Carolingian church

In the eighth and ninth centuries, Western Europe witnessed decisive developments in the structure and organisation of the church, relations between secular and religious authorities, monastic life, theology, and artistic endeavours.

These developments owed much to the leadership of Carolingian rulers themselves, especially Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, whose courts encouraged successive waves of religious reform and viewed Christianity as a unifying force in their empire.

Queen Brunhild corresponded with Pope Gregory the Great, the latter praising her piety and requesting support for the mission's efforts to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity.

In 742, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Boniface, in conjunction with the Carolingian mayors of the palace Pepin and Carloman, organised the first of a series of church councils with the express aim of remedying this deficiency.

Charlemagne's conquests led to the acquisition of the Spanish March in Catalonia, the lands of Old Saxony, north and central Lombard Italy, and as far east as modern-day Austria and Slovenia.

[11] A new Franco-papal alliance was forged around 753 when Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps and beseeched Pepin III's aid against Lombard encroachment.

However, this new western focus ultimately helped the papacy secure greater authority for itself as a dominant power in the West, and in the ninth century, popes such as Nicholas I continued to involve themselves in Frankish politics.

For example, when he and his courtiers discovered that there were differences between the legal and liturgical practices of the Frankish and Roman churches, he asked Pope Hadrian for an up-to-date book of canon law (the Dionysio-Hadriana).

[14] Under the Carolingians, there were considerable developments in ideas about kingship and empire, though the extent to which they were ideologically driven remains a matter of contention between historians.

[16] Further evidence of the Carolingians appropriating theological concerns in their rule is the General admonition, issued in 789, which aimed to regulate educational and religious standards, including important Christian theological teachings such as the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy spirit being parts of one God, and that Jesus was made flesh by the holy spirit, and that Mary was a Virgin.

The fourth-century Notitia Galliarum, which described the provincial organisation of cities (civitates), remained an important point of reference and was widely copied in the early Middle Ages.

[18] The rigidity of ecclesiastical organisation uniquely provided an effective system of communication for Charlemagne's court, allowing for the correct dissemination of law and reform across the realm through the convening of regular church councils.

[1] This is most keenly demonstrated in the extremities of Charlemagne's kingdom such as Saxony, where bishoprics consolidated royal authority through the promotion of Roman Christianity in regions newly conquered.

There were more than 100 dioceses in the Carolingian regions north of the Alps, meaning that local societies were served by tens of thousands of small churches.

[25] Canon law played a major role in the Carolingians reforms and reorganisation of the Frankish Church as it provided the essential authoritative texts for the promotion of ecclesiastical discipline, doctrine and conduct.

For example, in the Capitulary of Herstal, Charlemagne ordered "that bishops are to possess authority as regards the priests and clerics within their dioceses in accordance with the canons.

"[27] The history of Christianisation east of the Rhine in the late seventh and eighth centuries is intimately tied up with the rise to power of the Carolingian family.

The best known missionary activities of the eighth century were those of the Anglo-Saxon St. Boniface who operated in Germania from around 716 until 741, before he turned his attention to a broader reform of the Frankish church.

They were incorporated into the framework of Frankish political life and military campaigning, their laws codified and augmented, their elites endowed with offices and lands (and thus presented with further opportunities for advancement and enrichment); even their economies began to grow, their villages and towns to develop [...]"[30]The Christianisation of Bohemia began in the ninth century and would continue after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire.

[32] Additionally, whilst the effectiveness of Carolingian preaching is not fully known, historians have identified an efficient system of communication throughout the empire, as religious messages were able to go from the palace to priests in local communities.

Charlemagne himself made a case for schools to teach boys, in a circular letter to the bishops and abbots of his realm, saying "those who desire to please God by living rightly should not neglect to please Him by speaking correctly.

In the early 790s, Charlemagne issued the Libri Carolini, a treatise composed by his courtier and adviser Theodulf of Orleans, which refuted the acts of the iconoclast second council of Nicaea (787) and reaffirmed the Carolingian position in favour of images.

Spanish Adoptionism started to appear in Carolingian territories from the eighth century, coming from the Christian held regions of Iberia, which had been largely conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate in 711.

Only a small number of examples of Carolingian church architecture exist today, if plotted on a modern map these sites suggest an in depth "defensive" system of religious establishments directed towards the east.

Firstly, it is a closed space looking inwards to its own center where a savin tree is placed – sauina – illustrating the ideal of a monk's experience removed from the world.

Secondly, it is foursquare and four paths lead from its covered galleries to the centre – semitae per transuersum claustri quattuor – symbolising Jerusalem and its four rivers.

[49] This combined with new construction absorbing older foundations and changing tastes leading to their removal / covering makes judgement on this subject difficult.

[50] The clearest examples of Carolingian wall art are found in remote parish churches where the art was overlooked or whitewashed such as in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, the convent church of St. Johann at Müstair and east of the Ofen-Pass and south of the Reschen-Pass following the road into the valley of the Adige in the South Tirol, in northern Italy, in the small chapal of St. Benedikt at Mals and of St. Prokulud at Naturns.

The frescoes are mostly distributed in three niches in the altar wall, showing Jesus in the center, flanked by pope Gregory the Great and Saint Stephen.

[50] Despite this regional proximity however (as well as their being contemporary) there exists stylistic differences in sophistication, composition and dramatization of events between the sites as western Carolingian monastic, Lomardic, Byzantine and even Syrian influences can be identified.