Charlemagne’s Little Brother

John Bailey

BA History and Archaeology

jhb19jyg@bangor.ac.uk

The 4th of December is the anniversary of the death of Carloman (751 – 771), the not so famous younger brother of Charlemagne. Carloman only lived until he was 20 and, before the new King of the Franks could do anything with the position he inherited, he died under ‘suspicious circumstances’ at a time when a war with his brother was growing more likely by the day. The cause of his death was unknown, but it was concluded he had died from a ‘severe nosebleed’. This is something that doesn’t seem lethal and probably was a symptom of something else. It is possible that the king had underlying health issues; this is something we would know little about due to the lack of recovered information from the period. Charlemagne could have had something to do with his death, or it could just have been another chance event in history: the medieval period was very prone to this, as popes and kings had a habit of dying at the worst possible times, thus thwarting their effort to accomplish developments and changes. However, it was extremely convenient for his older brother Charlemagne who could now take the lands inherited by his brother from their father Pepin the Short.

The two brothers kept contending for power and what little actions we know Carloman took during his short reign were mostly to undermine his brother. He attempted to provoke rebellions with King Desiderius of Italy at his side, who was the king of the Lombard kingdom of Italy in Northern Italy at the time. Carloman’s death was sudden and unexpected after the new-found support he gained from Desiderius to use against his brother. With an all-out war being so likely, it didn’t take long for Charlemagne to take advantage of his brother’s death. He seized his lands after being invited to by Carloman’s ‘faithful nobles’, therefore betraying Carloman’s wife and two sons by giving away the kingdom.

Fig. 1: Territories of Charlemagne (red)
and Carloman (blue)
(source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/
190002 4820964502/?lp=true).

Their father certainly knew of their rivalry from a young age, splitting his kingdom in two after he had fallen ill and thus forcing them to cooperate in order to make both kingdoms prosper and be successful. This is demonstrated on the  adjacent map, where Carloman’s territories are denoted in blue and Charlemagne’s (Charles) in red. The latter gained kingship over the Austrasians (and possibly Neustria), while the younger Carloman was given the kingdoms of Burgundy, Provence, Septimania, Alsace and Alemannia. Aquitaine was divided between them. The theoretical power the two brothers had was enormous and relatively equal,  making  them  both unhappy with  their inheritance,  both  desiring  more than the  other brother. However, despite Carloman’s best efforts he didn’t live long enough to contend with his brother and, due to this, would always be Charlemagne’s number two. Allegedly, Charlemagne was also more physically imposing than his brother and had a stronger personality thus often overshadowing his brother. However, whilst this impression could stem from clergymen wanting to elevate Charlemagne, this enshrined the image of his superiority over his brother from childhood onwards. Carloman possibly even feared his brother and probably did plot against him due to the fact that he was so insecure in his own position, believing that Charlemagne would take military action against him soon. Carloman died too swiftly and prematurely to rival his brother’s legend of creating an empire, and thus is why little is said about the brother of Charlemagne.

Marwnad Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch i Lywelyn ap Gruffudd

Cai Davies

BA Cymraeg a Hanes

cpd18jyc@bangor.ac.uk

Dyma draethawd a baratowyd gan yr awdur ar gyfer modiwl CXC–1019 ‘Llenyddiaeth yr Oesoedd Canol’ yn Ysgol y Gymraeg.

This is a critical evaluation of Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch’s elegy to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (Llywelyn the Last). Llywelyn is considered to be the last ‘Welsh’ prince of Wales, and died in battle at Cilmeri in 1282, in the course of conquest of Wales by Edward I. This is an essay prepared by the author for a module in the School of Welsh on the Literature of the Middle Ages.

Humour throughout History

Finlay Tyson

BA Modern and Contemporary History

fnt19vzt@bangor.ac.uk

Fig. 1: The Wipers Times
(c. @National Army Museum,
https://collection.nam.ac.uk/
detail.php?acc=2007-03-17-1).

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’ is an infamous quote by writer and historian L. P. Hartley. It is a quote championed by many in the field of history and displays the differences between the present and the past. However, there can sometimes be a blind allegiance to the view that the past is so different that the ways in which we have stayed the same get ignored.

People and their attitudes have, obviously and undeniably, changed over the thousands of years of human civilisation. But there are some characteristics that have been shown repeatably throughout history to have some sense of continuity, and one, more than any, which has withstood the test of time is humour. For a good modern historical example of this you need look no further than the gallows humour of the two world wars of the twentieth-century. In fact, the very term ‘gallows humour’ fits in with this idea of a humour continuum. Originating from the First World War there are a series of examples, but one of the best preserved and well-known is the Wipers Times. The Wipers Times was a satirical newspaper produced by soldiers to mock traditional newspapers and the war in general (Fig. 1). It was started when the 12th battalion of the Sherwood Foresters, stationed in Ypres, chanced upon a printing press that had been abandoned when its civilian owner had fled. A sergeant, who had been a printer in peacetime, salvaged the press and started printing.

What did the Normans do for us?

Mark Hagger

Reader in Medieval History

m.hagger@bangor.ac.uk

For more of the author’s work,
see his most recent monograph

The following paper comprises the text of a talk given during the Four Nations History Festival, held at Bangor on Friday and Saturday, 25–26 October 2019. The text remains more or less as it was when the paper was delivered—as will be all too obvious to the reader. 

Before we get going on the question of what the Normans did for us, I need to say a few words about who the Normans were and whom I have taken the ‘us’ of the question to be.
The Normans were not a single people, but rather a recently concocted mix. The Normans were in part the Christianized descendants of the Vikings who had been settled at Rouen around 911 by King Charles the Simple, in part the Scandinavian settlers who had made their home in the north west of what would become Normandy during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and in part the indigenous Franks and Bretons who had come under the sway of the Norman dukes and their supporters. In other words, although we speak and write about ‘the Normans’ they did not all have a common origin. Instead, they simply all lived within the territory that recognized the rule of the Norman duke. Indeed, Normandy itself only appears from about 1020, and had yet to achieve its final form by the time the Normans conquered England. That would only occur round about 1120 under Henry I, third of the Norman kings and ruler of Normandy from 1106.[1]