Some More Fun Facts About the Carolingians

I’m almost done with Oathbreakers, so I figured I’d put together some of the interesting tidbits I’ve picked up from it.

Letters weren’t private

This is, in retrospect, completely obvious. However I feel like a lot of the time people in privacy spaces act as if letters in the past were somehow much more private than our present day communications systems.¹ It was quite interesting to hear that not only were letters basically public, but that their authors understood this and wrote them as such. It makes me feel slightly less narcissistic for running a blog.

Ungood deeds go unpunished

The authors take some time to note that the Carolingian Civil War escalated, at least in part, due to the repeated unwillingness to “adequately” punish uprisings. There had been several attempts dating back to the rule of Charlemagne, almost all somehow by guys named Pepin.² However, the Carolingian rulers, especially Louis the Pious, was fairly reluctant to inflict severe punishment on the perpetrators of these schemes. Basically a bunch of dudes would raise armies and march all the way up to the point of pitching battle when at the last minute they’d extract concessions or whatever and march back home.

It is possible that the lack of punishment for these uprisings led to a breakdown in overall cohesion in the central government. I have no idea why the authors would feel it important to emphasize something like that this day in age.

Political criticism was a thing even in the 9th century

I think my brain has a warped perspective of history, because this is another completely obvious thing in retrospect, but not something I would have assumed before reading this book. It’s true that these criticisms take fairly…unique forms,³ but they’re there.