Carolingian Renaissance Essay

658 Words3 Pages
The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire that occurred from the late eighth century to the ninth century. The Carolingian Renaissance reached for models drawn from the example of the Christian Roman Empire of the 4th century. The renaissance showed an increase of literature, writing, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies. But yet the renaissance wasn’t a true revival because it was limited by the clergy while the rest of the Carolingian society followed. With Charlemagne at the helm of the Carolingian Empire, it allowed him to make a lot of decisions regarding religion, which he knew the clergy would approve on. Charlemagne and his heirs worked for reforms in Christianity in order to create a unified Christian culture across their empire. They made churches centers for education, they were able to obtain a group of intellectuals from all over Europe to meet at a palace. They basically created an environment that education can flourish again. Charlemagne saw that the Latin in western Europe was becoming vulgar and he thought the people wouldn’t be able to communicate with other parts of Europe. So he created schools known as the Charter of Modern Thought that was a program of reform to attract the scholars of Christiandom. Charlemagne’s lead scholar was Alcuin of York who was a Northumbrian monk and a deacon who was the head of the Palace school. Alcuin came into the Carolingian Renaissance and led the effort for the creation of a standardized curriculum for the newly created schools by Charlemagne. Alcuin wrote the textbooks, word lists, and established the trivium and quadrivium as a basis for the new education. The renaissance also welcomed the Mediterranean Roman art forms, which became influential as well as the architecture, which had a Northern European
Open Document