Early medieval treaties sometimes seem scarcely worth the parchment they were written on. Despite the solemnity of the language used and the severity of the oaths sworn, they were frequently broken, and sometimes rather quickly at that (see here the Perpetual Peace of 532 between Rome and Iran, which lasted all of eight years, or the Fifty-Year Peace of 562, which managed a slightly more respectable ten years). This is notoriously the case of the treaties between the warring Carolingians of the middle of the ninth century, some of which I have been translating for this blog. But while the shelf-life of a treaty from the 850s sometimes resembled that of a mayfly, that did not mean that they were forgotten or irrelevant for subsequent negotiations. Rather, they formed part of the shared context by which future diplomacy could be interpreted. Not only could the terms of past agreements be referred to and repeated again, but treaties from years gone by were preserved and reread in order to be useful for defining the political landscape to come. That takes us to today’s translation, which is of the Treaty of St-Quentin of 857, made between Charles the Bald and Lothar II.
Karoli II et Hlotarii II conventus apud Sanctum Quintinum, in MGH Capit. II, no. 268, pp. 293-5.
The proclamation of Charles and his nephew Lothar at Saint-Quentin in March in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord 857.
Charles’ Proclamation.
1. We want you to know about the meeting which we held. After God called our father from this world, I have always received such advice from my beloved brother Louis as it was necessary for me and I sought from him and befit him to give; and by his encouragement and intervention it came to pass, thanks be to God, there was such unanimity between me and my brother Lothar [I] of good memory, just as should have been amongst brothers. And on account of such causes for complaint as lay between us, we found with our common followers that it was necessary that an assurance be made between us in accordance with God’s will concerning our common progress and assistance, and the salvation of our sons and kingdom and of our followers, in such a manner as we knew well from Our common followers who were present; and in his lifetime he preserved this towards us, and thanks be to God, we preserved it towards him; and by God’s help, as far as we know and we can, we seek to preserve towards his sons (our nephews), and they seek to do this towards us.
2. After his death, as you have heard, partly because of my infirmity, partly because of the coming of the pagans, and because of the other things which occurred in our kingdom, until now there has not been an opportune point for me and my most beloved nephew to talk together and demonstrate to each another our present wishes that each of us keeps towards the other in our hearts.
3. However, a suitable point emerged, because my dearest nephew talked with my most beloved brother Louis and found in him such agreement and council as was necessary for the one and befitting for the other to show him; which is fully pleasing to me. And now, when he talked to me, he told me that in regard to the assurances which I made with his father, my brother of good memory, and my reception of him into my protection, he wanted to persevere with that reception and that he wished, with the Lord’s aid, to observe entirely the assurance which his father, my brother, made with me.
4. And we found with our common followers, that in order to address such needful matters as you know and see happening in this kingdom, we should confirm in turn, just as we have done, that we must safeguard and aid each other in turn for the honour of the holy church of God, and the common progress and salvation of our faithful, and to secure our kingdom against whosoever is necessary for us, just as an uncle should rightly seek to save and help his nephew and a nephew his uncle.
5. And our followers who were present and gave this advice to us told us that they were prepared to assist us, with the help of the Lord, in all things, so that we each might be able to respect this assurance. And for this reason we wish to hear your consent and wishes from you, if this seems good to you, and if henceforth you wish to offer us help in order that we can observe this with God’s help and yours.
Lothar’s Proclamation.
Just as my uncle tells you, inasmuch as God has bestowed to the knowledge and power, and I wish to preserve that assurance he made with my father, by which he received me under his protection, and which my father made with him, I wish to firmly observe, with God’s help, that which I have made with him.
A further proclamation of King Charles.
We want you to know that on account of these robberies and plundering which have increased in our kingdom, partly because the pagans have come upon us, partly because of certain incidents which have happened in our kingdom, we have summoned and assembled a synod of bishops and a number of our faithful men, so that throughout our kingdom both bishops and our missi and our counts should hold assemblies in each diocese and county, and every man who ought to attend the assembly and dwells in these counties, should attend this assembly without exception or apology. And let the bishops demonstrate to all how grievous this sin is, and what kind of penitence it requires, and what kind of damnation one will gain unless penance does occur. And Our missi shall lay out our capitularies of the law and those of our ancestors on this matter to everyone, and banish so great a suffering. And let all know that whoever presumes to carry out such acts thereafter will receive canonical and royal punishment, as both our bishops and our missi will report more fully at that time.
A further announcement of Lothar
1. Know also that we have decided that when any criminal comes from one of our kingdoms to another, the bishop or missus or count from whose ministry they have fled in order that they might not give just compensation or receive an appropriate punishment, should let the missi into whose missaticum in another realm they had fled know, and they should distrain him in such a manner that he should return to where he has committed the evil either to give compensation or to face punishment.
2. And you may know that, as God [word missing: ‘has conceded’ or similar] through his mercy and through the goodness of my uncles, and through the help of my father and my followers, I have succeeded my father in the kingdom; thus, I wish, with the help of God and the counsel of my uncles and your help to endure in all goodness and in observation of those chapters which my father agreed and confirmed with his brothers, my uncles, at Meerssen concerning the will of God and the honour of the holy church and the stability of the kingdom and the salvation of the holy church and the followers of the kingdom.
Charles’ Third Announcement
May Almighty God grant us that we can earn your fidelity and your help, which you have always demonstrated towards us, along with every baron, just as our ancestors deserved in goodness from your ancestors, and we wish to merit together from you with all kindness.
Those of you who read previous treaty translations here and here will remember that one of the motivations driving the diplomatic activity was Emperor Lothar I’s desire to secure the succession of his sons after his death. That when the long-awaited event happened on 29th September 855 it didn’t immediately cause an all-out war probably had relatively little to do with the treaties Lothar had made with Charles the Bald. As Charles observed in the Treaty of St-Quentin (Charles.1.2, Charles.2), it had been a busy few years. Pippin II disputed Charles’ rule of Aquitaine, while disease and Vikings appear to have been ubiquitous in the West Frankish kingdom. Louis the German spent much of these years battling Moravians, Sorbs and Bohemians on his eastern frontier. This limited Charles and Louis’ capacity to intervene in affairs. The nobles of Lothar I’s Frankish territories also seem to have upheld the old emperor’s succession plan. Lothar II, who inherited the territory that would be known as Lotharingia, was prevented from tonsuring his younger brother, Charles, who became King of Provence. Their older brother, Emperor Louis II, was unhappy to only be ruling Italy but had to lump it.
Ruling a small but immensely rich and politically significant kingdom sandwiched between two larger ones left Lothar II vulnerable. He began his reign aligned with Louis the German, being crowned in Frankfurt in his uncle’s presence. In February 857 Lothar travelled to Koblenz to have another meeting with Louis. But by then Lothar was probably already contemplating a change of direction, and that is what the treaty we’re interested in today represents. On 1 March Lothar agreed to an alliance with Charles the Bald at St-Quentin. Although none of the terms of the treaty are directed against Louis the German, they represent a shift of alignment, one which the East Frankish king responded to by coming to a parallel arrangement with his namesake nephew Louis II. For his part, Charles could do with all the goodwill and help he could get, particularly given recent East Frankish invasions.
In the treaty, both Charles and Lothar consciously hark back to the recent diplomatic past. Charles begins with an idealised summary of said past, referring to the treaty between him and his brothers at Meerssen in 851, presenting an image of cooperation and amity in the years that followed that bares only the vaguest resemblance to reality (Charles.1.1). While he alludes to Lothar II’s dealings with Louis, it’s as part of a necessary desire for concord (Charles.1.2) rather than out of shared interests. Lothar also mentions Meerssen (Lothar.2.2), expressing his commitment to its spirit, but he also makes repeated references to Charles’ recent agreements with Lothar’s father (Lothar.1, Lothar.2.2). The effect is to suggest that rather than switching between uncles for short term political gain, Lothar II was actually inheriting a long-standing affinity. These past relations solidified and stabilised what might otherwise be a very uncertain agreement.
The text also echoes past treaties. Lothar’s emphasis on criminals fleeing to another kingdom (Lothar.2.1) closely resembles his father’s concerns in the Treaty of Valenciennes of 853, as does Charles’ discussion of his domestic agenda. The result is to paint a general picture of inter-Carolingian harmony and good feelings over the past six years as well as a specific image of a particularly close alliance between Charles and Lothar I. One way in which this treaty is very different from that of Valenciennes is the palpable sense of crisis in Charles’ sections of the treaty. Vikings were clearly a major problem for him, one that demanded a great moral and spiritual response as well as a martial one, with much penitence and the restoration of law throughout the kingdom.
The treaty seems to have been reasonably successful. Lothar and Charles remained on good terms over the next couple of years. Lothar fended off the blandishments of Louis the German, failing to show up to a meeting with him in May 858 because of his alliance with Charles. In August 858, Lothar participated in Charles’ failed siege of a Viking army on the island of Oissel in the Seine. The relationship was not without its wobbles. Following Louis’ invasion of the West Frankish kingdom that same August, Lothar met with Louis at Attigny and they came to an agreement. Lothar was being pragmatic here. Forced to retreat to Burgundy, Charles looked utterly defeated at this point. The moment Charles recovered, Lothar renewed their alliance in February 859 and from there until the end of the war with Louis in June 860 they worked closely together. Lothar and Charles of Provence attended a synod hosted by Charles the Bald in June 859, bringing bishops and abbots from their kingdoms with them to join the deliberations.
The Treaty of St-Quentin was signed out of necessity. There was no sentimentality behind it and in 860 the relationship between Charles and Lothar broke down for good. Nonetheless, the memory of past agreements, particularly those between Lothar’s father and Charles, provided a context in which the treaty could be understood and presented to the assembled great and good of the Carolingian world. In doing so it demonstrates to us the way in which treaties were preserved, reread and reused in new contexts in the early medieval world.
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