HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

DYNASTIC HISTORY 241the death of his father and lived until 965; he may have been bornas early as 885. By the time this genealogy was composed, between951 and 959, 110 Arnulf was already an old man; his son Baldwinruled the south of Flanders during this period. 111 Thus a successionwas in the offing, a time of shift and change.Compiègne was not in Flanders; indeed, it was a favored Carolingianresidence under Charles the Bald, 112 and Charles the Simple was stillmaking donations. 113 Arnulf pursued a complicated policy in relationto Charles’s son and long-term successor, Louis IV, supporting himinitially up until 939 and then rebelling against him. Toward theend of his life, possibly after this genealogy was written, he was againconciliatory. 114 For the monks at Compiègne, whose founders wereintermittently at odds with this other desirable patron, none of whosekin lay buried at Compiègne, it might well have been a priority tostress Arnulf’s earlier benefactions and offer the prayers of the monksfor him and his son in the hopes that such benefactions might continue.All in all, then, family relationships as laid out by Witger servethe needs of Compiègne. But the single autograph manuscript ofWitger’s genealogy is preserved at Saint-Bertin. 115 Saint-Bertin alsohad a stake in the counts; its presence may relate to that monastery’scareful collection of historical materials and also to the burial thereof members of the comital family. 116In the next series of Flemish genealogies, political concerns swirlmuch closer to the surface than purely monastic concerns, and, notsurprisingly, the second and third generations of comital genealogieswere more widely disseminated, perhaps in some kind of quasi-officialway. The genealogy composed during the lifetime of Robert II (†1111)at Saint-Bertin was preserved in five manuscripts (one now lost) and110Genealogiae comitum Flandriae, ed. Bethmann, 302 n. 1; but see van Caenegem(1973), 92 n. 8 who notes that Grierson has suggested 959–60, a date acceptedalso by Genicot (1975), 19, while Werner (1967), 7:46 says 962.111Nicholas (1992), 42.112McKitterick (1983), 751–987, 193, 214; for the school, see 214.113McKitterick (1983), 333.114McKitterick (1983), 251.115Genealogiae comitum Flandriae (1851), 302.116Baldwin II was buried at St. Peter’s in Ghent; Elftrude refused to have himburied at Saint-Bertin, because the monks would not let her be buried there aswell (Nicholas [1992], 20). Baldwin III was buried at Saint-Bertin, and Witger(Genealogiae comitum Flandriae [1851], 303) notes that Arnulf ’s brother Adalulf was aswell.