1. 1
Fathers and sons in a charter database: statistics and stories
Rachel Stone,King’sCollege London,IMC2015, Session313
(S1) In thispaper,talkingabout usingMakingof Charlemagne’sEurope charterdatabase tolookat
rolesof fathers incharters
familyemotionsincharters
drawingbothon basicstatistical analysisandstoriesinindividual charters
(S2) Sourcesfor earlymedievalfathersandsons:normative,narrative,documentary
Most discussionsof fathersandsonsinCarolingianperiodrelyingonnormative ornarrative
sources
(S3) What are the advantagesof usingchartersfor studyingfathersandsons?
1) Wide spreadof texts:over3000 complete texts(excluding Lorsch) forCharlemagne’s
reign,around 1300 German/Austria/Switzerland,1200-1300 Italy,400-450 France/Low
Countries
2) How familiesworkinpractice,notjustideology
3) Look at familieslowerdownsocial spectrum,whomnarrative sourcesrarelydiscuss
(S4) Backgroundon Making of Charlemagne’sEurope database
AHRC-funded projectatKCL 2012-2014, buildingacharterdatabase
royal and private chartersfrom768-814
web-basedpublicinterface (plusmore dataavailable viaback-endqueries)
includes informationonfamilyrelationshipsandrolesintransactions
(S5) So far 929 charters in the system– not complete butstill verylarge
across mostof empire
(S6) Lookingat familiesinthe database,there are immediateproblemswithsome of the statistics.
One bigissue ishow the charters talkabout families:
People describedasfathersincharters: 80
People describedassonsincharters:601
Doesn’tmeanaverage fatherhas7 or more sons,butreflectshow we inputdata. If a charter states
that “X isson of Y”, we justrecordedthat, not that “Y is fatherof X”, because itwouldhave tootime-
consuming. We’dhopedthe database couldgeneratethatinformationautomatically,butitturned
out be too complicatedtodoso.

2. 2
So forthisand all otherstatistics,have todo some playingroundwithdatato pickup all the
examples.Whenyoudo,findthatnumberof menindatabase overall shownasfathers =685.1
(S7) Difference betweennumbersof fathersand sonsrecordedalsoreflectsregional differences.
Revealingtolookatbreakdownbycountry,usingslightlydifferentstatisticsof numbers of charters
rather thannumberof people:
No of charters mentioning
place incountry
No of charters mentioning
fathersandplace in
country
No of charters mentioning
sonsand place incountry
Austria 83 15 9
Belgium 18 5 1
France 211 41 21
Germany 330 60 72
Italy 315 16 208
Luxembourg 5 1 8
Netherlands 16 2 8
Switzerland 14 1 8
Turkey 1 0 0
Spain 1 0 1
(Click) Asyou’ll see,there are adisproportionatenumberof sons inItaly.Why?Because sonsare
identifiedby theirfather’sname inItalianchartersandnot generally elsewhere. Needtobe aware
howmuch differenttraditionsof diplomaticaffectthe datawe getfromcharters aboutfamily
relationships.
Fathers in charters: dead providers
(S8) So that’san overviewof the datawe’re workingwith.Now forsome of the details.One of the
interesting pointsIrealisedwhenanalysingthe dataishow manyof the fathersmentionedin
chartersare deadby the time charter waswritten
336 fatherssaidtobe dead (8 + 328) – justunderhalf.
Why all the deadfathers?Isthissimplybecause sonsnormally onlyinheritpropertyon theirfather’s
death,sothat theydon’tshowup incharters until then?
But there are some fathersconsentingtotransactions thattheirsons have made,andwe
alsoget toldaboutbothlivingfathersanddeadfathersof witnesses.Sothese deadfathersare
significant.
(S9) It’s worth lookingatRoman demographics,because there have beenseveral recentstudies
lookingspecifically atdeadfathers.2
Andwhattheyshow isveryhighlevelsof childrenwhose
1
Made up of 80 people describedasfathersinARFfroma charter and611 male people whohave
children(appearas Male 2nd
person inARFwithrelationship type =5 (child),6(son),49 (daughter)).
Overlapof twogroups = 9 people.

3. 3
fathersdie before they’re adults. Underarange of assumptions,youhave aroundone-thirdof
childrenwhose fatherhasdiedbythe time they’re 15and aroundhalf by the time the childis25.3
(S10): Howdoesthiscompare withthe earlyMiddle Ages? RichardSaller’s modelisfundamental,
but hisassumptionshave beendisputed.Butit’srevealingtoconsiderhismost conservative
estimatesforpaternal death, using‘senatorial level6’assumptions,withthe mean age of marriage
as 15 for women,25 for men, andlife-expectancyatbirth of 32.5 years.It’sunlikelythatlife
expectancywas muchhigherinthe earlyMiddle Ages,andasthe examplesshow, itmayhave been
as much as 10 yearslower.4
We don’tknow the age at firstmarriage, apart froma few royal
examples,whichmaybe atypical,butit’sdifficulttosee fertile marriages occurringmuchearlier
than Saller’s estimates,especiallysince pubertymayhave beendelayedbypoordiet.
Whateverthe exactstatistics,anydiscussionof father-sonrelationships needstoconsiderthatthey
may have beenlesscommonandshorterthaninmoderntimes.
(S11) We were hopingtofindoutmore aboutinheritance patternsfromthe Charlemagne database,
but inthat respectourcharters overall were disappointing.Only61charters included specificdetails
of whichpropertywasinheritedfromwhom. Mostof what we foundwas veryvague phrases:
“anythingIhave from paternal ormaternal inheritance”orreferencestosomeone’s“share”
portiona mea or hereditas
(S12) However,insome individual charters,didget evidence forcomplex patternsof family
inheritance. Forexample inMondsee 48,Hunostates:
“I give to St Michael [Mondsee] myselfandmyshare whichmy fatherputaside forme in
Köstendorf,whichIhadas myportionagainst(?) my sonsand I have to thisday.”5
The team’sconclusion,basedoncomparisonswithotherMondsee charters, wasthatthisprobably
meantthat Huno’sfatherhad dividedthe inheritance betweenHunoandsome of Huno’ssons.
(S13) We can alsosee complex variationsonfuture provisionforfamilies.Forexample,take three
chartersfrom Wissembourg,whichstate:
2 Richard P.Saller, Patriarchy, property and death in the Roman family (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,1994); Walter Scheidel,'The demographic background',in SabineR. Hübner and David M. Ratzan (eds.),
Growing up fatherless in antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2009)
3 Saller ordinary:mean age of firstmarriage20 for women, 30 for men, mean female lifeexpectancy 25;
senatorial:mean ages of marriage15/25,mean lifeexpectancy 25 or 32.5
4 A. Cipriano-Bechtle,G. Grupe, and P Schröter, 'Ageing and lifeexpectancy in the early MiddleAges', Homo 46
(1996),273; Robin Fleming, 'Bones for historians:puttingthe body back into biography',in David Bates, Julia
Crick,and Sarah Hamilton (eds.), Writing medieval biography: essays in honour of Professor Frank Barlow
(Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell,2006), p. 39
5 “donavi ad sanctumMichahelemme ipsumvel meam partem, quod mihi pater meus dimisitin Chessindorf,
quod ego in portionem meam contra filios meos tuli et ego abui in ipsa diae.”

4. 4
WBG 128 (773): SigibaldgrantspropertytoWissembourg,butretainsthe rightof afuture legitimate
son tobuy back the property: “si filiumgenuerode legitimauxore”
WBG 79 (c. 790) Helphantgivespropertyto Wissembourgbutretainsthe usufruct,bothforhimself
and forany future sons“si filiosprocreauerim”
WBG 19 (808) Arbiogives propertytoWissembourgandreceivesitbackas a precarial grant for
himself andhischildren,OdoandEugenia
Are such variantsjusta matter of diplomaticandthe vagariesof Latinor do theypossiblysay
somethingabouthowfathers(orpotential fathers) thoughtof theirchildren? Theydosuggestthat
sonsand specificallylegitimate sonswerewhatwere imagined,butthat fathersinpractice wanted
to care for actual daughtersas well assons.
(S14) These future provisionsincharterswere the hardestto recordsystematically inthe database.
Here’sa particularlycomplex statementwe foundfromFreisingandourattemptsat translatingit:
I, Wurmhard...myinheritance aftermydeath...oughttobelongtothe church of the
immaculate virginMary...if mymotherletsgobreathbefore the endof mylife andIhave
not generatedchildren;butif itshouldhappenthateithermymotherormyown child
shouldsurvive mydecease,athirdpart isto be keptforthe church, and aftertheirdeaththe
restthat is overisto be givenpiecemealtothatsingle church.6
I’mnot sure how successful we were atcapturing suchdetailsinthe database,butthey are revealing
aboutthe desire of some fathersorpotential fathersto stayin control of eventsaftertheirdeath.
Andagain there are interestinghintshere abouthow uncertainfamilylife couldbe.Giftsare givento
holyplacesonlytobe possiblyretracted;the needforthe saint’ssupportcan’twaitina worldwhere
your mothermightsurvive youbutany future children youhave mightnot.
(S15) One aspectof familiesinchartersthathas beenexplored,mostnotablybyStephenWhite,is
the role of relativesinconsentingtograntsof property.7
White arguedthatthe laudatio parentum
was uncommonbefore 1000. Our chartersconfirmthat: only 78 chartersof anytype mention
consenters.Those thatconsentare a mix of relatives andunrelatedhigh-statusmen;we have 6with
6
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0000/bsb00004628/images/index.html (p.69), FRE41 'ego
Vurmhartdivine munerisconcessionepropriamhereditatempostobitummeum, si genetrixmea
ante finemmeumvitalememitteritflatumetsi sobolesnongenuissem, postdiesmeosfunditus
substantiamearesinquisitas adintemerate virginisMariae ecclesiaeRotae fluminissitae ripae
pertinere debuisset; si autemmeae decessisse etgenetrice autinfantepropriosupervixisse
contigerit,tertiaparsecclesiae conteneatur,eorumpostobitumreliquequae fuerintsupra
membratimecclesiae soli dentur.'
7 Stephen D. White, Custom, kinship, and gifts to saints: the laudatio parentum in western France, 1050-1150
(Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press,1988)

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sonsconsentingto a father’sdonation and5 withfather/stepfatherconsentingtosons’transactions
(notall donations).8
Thataspectof associatingone’srelativeswithatransactiondoesn’tseemto be
significantinthe Carolingianperiod.
(S16) But we alsorecordedinformationaboutanotheraspectof familylife thatcanpotentiallytake
us towardslookingatemotionswithinfamilies.Intransaction,whoare the spiritual beneficiaries:
whomdo transactors ask to be prayedfor or remembered? We have 192 charterswhich include
referencestosomeoneotherthanthe donorbeing prayedforor remembered. The vastmajorityof
these are donationstomonasteries,althoughwe’ve alsogot 2 saleswhichinclude spiritual
beneficiaries(CDL2:225, SFL 22), thus provingonce again thatour neat categoriesof donationsand
salesdon’talwaysworkinpractice.
In these 192 charters,we have 168 individualsorgroups,since some getprayedforinmultiple
charters,and of these we have 90 individualmenand 42 individual women.
(S17) In some case the charter doesn’tsaywhatthe relationshipis,butof those we do,we have:
13 fathersonlybeingprayedfor
6 mothersonly
10 fatherand mothertogether
4 groupsof ancestors
16 groupsof “parentes”(whichmightindicateparentsorkinmore widely)
In otherwords,commemoration andmemorialisation isn’tjustof the paternal line
(S18) It’salsorevealingtolookatchildrenasspiritual beneficiaries.We have alarge numberof royal
diplomaswhere Charlemagnestatesthathischildrenare tobe prayedfor: 50 forChildrengenerally
(ID224), more than a quarter of all hischarters, plus2 withprayersspecificallyforPippinof Italy
(DKAR1:202, 208).
In contrast,such prayersare rare in private charters: we’ve found 11where sonsare prayedfor,2
where daughtersare,4 where childrengenerallyare. 9
Worthrememberingthatrequiringprayers
8 Sons
FRE 30, Alberic,son of granter
FRE 44, Charles,son of granter
FRE 48, Silvester,son consenting to precarial grant
MRH 39: anonymous son consentingto grant
REG 2 anonymous sons of Opi consentingto grant
WER 4: Maginhard,son of granter
Fathers
CHLA 23:750 Opteris,stepfather, consenting to sale
CHLA 61:17 Bassacus,father,consent to receipt of livellus
CRE 4: Benignus father, consenting to sale
FRE 39, father Cello,consenting to grant
FRE 72, Toto, father, consentingto grant
9 Sons

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for relatives isaloteasierthangettingthemtoconsentto a donation.Youdon’thave to gather
themtogetherorsenda scribe off to record theirconsent,youjustneed anextraline ortwoin the
charter.On thismeasure,itlooksasif Charlemagne isone of the few Frankishfathersreally
concernedaboutthe continuationof his paternal line.
(S19) Of the fatherswhodo want prayersfortheirchildren,anumberof themare fordeadchildren:
5 outof the 17 charters for suchprayersconcerneddeadsonsor daughters,includingone
heartbreakingcharterfromTuscany.That’sa donationbyAscolfustoSt Stephen’sOileforhissoul
and that of his parentes and “forthat little childAppohimself,whowe buriedinthe same place,at
the church itself”10
(S20) But some chartersalsoshowus more ambivalent attitudesbetweenfathersandsons.One of
the deadsons whoiscommemoratedisa BavariancalledKeparohun,murderedinaconflictaround
774. In FRE 65 his fatherOnolfusreportshow he haslosthis“beloved Keparohan, asif myonlyson”,
so that “deprivedof himIremainwithmyonlysoncalledRodoin”11
Onolf givesthe familychurchto
Freising,butaddsthatif Rodoinbecomesacleriche shouldpossessthischurch duringhislifetime
and pray forhisfather,motherandbrother.But he also includesprovisions if Rodoin “shouldneglect
to raise priestly thanksgivings”.12
Isthisextraclause justincase Rodoindoesn’tbecome apriestoris
there alsothe possibilityhintedatthatRodoinmay nothave appreciatedbeingverymuchsecond-
bestto hisdeadbrother?
CHLA 61:20 = CDA 72 – Appo, dead infant son of Ascolf
FAR 2:176 Peter & Paul,dead sons of Liuderisius
FRE 54 Gunzo, son of Helmbert
FRE 65 – Keparohun murdered son of Aunulf and Albswind
FRE 69: sons of Ricbald 7380
FRE 72 – Scrot, dead son of Toto
MON 115 – Maginhard son of Maginrad
(PAS 37) – spiritual benefitfrom son being handed over
SFL 22 – Adalbert & Starcholf,sons of vendor
WBG 85 – Autbert son of Gozbert
WER 27 Bosoconis –murdered son of Thancgrim
Daughters
PAS 34, Anonymous daughter of Maginhard
WER 20 Swanaburg, dead daughter of Snellhard
Children
FRE 79, Helmwin 7068
FRE 84, Pircho 7761
MON 12, Magilo 1039
MON 112 – Poso 1674
10 CHLA 61:20 (812): pro ipsuminfantulu nomine Appo, qem nos ividem ad ipsa ecclesia sepellimus
11 (p Ego Onolfus...dilectumet quasi unicumKeparohun amisi filiumlatrociniisinsidieinteremptum a quo
orbatus remansi cum unico Hrodino filio vocabulo
12 ad honorem si [Rodoin] accesserit...possedeat praedictumpatrimoniumintercessor genitori matrique et
germani adsistat...Sin autem nostris impetirededierit delictis,utsublimaresacerdotalisneglexeritgratibus...”
impetere = to attack, accuse,call to account,claim,demand, require)

7. 7
(S21) There are similarhintsof conflictsbetweensons overafather’sfavourina couple of other
Freisingchartersfromaroundthe same time. These concernthe wonderfullynamedScrot,who died
prematurelyandonhisdeath-bedin776, leftpropertytoFreisingforhissoul.Thisdonationwas
confirmedaweeklaterby hisfatherToto.On same day Wago, Scrot’sbrother,donatestoFreising
for himself,hisfatherandancestors(“tamprome pro genitore vel prodecessoris”), butnotablynot
for Scrot’ssoul.13
A year later,meanwhile,there’sanothercharterconcerningadispute between
Toto’sremainingsonsandtheirfather,alongwithhisnew wife Osperga; afamilyagreementhadto
be brokered byDuke Tassilo.14
Atthissocial level,father-sondisputescouldbecomeamatterfor
princes.
(S22) Occasionally,we cansee hintsof multi-generational tensions.A charterfromthe Sienaarchive
from777 has WalderanfromCosunapromising propertytohissonRado,because he’sdone so
much forhimin hisoldage andalwaysbeenobedient; Rado’sgiven“betterandmore service”than
Walderan’sgranddaughters,the daughtersof hisdeadsonInsunus.15
However,these grand-
daughtersstill getashare of Walderan’sproperty;hadRado’sdevotedservice reallychangedthe
amounthe was due to inherit,orwashisfathermerelytryingtobutterhimup?
(S23) Charterscan give ustantalisingglimpsesof familyaffectionandtensions,butwe rarelygetall
the detailswe’dliketohave. Evenso, we getinsights thatwe can’t getelsewhere.Some aspects
seemfamiliar,suchasfathers’concerntoprovide fortheirchildrenand forsonsinparticular.
Normative sourcesare full of demandsforfatherstolove theirsonsandsonsto obeytheirfathers;
theyalsoaccept the kindof favouritismtowardsaparticularsonseeninsome of the Freising
charters.Conflictswithinfamilies are alsofamiliarfromotherCarolingian sources.
But the charters alsosuggestthatfather-sonbondsmayhave beenlessstrongthanyoumight
expectina patriarchal society. Fromaround800, the Carolingianroyal family werekeentostress
theirpaternal line ancestors.16
The charterevidence suggeststhatthiswasn’tapriorityforother
familiesinthe late eighthandearlyninthcenturies. EveninItaly,withitsregularrecordingof names
of men’sfathers, memorialisationdidn’tfocuson agnaticrelatives.
13 FRE 72
14 FRE 86. Warren Brown, Unjust seizure: conflict, interest, and authority in an early medieval society (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press,2001),p. 54 pointed out how many important noblemen witnessed this agreement,
includingVirgil,thebishop of Salzburg.
15 CHLA 24:756 = CDA 29 “tu Rado, filiusmeus,mihi in mea senecta multa erga inpendere visus estin omnibus
mihi semper obediens es; propterea volo, ut omnem tuo conquesitumaut lavoratumpost decessum meo
abere diveas,absqueportionem nepotem meorum, que sunt filiequondamInsunu,qui fuitfilius meus,quia
melior et amplius tuus Radoni cognosceservitiumquam de nepotis mee”. This may draw on Lombard legal
norms which allowgivinga preferential shareto a favoured child: CristinaLa Rocca,'Multas amaritudines filius
meus mihi fecit. Conflitti intrafamiliari nell'Italialongobarda(secolo VIII)', Mélanges de l'Ecole française de
Rome 111 (1999) describes a casewhere such norms were adapted to disinherita son.
16 Constance B. Bouchard, 'The Carolingian creation of a model of patrilineage',in Celia Chazelleand Felice
Lifshitz(eds.), Paradigms and methods in early medieval studies (Basingstoke:PalgraveMacmillan,2007)

8. 8
Doesthismeanthat we’re still inthe periodof the “large”familyor clan?Notreally:when specific
relativesdogetmentioned incharters,they’re overwhelminglyclose ones:there are almostno
cousinsinour database,forexample.Instead,itmay have more todo with“fractured”familiesand
the constant disruptiontoa patrilineal consciousness arisingfromprematurelydeadfathersand
sons.What may reallyhave been distinctive aboutthe Carolingianroyal familywasthe numberof
kinglyfatherswhosurviveduntil theirsonswere well intoadulthoodand the resultantdifficulty that
royal sonshad in dealingwithlivingfathersratherthandeadones.