This article is taken from Figaro Histoire “When Europe Discovered the World”. Find in this issue a special file on the epic of the great discoveries.
To dedicate an exhibition to the kingdom of Lotharingia in the middle of the Var, we had to dare. The people in charge of programming at the Hôtel des expositions in Draguignan believed in it. Its curator, Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty, general curator at the Cluny museum in Paris, was convinced. And has achieved a real feat: bringing together 125 of the approximately 200 masterpieces scattered in European collections which relate to both this period which extends between the coronation of Charlemagne, in 800, and the year 1000, and this geographical area wedged between the Western Francia of Charles Le Chauve and the Eastern Francia of Louis II the Germanic.
She could have contented herself with setting up a fine exhibition of objects. But she wanted to place these treasures in their context, using them to develop a convincing historical narrative, punctuated with chronological markers and relief maps, aware of the almost total novelty of the subject for most visitors. “To begin with, I would say that Lotharingia is not a disease, it cannot be caught,” she declares with her devastating humor. For those who remember their history lessons, it’s the middle territory, the slice of ham between the two pieces of bread in the sandwich…”
Although the name of Lotharingia was only given to this region after the death of King Lothair II in 869, it extended, in the time of his father Lothair I, from the North Sea to the Italy, and included Provence. We remember that Charlemagne had only one son who survived him, Louis the Pious. In 843, three years after his death, the Treaty of Verdun divided the Carolingian Empire between his three sons. The West was for Charles the Bald and the East for Louis II the Germanic. The eldest, Lothair I, chose this middle land, median Francia, which linked two seas together, bit into Italian lands as far as Rome and beyond Venice and Florence, controlled the valleys of the Rhine and the Rhône, also followed the courses of the Scheldt, the Meuse, the Saône, and encompassed many artistic centers in the area where what was called the Carolingian Renaissance had developed.
By way of introduction, the first space of the exhibition returns to this Renaissance, symbolized in 800 by Charlemagne’s desire to be crowned in Rome by the pope. “This political act was accompanied by an artistic gesture. The reign of Charlemagne was a veritable creative laboratory where Germanic, Nordic and Latin influences mingled, of which he offered a veritable synthesis, specifies Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty. These are the first steps towards what will become Romanesque art. In the semi-darkness required by their fragility, a few solemn historical documents, such as this diploma – a charter issued by a sovereign authority in favor of an individual beneficiary or a legal person –, lent by the National Archives, which bears the seal of Charlemagne, formed from an ancient intaglio. The emperor gives there to the monks of Saint-Hippolyte, in Alsace, who depend on the abbey of Saint-Denis, part of the forest of Kintzheim. They gain the right to graze there and to collect fish and birds.
Here, as in the rest of the exhibition, a large place is given to books, the arts and the search for knowledge being concentrated at this time in the hands of clerics in the scriptoria. The Carolingian Renaissance also left us our tiny script, the round and legible caroline script, which can be discovered in the works on loan from the manuscripts department of the National Library. We thus discover the Gospels of Saint-Denis, a masterpiece on which many specialists have studied. Its pages are entirely purple, its text is transcribed in gold and silver ink, the text of its Gospels is written in Caroline, the pictorial treatment of its ornamental compositions already shows freedom of movement. Long considered a production of the court of Charlemagne, it is now accepted that it was written in the second half of the 9th century, in the north or north-east of present-day France, therefore in the territory of Lotharingia.
If the kingdom received by Charles the Bald after the Treaty of Verdun is at the origin of the kingdom of France, that of Lothair I was ephemeral. Twelve years after the partition of 843, on September 29, 855, he died in the monastery of Prüm and his kingdom was in turn divided between his sons. The eldest, Louis (Louis II) retained Italy, of which he was already the associated emperor. The younger, Lothaire (Lothaire II) received Francia, which ran from Friesland to the Langres plateau and included the symbolic city of Aix-la-Chapelle, capital of the Carolingian Empire. Charles, who was still a child, shared Provence, with the ducatus of Lyons: a kingdom between Vienne and the Mediterranean, with Lyon and Vienne as main cities. The “middle part” of Charlemagne’s kingdom was gone forever.
Charles of Provence died in 863 without direct heirs and his brothers shared his kingdom. Louis II of Italy took Provence, and Lothair II the ducatus of Lyon. But Lothair II died in his turn without legitimate children in 869. While his brother Louis II was busy driving back the Saracens in southern Italy, his uncles took the opportunity to seize his territories in Meersen in 870. Louis the German took the two-thirds of Friesland and above all the places of power: Metz, Trier and Aachen. Charles the Bald seized the lands west of the Meuse and the ducatus of Lyons. It is not finished ! In 875, Louis II of Italy died without male children. Charles the Bald then replaced him as Emperor and King of Italy. The territories coming from Lothair I were then definitively divided between his two brothers.
Yet it is from this kingdom of the two successive Lothairs that the most delicate treasures have come down to us. Participating in the return of the antique which characterizes the artistic taste of the Carolingian Renaissance, the art of cutting gems and especially that of ivory developed in particular in Metz, which became an important artistic center. Several extremely rare ivory plaques are exhibited, one of which adorns the upper cover of the binding of the Gospels produced in this city under the episcopate of Drogon (823-855). Monumental figures, vertical and symmetrical organization of the composition, this representation of the crucifixion teeming with naturalistic details is typical of what was called the second school of Metz or Lotharingian school, in the second half of the 9th century. Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty’s favorite work is this sculpted ivory plaque on loan from the Kunsthitorisches Museum in Vienna. “Here we reach the acme of Lotharingian art,” she says. Saint Gregory the Great is writing his Bible commentaries and other monks are copying. Grégoire finds himself in the middle of fantastic architecture, with a bird on his shoulder, a sign of his benevolence. The books being everywhere, it’s like a mise en abyme of the whole exhibition. »
On the second floor, the exhibition moves away from the family stories of the descendants of Charlemagne and presents a selection of objects that allows us to glimpse a few moments of the daily life of the inhabitants of the Carolingian space. They have been miraculously preserved in church treasuries or unearthed during archaeological digs: stirrups, chess pieces, brooches, terracotta gourds from the wreck of Agay-A, stranded off the coast of Provence… One of these memories is particularly moving. It is a lamp of thick glass, a color that is close to celadon. We imagine it suspended in its metal circle, filled with oil or fat, its flame flickering in the dark. Discovered in Villiers-le-Sec, in the Val-d’Oise, it is one of the very few pieces of glass from the Carolingian period that have come down to us. Only the glass objects that men of ancient civilizations placed near their dead in containers – urns or sarcophagi – that have protected them have survived so many centuries.
Exchanges between the empire of the two Lothairs and neighboring civilizations were facilitated by the lines of communication that crossed it. A few works here prove the astonishing porosity of these worlds. The Norwegian Museum in Bergen lent a curious anthropomorphic wall lamp, in copper alloy, enamel and millefiori glass. The head is disproportionate to the body, the chin is raised, the corners of the lips fall downwards, the cheekbones are high. What is this curious warrior thinking? Carved in Ireland, this wall lamp was found in Myklebostad, on one of Norway’s fjords!
The tenth century was that of the decline, then the end of the Carolingian dynasty. In the east, its last representative, Louis the Child, died in 911. His successor, Conrad de Germanie, gave way to Henri dit l’Oiseleur in 919. It was his son, Otto, who , being consecrated by Pope John XII in Rome, on February 2, 962, will become the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In West Francia, Louis le Fainéant disappeared in 987, at the age of 20. After him came a descendant of Robert le Fort, Count of Anjou. His name was Hugh; because of his lay abbot’s cope, he will be given the nickname of Capet.
However, the influence of artists from the Carolingian period remained strong throughout the 10th century, as evidenced by the goldsmith’s objects from Trier, a veritable firework display that closes the exhibition. We first admire the reliquary of Saint Clou, a gold scabbard adorned with enamels, precious stones and ancient gems, of incredible virtuosity. Trier had indeed become the second city of the empire under Constantine, whose mother, Helena, had brought back from the Holy Land the relics of the Passion. It was to honor one of these first relics to reach the West that a bishop had this emblematic case made. At this same workshop, Bishop Gauzelin de Toul ordered the chalice and the paten exhibited alongside, as well as the Evangeliary, whose chiseled silver plates represent the four evangelists. Preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Nancy, these masterpieces of delicacy and refinement testify to this period when the arts reached such a peak that their memory lasted in the workshops until the end of the Middle Ages. On their own, they would justify the discovery of these Lotharingian treasures.
“Treasures of the Kingdom of Lotharingia, the heritage of Charlemagne”, until October 8, 2023. Var Exhibition Departmental Hotel, 1 boulevard Maréchal Foch, 83300 Draguignan. Every day, except Monday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Prices: €5/€3/€2. Info. : hdevar.fr
