The Polyptych of Irminon, also known as the Polyptych of Saint-Germain, is an inventory of properties compiled around 823 by Irminon, the abbot of the

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Saint-Germain-des-Prés () is one of the four administrative quarters of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its official borders are the River Seine on the north ...

in France. The Polyptych describes the possessions of the monastery, located primarily in the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

region, between the rivers

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

and

Eure Eure () is a department in Normandy in Northwestern France, named after the river Eure. Its prefecture is Évreux. In 2019, Eure had a population of 599,507.manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

, containing 20

quires Various measures of paper quantity have been and are in use. Although there are no S.I. units such as quires and bales, there are ISO''ISO 4046-3:2002 Paper, board, pulps and related terms – Vocabulary – Part 3: Paper-making terminology'' ( ...

that describe 25 villages or settlements, and that name more than 10,000 individuals living on these lands.Hans-Werner Goetz, 'Palaiseau. Zur Struktur und Bevölkerung eines frühmittelalterlichen Dorfes in der Grundherrschaft des Klosters Saint-Germain-des-Prés', in ''Kleine Welten. Ländliche Gesellschaften im Karolingerreich'', ed. Thomas Kohl/Steffen Patzold/Bernhard Zeller (Vorträge und Forschungen 87, Sigmaringen 2019), 205-236, at p. 208. (German) At least four other quires have been lost, together with almost all of a sister volume listing lands given in benefice. The repetition of a chapter shows that the Polyptych, in its current form, was produced from a number of working copies, and was written by about a dozen

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

s. The Polyptych seems to have been based on two tours of local enquiry undertaken by monks, each one asking inhabitants a different set of questions in the estates they visited.

Editions

Benjamin Guérard Benjamin Guérard, (15 March 1797 – 10 March 1854) was a 19th-century French librarian and historian, especially known for his edition of cartularies of abbeys of the Carolingian period. Biography Born in a family of Burgundian bourgeois ...

, ''Polyptyque de l’abbé Irminon de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, ou dénombrement des manses, des serfs et des revenus de l’abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés sous le règne de Charlemagne'', t. 1 (Prolégomènes), t. 2 (Polyptyque), Paris, 1844. * Auguste Longnon, ''Polyptyque de l’abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, rédigé au temps de l’abbé Irminon'', 2 vol., Paris, 1886–1895. * ''Das Polyptychon von Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Studienausgabe'', edited by Dieter Hägermann, Konrad Elmshäuser,

Andreas Hedwig Andreas Hedwig (born in 1959) is a German archivist and since 2014 the head of the Hessian State Archive. Life Born in Leverkusen, Hedwig completed a and completed this in 1986 with a second Staatsexamen. He then received his doctorate in 1989. ...

, Köln-Weimar-Wien, 1993.

Bibliography

* Jean-Pierre Devroey, ''Problèmes de critique autour du polyptyque de l'abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés'', in: ''La Neustrie. Les pays au nord de la Loire de 650 à 850'', éd. A. Atsma, (Beihefte der Francia, 16), Sigmaringen, 1989, p. 441-465. * Jean-Pierre Devroey, ''Économie rurale et société dans l'Europe franque (VIe-IXe siècles)'', 1, ''Fondements matériels, échanges et lien social'', Paris, Belin, 2003, 381 p.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Carolingian Polyptyques
English translation of part of the polyptych, provided by the University of Leicester * Link to a digitisation of the original manuscript, with notes (French) * https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/92082/022ADB13BCA3DF064FE831E95165911C77E3E518.html Christian monasticism 9th-century documents 823