Carolingian Renaissance Unit 5 Topic 3

Battle of Tours 

• 732

• Charles Martel led the Franks

• Stopped the Muslim advance further into Europe

Charlemagne 

• Founded the Holy Roman Empire

  • Expanded the kingdom of the Franks to include parts of Germany and Italy 

  • AD 800 - Crowned emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day

    • Angered the Byzantines

  • Created a unified Christian empire

• Charle/magne

• Charles  → magnus (great)

• Carolus → Carolingian Dynasty

• Re/naissance

• Again → naître(French) (to be born) = rebirth, renewal

Carolingian Renaissance

• Late 8th and early 9th-century flourishing of Frankish culture

• Rulers often became patrons of the arts and architecture

• Charlemagne promoted education, writing, and study of classical Latin sources

• (Private) Libraries multiply

Educational Reform

• Alcuin of York (d.804) Benedictine monk

  • Promotes knowledge of literature and speech - it helps understand Scripture 

  • Palace School was founded in Aachen, other schools also developed in cathedrals

• Capital of Holy Roman Empire → Aachen

Division of the Empire

• Charlemagne's grandsons split the empire in 3 

  • Treaty of Verdun - 843

Great Schism

• Church developed differences between East and West

• Two major sticking points

  • Role of the Patriarch of Constantinople

  • The “Filioque” clause was added to the Nicene creed by the Council of Constantinople I (381)

• Pope and patriarch excommunicated each other 

  • Spilt between Catholicism and orthodoxy