Paul the Deacon: The History of the Langobards. Introduction

From The History of the Langobards by Paul the Deacon, translated by William Dudley Foulke, LL. D.; The Department of History, University of Pennsylvania; New York: Longman, Green & Co., 1906; pp. xv-xlii.

INTRODUCTION.
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LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PAUL THE DEACON WITH
A HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ESTIMATE
OF HIS WORK.¹
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Paul the Deacon, sometimes called Paul Warnefried from the name of his father, belonged to a distinguished if not noble Langobard family² whose original founder Leupchis came from Pannonia to Italy with king Alboin, settled in the plain of Friuli³ not far from Cividale⁴ and left behind him at his death five sons who, while still young, were carried away into captivity on the occasion of the irruption of the Avars into the country about the year six hundred and ten. xvi Four remained permanently in bondage, but Lopichis, the fifth, when he had reached the age of manhood, resolved to escape, and after many adventures returned to Italy.⁵ There he found that his ancestral home was without a roof and full of briers and bushes, and that his inheritance was in the hands of strangers. With the help of relatives and friends he restored the house, yet he could not recover the rest of his father’s property. He had a son Arichis, who was the father of Warnefried, and Warnefried by his wife Theudelinda, had a daughter who retired at an early age into a cloister, and two sons, Arichis and Paul.

Paul was born in Friuli⁶ somewhere between the years 720 and 730.⁷ He was educated probably⁸ at the court of king Ratchis who reigned from 744 to 749, or at the ducal court of his father Pemmo somewhat before that time.⁹ Paul speaks of Flavianus as his xvii teacher¹⁰ and the instruction he received must have been excellent, if it be judged by the wide scope of his attainments. Among other things he learned the Greek language.

At a later period we find evidences of his faithful attachment to Arichis, Duke of Benevento and his wife Adelperga, the daughter of Desiderius, the last Langobard king. In the spring or summer of 763, he wrote a poem in thirty-six trochaic lines giving the chronology of the different ages of the world and concluding with verses in honor of King Desiderius, of his son Adelchis and of the ducal pair.¹¹ It was written in the form of an acrostic and the initial letters of each verse spelled the words “Adelperga Pia.” That this intercourse with the duke and duchess continued a long time appears from Paul’s letter to Adelperga written several years later in which he speaks of his interest and participation in her studies.¹² He had recently given her to read the ten books of the Roman history of Eutropius, but as she complained that these were too short and contained nothing regarding the history of Christianity, Paul wrote for her one of his principal works, his “Roman History” in which he expanded Eutropius from other sources and in six additional books brought it down to the fall of the dominion of the Goths in Italy with the xviii intention of continuing it at a later time down to his own days. With a letter which is a beautiful memorial to the pious and cultured princess, he gave her this work some time between the years 766 and 774¹³ and the book (although of little importance to us now since its statements are taken almost wholly from other well-known sources)¹⁴ became for nearly thousand years a text-book of the history of the Empire of the West.

There has been attributed to Paul on doubtful authority,¹⁵ a hymn in praise of John the Baptist, the protecting saint of the Langobards,¹⁶ which has become widely celebrated and is still sung on June 24th of each year by the whole Catholic church. From the first syllable of each of the verses of this hymn, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, Guido of Arezzo took the names for his notes, and the present system of musical solmisation had its origin here. It would seem from his writings that Paul had traveled considerably in Italy, for descriptions of things in Pavia, Bobbio, Monza, Asti, Rome and Benevento appear to be given from personal observation. These journeys (except the one to Rome) were probably taken before he became a monk.¹⁷ It is not known when or where Paul received his consecration. Charlemagne xix calls him a deacon in his circular written after 782¹⁸ regarding the collection of homilies, and he so speaks of himself in his homily upon St. Benedict. Elsewhere he calls himself merely Paul, but among others he goes by the name of Paul the Deacon. It is uncertain when and why he became a monk,¹⁹ but it was in all probability²⁰ at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, the most famous cloister of that time where his former patron, king Ratchis, was perhaps still living when Paul there took his vows. Only this is certain, that he became a monk before his journey to France, therefore before 782. It was either before this journey or during his sojourn in that kingdom that he wrote two poems in honor of St. Scolastica.²¹ These poems, his sermon on St. Benedict and his letters show his devotion to the xx founder of the Order he had joined and his zeal in his monastic life.²²

In the meantime Charlemagne had conquered the kingdom of Italy. Pavia had fallen in June, 774,²³ Desiderius, the last of the Lombard kings, had been made a prisoner and his son Adelchis had been forced to flee the country.²⁴ Charlemagne had left as Duke of Friuli, one Hrodgaud, who afterwards rose in rebellion against him, but the king, entering Italy, quickly suppressed the revolt and returned home.²⁵ At the time of this insurrection, that is, about Easter, 776, it would seem that Charlemagne had taken prisoner Paul’s brother Arichis, who was probably among the followers of Hrodgaud, and that the king had confiscated his property, so that his wife (as Paul says) “had to beg bread in the streets with trembling lips” for her four children.²⁶ In the seventh year of this imprisonment Paul addressed to the king an elegy beginning: “The words of thy servant,” to move him to mercy, and in order to obtain his brother’s release he also crossed the Alps and presented himself at the court of the monarch. There from the banks of the Moselle he wrote to Theudemar, the abbot of the monastery at Monte Cassino, on the 10th of January, probably in the year 783,²⁷ the following letter:

“To my master and father, dearest abbot Theudemar, xxi cherished with all my heart, your humble and devoted son Paul:²⁸

“Although a great distance separates me from your companionship, a strong love for your society affects me which cannot be severed, and so great a desire for you and for my superiors and brothers torments me every moment that I cannot express it in the brief compass of a letter. For when I think of the time I devoted to holy things and the pleasant situation of my little cell; of your kindly sympathy; of the pious troop of so many champions of Christ eager in the service of God; of shining examples of particular brothers in virtues of every kind; of our sweet converse on the excellencies of the heavenly kingdom, then a desire seizes me and I cannot keep back my tears. I live here among Catholics and good Christians. All receive me well; kindness is eagerly shown me for your sake and for that of our father Benedict; but in comparison with your cloister, the royal palace is a dungeon to me; compared with the calm of your monastery, life here is a stormy gale. This country keeps me only in my poor, weak body; with my whole soul, in which alone I am strong, I am with you. It seems to me that now I am listening to your delightful songs; now I am sitting in the refectory to be refreshed more by the reading than by the food; now I perceive the various occupations of each of you; now I see how it goes with the old and the sick; now I tread the holy threshold which is as dear to me as heaven. Believe me, my master and xxii father, believe me you holy and venerable band, I am kept here for a while only by a feeling of pity, only by the injunctions of love, only by the demand of the soul, and what is still more than all this, by the quiet power of our lord, the king. But as soon as I am healed and the Lord through our gracious sovereign shall take away from my prisoners the night of sorrow and the yoke of misery, I will straightway, as soon as I can obtain leave from our gracious prince, return to you without delay, and neither money, nor property, nor treasure of gold, nor the love of any man shall keep me from your company. I implore you therefore, sweetest father, and you, O dearest fathers and brothers, that our good father and teacher Benedict may procure it through his merit with Christ that I can return to you right soon. I trust indeed in our God, who never lets any one be cheated in good wishes, that he may restore me to you with fitting fruit for my toil²⁹ according to the desire of my longing heart. I do not need to write to you to pray for our sovereigns³⁰ and their army, since I know you are doing this unceasingly. Pray Christ also for the lord abbot,³¹ by whose special kindness according to the royal grace I live here. Your number, my beloved ones, is so great that if I wished to mention you xxiii all one by one, this whole page would not suffice for your names. Wherefore I greet you all in common and pray you not to forget me. But I ask you, my master and venerable abbot, to write me concerning your welfare and that of the brothers, and what fortunes the present year has brought, and at the same time to send the names of the brothers who have been released from earthly fetters and have gone to Christ. For I hear that many of them have died, but especially ——, who, if it is really so, has taken with him no little part of my heart. Farewell, most holy father. Deign to remember your son.”

“Now of the month of Janus the tenth full day was elapsing

When this letter was sent from the shore of the glassy Mosel,

Brothers and father dearest, infinite greetings I give you.”³²

Finally, the deliverance of the prisoners seems to have been obtained. A lively correspondence in verse between Paul and the king is shown in poems which have come down to us containing hints of jests, enigmas and occurrences now lost. In one of these Paul thanked the king and praised heaven that had let him see the light after darkness. In his answer “Paule sub umbroso,” Charlemagne³³ rejoices at this change in Paul’s feelings, but declares that he has still left three questions unanswered, namely — whether he himself will bear heavy chains or lie in a hard dungeon, or go to the xxiv Northmen and convert their king Sigfrid, “the impious lord of a pestiferous realm,” and “touch his forehead with sanctifying water.”³⁴ Paul answers that as the Northmen know no Latin he will seem like a dumb beast to them and they no better to him than shaggy goats, but he has no fear, for if they know he comes with the name of Charlemagne protecting him, they will not dare lift a finger against him, and if Sigfrid refuses baptism Paul will drag him to the foot of Charlemagne’s throne with his hands bound behind his back, nor will his gods Thonar and Waten (Thor and Wotan) be of any avail.³⁵ In another poem, “Cynthius occiduas,” Paul relates to the king that a messenger was sent to him from the court the evening before with fiery arrows³⁶ from his old and dear friend Peter. Early in the morning he hastened to the court for the contest, but the shortness of the time did not allow him to retort suitably.³⁷ On the following morning, however, Peter would repent that he had treated his friend as an enemy. Evidently Peter of Pisa is meant, who appears to have been a kind of literary fag for Charlemagne.³⁸ Peter writes on another occasion to Paul, “Lumine purpereo,” that a riddle had been proposed to him which he did not know how to solve; what his weak arms could not do, Paul, who was xxv “a great light upon the mountain,” would accomplish. He, the mighty one in books who recently had been able to loose strong fetters (perhaps this refers to obtaining the freedom of the prisoners³⁹) might also solve this riddle. Paul afterwards determined (probably at the king’s earnest desire) to remain at least a considerable time in France. Charles expresses his great joy at this determination in a poem composed by Peter, “Nos dicamus,”⁴⁰ and deems himself happy that the most learned of poets and seers, a Homer in Greek, a Virgil in poetry, a Philo in Hebrew, a Tertullus the arts, a Horace in the metrical art, a Tibullus in expression — that this man will strike his roots in the soil of his affection and no more turn his heart to his old home. He especially thanks Paul for the instruction in Greek which he is giving to so many, particularly the clergy who are soon to accompany his daughter Rotrud to Constantinople.⁴¹ Thus a glory will be raised up for France which he the king had never hoped for before. Paul in his answer “Sensi cujus,”⁴² modestly disclaims any right to these compliments. He knows very little, he says; he cannot offer treasures to the king, but only his good will; only the anchor of his love keeps him at court; he xxvi does not seek foolish glory in the sciences; if the clergy in Constantinople could not utter any more Greek than they had learned from him, they would stand there like dumb statues. Yet still, to show himself not quite unskilled in languages, he subjoins the translation of a Greek epigram that he remembers from his school days. On another occasion Paul, in a poem to the king which is now lost, expressed the wish that God might still add fifteen years to the term of his life, the same as to Hezekiah. Charles in his answer by the pen of his secretary Alcuin,⁴³ wishes Paul a prolongation of life for fifteen hours and makes merry with him that he first wanted to cut off the neck of his enemy with a sword and now could hold neither shield nor sword on account of his fear and old age.

We see from these and other poems how the king himself took part in the verses, jokes, riddles and contests with which the learned circle at his court amused itself. Charlemagne well understood how to draw service from the many-sided learning of Paul. Upon the king’s command, Paul wrote epitaphs to Queen Hildegard, to her daughters Adelheid and Hildegard, and to Pepin’s daughters, Adelheid and Rotaidis with which the king (probably in 783)⁴⁴ caused their graves in St. Arnulf at Metz to be decorated.⁴⁵ About this time also Paul gave to Charlemagne an extract from the work of Pompeius Festus “On the Signification of Words,” and Mommsen well observes (p. 97) that among the characteristic xxvii traits of our remarkable scholar, it was not the least engaging that Paul took an interest, not merely in the Roman historians, but in the lexicon of the language and antiquities of Rome. A more important task was the collection and revision of the homilies of the fathers of the church which he made by order of the king, and which was possibly commenced about this time,⁴⁶ though not completed until after his return to Monte Cassino. Paul’s collection has been in use for a thousand years in the whole Catholic church and it is easy to see what a profound influence he has had in this way not only upon the church but upon culture and literature.

It was after 783⁴⁷ that Paul wrote, upon the request of Angilram, Bishop of Metz⁴⁸ a history of the bishops of that diocese. In this work, which was written in the manner of the “Book of the Popes,” he treats with special minuteness of detail of the family and ancestry of Charlemagne, and it is clear that his object is to justify the rise of the Carlovingians to the throne and to represent it as a legitimate sovereign house. Besides this work he xxviii composed a catalogue of the bishops in short verse. Most of the time that Paul was in France he probably spent at Dietenhofen⁴⁹ and Metz. Sometimes however he stayed for a while at other places, as in Poictiers in the cloister of St. Hilarius⁵⁰ where, at the request of the abbot Aper, he composed an epitaph on the poet Venantius Fortunatus.⁵¹ When Paul was at Charlemagne’s court he was lodged in a hospitium not far from the palace and was entertained by the king.⁵²

But the longing for his own cloister forced him, after a few years, to abandon France, and in the summer of 787 we find him again in Benevento. He either crossed the Alps with the king in December 786, or he had already left France before this expedition. It was at Rome and possibly on his way to Monte Cassino that he composed a short biography of Gregory the Great,⁵³ though the date of that work is not certainly known.⁵⁴ On the 25th of August 787, shortly after his return to Benevento, his patron Arichis died. Paul celebrated his memory in a beautiful epitaph composed in distichs, a memorial which honors the faithful devotion of the poet as well as the prince. ⁵⁵

The respect and love which Paul enjoyed in the cloister xxix is testified by his pupil Hilderic in an epitaph which attributes to him piety, love, peaceableness, patience, simplicity, concord, in short, “every good quality at one and the same time.” Charlemagne also repeatedly expresses his heartfelt affection and honor for the old man in the poems “Christe pater” and “Parvula rex Carolus.” The king visited Monte Cassino in the spring of 787 and formed the project of improving monastic life in the Frankish kingdom from its example. Sometime after his return home⁵⁶ he asked the abbot Theudemar to give him for this purpose a copy of the “Rule of the Order” from Benedict’s original manuscript, and also to send him the monk Joseph whom he desired to place at the head of his own model cloister. The abbot assigned to our Paul the duty of answering the king in the name of the monastery. It is said that this became the occasion for a detailed explanation of the Rule, which Paul composed at the request of the abbot and monks.⁵⁷ It was also after he returned to the cloister that he composed the sermons attributed to him, of which only four have been preserved,⁵⁸ as well as the last and most important work of his life “The History of the Langobards.” When he gave his Roman History to Adelperga he had had the design of bringing it down at a later period to his own time.⁵⁹ Other things had occurred xxx in the meantime. The fall of the Langobard kingdom had made a great change. Now in the evening of a long and active life, from the sun-lit heights of the quiet monastery, he thought again of his old plan and carried it out in an altered form as the history of his own people into which he interwove what seemed appropriate in the history of the Frankish kingdom and the Eastern empire.⁶⁰ But before its completion, death carried the old man away. The 13th day of April was the day of his death, but the year is unknown.⁶¹ He was buried in the cloister near the chapter hall, and the monk of Salerno afterwards saw his epitaph, but at the present time every trace of his tomb has disappeared.

xxxi

Paul’s life was the life of a man of learning.⁶² It was not given to him to develop great qualities. Quiet and modest, but honored and loved by all who lived with him, and dear to his royal and princely patrons, he found complete contentment in retirement and in his work as an instructor and author. No reproach has anywhere been made against him. No dishonorable trait appears in his work, or in his life. Everything which has been written to him or about him expresses only love and honor. Lofty flights were unknown to him; his fundamental traits were fidelity, devotion to his prince and love for his people. His religious tendency was of a practical and reasonable kind. He was disinclined to questions of dogmatic controversy and contemplative speculation. In his Life of St. Gregory he declares it unnecessary to relate miracles, since there is no need of them in order to judge of men.

Paul’s culture belongs to the most comprehensive of his time. A Langobard by birth, he learned from childhood the language of his people, its laws, its customs and its old historic legends, the rich fragments of which adorn his historical work. The Latin language, the ancient and Christian authors and whatever else belongs to the culture of a churchman, he studied under one of the best teachers of the Langobard kingdom and perhaps (according to the statement of his pupil Hilderic) under the encouragement of the king himself. But what particularly distinguished him, especially in France, was his knowledge of Greek, which was there very rare.

xxxii

His general learning was not inferior to his unusual knowledge of languages. The Bible, the fathers of the church, the current classics, Eutropius, Florus, Eusebius, Orosius, Prosper, Jordanes, Fortunatus, Gregory the Great, Gregory of Tours, Isidore, Eugippius, the various lives of the popes, Marcus of Monte Cassino, Ambrosius, Autpert, Secundus of Trent, the old Langobard chronicle, Rothari’s book of laws, the lives of Columban, Arnulf, etc., are mentioned and used by him, and they will be far from all that he has read.

His many-sided learning is shown in his manner of writing which evinces a diligent reading of the classics and much training. His language on the whole is correct, though barbarisms occur on account of the fact that the Latin language in the Middle Ages was by no means a dead one, but had a peculiar and inevitable development as a living tongue. These barbarisms are found in equal measure in all the writings of the time, not excepting Bede, Alcuin and Eginhard.⁶³

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xxxiv

Paul belongs in language and expression to the best of the early Middle Ages.⁶⁴ He was not born to be a poet although single poems of his are not lacking in beauties and he manages with ease the different kinds of verse. He chooses in preference the old forms of versification, the hexameter, the elegiac, Sapphic, Alcaic, and Archilochian meters, but he also uses a xxxv more modern form consisting of three lines, each composed of eight long and seven short syllables. From the affectations which gradually got the upper hand among the Christian poets he has kept himself quite free with two exceptions, the acrostic to Adelperga, composed after the model of Ennodius and Fortunatus, and the reciprocal distichs on St. Benedict⁶⁵ and Scholastica, where the first part of the first line is repeated at the end of the second. Rhyme is not used by Paul. His hymn on the translation of St. Mercurius would be an exception, but for this very reason it appears doubtful whether he was its author.

Paul’s principal work was in history. He found this branch of knowledge cultivated in several directions. They include:

(1) The condensed Roman histories of the time with additions made by Christian authors to include Jewish and pre-Roman history as well as the history of the church.

(2) The consular lists to which historical observations were added.

(3) The Annals, a development of Easter tablets, which were hung up in the churches in the effort to secure uniformity in celebrating church festivals.

(4) The Chronicles, an extension of the theory of the Annals to general chronology.

(5) Accounts of the “Six Ages of the World.”

(6) Histories of particular German nations, Franks, Goths, Anglo-Saxons, etc. xxxvi

(7) Biographies, including Lives of the Saints and the Popes.⁶⁶

Paul attempted only the first and the last two of these.

But what came at an early time into all these branches of historical writing, and showed in a surprising way the decadence of a spiritually creative life, was the ever-increasing compiling and copying. All the historians of the time copy from each other and from their predecessors, and give us next to nothing that is original. Paul could not withdraw himself from the spirit, or rather the lack of spirit of his age. He was also properly a compiler. It was his nature to collect and transmit in more convenient form what was at hand, not to create anything new. Still, there is never with him a mere rough patching together. He selects and examines his sources, tries to bring their accounts into harmony, and in a general way he makes use of criticism, even though he is not always happy in this. Especially have his critical efforts, joined with his method of compilation, operated injuriously upon his chronology. To bind together the fragments of his different sources he inserts quite arbitrarily the words “After some years” or “At this time” or “In these days” or “After these things,” and often quite erroneously, so that phrases of this kind can never pass as authority, since they have their origin simply in a matter of style. Sometimes he throws into confusion the sequence of the narrative, even where he adheres to the words of his sources, so that quite a different chronology xxxvii results. Other things he puts together very loosely without natural connection, and the fact that he puts them in a certain order does not show that they really occurred in that order.⁶⁷

For chronology therefore he must be used with the greatest caution, and where he differs from other ancient sources, the probability is that the error is with him and not with them.⁶⁸ He is not lacking in other errors, but these are much oftener to be attributed to his sources than to himself. He has been reproached for credulity, and certainly scientific criticism is not his prominent xxxviii characteristic. But what he relates of miracles and wonderful things is due in part to the times, and in part to the traditions of his people which he tells with affection, without everywhere wishing to vouch for their accuracy, as he sometimes lets us perceive. His love of truth, the first quality of a writer of history, is unquestioned. He desires continually and everywhere to give us the facts. Where he fails it is never with knowledge and will.

His whole nature was without anger and prejudice. Partisan views, passionate judgments, the sacred rage of a Tacitus, an Ambrose or a Jeremiah, are not to be expected from him, but rather impartiality and independence of judgment. While his source, the official “Book of the Popes,” speaks only evil of Liutprand, Paul praises him in the most decided way. On the other hand, all his love for his people does not prevent his doing full justice to Gregory the Great, and again, with all his reverence for Gregory, in the contest of the Pope with the church of Aquileia, he decidedly takes the part of the latter.⁶⁹ Muratori accuses him unjustly of being a partisan of his own people. He undoubtedly loved his people. It was this love which induced him to write his history. It causes him to so speak in particular detail of his own home, it prevents his becoming partisan of the Catholics and the admirers of Gregory against the xxxix Langobards, but it has not induced him to distort the truth, or to set forth in a partisan manner, nothing but the glory of his people, and if he sometimes omits things where his silence may seem partial, for example, the evil things that Procopius, the “Book of the Popes,” and Gregory relate of the Langobards, this is not proof that he wanted to conceal them, since he often omits other important facts, and he relates on the other hand many things disadvantageous to the Langobards. Indeed, his judgment of his own people, as well as of individual Langobards, is sometimes severe. He shows a desire to please Charlemagne in the long digression concerning the forefathers and family of that king in his “History of the Bishops of Metz,” but here too he does not depart from the truth; and when he says Rome desired the presence of Charlemagne because it was then suffering from the oppression of the Langobards, this was true even in the mouth of a Langobard, and that he praises the conqueror of his people on account his mildness cannot well be called flattery. He shows the same feeling for truth and simplicity in his plain diction. There are no speeches according to the manner of the ancients and of Jordanes; there are no great character-portraits depending more or less upon the coloring of the artist; there is no word-painting with the single exception of his lively description of the plague in Book II, Ch. IV, and this he certainly did not derive from his imagination.⁷⁰

Mommsen⁷¹ says, “Paul has hardly written down any statements which he himself did not consider true, but often he came to his conviction of their truth by means of conclusions which are contestable and doubtful, and which it is not always easy to follow.” The “History the Langobards” gives evidence of incompleteness and carelessness in places,⁷² but Mommsen believes that, in general, Paul cannot be so much accused of thoughtlessness as of pondering too deeply over the use of his authorities and becoming deceived thereby, and he adds that we must take care not to receive as evidence his mere deductions, as, for example, where Paul finds in his authorities that the two contending kings, Odoacar and Fewa, both reigned over the Rugians, and reconciles this contradiction by attributing the sovereignty of Odoacar to a part only of that people.

Jacobi concludes his comprehensive and scholarly review of the sources of the “History of the Langobards” with the observation that a great part of Paul’s statements are without value as sources of history, because they can be traced back to other sources which are still preserved; that that which cannot be so traced has value only where we can accept the view that he has accurately followed his copy, as in the lost work of Secundus; but that where we cannot determine from the form of the unknown source the manner in which it has been used, our knowledge of the way in which Paul is accustomed to work must admonish us to exercise the greatest caution; that much that he relates is undoubtedly xli traditional, but that in spite of this, Paul’s “History of the Langobards,” though hitherto prized beyond its value, must be reckoned as one of the more prominent sources of the Middle Ages on account of the considerable number of original statements which it contains.⁷³ Among the critics of Paul it is Jacobi who gives him the lowest rank, and this is doubtless due to the fact that his point of view considers Paul’s work simply as a source of historical facts without reference to the literary character or the general tendencies of that work.

Mommsen’s view is a broader one. He says:⁷⁴ “It is difficult to judge of the spiritual gifts of those men who have worked upon the incunabula of history, as difficult as it is to form a correct judgment from the works of primitive sculptors and painters in regard to the artistic qualifications of the master. But without doubt Paul takes a peculiar literary position to this extent, that Roman culture had become incorporated in him to such a degree as is quite without other example in this epoch. He wrote indeed the Latin of his time, and while his verses, especially the hexameters and the distichs, are relatively correct, he did not refrain from using in prose the unclassical forms then usual, for example, the accusative absolute (in place of the ablative absolute) and the participle turned into a substantive quite separated from any context. But one who is acquainted in any degree with the halting and bungling writings that were composed at that time looks with astonishment upon his thoroughly clear and generally xlii correct Latin, his reasonable structure of sentences, free from all affectation, and his skill in form and style. Quite apart from the substance of his narrative it is well to picture to ourselves how he has constructed his historical work out of the most scattered sources into unity of form and with full mastery over the style of the whole. The ground-floor of his work is, as is well known, the condensed historical sketch of Eutropius, elegant its way and taken from the Greek form. It is evident that Paul took Eutropius generally for his model, and this testifies in favor of his correct taste. . . . But it is remarkable in what tolerable fashion he has moulded together the pulpit style of Orosius, the anecdotes of the Books of Examples, the accounts of the Roman, Langobard and Frankish annals and histories (sometimes disjointed, sometimes running on in great detail), and the rude legends of the Langobard Origo, and has in a way tuned them up and tuned them down to the manner of Eutropius, going as far back as King Ianus of Italy and down to King Liutprand. This involves such a knowledge and interest in classical literature as does not occur again in the same breadth and fulness before the time of the Renaissance. . . This energy in Roman classical culture was united in Paul with an earnest national feeling which was rather increased than diminished upon the overthrow of the Langobard kingdom. He has written under these influences, and even to-day his pages show the double marks of classical and national feeling.”

FOOTNOTES

¹ The greater part of what is known of the life of Paul the Deacon is set forth in an article by Dr. Ludwig Bethmann, published in the Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtkunde (Vol. X, p. 247, see p. 254). The sources from which the facts are taken are there given in great detail and with full analysis. The above account is mainly a condensed paraphrase of the most important portions of Bethmann’s article. Where I have taken any statement from another source, that fact is mentioned in a note.

² Dahn, 3, 4.

³ The epitaph of Paul declares that the ancestral estate lay upon the banks of the Timave (Waitz, p. 23).

⁴ Dahn, 3, 8.

⁵ Paul’s Hist. Langob., IV, 37 infra.

⁶ It is probable but not certain that he was born in Cividale (Dahn, 8; Tamassia in Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, p. 15).

⁷ Bethmann (p. 255) places it at 730, earlier commentators (id., note) say 720; Waitz (p. 13), 720-725; Hodgkin (p. 71), about 725. The precise date is unknown.

⁸ Uncertain however (Dahn, p. 9-10).

⁹ The place of his education is uncertain. Bethmann (p. 255) thinks it was in Pavia. Abel (p. x) thinks it more probable it was at the ducal court of Ratchis or his father Pemmo in Cividale. His writings show an intimate knowledge of the affairs of the ducal family of that city (Tamassia in Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, p. 15).

¹⁰ Felix the grammarian, the uncle of Flavianus, was an intimate friend of king Cunincpert. See Book VI, Ch. 7 infra.

¹¹ Waitz, 13; Dahn, 76.

¹² Dahn, 14 note. It seems probable that he was her instructor, perhaps at her father’s court in Pavia (Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, p. 18).

¹³ Bethmann says between 776 and 781, but Mommsen (77 note) shows that this history was completed before 774, in which year Arichis exchanged his title of duke for that of prince. See also Dahn, 15.

¹⁴ Dahn, 16.

¹⁵ See article by Capetti (Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, p. 68).

¹⁶ Dahn, 18, 19.

¹⁷ Dahn, 27, 28.

¹⁸ Probably about 786, Dahn, 21.

¹⁹ It was very likely before he wrote this Roman history (Tamassia in Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, p. 18).

²⁰ Dahn, 23.

²¹ In the first of these poems Paul speaks of himself as “an exile, poor, helpless,” which it is claimed he would hardly have done after he had become one of the favorites of Charlemagne, and these expressions add weight to the contention of Dahn that he probably entered the cloister as a refuge after the fall of the Langobard monarchy in 774 (Dahn, 23-26). Tamassia, however, (Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, pp. 21, 22), believes that his exile there mentioned refers to his involuntary detention at the court of Charlemagne, and that the favor he refers to in this distich is his return to his beloved monastery. The two poems to St. Benedict are given in Appendix III.

²² Hodgkin, V, 72.

²³ Dahn, 29.

²⁴ Eginhard’s Annals, year 774.

²⁵ Id., 776.

²⁶ Waitz, p. 15.

²⁷ Bethmann, p. 297. Contra Dahn, 31.

²⁸ Waitz, p. 16, Bethmann, 260 et seq.

²⁹ Probably this refers to the liberation of his brother, though the meaning is not clear (Dahn, 35 note).

³⁰ Charlemagne and his sons, Pepin and Louis, who were consecrated as kings at Easter, 781, in Rome.

³¹ Probably abbot of St. Vincent or St. Arnulf in Metz, says Bethmann (p. 262, note). Dahn (p. 133) insists there is no evidence of this.

³² The verses are omitted in the letter as given by Dahn (79-81).

³³ In such correspondence the king was probably represented by some poet or grammarian of his court.

³⁴ An embassy from Sigfrid seeking peace had come to Charlemagne in 782 (Dahn, 40-41).

³⁵ Hodgkin, V, 77.

³⁶ Meaning letters.

³⁷ See Dahn’s explanation (43).

³⁸ Dahn believes that Peter’s letter was a challenge to some sort of a contest, perhaps of improvised verses (42, 43).

³⁹ See Dahn, 44, however.

⁴⁰ Waitz (p. 17) gives this poem.

⁴¹ Rotrud was betrothed in Rome on Easter 781 to the heir of the throne of Byzantium (Dahn, 46, 47). She was then only nine years old and her departure for Constantinople was to take place some years later. The match was broken off by Charlemagne in March, 787 (Dahn, 47, 48).

⁴² Waitz, p. 18.

⁴³ Hodgkin, V, 77.

⁴⁴ Dahn, 48, 49.

⁴⁵ Abel, p. xvi; Waitz, p. 19.

⁴⁶ Bethmann (p. 265) considers that this collection was written A. D. 783. Dahn (pp. 52, 53) followed by Waitz (p. 20) infers from the poem written to Charlemagne (see same page) that it was not finished until after Paul’s return to the monastery of Monte Cassino and that it must have been written between 786 and 797 (Dahn, 54).

⁴⁷ After the marriage of Charles with Fastrada, says Abel (p. xvii) but before she had borne him any children. See also Dahn, 49, 50.

⁴⁸ Hist. Langob., infra VI, Ch. 16. Angilram died in 791 (Abel, p. xvii).

⁴⁹ Hist. Langob., infra I, 5.

⁵⁰ Hist. Langob., infra II, 13.

⁵¹ Id.

⁵² Hodgkin, V, p. 76.

⁵³ Abel, xvii, Waitz, p. 22.

⁵⁴ It was some years before he wrote the third book of the History of the Langobards (III, 24 infra).

⁵⁵ This was written before the summer of 788 (Dahn, 55).

⁵⁶ Perhaps in 792 (see Dahn, 62).

⁵⁷ Dahn (62-63) disputes Paul’s authorship of this work.

⁵⁸ The MSS. are described by Bethmann (302). Dahn (71) considers the sermons not sufficiently authenticated.

⁵⁹ Abel, p. xix.

⁶⁰ The connection between his Roman and Langobard histories is very close. The first is brought down to Totila’s death in 552 and the 16th book closes with the statement that what remains to be said of the good fortune of the emperor Justinian is to be related in a subsequent book. This subsequent book never appeared, but the “History of the Langobards” took its place. The events of Justinian’s reign described in the Roman history, the Persian war, the conquest of Africa and the Gothic kingdom, are compressed into the smallest compass, while matters omitted in the Roman history are treated more in detail, e. g., the conquest of Amtalas, king of the Moors, the laws of Justinian, the building of St. Sophia and the general estimate of Justinian’s character. The Gothic war is resumed at the point where the Roman history breaks off, that is — with the struggle between Narses and Buccellinus, A. D. 553, except that the account of the sending of auxiliary troops by the Langobards to Narses is prefixed to it, although this occurred during Totila’s life (Mommsen, 77).

⁶¹ It occurred probably between A. D. 790 and 800 (Hodgkin, V, 78).

⁶² Bethmann, 273.

⁶³ After a thorough review of the manuscripts and their genealogies, Waitz (Neues Archiv I, p. 561), differing from Bethmann, attributes to Paul himself, and not merely to his copyists and transcribers, numerous departures from the ordinary rules of orthography and grammar. In addition to mere mistakes and variations in spelling, e. g., doctor for ductor (Paul, Hist. Langob., II, 9), and irregular verbal forms, accesserant for acciderant (III, 5), sinebit (V, 8), erabamus (V, 40), vellit for vellet (II, 4), inruerit for inrueret (VI, 24); we find such expressions as mirum dictum for dictu (IV, 2); the use of domui as a genitive (VI, 16, 23); the omission of the final s in the genitive, e. g. superiori (IV, 16); caesarem used as a vocative (III, 12); the forms juvenulus (V, 7), primis (I, 9) meaning “at first;” ad for a or ab, e. g., ad Suavis (III, 7); adducant for abducunt (IV, 37). Among the grammatical peculiarities are the interchange of genders, e. g., praefato sinodo (VI, 4), ad quod profectum (I, 4), fluvium quod (IV, 45), montem quoddam (III, 34), illud ornatum (V, 13), ritum imperiale (III, 5), (III, 12), alium consilium (VI, 36), talem votum (II, 27), multos pondus (III, 34).

The accusative is used for the ablative or other cases, e. g., manum for manu (IV, 32), gratiam for gratia (VI, 44), vitam exemptus est (VI, 56), ducatum expulit (VI, 57), adventum exterritus est (IV, 8), regnum potitus (VI, 35), hoc est magnum thesaurum (III, 11). The accusative absolute is used, e. g., vocatum interpretem (III, 2), vocatum pontificem (III, 12), Unulfum adscitum (V, 2). The nominative also is thus used, Franci cum Saxonibus pugnantes, magna stranges facta est (IV, 31); ad cerebrum ictus prevenicus, hostis ab equo dejectus est (IV, 37). Sometimes accusative and ablative are united, especially when two substantives belong to the participle, e. g., ordinatis Ibor et Aionem (I, 3), Adunatis gentibus Rugorumque partem (I, 19), Accepta obside sororem (V, 8); but also alone, facta pacem (III, 27), nemine scientem (IV, 40), relicto puerum (IV, 41), Cyrum ejecto (VI, 34), eum residente (VI, 37) — Also the nominative and ablative, estincto Mauricio ejus filius (IV, 36) — See also annum et mensibus (IV, 44), eodemque volumen, eodem codicem (I, 25), eodem ostium (V, 3), eodem cubiculum (V, 2), eadem urbem (II, 13), eadem civitatem (VI, 13), eadem basilicam (III, 23), eadem provinciam (VI, 24), cuncta suppellectilem (VI, 57), in medio campum (IV, 37), regia dignitatem (III, 35), subito adventum (V, 9), ei pugnaturum (II, 1), — We find also the use of improper cases after prepositions in insulam communivit (VI, 19), Habitaverunt in Pannoniam (II, 7), in caelum apparuisse (IV, 15), in palatium manere (V, 4), in silvam latens (V, 39), in medium civitatis concremari fecit (VI, 49), in regnum gerebat principatum VI, 23), in quam partem quiesceret (V, 34), cum victoriam (IV, 16), de adventum (V, 8), de Unulfum (V, 3), de Brittaniam (VI, 37), a Fano civitatem (VI, 57), ab orientis partem (II, 16), Pro redemptionem (VI, 40), sub regulae jugum vivere (VI, 40), — For a subject placed in the accusative see Pannoniam pertingat (II, 8), rex Liutprandum (VI, 58). Ablative forms are also improperly used, in Francia misit (IV, 1), in Francia fugeret (VI, 35), in Alexandria direxit (VI, 36), in qua confugerat (III, 18), in basilica confugit (VI, 51), in gratia receptus (IV, 3), ad terra (III, 24), ad fine (I, 21), in partibus divisus (III, 24), ob detrimento (III, 17), per medio (V, 3), apud filio (IV, 29), apud basilica (IV, 42). Sometimes the object stands in the ablative, qua gerebat (I, 15), qua gestabat (III, 30), sua faretra suspendit (IV, 37), prima se scribebat (IV, 36), manu tetigit (III, 30), occasione repperit (III, 18), eodem percussit (IV, 51), eodem poni fecit (III, 34), bello gessisset (IV, 16), evaginato ense tenens (IV, 51). Once it stands in the dative, ducatui gubernavit (VI, 3). Sometimes the nominative appears with the infinitive, as Gambara postulasse, Frea consilium dedisse — subjunxisse (I, 8), Peredeo directus esse (II, 30). We find also the letter t added to the indicative, e. g., se vellet for se velle (V, 4). From these instances Waitz infers that Paul’s writing was greatly influenced by the corrupt Latin in vogue at the time. No doubt this is true, but probably most of Paul readers will attribute the larger portion of these errors in the early manuscripts to the carelessness of an original amanuensis or of ignorant transcribers, or to the mere oversight of the learned historian. The generally grammatical character of his verse would indicate that head a good knowledge of what correct Latin ought to be.

⁶⁴ Abel considers (p. xxi) that in this respect the History of the Langobards, which he left incomplete, is inferior to his remaining works.

⁶⁵ See Appendix III.

⁶⁶ Bethmann 278 to 282.

⁶⁷ Bethmann, 283, 284. He had intended to write merely an extension of his continuation of Eutropius. This would belong to universal history and would be written in chronological order, and when, in place of this, he later writes a history of his own people, he was still unwilling to give up his earlier point of view and he therefore pursues his history in three threads interweaving in briefer fashion with his extended Langobard narrative, matters concerning the Eastern empire and the kingdom of the Franks (Mommsen, 56). This is by no means to the advantage of the narrative since the principal thread of the story is continually interrupted without any proper compensation to the writer in the matters which are thus interjected and which are generally copied almost word for word out of well-known sources. But as a mark of the tendency to fuse together Roman and Germanic traditions and history it is of the highest importance.

⁶⁸ His chronological arrangement is based to a considerable extent upon Bede’s Chronicle since the years of the reigns of the emperors of the East, besides those of the Langobard kings form the principal support of the order of his narrative. In a very few cases he gives the indiction, and only once (in regard to Alboin’s invasion, A. D. 568) the year of our Lord (Jacobi, 3).

⁶⁹ It may well be, however, as Cipolla believes (Atti e Memorie del Congresso Storico in Cividale, 1899, p. 144) that Paul, not fully understanding the controversy, considered that Gregory was on the side of the church of Aquileia.

⁷⁰ The paraphrase from Bethmann (p. 286) ceases at this point. The remainder of the article is from the authorities given below.

⁷¹ Pp. 102, 103.

⁷² Jacobi, 2.

⁷³ Jacobi, p. 87.

⁷⁴ Pp. 54, 55, 56.