ABSTRACT
A negative view of the institutions and way of life of the secular elite in the Carolingian world is not in itself a surprising thing to encounter. Nithard was himself a member of the Carolingian house. Such literary activity was part of the Carolingian house's strategy of legitimation, a way of making the Carolingians prominent in the landscape of the past as well as in that of the present. Carolingian authority, status and identity are thus represented as being produced through the natural structure of the family. Like the contemporary landscape, Nithard's text was full of members of the Carolingian family and he is usually alert in noting their status or changes to it. Nithard's text may work within the grand system of Carolingian legitimation, but this does not mean that it is uniformly favourable to all members of the royal house, nor that it lacks distinctiveness.
