Oath of Strasbourg

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.01: French Writing and Culture: Old French to the Middle Ages , 500-1400.
Vol. editors: Marianne Ailes (University of Bristol), Matthew Siôn Lampitt (University of Bristol), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Politics

Dates

Date of occurrence 842

Places

France (Location; Involved)
Germany (Involved)

Resources

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The Oath of Strasbourg designates the pledges of allegiance taken by Louis the German, son of Louis the Pious and ruler of the eastern Frankish kingdom (today’s modern Germany), and by his brother Charles the Bald, ruler of the western Frankish kingdom (today’s modern France). As well as their allegiance to each other, Louis and Charles pledged their opposition to the Emperor, their elder brother Lothair. The oath is an important linguistic and cultural document, for it was sworn in the vernacular, not in Latin, and thus testifies to the split that had slowly been occurring in Carolingian society into separate proto-countries with different languages and customs. One version is in a variety of old Gallo-Romance, the ancestor of Old French; it is one of the first texts written in a…

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147 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Oath of Strasbourg". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 May 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=6940, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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