Stefan Weinfurter, Karl der Große. Der heilige Barbar

Francia­Recensio 2014/3
Mittelalter – Moyen Âge (500–1500)
Stefan Weinfurter, Karl der Große. Der heilige Barbar, München, Zürich (Piper) 2013, 352 S., 19 Abb., 2 Kt., ISBN 978­3­492­05582­6, EUR 22,99.
rezensiert von/compte rendu rédigé par
Charles West, Sheffield
One of several biographies of Charlemagne timed to come out for the duodecentenary of the emperor’s death, Professor Stefan Weinfurter’s »Karl der Groβe« is a convincing and readable synthesis of recent research, intended to make this research accessible for the general educated reader. Departing from historiographical orthodoxies on a handful of clearly­signalled issues (e. g. the dating of the Paderborn Epic and the size of Carolingian armies), Weinfurter provides those readers with all that they should expect from an up­to­date biography of the celebrated Frankish ruler, with chapters on Charlemagne’s childhood, family, government, court, wars, and his relations with the Papacy, Byzantium and the Caliphate, and so on. To help these readers find their feet, the book comes with a generous and well­chosen selection of nineteen illustrations, of the kind that one would hope to see in such a book – Dürer’s Karl der Groβe painting, Charlemagne’s throne in Aachen, a reconstruction of the Aachen palace itself, photographs of interesting or beautiful manuscripts – and the decision to put a colour map on the opening and closing pages will be welcomed by those unfamiliar with the geography of Charlemagne’s enormous empire (though the appearance on the map of a city on the Thames named »Yorhester« is a little puzzling).
What however marks this biography out is Weinfurter’s conviction that the emperor was a man with a coherent policy. That policy was one of Vereindeutigung, a difficult word to translate into English, but perhaps best rendered as »disambiguation«: in other words, the process of reducing ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings in favour of a clear single meaning. Weinfurter links this to the reading of Augustine by Charlemagne and their circle, and their ensuing efforts to create a »city of God« (Gottesstaat) and a »truth­society« (Wahrheitsgesellschaft) on earth. Unambiguity or Eindeutigkeit was to be imposed on »as many areas of life as possible« (p. 15), as a pre­condition for righteous action. For Weinfurter, this was the »Großprojekt ›Vereindeutigung‹« or »Project ›Disambiguation‹« (p. 201).
Throughout the book, Weinfurter highlights manifestations of this »Eindeutigkeits­Offensive« (p. 262) as they crop up. For instance, Einhard noted that Charlemagne always brought his endeavours to a successful conclusion: this Weinfurter interprets as evidence for Charlemagne’s determination to create clarity, »oder besser: Eindeutigkeit« (p. 27). If the Franks were fond of annalistic forms of historiography, that was because this helped create an understanding of the past that was more Lizenzhinweis: Dieser Beitrag unterliegt der Creative­Commons­Lizenz Namensnennung­Keine kommerzielle Nutzung­Keine Bearbeitung (CC­BY­NC­ND), darf also unter diesen Bedingungen elektronisch benutzt, übermittelt, ausgedruckt und zum Download bereitgestellt werden. Den Text der Lizenz erreichen Sie hier: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by­nc­nd/3.0/de
precise, »oder besser – eindeutig« (p. 31). Charlemagne’s turn against the network of marriage alliances created by his mother Bertrada in the early 770s was driven by his desire for »politischer Eindeutigkeit« (p. 85); his order for a general oath of loyalty in 789 was actually also about »Eindeutigkeit« (p. 141); his decision to settle in Aachen from 794 represented the creation of an »eindeutigen und festen Mittelpunkt« (p. 152). This search for clarity also lay behind Charlemagne’s decisions about regnal succession (p. 175), educational reform (p. 182), liturgical reform (p. 190: »Karl der Groβe war sicher: Er wollte Eindeutigkeit«), the development of Caroline minuscule (p. 195), and the imperial coronation (p. 237), amongst other aspects of his rule.
As a way of lending coherence to Charlemagne’s long reign, this approach clearly has a great deal to be said for it, enabling Weinfurter to do more than simply provide a strictly positivist account of Charlemagne’s efforts and achievements that would be little more than a rewritten Royal Frankish Annals with a dash of Einhard thrown in. It brings however two risks. First, there is the danger of reading too much coherence into Charlemagne’s varied activities and achievements. »Disambiguation« can indeed be discerned in almost everything that Charlemagne did, but is this because these were all linked in some way as part of a grand plan, or simply because it is a capacious concept? In other words, is Weinfurter’s interpretation, ironically, itself an excessive Vereindeutigung of Charlemagne’s actions as ruler of the Franks? Secondly, such an emphasis on one person puts everyone else in the shade, as merely the backdrop onto which the emperor’s will and capacity for action were projected. The Saxons, Charlemagne’s rivals, the papacy, the Franks themselves: all these become so many opportunities or resources for political, cultural and religious clarification on Charlemagne’s part. Weinfurter’s response to the first of these is that, broad as the concept of Vereindeutigung may be, it certainly does not characterise all societies at all times; he suggests that for instance our contemporary world’s preference for plurality and diversity (at least in the human sciences) is wholly at odds with such a Weltanschauung. As for the issue of agency, any biography of Charlemagne is intrinsically likely to overplay the emperor’s own role: that is simply a problem common to all biographies by the very nature of their endeavour. In fact, this reviewer has an instinctive sympathy with Weinfurter’s interpretative ambition, as an attempt to articulate what lay beneath the well­known early Carolingian enthusiasm for reform and change across a number of fields which reaches beyond appeals to a bland Christianisation, which in itself, after all, really explains nothing at all. Weinfurter has written a book that ensures readers unfamiliar with early medieval history will come away with a clear sense of who Charlemagne was, what he did – and a way of thinking about why he did it, too.
Lizenzhinweis: Dieser Beitrag unterliegt der Creative­Commons­Lizenz Namensnennung­Keine kommerzielle Nutzung­Keine Bearbeitung (CC­BY­NC­ND), darf also unter diesen Bedingungen elektronisch benutzt, übermittelt, ausgedruckt und zum Download bereitgestellt werden. Den Text der Lizenz erreichen Sie hier: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by­nc­nd/3.0/de