The Worlds of late Antiguity

18 May 2007

The World of Late Antiquity

Being familiar to the Carolingian literature , we know that Louis contemporaries were giving give high praise to the Louis ' personality Such respectful attitude hardly can be explained due to Louis ' royal style and titles alone . Many historians explored the life of Louis , as well as two chroniclers wrote about Louis ' life and deeds . What is the explanation to such lively interest to Louis ' life ? We will explore one of these chronicles (namely , Thegan 's Life of Louis the Pious ) in to answer the

question

Thegan 's Life of Louis the Pious is the most authoritative source written not in a traditional manner of the earlier historians , but as a chronicle of deeds . Generally speaking , the point at issue is why did Thegan write his work

Up to this point , historiography has no extensive and detailed research to be anywhere near dedicated to Thegan 's Life of Louis the Pious . Short characteristics of Thegan 's work can be found in some generalized historic researches dedicated to the issues of medieval literature , as well as several works of a general character . However , all of them are in general agreement that Thegan wrote his work under the influence of the ancient Frankish political system . We can come to conclusion that Thegan , who was the ardent supporter of Louis I and his policy , tried to justify the king 's contradictory actions on governmental pursuits and to condemn Louis` enemies (first and foremost Lothar 's supporters

Some historians examined Thegan 's Life of Louis the Pious in the capacity of a panegyric to Louis that has no relation to reality whereas some of them examined it as a secular political biography , or a clerical chronicle . There was an opinion that Thegan followed his own personal motives while writing the chronicle , because , according to this opinion , Thegan wrote an `answer ' to those , who fought against chorepiscopals , and , by a lucky chance , became the emperor 's enemy . Such discrepancy in views and opinions , sometimes completely opposite to each other , can be also explained by the fact that the authors had no aim to complete a detailed examination of Thegan 's Life of Louis the Pious , but were limited to the extrinsic characteristics of the most generalized excerpts of the content . In this we 'll try to fill this gap so far as is practicable

What concerns Thegan 's personality , there is evidently a lack of information concerning his life . All that is certain is that his name was Thegan (also known as Degen and Theganbert , and he was a chronicler and a German Catholic prelate , who died about 850 a .d . In contrast to his confusing biography , the date of his work can be established quite easy . The author tells about the epidemic of plague that occurred in Lothar 's army in the autumn of 836 a .d . At the same time , Thegan mentions neither the Louis the German 's revolt of 838 a .d . nor about...