Justifying Just Deserts: Carolingian Exile as Imperfect Imperial Ideal

In reviving the term crimen maiestatis to justify Charlemagne’s banishment of the rebellious Bavarian Duke Tassilo in 788, Carolingian intellectuals not only made an early display of the innovative thought for which they would gain renown, but also purposefully sought to imbue the Frankish king with an imperial aura well in advance of his later coronation as “Emperor of the Romans.”  This particular concept of Roman jurisprudence, long overlooked since the disintegration of the western empire, held great potential for an early medieval ruler intent on establishing effective control over his realm.  His advisors, and those serving his successors, therefore took great care in weaving the term into royal decrees, letters, and chronicles, especially when validating the ruler’s use of exile as a tool of political discipline.  This presentation will explore the development of that rhetorical strategy between the 780s and 850s, focusing on the ways in which the term came to mean very different things to different actors in the Carolingian empire.  While those who had selectively resurrected maiestas hoped that its enhancement of the re-emerging imperial ideal would resonate broadly enough to allay the aristocracy’s outrage as sentences of exile fell among its ranks, those expectations went awry as the opponents of such imperial designs used the concept to their own novel ends