Libri Carolini

[1] Two earlier Frankish tracts against images (known in conjunction as the Capitulare adversus synodum) had been sent in 792 to Pope Hadrian I, who had replied with an attempt at a refutation.

[2] John Calvin refers to it approvingly in later editions of his Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book 1, Ch 11, section 14), and uses it in his argument against the veneration of images.

[3] The work begins, "In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ beginneth the work of the most illustrious and glorious man Charles, by the will of God, king of the Franks, Gauls, Germany, Italy, neighboring provinces, with the assistance of the king, against the Synod which in Greek parts firmly and proudly decreed in favour of adoring (adorandis) images recklessly and arrogantly,"[4] followed immediately by what is called "Charlemagne's Preface".

The preferred candidate as author of most modern scholars, following Anne Freeman, is Bishop Theodulf of Orleans,[6][7] a Spanish Visigoth in origin, of which traces can be detected in the Latin and the liturgical references in the work.

The text points out that the patristic passages cited by Hadrian in support of his position expressed approval of images as a catechetical aid but not of their veneration; it argues forcibly (at III.

The old charge that the Franks were misled by a bad translation and failed to appreciate the subtleties of Byzantine theology has therefore been abandoned in sound recent scholarship.

They were also put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, where they remained until 1900, either because of their iconoclastic arguments or because seen as interference by a civil authority in matters of Church doctrine.