In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

118 Anna Trumbore Jones 8   The Power of an Absent Pope Privileges, Forgery, and Papal Authority in Aquitaine, 877–1050 In 930, Frotier II entered his fourth decade as bishop of Poitiers. Possibly in a bid to close his long episcopate in a fitting manner, or possibly— as some scholars have argued—in an attempt to settle a dispute with the local comital house, Frotier set out over the next few years to reconstruct the monastery of Saint-Cyprien, which lay on the banks of the river Clain on the outskirts of the city.1 This was a long process involving multiple steps. Frotier rebuilt the structures of the house.2 He endowed it with land and income both from his own holdings and from those of the cathedral of Saint-Pierre in Poitiers.3 He expanded the dedication of the monastery from the local saint, Cyprien, to include the more widely revered Virgin This essay has deep roots in my dissertation research, done under the direction of Robert Somerville. It is indicative both of his formidable learning and of his generosity that he was willing to oversee a dissertation whose subject fell outside his own era of focus. His unyielding demand for precision and rigor in his students’ work is responsible for much of the worth that that dissertation —and subsequent pieces based on it—may possess. The process of producing it, meanwhile, was eased immeasurably by his perceptive nature, his humor, and his myriad kindnesses. I am forever grateful. I thank Mary Harvey Doyno and John S. Ott for their comments on previous drafts of this essay. Any errors that remain are mine alone. 1. Alfred Richard, Histoire des comtes du Poitou, 778–1204, 2 vols. (Paris 1903) 1.72 and 1.83–84. Evidence for a dispute between Frotier and the count of Poitou, Ebles Manzer, is found in a charter from Saint-Cyprien that states that Frotier was restored to the bishopric after Ebles’s death: Louis Rédet, ed., Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers, Archives historiques du Poitou 3 (1874) [hereafter Saint-Cyprien] 126, p. 90. I have argued elsewhere that this restoration took place at some point in 934, thus tightening the likely date range for the restoration of Saint-Cyprien from 931–36 to 934–36: Anna Trumbore Jones, ‘Lay Magnates, Religious Houses, and the Role of the Bishop in Aquitaine (877–1050)’ , in The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages, ed. John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones (Aldershot 2007) 21–39 at 25–26. 2. Saint-Cyprien 1, pp. 1–2; 3, pp. 4–5; and 183, p. 117. 3. Saint-Cyprien 3–4, pp. 4–7; 65, pp. 58–60; 118, p. 87; 183–84, pp. 117–19; 232, pp. 150–51. The Power of an Absent Pope  119 Mary and Martin of Tours. Fittingly, he brought in Martin’s successor, Archbishop Téotelon of Tours, to consecrate the new house and confirm its possessions.4 Frotier enlisted local powerful men to stand as witnesses to Saint-Cyprien’s new status. And finally, he forged, or had forged, a papal privilege purporting to come from Pope John XI, which would later open the monastery’s cartulary.5 It was an inelegant document. The modern editor remarks on the informal language of the privilege, its inconsistency with papal formulae of the time, and the jarring mention of Roman consuls; even a less welltrained eye spots immediately the lack of the usual ringing intitulation invoking Johannes episcopus, servus servorum Dei and its replacement with the more homely Ego Johannes papa. Both the existence of this document as part of Frotier’s restoration program and its unusual form raise a number of questions. Had Frotier attempted to acquire a genuine papal privilege and when rebuffed turned to forgery, or did he not bother to petition the pope? When the document’s author set about creating the false privilege, why did he not try to approximate more closely the form of a genuine decree ? More broadly, what did a papal privilege—and the papacy itself— mean for a bishop and monastery in tenth-century Aquitaine? At the time of Frotier’s actions at Saint-Cyprien, popes had not been seen in person in France for more than fifty years and would not reappear for more than a century. In the absence of the pope himself, what power did his office, his name, his...

Share