Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard

By Einhard

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1442601124
• ISBN13: 9781442601123
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard

This wonderful volume provides a holistic collection of Einhard's writing with a detailed and indepth introduction. Dutton provides a solid historical background for Einhard and the society he lived in. Einhard's works offer a wonderful view of life in the middle ages. His biography of Charlemagne is stylized, yet demonstrates the concerns of state, the expectation of an emperor's subjects, and the role of the courtier in Carolingian Gaul. Einhard second major work, a treatise on the holy martyrs, brings the faith and practice of medieval Christianity to life. All of the works are tied together by Einhard's touching letters. These letters bring the man's character to life. They demonstrate not only the responsibilities of a courtier, land owner, and abbot, but also his love for his family, his faith and the religious crisis he experienced when the two clashed. Every student of medieval history will benifit from reading this book.