Charlemagne's Courtier

This is the first really complete Einhard. The intriguing personality of the biographer of Charlemagne, the small man of far-ranging activities, emerges in all its complexity-as statesman and manager, as relic-thief and loving husband, as a peace-maker struggling for his own faith. Paul Dutton assembles all his works and letters and all contemporary references in a new and sensitive translation. The circumspect introduction is attentive also to all the issues of this crucial time of the Carolingian Empire with its complete reversal of political alliances and sulteral stances after Charlemagne's death. Necessary for beginners and helpful for scholars. -- Johannes Fried, University of Frankfurt What Einhard meant to do for Charlemagne, Paul Dutton has done for Einhard, and more, Charlemagne's Courtier brings together a magnificent stock of images, allusions, and texts-virtually every early witness by or about Einhard-and invites us to reflect upon the greatness of Charlemagne's diminutive biographer. To the extent that it is possible after 1200 years to flesh out this eminent Carolingian artist, statesman, and myth-maker, every student now has excellent tools to hand. In translating and commenting, Dutton has unveiled a scattered treasure with care and circumspection. He and Einhard give us much to learn, ponder, and marvel. -- Michael I. Allen, University of Chicago Einhard has long been known exclusively as Charlemagne's biographer, but as Paul Dutton's title suggests, he must be seen rather as Charlemagne's courtier-a complex and ambitious actor in the great drama that was the Carolingian Renaissance. By providing fresh and sensitive translations, not only of the famous biography, but also of his hagiography, letters, and charters, Charlemagne's Courtier provides a wide audience with unique opportunity to study the complete oeuvre of a ninth-century aristocrat and intellectual. -- Patrick J. Geary, University of California at Los Angeles Dutton has carefully gathered and translated every extant work of this famous biographer of Charlemagne... [He] provides readers with a rare treat. -- Comitatus

"This is the first really complete Einhard. Necessary for beginners and helpful for scholars." - Johannes Fried, University of Frankfurt

Among the readings included are several existing letters by Emma (Einhard's wife), The Life of Charlemagne, and The History of His Relics. The latter work transports us into an almost unknown world as Einhard, the cool rationalist, arranges for a relic salesman, a veritable bone seller, to acquire saints’ relics from Italy for installation into his new church. The reader is taken on an intrigue-filled trip to Rome, where Einhard's men creep into churches at night to steal bones and then spirit them away to Einhard in the north. The relics are received in town after town as if they were the living saints come to cure the infirm. Einhard's descriptions of the sick, the lame, and the blind of northern Europe vividly expose us to a side of medieval life too rarely encountered in other medieval sources.