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ic or obscurantist before the carolingian era 8 the centuries following the dissolution of the roman empire in the west did not see an abrupt disappearance of the ancient schools indeed from them emerged martianus capella cassiodorus and boethius essential icons of the roman cultural heritage in the early middle ages thanks to which the disciplines of liberal arts were preserved 9 the 7th century saw the isidorian renaissance in the visigothic kingdom of hispania 10 in which sciences flourished 11 12 13 and the integration of christian and pre christian thought occurred 14 while the spread of irish monastic schools scriptoria over europe laid the groundwork for the carolingian renaissance 15 16 there were numerous factors in this cultural expansion the most obvious of which was that charlemagne s uniting of most of western europe brought about peace and stability which set the stage for prosperity this period marked an economic revival in western europe following the fall of the western roman empire in the 5th century local economies in the west had degenerated into largely subsistence agriculture by the early 7th century with towns functioning merely as places of gift exchange for the elite 17 by the late 7th century developed urban settlements had emerged populated mostly by craftsmen and merchants and developing street grids artisanal production and regional and long distance trade 17 a prime example of this type of emporium was dorestad 17 lorsch abbey gatehouse c 800 an example of the carolingian architectural style a first albeit isolated classical movement in architecture the development of the carolingian economy was fueled by the efficient organization and exploitation of labor on large estates producing a surplus of primarily grain wine and salt 18 19 in turn inter regional trade in these commodities facilitated the expansion of towns 18 19 archaeological data shows the continuation of this upward trend in the early 8th century 17 the zenith of the early carolingian economy was reached from 775 to 830 coinciding with the largest surpluses of the period large scale building of churches as well as overpopulation and three famines that showed the limits of the system 20 after a period of disruption from 830 to 850 caused by civil wars and viking raids economic development resumed in the 850s with the emporiums disappearing completely and being replaced by fortified commercial towns 20 one of the major causes of the sudden economic growth was the arab slave trade following the rise of the arab muslim caliphates the arab elites created a major demand for slaves in the muslim world with european slaves particularly prized as a result of charlemagne s wars of conquest in eastern europe a steady supply of captured slavs avars saxons and danes reached merchants in western europe who then exported the slaves via ampurias girona and the pyrenees passes to muslim spain and other parts of the arab world 21 the market for slaves was so lucrative that it almost immediately transformed the long distance trade of the european economies 22 23 the slave trade enabled the west to re engage with the arab muslim caliphates and the eastern roman empire so that other industries such as textiles were able to grow in europe as well 24 import edit kenneth clark was of the view that by means of the carolingian renaissance western civilization survived by the skin of its teeth 25 a substantial portion of the classical corpus we possess today owes its survival to the copies produced by carolingian scribes as conrad leyser notes fewer than 2 000 latin manuscripts survive from the period before ad 800 from the century after ad 800 we have over 7 000 for every eighth century copy of a text that has survived we have ten copies from the ninth century 26 as important a role as the carolingians played in collecting copying and disseminating ancient manuscripts and knowledge it is equally important to remember that they did this through their own value systems as such it is important to recognize that although many ancient texts and ideas were preserved by the carolingians it is impossible to know how many others were not whether accidental or otherwise the carolingians were a christian people and certainly sought to preserve christian documents and knowledge therefore it is likely non christian resources were deliberately passed aside in favor of preserving christian ones however this was not always the case secular texts and information were indeed preserved by the carolingians often as part of educational reforms undertaken during the carolingian renaissance and none of this is to suggest that ancient christian sources were preserved unscathed or at all by the same renaissance indeed these manuscripts were likely to become distorted or lost as well for example christian sources might be copied so many times that their original versions were lost separating contemporaries and those of us today from their original productions such as scripts and materials also christian authorities among the carolingians might believe themselves experts no longer needing entire ancient christian texts as such they could purposely omit portions of ancient manuscripts no longer believed necessary for preservation and instruction however the use of the term renaissance to describe this period is contested because its aims and output differ markedly from those of the 15th and 16th century renaissance the carolingian project was a top down initiative driven by royal patronage and executed by literate elites who trained and served in ecclesiastical institutions in contrast to the wide ranging social movements of the later italian renaissance 27 earlier scholarship sometimes portrayed the carolingian period as an attempt to recreate the previous culture of the roman empire motivated by humanist and antiquarian interests 28 more recent historiography however tends to view the carolingian renaissance primarily as a religious reform project 29 rather than a pure revival carolingian scholars described their engagement with classical learning as correctio this notion of correctio combined with pragmatic concerns aimed to correct and transform older knowledge into something useful and suitable for a newly unified christian society society whose salvation charlemagne as its ruler felt personally responsible for 30 scholarly efforts edit see also carolingian minuscule and medieval latin a lack of latin literacy in eighth century western europe caused problems for the carolingian rulers by severely limiting the number of people capable of serving as court scribes in societies where latin was valued of even greater concern to some rulers was the fact that not all parish priests possessed the skill to read the vulgate bible while lack of literacy was not unexpected among lay people it was surprising to find poor reading and writing skills among the clergy however this is what charlemagne discovered largely through letters written to him and his court from monasteries this lack of education among religious authorities and thus wisdom to understand the bible was alarming to charlemagne who sought to convert his subjects to christianity the agents of conversion were supposed to be the clergy however charlemagne feared their ability to instruct lay people on christianity and therefore lead them to salvation was impaired by their own poor education to rectify this and therefore accomplish the task of christianizing his empire charlemagne ordered new educational mandates specifically aimed at instructing clergy and future clergy charlemagne made this first pronouncement on education in a letter the de litteris colendis and sent it to the abbot of fulda baugulf with the added instruction that it be copied and sent to other major monasteries throughout his realm 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 citation needed alcuin pictured centre was one of the leading scholars of the carolingian renaissance to address these problems charlemagne ordered the creation of schools in a capitulary known as the charter of modern thought issued in 787 31 a major part of his program of reform was to attract many of the leading scholars of the christendom 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 from 776 to 787 paulinus of aquileia whom charlemagne nominated as patriarch of aquileia in 787 the lombard paul the deacon was brought to court in 782 and remained until 787 when charles nominated him abbot of montecassino theodulf of orléans was a spanish goth who served at court from 782 to 797 when nominated as bishop of orléans 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 he continued his scholarly work as abbot of st martin s monastery in tours 27 among those to follow alcuin across the channel to the frankish court was joseph scottus an irishman who left some original biblical commentary and acrostic experiments after this first generation of non frankish scholars their frankish pupils such as angilbert would make their own mark the later courts of louis the pious and charles the bald had similar groups of scholars many of whom were of irish origin the irish monk dicuil attended the former court and the more famous irishman john scotus eriugena attended the latter becoming head of the palace school at aachen other notable ecclesiastical authorities of the carolingian renaissance to assist with educational and religious reforms were baugulf abbot of fulda 779 802 claudius bishop of turin 817 827 hraban maur abbot of fulda 822 842 and archbishop of mainz 847 856 lupus abbot of ferrières 840 c 862 and hincmar archbishop of rheims 845 882 educational reforms played a crucial role in the carolingian renaissance while much of this reform centered on educating the ecclesiastical body who could then teach and convert others in the empire to christianity charlemagne aimed to educate members of the aristocracy and even lay people as well two types of schools emerged as a result the palace school emerged at the carolingian court the result of charlemagne inviting great scholars and others arriving themselves for the hope of patronage one of these scholars contribution at court was to educate aristocratic children this was a loosely organized body which disbanded before long the scholars leaving court with some beginning their own educational centers at cathedrals and monasteries for example external schools emerged throughout the empire rather than being centered at court students not aiming to become monks could be trained in latin literacy at these institutions this was especially beneficial as most records in the carolingian empire were composed in latin including theological materials there was a christian element to this as well due to the prevalence of latin in the empire to understand christian doctrine and biblical texts it was necessary to possess latin literacy one of the primary efforts was the creation of a standardized curriculum for use at the recently created schools alcuin led this effort and was responsible for the writing of textbooks creation of word lists and establishing the trivium and quadrivium as the basis for education 32 another contribution 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 a common language of scholarship and allowed administrators and travellers to make themselves understood in various regions of europe 33 the earliest concept of europe as a distinct cultural region instead of simply a geographic area appeared during the carolingian renaissance of the 9th century and included the territories which practiced western christianity at the time 34 it has been estimated that carolingian workshops produced over 100 000 manuscripts in the 9th century of which some 6000 to 7000 survive 35 the carolingians produced the earliest surviving copies of the works of cicero horace martial statius lucretius terence julius caesar boethius and martianus capella 36 no copies of the texts of these authors were made in the latin west in the 7th and 8th centuries 36 reform of latin pronunciation edit according to roger wright the carolingian renaissance is responsible for the modern day pronunciation of ecclesiastical latin up until that point there had been no conceptual distinction between latin and romance the former was simply regarded as the written form of the latter for instance in early medieval spain the word for century which would have been pronounced sjeglo was properly spelled saeculum as it had been for the better part of a millennium the scribe would not have read aloud saeculum as sɛkulum any more than an english speaker today would pronounce knight as knɪxt rather than naɪt 37 non native speakers of latin however such as clergy of anglo saxon or irish origin appear to have used a rather different pronunciation presumably attempting to sound out each word according to its spelling the carolingian renaissance in france introduced this artificial pronunciation for the first time to native speakers as well no longer would for instance the word viridiarium orchard be read aloud as the equivalent old french word verdʒjǽr it now had to be pronounced precisely as spelled with all six syllables viridiarium 38 such a radical change had the effect of rendering latin sermons completely unintelligible to the general romance speaking public which prompted officials a few years later at the council of tours to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way in rusticam romanam linguam or plain roman ce speech while the liturgy retained the new pronunciation to this day 39 as there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as latin or romance and native germanic speakers such as church singers numerous in the empire might have struggled to read words in latin orthography according to romance orthoepy various attempts were made in france to devise a new orthography for the latter among the earliest examples are parts of the oaths of strasbourg and the sequence of saint eulalia as the carolingian ref...
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