Historians owe a lot to Paul the Deacon. Born into a noble Lombard
family, Paul was given the best possible education for that largely
unschooled day. He became a monk and used his learning to record the
history and myths of his people, the Lombards. His book was one of the
first German histories authored by a German, although even then it was
written in Latin, the language of scholarship. Since most of its sources
have vanished, our knowledge would be poorer without it. It was copied
and recopied into the fifteenth century.
Early in his life, Paul's skill as a writer caused a duchess to ask
him to expand Eutropius'
History of Rome. Paul added six books
to it and this was widely copied during the Middle Ages.
Later his pen may have helped win the release of his brother, who was
held captive for his part in an uprising. Paul wrote an elegy to mollify
Charlemagne's anger. When this did not seem to work, he traveled North
to Charlemagne's court. The great king employed Paul for four years and
freed his brother.
Charlemagne made it his policy to encourage Christian learning. He
saw Christianity as the glue to bind his empire together. Paul compiled
a history of the bishops of Metz in which he declared Charlemagne was a
relative of the popular and holy Bishop Arnulf, who had lived a century
and a half earlier. This served to legitimize the king and strengthen
his ties with popular Christianity.
Paul also revised a compilation of sermons of the Church Fathers.
This book remained popular for centuries. So did his commentary on the
rule of St. Benedict.
Paul died
on this day, April 13, 799.
Many of his epitaphs, letters and poems have survived. Here is how he
describes an attack on Italy: "Presently, resenting some aggressions of
the exarch of Ravenna, King Agilulf straightway marched out of Pavia
with a great army and attacked the city of Perugia, and there for some
days he besieged Maurisio, the duke of the Lombards who had gone over to
the Romans, and speedily took him and slew him. The blessed Pope Gregory
was so sorely alarmed at the approach of this king that he ceased from
his commentary upon the temple mentioned in Ezekiel, as he himself
declares in his homilies. King Agilulf then, when matters were settled,
returned to Pavia, and not long afterward, upon the special instigation
of his wife, Queen Theudelinda--since the blessed Pope Gregory had
frequently so admonished her in his letters--he concluded a firm peace
with the same most holy Pope Gregory and with the Romans..."
Bibliography:
- Goffart, Walter A. The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D.
550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988.
- Paul the Deacon (possible author). "The Lives of the Fathers of
Merida" in A. T. Fear's Lives of the Visigothic
Fathers.Liverpool University Press, 1997.
- Paul, the Deacon. History of the Lombards; translated by
William Dudley Foulke; edited, with introd. by Edward Peters.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974.
- Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon). "Pope Gregory the Great and
the Lombards." Medieval Sourcebook.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pauldeacon-gregIa.html. [quoted
above].
- Schlager, Patricius. "Paul the Deacon." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
- Various internet articles, mostly from encyclopedias.
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