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, 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
York, to organize the reforms needed.
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| Charlemagne |
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| Alcuin teaching Charlemagne |
“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
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.
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| Carolingian manuscript |
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
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]
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| Carolingian Monastery School |
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
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]
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| Alcuin of York |
[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:
Carolingian Renaissance:
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