Thursday, March 7, 2019

The Carolingian Renaissance



Almost everyone has heard of the Renaissance of the 14th to 16th centuries, but how many realize that what we call the Classical Renaissance was actually preceded and made possible by the Carolingian Renaissance? Fr. John Vidmar, OP, calls this Renaissance “a bright and brief candle in the midst of darkness.”[1] Carolingian refers to the time period of
Charlemagne
Charlemagne, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas of the year AD 800. Charlemagne’s desire was to make of his empire one that was unified both politically and spiritually. The result, Christendom, came about mainly through education. Charlemagne sought out and brought to his palace the renowned monk and scholar, Alcuin of
Alcuin teaching Charlemagne
York
, to organize the reforms needed.
 “Cathedral schools were formed and there was a return to the classical liberal arts.”[2] The re-birth of learning extended to many fields: education, science, astronomy, architecture, music, and law. Although Charlemagne did not achieve as much as he had envisioned,[3] the impetus had been given, and the monasteries preserved and developed the accomplishments gained for the next 500 years.

CHRISTENDOM
            Christendom, that is, as Thomas Noble explains, “Roman Catholicism as an historical phenomenon, … is a Carolingian construction.”[4] Noble speaks of horizontal and vertical dimensions of the Carolingian Renaissance – horizontal, in that it “aimed at all people of every rank”; vertical, in that it situated itself in a “tradition that reached back to the Old Testament world.”[5] In this light, the numerous Church councils held by Charlemagne
Carolingian manuscript
collaborated with his aims in addressing “clerical education and morality, and … proper norms for worship.”[6] Both clergy and faithful were unified by being educated about and for the proper celebration of liturgical rites, which in turn influenced the common Christian spirit that Charlemagne wished to see flourish in his realm. The religious character of this Renaissance is what primarily differentiates it from the one that came five centuries later.

CATHEDRAL & MONASTERY SCHOOLS
            If ecclesiastical reform could be likened to the right arm of the Carolingian Renaissance efforts, the left arm would be, according to Mary Alberi, the cultural reform which “promoted the foundation of schools in cathedrals and monasteries.”[7] Charlemagne gave the example by establishing a school within his own palace at Aachen; both he and his family attended classes taught by Alcuin of York. In the palace, as in the cathedral and
Carolingian Monastery School
monastery schools, the curriculum covered “Latin, grammar, liturgical chant, and computation”[8] at first, and was soon broadened to include the study of logic and philosophy.[9] Alcuin insisted on these studies in order to combat the heresy of Adoptionism which taught errors about the natures and person of Jesus Christ. Solid, logical, and philosophical training enabled Charlemagne and the clerics of his empire to refute the looming heresy.[10] Alcuin ordered “his young students to study the liberal arts in their youth and the Bible in maturity,” so that they could become “invincible defenders of the true faith and asserters of the truth.”[11]

PRESERVING THE CULTURAL HERITAGE
            After the deaths of Charlemagne and Alcuin, the Carolingian Renaissance drifted away from its noble aims, and degenerated into secularism and ill-guided rationalism. G.W. Trompf points out, however, to the glory of this period, that “the Carolingian church worked … as a cohesive social force, arbiter and legitimizer of princes, and preserver of the cultural heritage of the West.”[12] Thanks to the guidance of Alcuin of York, the achievements of
Alcuin of York
Charlemagne merit for him the acclaimed renown as the “restorer of stability and justice to barbarian Europe, and grand patron of a cultural and artistic revival.”[13]


[1] John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History, 2nd ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 2014), 112.
[2] Vidmar, The Catholic Church, 113.
[3] Vidmar, The Catholic Church, 115.
[4] Thomas F.X. Noble, “Carolingian Religion,” in Church History, 84:2 (Cambridge University Press, June 2015), 287.
[5] Noble, “Carolingian Religion,” 290.

[6] Noble, “Carolingian Religion,” 294.
[7] Mary Alberi, “Alcuin and the ‘New Athens’”, in History Today, 39:9 (1989), 35.
[8] Idem.
[9] Alberi, “Alcuin,” 37.
[10] Alberi, “Alcuin,” 39.
[11] Alberi, “Alcuin,” 40.
[12] G.W. Trompf, “The Concept of the Carolingian Renaissance,” in Journal of the History of Ideas, 34:1 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973), 22.
[13] Trompf, “The Concept of the Carolingian Renaissance,” 3. 

Images taken from Google Images, under:
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