The empire of the year 6000: Eschatology and the sanctification of Carolingian politics

Recent scholarship has cast new light on the manner in which the eighth and ninth centuries marked a period of heightened interest in eschatological knowledge in Western Europe. This revival of interest in eschatology occurred in conjunction with the revival of patristic learning that typified the Carolingian Renaissance, but it also coincided with the approach and passage of a preeminently millennial date: the year 6000 era mundi. This dissertation poses the question: did the surge of interest in eschatological knowledge, together with an awareness of the imminence of the end of the sixth millennium, influence the development and articulation of the ideological apparatus of the Carolingian Empire, to include political theology and ecclesiology?;In order to answer this question, this dissertation undertakes a survey of the manner in which Carolingian intellectuals and ecclesiastical leaders addressed the pertinence of the potential scrutability and meaning of the end to the construction of an imperium Christianum, and hence how they adapted eschatological knowledge to the creation of a political rhetoric suitable to their own times. The concern herein is thus not so much with the development of eschatology, as it is with the reception and use of selected elements of that knowledge within a political discourse. Accordingly, the range of sources drawn upon is wide, extending from exegetical commentaries to apocryphal revelations.;This study finds that Carolingian leaders were quite aware of the millennial significance of their own times, and that they systematically assimilated eschatological themes into their ecclesiological and political rhetoric around the year 800. Ironically, their success in incorporating eschatological knowledge into the construction of an ideology of Carolingian dominion, coupled with the passage of the year 6000, provided the basis for a penetrating critical reflection on the failure of imperial unity. Hence, much of the ninth century saw an exegetical and rhetorical process aimed at disengaging the ideology of rulership from eschatology, and at establishing new paradigms for conceptualizing the relationship of the present to the consummation of sacred history. This dialectical process set the stage for many of the future developments in eschatological knowledge in the central Middle Ages.