Admonitio generalis of Charlemagne, 789

Admonitio generalis of Charlemagne

At Aachen Charlemagne issued the Admonitio generalis, a capitulary of 82 chapters addressed to bishops, clergy, lay magnates and people. It restated church law and set out a programme of Christian reform — including schools at every monastery and bishop’s church where boys would learn to read — and historians regard it as a manifesto of the Carolingian Renaissance.

Date

23 March 789exact dateDate in the Julian calendar

Place

Aachen (Aquisgranum)today: Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany · Western and Central Europe

Participants

Charlemagne, Alcuin of York, Francia (Frankish realm)

Threads

Early medieval Europe (500–1000)

Also known as

Admonitio generalis; General Admonition; Всеобщее увещевание; Epistola de litteris colendis; Carolingian Renaissance; Каролингское возрождение; Alcuin; Алкуин

In the Admonitio Charlemagne likens himself to Josiah, the Old Testament king who restored God’s law to his people. Chapters 1–59 largely repeat canons and papal decretals from the collection of church law (the Dionysio-Hadriana) that Pope Hadrian I had given him in 774; chapters 60–82 set out the king’s own programme of reform. The capitulary calls for concord between spiritual and secular powers, for just weights and measures and for correct books for worship, which were to be copied not by boys but by men of mature age “with all diligence”. The best-known provision orders that every monastery and every bishop’s see should have schools where boys learn to read.

Historians believe that Alcuin, the Northumbrian scholar from York whom Charlemagne had drawn to his court in 781–782, had a hand in drafting it. The capitulary continued the programme of the letter On the Cultivation of Letters (Epistola de litteris colendis), addressed around 784–785 to Abbot Baugulf of Fulda, and was spread by the royal envoys (missi dominici), whose books preserve many of its chapters. The schools of cathedrals and monasteries, the correction of texts, the clear Caroline minuscule and the copying of patristic and classical works are together known as the Carolingian Renaissance; historians call the Admonitio and the letter on learning its manifestos.

Connections

Related events

Bede completes the Ecclesiastical History of the English People731 · Western and Central EuropeAlcuin, heir to the learning of Bede’s Northumbria, brought it to Charlemagne’s court together with dating by the years of the Lord

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Admonitio generalis of Charlemagne

Connections

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Meanwhile in the world

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Sources