![]() This dissertation argues that a detailed understanding of the transformation of the oath of loyalty is central to an understanding of post-Carolingian Europe because it sheds new light on many of its most significant developments, including the sacralization of kingship, the emergence of the knightly class, and the increasing self-consciousness of the clergy. The discursive changes surrounding perjury and fidelity, to which the oath was essential, had real effects on political and social structures. In the tenth century, they experimented with alternative traditions and introduced new ways of thinking about the oath as a social and political instrument. But intellectuals building on continuities of thought responded by envisioning new possibilities for the oath. It argues that the acute political disruptions of the period resulted in discontinuities in royal administration of the oath, so that the particular way in which the Carolingians used the oath was dissolved. This dissertation examines how the oath changed between c.830 and c.1000, in both thought and practice. But with the fragmentation of the empire in the later ninth century, the oath of loyalty could no longer be administered as before. In 789, Charlemagne decreed that all the free men of the realm were required to swear an oath of loyalty to him, establishing a tradition that was a vital part of Carolingian governance and royal ideology for the next century. ![]() The Oath of Loyalty and the Post-Carolingian Transformation, c.830-1000 Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: Princeton University Undergraduate Senior Theses, 1924-2023 Princeton University Masters Theses, 2022-2023 Princeton University Doctoral Dissertations, 2011-2023 Princeton School of Public and International Affairs Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
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