Nithard, 'Histories'

Nithard, a layman and soldier, offers an important eyewitness account of the Carolingian civil war between Charlemagne’s grandsons. This work also includes an early example of the languages that would become French and German. Nithard’s Histories open with Charlemagne’s death in 814, cover the reign of Louis the Pious and the rebellions against him, and then give details about the conflict between Louis’s sons Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald during 840–842.

This volume contains a new edition and English translation of the Histories. The edition utilizes all surviving manuscripts of the text as well as Pithou’s sixteenth-century edition, which preserves variants from an additional, now-lost manuscript. The critical apparatus presents variants found in all extant manuscripts and editions, providing a full view of the textual history that will interest specialists of Carolingian history and Latin historiography. The volume also offers a comprehensive look at this pivotal period of history that is accessible for the wider public. In addition to surveying the manuscript tradition and describing the manuscripts and editions, the introduction draws on the latest scholarship and discusses Nithard’s life, work, perspective, and style. The notes to the translation give further insight into Nithard’s work and contextualize his view with references to other contemporary historical sources. The volume also includes a glossary of people and places mentioned in the text and a map of those places.