Learning and Culture in Carolingian Europe: Letters, Numbers, Exegesis, and Manuscripts (Variorum Collected Studies)

By: John J. Contreni

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Synopsis: Nine of the ten essays in this collection appeared first between 1995 and 2005. Centered in the Carolingian age, they explore how the seventh-century Visio Baronti was read in the ninth century and how social and cultural imperatives transformed the life of scholarship, schools and learning in Carolingian Europe. Several essays consider the significance of numerical and scientific studies in the Carolingian curriculum, including the impact of Bede's scientific works in the schools and on the thought of John Scottus (Eriugena). Another reconstructs Eriugena's early career in light of his Glossae divinae historiae. Carolingian biblical culture is the subject of two essays, including a reading of Haimo of Auxerre's commentary on Ezechiel that highlights the unfinished and unpublished commentary's critique of Carolingian society. A poem in the Anthologia Latina long ascribed to Octavian, the Roman emperor, is restored to the monastic culture of the ninth century. Finally, an article on the Laon Formulary, originally published in French in 1973, is here translated and revised.