Charlemagne’s Revival of Learning

Ages (the Medieval period), most Europeans were Christians. The Christian Church was organized hierarchically into local parishes with priests, regional dioceses with bishops, and a world pontiff, the Pope in Rome.

The early Church faced the issue of the relationship between Christian doctrines and classical Greek and Roman literature and philosophy. Should “pagan” (pre-Christian) authors such as Plato and Aristotle be included or purged from Western culture? If the Greek and Roman authors were judged dangerous to Christian beliefs and morals, should their books be banned or even burned? Or, should they be preserved and read?

St. Augustine (354–430 CE), the Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa, argued for the preservation of classical literature.43 As a former teacher of rhetoric, Augustine knew the Greco-Roman classics, especially philosophy. His highly introspective memoir, The Confessions, told of his personal search for truth and how, through God’s grace, he became a Christian. Augustine argued that the Greek and Roman literature, when illuminated by faith, could aid human understanding. The ultimate goal, however, he wrote in the City of God, was God’s heavenly city.

3-7a charlemagne’s revival of learning

In what is now France and western Germany, the kingdom of the Franks arose in the eighth century. Charlemagne (768–814 CE), the most important Frankish king, was crowned by Pope Leo III as the holy Roman emperor on Christmas Day in 800 CE.44 He engaged Alcuin (735–804 CE), an English monk, to head his palace school at Aachen. Alcuin wrote textbooks that summarized the Latin classics and the liberal arts for his students, some of whom were Charlemagne’s officials.45 Guided by Alcuin, Charlemagne required monasteries to provide schools where boys would learn to read and write in Latin and learn religious chants and psalms.

43Troy Southgate, The Bishop of Hippo: Life and Thought of Saint Augustine (East Sussex, UK: Black Front Press, 2014). 44Rosamund McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 45Douglas Dales, Alcuin: His Life and Legacy (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke and Co., 2012).

timeline

ancient rOme

t o c k. com s r Bertrand B enoi t / sh u t t e

800 BCE

290 BCE Rome dominates Italian Peninsula 133 BCE tribune tiberius Gracchus assassinated 63 BCE Consulship of Cicero 50 BCE Caesar conquers Gaul 44 BCE Caesar assassinated

600 BCE 400 BCE 200 BCE

753 BCE traditional date of Rome’s founding by Romulus 449 BCE twelve tables of Law promulgated 27 BCE Republic ends with Augustus Caesar becoming emperor