2Imperial Prize and Japan Academy Prize to:
Shigeto Kikuchi
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities
and Sociology, The University of Tokyo
for Herrschaft, Delegation und Kommunikation in derKarolingerzeit. Untersuchungen zu den Missi
dominici (751–888)

Outline of the work:
Herrschaft, Delegation und Kommunikation in der Karolingerzeit. Untersuchungen zu den
Missi dominici (751–888) [Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2021], a two-volume, 1127-page work byDr. Shigeto Kikuchi discusses the problematic issue of the king’s emissaries, known as missi
dominici, during the Carolingian Empire. The first volume consists of the list of primary sources
and related literature in 80 pages and then their discussion over 278 pages, and the second volumecontains a prosopography of missi dominici and the index in 769 pages.
Volume I’s first chapter delineates the characteristics of the king’s emissaries, mainly referring to such basic historical sources as royal edicts (the capitulary) and chronicles. The second
chapter explores missi dominici’s role and function in the control and communication system
between the center and the periphery of the empire, which extended more than 1,000,000 square
kilometers during the reigns of Charles the Great, Louis the Pious, Ludovico II, and Charles
the Bald. During this period, employment of the missi dominici system was clearly discernible
in royal edicts and epistolary documents. The third chapter examines this practice’s historicalchanges, from Pippin III to Charles the Bald and his sons, while also exploring connections between historical changes in governance and royal envoys during the 9th-century Frankish Empire.
Most of Volume II (700 pages) comprehensively surveys all the missi dominici as they appear in historical records. The section contains brief biographies of 470 individual missi dominici whose names are identifiable and related findings about 70 anonymous missi dominici.
Obviously, this task was extremely diﬃcult and demanded exhaustive research into the entirearchives, that is, royal edicts, chronicles of the period, and other historical documents. A French
reviewer describes this section as a “Herculean” intellectual tour de force, adding that it will beof fundamental value for all of the subject’s future researchers.
In Dr. Kikuchi’s view, the king’s envoys missi dominici were not systematized as an“institution” from the outset but were practically employed according to the business concerned.
Similarly, envoys were selected according to each occasion’s purpose. Dr. Kikuchi demonstrates
the system to be extremely pragmatic; this is reflected in these envoys’ not being distinguishedfrom other envoys, for instance, diplomatic ones, in terms of title (“missus”).
As noted, the use rulers made of their envoys was not uniform in nature or frequency.
Charles the Great, for example, employed them on quite a few occasions. Dr. Kikuchi suc-3ceeds in showing that after some decline in the system’s use, a marked revival occurred during
the reign of Charles the Bald and that, against a generally fluctuating background, the employment of royal envoys regained a certain steadiness in the Western Frankish Kingdom, the later
Kingdom of France.
Dr. Kikuchi’s comprehensive, exhaustive research provides a view of the king’s emissary
system unparalleled in previous scholarship. Points at issue, for example, are (a) the relationshipbetween the king and his envoys, (b) the geographical configuration of envoys’ points of departure and destinations, and (c) their social relationships to aristocratic families and other groups inthe provinces.
Moreover, Dr. Kikuchi emphasizes that the king’s envoys did not form a homogeneous
hierarchy but were individuals from various social classes. In the case of secular agents, notably, acertain benefit (“perquisite”) was accorded their duties. Although the emissaries’ income entailed
the liability of fines and confiscation of goods, they were entitled to a status of royal mission.
Thus by elucidating their nature, function, and formation through exhaustive research into
pertinent historical documents, Dr. Kikuchi has highly significantly contributed to the study of
missi dominici in the Carolingian state. His accomplishment will be indispensable to those whofollow in his footsteps.
For these reasons, Dr. Kikuchi’s work is worthy of the 2024 Japan Academy Prize.