Frankish women in the Carolingian Dynasty primary source | World History | Khan Academy

In this video, I want to talk about the lives of Frankish women who lived during the Carolingian Dynasty in the 8th and 9th century. So you can see here in blue the Carolingian Dynasty, and the Carolingian Dynasty ruled over much of the former territory of the Western Roman Empire. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europe was controlled by many decentralized kingdoms, including the Carolingian Dynasty.

In this context, powerful clans and families became increasingly important. This undoubtedly had effects on the lives of women, who were often the heads of these households and who helped manage the complex economy of these clans. So I want to look at a primary source that might give us some insight into the lives of women at this time.

I want to read something written by D, the Duchess Consort of Septimania and the Countess Consort of Barcelona. D was a noble woman, and in the excerpt we'll read, she is addressing her son. She wrote a manual called the Liber Manueles, which is meant to teach her son certain values. So let's read it together and talk about it.

The purpose of this was to instruct her son on proper behavior. "I'm not reluctant to teach you as well as I can how you should fear, love, and be faithful in all ways to Bernard, your lord and father, both when you are with him and when you are apart. On this matter, you have a teacher and the wisest authority, namely Solomon. He chastens and advises you, my son, saying: 'God has honored the father who flourished in his children.' And again: 'He who honors his father shall rejoice in his own children and shall live a longer life. He who obeys his father will give Heavenly solace to his mother, and he who honors his father is like one who lays up many good treasures. He who fears the Lord honors his parents.' You then, my son, honor your father and pray diligently for him so that you may reach an advanced age and live on earth a long time."

So if we look at this excerpt, we can pull out some information about the society in which D lived. First of all, she's writing this in order to instruct her son, and this is really representative of the way in which women at this time were important as the heads of households and important in educating their children, particularly their children's moral education. As we see here, she talks a lot about certain Christian values.

She says that his wisest authority and his teacher is Solomon, who's a Biblical figure. So here, she is referring to Christian ideas, and she even notes that God has honored the father who flourished in his children. She uses these biblical references in order to advise her son to be a better son to his father, and she really emphasizes this respect and love towards the father. Now, why this emphasis?

Well, it makes sense that she's emphasizing the father because around this time, patrilineage became more important. Patrilineage is basically descent that goes through the line of the father. This might seem like something that's always been around, but this was a shift from these broader extended clans into a smaller family unit where there is a father, a mother, and children rather than so many other family members.

So for D, to enforce this respect and deference towards the father is perfectly in line with this value of a smaller family unit. These families were very important, especially these powerful families, because they were the fundamental social unit in Frankish society.

To summarize some of the insights that we can gain by looking at this excerpt: mothers played key roles in households, particularly as the moral educators of their children, the ones who were responsible for making sure their children understood the moral ideas of their society. Secondly, patrilineage really defined smaller family units, and within that, fathers and mothers were important. But in this excerpt, D is really reinforcing the respect and deference towards the father. Through this excerpt, we can also see the importance of Christian values, which are really informing the advice that she gives to her son.