The Sources

About the lecture

In this module, we explore the sources available that can tell us about Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire. Among the literary sources, there are the collections of Carolingian laws and decrees known as capitularies, Charlemagne’s letters and charters, as well contemporary literary accounts of his life—most notably Einhard’s Vita Karoli, or Life of Charlemagne—as well as contemporary poetry. In addition to this, there are also archaeological sources—including remains of Charlemagne’s various palaces—as well as the evidence of contemporary coinage.

About the lecturer

Rosamond McKitterick received the degrees of M.A., Ph.D., and Litt.D. from the University of Cambridge and also studied for a year (1974-5) at the University of Munich. She was promoted to a Personal Chair in 1997 and since 1999 she has held the Chair in Medieval History in the University of Cambridge's Faculty of History. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce, a Korrespondierendes Mitglied of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and a Corresponding Fellow of the medieval Academy of America. In 2002 she was the Hugh Balsdon Fellow at the British School at Rome and in 2005-6 Fellow-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study. In 2010 she was awarded the International Dr A.H. Heiniken Prize in History. She has presented many conference papers and lectures at universities in Britain, Continental Europe, North America and Australia. Her current work within the field of the early medieval history of Europe focusses on the degree to which a people’s knowledge and use of the past is an important formative element of political identity, as well as a means of articulating it. This interest in a people’s (re)construction, knowledge and use of the past is also part or her longstanding research on the role of the written word and books in the exertion of cultural influence.