The Memory of the Living: Political Commemoration of Allies by Two Tenth-Century Royal Women

Abstract

In the early Middle Ages, the public commemoration of recently deceased persons served to shape the immediate political future. In royal and noble circles, the creation and issuance of charters in the wake of death helped stave off potential discord by forging new political bonds and publicly confirming the legal transfer of significant holdings. This article analyzes this dynamic of immediate postmortem commemoration in two tenth-century kingdoms, late Carolingian Francia and the Ottonian Empire. In these realms, Queen Gerberga and Empress Adelheid advocated for recently dead allies to ensure their memory persisted through their intercessions and interventions in confirmation charters. In doing so, these royal women used the deaths of fideles both within and, more intriguingly, outside of their family circles to shore up their own political aims and consolidate their political futures. Examining these moments of potential crisis illuminates how early medieval queens and empresses acted as agents of memory indispensable to the earliest stages of commemoration. It equally demonstrates how rulers seized on the afterlives of their allies to perpetuate existing networks of social relations and promote belief in the justice of their rule.