Scholars Award: Charlemagne and the Christian Revival of Science

学者奖：查理曼大帝与基督教科学复兴

• 批准号: 0618919
• 负责人: Bruce Eastwood
• 金额: $ 9.3万
• 依托单位: University of Kentucky Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-08-15 至 2008-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0618919&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Scholars; Award; Charlemagne; Christian; Revival

Objectives. What religious goals did Charlemagne (ruled 768-814) hope to achieve by supportinga revival of scientific knowledge at the beginning of the ninth century? How were royal politicallegitimacy and science related in Charlemagne's striving for greater order in his kingdom andempire? In what ways did royal court culture and the education of clerics intersect and promotethe sciences? Intellectual Merit In answering these questions the project will present Charlemagne's case for ordering a reform of Christian knowledge as part of a broad renewal of the religious culture in hisrealm. This religious renewal included the vision of Charlemagne and his dynasty as divinelychosen to direct the ordering of Christian Europe and improve Christian education within it. Theking assembled from Italy, England, Ireland, and elsewhere scholars with extensive knowledge tohis court. The court itself emerged as a source and a point of dissemination for revived orrediscovered literary texts and scientific knowledge along with fuller exploration of writings bythe church Fathers and more recent Christian authors. Using the advice of various scholars, bothsecular and clerical, the king oversaw doctrinal reform, ordered attention to specific areas ofstudy in the education of clerics, and stimulated the interest of ecclesiastical leaders in a renewaland expansion of the liberal arts as an essential foundation for biblical and doctrinalunderstanding. The project will show how certain of these leaders pursued a distinctiveinterpretation of Saint Augustine's view of secular scientific knowledge in order to justify anextensive revival and teaching of classical Roman texts (and some translated Greek texts) onastronomy, cosmology, medicine, agriculture, mathematics, and military science among others.The nature of these texts, illustrations from their pages, the ways they were studied in theCarolingian renaissance of the ninth century all these will be exposed. The search for anddiscovery of order in the heavens, the weather, human physiology, the structure of the cosmos,and the behaviors of animals contributed to a greater sense of confidence in the direction andorder of the church and kingdom. At the same time, such confidence always required renewalthrough analyses of new phenomena and newly revealed knowledge. The project will show how asuccession of clerics from Charlemagne forward interacted with the royal court and royalpatronage to support increasingly more sophisticated scientific study and the teaching of naturalscience. These were seen to strengthen the church and Christian culture and thereby to benefit theking, acting in accord with the will of God.Methods. Historical methods, reading and translating medieval Latin manuscripts, engaging andapplying current scholarship on the era of Charlemagne, will allow the PI to offer newunderstandings of the place of science in the vastly different world of ninth-century northernEurope. Description and analysis of the political and religious situations will use officialdocuments, letter collections, religious treatises, and scientific texts to expose the particulars ofscientific revival. These sources also reveal goals and strategies of ecclesiastical advisors andpower figures, interacting with the royal court and with each other in regard to the sciences.Intellectual merit. The history of scientific knowledge in ninth-century Europe has moved fromthe study of computus (calendar-making and computation) to astronomy and to medicine andbeyond. The present project will for the first time bring together a broad range of sciences andexplore more deeply the religious background behind the Carolingian profusion of scientificstudies, including the sense of connection between good kingship and the reform of religious andsecular studies in schools. This picture of a Christian revival of science will show the reasonsspecific to ninth-century politics and religion for such a renewal and advancement.Broader impacts. The project will show the importance of historical conditions for differentrelationships among science, religion, and politics. The publication of an accessible historicalnarrative in book form will engage public interest. Both the limits and opportunities, historicallyconditioned, of political and religious involvement in science will be set out and discussed.

目标.在世纪初，查理曼大帝（768-814年在位）希望通过支持科学知识的复兴来达到什么样的宗教目标？在查理曼为他的王国和帝国争取更大秩序的过程中，皇家政治忠诚和科学是如何联系在一起的？皇家文化和神职人员的教育是如何交叉并促进科学发展的？智力优势 在回答这些问题时，该项目将提出查理曼下令对基督教知识进行改革的理由，作为他王国宗教文化广泛复兴的一部分。这一宗教复兴包括将查理曼和他的王朝视为神选，以指导基督教欧洲的秩序并改善基督教教育。国王从意大利、英格兰、爱尔兰和其他地方召集了知识渊博的学者到他的宫廷。宫廷本身就成为了一个来源和传播点，沿着教会教父和更近的基督教作家对著作的更充分的探索，重新发现了文学文本和科学知识。利用各种学者的意见，无论是世俗和文书，国王监督理论改革，下令注意特定领域的研究，在教育的神职人员，并激发了兴趣的教会领导人在一个更新和扩大文科作为一个必不可少的基础，为圣经和教义的理解。该项目将展示这些领导人中的某些人如何对圣奥古斯丁的世俗科学知识观进行独特的解释，以证明广泛复兴和教授古典罗马文本的合理性（和一些翻译的希腊文本）关于天文学，宇宙学，医学，农业，数学和军事科学等。这些文本的性质，插图从他们的网页，他们在世纪的文艺复兴中被研究的方式所有这些都将被揭露。对天堂、天气、人类生理、宇宙结构和动物行为的秩序的探索和发现，使人们对教会和王国的方向和秩序有了更大的信心。与此同时，这种信心总是需要通过分析新现象和新发现的知识来更新。该项目将展示从查理曼开始的神职人员的继任是如何与皇家和王室赞助人互动的，以支持日益复杂的科学研究和自然科学的教学。这些都被视为加强教会和基督教文化，从而有利于国王，在雅阁与上帝的意志行事。历史的方法，阅读和翻译中世纪的拉丁手稿，从事和应用当前的学术对查理曼时代，将使PI提供科学在九世纪北欧的巨大不同的世界的新的理解。对政治和宗教形势的描述和分析将使用官方文件、信件集、宗教论文和科学文本来揭示科学复兴的细节。这些资料还揭示了教会顾问和权力人物的目标和策略，与皇家法庭以及在科学方面的相互作用。智力价值。9世纪欧洲的科学知识史已经从对计算机的研究（制造和计算）转移到天文学和医学以及其他领域。目前的项目将首次将广泛的科学结合起来，并更深入地探索在君士坦丁堡丰富的科学研究背后的宗教背景，包括良好的王权与学校宗教和世俗研究的改革之间的联系。这幅基督教复兴科学的图景将展示9世纪的政治和宗教对这种复兴和进步的特殊原因。该项目将显示科学，宗教和政治之间的不同关系的历史条件的重要性。以书籍形式出版一个易于理解的历史叙述将引起公众的兴趣。无论是限制和机会，历史条件下，政治和宗教参与科学将阐述和讨论。