Number and composition of officers of state
in the emperor's train
There are no conclusive studies on the number or composition
of the officers of state who accompanied the emperor
on his travels.[319]
From Hincmar's account of Adalhard
of Corbie's De Ordine Imperii,[320]
it appears that the central
administrative body of the Carolingian court consisted of a
staff of six leading functionaries, who by the very definition
of their office were part and parcel of the emperor's personal
entourage, viz., the Seneschal (senescalcus, literally,
"the old servant") who was in charge of provisions and
especially those of the royal table; the Butler (buticularius),
responsible for drink; the Chamberlain (
camerarius) in
charge of lodging and the royal treasury; the Constable
(
comes stabuli) in charge of horses and all other means of
transportation; the Count Palatine (
comes palatinus), the
primary officer in charge of the empire's judiciary administration;
and last but not least, the Arch Chaplain (
summus
capellanus), the emperor's primary advisor in ecclesiastical
and educational matters, whose office later became absorbed
in that of the Chancellor (
summus sacri palatii cancellarius).
[321]
Readiness for action involving the state and the imperial
household in its entirety would have required the presence
of all these men. But it is well known that the holders of
these offices were often away from the court in the summer
on special missions.
[322]
The House for Distinguished Guests,
nevertheless, would have been equipped to accommodate
all these men besides the emperor himself, plus his wife or
one of his children. How many members of his family he
was wont to have with him when traveling is another
question for which we have no ready answer. "Charlemagne,"
we are told by Einhard, "cared so deeply for the
training of his children that he never took his meal without
them when he was at home, and never made a journey
without them."
[323]
Although this could scarcely have applied
to all the seven sons and daughters
[324]
that Einhard ascribes
to Charlemagne, it would still suggest that the traveling
emperor was frequently accompanied by one or another of
his sons and daughters.
[325]
When Louis the Pious stayed in
St. Gall in 857, his sons Karlmann and Karl III were with
him.
[326]
This is about all that seems to be known on this
subject.
The Plan of St. Gall may actually help us here to close a
gap of knowledge. It discloses that at the time of Louis the
Pious a monastery was expected to be capable of taking care
of a royal party consisting of eight dignitaries of state or
members of the imperial family, their mounts, and eighteen
of their personal servants. In later centuries the figure may
have been considerably larger. The Consuetudinary of
Farfa—in reality the customs of Cluny (written between
1030 and 1048)—prescribed for that monastery a guest
house for forty male and thirty female members of the
emperor's train, plus a stable capable of sheltering some
150 horses.
[327]
Yet conditions at Cluny were probably
unusual. A fulcrum of revival and reform among the
monasteries of France and unbelievably rich, the abbey
was already well on its way toward wedging itself as an
arbitrating spiritual force into the interplay between the
secular and the ecclesiastical powers of the period.
