Everything about The Carolingian Renaissance totally explained
The
Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late
eighth and
ninth centuries, with the peak of the activities occurring during the reigns of the
Carolingian rulers
Charlemagne and
Louis the Pious. During this period there was an increase of
literature,
writing, 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. 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.
Scholarly efforts
The lack of literate persons in eighth 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. A major part of his program of reform was to attract many of the leading scholars of his day to his court. Among the first called to court were
Italians,
Peter of
Pisa who from
776 to about
790 instructed Charlemagne in Latin and
Paulinus of Aquileia from
776 to
787 and whom Charlemagne nominated as
patriarch of Aquileia in
787. In
782, the Italian
Lombard Paul the Deacon was brought to court and remained until
787 when Charles nominated him
abbot of
Montecassino.
Theodulf of
Orleans was a
Spanish Goth who served at court from
782 to
797 when nominated as
bishop of
Orleans. Theodulf had been in friendly competition over the standardization of the
Vulgate with the chief among the Charlemagne's scholars,
Alcuin of York. Alcuin was a
Northumbrian
monk and
deacon who served as head of the Palace School from
782 to
796, except for the years
790 to
793 when he returned to
England. After
796, continued his scholarly work as abbot of St. Martin's Monastery in
Tours.
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.
Carolingian art
Carolingian art spans 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
Carolingian architecture is the style of North European architecture promoted by Charlemagne. The period of architecture spans the late
eighth and
ninth 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.
Carolingian music
In Western culture, there had been an unbroken tradition in musical practice and theory from the earliest written records of the
Sumerians (c. 2500 BC) through the
Babylonians and
Persians down to
ancient Greece and
Rome. However, the
Germanic migrations of the 400s AD brought about a break with this tradition. Most in western Europe for the next few centuries didn't understand the
Greek language, and thus the works of
Boethius, who saw what was happening and translated ancient Greek treatises into
Latin, became the foundation of learning during this period. With the advent of scholarly reforms by Charlemagne, who was particularly interested in music, began a period of intense activity in the monasteries of the writing and copying of treatises in
music theory — the
Musica enchiriadis is one of the earliest and most interesting of these. Charlemagne sought to unify the practice of church music by eliminating regional stylistic differences. There is evidence that the earliest Western
musical notation, in the form of
neumes
in camp aperto (without
staff-lines), was created at
Metz around 800, as a result of Charlemagne's desire for
Frankish church musicians to retain the performance nuances used by the Roman singers. Western musical practice and theory of today can be traced in an unbroken line from this time to the present, thus it had its beginnings with Charlemagne.
Economic and legal reforms
Charlemagne was faced with a variety of currencies at the start of his reign. To correct problems these various currencies caused, he standardized 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 wasn't 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.
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