The Carolingian renaissance started from about the time that Charlemagne took power. The main purpose of the Carolingian renaissance was more to preserve the art that the Romans created rather than to create new art. They had the attitude that they were just barbarians and that they could not understand the complex art that the Romans created. Even Charlemagne’s own chapel at Aachen was something that could have been seen in a Roman city. They also focused on making sure that the bible was an accurate translation, and Charlemagne opened a school at his court for the children of nobles taught by Alcuin of York. Many monasteries also opened schools for the public at this time as well. The Frankish monasteries made copies of Greek and Roman literature, which is how most of them are preserved for us today.

In the 6^th century pope Gregory the 1^st more commonly known as Gregory the great sent a group of monks to Britain to try and convert the peoples there. The people in England were the Angles and the Saxons, who were Germanic peoples, who had invaded Britain when the Roman army left. There were also some Roman Britons there, who had retreated into wales after the Roman army left. These were Christians but they did not want to convert the Anglo-Saxons because they were so angry at being driven out that they wanted them to rot in hell. Missionaries from Ireland had also begun to spread Christianity in England. The monks converted king Aethelberht of Kent who most influential king in Ireland. The Irish way of Christianity, which involved a different dating of Easter and different ways of church organization, spread as well. At last the Roman monks and the Irish monks met in Northumbria where the king decided that Britain would follow the Roman Catholic way of doing things. After this Britain would be very loyal to the pope for a long time.

The Franks were the most important barbarian group in because they were Catholic. All of the other barbarian groups such as the Visigoths and Vandals converted to the Arian heresy. This heresy teaches that Jesus was subordinate to God the father. This meant that the Catholic church and pope did not trust the Arian rulers and therefore the native Romans and barbarian Arians did not trust each other. But by the 8^th century most barbarians had been converted to Catholicism. But the Franks converted directly to Catholicism which made the pope trust the Franks more. The way a people would be converted in this time was that the king would convert and then the people would follow. Rome was facing threats from the Lombard barbarians that lived to the south and north of Rome. The Byzantine empire was the traditional protector of the pope but they were often off fighting the Persians and the pope was subject to the whims of the emperor. Pope Martin had been banished by Constans the second and pope Severinus had not been recognized as pope by the Byzantine emperor because he refused to accept Monothelitism. But in the 8^th century The Frankish king Charlemagne became the official protector of the pope. After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards he gave them as a gift to the pope which became the papal states. The Vatican city is still a papal state today.

The Franks had been ruled by an old prestigious family called the Merovingians for a long time. The most well known Merovingian king is probably King Clovis. But as time went on more and more Merovingian kings ended up being children or having mental defects. The power over time ended up all going to the mayor of the palace which is similar to a prime minister. By the time Pepin was Mayor of the Palace the king had no power at all and just had the title. Pepin wanted to displace the king so that he could become ruler. But if he did that the Franks would consider him illegitimate. So Pepin appealed to the pope to dispose of the old king and to make him become ruler. The pope agreed so the Merovingian king was sent to a monastery and Pepin became king. This was the beginning of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty.

Rome had a profound impact on shaping western civilization and one of the biggest things it contributed was Roman law. Laws such as a trial with a jury and that the emperor was subject to the law as well may seem modern to us but compared to some of the barbarian groups surrounding was a drastic improvement. Another thing Rome continued to the world was its roads and the swiftness with which news could be spread. Christianity could not have spread so rapidly if it wasn’t for the Roman roads and travel systems. Many Roman works of literature are still commonly read today such as Virgil’s Aeneid and Livy’s writings on Roman history. Roman architecture can still be seen on buildings today. But probably most important of all was Roman law and ideas, some of which still persist today. Western Civilization most likely would not look the same without the Roman empire.

St. Augustine was one of the most influential people in the early church. He was born in 354 in the city of Hippo by the time he was a teenager he had become a Manichean against the wishes of his Christian mother. Mechanism originated in Persia where it was a common religion consisting of two gods, who embodied good and evil. He was a Manichean until he traveled to Carthage where he met a Manichean bishop who could not answer the questions he had about Mechanism. After this he became a skeptic for a brief time which is a school of philosophy in which you believe that nothing is true. After this he traveled to Milan to become a professor of rhetoric. In Milan he became friends with bishop Ambrose who was also a great speaker. One day when Augustine was visiting Ambrose he said he heard a child say, “Take up and read.” He picked up a bible and read at random part of one of Pauls letters Romans 13: 13 – 14, “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” This convinced him to convert to Christianity, and was baptized by saint Ambrose in 387. Augustine wrote many books and was an important theologian in the early church. He worked on writings that proved the invalidity of some of the things that even he had previously believed.

Christianity and classical culture were similar in some ways but in many other ways they were different. The Christians humility was something very foreign to the world of the Romans. In the Roman world infanticide was often encouraged for weak or deformed babies, which was by the Christians. The stoics often admired suicide stating that if you could even control when you die you must have excellent control of your life. This was obviously also discouraged by the Christians. When the church took a strong hold in society the caring of the poor and widows became systematic unlike in the Roman empire where they had to rely on whatever someone might give them that day. The gladiatorial games showed a trivialization of life whereas the Christians cherished life. Under the Christian emperor Constantine these brutal games were abolished.

After Diocletian and Constantine were emperor the Roman empire was under strain from the barbarians the Germanic peoples to the north of Rome continually wanted land in the Roman empire and they became even more persistent with the arrival of the Huns taking their land and destroying the barbarians villages path. Finally in the mid 4^th century emperor Valens let the tribe called the Visigoths settle in Gaul which is modern day France. The Visigoths were treated horribly given barley enough food to survive and the inflation of money made prices even higher. The Visigoths revolted and the Romans were defeated at the battle of Adrianople. This lead to the Visigoths having more victories and while the Romans were away fighting the Visigoths other tribes of Germanic peoples poured into the empire including the extremely warlike and vicious Vandals. Over time the Germanic peoples conquered more and more of Rome until the western half of Rome was completely conquered in 376.

After the persecutions of the Christians stopped in the third century AD. Monasticism became very popular. People wanted to escape the world of the Romans and to seclude themselves to be devoted to God. There are two main types of monks, eremitec and cenobitic monks. Eremite monks were hermits who secluded themselves in the desert. The bishops of the church discouraged this kind of monasticism because it often lead to strange kinds of penance. There were also the Sarabite monks who lived on pillars for their entire lives. Children would climb up to give them food and people came to seek their advice since they were considered to be wise. The church did not approve of this kind of monasticism, but the kind of monasticism they preferred were the cenobitic monks.

This is where a group of monks seclude themselves to be devoted to God. They also contributed greatly to society. Many historians say that the monks probably saved agriculture, since the Roman view was that physical labor was bad and that only slaves did physical labor. The monks proved that labor was not bad and that it should instead be honored. The monasteries also became full of advanced crafts such as metallurgy, pottery, scribes and many other crafts that the monks used to support themselves. The cistern monasteries all had water wheels and machinery.

The average view that Christians took on Greek philosophy was that Greek philosophy could be read and practiced but that the things that went against Christianity would be ignored, such as Plato’s idea that the soul existed before your body. Many old Christian leaders admired the work of the old philosophers such as Saint. Justin Martyr. At one Christian school all old philosophy was taught except for the blatantly atheist ones like the atomists.