Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (review)

Thomas F. X. Noble provides a comprehensive study into the writings about Christian art in the Carolingian world. There are three large clusters of complexes: (1) the Opus Caroli regis (or Libri Carolini) as the Frankish answer to the Synod of Nicaea in 787, (2) the materials of the Paris Colloquy in 825 (the Libellus) as provoked by the letter from the Byzantine emperor Michael II to Louis the Pious, and (3) the further discussion about images during the reign of Louis the Pious. The first two were caused by the Byzantine image controversy. At the beginning of the third cluster stood the action of Claudius of Turin, who destroyed Christian pictures. Claudius was one of the independent thinkers of the Carolingian age (like Gottschalk and John Scotus); he contested conceptions, which in his time were generally accepted. He rejected not only images but also the cult of relics and pilgrimages to Rome. The refutation was undertaken by Jonas of Orléans and Dungal of Pavia, but only in a general manner by reference to tradition and the Bible. Agobard of Lyon, Walahfrid Strabo, and Einhard composed other writings on the subject. The latter wrote not about images, but about the cross. Noble reports and discusses the complete texts in great breadth and presents a theory of images in the Carolingian period. He integrates the image question into the political situation and discusses it in the categories of tradition, order, and worship. So the Franks tried to show themselves as the legitimate people of God, to the exclusion of Byzantium. Order means general principles in the organization of society as necessary and agreeable to God. Worship leads over to the question, whether images are venerable.

Carolingian authors professed different positions concerning images. All, except Claudius, affirmed the existence of Christian images. They were justified by Old Testament references, Christian tradition, and the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Rarely did an author refer to the pedagogical value of pictures for illiterates or to psychical effects. The meaning that the veneration of the image passes over to the represented person was not unknown, but it was not considered important. Images have no ontological holiness; they work no miracles. As a rule, no separate veneration of the image was maintained. If there was any veneration of material things, such as crosses, then it was distinguished from the adoration that was due to God alone. The Franks always recognized the different manners or degrees of veneration, using a changing vocabulary. The word is of greater value than the image.

The familiar opinion that the Franks misunderstood the acts of Nicaea because they had a bad translation, is rightly rejected. But there is not the distinct understanding, that the pope used the same translation.

Because the Western preoccupation with the image question was initially an echo of the Eastern image controversy, Noble gives an exposition of the Byzantine quarrel. He sees the whole complex in great parts.

Noble is careful to pay attention to the entire non-English literature. This produces a harmonious impression of the status of research. But there are titles out of date and dubious, and there are disputes about their correct interpretation.