1. Fathers and sons in a
charter database:
statistics and stories
Rachel Stone, King’s College London
rachel.stone@kcl.ac.uk

2. Sources for Frankish father-son relationships
• Normative sources: law-codes, conciliar acta,
moral treatises
• Narrative sources: histories, poetry, polemical
works
• Documentary sources: charters, polyptychs,
letters

3. Using charters for studying fathers and sons
• Large number of them, spread out through
empire
• Family practice rather than simply ideology
• Allows looking at non-royal/non-noble fathers and
sons

4. Making of Charlemagne’s Europe - project
• AHRC-funded project 2012-2014: KCL History
and Digital Humanities departments
• Royal and private charters from Frankish empire
for 768-814
• Online database:
www.charlemagneseurope.ac.uk

5. MKCHEUR charter source base
929 charters
from across the
empire

6. Family analysis: data problems
• People described as fathers in charters: 80
• People described as sons in charters: 601
• Average father has 7 or more sons?
• “Prando, filiu quondam Teudiperto” (CDA 49)
recorded as “Prando is son of Teudipert”
• End up with 685 known fathers

7. Family analysis: regional differences
No of charters mentioning
country
No of charters mentioning
fathers and country
No of charters mentioning
sons and country
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

8. Dead fathers
• 685 fathers in our charters
• 336 said to be dead at time charter written = 49%
• Inheritance only on father’s death?
• Some living fathers mentioned

9. Dead fathers:
Roman
evidence
Saller (1994)
& Scheidel
(2009): c.
one-third of
Roman
fathers dead
by child aged
15, one-half
by age 25

10. Early medieval demography
• Saller ‘senatorial level 6’ assumptions
• Mean age of marriage 15 (women), 25 (men), life-expectancy at
birth 32.5 years
• Cipriano-Bechtle, Grupe & Schroeter (1996)
• Wenigumstadt, Bavaria, 5th-8th century: life-expectancy at birth 34
years
• Fleming (2006)
• Raunds Furnells, Northamptonshire, 10th-11th century: life
expectancy at birth 21.8 years

11. Patterns of inheritance
• 61 charters (7%) with specific evidence on
inheritance
• More often formulaic/vague
• “anything I have from paternal or maternal inheritance”
• portiona mea, hereditas

12. Complex patterns of inheritance
• MON 48 (740-829), Huno “donavi ad sanctum
Michahelem me ipsum vel meam partem, quod mihi pater
meus dimisit in Chessindorf, quod ego in portionem
meam contra filios meos tuli et ego abui in ipsa diae.”
• I give to St Michael [Mondsee] myself and my share which
my father put aside for me in Koestendorf, which I had as
my portion against (?) my sons and I have to this day.

13. Future provision: sons and children
• WBG 128 (773) Sigibald grants property to Wissembourg,
but retains the right of a future legitimate son to buy back
the property (“si filium genuero de legitima uxore”)
• WBG 79 (c. 790) Helphant gives property to
Wissembourg but retains the usufruct, for himself and any
future sons (“si filios procreauerim”)
• WBG 19 (808) Arbio gives property to Wissembourg and
receives it back as a precarial grant for himself and his
children, Odo and Eugenia

14. Future provision: multiple choices
• FRE 41 (771) “ego Vurmhart...propriam hereditatem post
obitum meum, si genetrix mea ante finem meum vitalem
emitterit flatum et si soboles non genuissem, post dies
meos funditus substantia mea...ad intemerate virginis
Mariae ecclesiae...pertinere debuisset; si autem meae
decessisse et genetrice aut infante proprio supervixisse
contigerit, tertia pars ecclesiae conteneatur, eorum post
obitum relique quae fuerint supra membratim ecclesiae
soli dentur.”

15. Consenting
• 78 charters (8%) mention consenters
• 6 with sons consenting to father’s donation
• 5 with father/stepfather consenting to sons’
transactions (not all donations)

16. Family emotions: spiritual beneficiaries
• 192 charters (21%) where someone other than
the donor is prayed for/remembered
• 168 individuals/groups – some get prayed for in
multiple charters
• 90 individual men, 42 individual women

17. Spiritual beneficiary: parents
• 13 fathers only being prayed for
• 6 mothers only
• 10 father and mother together
• 4 groups of ancestors
• 16 groups of “parentes”

18. Spiritual beneficiaries: children
• 181 Carolingian royal diplomas
• 50 with prayers for Charlemagne’s children generally
(28%)
• 2 for Pippin of Italy specifically
• 734 private charters
• 11 with prayers for sons (1.5%)
• 2 for daughters
• 4 for children generally

19. Dead children
• 5/17 (non-Carolingian) fathers having prayers for dead
children
• CHLA 61:20 (812): donation by Ascolfus to St Stephen’s
Oile for his soul and that of his parentes and “pro ipsum
infantulu nomine Appo, qem nos ividem ad ipsa ecclesia
sepellimus”

20. Family conflict? Keporah and Rodoin
FRE 65 (774) : “Ego Onolfus...dilectum et quasi unicum Keparohun
amisi filium latrociniis insidie interemptum a quo orbatus remansi
cum unico Hrodino filio vocabulo”
“ad honorem si [Rodoin] accesserit... possedeat praedictum
patrimonium intercessor genitori matrique et germani adsistat...Sin
autem nostris impetire dedierit delictis, ut sublimare sacerdotalis
neglexerit gratibus...”

21. Family conflict? Scrot and Wago
• FRE 72a (776):
• Scrot donates to Freising on death-bed for his soul
• donation confirmed a week later by father Toto
• Wago, Scrot’s brother, donates to Freising “tam pro me pro genitore
vel prodecessoris”
• FRE 86 (777):
• Agreement by Toto and Osperga, (new wife) with remaining sons,
Cundhard, Rato and Wago, and with Freising

22. Family harmony? Walderan and Rado
• CHLA 24:756 (777)
• “tu Rado, filius meus, mihi in mea senecta multa erga inpendere
visus est in omnibus mihi semper obediens es; propterea volo, ut
omnem tuo conquesitum aut lavoratum post decessum meo abere
diveas, absque portionem nepotem meorum, que sunt filie
quondam Insunu, qui fuit filius meus, quia melior et amplius tuus
Radoni cognosce servitium quam de nepotis mee”

23. Fathers in charters: how distinctive?
• Father as provider
• Love and obedience
• Family tensions
• Lack of patrilineages
• Fractured families
• Carolingians atypical?