The possessions of Gerald of Aurillac: on the question of a network of elite spaces in the Carolingian Auvergne (IX – X centuries)

The subject of the is the lands owned by a Carolingian lay saint, Gerald of Aurillac (d. 909), through the perspective of social anthropological research on the history of Early Medieval elites and elite sites. It confronts textual sources with the results of archaeological and linguistic studies of the recent decades. The dense evidence of the saint’s early life compiled by Odo of Cluny some 20 years after his death (the so-called Vita Prolixior Prima) allows to revisit the question of the aristocratic residence in the late Carolingian Auvergne (mid-9th – mid-10th Centuries). The elite locus of Gerald’s holdings is seen within the framework of dependent sites and chapels, whereas the spatial perspective of the vita is reconstructed with taking into account not only the hagiogrpher’s intentions and vision of centre and periphery, but also symbolic factors of prestige and local piety. Count Gerald’s castle in Aurillac, the adjacent monastery founded by him, newly discovered cemetery, and a number of his holdings that it has been possible to localize, serve as a case of an aristocratic residence and its connections to a network of dependent settlements, religious edifices and farmed lands. This analysis is made possible by new archaeological excavations in Aurillac in 2013–2014. Moreover, we can trace the sphere of an aristocrat’s authority over the lands dominated by his central residence. In the case of Count Gerald this holds true not only for the territory of Auvergne but also for the adjacent pagi of Quercy, Rouergue and Limousin. A special emphasis is put on the questions of sacral topography of the count Gerald’s domain in the vita as a mirror of Odo’s concept of sainthood and his reinterpretation of the local tradition on the aristocratic saint.