1 BETWEEN SELIGENSTADT AND ST BAVO’S ABBEY, GHENT: MAKING A COLLECTION OUT OF EINHARD’S LETTERS Georges Declercq * Abstract: The letter-collection of Einhard, biographer of Charlemagne, is preserved in a unique but badly damaged manuscript dating from the third quarter of the ninth century. This manuscript was most probably copied out in St Bavo’s Abbey in Ghent between 853/60 and 879, though contrary to the general assumption the letter-collection itself was not compiled at St Bavo’s. In this paper I argue that the collection probably originated as a letter-formulary in Seligenstadt, where Einhard spent the last years of his life. The core of the collection (letters 1–54 in the manuscript) appears to have been assembled around 834 or 835, possibly by Ratleik, who served Einhard as notary from 827 at the latest. This would explain why most of the letters in the collection date from the period after 828. In Einhard’s last years, several more of his letters were added to the collection (letters 55–64). Shortly after Einhard’s death (840), a copy of this collection was sent to St Bavo’s, where a number of letters that were neither sent by nor addressed to Einhard were added (letters 65–70). In the third quarter of the ninth century this manuscript served as a model for the extant copy, which is probably to some degree selective. I also argue that essentially Einhard’s letters owe their survival to their potential to be used as models for practical correspondence. As the letters are in fact anonymous (Einhard’s name is systematically abbreviated to its initial letter), they were not assembled as a letter-collection of the ‘great Einhard’, but as a collection of epistolary models. A comparison with Alcuin and his letter- collections shows that in the Carolingian period Einhard had neither the authority nor the reputation of his contemporary. Keywords: Medieval letter-collections, letters, Carolingian Empire, St Bavo’s Abbey Ghent, Seligenstadt, Laon, Einhard, Louis the Pious, Ratleik, Alcuin. Einhard, courtier of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, is scarcely in need of an introduction. 1 Born in the Maingau around 770, he was educated at the abbey of Fulda. Between 791 and 796 he moved to court, where he rapidly became a member of Charlemagne’s inner circle. After Charlemagne’s death, Louis the Pious rewarded him with the lay abbacy of several royal monasteries (of both St Peter and St Bavo in Ghent, St Servatius in Maastricht, St Wandrille, St Cloud, San Giovanni in Pavia, Fritzlar). During the crisis of 830 he left permanent service at court to spend his last years in Seligenstadt, where he devoted all his attention and energy toward promoting the cult of the martyrs Marcellinus and Peter, whose relics had been stolen from Rome on his behalf in 827. On 14 March 840 he died, and was buried in the large basilica he had built at Seligenstadt in honour of his beloved martyrs. His literary fame rests on the Vita Karoli, a biography of Charlemagne in eloquent Ciceronian Latin, on the model of Suetonius’s De vita caesarum. 2 * Department of History, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussel, georges.declercq@vub.be. 1 This article is a revised and much expanded version of a paper presented at the second Einhard Symposium in Seligenstadt on 25 September 2008; for the initial paper, see Georges Declercq, “Die Genter Sankt-Bavo-Abtei und die Handschrift der Briefsammlung Einhards,” (forthcoming). 2 Good outlines of Einhard’s life and career are offered by Paul Edward Dutton, Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Peterborough, ON 1998) xi–xli, Hermann Schefers, Einhard. Ein Lebensbild aus karolingischer Zeit (Michelstadt-Steinbach 1993), and Philippe Depreux, Prosopographie de l’entourage de Louis le Pieux (781–840) (Sigmaringen 1997) 177–182. For a comprehensive, albeit somewhat speculative biography, see Steffen Patzold, Ich und Karl der Grosse. Das Leben des Höflings Einhard (Stuttgart 2013). Detailed information on different aspects of his life can be found in Einhard. Studien zu Leben und Werk, ed. Hermann Schefers (Darmstadt 1997). See also David Ganz, “Einhardus Peccator,” Lay intellectuals in the Carolingian World, ed. Patrick Wormald and Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge, UK 2007) 37–50, and Julia M.H. Smith, “Einhard: the Sinner and the Saints,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13 (2003) 55–77. On the Vita Karoli, see especially David Ganz, “Einhard’s Charlemagne: The Characterisation of Greatness,” Charlemagne: Empire and Society, ed. Joanna Story (Manchester 2005) 38–51, and Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, UK 2008) 7–20. On the Suetonian