Carolingian Renaissance

The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late 8th and 9th century, with the peak of the activities occurring during to the reigns of the Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. During this period there was an increase of literature, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies. The period also saw the development of Medieval Latin and Carolingian minuscule, providing a common language and writing style that allowed for communication across most of Europe.

The use of the term renaissance to describe this period is disputed due to the majority of changes brought about by this period being confined almost entirely to the clergy, and due to the period lacking the wide ranging social movements of the later Italian Renaissance.Scott pg 30 Instead of being a rebirth of new cultural movements, the period was typified more as an attempt to recreate the previous culture of the Roman Empire.Cantor pg 190

Scholarly efforts

See also: Carolingian minuscule, Medieval Latin

The lack of literate persons in 8th century western Europe caused problems for the Carolingian rulers by severely limiting the number of people capable of serving as court scribes. Of even greater concern to the very pious rulers was the fact that not all parish priests possessed the skill to read the Vulgate Bible. An additional problem was that the vulgar Latin of the later Western Roman Empire had begun to diverge into the regional dialects, the precursors to today's Romance languages, that were becoming mutually unintelligible and preventing scholars from one part of Europe being able to communicate with persons from another part of Europe.

To address these problems, Charlemagne ordered the creation of schools and he also attracted many of the leading scholars of his day to his court. Among the learned men drawn to the court were Theodulf from Spain, the Frankish scholar Angilbert, and the Lombards Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia. Chief among the scholars drawn to Charlemagne was Alcuin of York, a Northumbrian monk who served as head of the Palace School at Aachen. The later courts of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald had similar groups of scholars.

One of the primary efforts was the creation of a standardized curriculum for use at the recently created schools. Alcuin lead this effort and was responsible for the writing of textbooks, creation of word lists, and establishing the trivium and quadrivium as the basis for education.Cantor pg 189

Other contributions from this period was the development of Carolingian minuscule, a "book-hand" first used at the monasteries of Corbie and Tours that introduced the use of lower case letters. A standardized version of Latin was also developed that allowed for the coining of new words while retaining the grammatical rules of Classical Latin. This Medieval Latin became the common language of scholarship and allowed administrators and travelers to make themselves understood across Europe.Chambers pg 204-205

Carolingian art

Main article: Carolingian art

Carolingian art is the roughly-100-year period from about 800-900. Although brief, it was an influential period—northern Europe embraced classical Mediterranean Roman art forms for the first time, setting the stage for the rise of Romanesque art and eventually Gothic art in the West. Illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, small-scale sculpture, mosaics and frescos survive from the period.

Carolingian architecture

Main article: Carolingian architecture

Carolingian architecture is the style of North European architecture promoted by Charlemagne. The period of architecture spans the late 8th and 9th centuries until the reign of Otto I in 936, and was a conscious attempt to create a Roman Renaissance, emulating Roman, Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, with its own innovation, resulting in having a unique character.

Economic and legal reforms

Charlemagne was faced with a variety of currencies at the start of reign. To correct problems theses various currencies cause, he standardized on a system based on a pound of silver(Livre tournois). Deniers were minted with a value of 240 deniers to a pound of silver. A second value, the solidus, was also created as an accounting device with a value of twelve deniers or one twentieth of a pound of silver. The solidus was not minted but was instead used to record values such as a "solidus of grain" which was equal to the amount of grain that twelve deniers could purchase.Scott pg 40

References

Footnotes