Oct. 21,  Carolingians

Tuesday: Kishlansky 32. Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne (ca. 829-836);

 

(continued from last class: III. MONASTERIES AND THE PRESERVATION OF ANCIENT LEARNING

 

Beginnings of monasticism: Egypt in 4^th century

 

Monasticism had in fact begun long before the barbarian conquests – in Egypt.

Remember way back in the beginning of the course – we talked about Egyptian religion – and its tendency to focus on the afterlife instead of the here and now.

When the Egyptians became Christian, this tendency continued

In the 4^th century, we get the first Christian monks – male and female hermits - who tried to retire from the world completely, by living alone in cells and caves in the Egyptian desert.

Soon some began to live in communities of monks - monasteries.

Monastic life aimed at personal salvation

Ascetism: They tried to suppress the desires of the flesh – the desire to eat, sleep, have sex – so that they could focus on God.

We see here a perception that the body and soul were in conflict.

Prayer

Manual work (to support themselves without inheriting property)

 

Beginnings of western monasticism: 5^th century AD

The idea of monasticism became extraordinary popular in the 5^th century - even appealing to well born Romans.

These western Christians began to adopt the Egyptian practice of living in communities of monks - monasteries.

Monasticism esp. caught on after the Germanic conquests.

Under barbarian rule, more and more well born Romans chose to become monks rather than serve their heretical rulers.

The Rule of Benedict, written in 6^th century Italy, will eventually become the dominant monatic rule

Benedict tells his monks to be "aloof" from the world.

To be servants, instead of rulers (there was nothing worse for a Roman than to be called a slave)

He makes monks engage in manual labor – work with their hands – every day; well-born Romans had scorned working with their hands, even having slave secretaries write to their dictation rather than mess with pen and paper.

Why are the monasteries are important for future of western civilization?

 

1. Transmission of literacy and classical learning

The manual labor most favored by Benedictine monks was scribal work – copying books.

They were also supposed to read every day, as you say in the rule of Benedict.

When the Roman school system collapsed in the early middle ages and few people could read and write any longer, the monks were the ones who preserved classical literature for us.

We would not have Virgil, Tacitus, Cicero, except for them.

They by and large saved western civilization.

2. Access to education for women

Some noble women gained independence by becoming nuns

Partly inspired by Irish monks, aristocratic families were setting up monasteries

(the Irish were busy travelling around Europe telling other people how to be holy)

Women as well as men could act as the heads of monasteries (abbesses)

This way they controlled great wealth, large numbers of people - both monks and servants,

And, above all, could get educated

The monasteries were the main schools of the early middle Ages - and women could learn to read there almost as easily as men could.

 

 

FOR TODAY: I. EXPANSION OF FRANKISH KINGDOM  – CAROLINGIANS

In the 7^th century AD, Franks ruled most of what is today France -

The Franks would have probably remained just one Germanic kingdom among many, except for the Carolingians.

The Carolingians started out as energetic aristocratic family who worked for the Frankish kings.

In 732, one of the Carolingians, Charles Martel, managed to defeat  the Arabs, and prevent them from conquering France. (Battle of Poitiers)

Charles became famous, but he was not a king, only an important Frankish noble.

Yet after his victory, the Carolingians got noticed by one of the most important leaders of early medieval Europe – the pope in Rome.

 

Early medieval popes

You see,  the popes also needed protection in this violent and chaotic age.

Rome was technically part of the Byzantine empire.

The Arabs were trying to conquer Italy in the south,

And in northern Italy, the Germanic Lombards had formed a kingdom (heretics)

The popes needed to find a Catholic protector, and chose the Carolingians.

20 years after Charles’ Martel had defeated the Arabs, the pope created  a Carolingian king of the Franks.

The Pope anointed him (poured holy oil on his head), the way kings had been anointed in the Old  Testament.

This was a revolutionary way to make king – not birth, not election, but the blessing of the pope. 

It's one sign of the growing political of the Christian church in the early Middle Ages.

 

Now the Carolingians were kings of the Franks ordained by God’s representative, the Pope.

The new Carolingian kings began to conquer much of continental Europe – especially Charlemagne.

Charlemagne (“Charles the Great”) conquered most of Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and n. Spain.

He created the biggest European state since he fall of Rome.

         (MAP)

 

He even conquered peoples the Romans had never been able to – the northern Germans – or Saxons – a warlike pagan people whom Charlemagne fought every year for 30 years.

These Saxons are the ancestors of modern Germans.

Then in 800  AD – Charlemagne became emperor, first time after 476 that there was an emperor in Europe.

How?  The pope had him acclaimed emperor in Rome.

So popes were not only creating kings – but also a new emperor in Europe.

Scholars have debated endlessly about what Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor really meant:

         It was not a restoration of the Roman empire – the institutions, army, geography were all very different.

         And the Roman empire still existed in the east –  the Byzantine empire

 

What the imperial title did do, was unite many of these different little kingdoms and peoples of western Europe into a federation of kingdoms and duchies.

         For the next thousand years there would be emperors in Europe –  esp. in Germany and Italy. 

         Sometimes these emperors didn’t rule much territory – but the title meant something.

         What is called the Holy Roman Empire – based in Germany – grew out of Charlemagne’s empire..

 

II. Carolingian Renaissance

 

Carolingians sparked an intellectual revival called the Carolingian Renaissance

As seen in Einhard,Charlemagne himself couldn’t write – he tried to learn to write, even keeping a book in bed with him, but he had started too late in life.

(Note the difference here between early medieval Europe and the other people we have studied – all Roman and Byzantine emperors could write, so could the Muslim caliphs)

 

educational problems in Europe

literacy confined to monks, nuns and clergy - at low standard there

no standardized script or spelling of Latin

 

- Charlemagne promoted scholars in his court – most of them Christian clerics.

He gave these scholars  lands, and set up new monasteries, and new bishoprics for them to work in.

- Old manuscripts of Cicero, and Virgil, and other Roman authors were searched for in the monasteries, and recopied.

- There was a standardization of the spelling of written Latin:

Latin becomes language of learning for all of Europe (not just parts which had been part of Roman empire)

         - but it is now a separate language from the spoken language  - “vernacular” French, Italian, etc.

 

- Part of the reason for the success of the Carolingian intellectual renaissance was the invention of a new, easy to read script called Carolingian minuscule.

If you want to know what it looks like, just open a page of your text.

We still use the Carolingian minuscule in our lower case letters; the Romans had only used upper case letters.

The Carolingians invented our forms of punctuation – commas, semi-colons, periods; spaces between words – the Romans just wrote one long string of capital letters (WRITE)

 

The medium of writing changed as well as the script.

They no longer wrote on scrolls of papyrus – but in books of parchment, animal skin.

Remember papyrus was a reed grown in Egypt, used to make a sort of paper.

The Romans wrote primarily on papyrus, considering parchment – animal skin – too expensive.

Because trade had broken down between Egypt and Europe, the Europeans had to use parchment.

This processed sheep or calf skin, parchment, looks like very thick off-white paper.

It survives better than papyrus or paper – which is another reason we have so many Carolingian books.

 

Under Charlemagne’s empire, these intellectual reforms – the new clear minuscule print, the new types of literature and copies of classical literature – spread through continental Europe – France, Germany, Italy, N. Spain. 

These peoples who had been divided into to so many little barbarian kingdoms, now began to share a common intellectual heritage..

 

 

Legacy of Carolingians:

- Formed last great empire in Europe (though Napolean and Hitler will try to repeat)

 

- second legacy: revival of learning, carried out in monasteries with new minuscule script: created standardized Latin to be common language of learning for  Europe;and a script / system of punctuation that is ancestor of our own print script