Giménez Soler, A. Don Juan Manuel. Biografi a y estudio critico.
Zaragoza, 1932.
Juan Manuel, Obras Compietas. Ed., prologue, and notes by J.
M. Blecua. Vols. 1–2. Madrid, 1983.
Rico, F., “Crítica del texto y modelos de cultura en el Prólogo
General de Don Juan Manuel.” In Studia in honorem prof. M.
de Riquer. Vol. 1. Barcelona, 1990, 409–423.
Jesús Montoya Martínez
JUDITH, EMPRESS (ca. 800–843)
Adulated as a Rachel, vilifi ed as a Jezebel, Empress
Judith (r. 819–840) has likely suffered more than any
other Carolingian from a polarized historiography. Pri-
marily known as the second wife of Emperor Louis the
Pious (r. 814–840) and mother of King Charles the Bald
(r. 840–877), she assumed a commanding role in the
volatile world of ninth-century Frankish politics, earning
the respect of many, and the enmity of many more.
Presented at the February, 819, Aachen assembly by
her parents (Welf, count of Alemannia, and the Saxon
noblewoman Heilwig), a beautiful Judith caught the
recently-widowed emperor’s eye; they were married im-
mediately. Judith gave birth in 821 to a daughter, Gisela,
but did not pose a real threat to her three stepsons until
producing a rival male heir, Charles, on June 13, 823.
From that day forth she strove to procure a stable future
for her son (and herself) by arranging advantageous
marriage alliances, installing relatives in key imperial
offi ces, and using her proximity to her husband on behalf
of several infl uential courtiers. She achieved her great-
est successes in Louis’s territorial grants to Charles in
829 (Alemannia), 832 (Aquitaine), and 837 (Neustria),
followed by the actual crowning of Charles as “king”
in August, 838. Among such auspicious occasions,
however, lay a series of rebellions in 830 and 833–834,
each led by Louis’s eldest son, Lothar, in an attempt to
assert his own imperial authority. He and his followers
focused much of their hostility on Judith, accusing her
in 830 of adultery and sorcery (charges later cleared by
her oath of innocence at Aachen on February 2, 831),
and banishing her to Poitiers. They exiled her again
in the later revolt to a convent in Tortona, Lombardy.
Lothar’s overconfi dence and the ephemeral help of his
brothers (Louis and Pepin) assured his failure in both
instances, however, leaving Judith and Charles several
years to consolidate their position (and according to
some accounts, to wreak revenge) before Louis died
on June 20, 840.
Civil war ensued, despite Louis’s revised division
of the empire in 839 between Lothar and Charles. In
the end, it was the help of Louis the Bavarian (who
had married Judith’s sister, Emma, in 827) that made
possible Charles’s and Judith’s victory over Lothar at
Fontenoy on June 25, 841. Afterward, Charles further
shored up his powerbase, benefi ting particularly from
his mother’s activities in Aquitaine from her base in
Bourges. On December 13, 842, Judith witnessed the
strategic marriage of her son to Ermentrude (niece of
Adalard, count of Tours). Charles soon enhanced this
declaration of independence by dispossessing his mother
of her lands and placing her in “retirement” at Tours,
probably in February, 843. She died there two months
later, on April 19, 843, comforted, perhaps, that her
consistent efforts on behalf of her son had changed the
course of Carolingian history.
Acclaimed by several contemporary writers for both
her beauty and erudition, Judith also fostered Carolin-
gian learning. She arranged for Walahfrid Strabo to tutor
Charles from 829 to 838, and commissioned the sec-
ond book of Freculf of Lisieux’s important Chronicle.
Hrabanus Maurus’s dedication of a commentary on the
biblical books of Judith and Esther, as well as a fi gure
poem to Judith also testifi es to her literary patronage,
and has supported the contention that she may have
personally supervised the creation and expansion of
Louis the Pious’s court library.
See also Lothair I; Rabanus Maurus;
Walafrid StraboFurther Reading
Bischoff, Bernhard. “Benedictine Monasteries and the Survival
of Classical Literature.” In Manuscripts and Libraries in the
Age of Charlemagne, trans. Michael Gorman. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 134–160.
Boshof, Egon. Ludwig der Fromme. Darmstadt: Primus, 1996.
Cabaniss, Allen. “Judith Augusta and Her Time.” Studies in
English 10 (1969): 67–109.
Konecny, Silvia. Die Frauen des karolingischen Königshauses.
Vienna: VWGÖ, 1976.
McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Kingdoms under the
Carolingians, 751–987. London: Longman, 1983.
Nelson, Janet L. Charles the Bald. London: Longman, 1992.
Ward, Elizabeth. “Caesar’s Wife: The Career of the Empress
Judith, 819–829.” In Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives
on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), eds. Peter Godman
and Roger Collins. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990, pp. 205–227.
Steven A. StofferahnJULIAN OF NORWICH
(1342/43–after 1416)
Mystical writer and the fi rst known woman author in
English literature. Her book of Showings, or Revelations
of Divine Love, ranks with the best medieval English
prose and is a primary text in the literature of mysticism.
It is extant in a short ver sion, probably written fi rst, and
in an extended form, com pleted 20 years later.
Biographical information about Julian is sparse. It is
lim ited to tacts in her own text, mention in a few wills,
and a passage in the Book of Margery Kempe. Julian’s
birthplace is unknown. The dialect in the oldest extantJULIAN OF NORWICH