Carolingian Family and Dynasty
Fortuna, Money, and the Sublunar World: Twelfth-Century
Ethical Poetics and the Satirical Poetry of theCarmina
Burana (Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1995);
David Parlett, trans., Selections from theCarmina Burana:
A Verse Translation (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1986); P. G. Walsh, ed. and trans., Love Lyrics from the
Carmina Burana (Chapel Hill: University of North Car-
olina Press, 1993).
Carolingian family and dynasty Rulers of a large
part of western and central Europe between the eighth
and the ninth centuries. In the early seventh century, the
Carolingians, named after CHARLEMAGNE, acquired politi-
cal offices that gradually made them into a princely and
ruling dynasty. With PÉPINIII THESHORT, in 751, they
became a royal house recognized and anointed by the
church. In 800 Charlemagne expanded the concept and
was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the pope in Rome.
These titles and recognition gave the family a dynastic
legitimacy. Their position and power, however, was never
totally uncontested. Even those who had allowed that
acquisition, the Frankish nobility and the church,
resisted their exercise of power and eventually had elimi-
nated it by the end of the ninth century.BEGINNINGS OF THE DYNASTY
The Carolingians had their origins in a marriage between
the son of Arnulf, the bishop of Metz, and the daughter
of Pépin I the Old of Landon (d. 640), the powerful
mayor of the palace of the progressively declining
MEROVINGIANdynasty in 614. This union drew together
considerable patrimonies, important alliances, and net-
works of clients. Pépin II of Heristal (d. 714) defeated
the Neustrians in 687 at Tertry, and from then on, he
governed the whole of the kingdom of the FRANKSwhileMARCH OF
FRIULISPANISH
MARCH