Introduction Carolingian cultures of dialogue, debate and disputation

Abstract

This collection of articles on the theme of Carolingian cultures of dialogue and debate may seem a contradiction in terms. After all, it has recently been argued that by the end of the fourth century, Christianity had created authoritative structures of knowledge in which public disputation was replaced by catechism-like exchanges. This also spelled the end of classical dialogue, that is, the searching and open-ended exchange of ideas as it had been practised in the ancient world since the days of Socrates. Medievalists, on the other hand, have maintained that something resembling a public sphere emerged in the so-called ‘high’ Middle Ages; the lively and wide-ranging debates engendered by the Investiture Controversy have been cited as a case in point. A superficial combination of both perspectives, however different, yields the early medieval west in its traditional guise as a convenient and static backdrop that articulates previous declines and subsequent ‘rises’ of phenomena connected with modernity. For obvious reasons, this image needs to be discarded, but not simply by arguing for greater continuity, or by attempting to rehabilitate a period of roughly five centuries that was ‘actually’ much more culturally complex than has been hitherto assumed. On the contrary, we should make the most of the scholarly debates outside the orbit of Early Medieval Europe, for these raise questions that can be fed productively into our own analytical framework. This is why this themed edition on Carolingian dialogues and debates opens with an extensive contribution on late antique Christian dialogue. It is also the reason why in this Introduction we shall take some time to explore the common ground between ancient historians and early medievalists, as well as the differences in their approach. To put it succinctly, all are concerned with the larger issues involved, such as the impact of Christianity, or with the shifting balance between oral and written culture. Nonetheless, recent debates among historians of late antiquity have mostly revolved around the question of whether the new religion did indeed put an end to a brilliant culture of open debate. Recently, this contention has been challenged head-on with regard to late antiquity and Byzantium, with much attention to the literary complexity of the relevant sources. 1 The post-Roman west, however, is not part of these reconsiderations, largely because of the general assumption that all the venues that might have enabled public debate vanished along with the Roman empire. Whereas Augustine and his flock had remained attuned to empire-wide religious contestation, Alcuin of York was representative of a restricted palace-connected elite, with great ideals concerning literacy and reform that had, however, little practical effect on society at large. Hence, it is still widely held that early medieval society offered little room for criticism and debate. This tenacious image is based on the preconception that the expression of divergent points of view was unthinkable in a period in which ‘the Church’ was dominant and religious diversity was oppressed. Free expression of opinion is supposed to have disappeared, along with the possibilities of an open exchange of ideas, the very moment Emperor Justinian closed the doors of the Academy of Athens. While it should be noted that ‘free expression of opinion’ is an idealistic construction in the first place, it cannot be denied that religious unity at the level of kingdoms and empires was indeed the professed ideal during much of the early Middle Ages. Yet this ideal had to be constantly negotiated, debated and reformulated, if it was ever to be achieved. 2 Scholars, bishops and rulers were intent on establishing orthodoxy and defending it against heresy, that much is true, but orthodoxy, as is well known, does not exist in and by itself. It develops in a dialectical relationship with ‘heresy’– a position that is not only held by modern sociologists of religion, but was acknowledged in the early Middle Ages as well. Debate with heterodox thinkers was considered necessary to arrive at the ‘truth’. Criticism and divergent opinions were welcomed in the political and religious arenas of debate (at least in theory), as long as they served the uncovering and defence of truth and arguably benefitted the common good. Another widely held notion concerning the absence of debate in the early Middle Ages that we need to address from the outset is the supposed demise of (formal) rhetoric. George Kennedy, an authority in the field of classical rhetoric and its medieval Nachleben even went so far as to claim that formal speech was no longer regarded as an effective form of persuasion, because ‘men's minds and actions were largely manipulated by a rhetoric of brute force and authority [. . .] not by logical argument’. 3 The general opinion is that classical rhetoric dwindled in the sixth and seventh centuries, because there were fewer opportunities for public speaking. With the decay and fragmentation of civic life, rhetoric lost its public function and oratory went into decline. Training in written argumentation became ever more important, and those elements of the rhetorical discipline that were still considered useful were redirected to written discourse. 4 Certainly, there is much evidence that points in the direction of a weakening of classical rhetoric after the municipal schools closed. Yet, rhetoric is so much more than formal rhetoric in the classical tradition of Cicero, Demetrius or Quintilian, a point to which we shall return below. There continued to be venues for oral rhetoric and occasions for debate where one could show off one's skills in persuasive public speaking. We only need to think of assemblies and smaller-scale deliberative meetings at the courts, such as are described in De ordine palatii, or of discussions on orthodoxy during or in the margins of ecclesiastical synods, to imagine places and opportunities where training in oral delivery must have come in useful. Although debates were increasingly based on the interpretation of written texts, that interpretation was still communicated orally in public meetings, and those who could speak well in public received the admiration of their contemporaries. In 800, Alcuin's student Candidus reported to his teacher how much he had admired the outspoken speech that Theodulf of Orleans had delivered at the assembly of Rome in that same year. Candidus praised the ‘free voice’ of Theodulf speaking out in a public meeting. 5 On such eminently public occasions, rulers and their direct entourage were admired for their eloquence. When Agobard of Lyon reported on the assembly of Attigny in 822, he praised Emperor Louis who with God's inspiration interrogated those present, uncovered the truth in a most elegant manner, and ‘announced this faithfully, by his own word of mouth’. 6 The most impressive address at Attigny, however, was delivered by Abbot Adalhard of Corbie, by then an old and experienced orator. According to his biographer, Adalhard's eloquence was such that it was ‘utterly suited for persuasion and dissuasion’. 7 Secular magnates also took an active part in such public discussions; especially the contentious issue of the use of ecclesiastical land for military purposes was debated hotly from the 820s onwards, with churchmen wanting to set limits to this, while the saeculares argued that the res publica could not do without it. 8 The dialogue is only very rarely evidenced as a form for normative Christian writing, despite the strategic place of conversion and theological discussion in Christian communities. The catechism and other question-and-answer structures are not in any significant sense a dialogue: they are forms of exchange to aid controlled learning and to produce certain, fixed responses. 9 For Richard Lim, the new religion indeed spelled the end of dialogue, albeit for different reasons. In classical antiquity, Lim argues, the dialogue belonged to the elitist literary culture of paideia. It was highly influential, yet also a ‘boutique literary genre’, and therefore very different from the inclusive Christian sermo humilis that aimed to reach as many people as possible, including those from lower social strata. Put briefly, the inherent elitism of the dialogue, as Lim called it, was ill-suited to a religious communication that aimed at the masses, so the demand for this particular literary form gradually disappeared. 10 As Averil Cameron recently pointed out, the freedom, democracy and open-ended exchange with which Goldhill and others identify ‘real’, that is, Socratic, dialogue is mostly a modern ideal. 11 A related and equally vexed question is whether the dialogues transmitted through texts in any way reflect ‘real’ public debates and discussions. Since all dialogues available to historians are literary constructs, including the ones that are presented as spontaneous and open-ended, a sharp distinction between literary and viva voce dialogue is not helpful. What we are able to grasp are the cultural ideals of how a dialogue should proceed. 12 In a critique published only a year after Cameron's, Peter Van Nuffelen primarily engages with Richard Lim's Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (1995). 13 This influential book no doubt inspired the more recent verdict on the ‘end of dialogue’, but its central argument ranges more widely: it is about once wide-open intellectual horizons being narrowed by the increasing dominance of Christian orthodoxy. From the late fourth century onwards, the intellectually demanding public disputation that had been the prevailing norm and practice began to be replaced by statements of religious consensus. First, such debates became staged operations in which the victory of orthodoxy was decided from the beginning, and they just survived as literary exercises, with an even more predictable result. According to Van Nuffelen, however, this transition from once spontaneous and oral events to stilted literary productions represents an evolutionist projection on Lim's part. After all, any knowledge of the supposedly impromptu earlier disputations comes from literary accounts, which may have been just as fictitious as their fifth- and sixth-century successors. And instead of taking the latter to be mere literary productions and therefore not representative of any real-life exchange, a careful study of these texts in fact shows how much public disputation was still valued as a way of gaining truth and knowledge. 14 Whether any of the textual evidence reflects ‘real’ disputes is a moot point, but it surely becomes clear that in this period in which there supposedly was no room anymore for the real and open-ended exchange of ideas, it was precisely this that remained the norm for Christian authors who set out to persuade their opponents. There was of course a tension between this ideal and reality, but this ‘was sustained by a belief in the power and moral propriety of persuasion and reason’. 15 These modern dichotomies – oral versus literate, reason versus authority, and open social competition versus closed group identities – have not just been projected onto late antiquity. They have also been essential in articulating the differences between modern and pre-modern societies in general, and of the position of the Middle Ages within the grand narrative of western history. More specifically, these set oppositions have long informed the dominant image of the western early Middle Ages as a period of political chaos and cultural stagnation, inspiring some lively debates among early medievalists, primarily on the impact of literacy on political communication, on the existence and perception of state-like structures and on the participation of the clergy in the latter. 16 This has yielded a different perspective on the Carolingian world, not just with regard to the wider impact of Christian-Latin literacy on society, but also concerning the importance of religious institutions, both for the governance of this huge polity as well as for the cultural of its as it was once out to of a great of and that were very much part of the Carolingian of This has for any of dialogue and debate in this historians of the early Middle Ages have been about the of the public mostly from the perspective of political history. For has on the of public of the Carolingian and of the as an eminently public place in the minds of even if the As has the of the first there a culture of the even in the early medieval west with its the notion remained a primarily with courts, and both great and should be to this also as of the and therefore an part of a new of in which public both and could take A of bishops is not at first a for that is and even so a yet if one in the to which the Carolingian on governance and on to such ecclesiastical cannot be in discussions about the of an early medieval public of the issues debated in these ecclesiastical such as or religious to come the of but have part of political and social history. its so the earlier Middle Ages a static backdrop for the of new is the Public an study that put the issue of public opinion and the public sphere on the of medieval in the to show that the of and on since the late century did indeed the of a public sphere in sense of the a part of society that is and in a public the of public opinion that could not be controlled by the Early have much time arguing that all this was in evidence in the and in a has in to make it more to the Middle Ages. the of the public sphere to after the period in which the public to to This is not for these authors are about but by no is in the of a political that remained to the public as by the and his in of the common this was the central point of for any of the that were with or It was the real of which the first at which point political fragmentation set public sphere as it emerged during the Investiture Controversy is a more a that is, an between communication on the one and the on the More has the of such a public albeit a more in the Carolingian world as with the case of and as the There are however, to the to which can be in to show that there was a public sphere in a pre-modern for it is based on about the of in the of western As Peter has pointed out, in intellectual tradition is a and with the between the and the and with It is different from the with its of the common and These modern and their should be into have been to the public sphere into a more and a for sphere where common are at which to the to any of social that could be as In this more way of about the notion of the construction of a public sphere does not on such as or to the of but on such as and debates on the common or on of and According to and the of a public sphere on of the common the on the one hand, and the sphere on the this is, for into Carolingian public debates this does not much and not just because of the of in sources. The is the among modern historians to the of to that of the and to identify public opinion with the participation of the opinion only public once it the of ecclesiastical and We think As to this issue this is not the to a polity sustained by and by with bishops and In the debate and dialogue are at it is to make a clear distinction between the in a way that is and does to the of the sources. to be the modern for any of discussion that is or intellectually be it public or or between such a debate might be or through a written exchange of With regard to the early Middle has an with a it can to discussions during public meetings such as assemblies and synods, as well as to the subsequent written and the discussion engendered by the but also to issues that were by just the exchange of written texts, or to a exchange on a issue among more wide-ranging In the latter we can speak of ‘the debate on for or ‘the debate on even these discussions were of a different and use of different As we have the and impact of such as well as the question of may have is our Whereas debate is a modern and are more that the particular form of the The of both forms of discussion is (at least to the but it is different of argumentation and The and the of and could to the question-and-answer of a or to the literary form in which the discussion was In modern the notion of as a literary form is with particular that to the of which is not the case in the medieval of the When speaking of dialogue in modern we have an discussion in in which the to the truth questions and with for This idealistic of dialogue can be in of dialogue, but as we have in the of classical for the and oral of dialogue. When we speak of on the other hand, we a and of While in a dialogue to on a to an argument and their in The between the forms of discussion may seem is an while is a this distinction does not at all with the of our medieval sources. the word as an to while simply as a between or more early medieval texts as that we to dialogue. We only need to think of Alcuin's as on rhetoric and to where the modern and to the and practice of debate in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. of the must be that modern scholarly is in classical and medieval of and than in the early medieval just Nonetheless, this tension can as a useful to the early medieval of debate. For if we to out the of debate were at the the of and normative that how issues were to be we need to attention to the that were to how the the they by recent historians have more in the impact of rhetoric on how was the knowledge of in late antiquity and the early Middle for the of persuasion of the intellectual who took part in more wide-ranging and public it that their were delivered in an elegant and to their or or to the Carolingian rulers and their who served as in debates that to and To an to these questions we might be to to rhetorical the discipline of rhetoric had no on as and not was the of to the of and not to the question-and-answer of the dialogue and the rhetorical many that are relevant to the of such as the different of argument and while rhetoric was dialectical in in the first we at of rhetorical that were and in the early Middle however, such as De and the book of to we that these received any in the that the rhetorical to of dialectical were at least from the century onwards, in a way that to These that we should to instead of rhetoric to come to a of the and practice of debate in the Middle Ages. We have no reason to however, that rhetoric was relevant to the medieval practice of debate. form of whether the speech of the or the questions and of needs to be persuasive if it to at of on the of rhetoric as transmitted by rhetorical it might be more to for for debate that our medieval may have to in to of persuasive to others of their point of we could think of debate dialogues such as the disputation of Augustine and against or the dialogues by in this one could of debate that offered useful rhetorical to persuade or one's These were that have come in in any debate. of the debates between and their such as the ones have been transmitted in that also medieval debate texts, which could be as evidence that these texts indeed served as for debate in the early Middle Ages. For this this issue opens with of the of contentious literary dialogue that was so for the Carolingian world on which the other whether public disputation and dialectical could have a part in the of around 800, and the of of such As there was more room for dialectical in meetings than in the of or The latter are the of which the way Carolingian aimed at and an for debates that could the and useful then the to the debate between of and and shows that as a was largely of his own and an part of his own of With we from these for to the of the debate among lower They were not supposed to in this but they did so all the and shows some of the of this contribution is on the a that shows how especially in the Carolingian world of the and the to the res publica became more the of public among highly both ecclesiastical and The common of these articles is that all the authors show that the of Christianity did not the end of dialogue and debate. The cultural practice of and was and in the early Middle and into new by from the and classical The question the still that a public sphere can only exist outside we to to as ‘the In to this they have to show that the Carolingian of many different discussion of public debate in the century needs to from this point of not the as an notion or but the of and clergy and and how these into at the level of kingdoms or even the relationship between the political and the religious is not but it comes to the lively contribution of ecclesiastical and to the Carolingian there is still a of to be It is to this that this issue to