Charlemagne Rebukes the Careless Students

Charlemagne supported academia and a great lover of study. In fact, he inaugurated a scheme of educational reform which grew to be called the Carolingian Schools, first in the palace school itself, and later in the various schools established or reformed by imperial decrees throughout the vast Holy Roman Empire over which Charlemagne was crowned in 800. The reform of the palace school, the change from a school of military tactics and court manners to a place of learning, was begun in 780, as soon as the victories over the Lombards, Saxons, and Saracens (in Iberia) afforded.

It was not, however, until the arrival of Alcuin in Aachen in 782 that the work of educational reform began to have any measure of success. Alcuin was not made head of the emperor's school in the palace, but was admitted to the council of the emperor in all educational matters and became Charlemagne's "prime minister of education".