoprics in this part of France. The archbishop of Bourges
was over the bishops of Northern and Central Aquitaine, the metropolitan
of Bordeaux controlled
[7]
Southern Aquitaine and perhaps part of
Western Gascony, the archbishop of Couserans the rest of Gascony. Gascony
may also have had a special bishop of its own.
(9)
Like Provence, then, Western France south of the Loire lacked the ecclesiastical
precision of Septimania.
When one tries to examine the pre-Carolingian
governmental system of the Midi in greater detail than the above generalities,
one finds evidence rather scant. We do have evidence that the Narbonnaise
was governed by counts,
(10)
and that the
Visigoths kept their mint at Narbonne in operation during the early years
of the eighth century.
(11)
We hear also
of counts in Aquitaine, where about 650 St. Didier's brother was count
of Albi
(12)
and where, at the time of Duke
Waiffre, similar officials are found in Poitou, Berry, and Auvergne.
(13)
On the other hand there is less evidence that counts existed during this
entire period in Provence, though the patricians certainly exercised comital
powers.
(14)
As for Gascony -- it seems
clear that it was without counts in the pre-Carolingian period, its only
known rulers being its
duces
and
principes
who appear to
have presided over tribal chiefs and families.
(15)
The counts of Aquitaine and the Narbonnaise,
[8]
like their Carolingian
successors, led local armed forces into battle and controlled at least
some of the fortresses located in the areas they ruled.
(16)
Slight evidence from Provence suggests that its patricians had similar
authority.
(17)
On the other hand we know nothing
about the judicial role played by such counts in Southern France and even
less of the court system in existence -- except for some indication that
in Provence the patrician could and did act in a legal capacity.
(18)
What we can say with some assurance is that Visigothic law was in use in
the Narbonnaise,
(19)
and that Roman law
survived in both Aquitaine and the Valley of the Rhone.
(20)
Neither seems to have been in use, as far as we can tell, in Gascony.
[9]
If our evidence of pre-Carolingian
institutions is too slight for our liking, we know more concerning the
pre-Carolingian military organization of Southern France. When Charles
Martel and Childebrand advanced down the Rhone Valley with their Frankish
and Burgundian levies, they found the principal cities of Provence, like
Arles and Avignon, protected by walls formidable enough to call for siege
operations.
(21)
The same seems to have
been true of
civitates
of Septimania like Uzès, Nîmes,
Mauguio, Agde, Bèziers, Carcassonne, and especially Narbonne.
(22)
This region also contained
castella
located outside fortified cities
like the Castellum of Millia which in 678 was mentioned as in existence
between Nîmes and Maguelonne.
(23)
In Aquitaine we learn that St. Didier,
about 650, rebuilt the walls of Cahors and reconstructed the
castella
of
the city, as well as the Castrum Mercurio in Cahors itself.
(24)
At about the same time we hear of a Castrum Garnomo near Bordeaux.
(25)
A little later in the eighth century there was a
castrum
in Velay,
probably at LePuy.
(26)
In the early eighth
century when Toulouse was attacked by the Moslems, it apparently possessed
fortifications.
(27)
Later on about 735 we hear of the
Castrum of Blavia near Bordeaux and other
castra
in the suburbs
of the city,
(28)
and when Pepin conquered
Aquitaine between 761 and 768 we hear of similar fortifications everywhere.
Our accounts make it clear that the major
civitates
of this region,
like Bourges, Limoges, Poitiers, Saintes, Clermont, Périgord, and
Angoulême
[10]
were fortified.
(29)
There were also a number of detached fortresses like Thouars in Poitou,
Castelluc in Auvergne, Bourbon in Berry, Turenne in the lower Limousin,
Scalas in Quercy, Perrucé in Périgord, and a number of other
unspecified
castella
and
roccas
.
(30)
There is also ample evidence that
the profession of arms was a general one, so much so that in Southern Aquitaine
a church council in the late seventh century had to forbid the carrying
of arms and the waging of war by priests.
(31)
In the Narbonnaise and Aquitaine there was a military class led by counts
and
principes
which furnished opposition to invading Moors and Carolingians
alike.
(32)
The assassination of St. Didier's
brother shows us a society in Quercy and the Albigeois which was tumultuous
and quarrelsome,
(33)
just as Abbo's will
mentions land, in 739, which he had acquired by conquest.
(34)
On the other hand there does seem
to be some indication that pre-Carolingian Southern France did not possess
a military class as well organized as those
vassi
of Frankish origin
whom Charles Martel enriched with Church lands
(35)
and who followed him and his successors into battle. When the Carolingians
advanced down the Rhone they found that Maurontius, patrician of Provence,
had invited Moslem forces to garrison his cities, probably because he could
not muster sufficient warriors of his own.
(36)
And in Aquitaine during Pepin's final nine-year campaign, we again and
again find mention of Gascons, probably mercenaries, who formed at least
a portion of the levies available to Duke Waiffre and his counts.
(37)
On the other hand there is no evidence of the use of such outside auxiliaries
in either Septimania or Gascony.
[11]
When we turn to the pre-Carolingian
Church organization, we find that we can discover little, in no small measure
because of the destruction of Church records by both the Moslems and Carolingians
in the course of their campaigns in the Midi. For instance we do not know
more than the names of any pre-Carolingian abbeys in the Narbonnaise,
(38)
which makes us suspect that, unlike those in Urgell, none survived Moslem
occupation.
(39)
In Provence we can only
be sure that Saint-Victor of Marseille
(40)
and Lérins
(41)
continued active
of the pre-Carolingian monastic establishments of this region. For Aquitaine
we possess more information, but still too little for more than generalizations.
What emerges from what we do know,
however, is a picture of a church and a monastic system closely linked
to the ruling, landholding classes. This was no innovation of this period,
but rather represented a continuation of a state of affairs which had existed
since late Roman and early Merovingian times. Thus the example of Aredus
and his grandson, who in 572-573 seem to have endowed the abbeys of Saint-Martial
and Vigeois in the Limousin with considerable landed property,
(42)
was copied often in the next two centuries. We know this from the record
of seventh-century gifts of land to the church of Viviers
(43)
and those given to churches and abbeys in Quercy and the Toulousain dating
from the same period. New abbeys were also still being established, as
we learn from the case of the abbey of Saint-Gerri established by St. Didier
at Cahors
(44)
or that of
[12]
newly
founded Moissac which gained in 680 the landed estates belonging to Nizezius.
(45)
As late as 739 Abbo left his vast estates in the Middle Rhone region to
the newly founded abbey of Novalese in Italy.
(46)
The biography of St. Didier, which
portrays him acting more like the ruler of Quercy than its bishop again
illustrates how closely entwined the Church in the Midi was with the governing
system of the region.
(47)
So do gifts by
patricians of Provence to the abbey of Saint-Victor of Marseille, as revealed
at a later period,
(48)
and the fact that
in 780 the aged bishop of this city bears the same family name as its last
patrician.
(49)
Except in Gascony there
seems to have existed a close relationship and collaboration between bishop
and monastery on the one hand and count and leading landowners on the other.
This leads us to a consideration
of the economic life of Southern France in the first years of the eighth
century, on the eve of Moorish and Carolingian intervention. By this time,
it is clear, the outside commerce enjoyed by this region was in a definite
state of decline. There is no evidence, for instance, to show the presence
of Syrian and Greek merchants in the
civitates
of the Midi, as had
been the case a century earlier.
(50)
We
do still find a reference to fine silks,
(51)
however, and, judging from later Carolingian evidence, it is possible that
some Jewish merchant colonies still survived.
At the same time one notices an interesting
change in the coinage which is in use. During the last years of the seventh
century contemporary accounts still mention gold being used in Quercy and
the Toulousain,
(52)
a fact which seems
confirmed by gold found in coin hoards at Bordeaux
(53)
[13]
and along the Loire
(54)
and the Rhone.
(55)
By 718, however, this seems no longer to have been true. Silver seems to
have replaced gold as a medium of exchange. It was coined at Narbonne
(56)
and in Aquitaine
(57)
and is the only metal
found in hoards like Plaissac on the Garonne
(58)
and Cimiez in Provence.
(59)
Such coin hoards
also reveal the growing economic localism of the Midi, particularly in
the Rhone Valley,
(60)
though they do seem
to point to a trade route which was still active along the western shores
of Aquitaine to Bordeaux and then along the Garonne to Narbonne and Marseille.
(61)
There is also some evidence that some spices and oriental wares were still
reaching Fos in the early eighth century.
(62)
Compared to the earlier Merovingian period, however, by 718 Southern France
seems to have been more isolated from the main trade currents of Northern
Europe and the Mediterranean than had been the case earlier.
All of this contributed to making
land in the Midi its most important source of wealth. And it seems clear
that this landed wealth was still held in the early eighth century in much
the same way that it had been owned in late Roman and early Merovingian
times. It was still largely in the hands of the same sort of Gallo-Roman
aristocrats whom we meet at the time of Sidonius and Avitus.
(63)
It must not, however, be thought that such families had a monopoly of land
ownership. Side by side with them we find a sizable Frankish element --
numerous in the Limousin, Rouergue, and the Albigeois, and present as far
south as Carcassonne.
(64)
A Visigothic
[14]
element is present in the Narbonnaise too in this same period.
(65)
One finds this Frankish element mentioned in contemporary accounts, for
when Duke Eudes of Aquitaine met and defeated the Moslems near Toulouse
in 721, his army is said to have been composed of both Franks and Aquitanians.
(66)
Judging by his name Eudes himself was of Frankish origin. Long before the
Carolingians, then, a considerable Frankish element had settled in parts
of Aquitaine. It also needs to be emphasized that Franks and Burgundians
were settled in the Middle and Lower Rhone Valley before the time of Charles
Martel. Abbo, patrician of Provence, bore a Frankish name, and we find
similar northern Frankish soubriquets among the servants whom he mentioned
in his will.
(67)
It seems highly probable, however,
that by the early eighth century such Frankish and Burgundian elements
had been largely absorbed into the prevailing Gallo-Roman population of
Provence
(68)
and Aquitaine, just as in
the Narbonnaise the Visigothic element had become a part of the essentially
Gallo-Roman society of Septimania.
(69)
Only in Gascony does one find what may represent an unmixed stock, and
even here there seems to be some evidence that in Couserans and the Bordelais,
Gascons were still advancing into what had earlier been Gallo-Roman areas.
(70)
Whether its owner was of Gallo-Roman,
Frankish, Burgundian, or Visigothic origin, however, the
villa
was
still the prevailing unit of landholding, as had been the case since late
Roman times. St. Didier, for example, gave
villas
as an endowment
to the abbey he founded in Quercy
[15]
and to the churches which
he restored there and in the Albigeois.
(71)
Our sources make clear that the estates of Nizezius located between the
Tarn and the Garonne were organized as
villas
in 680.
(72)
We find
villas
mentioned in Vivarais as well as
mansi
.
(73)
In Provence, around Marseille, the
villa,
made up of
colonicas,
seems
to have prevailed,
(74)
while as far north
as Dauphiny, Abbo's will shows the same pattern of land used in the Rhone
Valley.
(75)
We have every reason to believe
that the same thing was true in the Narbonnaise also, though this belief
rests on conjecture alone.
Some landowners in this period controlled
only a
villa
or two. More typical, however, seems to have been a
class of large estate owners, controlling vast areas -- men such as St.
Didier and Nizezius in Aquitaine, or others like them in Velay, or magnates
like Abbo who possessed so much property in Dauphiny. Nor were men alone
in possessing such estates. We find women like Bobila, the
senatrix
Romana
of Quercy, who owned property in their own right.
(76)
We also find a large class of
servi
or
coloni
living on such
villas
as
they had in late Roman time, though a group of freedmen also seems to have
existed.
(77)
It is worth noting that the
prevailing system of landholding for the upper class was allodial and that
landowners
[16]
could and did freely sell or will their estates
or give them to abbeys and churches.
There can be little doubt that in
this period the allod was the prevailing type of landholding to be found.
But it is important to note that we have evidence of another sort of tenure
-- the
precarium
or
beneficium
.
(78)
In the biography of St. Didier we find a reference to
beneficia
which
were given out by nobles and magnates of the region and something called
beneficiendo
or
cohemendo
which seems somewhat similar to Carolingian commendation.
(79)
In a document from Provence from later Carolingian times we hear how Metrannus,
patrician of Provence, about 700 A.D. gave a
villa
to the abbey
of Saint-Victor
pro beneficio
and that his successor Abbo did the
same
in beneficium.
(80)
More explicit
is information concerning landholding found in Abbo's will, dealing as
it does with land over a wider area in the Valley of the Rhone and in Dauphiny.
This will mentions land which
"Australdus habet in beneficio"
or
which
"Bartona libertus noster in benefitium habet,"
and others
as well. There is also a reference to
"fidele meo Protadio."
(81)
In a rare document from Auvergne dating from 756-757 we also find Waiffre,
princeps
of
Aquitaine, giving a
villa
to a certain Gédéon, as
a life
precarium,
in return for another
villa
and two pounds
of silver -- this some five years before the final Carolingian offensive
against Aquitaine.
(82)
Though we have no
surviving charters from pre-Carolingian Septimania, from what we know of
Visigothic Spain during this period we can fairly assume that such
precaria
are
to be found in the Narbonnaise too.
(83)
[17]
Unfortunately the examples
of
precaria
and
beneficia
dating from this period in the
Midi are so few that it is difficult to be certain about their exact nature
or the conditions under which they were given. In the case of Gédéon
it is clear that the
precarium
granted was for a lifetime only and
that he had to make a definite payment in both land and money for it.
(84)
Concerning the others we know little, except that in certain cases they
were not given in return for military service and were not the monopoly
of the upper classes. Several of Abbo's
precaria
granted to freedmen
make this clear.
(85)
What seems more important,
however, is the evidence which can be drawn from these examples that a
precarium
frequently
was a private grant by an allodial landholder who chose this method of
disposing of rights to his property. The
precarium,
then, was a
right to use an allod under certain conditions prescribed by its owner.
(86)
As in Visigothic Spain or Lombard Italy,
(87)
then, there existed in the Midi conditional grants of land called
beneficia
or
precaria
before the period of the Carolingians.
A final word concerning land in Southern
France during these years
[18]
seems in order. How much vacant or
uncultivated land was there? We know that there was a great deal of it
in later Carolingian times in the Narbonnaise, in Roussillon, in the Rhone
Valley, in Aquitaine, and in Catalonia. Most historians have tended to
explain this fact by calling attention to the six decades of disorder in
the Midi between 718 and 778. In other words they have given the blame
to invading Moslem and Carolingian forces for a devastation to which they
ascribe such a condition.
Such views seem exaggerated, to say
the least. Except for two razzias, one which reached Autun about 722
(88)
and another Poitiers in 732,
(89)
Moslem
raids were confined to the Narbonnaise, Rouergue, the Albigeois, Velay,
and the Lower Rhone Valley, and even here they seem to have lasted for
only a few decades. Carolingian conquest of the Rhone Valley between 736
and 739 was a swift affair and Carolingian activities in Septimania seem
to have been confined to the same period and to the years 752-760, when
the subjugation of this region and nearby Southern Aquitaine was finally
completed. Pepin's conquest of the rest of Aquitaine, though destructive,
took place over an eight-year period between 761 and 768. Gascony was not
entered by Carolingian forces until 769 and then again in 778 during the
campaign against Saragossa. Thus neither the military activities of the
Moslems nor of their Carolingian rivals really explain the vast amount
of uncultivated land found in the Midi after 778, though they help explain
some of it.
Thus we must look for another explanation.
Perhaps the most satisfactory one lies in the fact that the society of
the Midi -- and this includes Catalonia -- had not in the period before
718 begun to use land very effectively. The
villa
system, which
still seems to have been the dominant method of landowning, simply did
not provide a way of settling new land which the
coloni
who dwelt
on such
villas
might well have desired to cultivate for themselves.
Nor do we have any evidence that the Church in the Midi was any more enterprising
in this respect.
(90)
Not until the Carolingians
established a new land policy were the waste places of the
[19]
Midi to be put to the plow or brought into effective use, and this in a
new and different era.
Such then was the pattern of Southern
French society on the eve of Moslem and Carolingian intervention. It was
a region which consisted of large estates (except perhaps in Gascony),
which were generally cultivated by serflike
coloni
and which were
run by an aristocracy of allodial landholders, who made some use of
precaria
as
well. It was a region whose Church, except in Gascony, seems to have been
closely linked to the same landholding class and whose government, divided
into four great regions, was in the hands of counts and similar officials.
Throughout its area, again with the exception of Gascony, Roman and Visigothic
law had survived, and the aristocracy, who were frequently fighting men,
relied in part on castles and other fortresses to defend themselves. The
society was one, however, in which neither government nor military service
was well organized and in which the economy was increasingly local. Its
two stronger neighbors, Moslem and Carolingian, were soon to intervene
in its affairs and bring it to a new and different era.
Notes for Chapter One
1. E. Duprat in
Bouches
du Rhône: Encyclopédie départementale,
II, 248-250;
G. de Manteyer,
La Provence du I
er
au XII
e
siècle,
pp.
100-154.
2. The basic work
on the Narbonnaise in the pre-Carolingian period remains A. Dupont,
Les
cités de la Narbonnaise première dupuis les invasions germaniques.
3. Julian of Toledo,
Historia
Excellentissimi Wambae Regis,
ch. 5, in
España sagrada,
vol.
VI;
Chronologia et series regum Gothorum,
in
Hist. Gén.
de Lang.,
II, col. 19-20;
Divisio terminorum episcopatum provinciae
Narbonensis,
in
ibid.,
II, col. 20-21.
4. On Basques
on the French side of the Pyrenees see J. Jaurguin,
La Vasconie,
I,
80 ff. On the fact that these Basques
"trans Garronam et circa Pireneum
montem habitant"
see
Annales Regni Francorum,
ed. G. Kurze,
anno. 816, p. 141.
5. On the Basque-inhabited
lands in Northern Spain see J. Lacarra,
Vasconia medieval: Historia
y Filología,
pp. 14-20.
6. On this change
to Islamic control in Northeastern Spain see R. de Abadal i de Vinyals,
"El paso de Septimania del dominio godo al franco a través de la
invasión sarracena," in
Cuadernos de Historia de España,
XIII,
9-15.
7.
Divisio
terminorum episcopatum provinciae Narbonensis,
col. 20-21. By the seventh
century these bishoprics had been completely integrated into the Visigothic
kingdom and their bishops were regularly represented at Church councils
held at Toledo
(Hist. Gén. de Lang.,
I, c. 7, no. 16).
8. On the bishops
of Provence see
Bouches du Rhône,
II, 248-249.
9.
Hist. Gén.
de Lang.,
II, no. 3, col. 40-41, and C. Higounet,
Le comté
de Commignes de ses origines
à
son annexation à la
Couronne,
I, 12-15. The above charter mentioning the Council of 673
contains among its witnesses a bishop who calls himself the bishop of the
Basques. See also mention of bishoprics in Auvergne, and at Bourges, Rodez,
Agen, Angoulême, Périgord, and Cahors, in
Vie de Saint
Didier,
ed. R. Poupardin, VIII, 27-28.
10. See the mention
of counts in the Narbonnaise in the late seventh century in Julian of Toledo,
Historia
Excellentissimi Wambae Regis,
ch. 5. On the Gothic Count Misemundus,
who was the ally of Pepin the Short in the Narbonnaise see C
hronicon
Ucenense,
in
Hist. Gén. de Lang.,
II, col. 25-27 (hereafter
cited as
Chron. of Uzès
)
.
On the Gothic count of Maguelonne
who was the father of St. Benedict of Anime see
Vita Benedicti Anianensis,
ed.
E. Waitz, bk. I, in
Mon. Ger.
Hist. Scriptores,
XV, 201.
11. On the money
of Narbonne coined as late as the reign of Witiza (701-711) see
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
VII, 324.
12.
Vie de
Saint Didier,
I-II, 1-9, and V, 21.
13. Fredegarius,
Chronicon
quod dicitur Fredegarii continuatio,
ed. R. Krusch, ch. 125, 129-130,
134, in
Mon. Ger. Hist. Scriptores renum Merov.,
II, 187, 189-190,
192 (hereafter cited as
Fredegarii cont.
)
.
14. See account
of testimony given to a later Carolingian court (in 780) by the aged Bishop
Maurontius concerning the power exercised by pre-Carolingian patricians
of Provence over the abbey of Saint-Victor of Marseille, in
Cartulaire
de l'abbaye de Saint-Victor de Marseille,
ed. B. Guéraud, no.
31, pp. 43-46 (hereafter cited as
Cart. de Saint-Victor
)
.
15. One of the
earliest references to such
duces
or
principes
of Gascony
is in 673 when a document refers to a certain
"Lupo duce"
in
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 3. See also reference to this same Lupo
at about the same period in a document which says that he controlled a
number of cities in Aquitaine (
Miracula Sancti Martialis Lemovicensis,
ed.
D. Bouquet, bk. II, ch. 3, in
Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de
la France,
III, 580). Later in 769, Lupo
dux
of the Gascons,
submitted to Charlemagne
(
Annales Laurissense,
in
Mon. Gen. Hist.
Scriptores,
I, 148; Einhard,
Vie de Charlemagne,
ed. L. Haiphen,
ch. 5, p. 445; and Astronomus,
Vita Hludovici imperatoris,
ed. G.
Pertz, ch. 2, in
Mon. Gen. Hist. Scriptores,
II, 608 [hereafter
cited as Astronomus,
Vita Hludovici
]).
16. Count Misemundus
or Ansemundus in 752 turned over to Pepin fortresses at Nîmes, Maguelonne,
Agde, and Béziers (
Chron. of Uzès,
col. 25-26;
Annales
Anianenses,
in
Hist. Gén. de Lang.,
II, col. 5-6 [hereafter
cited as
Annals of Aniane
]; and
Chronicon Moisiacense,
ed.
G. Pertz, in
Mon. Gen. Hist. Scniptores,
I, 293-294 [hereafter cited
as
Chron. of Moissac
]). See also the account of the independent
authority in Aquitaine exercised in 761 by Umbert, count of Bourges, and
Bladino, count of Auvergne, according to
Fredegarii cont.,
ch. 125,
p. 187.
17. Though the
Chron.
of Moissac,
p. 291, says that the Moslems seized Arles in 734, another
contemporary source says that in 737 the patrician Maurontius turned Avignon
over to them (
Fredegarii cont.,
ch. 19, pp. 177-178). This would
imply that at this date he still controlled this city and its
castra.
Another
local source agrees with the
Chron. of Moissac
(
Annals of Aniane,
cols. 3-5). Duprat in
Bouches du Rhône,
II, 131-132, A.
Molinier in "Sur les invasions Arabes dans le Languedoc," in
Hist. Gén.
de Lang.,
II, 550-552, and H. Zotenburg in
ibid.,
pp. 557-558,
follow the Fredegarius version.
18. See account
of court of 780 already mentioned (
Cart. de Saint-Victor,
no. 31).
19. The Visigoths
of Narbonne only surrendered this city to Pepin in 759 when he assured
them they could continue to use their own Visigothic laws (
Chron. of
Moissac,
p. 294, and
Annals of Aniane,
col. 6-7).
20. See Chapter
3, Section II, on the survival of Roman and Visigothic law in Aquitaine
and the Valley of the Rhone in later Carolingian times. For a more contemporary
example of the use of Roman private law see the will of Abbo, dating from
739, in
Cartulaire de l'église Cathédrale de Grenoble,
ed.
J. Marion, pp. 34-49, and the comments on its Roman legal content in G.
Chevrier, "L'évolution de l'acte à cause de mort en Dauphiné
du VIl
e
à la fin du X
e
siècle," in
Recueil
de la société historique de droit et des institutions des
pays du droit écrit,
I (1948).
21.
Chron.
of Moissac,
p. 292.
Fredegarii cont.,
ch. 20, p. 178, mentions
a siege of Avignon and its
castra
in 737 by Childebrand, the brother
of Charles Martel.
22. On Charles
Martel's destruction of the
castra
and walls of the
civitates
of
the eastern Narbonnaise after he retreated from before Narbonne in 738
or 739 see
Annals of Aniane,
col. 4-6;
Chron. of Moissac,
p.
292; and
Fredegarii cont.,
ch. 20, pp. 177-178. On Pepin the Short's
long siege of Narbonne, which did not fall until 759 see
Chron. of Moissac,
p.
294;
Annals of Aniane,
col. 6-7; and
Chron. of Uzès,
col.
26-27. Obviously the Narbonnaise was heavily fortified during this period,
as it had been in Visigothic times.
23.
Divisio
terminorum episcopatum provinciae Narbonensis,
col. 21.
24.
Vie de
Saint Didier,
II-III, 16-19, and VIII, 50.
25.
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 3.
26.
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 208, contains references to the castle
of Viviers, which date from the seventh century.
27.
Chron.
of Moissac,
p. 290;
Annals of Aniane,
col. 2-3; and
Chron.
of Uzès,
col. 25.
28.
Fredegarii
cont.,
ch. 15, p. 176.
29.
Ibid.,
ch.
126, 129, pp. 187-189,
Annales Laurissenses,
pp. 142-144. On walls
of Limoges which were destroyed by Pepin see a later account in "Ex historia
monasteril usercensis," in
Cartulaire de l'abbaye d'Uzerche,
ed.
J. Champéval, pp. 13-14.
30.
Fredegarii
cont.,
ch. 25, 125-126, 129, pp. 180, 187-189, and
Annales Laurissenses,
pp.
142, 144, 146.
31.
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 3.
32. See Chapter
2, Section I, on the warlike nature of this society.
33.
Vie de
Saint Didier
, II, 15-16.
34.
Cart.
de Grenoble,
pp. 34-38. It is interesting to note that Abbo's will
mentions no fortresses within or near his domains.
35. A. Boretius
and V. Krause,
Capitularia regum Franconum,
in
Mon. Gen. Hist.
Capitularia,
I, nos. 10-12, pp. 29-32 (hereafter cited as Boretius,
Capitulania
).
36. See Note
17. Local authorities and sources mention Moslem conquest rather than a
collaboration between Maurontius and the Moslems.
37. Ademar de
Chabannes, who may be drawing upon an unknown source from Aquitaine, says
that as early as 718 Eudes, duke of Aquitaine, used Gascons in his wars
with Charles Martel (Ademar de Chabannes,
Chronique,
ed. A. Chavanon,
I, 51, pp. 51-52 thereafter cited as
Ademan de Chabannes
]). The
more contemporary
Fredegarii cont.,
ch. 10, agrees. In 742 Duke
Hunald had Gascon allies (
ibid.,
ch. 25). In 761 Count Bladino of
Clermont had Gascons in his garrisons (
ibid.,
ch. 125). So did Count
Humbert of Bourges in 762 (
ibid.,
ch. 126). During Duke Waiffre's
last years of struggle in 764-766, he had Gascon assistance (
ibid.,
ch.
130-131).
38. They are
Saint-Basil of Nimes, Saint-André of Agde, and Saint-Gilles, probably
located in the Rhone delta (
Hist. Gén. de Lang.,
I, ch. 6,
no. 70).
39. On the survival
of Visigothic abbeys in Urgell see R. de Abadal i de Vinyals,
Els Primers
Comtes Catalans,
pp. 115-120, and "La batalla del adopcionisme en la
destintegración de la Iglesia visigoda," in
Real Academia de
Buenas Letras de Barcelona.
40. See
Cart.
de Saint-Victor,
no. 31, and Introduction to this cartulary by B. Guéraud,
pp. i-xxii.
41. See
Cartulaine
de l'abbaye de Lénins,
ed. H. Mons and E. Blanc, and
ibid.,
I,
293, no. 290.
42.
Cartulaire
de l'abbaye de Vigeois,
ed. M. de Montegut, no. CLI, pp. 95-97.
43.
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 208.
44.
Vie de
Saint Didier,
VI, 22-23.
45.
Ibid.,
VII,
25-26, for mention of abbey of Moissac. On land acquired by Moissac see
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 4, col. 42-45.
46.
Cart.
de Grenoble,
pp. 34-48.
47.
Vie de
Saint Didier,
II-III, 16-19.
48.
Cart.
de Saint-Victor,
no. 31, mentions a series of gifts to this monastery
by patricians of Provence.
49.
Ibid.
50. Dupont,
Les
cités de la Narbonnaise,
pp. 210-212.
51. The abbey
of Moissac included
pallios
worth 200
solidi
in the purchase
price they paid to Nizezius for certain large tracts of land in 680 in
the Toulousain region (
Hist. Gén. de Lang.,
II, no.4, col.
45).
52. The same
charter mentions 700
solidi
(
ibid.
)
.
53. P. Le Gentilhomme,
Mélanges
de Numismatique Merovingienne,
pp. 9-10. See also comments by J. Lafaurie
in
Settimane de studio del Centro di studi sull'-alto medioevo,
VIII
(1960), 254-257, and in
Revue Numismatique,
XXIII (1959-1960), 153-210.
54. Le Gentilhomme,
Mélanges
de Numismatique Merovingienne,
pp. 120-125, on hoard discovered at
Baugisière.
55.
Ibid.,
pp.
125-130, on hoard discovered at Buis in the Rhone Valley.
56.
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
VII, 324.
57.
Ibid.,
p.
367.
58. Le Gentilhomme,
Mélanges
de Numismatique Merovingienne,
pp. 126-128.
59. A. Morel-Fatio,
Catalogue
raisonné de la collection des deniers merovingiens des VIl
e
et VIll
e
siècles de la trouvaille de Cimiez.
60. See A. Lewis,
"Le commerce maritime et la navigation sur les côtes de la Gaule
atlantique du V
e
au VIll
e
siècle," in
Le
Moyen Age,
LIX (1953), 277.
61.
Ibid.,
pp.
270-276.
62. L. Levillain,
Examen
des chartes de Corbie,
p. 220.
63. E. Salin,
La
Civilisation Merovingienne,
I, 25-30.
64. M. Brouens,
"Le peuplement germanique de la Gaule entre Méditerranée
et l'ocean," in
Annales du Midi,
XLVIII (1956), 17-37. On this large
Frankish element in Rouergue, which, in part, may date from Carolingian
times, see C. Higounet, "Observations sur la seigneurie rurale et l'habitat
en Rouergue du IX
e
au XIV
e
siècle," in
ibid.,
LXII
(1950), 121-134. On the similar situation in the Limousin see G. Tenant
de la Tour,
L'homme et la terre de Charlemagne à Saint Louis,
pp.
87 ff.
65. Dupont,
Les
cités de la Narbonnaise,
pp. 200-201. Visigothic elements seem
to have settled in some numbers near Béziers, Perpignan, Narbonne,
and Carcassonne -- that is to say in Western Septimania. Some of this Gothic
population, however, may represent later Carolingian
aprisio
holders.
66.
Annals
of Aniane,
col. 2;
Chron. of Uzès,
col. 25; and
Chron.
of Moissac,
p. 290.
67. Abbo's will
mentions men who bear such names as Astruald, Siguald, and Merobert, and
who hold benefices from him (
Cart. de Gnenoble,
pp. 34-48). This
seems to show a Frankish and Burgundian element present in Dauphiny in
739. On Clothair II's absorption of Provence into the Merovingian realm
in the early seventh century see H. Adelson, "Early Medieval Trade Routes,"
in
American Historical Review,
LXV (1960), 2-3.
68. Again it
is the will of Abbo mentioned earlier which shows how romanized Abbo and
other Franks had become in this part of France in the early eighth century.
On this see also Chevrier, "L'evolution de l'acte"
69. Dupont,
Les
cités de la Narbonnaise,
p. 201.
70. On this Gascon
penetration and mixing with a non-Gascon population see Higounet,
Le
comté de Commignes,
I, 13-15.
71.
Vie de
Saint Didier,
IX, 31-38. On the continuation into the ninth century
of this
villa
pattern in this region see Higounet, "Observations
sur la seigneurie rurale en Rouergue," pp. 17-23. The rare charter of 756-757,
issued by Duke Waiffre in Aquitaine only mentions
villas
in Auvergne
(
Cartulaire
de Brioude,
ed. H. Doniol, no. 26, pp. 47-48). Ademar de Chabannes
also mentions that during the course of his war with Duke Waiffre between
761 and 768 Pepin gave two
villas
to the canons of Saint-Martial
and Saint-Etienne of Limoges (
Ademar de Chabannes,
I, 58, pp. 60-61).
72. On the nineteen
villas
of
Nizezius acquired by the abbey of Moissac in 680 see
Hist. Gén.
de Lang.,
II, no. 4. See also an analysis of these estates in C. Higounet,
"L'occupation du sol du pays entre Tarn et Garonne au moyen âge,"
in
Annales du Midi,
LXIV (1952), 312-314.
73.
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 208.
74. See mention
of the
villas
of Caladio and Alpheus owned by the abbey of Saint-Victor
of Marseille in
Cart. de Saint-Victor,
no. 31, pp. 43-45. On the
prevailing
villa
system in Provence see R. Latouche, "Quelques aperçus
sur le manse en Provence au X
e
et au XI
e
siècles,"
in
Recueil des travaux offerts à M. C. Brunel,
II.
75.
Cant.
de Grenoble,
pp. 34-48.
76.
Vie de
Saint Didier,
IX, 33.
77. See mention
of
coloni
of the
villa
of Rusticiago in Rouergue at the time
of St. Didier (
Vie de Saint Didier,
VIII, 27). See also the serfs
of five
villas
owned by Nizezius in the Toulousain in 680 (
Hist.
Gén. de Lang.,
II, no. 4, col. 42-43).
78. Ganshof has
noted the lack of any satisfactory study of the
precarium
of Merovingian
times. This seems especially true of pre-Carolingian Southern Gaul (F.Ganshof,
"L'origine des rapports féodo-vassiliques," in
I problemi della
Civiltà Carolingia,
p. 48 n.).
79.
Vie de
Saint Didier
, IX, 32.
80.
Cart.
de Saint-Victor,
no. 31.
81.
Cart.
de Grenoble,
pp. 34-48. It is worth noting that while humble freedmen
like Bartone are given benefices, the mention of a
fidelis
Protadio
may show a more honorable relationship between Abbo and some of those who
held his land.
82.
Cart.
de Brioude,
no. 26, pp. 47-48.
83. C. Sánchez-Albórnoz
has made it clear that various types of tenure of this sort, both military
and nonmilitary in nature, were common in Visigothic Spain, and thus also
in Septimania which was part of this realm. See his "España y el
feudalismo Carolingia," in
I problemi della Civiltà Carolingia,
pp.
111-124, and
El "stipendium" hispano-godo y los origines del beneficio
pre-feudal.
A canon of the thirteenth council of Toledo seems to imply
that much land was held in this fashion by magnates in Septimania, who
as vassals of King Wamba had their land confiscated for disloyalty
(
Canon
I, XIIIth Council of Toledo,
in
España sagrada,
VI, 29).
On Wamba's law of 683 which forbade churches giving out their land as
precaria
or
sub stipendium
see
Lex Visigothorum,
IV, 5-6, in
Mon.
Ger. Hist. Leges,
I, 202.
84.
Cant.
de Brioude,
no. 26, pp. 46-47. Note that when Pepin in 743 or 744
in
theory
returned to the Church the estates he had given his vassals,
he ordered those who held such lands to pay a
cens
to the Church
owner and receive from it a charter of
precarium
(Boretius,
Capitularia,
I,
nos. 10-12, pp. 29-32). Ganshof notes that in 779 these were called
"precaria
verbo regis"
(
Capitulary of Heristal,
anno 779, in Boretius,
Capitularia,
I,
no. 20, art. 13, p. 32). Such
precaria
seem similar to that in Auvergne
which Duke Waiffre gave to Gédéon. Perhaps Waiffre was copying
Charles Martel and Pepin in an attempt to raise forces to protect his realm
against Carolingian attacks.
85. In the eighth
century, before Charles Mattel attracted important magnates into ties of
vassalage by distributing Church lands to them in 743, vassalage in Frankish
domains generally was reserved for men of humble condition (Ganshof, "L'origine
des rapports féodo-vassiliques," pp. 35-42). This remained true
also under Pepin the Short and even under Charlemagne (see Boretius,
Capitularia,
I,
nos. 15, 16, 104, pp. 38, 44, 215). This seems generally true also of all
Southern France north of Septimania during this period.
86. Ganshof reports
the same thing for
precaria
and benefices in general (Ganshof,
Qu'est-ce
que la féodalité?
pp. 22-24, and "L'origine des rapports
féodo-vassiliques," p. 49).
87. On pre-Carolingian
Italian feudalistic institutions and customs that parallel those of Visigothic
Spain and Merovingian Southern France see P. Leicht, "Il Feudo in Italia
nell'età Carolingia," in
I problemi della Civilta Carolingia,
pp.
71-107.
88.
Annals
of Aniane,
col. 2-3.
89.
Ibid.,
col.
3-4;
Chron. of Moissac,
pp. 291-292; and
Fredegarii cont.,
ch.
13, p. 175.
90. Here Higounet's
study of the cultivation of Moissac's land located between the Tarn and
the Garonne in this period and in later Carolingian times is of vital importance.
He shows that
only old used land
was cultivated. New lands were
not exploited until much later (Higounet, "L'occupation du sol du pays
entre Tarn et Garonne au moyen âge").