The Punishment Imperative and the Construction of Political Authority in the Carolingian Empire of Louis the Pious (814–840)

Bibliographic Data

ID13104535
AuthorsKarl Ubl (0000-0003-1626-8426, University of Cologne, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume10
Issue3
Pages181-197
Publication date2023-06-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Intellectual History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2380-1883 • E-ISSN: 2380-1891
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/23801883.2023.2201950
OpenAlexW4379162890
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited27

Historians of the Carolingian empire have generally neglected judicial violence as a means of constructing political authority, partly because the wergild system seems to exclude the significance of public punishment, partly because military violence is such a dominant factor in our view of the Carolingians. This is certainly true for the early Carolingians, but judicial violence gained in importance during the reign of Charlemagne, after the military expansion of the empire had come to an end. In contrast to his father Charlemagne, who pushed for the implementation of new forms of corporal punishment, Louis the Pious was committed to such a high degree of clemency towards rebels, criminals and evildoers that his political authority was questioned and that a discussion was triggered about the respective merits of clemency and severity. In this paper, I want to assess the conundrum of conscience which was inflicted upon Louis the Pious by the “double-bind” of a monastic abhorrence of punishment and the Frankish royal legacy of judicial violence

Conscience · Criminology · Empire · Political science · Politics · Punishment (psychology · Reign · Sociology · History · Law · Medieval and Early Modern Justice · Medieval Literature and History · Psychology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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