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CHAPTER XXI

THE CAROLINGIAN REVIVAL

An event of capital importance for civilisation and Christianity in Europe took place on Christmas Day, 800, when Charlemagne, 742-814, was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, 795-816. Here we are concerned only with his encouragement and patronage of Christian literature.

The Church had shown that it was alive to its own interests when it accepted the so-called Donation of Constantine. "This pious falsehood was perhaps first devised by Stephen II when he was on his famous visit to King Pipin at Paris in 754 . . . . the document itself seems to have been concocted somewhat later. . . by some clever papal notary." (In 777 it) "was for the first time openly and officially cited, Hadrian entreating Charles to "become a new Constantine." Its value as a historical document does not of course consist in the legends that it preserves, but in the fact that... "although a portentous falsehood, it is the most unimpeachable evidence of the thoughts and beliefs of the priesthood which framed it."

We hand over and relinquish to the most blessed Pontiff and universal Pope Sylvester, our palace, the city of Rome, and all the provinces, places, and cities of Italy, and the western regions, and we ordain that they shall be governed by him and his successors and shall remain under the authority of the holy Roman Church.1

1 H. B. Cotterill, Medieval Italy, pp. 302, 304.

The new Emperor gathered about him some of the best intellects of the West, schools were founded, and monasteries became nurseries of religious culture. His circular letter to the Frankish clergy The Cultivation of Literature, 787, has been called the "constituent charter of modern thought."

Charles, by the aid of God, king of the Franks and Lombards, and prince of the Romans, to the high ministers of religion throughout our dominions: Having it near at heart that the state of the churches should more and more advance towards perfection, and being desirous of restoring by assiduous care the cultivation of letters, which have almost entirely disappeared from among us, in consequence of the neglect and indifference of our ancestors, we would excite by our own example all well-disposed persons to the study of the liberal arts. To this purpose, we have already by God's constant help, accurately corrected the books of the Old and New Testaments, corrupted by the ignorance of the copyists.

His decree of 789 to secure religious uniformity evoked the earliest German prose writings-translations of the baptismal vow, the Creeds, the Lord's Prayer, etc. Other religious writings soon developed from these, and in their turn furnished material for the sermons that Charlemagne ordered the clergy to preach.

The literary movement which had passed from Ireland to Iona, and from thence to Jarrow and York, now spread to Aix where Charlemagne sought to make his court a Christian Athens. Three successive phases marked the revival which had thus begun.

i. The first was due to PAUL THE LOMBARD, c. 720-790, and to PETER of Pisa, whose common reverence for AUGUSTINE attracted the attention of the Emperor. PAUL turned

his gift for narration to account and continued the History of Eutropius with the addition of many stories which he told with real zest and a keen delight in heroic deeds. He also wrote The Lives of the Bishops of Metz, a Life of Gregory the Great, some Homilies and Poems.

ii. The second period saw ALCUIN, 735-804, and his Anglo-Saxon colleagues in the ascendant. ALCUIN was the foremost theologian, philosopher, and teacher of his age, in whom commences the alliance of love of pagan literature with sincerity of Christian faith and eagerness to fathom its mysteries. Although "no real poet" and too often dull and spiritless, he showed his literary tendencies while master of the school of York, 766-780, by writing Verses on the Fathers, Kings, and Saints of the Church of York. This is the best of his Latin poems. A section in prose transla

tion reads:

The learned Aelbert gave drink to thirsty minds at the sources of various sciences and studies. To some he was eager to communicate the art and rules of grammar; for others he made flow the waters of rhetoric. He exercised these in the combats of jurisprudence, and those in the songs of Adonia. Some learned from him to sound the pipes of Castalia, and to strike with a lyric foot the summits of Parnassus. To others he taught the harmony of heaven, the works of the sun and the moon, the five zones of the pole, the seven wandering stars the nature of men, of beasts, and birds, and the inhabitants of woods . . . he taught how to calculate with certainty the solemn return of Easter; and, above all, he explained the mysteries of the holy scripture (1431-1447).

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As the guide of the revival he digested into dialogues various standard works; e.g. on Grammar, Orthography, Rhet

oric, and Logic. The following passage gives an example of his method:

What is life?

Happiness for the happy, misery for the miserable; the expectation of death.

What is death?

An inevitable event, a doubtful journey, a subject of tears for the living, the confirmations of wills, the robber of men.

What is man?

The slave of death, a passing traveller, a guest in his own abode.

As a defender of the Faith he combatted the Adoptionist heresy in a work entitled The Trinitarian Faith, which in the main is plagiarised from AUGUSTINE'S work The Trinity. As a theologian he wrote Commentaries on various books of the Bible. These were intended to unfold the allegorical meaning of the text and to determine the moral sense. His work entitled The Virtues and Vices concludes with this generous affirmation:

For as the beatitude of the kingdom of God is preached to all without distinction, so the entry to the kingdom is open equally, with only a distinction as to merits, to each sex, to all ages, to all ranks: there no heed is taken as to whether a man on earth has been a layman or priest, rich or poor, young or old, master or slave, but eternal glory crowns each according to his works.

The three hundred and eleven Letters that remain of his correspondence with Charles and the most important personages in England and Europe, "have the best right to the name of literature." They give a most valuable survey of the humanism of the age.

In 796 ALCUIN, wearied with his labours, retired to the abbey of St. Martin of Tours where he taught until, in 801, he resigned his offices and prepared himself for death.

AGOBARD of Lyons, 779-840, who played an outstanding part in the political and religious life of his day, left some practical works on doctrine and discipline. One, entitled Bishop Bernard on the Rights and Privileges of the Priesthood, was an able and useful work; another more contentious book, called Pictures and Images, 824, was widely known and freely contradicted. It urged the abolition of the cult of image worship. A third book from his pen was The Truth of the Faith, in which he made an evangelical appeal to the people of Lyons.

As a preface to a work called The Correction of the Antiphony, he wrote On Divine Psalmody, criticising AMALARIUS who had objected to the changes introduced into church music by AGOBARD. He returned to the same subject in A Book against the Four Books of Amalarius.

The great treatise of AMALARIUS, The Ecclesiastical Offices, "is one of the most curious documents which those who are especially occupied with the liturgy and the emblematic significance of the ceremonies of the Church should consult."

iii. The third period of the revival found native scholars predominant. EINHARD or Eginhard, 770-840, Charlemagne's friend and secretary, wrote the Emperor's biograpy in The Annals of Einhard, 830. He went to the Palace School from the monastery at Fulda, but retired in disgust at the rivalries and quarrels of the Court where he acquired the name of the Ant because of his tireless industry. His Life of Charlemagne, 821, is a character sketch rather than a real biography, and although true to life is lacking in many details. It took its place among the most widely read books of the Middle Ages.

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