HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

80 JOAQUÍN MARTÍNEZ PIZARROof high-born pretenders and conspirators. 111 Recent scholars tend tosee the deliberative assemblies of the RGS, with their many eloquentspeakers, as more classicizing than tribal or ‘Germanic’. However,Widukind’s uncommon attention to ritual and ceremony has beenassociated with a post-Carolingian breakdown of literate culture anda return to the expressive forms of a primarily oral civilization. 112An important question about the ethnic portico to the RGS concernsthe measure in which it is organic to the work as a whole. Inhis preface to Book I, addressing Mathilde, Widukind justifies thissection as an entertainment on an edifying and noble subject, howeverunconnected to the greatness of her lineage. But there are atleast two fundamental ways in which this section sets the stage forthe dynastic and imperial history that is to follow. The early collaborationof Franks and Saxons against Thuringians, though enforcedat the last moment by a Saxon initiative, serves as heroic-legendaryprecedent for their later partnership as Reichsvölker in East Francia:as soon as the destruction of the Thuringians is an accomplishedfact, the Saxons are called “partners and friends of the Franks” (I,13,repeated in I,14). This myth of an ancient amicitia allows Widukindto gloss over the extreme violence of Charlemagne’s Saxon wars—as he puts it, the wise Frankish ruler converted the Saxons toChristianity “in part by wise persuasion, in part by force of arms”,making them brothers of his own people in faith (I,15).In addition, Hathagat, the venerable warrior who renders this firstalliance possible by forcing the hand of the Franks, is referred to as“pater patrum” by his fellow Saxons in honor of earlier deeds ofprowess (I,11) and serves as a clear forerunner of Henry I, who afterhis victory over the Magyars at Riade in 933 is honored as “paterpatriae, rerum dominus imperatorque” (I,39), and of Otto I who,after his decisive triumph over the Magyars at the Lechfeld (955),is acclaimed as “pater patriae imperatorque” by his troops on thebattlefield (III,49). It is from this point on that Widukind refers toOtto as “the emperor”, ignoring entirely his imperial coronation bythe pope, which he passes over in silence and which had taken placein Rome seven years after the Lechfeld, on February 2, 1962.111Beumann (1950), 94–100.112Leyser (1993).