obles be educated, and formed at his palace a school under the direction of the scholar Alcuin (Nelson 3). With Alcuin as the minister of education, the place school began what is known as the Carolingian Renaissance. This characterization is supported by the desire of the emperor to rebuild the Roman Empire and rule in the same manner as the roman emperors. It is this renaissance that impacts the Western world today, more than any of Charlemagnes military conquests. In Charlemagnes palace school at Aachen, one finds the ideals and aims of the Carolingian renaissance most definitively.Palace schools were not unheard of in the Frankish kingdom. The Merovingians established a school to train young nobles to fight, and how to conduct themselves at court. At the time, however, no academic knowledge was being imparted. The only schools that taught academics were at monasteries and cathedrals. Charlemagne altered the palace school into a center of learning and knowledge (Carolingian Schools 1). He hired scholars to teach, and appointed Alcuin to oversee the school. Charlemagne required Alcuin himself to instruct the royal family in reading and writing.In addition to the palace school, Charlemagne made many decrees concerning the education of his people (1). His Charter of Modern Thought required that the monasteries be concerned with the study of letters (2). In yet another decree Charlemagne ordered that teachers who are both willing and able to learn be hired and let them apply themselves to this work with a zeal equal to the earnestness with which we recommend it to them (2). Knox argues again on this point saying Charles' court at Aix-la- Chapelle was a beacon for men of learning, and the king funded their activities. It was from these, and others, there originated a burst of activity that would have a strong influence on medieval intellectual life (Knox 14). Charlemagne provided not only for the sons of the nobles, but of the ...
