The Carolingian Church encompasses the practices and institutions of Christianity in the Frankish kingdoms under the rule of the Carolingian dynasty (751-888). In the eighth and ninth centuries, Western Europe witnessed decisive developments in the structure and organisation of the church, relations between secular and religious authorities, monastic life, theology, and artistic endeavours. Christianity was the principal religion of the Carolingian Empire. Through military conquests and missionary activity, Latin Christendom expanded into new areas, such as Saxony and Bohemia. These developments owed much to the leadership of Carolingian rulers themselves, especially Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, whose courts encouraged successive waves of religious reform and viewed Christianity as a unifying force in their empire.
Historical context
The Merovingian church Carolingian Christianity was heavily influenced by their predecessors, the Merovingians. Christianity was first introduced to the Franks as they conquered Gaul and encountered Gallo-Roman culture, with Clovis I converting to Christianity in 496. The Merovingian kings worked closely with the Church, and bishops occupied spiritual and civic positions in Frankish society, as recorded in historical works such as those of Gregory of Tours. The Church played an important role in Frankish politics during this period, with competing family members often having their rival relatives or political enemies tonsured and exiled to a monastery.
The Merovingians were also instrumental in the Anglo-Saxon conversion to Christianity, with the wife of Æthelberht of Kent being the Merovingian princess Bertha. Queen Brunhild corresponded with Pope Gregory the Great, the latter praising her piety and requesting support for the mission's efforts to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity.
The period also saw the regular convening of Frankish synods, in which kings frequently exercised significant influence. The practice fell into disuse during the aristocratic conflicts of the late seventh and early eighth centuries, however. In 742, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Boniface, in conjunction with the Carolingian mayors of the palace Pepin and Carloman, organised the first of a series of church councils with the express aim of remedying this deficiency.
Expansion of the Frankish realm As the Carolingians rose in power under the rule of Charles Martel as mayor of the palace (718-741), the Frankish realm began to grow considerably. Charles Martel emerged as the strongest political figure in Francia, and the Merovingian kings were increasingly relegated to figurehead positions. He achieved great prestige from his defence against non-Christian invaders throughout his rule and brought peripheral regions such as Alemannia under Frankish control. Clearly aware of this authority, Charles Martel established his own succession whereby, upon his death in 741, the realm was divided between his sons akin to what a king would do. Charles Martel's rule had elevated his family to a more secure position of power. His son and successor Pepin III continued these efforts and, following the abdication of his brother Carloman, worked toward supplanting the Frankish king at the time, Childeric III. Pepin was successful in doing this and in 751 became the first official Carolingian king of Francia. With the monarchy now held by the Carolingians, Pepin and later his son Charlemagne were responsible for further expansion of the Frankish realm.
Under Charlemagne (768-814), the Frankish realm reached its greatest territorial extent. Charlemagne's conquests led to the acquisition of the Spanish March in Catalonia, the lands of Old Saxony, north and central Lombard Italy, and as far east as modern-day Austria and Slovenia. Charlemagne exerted greater control over Bavaria, which had previously been only nominally part of the Frankish kingdom.
Relations between the Franks and the papacy The relationship between the Franks and the papacy saw the two parties more involved in each other's affairs following the accession of Pepin III to the Frankish throne in 751. The Carolingians, who sought legitimacy to strengthen their newly acquired royal position, pursued this through religious sanction. With the assistance of Boniface, Pepin had initiated a number of reforms to the Frankish church including the correction of morals, the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline and the establishment of a church hierarchy. Boniface visited Rome three times in order to gain papal endorsement for his missionary activities east of the Rhine. Carolingian rulers also aimed to secure a good relationship with the pope to further consolidate their position. The papacy, disillusioned by its traditional alliance with the Byzantine Empire and under pressure from the Lombards, was eager to forge a new alliance with the Franks.
A new Franco-papal alliance was forged around 753 when Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps and beseeched Pepin III's aid against Lombard encroachment. Pepin obliged, apparently reluctantly, and his intervention in Italy established what is known as the Donation of Pepin which denoted lands in central Italy to be controlled by the papacy directly, as well as setting a precedent for Frankish protection of papal interests. The lands guaranteed to the embryonic Papal States via this donation would remain in papal hands for centuries to come, leaving an important legacy in Italian politics up until the twentieth century.
With the Donation of Pepin and the Frankish guarantee of papal interests established, further intervention was promised should the Lombards act against the papacy. Twenty years after Pepin's intervention in Italy, the Lombards once more threatened papal autonomy and the papacy requested Frankish assistance once more. Charlemagne, the new king of the Franks, crossed the Alps as his father Pepin had done. This time, both Charlemagne and the Pope, Adrian I, sought permanent resolution to the trouble with the Lombards. Pope Adrian's desired solution was to dismember the kingdom and place large portions of it under papal authority. Charlemagne, instead, enforced his own solution which saw the exile of the Lombard king Desiderius and the Lombard kingdom coming under his own direct control. Charlemagne thus assumed the title of "king of the Lombards".
Despite the disagreement on what would become of the Lombards, the Frankish court and the papacy continued to cooperate for mutual benefit. The Franks had become the de facto defenders of the church and of western orthodoxy. To further formalize this relationship, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in the year 800. As emperors, the Franks could present themselves as defenders of Rome, and therefore of the papacy itself. This resulted in an official shift of allegiance of the popes from the Byzantine emperor to that of the newly crowned emperor in the West, which served to further divide the western and eastern churches. However, this new western focus ultimately helped the papacy secure greater authority for itself as a dominant power in the West, and in the ninth century, popes such as Nicholas I continued to involve themselves in Frankish politics.
The Carolingian reforms under Charlemagne Throughout his reign, Charlemagne put himself forward as the leader of Western Christendom and demonstrated a keen interest in reforming and uniting the church. His biographer Einhard notes that Charlemagne followed the Christian religion “with great piety and devotion” and was “particularly concerned that everything done in the church should be done with the greatest dignity." Though scholars disagree on whether Charlemagne’s involvement in ecclesiastical affairs was primarily devotionally or politically motivated, it is firmly established that his impact on the Carolingian church was significant.
The Carolingian church reforms under Charlemagne included a series of measures that aimed to strengthen the moral, cultural, educational, and institutional life of the Catholic church in the Frankish empire. These reforms reflected Charlemagne’s belief that the stability of his realm depended upon the correction (correctio) of Carolingian society.
In 779 the Council of Herstal issued a capitulary indicating Charlemagne’s intentions about church reform and the cleansing of the Christian community, particularly in relation to tithing, clerical conduct, and religious instruction. The Admonitio Generalis of 789 (also known as the General Admonition) outlined Charlemagne’s program of correctio, calling for uniform doctrine and liturgy in the church, the moral reform of both the clergy and the laity, and the establishment of schools (in monasteries and cathedrals) for the Christian instruction of the children. Historian Matthew Innes notes that this program and the ensuing legislation expresses the interdependency of royal and ecclesiastical authority under Charlemagne.
The synod of Frankfurt (794) was called by Charlemagne for the purpose of discussing key religious issues, specifically in response to the unorthodox Adoptionist movement, which the synod condemned as heresy. The synod also clarified the Frankish church’s stance on icons, condemning both the veneration (iconodulism) and the destruction (iconoclasm) of icons, and permitting them to be used as educational devices. The Libri Carolini (“Charles’ Books”) produced before and completed by the synod relay the church’s theological positions.
Charlemagne continued to oversee church reforms in the late 790s, compiling capitularies on tithe enforcement, clerical celibacy, and monastic discipline. He appointed missi dominici (“royal legates”) to supervise the clergy throughout the empire, integrating royal administration with ecclesiastical governance. In 802 the Capitulare missorum generale (“General capitulary on legates”) and the Capitulare missorum specialia (“Special capitularies on legates”) reaffirmed the roles of the missi dominici over the Frankish clergy.
In 806, Charlemagne set out his succession plan with the Divisio Regnorum. His original plan was to divide his kingdom between his three sons, but by 813 only his youngest son Louis was alive. At an assembly at Aachen that year, Charlemagne urged Louis, as future king of the Franks, to continue his project of protecting and reforming the church: “Love God; govern and defend God's churches from wicked men.”
Kingship and empire Under the Carolingians, there were considerable developments in ideas about kingship and empire, though the extent to which they were ideologically driven remains a matter of contention between historians. Francois-Louis Ganshof has argued that, under Louis the Pious especially, there was a move towards a more abstract idea of kingship that appropriated Christian ideology, to such an extent that the idea of the 'state' (res publica) reappeared for the first time since the Roman Empire.
One example of this was a greater embrace of the imperial title, which, according to Ganshof, was recognised by Louis the Pious as having given him a more universal authority. Its Christian connotations meant that it awarded Louis authority and jurisdiction over all Christian peoples, as it was his duty to protect and defend Christendom, a concept apparently borrowed from later Christian Roman emperors such as Theodosius I. Ganshof also points to the Aachen Capitulary of 802 as demonstrating a remarkably more religious tone than any of Charlemagne's prior capitularies, to such an extent that Ganshof describes Charlemagne as sermonising, attempting to reinforce his role as the secular head of the Christian community.