• DOI:10.2307/2854596
• Corpus ID: 163300685

Two Neglected Paladins of Charlemagne: Erich of Friuli and Gerold of Bavaria

@article{Ross1945TwoNP,
  title={Two Neglected Paladins of Charlemagne: Erich of Friuli and Gerold of Bavaria},
  author={James Bruce Ross},
  journal={Speculum},
  year={1945},
  volume={20},
  pages={212 - 235}
}

• J. Ross
• Published 1 April 1945
• History
• Speculum

IN Einhard's discussion of the wars waged by Charles the Great, the death in battle of distinguished Frankish officials is twice recorded, once in connection with the war in Spain' and again a propos of the Avar war.2 The first notice, relating the loss of the Seneschal Eggihard, the Count of the Palace Anselm, and Roland, Duke of the March of Brittany, has been immortalized in the Chanson de Roland although the events it concerns were of relatively slight importance in the history of the Carolingian Empire. The second, recounting the death of Erich, Duke of Friuli, and Gerold, Prefect of Bavaria, deserves more attention that it has received from posterity.3 The contemporaries of these men, however, realized the significance of their services to the state and to Christendom, and mourned their loss in sincere accents. Their names are mentioned not once,4 but many times, although the facts of their lives are imperfectly recorded. An attempt to bring together the scattered materials relating to the careers of these notable but neglected Carolingian figures seems peculiarly fitting at the present time because of the prominent, though somewhat obscure, role they played in the Carolingian Ostpolitik, the first conscious step in the historic Germanic push to the East., The great movement of the Germanic peoples to the south and west in the period of the Vblkerwanderung had been halted at last under the Merovingian kings by the Frankish conquests of other Germanic tribes lying to the east. This policy was destined to reach its climax under Charlemagne who by his conquests of the Saxons, Bavarians, and Lombards brought the Frankish state face to face with non-Germanic peoples, the Slavs in the northeast, and the Avars and Slavs in the southeast. Much more is known about Charlemagne's relation to the former than to the latter. It is the latter, however, with which Erich and Gerold are concerned.