Art and Charlemagne: how did western sacred art start?
Introducing the "Carolingian Renaissance" - 780 to 900
On Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord 800, a momentous event unfolded that would change the course of European and world history. In the great Constantinian basilica of St. Peter's in Rome1, Pope Leo III placed a crown upon the head of Charles, king of the Franks, proclaiming him "Emperor of the Romans."
In the end, this act of the pope was to lead to the establishment of an entirely new Western Christian civilisation, the one in whose ruins we still live today.
In today’s post for all subscribers, we’re going to take a broad look at this absolutely crucial moment for western Europe and Christendom. We’ll look at how Charlemagne’s reforms and energetic rebuilding of European unity laid the foundation for Medieval Christian Europe that created the society we live in today. It will be our jumping off point for a series through August going into more focused investigations of key figures and movements.
It’s my own opinion that the Carolingian foundations and the incredible burst of intellectual and artistic energy of this short period is much more worthy of the title “Renaissance” than the catastrophic break from the metaphysics of Christianity represented by the Florentine philosophical revolution of the 15th century. The Carolingian Renaissance devoted all of Europe to the cause of Christ; the Florentine revision broke faith with that ancient establishment.
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The Christmas coronation was more than a simple crowning; it has been seen as symbolising the rebirth of an empire in the West and the unification of much of Europe under a single, powerful ruler. Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, had transformed from King of the Franks and Lombards to the first Holy Roman Emperor, a title that carried profound political and spiritual weight.
If anyone could be called “the founder of Europe,” a united western Christian empire, it was him.
The world Charles was born into was fragmented and turbulent. The Western Roman Empire had collapsed in the 5th century, leaving behind a patchwork of warring kingdoms. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire, seated in Constantinople, considered itself the true heir of Rome since the Emperor Constantine had moved the capital there. But at this time it was entangled in the double struggle against the Iconoclastic heresy2 within and Islam without. The rapid conquest of Christian lands in North Africa, including, disastrously, Egypt, (what we call today) the Middle East and the Iberian Peninsula by the Islamic Arab invaders had begun to reshape the political and cultural landscapes of the Mediterranean.
Charlemagne's coronation by the Pope was a strategic move - done at a politically critical moment in relations between Rome and Constantinople - that declared the spiritual and political independence of western Europe from a distracted Byzantium, crucially, under the supervision of the pope in Rome. From that moment onward, the attention of the pope and the western emperor would be on western Europe, leaving the Byzantine east on a separate trajectory.
The Byzantines watched this development with unease, recognizing it as a challenge to their long-held supremacy. Ultimately, this declaration of independence from Byzantine imperial rule would lead to the Great Schism that has divided Christianity, into the Greek side and the Latin side, to this day.
Why was he “great”? The “Carolingian Renaissance”
Charlemagne's influence extended far beyond military conquests. He fostered a cultural and intellectual revival known as the Carolingian Renaissance3. By attracting scholars from across Europe to his court in Aachen, he spurred a renewal of learning and the arts. These efforts to reform education, standardize liturgical practice, attracted men like Alcuin of York, an English cleric who became a leading figure at the Palace School at Aachen and a councillor to the emperor.
The copying of classical and production of new texts was made possible by the development of the Carolingian minuscule script, which made copying texts more efficient and readable. This cultural blossoming laid the foundations for the intellectual growth of the Middle Ages and the rebirth of knowledge and culture across western Europe.
The consolidation of power and the establishment of a relatively stable and unified realm under the Carolingian dynasty provided the necessary conditions for cultural and intellectual flowering and the developments of the later middle ages.
Educational Reforms
Charlemagne and his successors promoted the establishment of monasteries as social and political engines and monastic and cathedral schools began to educate clergy and literate, highly accomplished imperial administrators.
The curriculum of these schools was based on the educational system, the gold standard that would dominate arts, letters, science and politics until the 20th century: The Trivium and Quadrivium.
These consisted of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic in the early stages and arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy in the secondary programme. This foundation was basis of medieval liberal arts education and made possible all of Europe’s subsequent philosophical, artistic, architectural, musical and scientific advancements.
Scripts and Manuscript Illumination, Art and Architecture
One of the period’s most significant developments was the development of Carolingian minuscule, a clear and legible script that improved the copying and preservation of texts. This script later influenced the development of modern European scripts.
The period saw the start of western European manuscript illumination, with richly decorated Bibles and liturgical books produced in monastic scriptoria. This work preserved many Classical and Christian works - including scientific and legal texts - that might otherwise have been lost.
Carolingian architecture saw the revival and adaptation of Roman architectural forms. Perhaps the greatest survivor today is the Palatine Chapel in Aachen attached to the emperor’s residence.
The Carolingian period saw a unique style develop for frescoes, mosaics, metalwork, and ivory carvings. It is described as a blend of Classical (Greco-Roman) styles and Christian themes. The period also saw the creation of lavishly decorated liturgical objects, such as reliquaries and altar frontals.
One of the earmarks of Carolingian culture was its cosmopolitan aspect, bringing scholars, artists and architects from all over Europe.
Carolingian manuscript illuminations, such as those found in the Godescalc Evangelistary and the Utrecht Psalter, exhibit this blend of intricate Celtic knotwork and the naturalistic forms of classical antiquity. This synthesis created a distinct visual language that reflected the broader cultural amalgamation within Charlemagne’s empire. The monasteries and scriptoria, particularly those in Aachen, Tours, and St. Gall, became centres for this artistic production.
Legal and Administrative Reforms
Charlemagne and his successors issued a series of capitularies, or royal edicts, which addressed various aspects of governance, law, and society, to standardize and improve the administration of the empire. Efforts began to compile and preserve legal texts, including both Roman law and traditional Germanic law, contributing to a more coherent legal system across Europe.
Religious and Liturgical Reforms
Under the Carolingian dynasty there was a concerted effort to standardize Christian liturgical practices across the empire. The adoption of the Roman Rite for the Mass and other liturgies and the dissemination of liturgical texts helped unify religious practices.
The Rule of St. Benedict was promoted as the standard for monastic life throughout Europe, leading to greater uniformity and discipline within monastic communities. The establishment and growth of Benedictine monasteries during the Carolingian era became an engine for reshaping the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual landscape of later medieval Europe.
Promoted by Charlemagne and his successors, these monasteries adhered to the Rule, which emphasises a balanced life of prayer, work and study. Monasteries such as those at Corbie, Fulda, Farfa4 and Saint Gall became models of disciplined monastic life and were instrumental in Christianizing newly conquered or still-pagan territories in north western and eastern Europe.
The monasteries
Benedictine monasteries were not only centres of religious observance but also hubs of learning, science and cultural preservation. The introduction of the Carolingian minuscule script, combined with the universally known scholarly languages of Latin and Greek, allowed a unified intellectual environment across Europe, impervious to vernacular language barriers.
Agricultural accomplishments of Benedictine monasteries across Europe:
Crop Rotation and soil management systems: Benedictine monks developed and popularized the three-field system, which involved rotating crops among three fields to maintain soil fertility and increase productivity. Monks developed soil management methods, using natural fertilizers such as manure and compost to enrich the soil and promote healthy crop growth.
Vineyards and Wine Production: Many Benedictine monasteries established and maintained extensive vineyards, producing wine that was essential for liturgical purposes and as a source of revenue.
Introduction of New Crops: Monasteries often experimented with and introduced new crops to different regions, improving local agriculture. For example, they spread the cultivation of barley, oats, and rye.
Milling Innovations: Benedictine monasteries built advanced water mills and windmills for milling grain and other mechanised applications like paper production and “fulling” woollen cloth.
Fish Farming: Monastic communities constructed fish ponds and managed aquatic resources to ensure a steady supply of fish.
Bee Keeping: Monasteries cultivated bees for honey and beeswax, used in candle making and a vast array of manufacturing and other applications.
Orchard and Garden Management: Monks maintained well-organized orchards and vegetable gardens, developing grafting and propagation techniques to improve fruit yields and diversity.
Animal Husbandry: Benedictine monasteries implemented systematic breeding programs for livestock to improve meat, milk, wool, and other animal products.
Agricultural Manuals: Monastic scribes compiled and preserved agricultural manuals and treatises on health and diet, disseminating practical farming knowledge across Europe.
The monasteries played a crucial role in Charlemagne’s educational reforms, becoming key centres of learning, training both clerical and lay students. Through their schools, libraries, and scriptoria, they preserved and transmitted the intellectual heritage of the classical world, profoundly influencing the cultural development of medieval Europe and laying the groundwork for future intellectual achievements.
The Carolingian Renaissance revived classical learning and fostered a vibrant scholarly, artistic and scientific community, and laid the groundwork for future advancements in science, literature, and the arts. While the political structures of the Carolingian Empire crumbled fairly quickly, the intellectual ferment it fostered continued to shape European thought for centuries.
We very much owe our Christian cultural identity to Charles the Great. Now that we’ve introduced the general parameters, we will be looking in more depth at some of the key figures of this period and their works. I’ve got all of August already pencilled in and into September. Get ready!
As we all know, a very different building from the monstrous Baroque thing there now. The video is a fascinating rendering of what it might have looked like from the evidence we have.
It’s worth looking at Iconoclasm in depth, which we will do at some point. In reality it’s not about “art”; it’s about Christology and the Incarnation.
As always, it’s important to remember that terms like “Carolingian Renaissance” are titles bestowed by historians long, long after the fact. In this case it was a French historian in the 1830s named Jean-Jacques Ampère, who diverged from the popular academic opinion of the time that everything between the fall of the western empire and the Florentine Renaissance was a “dark” period of primitive superstition.
I’ve tentatively pencilled in for August 21st a free subscribers’ post on the great Benedictine empire of Farfa Abbey. These abbeys became sub-kingdoms all their own, with power and wealth to rival any king.
Terrific post. It should also be mentioned that part of the liturgical standardization at this time (beginning with Pepin) involved bringing Roman singers and Roman chant north, which gave rise to what we now call Gregorian chant. Quite apart from its liturgical use, this repertoire is a high point of western civilization and would stand on its own as a testament to Carolingian artistic greatness. The chant also first started being written down at this time in the form of neumes, which are the basis for later western musical notation. Some of the earliest examples are preserved at St. Gall.
What an absolute treasure is your SubStack, Hilary. Thank you for all this divinely inspired beauty.