The Medieval Church · c. 840–841
The Life of Louis the Pious
The Astronomer
What it is
An anonymous courtier's life of Charlemagne's son, including the emperor's public penance at Attigny, his deposition by his own sons and the bishops who backed them, his restoration, and the comet he read as a warning and would not be talked out of.
Why it lasted
The clearest account of the crisis that broke the Carolingian empire, and of something new in it: bishops asserting the right to judge and depose an emperor for sin, which is the argument Gregory VII would make two centuries later.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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