Abstract
To study the historical sky or, rather, the sky in history may not be an entirely empty exercise, not if that sky spoke to the past and its actors, not if it became a focal point for their historical attention, and not if it was invested with meanings that weighed heavily on the earth-bound. This exploratory study moves from a consideration of Charlemagne and his stars to the divinatory and historical meaning of stars in the Carolingian age, and finally ends by examining the place of kings in the stars and as stars.
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Notes
See H. Schnitzler, “Das Kuppelmosaik der Aachener Pfalzkapelle,” Aachener Kunstbldtter, 29 (1964): 17–44
Herbert Schrade, “Zum Kuppelmosaik der Pfalzkapelle und zum Theoderich-Denkmal in Aachen,” Aachener Kunstbldtter, 30 (1965): 25–37
E. Stephany, “Das Aachener Domschatz: Versuch einer Deutung,” Aachener Kunstbldtter, 42 (1972): xx–xxii.
See aslo Nigel Hiscock, “The Aachen Chapel: A Model of Salvation?” in Science in Western and Eastern Civilization in Carolingian Times, ed. Paul Leo Butzer and Dietrich Lohrmann (Basel, 1993), pp. 115–26.
See Paul Edward Dutton and Edouard Jeauneau, “The Verses of the Codex Aureus of Saint-Emmeram,” Studi Medievali, 3rd ser., 24 (1983): 113–117 [75–120]; and repr. in
Jeauneau, Etudes erigeniennes (Paris, 1987), pp. 593–638.
See EN. Estrey, “Charlemagne’s Silver Celestial Table,” Speculum, 18 (1943): 112–117
Stephen C. McCluskey, Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 140–41.
Peter Brown, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (Cambridge, 1995), p. 8.
For a color illustration of this page in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, lat. 1141, fol. 5r, see Florentine Miitherich and Joachim Gaehde, Carolingian Painting (New York, 1976), p. 33. Eriugena, carmen 2.8, ed. Ludwig Traube, MGH:PLAC 3, p. 538.9, describes the Seraphim as “oculosa,” which seems to be understood differently by
Michael Herren, in Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae Carmina, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, 12 (Dublin, 1993), p. 85,”you can see the Seraphim and the ones ‘full of eyes’ as they fly, but oculosa qualifies “Seraphin” and not some other angelic being. Rev. 4:8 describes six-winged creatures who “plena sunt oculis” and the Te igitur depiction of the Gellone Sacramentary (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, lat. 12048, fol. 143v) depicts two Seraphim with eye-spotted wings.
See the drawing of the hemispheres from Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Nouv. acq. lat. 1614, fol. 81v in Patrick McGurk, “Carolingian Astrological Manuscripts,” Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom. Papers based on a Colloquium held in London in April 1979, ed. Margaret Gibson and Janet Nelson with the assistance of David Ganz, BAR International Series, 101 (Oxford, 1981), p. 327, and see also
Hans Hollander, Early Medieval Art, trans. Caroline Hillier (New York, 1974), p. 88 and fig. 69.
And not Gundrada as Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman, Okla., 1985), p. 121 n. 41, thought or Gisela as did
Pierre Riche, Daily Life in the Carolingian Empire, trans. Jo Ann McNamara (Philadelphia, 1978), p. 205.
See Wolfram Brandes, “‘ Tempora periculosa sunt”: Eschatologisches im Vorfeld der Kaiserkronung Karls des Grossen,” in Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794: Kristillisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur, ed. Rainer Berndt (Mainz, 1997), pp. 49–79 and Michael Idomir Allen, “The Chronicle of Claudius of Turin,” in After Rome’s Fall, p. 318 and n. 147 [288–319]. Claudius, for instance, following Bede deliberately bypassed the problem. On the scheme itself, see Richard Landes, “The Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000: Augustinian Historiography, Medieval and Modern,” Speculum, 75 (2000): 111–114[97–145] and also David Van Meter, “The Empire of the Year 6000: Escha-tology and the Sanctification of Carolingian Politics” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1997).
See Bruce Stansfield Eastwood, “The Astronomy of Macrobius in Carolingian Europe: Dungal’s Letter of 810 to Charles the Great,” Early Medieval Europe, 3 (1994): 117–34. Bruce Eastwood also kindly sent me a copy of his forthcoming, “Pliny the Elder’s Natural History : The Encyclopedia for Carolingian Astronomy and Cosmology.”
See also Jay Ingram, “The Monks Who Saw the Moon Split Open,” in Ingram, The Barmaid’s Brain and Other Strange Tales from Science (Toronto, 1998), pp. 174–84.
See D. Justin Schove in collaboration with Alan Fletcher, Chronology of Eclipses and Comets, AD 1–1000 (Bury St. Edmunds, 1984), p. 295.
See also Robert R. Newton, Medieval Chronicles and the Rotation of the Earth (Baltimore, 1972).
See Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire, Regents Studies in Medieval Culture, ed. Eugene Vance (Lincoln, Neb., 1994), pp. 88–100.
See Janet L. Nelson, “Public Histories and Private History in the Work of Nithard,” in Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 195–237.
Life of Constantine 4.69, translated and commented on by Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall, in Eusebius, Life of Constantine (Oxford, 1999), pp. 180–81, 345–46.
And see Sabine G. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 122–32.
See Walahfrid Strabo, carmen 19, “De quodam somnio ad Erluinum,” ed. Dummler, MGH:PLAC 2, pp. 364–65, and Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750–1150 (Philadelphia, 1993), pp. 79–105, 273–74. Polachar is not, of course, Walahfrid himself as I had assumed in The Politics of Dreaming, pp. 44–45. A manuscript of Madrid portrays Zeus seated on his soaring eagle, see
Herbert L. Kessler, The Illustrated Bibles from Tours, Studies in Manuscript Illumination, 7 (Princeton, 1977), p. 78 and fig. 119.
See Robert G. Calkins, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., 1983), pp. 97–102and plate 45. This historiated initial was presumably made for the original book before it underwent changes in the summer of 845. On those alterations, see
Paul Edward Dutton and Herbert L. Kessler, The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald, in Recentiores: Later Latin Texts and Contexts, ed. James J. O’Donnell (Ann Arbor, 1997), pp. 44–56.
Audradus, Liber revelationum 11, ed. Ludwig Traube, “O Roma nobilis: Philologische Untersuchungen aus dem Mittelalter,” Abhandlungen der philosophischen-philologischen Classe der koniglich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 19 (Munich, 1892), p. 383: “sedit in confinio aetheris et aeris.” Also trans. Dutton, In Carolingian Civilization, pp. 351–59.
Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, Illinois, 1962), p. 35. On the stars and astral deification in epitaphs, see idem, pp. 34–40, 310–314.
See Virgil, Eclogae 9.47; Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.779–870; Dio 69.11. And see Stefan Weinstock, Diuus Julius (Oxford, 1971) for an extensive study of the deification of Julius Caesar.
See Wilhelm Bousset, Die Himmelsreise der Seek(Darmstadt, 1901)
A.F. Segal, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaisism, Early Christianity, and their Environment,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt 2, Principat, 23.2 (1980): 1333–94.
See Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, ed. Diimmler, MGH:PLAC 1, p. 367.56 and Gabriel Silagi, “Karolus—cara lux,” Deutsches Archiv, 37 (1981): 786–91.
On Eriugena’s role as court poet, see Paul Edward Dutton, “Eriugena, the Royal Poet,” in Jean Scot Ecrivain: actes du IVe Colloque international, Montreal, 28 aout-2 septembre 1983, ed. G.-H. Allard (Montreal, 1986), pp. 51–80.
Eriugena, carmen 9, ed.Traube, MGHiPLAC 3, pp. 550–52. See also Dutton and Jeauneau, “The Verses of the Codex Aureus”; pp. 102–13 and M. Foussard, “Aulae sidereae. Vers de Jean Scot au roi Charles,” Cahiers archeologiques, 21 (1971): 79–88.
See carmen 1, line 3, ed. Paul Edward Dutton, “Evidence that Dubthach’s Priscian Codex Once Belonged to Eriugena,” in From Athens to Chartres: Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought. Studies in Honour of Edouard Jeauneau (Leiden, 1992), pp. 18–19, and, on the circumstances, pp. 20–21.
For illustrations, see J. Hubert, J. Porcher, andW. F. Volbach, The Carolingian Renaissance, trans. James Emmons, Stuart Gilbert, and Robert Allen (New York, 1970), pp. 147, 149.
For a plate, see Magnus Backes and Regine Dolling, Art of the Dark Ages, trans. Francisca Garvie (New York, 1970), p. 150 and
Sigmund Freiherr von Polnitz, Die Bamberger Kaisermantel (WeiBenhorn, 1973), pp. 32–39. See also McCluskey, Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe, pp. 141–45.
See Kurt Weitzmann, “The Heracles Plaques of St. Peter’s Cathedra,” The Art Bulletin, 55 (1973): 1–37
Weitzmann, “An Addendum to the ‘Heracles Plaques of St. Peters Cathedra,’” The Art Bulletin, 56 (1974): 248–52.
See Genevra Kornbluth, Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire (University Park, Perm., 1995). The Throne of Dagobert also has three empty oval spaces on the back of the throne.
See Clive N. Ruggles and Nicholas J. Saunders, “The Study of Cultural Astronomy,” in Astronomies and Cultures: Papers derived from the third “Oxford” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy, St. Andrews, UK, September, 1990 (Niwot, Colorado, 1990), pp. 1–31.
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Dutton, P.E. (2004). Of Carolingian Kings and Their Stars. In: Charlemagne’s Mustache and other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06228-4_4
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