Locating Authorities in Carolingian Debates on Image Veneration: The Case of Agobard of Lyon’s De Picturis et Imaginibus

摘要

The following study presents a new solution to the question of the context and date of the treatise De picturis et imaginibus of Archbishop Agobard of Lyon (archbishop 816–40). Scholars have previously associated De picturis with a group of texts addressing questions on religious images linked to controversies surrounding the iconoclastic policies and actions of both Bishop Claudius of Turin and the Byzantine emperors in 824–5, most often interpreting Agobard’s work as a response. Rather than a response to these controversies, I argue, by analysing a series of distinctively edited patristic quotations, that De picturis was a pre-existing resource for the composition of Claudius of Turin’s Apologeticum and the Libellus of the Paris colloquy of 825. Ultimately, this revised interpretation allows the three texts to serve as a case study in processes of locating authorities in Carolingian doctrinal controversies. Analysis of Claudius’ and the Libellus authors’ uses of De picturis provides concrete evidence for the location and use of a local resource on an imperial stage by bishops of geographically distant sees, illuminating some of the pathways by which authorities both personal and textual were sought and received in the Carolingian world.