ABSTRACT
The term Europe is of ancient origin and was in use among the early Greeks to refer to the great peninsula to the north-west of the Mediterranean. It was inevitable, then, that Frankish prince Charlemagne's renovatio should assume the character of a religious educational movement. The king himself, we read in Einhard, had a tremendous enthusiasm for learning and equally high expectations of its efficacy in achieving his great aspirations for the kingdom. The direction of the palace school, however, although Alcuin's major, overt responsibility, was never the exclusive centre of his educational interests. The deterioration of learning had reached the point where large numbers, perhaps the majority of the monks and the clergy, were ignorant of Latin if not completely illiterate, and no regular programme of training them was in existence. The means of giving this fullness of knowledge to the clergy is through an education in the liberal arts.
