The Annals Of Flodoard And The Political Transformation In Late Carolingian West Francia

The late Carolingian falls into the years between 888 and 987,which lies in the transition stage between the second separation of Carolingian and the establishment of Capetian Dynasty.In the year of 911,after the extinction of the loyal Carolingian in East Francia,the descendant of Carolingian who lived in West Francia continued its kingship to the year of 987.In the late Carolingian,the power unit especially the magnates in West Francia broke the political pattern which featured the long time kingship monopoly of Carolingian.Because of the new power of this kind,the all-round cooperation of local authorities,kingship reconstruction and the identification which was based on the interests community have marched into an increasingly developing stage that laid the foundation for the the new kingship established in the late 10^th century.In almost all the literature works of late Carolingian,except the historical materials which took the West Francia of late 9^th century as its main historical source,Les Annales de Flodoard was considered the only existed historical material that narrated the first half of the 10^th century,which provided precious information for studying the evolution of this period.However,domestic academic circles did little practical study about the Les Annales de Flodoard,the dispute process between the Carolingian court and its seigneurs and the source and formation of local powers.Therefore,we choose late Carolingian West Francia as study target and regard Les Annales de Flodoard as the center topic combined with other important original sources in order to replay the real situation and reason of Carolingian destruction,which helps analyze the influenceof the rise of family power have had on the political pattern in West Francia and reveal the struggling and cooperation process among the kingship of late Carolingian,churches and local dignitaries.The essay consists of four parts,which contains Flodoard and Les Annales de Flodoard,relevant historical background,times conditions and kingship change in Les Annales de Flodoard and the Reims ‘world’ change written by Flodoard.Therefore,the essay adopts a macro to micro study method,that is,the space ranges from the whole to the specific and time is arranged from back to latest.Therefore,the essay is approaching the influence the politics change of West Francia in late Carolingian had on Carolingian kingship,local dignitaries,Reims archdiocese and chronicler to search the whole reason and find the evolution law of the West Francia in late Carolingian.Chapter one simply talks about Flodoard from philology and academy aspects;general contents,compilation period,specific contents,time period,compiling history and style of Les Annales de Flodoard;popularity and copies’ collection sites of Les Annales de Flodoard;collation,emendation,translation and review from European and American academic circles.This chapter briefly collates study essays from western academic circles related to the book.Chapter two mainly talks about historical background and related times that Les Annales de Flodoard came from.After the death of Charlemagne,Carolingian fell into endless domestic war and dispute.In 843,the sons of Louis the pious tore the emperor established by its ancestors into parts,since when west Europe stepped into a stage when members of Carolingian governed its own area.In 885,Charles united all the parties separated about in Carolingian after his hard work.However,Carolingian has been long weakened and was faced with a risk of having no offspring,which means great separatists were hiding everywhere.In the year 888,the last emperor Charles was dethroned which indicated the last largest European community was disintegrated.After that,aristocracy sized the opportunity to be strong,indicating that west Europe entered into principality age of late Carolingian.Chapter three takes the the rise of west francia family powers as its theme.During the 9^th century the noble families of Maine are one of major component parts of Carolingian aristocracy.The development process of noble families are also with the decline of Carolingian.In the evolution process of the West Francia,these noble families are increasingly separate themselves from Carolingian bound and move toward to independence,which lays a firm foundation for a formation of 10^th century West Francia principalities.This article takes Maine,power networks of Maine and royal family as its investigate center,which through the rise of Maine noble families powers discusses the influence for political networks and its remodeling during late 9^th century.Chapter four takes the kingship change in late Carolingian as its theme,and combines Les Annales de Flodoard,Recueil des actes de Robert I et de Raoul and other related historical documents to carefully study the development stages of the struggling between Carolingian kingship and local dignitaries,the rise of Robert Family and the story of Richard Ⅲ’s being dethroned.With the above,we are able to deconstruct the legality and constraint of the kingship value in early Middle Ages,based on which we explained the legality source of Robert Family’s dethroning Richard Ⅲ and establishing its own kingship.Finally,we implement all the above to a micro level,that is the monastery war in the Les Annales de Flodoard.Chapter five regards the Reims ‘world’ change,official career of Flodoard and Les Annales de Flodoard as the main study line and considers the Historia Remensis Ecclesiae as a useful original historical materials to replay the mutual struggling and cooperation process of main Reims church area of late Carolingian between the Carolingian kingship and the two local power groups.In addition,based on the abstract study,we returned to a micro level to explain the influence the Reims ‘world’change has had on Flodoard and his history revision attitude and method.Finally,we summarized the area-first concept revealed in the Flodoard.