Moduin
Moduin, Modoin, or Mautwin (
Ecclesiastical career
Moduin's early career in the church was spent at
Moduin may also have been the abbot of
Literature
Moduin was a court poet and as such his two surviving verses are secular. He is notable for his praise of Charlemagne and he has been called his
The two books of Moduin's Egloga, about the value of poetry, are traditionally dated to 804–10, before the poem Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa usually attributed to
The first book begins with the youth's unsophisticated attempts to praise his older counterpart and to laud the "rebirth of 'golden Rome'". This last attempt has been often misread as a "manifesto of the Carolingian Renaissance", but in fact the senex ridicules it.[6] It contains, nonetheless, some of the most explicit "renaissance" imagery of the period: Aurea Roma iterum renovata renascitur orbi ("Golden Rome is reborn and restored anew to the world!").[7] Peter Godman writes that with conclusion of the first book of Moduin's Egloga "Carolingian poetry achieves a new self-awareness."
Moduin's other poem, less impressive than the first and less "expertly written",[8] was composed to comfort Theodulf when the latter was in exile; this after Theodulf had written him a letter describing the political dissension then racking the empire in terms of a bird allegory borrowed from his earlier poetry.[9] Moduin eventually advises Theodulf to throw himself on "Caesar's" (i.e. Charlemagne's) mercy.
Sources
- ISBN 0-521-40586-6.
- Schaller, D. "Das Aachener Epos für Karl der Kaiser," Studien zur lateinischen Dichtung des Frühmittelalters, pp. 129–65.
- Stella, Francesco (1995). Poesia carolingia. Florence: Le Lettere, pp. 105, 128–35, 386–90.
- Stella, Francesco (2004). "Autor und Zuschreibungen des sog. Karolus Magnus et Leo papa," Nova de veteribus. Festschrift P. G. Schmidt. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 155–75.
- Tilliette, Jean-Yves (2002). "Poésie latine profane," Dictionnaire du Moyen Âge, Claude Gauvard, Alain de Libera, and Michel Zink, edd. PUF.
Notes
- ^ There is an obscure reference in "Moduin," Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, John McClintock and James Strong, edd. (New York: Harper), to Charles conquering Aquitaine from Pepin I and then dividing the government of his realm between three capitals: Limoges, Clermont, and Angoulême; the ecclesiastical division of Clermont being given to Moduin.
- ^ a b Godman, 45–46.
- ^ He attributes the line "Presbyter est Corydon" to a certain Naso, probably Moduin, cf. Godman, 18 and 122–3.
- Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa(or De Karolo rege et Leone papa, as Schaller has shown the textual title to be).
- ^ Godman, 190.
- ^ Godman, 25 and n45. Cf. also Schaller.
- ^ G. W. Trompf (1973), "The Concept of the Carolingian Renaissance," Journal of the History of Ideas, 34(1), 21. The Latin and the translation are from Godman, 192–3.
- ISBN 90-04-09622-1), 91.
- ^ Godman, 15.
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