more about returning to the excitement and importance of court life more than returning to his homeland of Aquitaine. Many earlier scholars believed Nigellus was a monk because he was able to read and write, but once again this is just an educated assumption. Another explanation for his ability to "compos[e] complicated poetry" could be because of the schools that Charlemagne had set up for children of nobility, therefore he may have simply been a member of the educated nobility. McKitterick explains that it is a mistake to assume that "education and learning were confined to clerics" as it was common for laymen and middle-class boys were also sent to schools. Fleiner explains that Nigellus could have been misidentified with many other figures from the same time period, especially an abbot named Hermoldus who Louis went to Pippin's court in 834, as well as a chancellor at Pippin's court named Hermoldus. Ermoldus Nigellus' association with these two contemporaries has led the false interpretation that he was a clergyman as well as Pippin's chancellor. For all we know he may very well have actually been the same person as these other two Hermolduses, but other evidence in his poetry suggests otherwise. Another fact about himself that Nigellus discloses in his poetry was that he was a soldier in King Pippin's army during his second Brittany campaign. Although he was a soldier, Ermoldus admits he wasn't a very good one, and he quotes King Pippin as telling him to stick to writing rather than pursuing his swordplay, which was useless against the Bretons. This fact is problematic for scholars who believe that Ermoldus was a monk as monks did not typically bear arms or fight. He could have been an abbot as they were expected to do military service but it seems more likely that he was part of the "court literati" (educated men who served in court as military leaders, envoys and teachers). Exile Since we know Ermoldus Nigellus campaigned in Brittany in 824 and wrote In Honorem Hludowici between 826 and 828 during his exile, it is often assumed that he was sent into exile between these years. Nigellus never explains the reason for his exile but admits that he committed "foul deeds of [his] own fault". Ermoldus admits that his crime was not serious but rather he was guilty of associating himself with the wrong group of people at