The Carolingian Renaissance

Carolingian minuscule


The medieval renaissances were periods characterised by significant cultural renewal across medieval Western Europe. These are effectively seen as occurring in three phases - the Carolingian Renaissance (8th and 9th centuries), Ottonian Renaissance (10th century) and the renaissance of the 12th century.

Odoacer
...a barbarian statesman who deposed Romulus Augustus and became King of Italy (476–493). His reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire.

The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, which took inspiration from the Christian Roman Empire of the fourth century. During this period, there was an increase of literature, writing, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies.
Council of Nicaea 325

The Carolingian Renaissance occurred mostly during the reigns of Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.


Charlemagne  (2 April 742 – 28 January 814), numbered Charles I, was king of the Franks from 768, king of the Lombards from 774, and emperor of the Romans from 800. During the Early Middle Ages, he united the majority of western and central Europe. He was the first recognised emperor to rule from western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded is called the Carolingian Empire. Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short. He reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Rome's Old St. Peter's Basilica.
Old St. Peter's Basilica was the building that stood, from the 4th to 16th centuriesCharlemagne has been called the "Father of Europe".  His rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance.
Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire considered themselves successors of Charlemagne, as did the French and German monarchs. In 800 Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope as the new emperor of the Roman Empire, but he was not recognized by the Byzantine Greeks.
A succession of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West pre-dated the formal rupture that occurred in 1054. Prominent among these were the issues of the procession of the Holy Spirit ), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, the Bishop of Rome's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the Pentarchy.
A map of Emperor Justinian's Pentarchy
In the model, the Christian church is governed by the heads (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Charlemagne actively sought to amass scholarly men around him and established a royal school led by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin.

Emperor Charlemagne and Alcuin of York
Alcuin of York was an English scholar, clergyman, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invitation of Charlemagne, he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he remained a figure in the 780s and '90s.

In 733, Bede travelled to York, to visit Ecgbert, who was then bishop
Ecgbert (died November 766) was an 8th-century cleric who established the archdiocese of York in 735. [Alcuin is]" "The most learned man anywhere to be found", according to Einhard's Life of Charlemagne (ca. 817-833),


Einhard was a Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was a dedicated servant of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious; his main work is a biography of Charlemagne, the Vita Karoli Magni, "one of the most precious literary bequests of the early Middle Ages."

Charlemagne and Charles V from Vita et gesta Karoli Magni, Cologne 1521
[Nota Bene: the three frogs on mid-left shield.]
The Latin poem conventionally titled Visio Karoli Magni ("Vision of Charles the Great") was written by an anonymous East Frank around 865.

Vita Karoli Magni (Life of Charles the Great) is a biography of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, written by Einhard.The author tried to imitate the style of that of the ancient Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who is most famous for his Lives of the Caesars. Einhard's biography used especially the model of the biography of Emperor Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire.
 
The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
...remains a primary source on Roman history.


Einhard And Emma

Einhard's position while with Charlemagne was that of a modern minister of public works so he had intimate knowledge of his court. Einhard was also given the responsibility of many of Charlemagne's abbeys. It used to be suggested that Einhard's wife, Emma, was a daughter of Charlemagne.. Charlemagne established a royal school led by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin. Einhard evidently was a talented builder and construction manager, because Charlemagne put him in charge of the completion of several palace complexes including Aachen and Ingelheim.

Palace of Aachen
The Palace of Aachen was a group of buildings with residential, political and religious purposes chosen by Charlemagne to be the centre of power of the Carolingian Empire. The palace was located at the north of the current city of Aachen, today in the German Land of North Rhine-Westphalia. Most of the Carolingian palace was built in the 790s but the works went on until Charlemagne's death in 814. The plans, drawn by Odo of Metz, were part with the programme of renovation of the kingdom decided by the ruler. Today much of the palace is destroyed, but the Palatine Chapel has been preserved and is considered as a masterpiece of Carolingian architecture and a characteristic example of architecture from the Carolingian Renaissance.

The Palatine Chapel (Octagon) in Aachen

The Palatine Chapel in Aachen constructed between 792–805 was inspired by the octagonal Justinian church of San Vitale in Ravenna, built in the 6th century, but at Aachen there is a tall monumental western entrance complex, as a whole called a westwork—a Carolingian innovation.

Westwork of Corvey Abbey

In ancient times, the Romans chose the site of Aachen for its thermal springs and its forward position towards Germania. The site, called Aquae Granni, was equipped with 50 acres of thermae that remained in use from the 1st to the 4th century. In the 4th century, the city and the palace were destroyed during the Barbarian invasions. Clovis made Paris the capital of the Frankish Kingdom, and Aachen Palace was abandoned until the advent of the Carolingian dynasty. 

Charlemagne ended the Germanic custom of an itinerant court moving from place to place and established a real capital in Aachen. The scholars of the Carolingian era presented Charlemagne as the "New Constantine"; in this context, he needed a capital and a palace worthy of the name. He left Rome to the Pope. The rivalry with the Byzantine Empire led Charlemagne to build a magnificent palace. 

Section of the Palatine Chapel

Odo of Metz applied the Christian symbolism for figures and numbers. The building was conceived as a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, as described in the Apocalypse. The outer perimeter of the cupola measures exactly 144 Carolingian feet whereas that of the heavenly Jerusalem, ideal city drawn by angels, is of 144 cubits. The mosaic of the cupola, hidden today behind a 19th-century restoration, showed Christ in Majesty with the 24 elders of the Apocalypse. Other mosaics, on the vaults of the aisle, takes up this subject by representing the heavenly Jerusalem. 

Charlemagne's throne, located in the West of the second floor, was placed on the seventh step of a platform.

"Royal Throne of Aachen" is a throne erected in the 790s by Charlemagne, as one of the fittings of his palatine chapel in Aachen (today's Aachen Cathedral) and placed in the Octagon of the church. Until 1531, it served as the coronation throne of the Kings of Germany, being used at a total of thirty-one coronations. As a result, especially in the eleventh century, it was referred to as the totius regni archisolum ("Archstool of the Whole Realm"). Charlemagne himself was not crowned on this throne.

 «the Second Rome»

Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne, by Friedrich Kaulbach, 1861

Theodulf of Orléans

was a writer, poet and the Bishop of Orléans (c. 798 to 818) during the reign of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. He was a key member of the Carolingian Renaissance...author of the Libri Carolini.

Mosaic of the Ark of the Covenant, c. 806 of the private oratory or chapel made for his villa at Germigny-des-Prés.