This thesis examines the relationship between politics and the writing of institutional history (cartularies and gesta) after the end of the Carolingian Empire (888) from the perspective of Folcuin of St-Bertin and Lobbes (fl. 948-90). After the empire collapsed, long-form narrative histories were mainly written about other centres of power than the royal court, such as religious institutions, and reflected local historical horizons as institutional identities became stronger nodes around which to write history in response to political fragmentation. This thesis nuances this view by placing Folcuin and his histories in as broad a context as possible for the first time. Chapters I and II explore how the politics of Folcuin’s oblation to the Flemish abbey of St-Bertin related to the writing of what many consider to be the first cartulary-chronicle, the Gesta abbatum Sithiensium. Folcuin’s partisanship in a hitherto unknown conflict between certain Baldwinid counts and their Unruoching relatives for power in ...