The “Glimpse Series” offers a closer view of the AAR community’s current Rome Prize winners by delving further into their studios or studies, their daily routines or work in progress. The scholarly and artistic work being pursued continues to be as varied as the fellowship recipients themselves. The following “Glimpse” focuses on Jennifer R. Davis, assistant professor in the Department of History at the Catholic University of America and the Millicent Mercer Johnsen Post-Doctoral Rome Prize Fellow in Medieval Studies.
Have you had any "ah-hah!" moments or unanticipated breakthroughs in the course of your work here?
I came here to finish writing a book about Charlemagne. Why study a Frankish ruler in Italy? It is a choice which requires some explanation, because Charlemagne ruled most of Western Europe from 768 to 814AD, but his empire was based far to the North of Rome.
The purpose of my book is to examine how Charlemagne and his men managed to hold together a vast and diverse empire with premodern tools of control and communication. I had noticed that some of the most innovative aspects of how Charlemagne ruled showed up first in conquered regions, in places like Italy and Bavaria where Charlemagne had less at stake than he did at home in Francia. I thought that Charlemagne and his men were using these conquered regions as sort of laboratories for experimentation, as places to try out tools of rulership before exporting them back home. Italy provides some of the best evidence for this process, because of the wealth of surviving sources and because the kingdom of Italy was a politically sophisticated place before the Franks arrived.
I had expected that I would spend the fall tracing how this worked, which is what I did. What was more unexpected to me was how central Italy proved to be to the story I wanted to tell.
Charlemagne conquered Italy in 773/774 after he was invited to intervene by the Pope who was seeking aid against Lombard incursions into papal territory. The Franks had done this kind of thing before. But when Charlemagne arrived, he did something unexpected: he abolished the Lombard monarchy and made himself king of the Lombards instead. This was an unprecedented choice and not at all what the Pope had in mind when he had asked for Charlemagne's help. Yet, this choice set the stage for the rest of the reign, because it is the first moment where we can really see Charlemagne breaking away from Frankish tradition and choosing his own path.
The conquest of Italy was a crucial stage in the building of a territorial empire, which historians have long known. I have come to see that it was also a crucial stage in Charlemagne's development as a ruler. The decisiveness and innovation that are so characteristic of his reign are first evident in the conquest of Italy. Italy was not just one in a line of conquests, but a vital testing ground for how Charlemagne ruled. Making this argument allows us to better understand the nature of Charlemagne's rulership, but I think it also underscores the deep and often underappreciated connections which drew together the early medieval world. Italy was very far from Charlemagne's capital of Aachen, but it loomed large in how he learned to run an empire.
Describe a particularly inspiring moment or location you've experienced in Rome thus far.
I think some of the most inspiring moments I have had in Italy have stemmed from being able to see the remains of the early medieval past in person. For example, I went to the abbey of Montecassino with two other fellows to read some medieval manuscripts. I was looking at Italian copies of Frankish royal law. These laws were not circulated directly by the court: the various authorities in Charlemagne's empire were expected to make copies for themselves, either from notes taken at assemblies or drafts they borrowed from others. Thus, looking at how these laws were copied and transmitted in Italy is one way of measuring the diffusion of royal power. How did people and institutions in Italy respond to these laws? What did they copy? What other texts did they combine the laws with? What issues did not interest them? Looking at this manuscript transmission helps me gauge how effective Charlemagne was at getting his message across in Italy. It is also providing a building block for my future work, which will examine legal transformation from 500-1000 AD.
Looking at the Italian reception of Frankish law allows me to analyze the particularities of Italian legal culture, which never fully corresponded to the Frankish, and illuminates the two-way street legal exchange between Italy and Francia, with each influencing the other. Much of the legal manuscript work I do relates to how the books were put together: how the hand changes, how texts were laid out, and questions like these. It is a kind of research I can only do from the actual manuscripts themselves, not from reproductions. Being in Italy gives me the chance to see many of these manuscripts first hand, and I hope to examine more during my last few months in Italy.
Another example of the advantage of physically being in a space Charlemagne inhabited is my opportunity to examine the reconstruction of mosaics of Pope Leo III and Charlemagne in front of the church of St. John in the Lateran. The mosaics are reconstructed, but early modern depictions and descriptions make clear that they are an accurate reconstruction of this late eighth century image. The mosaics are of particular interest to me because they are one of only three (arguably) contemporary depictions of Charlemagne. Seeing this papal effort to depict Charlemagne and make a visual argument about the nature of papal and royal power in Europe prompted me to write a paper about visual representation of Charlemagne, and its lack, which I delivered at Princeton University in April. I knew about this famous image before, of course, but encountering it in person helps you see it in a new light.
What's surprised you most about living in Rome?
My work at the Lateran mosaics was a surprise because of how much I was helped by others at the Academy. I was able to analyze the mosaics carefully and discuss them at the conference partly because of some wonderful and very detailed photos that Patrick Kelley, husband and collaborator of visual arts Fellow Mary Reid Kelley, took for me.
Living among both artists and scholars is one of the defining features of the Academy, but wasn’t something I really thought much about before coming here. I suppose I imagined that it might add to the liveliness of dinner table conversation to have people from many different fields, but it really didn’t occur to me that it would have an impact on my work. Being able to discuss what I do with interesting and creative people who approach my topic from a different angle has raised stimulating questions for my research and been one of the most pleasant surprises of this year.