The Carolingian period (c. 750-900) has traditionally been described as one of ‘reform’ or ‘renaissance’, where cultural and intellectual changes were imposed from above in a programme of correctio. This view leans heavily on prescriptive texts issued by kings and their entourages, foregrounding royal initiative and the cultural products of a small intellectual elite. However, attention to understudied texts and manuscripts of the period reveals a vibrant striving for moral improvement and positive change at all levels of society. This expressed itself in a variety of ways for different individuals and communities, whose personal relationships could be just as influential as top-down prescription. The often anonymous creators and copyists in a huge range of centres emerge as active participants in shaping and re-shaping the ideals of their world.

'Right from this book’s introduction, penned by Carine van Rhijn, it is clear that commonly used terms for the Carolingian cultural movement – renaissance, reform, correctio – fail to encapsulate the complexity and
multivalence of the period... This volume as a whole, and each of the chapters within it, seeks to correct our understanding of correctio, highlighting the ways in which the Carolingian movement was not always top-down, but rather made up of local individuals exercising their own agency and engaging in horizontal networks of knowledge, communication, and support... This volume addresses these issues and brings to
light new ways of thinking about the Carolingian reform movement.'
Early Medieval Europe 2025

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Arthur Westwell is wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Universität Regensburg

Ingrid Rembold is a Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester

Carine van Rhijn is a Lecturer in Medieval History at Utrecht University