The Divorce of Lothar II: Christian Marriage and Political Power in the Carolingian World

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The Divorce of Lothar II: Christian Marriage and Political Power in the Carolingian World. By Karl Heidecker. Translated from the Dutch byTanis M. Guest. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 227. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-801-43929-2.)

Christian marriage is now considered monogamous and indissoluble, but it was not always so. In this book Karl Heidecker argues convincingly that it was only with the highly publicized divorce of King Lothar ? (855-69) that a clear standard for Christian marriage became established in the West. Heidecker is certainly not the first to see this divorce case as a turning point; both medieval and modern writers on the …