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a warrior and administrator has been partly attributed to his admiration for learning, even though he never actually learned to write, and his ability to read has been called into question.91 Facing the challenge of raising the standard of education in both his clergy and his government, Charlemagne first attracted a group of scholars to his court, some of whom were expected to educate the emperor himself. Charlemagne undoubtedly recognized the enormous progress that the church had made in educating the Anglo-Sax- ons. Since the arrival in England of Augustine of Canterbury in 597, the church had created an educated class out of a population that had deteri- orated into virtually complete illiteracy after the departure of the Romans from Britannia in the mid-fifth century. By the eighth century the school at York directed by Alcuin was the educational center of England. Appreciat- ing Alcuin’s success at York, Charlemagne shrewdly recognized that Alcu- in was the most appropriate person to reform education in Germany. He induced Alcuin to become Master of the Palace School at Aachen, where Alcuin remained from 782-796. This school was attended by members of Charlemagne’s court and the sons of noble families.
It is known that Alcuin established a great library at Aachen, even though there is little record of what this library contained. To collect the manu- scripts in the library at Aachen Charlemagne undoubtedly obtained man- uscripts from monasteries under his rule. It is also possible that Charlem- agne obtained manuscripts from the Imperial Library of Constantinople.
91 “Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship, promoting the liberal arts at the court, ordering that his children and grandchildren be well-educated, and even studying himself (in a time when even leaders who promoted education did not take time to learn themselves) under the tutelage of Paul the Deacon, from whom he learned grammar; Alcuin, with whom he studied rhetoric, dialectic (logic), and astronomy (he was particularly interested in the movements of the stars); and Einhard, who assisted him in his studies of arithmetic. His great scholarly failure, as Einhard relates, was his inability to write: when in his old age he began attempts to learn—practicing the formation of letters in his bed during his free time on books and wax tablets he hid under his pillow—‘his effort came too late in life and achieved little success,’ and his ability to read—which Einhard is silent about, and which no con- temporary source supports—has also been called into question” (Wikipedia article on Charlemagne, accessed 01-02-2011).
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