The date and context of the Astronomer's 'Life of Louis the Pious'

The Astronomer's Life of the emperor Louis the Pious (814–40) is a canonical source for scholars of Frankish history. It sits at the centre of recent debates about the nature and tone of Carolingian political discourse, and about the crisis of the empire in the 830s. Yet the date and precise context of the text's composition have hardly ever been debated. The consensus position, codified in Ernst Tremp's definitive 1995 edition, is that it was written very shortly after the death of its subject, during the succession war fought between his sons. In this article I argue that this reading is not as secure as is usually assumed, and that a later dating may be preferable. I propose a new interpretation of the text as a product of Charles the Bald's reign and argue that this context reinvigorates the Life's value as a source for ninth-century history.