25 - Eighth-century foundations

Summary

in about 780, Charlemagne sent out an appeal for copies of remarkable or rare books. Its success is documented, first, by the number of extant ninth-century manuscripts which appear to emanate from the court or depend on court exemplars and, second, by the short list of books in Berlin, Diez B. Sant. 66, a late eighth-century grammatical collection. The list includes many unusual texts and has been identified as a catalogue of some at least of the books in the Carolingian court library. That such an appeal for texts could be made, and, apparently, responded to, is an indication that knowledge existed within the Frankish kingdoms by the 780s both of particular texts and of centres likely to contain ancient books of some kind. Levels of interest and the availability of texts are, therefore, interlocking problems in any assessment of the pre-Carolingian period. Although it is certainly relatively thinly documented, the evidence exists nevertheless to suggest distinct centres of intellectual activity and spheres of interest in the eighth century. The eighth century is to be understood not merely as a tail end of the four centuries of change and innovation which divide the world of Augustine and Jerome from that of Alcuin and Charlemagne, but as a time of new developments and fresh beginnings. Substantial foundations began to be laid all over Western Europe, in the Frankish kingdoms, Spain, Italy, Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland, for the remarkable efflorescence of culture in the ninth century discussed in the ensuing chapters of this book.