BAPTISMAL RENUNCIATION AND THE MORAL REFORM OF CHARLEMAGNE'S CHRISTIAN EMPIRE

Abstract

The renunciation of the devil in the rite of baptism appears in high frequency in baptismal expositions, royal capitularies, acts of church councils, and popular sermons during the later reign of Charlemagne. Close examination of these sources demonstrates a discourse of reform that centers on the proper life and conduct of Christians. In reply to Charlemagne's questions in his encyclical letter on baptism, authors of baptismal expositions commonly expounded baptismal renunciation as a symbol of Christians’ moral conversion. Charlemagne projected his deep solicitude for the life and conduct of ecclesiastics of his realm on the issue of the renunciation of the devil in two capitularies of 811. Archbishop Leidrad of Lyon elaborated his exposition on baptismal renunciation in his second letter of reply to Charlemagne on baptism, which preserves a sample of how an ecclesiastical leader responded to the emperor's reform concerns. Several popular sermons from the later reign of Charlemagne reveal how the moralistic discourse of the renunciation of the devil was disseminated to common Christians. Baptismal renunciation was part of the rhetoric of Charlemagne's empire, and various modes of communication that involved the agency of multiple parties made it a totalizing discourse of reform.