Bischofsnamen und Verwandtschaft in den Libri memoriales

Anmerkungen zur sozialen Herkunft der Bischöfe im Karolingerreich

Abstract

Bishop names and kinship in the early medieval Libri memoriales. Comments on the social origins of the bishops in the Carolingian Empire. – The following article deals with kinship and social origins of bishops in the Carolingian Empire. Based on selected entries in the Libri memoriales of the early Middle Ages it especially asks for how much bishops came from the highest aristocratic ruling class. Using the entries in the Libri vitae it has to be noted that the bishops of the Carolingian Empire not only came from the aristocratic elite. Obviously, the climb to a bishop was conceivable and possible for a serf through personal excellence too, even if only rarely and in exceptional cases. Nevertheless, however, the majority of the bishops is not to relate to the “Hocharistokratie” as Schulte and later on others asserted. As far as the entries in the Libri memoriales make clear, the identifying of people is often difficult; but in the cases in which the identification is possible, they can certainly provide valuable information on the relationship of bishops and thus contribute to their social origins. As the studied items with their name material let see, bishops like Salomon III. of Konstanz, Hunfrid of Thérouanne or Hartbert of Chur belong to the nobility. However, apparently their families did not belong to the “elite” of the aristocracy, the so-called “Reichsaristokratie”. Rather, the memorial book entries at the most indicates a very extensive relationship to nobility, which were active in a leading position. For this reason the frequently encountered statement, the bishops of the Carolingian period were primarily attributable to the highest nobility must be reviewed and modified. Certainly bishops among in very much cases from the nobility, but obviously they came not from those families, who were very closely related to the king.