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. Ibid., i.727.34 The Early Middle Ages 800 1100The length and detail of Hincmar s discussion of love- and hate-magicin the Divorce suggests that he was interested in magical practices as wellas marriage law.It is possible that he took his information from a sourcewhich has not survived, but in his treatise on the vices and virtues, heemploys a similar technique, including passages with no known sourcesin the middle of an otherwise unoriginal discussion of sexual sins.¹vHincmar s interest in magical practices may also be linked to his pastoralwork in his archdiocese.His episcopal statutes of 857 stressed that priestsshould get first-hand information about what the laity in their dioce-ses were doing and refer serious crimes to the bishop.¹w It therefore seemslikely that Hincmar took some of his information from what he himself,or his subordinates, had observed, and that his discussion was fuller thanmost because he was interested in both magic and sexual matters.He sawthe latter as a necessary part of his role as archbishop:  We bishops say thisnot because we want knowingly to reveal or ignorantly to make knownthe secret places of girls and women, which we know nothing of by expe-rience, but.so that if anyone caught at such things comes to us, askingin penitence for the judgement of just judges, we can judge her withouterror. ¹xHincmar also emphasized that magic that caused hatred or impotencewas often curable.As Valerie Flint has pointed out, the implication ofthe story that he tells is that in most cases,  ecclesiastical medicine will beeffective and a separation will be unnecessary.¹y In neither the Divorcenor his other discussion of impotence magic quoted below, however, didHincmar specify exactly what he meant by  ecclesiastical medicine.In hisother discussion he listed confession, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, andexorcism separately, so the term may refer to the use of additional rites(perhaps blessings of the marriage bed) or to the use of holy water or salt,or perhaps to a procedure like one eleventh-century cure, quoted below,in which the afflicted couple were blessed by the priest and given a slip ofparchment to wear, on which was written a biblical quotation.Flint has¹v Hincmar of Rheims, De Cavendis Vitiis et Virtutibus Exercendis, ed.DorisNachtmann, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 16 (Munich: MGH,1998), 122 3, 168 9.I am grateful to Janet Nelson for this reference.¹w Hincmar s statutes: PL 125:793 4; Devisse, Hincmar, ii.881.¹x Jane Bishop,  Bishops as Marital Advisors in the Ninth Century , in Julius Kirshnerand Suzanne F.Wemple (eds.), Women of the Medieval World (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1985), 55.¹y Flint, Rise, 295.The Early Middle Ages 800 1100 35suggested that the binding nature of an indissoluble Christian marriagecould in itself be seen as a counter to the binding magic that causedimpotence,²p but this does not necessarily follow.Simply because Christianmarriage was supposed to be indissoluble, this does not mean that itsbond had a magical force.Flint has also suggested that Hincmar s idea of  ecclesiastical medicinemay have included something more tangible.She argues that the Lotharcrystal in the British Museum, which dates from the mid ninth centuryand is engraved with scenes from the biblical story of Susannah, is con-nected to the divorce of Lothar and Theutberga.Not only does it depictthe vindication of a wife wrongly accused of a sexual crime (Lothar hadaccused Theutberga of incest and abortion), but the rock crystal fromwhich it was made is found in Frankish graves as an amulet.Flint thereforesuggests that the crystal was designed by Hincmar in 865, when Lotharand Theutberga had a temporary reconciliation, both as a reproach toLothar for his conduct and as an amulet to protect the couple againstfurther magic.²¹ This theory cannot be proved conclusively and otherinterpretations have been put forward,²² but Flint s suggestion is plausible,since Hincmar was well informed about magic, and was also interested inthe story of Susannah.²³Hincmar was not necessarily typical of his contemporaries in suspectingthat Lothar was bewitched.Some contemporaries saw Waldrada s relation-ship with Lothar as legitimate, and so are unlikely to have accused her ofbewitching him.For example, Waldrada appears in the commemorationbook of the Lotharingian monastery of Remiremont, as does Lothar I smistress Doda, which indicates that both women were seen as worthy ofbeing recorded alongside the Carolingian kings.²t A collection of letters relat-ing to the case compiled by Lothar s supporter, Bishop Adventius of Metz,also did not mention magic, for obvious reasons.Nor did Regino of Prüm,²p Ibid., 295.²¹ Valerie Flint,  Magic and Marriage in Ninth-Century Francia: Lothar, Hincmarand Susanna , in Marc Anthony Meyer (ed.), The Culture of Christendom: Essays inMedieval History in Commemoration of Denis L.T.Bethell (London: Hambledon Press,1993), 71 2;  Susanna and the Lothar Crystal: a Liturgical Perspective , Early MedievalEurope 4 (1995), 61 86.²² Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians (London:Longman, 1983), 174; Genevra Kornbluth,  The Susanna Crystal of Lothar II: Chastity,the Church, and Royal Justice , Gesta 31 (1992), 25 39.²³ Flint,  Magic , 68.²t Airlie,  Private Bodies , 15.36 The Early Middle Ages 800 1100who described the case in his chronicle at the end of the ninth century.²uHowever, the idea that Waldrada had bewitched Lothar may not havebeen unique to Hincmar.In his Annals of St Bertin, Hincmar claimed thatrumours were circulating to this effect:  Lothar, demented, as it was said, bythe magic arts. ²v This was Hincmar s view of popular opinion, of course,but a later source suggests that he was not the only one to have heard theserumours.The Life of St Deicolus, which was written in the monastery ofLure in eastern France in the tenth century, and has no known connectionto Hincmar, also presents Waldrada as a sorceress.The author says that suddenly [Lothar] was burned with the brand of the ancient enemy and ledinto such headstrong and headlong insanity that he repudiated his pious wifeQueen Bertsinda [sic], and took instead a certain she-wolf named Waldrada.Because she was very widely supposed to be a sorceress, she so bewitchedthe king s mind by many kinds of magic, that everything she asked of him, sheeasily obtained [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]