Social crisis and temporalities in thinking: a comparative study of Einhard, Dhuoda and Nithard, 817–843

This thesis follows the path of Begriffsgeschichte, focusing on the contemporary representations of three concepts (res publica, familia and ecclesia) in a specific period of the Carolingian regime (817–843 AD). It concentrates on three sources: Einhard’s Vita Karoli (817x830), Nithard’s Historiae (841–843) and Dhuoda’s Liber Manualis (843), which were written during the period when the Carolingian empire was moving from its heyday to crisis. The thesis shows that the Frankish lay nobles of the Carolingian period were accustomed to using concepts as tools and weapons for the expression of their ideas and in political struggles, through which the temporalities in their thinking were exposed. The concepts of res publica, familia and ecclesia all play an important role in the Vita Karoli, the Historiae and the Liber Manualis. However, the concepts are more firmly bound up with spirituality and eternity in the Vita Karoli, whereas in the Historiae and the Liber Manualis they show a tendency to slip into secularity and provisionality, and sometimes the temporality within them also presents itself as interacting with the spatiality of reality. The thesis argues that these characteristics reflect the different moments of origin of the texts, specifically the Vita Karoli before the political crisis following the death of Louis the Pious but the Historiae and the Liber Manualis after it. From the way in which these three concepts were diachronically used by the Frankish lay nobles, and the subtle changes in the temporalities embedded in them, we gain a glimpse of the relevance of the contemporary political crisis to conceptions of temporality.