Act of Penance by Attigny

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The act of penance of Attigny is a public penance of the Emperor Ludwig the Pious , which was made in the year 822 in the royal palace of Attigny to repent of political mistakes of the past years, to restore the reputation of his rule and to gain broader support for his politics.

prehistory

Ludwig the Pious had succeeded his father in 814 and tried to secure his power in the following years by banishing all members of the Carolingian ruling house to the monastery or placing them under strict supervision, which he regarded as potentially dangerous.

In July 817 Ludwig made with the Ordinatio imperil his eldest son Lothar to co-emperor and thus ignored the claims of his nephew Bernhard , the son of his deceased older brother Pippin , who was from Charlemagne to the King of the Lombards had been made. Bernhard rebelled, allied himself with a number of nobles against the emperor and his sons, but soon gave up the fight and submitted to his uncle in Chalon-sur-Saône . But instead of pardoning Bernhard, Ludwig had him arrested. An imperial assembly in Aachen sentenced him and his supporters to death in the spring of 818, bishops were deposed on suspicion and Ludwig's half-brothers were put in the monastery. Ludwig converted Bernhard's punishment into blinding, which meant the same thing as death for his political future, since it put an end to the ability to govern. Two days after the execution of the judgment, on April 17, 818, Bernhard died of the injuries he had suffered.

Ludwig's penance

The dealings that Ludwig the Pious used to have with the closest members of his family, and in particular the (unintended) death of Bernhard, brought Ludwig as ruler so badly that, a few months after the death of his close advisor Benedict von Aniane († 11. February 821), in mid-October 821 at an imperial assembly in Thionville, the supporters of Bernhard were pardoned and the long-standing banishment of his cousins Adalhard and Wala lifted. Shortly afterwards, the exiled half-brothers were compensated with prominent ecclesiastical offices - all of this as an "attempt to achieve broader support for the unchanged goals".

Since this amnesty was apparently not sufficient, a combined imperial assembly and synod in the royal palace of Attigny was called for the month of August 822 at the request of the clergy in the "need to also manifest religiously the overcoming of the differences" . At this meeting, the emperor voluntarily made a public confession of guilt, which included his actions towards Bernhard in particular, but also the other family members in general, and submitted to a church penance, the content of which has not been passed down.

In this act of penance, Ludwig came to the aid of the clerics who were present by confessing misconduct and promising improvement, so that on the one hand the emperor was not alone in his step and on the other hand the synod could present itself as a forward-looking reform synod. This time Ludwig achieved his goal: his rule was stabilized for the next few years and only came into a critical phase again when he began to make the mistake of 817 a second time by starting to give his son Karl his second Wife Judith gave in June 823, contrary to the current ordinatio imperii, to be considered as co-heirs.

Deviating from this point of view, the historian Franz-Reiner Erkens describes Ludwig's act of penance “not a low point of imperial rule and the beginning of an unstoppable decline in imperial power, ... but the climax of Ludwig's sazerdotal work as being more responsible for the protection of the church and the salvation of all people Servant of God and trustee of the Most High, ... for whom nothing has to appear more important as a ruling task than to reconcile the kingdom and oneself with God. "

swell

  • Ernst Tremp (ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 64: Thegan, Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs (Gesta Hludowici imperatoris). Astronomus, Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs (Vita Hludowici imperatoris). Hanover 1995 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  • Capitula from episcopis Attiniaci data 822 m. Aug., MGH Capitularia I: No. 174, p. 357.

literature

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Rudolf Schieffer : The Carolingians. (Urban Pocket Books, Volume 411), Stuttgart 1992, 4th revised and expanded edition 2006, ISBN 978-3-17-019099-3 ; P. 121.
  2. ↑ Ludwig's biographer Thegan gives the year 818 for the act of penance, so he puts it immediately after Bernhard's death
  3. ↑ Franz-Reiner Erkens : The sacred rulers in the Middle Ages: from the beginnings to the investiture dispute , Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-017242-5 . P. 149.