Learning for God: Education in the Carolingian Age

Abstract

Schools in the Carolingian age functioned within a context of political fragmentation, geographic isolation, institutional insecurity, limited communication, limited and unequal distribution of resources, and frequent political and social violence. Thus, the history of education in the Carolingian period was discontinuous. Nevertheless, reform movements made education and learning socially significant. At the heart of the reforms was a profound respect for the power of books and their texts to lead Europeans to truth. The collection, organization, and systematization of knowledge in book form is the principal achievement of Carolingian schools and their teachers. The continuity of Carolingian education, so difficult to observe in human and institutional terms, is implicit in the texts teachers and scholars created.