Chapter 2 explores the music produced in the monastic institutions of ninth- to eleventh-century Europe. Describing the context of the Carolingian Empire, and the renaissance of learning, literacy, and writing that it brought about, we look at some of the earliest examples of musical notation from this vast region of Europe. We examine the Latin songs, or versus, produced in monasteries, charting their wide range of themes and their possible functions in monastic life. Our earliest evidence of polyphonic singing in church comes from music theory texts dating from the ninth century onwards: we consider what these texts can tell us about the improvised practice of organum (or parallel organum) singing, and provide a practical exercise for readers to try improvising organum themselves. Further music theory texts from the tenth and eleventh centuries document the changing approaches to organum singing over the period, and finally we consider how music theory related to actual practice, by looking at the first surviving examples of practical polyphony from medieval Europe.

In the ninth century, the Carolingian conquest of Brittany, together with a Europe-wide revival of learning, created a new interest in explaining Brittany’s past. Rival stories of Brittany’s British origins were set down by Frankish, Welsh and Breton scholars. The Bretons’ view of their own past was expressed wholly through the medium of hagiography, a considerable amount of which was produced during the later ninth and early tenth centuries: this allows us to gauge the nature of its authors’ links with the Insular world. The British origins of the founding figures of the Breton Church were proudly proclaimed despite a readiness to accept Carolingian authority; there seems to have been little real knowledge of the saints’ alleged sixth-century origins, but considerable opportunity to gather information contemporaneously from Wales and perhaps also from Cornwall and Ireland. The role of Llancarfan (in south Wales) in relaying information between Ireland and the hagiographers of Saint-Malo in Brittany is highlighted.

The early Middle Ages is often portrayed as a time when families, not political structures, ruled. In contrast, I demonstrate that noble kinship groups and networks were integrated into institutions and ideas of a common political order. Dependence worked both ways. Kings were dependent upon major noble networks and nobles were legitimated by their roles as public actors and public warriors. Towards the end of this period, we also see the growth of a sense of responsibility for the common polity, the realm, even in the absence of kings. The chapter concludes that there was no principled opposition between kinship groups and the polity, between the aristocracy and the king – rather they were mutually dependent. However, since kinship groups were so informal, political institutions were also very informal and elusive. This teaches us that formalization of families was a key to the formalization of political structures.

This chapter begins with an account of the roles of Charlemagne and Alcuin in supporting the study of computus and astronomy in the Carolingian Empire. It then offers an outline of the expanded astronomical and meteorological information found in Carolingian ‘encyclopedias’ of computus. A key problem for users of these collections was the lack of accurate astronomical observations and calculations, which enforced continuing dependence on lists of short-term ‘signs’ of coming weather, mostly derived from Pliny. One attempt to improve the range of knowledge available took the form of beautifully illuminated versions of Aratus’ long poem, in volumes known as Aratea. The dissemination of this body of information is traced through analyses of surviving manuscripts, which demonstrate the resources being devoted to the subject across mainland Europe. Separate consideration is given to Anglo-Saxon England, where Viking conquests and wars had caused serious disruption, and where the teaching of Abbo of Fleury, and his pupil Byrhtferth, was crucial. The chapter argues that possession of superior astronomical and meteorological knowledge was highly vaued by rulers in both secular and spiritual spheres.