characterized the age. The Renaissance was born in
the hearts and minds of the Carolingian rulers. Char-
lemagne had both the vision and the resources to
promote a mighty movement, and he saw himself in
some ways as an Old Testament king. People around
him compared him to David, the simple yet learned
warrior, and to Solomon, the wisest of kings. Charles
compared himself to Josiah in his duty to visit, to ad-
monish, and to correct, and also saw himself as some-
thing like a bishop. He was deeply influenced by a
book, The Pastoral Rule, written by Pope Gregory I. Al-
though Gregory had written it as a guide to bishops’
behavior, Charles took to heart the idea that rule was
not a privilege or a benefit to the ruler but, instead, a
massive responsibility conferred on some by God for
the benefit of everyone else.
As for resources, Charlemagne’s wars brought plun-
der and tribute and also created peace and prosperity
in his lands. Charles did not hesitate to use his vast
wealth to promote the church, which, in turn, became
the great patron of scholarship and the arts. In the
Carolingian period, several dozen cathedral churches
and more than three hundred monasteries were built
or rebuilt. Charles also used his resources to attract the
best minds from all over Europe. About one of them,
Alcuin, who came from Engla nd, a scholar said, “He
landed on the Continent with a bag of books and died
the lord of twenty thousand men.”
Charlemagne was concerned about the low level
of education that prevailed and the lack of teachers,
schools, and l ibraries. In capitular ies, therefore, he com-
manded that cathedrals and monasteries should estab-
lish schools (even sons of laymen not desti ned for clergy
were permitted to attend). Only well-trained men—the
schools were restricted to boys and men— should be
permitted to teach. Copies of important books were to
be secured and then multiple copies made for dissemi-
nation. To avoid mistakes, only the most experienced
scribes were to be employed. By t he midd le year s of
Charlemagne’s reign, a new script, Carolingian min-
uscule (Figure 8.4), began to spread from one church
or monastery to another. This was an extremely clear
and legible script characterized by simple letter forms.
So comprehensive and systematic were the efforts of
Carolingian scholars that the oldest surviving manu-
script of over 90 percent of all Latin classical works is
Carolingian. Ironically, Renaissance humanists of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries emulated this hand-
writing because they mistakenly believed the manu-
scripts they kept finding were Roman.
The curriculum in Carolingia n schools was the
same as in the schools of antiquity: the seven liberal
arts. The arts were grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arith-
metic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Grammar i n-
volved the acquisition of basic skills in Latin. R hetoric
had for a long time been less focused on speaking well
The Reign of Charlemagne
The greatness of Charlemagne (r. 768–814) is legend-
ary. In the forty-six years of his reign, commanders
acting i n his name fought fif ty-three campaig ns. Yet
Charles did not always accompany his armies and is
not remembered as a brilliant strategist or charismatic
leader. He was deeply pious but sired a dozen chi ldren
out of wedlock and slaughtered 4,500 Saxons in a fit
of rage. He could read and speak several languages
but never learned to write. Nevertheless, Charles, who
had a tidy, almost fastidious mind, fostered a massive
program of educational renewal. He reformed secular
and ecclesiastical i nstitutions, took a keen interest in
theological controversies, and raised the intellectual
level of his clergy.
The most famous event in Charlemagne’s reign was
his coronation as emperor by Leo III (pope, 795–816)
on Christmas day in 800 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The pope had been attacked by a Roman mob and fled
to the Franks for protection. Charles traveled to Rome
to investigate. For more than a decade, men around
Charles had been calling him emperor or insisting that
he des erved to be emperor. Som e said that the impe rial
throne was vacant because Irene, a woman, was ruling
in Constantinople. The coronation was Leo’s own idea
and upset Charlemagne. Charlemagne never cal led
himself a Roman emperor, and in 813 he crowned his
son Louis (r. 814–840) as his successor in the chapel at
Aachen, his capital, before the assembled Franks. After
a lapse of more than three centuries, there was again
an emperor in the West (see Map 8.2).
Pippin, Charlemagne, and Louis enjoyed almost a
century (751–840) of unified rule over most of western
Europe. They laid the foundation on which European
civilization would be built. Once or twice per year they
gathered the several hundred counts, the key local offi-
cials appointed by the ruler, in a great assembly where
issues were debated and decisions made. The decisions
took the form of capitularies, edicts issued in chapters
(capitula). Eac h ye ar, o ffic ials—missi dominici, “en vo ys
of the lord king”—were sent two by two, one layman
and one cleric, through specified territories to investi-
gate whether the capitularies were being applied. Sons
of powerful aristocrats regularly spent some time at
the royal court to learn the ways of the regime, and
great churchmen frequently gathered in councils that
legislated for the Frankish church as a whole. Char-
lemagne and Louis sought to impose u niformity i n
canon law, monastic practices, and church worship on
all their lands.
The Carolingian Renaissance
As long ago as 1839, a scholar spoke of the “Carolin-
gian Renaissance.” The phrase was intended to cap-
ture the spirit of rebirth, renewal, and reform that
182 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE HEIRS TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE
