Agobard of Lyons and Paschasius Radbertus as Critics of the Empress Judith
The Empress Judith has been assigned a central role in the reign of Louis the Pious. But the part she has played has been a controversial one. Judith has been stigmatized as a problem, if not the problem, in the reign. In July 817 Louis had made arrangements for the succession in the Ordinatio imper...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1990
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| In: |
Studies in church history
Year: 1990, Volume: 27, Pages: 15-25 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The Empress Judith has been assigned a central role in the reign of Louis the Pious. But the part she has played has been a controversial one. Judith has been stigmatized as a problem, if not the problem, in the reign. In July 817 Louis had made arrangements for the succession in the Ordinatio imperii, which divided the Empire between his three legitimate sons, Lothar, Pippin, and the young Louis: a few months after the death of their mother, Irmengard, in October 818, the forty-year-old Emperor married for a second time. The young Judith gave Louis another son, Charles, born on 13 June 823. A long historiographical tradition has isolated Judith’s political activities on behalf of her son as a cause of strife, provoking, for example, the rebellions against Louis in 830 and 833. And she stands condemned for this as a woman. In the nineteenth century Judith was seen as motivated not by reason but by emotion—blind Mutterliebe—and as having deployed ‘feminine wiles’ to further her ends. In the 1980s the language may have changed, but Judith is still seen in similar terms: Pierre Riche has described her influence over her middle-aged husband as ‘toute-puissante’. This view of Judith is overly dependent upon two sources which are not only hostile to Judith, but also reveal a strong ecclesiastical bias. |
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| ISSN: | 2059-0644 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in church history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0424208400011980 |
