Alice Rio

The formularies of Angers and Marculf : two Merovingian legal handbooks

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction The scope of this book The scope of formulae The problem with formulae Authorship and audience: what the manuscript evidence can tell us The language of formulae Formulae and the written word Formulae and surviving documents Dating formulae: original collections vs. manuscript tradition Local context and diffusion To conclude A note on this translation Part One: The Formulary of Angers Introduction Translation Part Two: The Formulary of Marculf Introduction The scope of the collection Date and place of origin Marculf and Landeric Dating the collection Marculf and St Denis A note on the printed editions Translation Book One Book Two Supplement Additamenta: additional texts from the manuscripts of Marculf a, b, c: three more texts from the manuscripts ofMarculf Appendix I: The original date of the Angers collection: the state of the question Appendix 2: The gesta municipalia Appendix 3: The Marculf collection: manuscripts and editions The manuscript tradition Editions of Marculf and the hierarchy of manuscripts Map Glossary Bibliography Index

Waltharius at Fontenoy? Epic Heroism and Carolingian Political Thought

This article argues that the Latin epic poem Waltharius is best understood as a political commentary on the years following the civil war of 840-843. The poem does not, as has been suggested, mock or undermine lay warriors as heroic figures, but neither does it present their behavior as inherently unproblematic. It should be read instead as a complex meditation on the impossibility of heroism under deficient royal leadership, and as a wistful portrayal of the contradictions and dilemmas affecting the lay elite of the generation who had lived through the battle of Fontenoy. Its criticism of the character of Gunther, and its overall pessimism about kingship, finds echoes in the prose political literature of this time. This article traces some of these echoes, and reads the poem as part of the wider political conversation of the 840s to 870s.