Interview with Christian Settipani

 

           

With his first publication in the mid 1980s, Christian Settipani made a sensational entry into the world of genealogy. His wide-ranging and learned works on the families of classical antiquity to the year one thousand (among them "Nos ancêtres de l’antiquité", "Les ancêtres de Charlemagne" and "La Préhistoire des Capétiens") have since become an essential reference for both experienced historians and the general public, and this far beyond the borders of France.

Hello Christian, first a question to satisfy my curiosity and that of many readers, how did you find yourself in the cauldron that is the genealogy of the "dark ages"?

Quite simply - I was given "The Iliad and the Odyssey" when I was young. I started developing the genealogies in it and, reconstructing from one relationship to another, I finally arrived at the "dark ages" ...

As the name implies, there is a real dearth of sources from the "dark ages" for an in depth and wide-ranging reconstruction of descents at this time. How do you overcome that?

This is not necessarily an obstacle. There are few sources but they do exist. When there are many sources they have to be sorted out, and that is a challenge in itself. But when there are only few sources, you learn very quickly to extract all the juice, every bit of information possible. It is the work of the historian.

A researcher studying these periods has to work more from chronicles written by actors or witnesses of the (his)story rather than from legal or commercial deeds, the way the traditional genealogist does. So, given that there are so few sources for earliest periods, how do you assess the reliability of a source?

Contrary to what you say, there are texts about daily life for these obscure periods - there are legal texts in inscriptions or on pieces of pottery. As for literary sources, it's true they are often written long after the events they describe, but again it is the job of the historian to sort out those sources which can be used from those that can't.  It takes a long time as it covers several centuries. You compare these sources with those already known about the period, not only genealogical but also those dealing with culture and society. That way you can differentiate between those that are reliable and those that are not.

To give you an example, it has taken ages to know if what Homer recounts in "The Iliad and the Odyssey" corresponds to what life was like during the Mycenaean period it was supposed to describe. On the whole it doesn't, but there is a little bit all the same. Another example from the "Iliad", it's a mythological tale filled with genealogies. Ever since 1800, it was thought to be meaningless. But today we're much more careful: it's been shown that the city of Troy existed, Hittite texts have been found that describe the tensions in the region at this time, with a king of Troy at the time called Alexander, as Alexander Paris in the "Iliad." There are things in the "Iliad" that can be retained even if all the heroes are not real people. The historian has to use all the texts at his disposal, including epic poems, and compare them with other sources to see if there's anything that can be used or not.

Is it possible to define a moment when a bunch of clues allows a conclusion to be drawn, or do you have to resign yourself to the limits of "personal conviction"? Should genealogy also involve looking for creative answers and theories?

Research is personal conviction! I read critics who say "it's not certain because there is not enough evidence". But the fact is, when that's all you do for years on end, when you deal with academic research, you end up with personal convictions, even if they can never take the place of proof. Nor is a personal conviction the same thing as precision, usually it's more about a family relationship rather than a precise “father-to-son” relationship.

Contrary to my reputation, in fact I see myself as a quite conservative genealogist: I respect what my predecessors have done and believe they have thought through the issues. I don't think up things that are totally hare-brained or totally innovative. But even so, it is still possible to make progress and go beyond what has been proven without dreaming up fanciful answers. We simply have to take into account all the possible sources available, and that hasn't always been done by people in the past. In particular we have to overcome the barriers created between certain periods or areas of research (medieval / classic, Gaul / Spain). We have to be able to read medieval sources as well as classical ones, to know the history of Spain as well as that of the Merovingians: that way we can cross frontiers without upsetting what has been done by one side or the other.

Do you think there are "qualities" that make a "good" genealogist? And does a genealogist dealing with the periods before the year 1000 use the same methods as the genealogist of parish registers and legal texts?

No, not qualities, it's a question of learning. Too often there are people who don't have the necessary background in history and think they know a lot about genealogy. However, if they take the trouble to learn, they can become good researchers. There are also dedicated historians who sometimes don't take the trouble to double check the genealogical elements in their work. This is not a problem of training or skills but rather a lack of interest in a discipline sometimes considered to be secondary. And yet genealogy plays a role in the construction of chronologies, in establishing certain facts about society. It should not be denigrated any more than any other aspect of history.

And to answer the second part of your question, no, the genealogist studying the years before the first millennium does not use the same methods because they don't use the same sources, and usually they don't even work with the same languages.

Your work involves the study of history and sociology as much as it does genealogy. You also work with several universities (including a department of the CNRS) and you participate regularly in history seminars. Does having a knowledge and understanding of history and sociology help the genealogist? And, on the other hand, what does genealogy contribute to historical and sociological research?

For me, the knowledge of history is completely indispensable: at the very least you need to know about the way people thought and facts about society in the genealogical period that's being studied! We can learn by taking courses, listening to teachers, reading books. That's what I did before I started writing my own books.

The first contribution genealogy makes to history is to fix the chronology. Early chronological texts about human beings are often genealogies. The time of an event was fixed by saying "that happened at the time of my father's father .. ". Genealogy was also used to legitimize the power of a social class claiming that power because it was inherited from the gods or from kingly ancestors. And then genealogy has an important role to help anthropologists understand social behaviour, because family ties are the primary social ties.

In the course of certain projects, genealogy has helped to trace the transmission of genetic diseases. Many people believe that genetics will also revolutionize genealogical research. What is your opinion? Will genetics one day help advance genealogical research?

As far as the relationship between genealogy and genetics is concerned, that is something else. As far as the dark ages are concerned, genealogy is a social fact more than a genetic link: a man was recognized by society as the son of another man. Anyway it would be very difficult to do genetic genealogy without the remains of the people involved. We could hope that social genealogy could cross with genetic genealogy, but that's just wishful thinking.

There was research conducted in Italy by the CNRS on the transmission of a disease in a village where the parish registers were well kept and where the physical manifestations of the disease were reported, and this research showed that the children who inherited the disease were born to parents neither of whom had it! And that was a very conservative village in Christian Italy ...

Advances in genealogy through genetics are possible but the problem is to find human remains in order to have something to work on. A recent example has just shown a possible role for genetics in genealogy: Tutankhamen's relations are now known after being the subject of heated debate for 150 years. Now, thanks to genetics, we have a conclusion.

There has also been research on the populations of northern Italy to establish the continuity of settlement from modern back to ancient times. There is evidence of the genetic discontinuity of these populations, contrary to the popular belief that the people are rooted in the area.

But when it comes to research on individuals to find out if they descend from such and such a king or such and such a pharaoh, then I am much more doubtful about what genetics can contribute. Even if DNA proved that someone is a descendant of Ramses there is still a gap of 60 generations ... At that level genetics can only flatter personal vanity.

The basis of your work in recent years is the "continuity of the elites" throughout the various ages. Can you tell us more about the prevalence or otherwise of this continuity in the part of France north of Paris, the geographic area that interests us most? Was there a mix between the elites of Roman-Gaul and the Frankish elites, or did the Franks simply replace their predecessors? Are the Carolingian elites mainly of "Germanic" origin? More generally, in cultural terms we know what we owe to our Greco-Roman past, but have they "left us anything genealogically"?

When we think of the invasions we learned about at school, we see hordes of barbarians sweeping across Gaul, but it wasn't like that. Only a few thousand people arrived and they did not replace the local population. Essentially, the population remained unchanged. Indeed, the very concept of "Germanic invasion" is now being challenged by historians, but that's another discussion ...

For the dark ages, the elites are the only social group we can really work on, and that is why they interest me. Gallo-Roman elites were not at all marginalised: a famous example is the family of Saint Remi of Reims, a Roman family.  Many of its members were high-ranking civil and military officers for several generations.

The Carolingian elites are the result of the mixing of aristocratic families of various origins. These people saw themselves as members of a higher social class and, apart from the question of which law should apply to the legal transfer of property, their origins didn't matter.

Of course, for obvious political reasons, Clovis' principal military leaders were predominantly Germanic. But the conquered populations had important positions in the civil and ecclesiastical hierarchy: in terms of power, they were the ones who controlled the cities, so they weren't unimportant.

This interview will be published in the leading genealogical journal in northern France. It's the region that is of most interest to its readers. So I have to ask you some questions about it! To begin with, is it reasonable to assume that because of a geographical proximity to centres of Frankish (Tournai) or Carolingian (Saint Denis, Aachen) power, a genealogist whose origins are in the north and in Belgium would be statistically more likely to descend from Charlemagne?

No, I don't think so. Charlemagne's genes were quickly spread everywhere (the north of Italy for example), and also the Carolingians travelled a lot. So I do not think that coming from the north of France means there is a higher probability of a descent from Charlemagne.

On the other hand, we're lucky enough to have a lot of information on the county families of today's northern France and Belgium. Vanderkindere[1], for example, seeks to list and classify these families. They are well documented thanks to charters, chronicles and historical accounts. And a good deal of medieval genealogical literature begins in the north of Gaul. It begins with the royal families, then ducal, but soon also addresses families of lesser importance. Here we have exceptionally rich documents that other regions don't always have.

Several French historians (such as Feuchère) or Belgian (such as Warlop) have tried to combine sociology and genealogy for the families of Flanders (Belgian and French) and Artois. Warlop in particular has shown that in the north, even more than in southern France, a person was noble because he was born noble, and that nobles in 11^th and 12^th century Flanders were not "new men" but the descendants of the illustrious viri illustres (great families) from the Carolingian period. Has your research been able to confirm or deny this theory? Is this peculiar to northern France or not?

We have to be very careful because it is above all an historiographical debate. Every now and then it becomes fashionable to say there is no continuity, that the nobility is a new one (such was the thesis of Marc Bloch); then along comes a new generation of historians that says the opposite: “not at all, the high nobility came directly from the line of the Carolingians". Today it's said to be a little bit of both. Mostly, the aristocrats of the classical Middle Ages were related to older families with a few openings here and there. When we see the arrival of new families, it is often the younger sons of older families. But, at the same time we do have documented examples of completely new families, the best example being the family of the Counts of Anjou, who end up on the throne of England. It is almost certain that their origins were relatively modest, that is, they were from the lower ranks of the aristocracy.

And then, we must also remember that there was a very fluid line during the Middle Ages in northern Gaul between rich peasants and poor aristocrats. Being a free man was already some form of nobility in relation to the vast majority of the population that was of servile origin. If we agree on the meaning of nobility, there is, in fact, a lot of continuity. However, these days we tend to use the term "elite" rather than "nobility".

Can you briefly remind us about the key sources that would be of most interest to a northern genealogist working on the most distant centuries?

Well, the North is no different from other regions of France. There are two basic types of sources:

-         Literature, which is not necessarily works of history (chronicles, the lives of saints, poetry);

-         Diplomatic (charters with legal texts dealing with the transmission or sale of property or of an office).

A lot of these charters were destroyed, but we have some copies that were preserved in the monasteries, mainly charters chosen by the monks (those that would have been used to justify, several years after their transmission, ownership of the most valuable among the properties received). These charters were then linked to the cartularies where they were recopied. But some details were removed and these would have been of great interest to us: genealogical details or lists of witnesses giving their relationship to the donor, but the monks were not interested. Despite this, cartularies are our primary source of information for medieval genealogy. But when we look at what we have and what we know there used to be (as each deed gave rise to a document) we can see how much has been lost ... Another major source which has unfortunately almost completely disappeared is Wills: only about fifteen still exist.

There are many literary sources for the North (the Giselbert of Mons, Lambert of Wattrelos, Lambert of Ardres chronicles) that are full of genealogical information. This is a feature of the North not really matched by other regions.

Can we still expect to find unpublished documents that will move research forward? Can archaeology help?

It's always possible that new genealogical documents will be found, but let's not kid ourselves; it will be very rare and is not really likely. New manuscripts are always being found, but they don't have historical or genealogical information, they are usually ecclesiastical documents such as extracts from the Bible or the lives of saints that are already known. There is little chance of finding any more genealogical chronicles especially since there were not very many of them, but still it happens from time to time.

Recently, and quite incredibly, the original charter of William of Gellone (Saint William), one of Charlemagne's closest relatives, was found. All his relatives are listed in it. We only knew of this charter through cartularies and its authenticity was doubtful but then, ten years ago, the original was found. We now know for certain the complete genealogy of Saint William and his family. Another example: a fire in a monastery in Sinai led to the discovery of a secret room with stunning documents about the medieval history of Georgia. And we are still finding inscriptions of Roman senators.

But thanks to computers and the Internet, genealogy can now progress with the examination and comparison of documents from other disciplines as well as those from other genealogical geographical areas and chronological periods. We can bring together texts that we had not thought of bringing together, and it brings about exchanges between researchers. The internet provides researchers with documents that until now they could only have seen by visiting faraway libraries. So we can still hope to move forward in the genealogy of the dark ages as well as for the centuries that are not so dark!

It's nearly Christmas (note: this interview was conducted Dec. 23, 2010). If there was a document that Father Christmas could bring you to make some progress on the study of a family, which one would you choose? What is your dearest genealogical wish?

Even if you asked me what my ten most cherished wishes were, I'd still find it hard to choose!

Parts of some of the most critical genealogies are sometimes broken for the lack of a word or a name. With just a few more centimetres on an inscription, we could solve mysteries that have occupied researchers for decades.

But if I had to pick one, ever since I wrote my first book on the ancestors of Charlemagne I've wanted to be certain of the name of Arnulf's father (Ed. Charlemagne's great-great-great paternal grandfather). It would be so satisfying to know who he was even if it were to contradict everything I have written on the issue, because the truth of any kind is what is most satisfying!

Last question, you are putting the finishing touches to the eagerly awaited second volume of "la Préhistoire des Capétiens". Can you reassure us that you will continue your research after it is published, and give us some clues about your future lines of work?

I can reassure everyone who has asked me about this book over the last almost 20 years, it will be published! It is not yet ready but the manuscript is now over 1000 pages and would be published as it is if anything happened to me. There are still 200-300 pages to do, which means one or two more years at my current rate of work. But it would be published even if I died tomorrow, which is not my intention!

Then I have several projects: some involve resuming previous work and updating it: « Nos ancêtres de l’antiquité », « Les ancêtres de Charlemagne », and my work on the Roman families. I'm also working on the major Athenian families from the 5^th century BC to the 5^th century AD.

I'd also like to finish work on the families of the Roman Republican period. And then I have some studies on some medieval families that do not fit chronologically in the second volume of "Préhistoire des Capétiens". They will be either articles or a separate book in the same way as I was able to do on the families of southern Gaul. I have work for many more years to come. But I don't foresee anything on northern Gaul ... for now anyway!

Thank you Christian, and good luck in your work!

                                       Copyright Antoine Barbry

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[1] In his book « La formation territoriale des principautés belges au Moyen Âge ». Brussels. 1902