CulturalMemoryandtheResourcesofthepast

DISCOURSES OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION IN THE CAROLINGIAN WORLD: THE SAXON CASE
Investigator: Robert Flierman

This project explores how Frankish authors conceptualised new members of the Carolingian Empire. It takes as a case study the continental Saxons, who became part of the Carolingian realm during the end of the eighth century. 

Charlemagne’s protracted military campaigns against the largely pagan Saxons (772-804) resulted not only in the latter’s conversion and political incorporation but also initiated a shift in Frankish perception. Over the course of the ninth century, the Saxons went from ‘them’ to ‘us’ in Frankish writing; from pagan outsiders and unfaithful rebels, to members of a Christian people (populus christianus), fighting in Carolingian armies, holding secular and ecclesiastical offices and founding religious institutions.

This project investigates and charts changing discourses on the continental Saxons in three different types of sources: history-writing, hagiography and normative prose. It pays due attention to inclusionary and exclusionary terminology (populus, gens, fides, perfidia) as well as to the utilization of biblical and Roman models.

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