Night Blooming (2 page)

The Church contributed to the life of the empire in many ways, perhaps none so significant as the establishment of major monasteries and convents throughout Karl-lo-Magne’s realm. Not only did these thriving communities contribute to the local economy, they served as learning centers and safe havens. The vast, forested expanse of the central Frankish lands was peppered with religious communities offering hospitality to travelers and refuge for those driven from their farms by war or plague or famine. Since priests were not yet forbidden to marry, many of them maintained private households in towns and villages, fairly isolated in their work, and as such did not have the powerful community presence of (technically celibate) monks, whose monasteries were often villages in themselves, where God’s Work dictated the behavior of the occupants—at least in theory. In many ways the monasteries actually served as a substitute for towns, which were small, dangerous, and disease-ridden. Most monasteries and convents were dedicated to maintaining the prestige of their patron saints, and not only because it added to their importance but because the reputation of a saint was often all that stood between the non-military religious and the greedy military elite, who were disinclined to attack a monastery or convent if the patron saint was considered a powerful one, who could be counted upon to exact supernatural revenge for any abuse of his or her monks.

Alcuin of York’s administration of the major monasteries helped in cementing the goals and policies of Karl-lo-Magne; he also protected Church interests by encouraging mutual support among regional military and religious institutions. By maintaining a standard of performance for scholarship, Alcuin made it possible for the monasteries to provide a dependable recording service to the ruling class, which inclined the nobles to value—and therefore protect—the monasteries. The work of the clerical scholars done during Karl-lo-Magne’s reign proved invaluable to Karl-lo-Magne as well as to later centuries through the compilation of
descriptiones
and
itineraries
—comprehensive lists and catalogs of the world around them; they also reformed writing through the invention of the Carolingian minuscule, or what we call lowercase letters, such as the ones you are reading right now.

Until the thirteenth century, the Church had no policy on stigmata, leaving it up to local religious authorities to decide if the wounds were holy or damnable in their implication. Rare though it was, the stigmata did occur from time to time, and response to it varied from veneration to persecution, depending on the prevailing superstition of the era. St. Francis of Assisi was the first stigmatic to have his injuries officially recognized as spiritually favorable, a perception that has carried on to the present day. At the time of Karl-lo-Magne, the stigmata phenomenon was considered dangerous, whether good or bad in its interpretation, and for that reason, stigmatics were carefully watched by Church authorities.

During Karl-lo-Magne’s reign, two major agrarian developments—the three-field rotation system of farming, and the standardized horseshoe—significantly changed agriculture and travel. For the first time since the Roman Empire in the West fell, crop surpluses became possible, for the three-field rotation, planting two fields and leaving one fallow for grazing each year, reduced the catastrophic impact of crop failure by having two crops each harvest season instead of one. Famine still occurred but less regularly than before, and was more quickly recovered from. The innovation of the standardized horse shoe simplified military campaigns and farming alike and made travel a bit less precarious by ensuring shoes for horses that were readily and relatively inexpensively available. Another Frankish innovation that came shortly after Karl-lo-Magne’s death was the invention of a heavy, wheeled plow that allowed for a deep, turned furrow rather than a shallow scratch in the top soil; this allowed for tathing—covering the fields in dung and straw during the winter—which could be plowed back into the earth in the spring, replenishing the earth with fertilizer as well as supporting the crop rotation. In the gradual disintegration that followed Karl-lo-Magne’s death, farming continued to flourish in western Europe.

These improvements would not have been possible without the increase in iron mining in German territories. This, along with silver mining in what is now western Poland, made the Franks rich and powerful, providing the raw material of wealth and the means to control the market. Frankish iron made the heavy plow and standardized horseshoe possible by producing a supply of ore that was more than adequate to military needs; it allowed for horses to carry and pull heavier loads, and for larger, heavier horses to be bred—both unlikely without the standardized shoe, made possible by the increased supply of iron. Suddenly scissors, shears, sickles, knives, spades, and other iron utensils were also being made for a much more general market than had been possible since the fourth century. Because the Franks controlled the silver mines, the Carolingian monetary system—such as it was—was silver-based, not gold. Money was in short supply in any case, no matter of what metal; most commerce was based on trade of goods and services. A further problem with gold was that it had to be got from other governments, and could be costly in more ways than one. Rather than burden himself with gold-based obligations, Karl-lo-Magne saved his gold for royal ornaments and ceremonial objects and minted almost all his coins in silver.

The population of Europe during Karl-lo-Magne’s reign—and for almost a thousand years thereafter—was about 80 percent peasant, 10 percent military and clergy, 8 percent artisan (predominantly masons, smiths, potters, weavers, leather-workers, millers, and all manner of wrights), and 2 percent merchant classes. In this population, days and seasons were more important than specific dates, and the society reflected that: the calendar had not been regularized, and though Karl-lo-Magne used the Pope’s calendar for state documents, many of his subjects did not, resulting in a level of official confusion that lasted well into the Medieval period. Karl-lo-Magne also had his own system of months, which he used generally. Time was reckoned by sundials and canonical Hours, and not by any agreed-upon discrete measurement of minutes. Sunrise and sunset established the limits of the peasants’ and artisans’ day, the religious lived by the eight Hours of the Divine Office (with an optional observation of Nocturne or Vigil), which was around-the-clock schedule of prayers and chanting, keeping a somewhat different schedule in the eighth century than they do now; the military lived by the pragmatic demands of campaigning.

*   *   *

As always, there are a number of people to thank for various kinds of help in researching this novel: Barry Carlton for campaign maps of Karl-lo-Magne’s conquests and expansions; Louise Sagan for information on languages and dialects in Karl-lo-Magne’s territories; J. K. Grunning for information on the religious institutions and structures of the Carolingian epoch; Desmond Creary for references on Carolingian art and manuscripts; Raymond Vassar for untangling the ninth-century political interaction of Byzantium and Rome; Philippe Cartier for information on Frankish social history; Hudson Scarpard for his knowledge of the state of learning and education in Carolingian times; Leonard Pasterman for information on Karl-lo-Magne’s movements, with apologies for occasionally putting him fictionally where he was not actually; Angelica Wilson for her information about domestic production and village-level sufficiency in Frankish territories; and Lorinda Nohl for access to her material on Frankish domestic and agricultural innovation. Any errors in historicity are mine, and none of these good people’s.

On the other end of the process, thanks to my agent, Irene Kraas, for all the hard work; to my editor Betsy Mitchell, Larissa Rivera, and the good people at Warner Books, especially Laurence Kirshbaum; and with a nod to Stealth Press for their fine editions of the early Saint-Germain titles—and the handsome covers by Muran Kim. Other thanks are due to Lindig Harris for book searches and the newsletter,
Yclept Yarbro
([email protected]); to Sharon Russell, Stephanie Moss, Elizabeth Miller, and Katie Harse for their continuing enthusiasm; to accuracy readers Joel Weissberg, Libba Campbell, and Ernestine Maxwell; to clarity readers Imelda Veasy, David Green, and Susanne Lyleson; to regular readers Maureen Kelly, Jim Watkins, and Megan Kincaid; to Bowling Green University for archiving my manuscripts; to Robin Dubner, my attorney, who looks after Saint-Germain’s interests; to George Meckel for some excellent advice; to Tyrrell Morris for maintaining my computers in the face of viruses and worms, as well as my Web site (
www.ChelseaQuinnYarbro.net
); and to the bookstore owners and readers who continue to support this series—without you, this might all be an exercise in futility.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Berkeley, June 2001

Part One

K
ARL-LO-
M
AGNE

T
EXT OF A LETTER FROM
A
LCUIN OF
Y
ORK,
B
ISHOP AND
A
BBOTT OF
S
ANT’
M
ARTIN AT
T
OURS TO
H
IERNOM
R
AKOCZY,
C
OMES
S
ANTUS
G
ERMAINIUS, AT
T
ORUN TO THE EAST OF
W
ENDISH TERRITORY, WRITTEN IN
F
RANKISH
L
ATIN, AND CARRIED BY
O
TFRID OF
H
ERSFELD AND
F
RATRE
A
NGELOMUS, MISSI DOMINICI OF
K
ARL-LO-
M
AGNE.

The greetings of Alcuin of York, to the magnatus Hiernom Rakoczy, de Santus Germainius of Torun, on behalf of Karlus, King of the Franks, at the behest of whom I request that you come to Sant’ Martin at Tours where eminent grammarians, calligraphers, and geographers have gathered to aid in the work of various itineraries on the order of the King’s Will. This must serve as a summons to you to join our efforts, as I shall delineate further.

Your fame has reached us from even so far as the territories where you have come to live. We have been told that you have been much about the world, even as far as the lands of the Great Khan, and can add to our geographic exercises, as well as our efforts to expand our description of the greater realms of the earth. Your knowledge, therefore, would receive the utmost respect and attention, and in time you may earn the regard of Great Karl himself, as well as the gratitude of Holy Church.

It is also said that you have skills in mathematics which rival the Arabs for subtlety and potency, the which you may be persuaded to include in your instruction of us. It is known that the use of numbers is a most erudite talent and one that would benefit our King most truly. If you will agree to teach us what you know, the value of your presence here will exceed that of any other single scholar. If this distinction can add to any argument I might put forth to bring you into Frankish lands, then consider it and let it be the final factor in your deliberations.

The missi dominici who carry this letter will provide you escort to Sant’ Martin at Tours. They are proven men, worthy of the King’s trust, and stalwart in their purpose. Otfrid of Hersfeld and Fratre Angelomus have served Great Karlus for many years, and you may trust them as you trust in the King. They have the right of paravareda, allowing them to requisition horses on your journey once you have crossed into Frankish lands. Until that time, you will need to provide horses for your own travel, as well as all provisions, for as great as his power is, Karlus cannot command beyond his own borders.

You will be permitted to bring four servants and three soldiers with you, but no more than that. You will be allocated housing here until Karlus makes other provisions for your keep. If you can afford to provide for your own maintenance, then you may apply for such grants as the King may wish to accord you.

This travel will bring you into Great Karl’s lands in the month of September if God is good and your passage is swift, and you meet with no misfortunes in your travels. Your place will be ready for you at the Feast of Moses, and for every day thereafter to the Nativity, when, if we have no word of you or of your escort we will command a Mass of Remembrance for the repose of your souls, and your names will be enrolled among those to be prayed for, as an acknowledgment of your service to Karlus.

It would be most ungracious of you to refuse this generous offer from Karlus, who only extends such invitations as this one to the most worthy of foreigners. Karlus has a long memory and a longer arm, and would not be pleased to learn that you returned his kindness with impertinence. Consider the advantages our King may offer you, and come with the missi dominici willingly. You will not regret accommodating our King, but you may well rue refusing him.

May God speed you here, and may you rejoice in the favor of Karlus. Written by my own hand on the Feast of Barnabas the Apostle in the 796
th
Year of Grace as proclaimed by the Pope in Rome.

Alcuin of York

Abbott, and Bishop, Sant’ Martin at Tours,

and of Cormery, Ferrieres, Sant’ Loup, Sens,

Flavigny, and Sant’ Josse

Chapter One

N
UDGING ONE OF HIS SLAVES
with the toe of his boot, Bishop Freculf waited for him to bring a stool so he could dismount with the dignity of his station. He was dressed for summer hunting, his russet gonelle of heavy linen just now wrinkled, pulling out of his girdle, torn at the shoulder, and stained with the blood of deer. His femoralia were covered with tibialia over which the broad bands of his high brodequins were laced, and all were spattered with mud. His only sign of rank was his massive pectoral crucifix on a collar of crosslets, which he had wiped clean of dust and mire. He rose in his stirrups and looked at the Priora of the convent. “What was it you wanted me to see?” he asked, his aristocratic accent giving him added authority beyond his powerful position. “I have left my escort outside. They will wait for me.”