Princes, princesses et nobles étrangers à la cour des rois mérovingiens et carolingiens : alliés, hôtes ou otages ?

Foreign dangers: activities, responsibilities and the problem of women abroad

“…82 In this context there was no room for the dangers of the foreign wife, and other characteristics were shaped to identify dangerous female action. 84 If, in the previous centuries, 'Un trait frappant est le peu de place accordé à la description de la difference', 85 it was precisely the differences, as visible signs that identified dangerous outsiders and that could be seen and listed as suspicious evidence of corruption, that led to Peter Damian's condemnation as foreigners of both the Constantinopolitan Maria and Sophia, the Tuscan. 83 At the same time, during the late tenth century, another stream of representations started to underline that local aristocracies may have developed specific customs.…”

“…In his Antapodosis, Liutprand of Cremona compared the negative feminine behaviour of Italian aristocrats with the positive masculine habits of the Saxon dynasty. 84 If, in the previous centuries, 'Un trait frappant est le peu de place accordé à la description de la difference', 85 it was precisely the differences, as visible signs that identified dangerous outsiders and that could be seen and listed as suspicious evidence of corruption, that led to Peter Damian's condemnation as foreigners of both the Constantinopolitan Maria and Sophia, the Tuscan. Elaborated during Theoderic's reign in Italy, the potential and the value of women abroad was radically transformed and widely adopted: in the eleventh century Raoul Glaber could thus describe the very dangerous fashions of the Aquitani, who followed Constance of Provence after her marriage with King Robert the Pious in 1002-3.…”