Carolingian Learning Masters And Manuscripts

The essays collected in this volume (including one hitherto unpublished, one in a revised version, and others now provided with additional notes) examine the intellectual and cultural life of early medieval western Europe from a number of different perspectives. The author argues that Carolingian learning must be seen within the general context of the Dynasty's attempt to reform society along Christian lines, and not as a medieval renaissance or revival of classical culture. The efforts of Carolingian leaders and scholars often led to varied results - one of the hallmarks of intellectual and cultural life of the period. Several of the essays focus on prominent themes in 9th century intellectual history - the arts, Bible, education, the role of the Irish - while others shed new light major Carolingian figures such as John Scottus Eriugena, Martin Scottus, Haimo of Auxerre, and Hincmar of Laon. The centrality of the manuscript to the reconstruction of intellectual life of the period is a theme common to all the essays.

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An overview of the context, thought, writings and legacy of John Scottus Eriugena, the most important philosopher and theologian in the Latin West from the death of Boethius until the thirteenth century.

In A Saving Science, Eric Ramírez-Weaver explores the significance of early medieval astronomy in the Frankish empire, using as his lens an astronomical masterpiece, the deluxe manuscript of the Handbook of 809, painted in roughly 830 for Bishop Drogo of Metz, one of Charlemagne’s sons. Created in an age in which careful study of the heavens served a liturgical purpose—to reckon Christian feast days and seasons accurately and thus reflect a “heavenly” order—the diagrams of celestial bodies in the Handbook of 809 are extraordinary signifiers of the intersection of Christian art and classical astronomy. Ramírez-Weaver shows how, by studying this lavishly painted and carefully executed manuscript, we gain a unique understanding of early medieval astronomy and its cultural significance. In a time when the Frankish church sought to renew society through education, the Handbook of 809 presented a model in which study aided the spiritual reform of the cleric’s soul, and, by extension, enabled the spiritual care of his community. An exciting new interpretation of Frankish painting, A Saving Science shows that constellations in books such as Drogo’s were not simple copies for posterity’s sake, but functional tools in the service of the rejuvenation of a creative Carolingian culture.

A 2006 analysis of medieval teaching methods through the surviving manuscripts of the scholar Notker of St Gall.

Traces the political development of the Carolingian Spanish March and revises traditional interpretations of Catalonia's political and constitutional history.

This 2004 book looks at the writing and reading of history during the early middle ages.

A collection of essays, nine of the ten which appeared first between 1995 and 2005. It explores how the seventh-century Visio Baronti was read in the ninth century and how social and cultural imperatives transformed the life of scholarship, schools and learning in Carolingian Europe.