Scholars Award: Charlemagne and the Christian Revival of Science

目标。查理曼大帝（768-814年在位）在九世纪初支持科学知识的复兴，希望达到什么宗教目标？在查理曼大帝为他的王国和帝国争取更大秩序的过程中，皇室的政治忠诚和科学是如何联系在一起的？宫廷文化和神职人员教育在哪些方面相互交叉并促进了科学的发展？在回答这些问题时，该项目将展示查理曼大帝下令改革基督教知识的案例，作为其领土内广泛的宗教文化复兴的一部分。这种宗教复兴包括查理曼和他的王朝的愿景，他们被神选中来指导基督教欧洲的秩序，并在其中改善基督教教育。国王从意大利、英国、爱尔兰和其他地方召集知识渊博的学者进入朝廷。宫廷本身成为复兴或重新发现的文学文本和科学知识的来源和传播点，同时也对教父和近代基督教作家的作品进行了更全面的探索。利用各种学者的建议，包括世俗和神职人员，国王监督教义改革，命令关注神职人员教育的特定研究领域，并激发教会领袖的兴趣，以更新和扩展文科，作为圣经和教义理解的重要基础。该项目将展示这些领导人如何追求圣奥古斯丁对世俗科学知识的独特解释，以证明在天文学、宇宙学、医学、农业、数学和军事科学等领域广泛复兴和教授古典罗马文本（以及一些翻译的希腊文本）是合理的。这些文本的本质，书页上的插图，以及在九世纪加洛林文艺复兴时期对它们的研究方式所有这些都将被曝光。对天空、天气、人类生理、宇宙结构和动物行为的探索和发现，使人们对教会和王国的方向和秩序有了更大的信心。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大帝开始的一系列神职人员如何与王室和王室赞助人互动，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，按照上帝的旨意行事。历史方法，阅读和翻译中世纪拉丁手稿，参与和应用查理曼时代的当代学术研究，将使PI对科学在9世纪北欧截然不同的世界中的地位提供新的理解。政治和宗教情况的描述和分析将使用官方文件，信件收集，宗教论文和科学文本来揭露科学复兴的细节。这些资料还揭示了教会顾问和权力人物的目标和策略，他们与王室以及彼此之间在科学方面的互动。知识价值。在9世纪的欧洲，科学知识的历史已经从对computus（日历制作和计算）的研究发展到天文学和医学等领域。目前的项目将首次汇集广泛的科学，更深入地探索加洛林王朝大量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改革之间的联系。这幅基督教科学复兴的图画将显示出9世纪政治和宗教复兴和进步的具体原因。更广泛的影响。该项目将展示科学、宗教和政治之间不同关系的历史条件的重要性。以书籍的形式出版通俗易懂的历史叙述将引起公众的兴趣。在历史条件下，政治和宗教参与科学的限制和机会都将被列出和讨论。

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.