'Annals' of Flodoard of Reims, 919-966

Description: This is a very welcome addition to an excellent series. Fanning and Bachrach make this important and hitherto rather neglected text accessible for the first time in an admirably clear translation. - Rosamond McKitterick, University of Cambridge

Brief description:

Bernard S. Bachrach is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. Among his recent books are Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040 (University of California Press) and Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press).

Review Quotes:

This is a very welcome addition to an excellent series. Flodoard's contemporary narrative is crammed with information about west Frankish politics in the tenth century, the expansionist raids of the Northmen of the Loire (under Ragenold) and Seine (under Rollo and William Longsword) and ecclesiastical affairs of Rheims itself, not least the extraordinary account of the Synod of Ingelheim in 948 which deposed and excommunicated Archbishop Hugh and reinstated Archbishop Artoldus. Fanning and Bachrach make this important and hitherto rather neglected text accessible for the first time in an admirably clear translation, augmented with helpful historical introduction and notes.

Flodoard's work is not only one of the most important sources for the history of tenth-century Europe, but a fine example of the annalistic genre. It bears vivid witness to the complex, personal, and often brutal nature of the high-stakes political games of this period, which witnessed the slow demise of the Carolingian empire and the development of the kingdoms of Germany and France. Flodoard was himself deeply enmeshed in the events he recorded, and his account allows the reader to be caught up in the same action. Fanning and Bachrach's translation provides a trustworthy, well-annotated, and extremely useful tool for students of medieval history.