Emotions and Rhetoric in the Epitaphium Arsenii

Paschasius Radbertus’ Epitaphium Arsenii (a.k.a. the Life of Wala) is one of the most complex and enigmatic works of the Carolingian period. It survives in only one ninth-century manuscript from Corbie (Paris, BnF, lat. 13909). Its form is inspired by the late antique funeral oration, but also by the monastic dialogue. Grieving for their dead abbot and defending his reputation, the narrator named ‘Pascasius’ (the author himself) and some of his fellow monks of Corbie discussed Wala’s life and times. Whereas mourning and lament prevail in the first book, written shortly after Wala’s death in 836, the second book (c. 850) is dominated by fierce anger, and by invective to match it. What may look at first glance as a ferocious and unrestrained onslaught on the Empress Judith and her alleged lover, Bernard of Septimania, is in fact a highly stylised attack, governed by classical and late antique rhetorical traditions. The author’s most ferocious wrath, moreover, was aimed at someone hardly ever mentioned: the ruling king, Charles the Bald, and his interference with Corbie’s monastic property. The two main themes of the Epitaphium, grief and verbal abuse, merge in the figure of Jeremiah, who holds the two books together. Wala was the typus of Jeremiah, moving from lamentatio to increpatio, and this was also the structure of the Epitaphium. Yet Wala’s association with Jeremiah was more than a sophisticated literary construction. Already in the 830s, his pupils likened their abbot to the prophet of doom. Although there is no way to know whether Wala’s own self-perception and conduct were influenced by this powerful biblical model, this question is worth speculating about. Can one distinguish between Wala and Paschasius Radbertus, and if so, is this useful for the study of emotions?