Carine van Rhijn

‘Et hoc considerat episcopus, ut ipsi presbyteri non sint idiothae’

Sometime in the years around 800, an archbishop – possibly Arn of Salzburg – composed a letter of instruction to his suff ragan bishops, listing the decisions of a synod that he wished to be passed on to the secular clergy in each diocese under his supervision. 1 Th is text, which we now know as Arn’s Instructio pastoralis , is clearly a product of the Carolingian reforms, because just like the Admonitio generalis of 789 it shows, among other things, how the entire secular ecclesiastical hierarchy was mobilised to ‘correct’ and ‘emend’ the lives of all lay Christian Franks. 2 Local priests played a key role, for they lived among the laity as representatives of the Church. Who better than they could therefore teach the lay population how to live their lives so that they would please God and fi nd their way to heaven aft er death? Like many contemporary texts,