Epistola de litteris colendis
The Epistola de litteris colendis from 784/85, but presumably also dated to a date after 787, is a letter of Charlemagne probably written by Alcuin and originally addressed to Abbot Baugulf of Fulda , but then in a slightly revised version for further distribution was sent to Angilram von Metz , the metropolitan of the Trier ecclesiastical province and supreme palatine chaplain. It admonished the care of education and science and warned against interference in secular legal transactions. The older of the two surviving manuscripts comes from Würzburg (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Cod. Laud. Misc. 126; Anglo-Saxon minuscule, saec. VIII ex ) and offers the original text addressed to Abbot Baugulf. The more recent manuscript (Metz, bibl. Mun., 4 o no. 226; saec. XI, burned 1945), the wording of which is secured by older editions, offered the revised version for Angilram, who was commissioned with the further distribution.
The epistola de litteris colendis is the earliest and one of the most important evidence of the targeted advancement of the Carolingian educational reform by the court of Charlemagne. 789 was followed by the even more detailed Admonitio generalis . Three other similar texts date from the years up to 806. Characteristic of the new spirit of the Carolingian Renaissance is the new justification that is provided for the educational efforts. In sharp contrast to the anti-rhetorical polemics and the anti-educational tendencies within Christianity of late antiquity, which propagated the sermo humilis , the simple style of language of the fishermen appointed by Jesus as apostles, even if by no means consistently practiced it, and the ideal of the docta ignorantia , the learned ignorance (in worldly things), recommended, the correct handling of the Latin language is now presented as pleasing to God: ... ut qui deo placere appetunt recte vivendo, ei etiam placere non neglegant recte loquendo (... thus those who please God by living according to norms strive, not neglect, to please him by speaking in accordance with standards). Doubts are sown about the effectiveness of linguistically incorrect prayers, especially since the beauty of the liturgical song suffers from grammatical violations and this affects the external effect of the convention on visitors. Divine punishments can even be expected for this, as evidenced by a boldly reinterpreted quote from the Bible ( Mt 12.37 EU ). In addition, the need for in-depth grammatical knowledge (in the broad sense of the ancient terminology, including knowledge of subject matter and language) is emphasized for the interpretation of the Bible, in particular the penetration into the mystical meaning of its symbolic language (scemata, figurae, tropi et cetera his similia).
Edition
literature
- Walter Berschin : biography and epoch style in the Latin Middle Ages. Volume 3: Carolingian biography. 750–920 AD Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 1991, ISBN 3-7772-9102-1 , pp. 101–113 ( Sources and studies on the Latin philology of the Middle Ages 10).
- Thomas Martin: Comments on the Epistola de litteris colendis. In: Archives for Diplomatics. 31, 1985, ISSN 0066-6297 , pp. 227-272.
- Edmund E. Stengel : Document book of the Fulda monastery. Volume 1, Part 2: The time of Abbot Baugulf. NG Elwert, Marburg 1956, pp. 246-254, No. 166 ( publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse and Waldeck 10, 1, 2), (authoritative edition).
- Luitpold Wallach: Charlemagne's De litteris colendis and Alkuin. In: Alcuin and Charlemagne. Studies in Carolingian History and Literature. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY 1959, pp. 202 ff. ( Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 32, ZDB -ID 844700-7 ).
Individual evidence
- ^ Michael Glatthaar: On the dating of the Epistola generalis of Charlemagne . In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages . tape 66 , 2012, p. 474 .