Spaniard of Gothic birth, who, in becoming bishop of Orleans about
798, proceeded to see that his clergy were industrious in reading and
preaching. Schools were opened in town and country where children were
educated without payment, though the parents were expected, if they
were able, to make some return proportionate to their means. From a
document written by another Carolingian bishop, it appears that parents
were urged to send their children and allow them to remain at school
until they were really instructed. In such provisions, it is possible
to find a sketch for primary instruction, though it is not known how
successfully or how widely it was developed.
Supplementing these lower schools were others of a higher grade
founded in the more populous centers. In the episcopal and monastic
schools there were accessible collections of books. Charles himself
had a library attached to the palace. The size of some of these
collections may be estimated from the fact that one monastery, St.
Riquier owned two hundred and fifty-six manuscripts. We know, too, that
abbots were accustomed in their election to give presents of books to
their monasteries. In the lists of these donations, which have been
preserved, are to be found chiefly Christian writers, St. Augustine
being an especial favorite; some of the poets of antiquity also find
a place, generally Virgil. The atmosphere of this revival of letters
was predominantly Christian. There are extant, for example, numerous
commentaries on the Gospels of this age, but they are of slight value,
being mere transcriptions of previous authorities.
More successful was the new régime in the mechanical work of preparing
better texts. One of the capitularies directs special care to be given
in selecting copyists equal to their task. Both Alcuin and Theodulph
were engaged in preparing a revised version of the Latin Bible, the
latter scholar, with more discretion, using as his model the text
prepared by the famous prime minister of Theodoric, Cassiodorus, after
he had returned to his monastery in Calabria.
The historical literature of the period also shows the influence of
this religious “Renaissance.” Hagiographical works were popular, but
in general critical ability was wanting in them. But some advance was
made, for although the traditional lines of narrative are preserved,
more biographical details are given and the style is improved. This
type of Carolingian literature can best be studied in Eigil’s life of
Sturm, in the biographies of Gregory of Utrecht, by Liudger, and in
Alcuin’s “Life of Willibrord.” Some of the annals compiled at this time
follow preëxisting models, while others show a distinct improvement,
especially the “Royal Annals,” which were compiled under the influence
of the royal “littérateurs.” The most noteworthy of this type are the
annals of Lorsch, which follow the course of contemporary history down
to the year 829; they have been assigned without sufficient reason
to Einhard, since it is known that works of a similar character, the
“Gesta,” of the bishops of Metz, were composed by Paul the Deacon.
The greatest monument of the literary revival is Einhard’s “Life of
Charles.” Its author, who had studied at Fulda, and become a member of
the court circle sometime between 791 and 796, was a favorite of the
Emperor, and received as a gift several abbeys. Suetonius was taken
as a model by Einhard, but was not slavishly followed. He oftentimes
changes the phrases of his original, and, copyist as he is, he leaves
on the reader the impression of freshness and vigor. Allowing himself
to be guided by his original, he sets down much information which the
ordinary medieval biographer leaves unmentioned.
Many letters of this time have been preserved, among the most
interesting being the correspondence of Alcuin. Poetry was widely read,
and all sorts of subjects were treated in verse. Especial attention
was given to metrical inscriptions intended to be placed over the
doors of churches or private houses, on walls, altars, tombs, and in
books. The acrostic form was extremely popular and applied with great
ingenuity. For the more serious poetic efforts, the most popular models
were the Christian poets, Prudentius and Fortunatus. But pagan authors
were by no means neglected, for Ovid, Virgil, Martial, Horace, Lucan,
and Propertius all found imitators. Attempts were made to revive epic
poetry, some of the writers, as in the case of Hugelbert, by no means
doing discredit to their classical models.
While Latin was the official language, Charles did all he could to
encourage his native Teutonic speech; he made collections of the
folklore poetry of his own people, directed the preparation of a
“Frank” grammar, and tried to introduce the custom of using the
Teutonic names for the months of the year and winds. But throughout the
greater part of Gaul the “Romance” tongue predominated, though educated
people did not care to employ it. Charles’ biographer tells us that
the Emperor spoke it along with Frankish and Latin. At the Council
of Tours, in 813, the bishops decided that the homilies should be
translated into Romance in order to be understood by the congregation.
Warlike songs in the vernacular, celebrating the exploits of the
Franks, are mentioned. The great deeds of the Emperor himself had this
popular recognition, especially the expedition into Spain and the
wars of the Saxons, which excited the popular fancy. That the actual
combatants were accustomed to recount, in verse, both Frankish and
Romance, the events they themselves had witnessed, is known from the
case of Adalbert, a veteran of the wars with the Avars and the Slavs,
whose narrative was taken down by a monk of St. Gall, and transcribed
into Latin.
Carolingian art, like Carolingian literature, was pre-eminently
religious. The revival of art was to a great extent a restoration,
i.e., an attempt to keep already existing church buildings from falling
into ruin. This process of destruction was due to the avarice and
carelessness of the generations immediately preceding the founding of
the Empire. New churches were also constructed, the work of building
being laid on the various communities and superintended by the bishops
and the counts. The Emperor’s minister of public works was Einhard,
to whom have been attributed, without sufficient ground, however,
some of the greatest monuments of the period, the bridges at Mainz,
the palace and church at Aix, and the palace at Ingelheim. Though
the monuments of Carolingian architecture were scattered over a wide
extent of territory, Germany, Gaul, and Lombardy, few have survived.
Wood was used for both basilicas and country churches, especially in
the Northern parts of the Empire, and such buildings were naturally
not durable. Where stone was employed, restoration has so altered the
original construction that few examples of the architecture of this
period can be identified with certainty. The basilica type of church,
usual in Merovingian France, was retained, but more attention was given
to the technique of ancient art. Einhard, we know, read Vitruvius. An
original feature of the Carolingian age was the lantern tower, square
or cylindrical, erected at the transept crossing, and surmounted by a
cupola containing the church bells.
Byzantine architecture was much admired in court circles, and the
desire to imitate the earlier periods of Græco-Roman art led to
a systematic plundering of the ancient buildings in the Italian
peninsula, from which all sorts of architectural fragments, great and
small, were carried across the Alps, to be incorporated, generally
without much sense of proportion or fitness, in the newly constructed
edifices. The most interesting example of this revived Byzantine
architecture is the Emperor’s own chapel at Aix, which still serves
as a nave in the existing church. Workmen from all quarters of the
civilized world were sent for to engage in its construction; marbles,
sculpture, and mosaics were brought from Italy, chiefly from Ravenna.
Eighteen years elapsed before the church was completed, and it was
consecrated with imposing ceremonial by Leo III, on January 1, 805. It
is a copy of the well-known church of St. Vitalis in Ravenna. Around
an octagonal center, which measures fourteen and a half meters, there
are galleries in two stories, to which access is given by turrets
containing winding staircases. The Emperor’s contemporaries were not
conscious of the mistakes in the execution of this copy of a famous
Byzantine model, and the chapel of Aix was spoken of by Einhard as
admirable and of supreme beauty. It was followed by others in the same
style, one of which, at Germain-des-Près, still preserves, despite
restoration, distinct traces of the original design.
The age was remarkable, also, for the extension and building of
monastic foundations. These buildings, as compared with the later
monastic structures, followed a simple plan, with the church edifice
forming the center of the complex. Around the square cloister were
placed the common room, the school, the library, the refectory, and
the dormitory. Near by were the abbot’s home, the guest chamber, and
the infirmary. An idea of the extent of these buildings may be had
from the dimensions of a well-known French abbey, St. Wandrile, where
the refectory and the dormitory measure 208 feet long by 27 feet wide.
As to secular architecture, it is represented solely by the imperial
palaces at Nymwegen, Ingelheim, and Aix.
The palace at Aix, like the church, has for its model a building at
Ravenna, the so-called palace of Theodoric. As all of the dependents
of the court had to be accommodated, the ground floor covered a
considerable space. In the center were the apartments of the imperial
family, the audience chamber, the baths. In a large wing of the
building, connecting it with the chapel, there was room for the school,
the library, the archives. In interior decoration stucco, mosaic
work, and mural painting were used rather than sculpture, in which
art Carolingian workers showed little skill. The Emperor, though he
prohibited the worship of images, expressly directed the use in church
of mural paintings, with subjects taken from the Scriptures. In the
palaces the same art was used to illustrate the secular history of the
Empire.
The Emperor’s deeds were depicted on the walls and explained in
poetical inscriptions. Mosaic was used for floors and wall spaces, and
red and green porphyry were especially sought after for the decorative
designs that often covered the interior of the cupola, as at Aix, where
the Christ is represented on a gold background covered with red stars,
blessing twelve aged men at his feet, and accompanied by two angels.
Work in the precious metals and in ivory was frequent in the churches,
since each had a treasury, and a third of the income, saved from
tithes, was assigned for religious ornaments. In these collections gold
reliquaries with chased work and precious stones were specially valued;
also portable altars and ciboria. The “ivories,” of which interesting
specimens are still preserved, are remarkable for the care displayed in
continuing the traditions of this branch of Christian art, as practised
both in the Eastern Empire and in Italy during earlier centuries.
Books are recorded also in the inventories of the church treasuries,
and the specimens that have survived attest the artistic value of
Carolingian calligraphy. The style of writing, under the influence
of English and Irish models, is clear and free from abbreviations.
Besides the miniatures, these manuscripts exhibit artistically drawn
letters, effectively combined, and characters done in gold and silver
on a purple background. There were a number of schools where the art
of copying was taught, the most celebrated being at Tours, under the
supervision of Alcuin. The national library at Paris has a beautiful
example of this work in a book of the Gospels prepared for Charles in
781, by the monk Godescalk. In Vienna, in the imperial treasury, there
is another Gospel book in similar style, which, legend says, was found
on the knees of the Emperor when his tomb was opened.
In church music, the Emperor continued his father’s policy of
encouraging the Roman use of singing the psalter, as opposed to the
Gallic custom. Masters were brought from Rome for this purpose and
schools established at St. Gall and at Metz. There is still in the
first-named place a Gregorian antiphonary, brought at this time from
Italy, for the purpose of giving musical instruction after the Roman
method.
IX ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Turning now to questions of economic development, one is impressed by
the small part played by city life in the Empire, and by the industrial
importance of the manor. The landed proprietor depended on his country
seat for his support in the most real sense of the word. We find
Einhard, while residing at the court at Aix, bidding his tenants send
him flour, malt, wine, cheese, and other products, and he orders 360
bricks to be made in the country. Even the workmen, who are engaged
in building work in the town, are to be sent from the “villa.” Small
estates had completely disappeared and agricultural communities were
the exception. The villas were often placed near together, a tendency
which led to the multiplication of country churches, whose existence
up to this time is only infrequently mentioned in legal documents. It
was this evolution from a union of “villas,” or the country seats on
great estates, which led to the creation of the villages. The growth
of large estates may have been due to the impoverishment of the small
landed proprietor, but other important factors in the change were
the wide extent of frontier land and the growing importance of the
monasteries. The monastic estates were of imposing size, as it was the
custom for the small land owners to cede their property to the monastic
communities, sometimes to escape taxation, but also from motives of
ecclesiastical loyalty to those whom they looked up to as models of
Christian virtue, and whose prayers they coveted as efficacious in
healing all spiritual distress.
The importance of these institutions is revealed in the figures given
for St. Wandrile, which had on its rolls 1727 manses, inhabited by a
population numbering 10,000 souls. Luxeuil had 15,000 manses, and
Alcuin, the abbot of St. Martin at Tours, is reported to have had on
his domain no less than 20,000 serfs.
The celebrated Polypticon of Irminion, the abbot of St.
Germain-des-Près, drawn up between 800 and 826, records the
administration of one of these great monastic estates. The acreage
belonging to the abbey was 26,613 hectares, and was spread over seven
existing French departments. The parcels of ground numbered 1646; over
10,000 persons were employed, among them only eight freedmen, the rest
being either serfs or “coloni.”
Of the land, about two-thirds was arable and one-third wooded. The dues
from the tenants were collected in money, cattle, poultry, wine, wheat,
pitch, linen, mustard, woolen stuff, and thread, honey, wax, oil, and
soap, instruments of wood and iron, firewood, torches. The annual
revenue of the abbey was nearly $600,000, a sum which amounted to more
than $20 per household.
But the largest landed proprietor was the King; and food, drink, and
articles of clothing were supplied to the court by the villa system.
The royal capitularies give the exact details as to the industrial
administration of an estate. There were many outbuildings included in
the royal villa, such as kitchens, bakeries, stables, dairies, etc.
Fisheries, too, were encouraged. There were vegetable gardens and
flower gardens, in which seventy-four kinds of plants were cultivated,
among them many of the vegetables in common use at the present time,
and sixteen species of trees, including fig, pear, apple, peach, and
cherry trees. In the villa were found various kinds of artisans,
smiths, workers in precious metals, cobblers, saddlers, carpenters,
turners, rope makers. The women’s apartments were provided with rooms
artificially heated, and in them women wove wool and linen goods, and
also prepared them for use by dyeing, although it must be noted that
the range of coloring matters was limited. The staff was organized into
a kind of industrial hierarchy under special officers, who supervised
the work or kept the accounts. Over all stood the “mayor,” who had the
supervision of as much land in his district as he could visit in a day.
Care was exercised by the Emperor that these dependents should receive
enough to live on; no one was to be reduced to poverty, and provision
was made to protect all from unjust treatment at the hands of their
superiors. The maximum price of staple articles, such as wheat
and wine, was fixed; cornering the market was forbidden, likewise
exportation from a given locality when crops were poor. The bishops and
counts were charged to see that the owners of estates looked after the
indigent, whether slave or free, lest any should die of hunger.
Economically the monasteries were really productive centers. Their
artisans at first supplied only the needs of the monastic community
itself; then, as there was a surplus, the abbots established industrial
centers for wider distribution outside the monastic precincts. The
oldest of such Carolingian factories, so far as we know, was St.
Riquier, which contained special quarters for each trade. Indeed, many
continental cities owe their origin to this industrial movement. The
workingmen were organized in unions, guilds, or confraternities, whose
purpose was primarily charity, resembling mutual aid societies, with
features providing for insurance in case of loss by fire or shipwreck.
As villa manufacture was confined to articles of common need, more
elaborate tastes had to be gratified by importation from places beyond
the limits of the northern countries of Europe. The Emperor gave great
attention to guarding the frontiers, so that foreign commerce could be
carried on in security. The great trade routes followed the rivers.
There was a regularly developed system of markets and fairs held near
the cities and the monasteries, as in the case of St. Denis, near
Paris, where for a space of four weeks goods were exposed for sale by
traders from Spain, Southern France, and Lombardy.
In Germany and in the more remote portions of the Empire, near the
Slavic frontiers, the government established shelters and exchange
offices for the convenience of merchants, and strict care was taken
that arms were not sold to the enemy. Chief among the entrepots of
commerce was the city of Mainz, famous for its cloth manufacture.
Charles planned to make of it the great imperial economic center, and
in pursuance of this program provided for the construction of a wooden
bridge over the Rhine. He proposed also to build a canal to connect the
Danube with the Rhine. But the bridge was destroyed by fire, and the
canal offered too serious difficulties for the engineers of his age to
surmount.
Trade between the Empire and Great Britain and Ireland was encouraged.
There was a lighthouse at Boulogne, and at Quentovia, now Étaples,
a customs-house was established and placed under the supervision of
Gerrold, a shrewd man of affairs, abbot of St. Wandrile. The constant
stream of pilgrims passing from the islands was protected by the
Emperor, and they proved useful in drawing closer the commercial ties
with these remoter portions of the civilized world. Naturally the
Mediterranean commerce was the more important, and the Emperor was
careful to keep up good relations with Eastern princes, both Christian
and Moslem.
Imports consisted of purple stuffs, silk cloaks of various colors,
worked leather, perfumes, unguents, and medicinal plants, spices,
Indian pearls, Egyptian papyrus, and even exotic animals, such as
monkeys and elephants. The cities in Southern France were especially
frequented for trade, many of them having a cosmopolitan population.
The Jews were valued for their business capacity, and also for their
knowledge of languages and medical science. They were not allowed to
own landed property, but no restrictions were placed on their loan
operations, or on their commercial ventures.
A marked improvement is noted in the coinage. After 800 the bust of the
Emperor appears with an indication of the Roman military cloak and the
words “Carolus Imperator”; on the reverse is a temple with a cross and
the inscription “Religio Christiana.”
The financial administration of the government offered few
complications, because the obligations on the state in the way of
expenses were most limited. The chief item in the imperial budget,
which preserved the personal and household character of the Merovingian
period, was for the maintenance of the royal palaces, for the presents
made by the king to churches, to foreign princes, or to the great
officers of the Empire. Direct taxes were of the capitation type,
graded according to the position of the individual taxed. The ordinary
fiscal resources were made up from the income of the King from his
own estates, from tributes paid by vassal nations, from war booty,
obligatory annual gifts, and indirect taxes. The revenue from the royal
estates, which were excellently managed, was considerable, and there
must have been a large sum credited to the account of booty from the
various successful wars.
The “benevolences,” to use a term familiar in the constitutional and
financial history of England, were not fixed, and the records speak
in an indefinite way of the contribution offered by faithful subjects
of the Empire in the annual assemblies. But it is plain that these
so-called gifts included precious stones and valuable fabrics, as well
as gold and silver.
The principal indirect taxes were in the form of personal service,
rather than in money payments. Local taxation meant special work on
roads, bridges, and making dikes. For the great bridge at Mainz, labor
was called for from many localities, because it was an imperial work,
intended for the common benefit of the whole Empire. Transportation
dues are frequently mentioned in the Carolingian laws, as well as
the right of “lodging,” by which the inhabitants of a community were
obliged to lodge and entertain the King and his officials on their
travels, and to receive the representatives of foreign powers and
others, to whom the royal privilege was given. A bishop, for example,
had the right to receive forty loaves a day, three lambs, three
measures of ale, a gallon of milk, three chickens, fifteen eggs, and
four measures of feed for his horses.
The greatest difficulties of the government were not financial, but
military, for the state of warfare was almost continuous, especially
along the Alps, the Pyrenees, and from the Eider to the lower Danube.
The summons for calling together the units of the military forces
was either carried by means of direct envoys or by letters sent to
the counts, bishops, and abbots, and sometimes by the “missi.” These
officials had to see that all those who were liable to service should
be prepared to take their places when the call to arms was given. One
of the “missi” writes: “let all be so prepared that, if the order to
leave comes in the evening, they will leave without delay for Italy on
the morning of the next day, but if it comes in the morning, in the
evening of the same day.”