7 - Intellectual life

Summary

intellectual life in this period is often given labels which relate to other politico-cultural events and phenomena: the ‘post-Carolingian’ or ‘pre-Gregorian’ age. The former view clearly conceives of the tenth century as a continuation of the Carolingian renaissance; by implication, continuation leads to decadence and finally to the Ottonian renaissance. The latter term sees the intellectual and spiritual movement of the monastic tradition (in Gorze and Cluny) and the episcopal tradition (as in Rather of Verona) as precursors of Gregorian church reform and of the Investiture Contest. Such descriptions have long left the tenth century without a name of its own, except perhaps for one of the negative descriptions applied since Baronius’ time: the ‘iron century’, the ‘dark century’. Recent reactions against this have led to the period’s being described as a great era of cultural renewal and renaissance. Rather than considering the age as particularly obscure or particularly enlightened, it is more useful to look at what was happening in intellectual life at the time. The first thing to consider is schools and book production, which are, at least in part, closely related.

books, school and intellectuals

Fewer manuscripts can be dated to the tenth and the early eleventh centuries than to the ninth century and the later eleventh; an oft-repeated fact which tells us nothing about intellectual life during the century. The boom in writing from the last years of the eighth century was a result of the huge cultural developments brought about by Charlemagne. The Carolingian renaissance largely ended Germanic oral tradition and popular culture, and created a need for a written culture based on manuscripts. But given the high cost of books, continued production was unnecessary once demand had been met.