from PART IV - CULTURE AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
the impetus for learning
writing towards the end of the ninth century, Notker Balbulus, teacher, scribe and librarian at the monastery of St Gall, recorded what he and doubtless many others thought about the origins of the Carolingian revival of learning. Two Irishmen, he claimed in his Gesta Karoli Magni, came to the Continent hawking wisdom and were eventually brought to the attention of Charlemagne who ‘was always an admirer and great collector of wisdom’. Soon after, Notker reported, the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin heard of the king’s love of wisdom and took to sea to meet him. Although the simplicity of Notker’s explanation of the wellspring of the Carolingian renaissance is attractive, it reduces a complex phenomenon to virtual parody. Irishmen, Anglo-Saxons, Visigoths and Italians were instrumental in defining the renaissance, but the programme had its roots in the eighth century with missionaries like Boniface and with political leaders such as Charlemagne’s father, Pippin III. What Charlemagne and his coterie of scholars, principally Alcuin but others as well, contributed to the revival of learning was a sense of mission, constancy, example, reinforcement and support.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.