ABSTRACT
The Strasbourg Oaths are the earliest surviving piece of prose in the vernacular of Gaul, and indeed in any Romance language. Because of their special status as the earliest extant monument of the written lingua romana, they appear in virtually all collections of Old French texts, sometimes placed alongside otherwise exclusively literary texts, although clearly they belong to a different discourse type, since they derive from a legal-political context. The text records oaths sworn in Strasbourg on 14 February AD 842 by two of Charlemagne's grandsons, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, who had formed an alliance against their brother Lothair with whom they had been in dispute over the division of the Carolingian Empire. These oaths, sworn following the defeat of Lothair at Fontenay-en-Puisaye near Auxerre in 841, mark a stage towards the partitioning of the Empire established by the Treaty of Verdun the following year (see Figure 2). Traditional accounts suggest that the first oath of mutual support (sacramentum firmitatis) was sworn in French by Louis the German and in German by the French-speaking Charles so as to be comprehensible to the other man's followers; each man's followers then swore a different oath (sacramentum fidelitatis) in their own language. However, scholars have now challenged this view, arguing that the supporters of Louis the German and Charles the Bald were not exclusively Germanic and Romance speakers respectively, and that their armies were much more heterogeneous in origin and character. Equally, the leaders are attributed one language although it is generally thought that Hugh Capet (crowned AD 987) was the first king to speak only Romance. The use of language is therefore deliberately symbolic and political in nature: the unity of each army and difference from the other could be stressed by attributing a different language to each party, but equally their mutual support for each other underlined by their leaders swearing in the other language. Here are the two parts of the oaths sworn in the vernacular of Gaul:
The text of the oath taken by Louis the German: Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in 0 quid iI mi altresi fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui, meon vol, cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.
