SOURCE: “The Revival of Learning” and “The Ecclesiastical Work of Charles” in Charlemagne, E. & J. B. Young and Co., 1882, pp. 306-36.

In the following excerpt, Cutts explores Charlemagne’s encouragement of learning and examines his religious policy, edicts, and controversial theological decisions.

The Revival of Learning

The feature of Charles’s character and work to which the historian naturally turns with the greatest sympathy is his love of learning and the wise and strenuous encouragement of it from which dates the revival of letters in Europe.

The elegant culture of which the letters of Sidonius have given us so charming a glimpse, had long since died out of the countries between the Alps and the English Channel. The Imperial schools, which we have seen still existed in the towns of Gaul in the time of the grandsons of Clovis, had fallen into neglect and decay. If the Frank...