If controversy and debate are signs of intellectual vitality, the ninth century offers plenty of examples of a vibrant intellectual culture. Everything, it seems, was controversial, from the Eucharist, to predestination, to the place of images in worship, to the nature of Christ and of the Trinity. Set aside these theological controversies ranged different visions of Carolingian polity, dynastic struggles, different historiographical agendas, competing notions of kingship, and dramatic public controversies.
In 1992, the MGH published Letha Bohringer's fine edition of Hincmar of Reims's De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, a text at the center of a ten-year struggle involving dynastic issues, matrimonial law, and secular and ecclesiastical politics. Now comes the most recent addition to the Concilia series of the MGH, Rudolf Schieffer's equally superb edition of the dossier of texts produced during the bitter struggle between Archbishop Hincmar of Reims (845-882) and his nephew, Bishop Hincmar of Laon (858-871). Peter McKeon told the story of the two Hincmars in great detail in his still very useful Hincmar of Laon and Carolingian Politics (Urbana; University of Illinois Press, 1978), detail made possible by the exceptionally abundant documentation the controversy generated. Until now McKeon and scholars interested in the various issues raised by the controversy have had to rely on Sirmond's 1645 edition of the texts (reprinted in Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. 124). Schieffer's edition, of course, is more critical, is built on more manuscripts, and comes with an apparatus for each text and all the indices one expects in MGH editions--150 pages in this case (pp. 423-583). Schieffer also provides brief but cogent introductions to each of the texts in the dossier.
The younger Hincmar was the son of the archbishop's sister. When she died, the archbishop brought his nephew to Reims where he was raised and, as the archbishop often reminded him, nourished. In 858, the archbishop engineered the election of his nephew (still apparently in his mid-20s) as bishop of Laon, a suffragan see, 28 miles southeast of Reims. The younger Hincmar was a popular choice, both with King Charles the Bald (840-877) and with the people of Laon. The new bishop, in turn, emerged as a strong supporter of Charles during the 860s, lending him troops, land, and the moral suasion inherent in his position. Then, in the late 860s, Hincmar of Laon began to pull away from his archbishop and his king. The big issue, the one that inspired much of the political dreaming Paul Edward Dutton has interpreted, was property. Hincmar of Reims seized property that belonged to Laon and Charles the Bald refused to restore episcopal property to the bishopric. Then, there were matters of ecclesiastical authority. Hincmar of Reims challenged and sought to overturn sentences of excommunication issued by his nephew. McKeon traced the animosity that bound Charles and the two Hincmars in an ever-tightening spiral of charges and countercharges that led to the younger Hincmar's deposition and blinding in 871 to the young bishop's greed and congenital irascibility. Personalities matter, of course, but there were also fundamental issues at stake--sufficiently fundamental to generate an enormous research and writing effort in a brief three-year period from 869 to 871.
Schieffer's edition presents the five most important elements of the dossier. The first, a Materialsammlungen (pp. 7-55) put together by Hincmar of Laon, appears in print in its entirety for the first time. The collection, which survives in a late ninth-century manuscript now in Berlin, consists of excerpts from the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals which are presented in italics, except for a few paraphrased passages and an important reference to Hincmar himself. The excerpts buttress points that were important to the bishop, such as the relationship of suffragan bishops to their metropolitans and to the pope, the issue of rebellious clerics and episcopal lordship, the immunity of bishops against accusations, the restitution of episcopal property, and formal legal proceedings. The second item in the edition is Hincmar of Laon's Pittaciolus (pp. 65-97), which he presented and dedicated to King Charles in November, 869. The Pittaciolus (notes, documents) is another collection of excerpts from Pseudo-Isidore and the Capitula Angilramni intended to impress the monarch with precedents established by decrees of Roman pontiffs that supported the bishop's position.
Hincmar of Reims's Opusculum LV Capitulorum (pp. 130-361) occupies center place in the edition. Composed almost immediately after receipt of the Pittaciolus (March to beginning of June 870), the Opusculum is a substantial work. Addressed to "young priest Hincmar" (139,24), it opens by making a grammatical point at the expense of the bishop of Laon: pittaciolus should be neuter, not masculine. Although excerpts from the Pittaciolus, as well as from the Theodosian Code, Pseudo-Isidore, the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana, the Collectio Hispana, Boethius, Virgil, Servius, Nonius Marcellus, Gregory the Great, Bede, the letters and privileges of contemporary ninth-century popes, and many other texts pepper the Opusculum, Hincmar's hand appears on every page (literally so, since the principal manuscript, Paris, BnF, lat. 2865, is Hincmar's own working copy). Hincmar recorded not only his nephew's debt to his tutelage, but also what he had heard others say about or to him. He noted that Hincmar of Laon refused to give him the kiss of peace at a recent meeting. Personal pronouns and first- and second-person verbs abound as do the names of other bishops, priests, scribes, couriers, counts, and other lay people. A wonderful sense of immediacy permeates this rich document. One even gets a sense of a textual community in full swing as both Hincmars cross referenced their writings with phrases such as in alio codicello, in scripto, in parva scedula, in litteris, in quaternionibus, and, in rotula.
The last two texts in the edition again come from Hincmar of Laon's workshop. The Rotula prolixa (pp. 366-408) of November 870 recounted the bishop's difficulties with his own vassals. By November, however, Hincmar had been implicated in the rebellion of Carlomann, King Charles's son, and had ignored orders to appear at councils. The last document in the dossier, dubbed by Migne the Collectio ex epistolis Romanorum pontificum (pp. 411-419), was compiled during the first half of 871 and used Pseudo-Isidorian texts to vindicate the rights of suffragan bishops and charges that Hincmar of Laon was disobedient.
In the end, power politics ended this war of words and Hincmar of Laon was shorn of his episcopal seat and his sight. Eventually, after King Charles's death in 877, he was restored to priestly function and carried back into his church by his joyous supporters.