ABSTRACT
The teaching of Latin and of Latin literature, both ecclesiastical and secular, became the central achievement of the Carolingian Renaissance and the deliberate goal of the group of scholars at Charlemagne's court. With the decline of the Carolingian Empire, the papacy became a pawn in the power politics of the great Roman families. There was an effective answer to the centrifugal forces of Carolingian feudalism. It was Otto the Great and his son and grandson who rescued the popes from this degradation and restored to them the respect of western Christendom. Characteristically, Otto III placed the new ecclesiastical organization of the newly founded kingdoms and eastern principalities of Hungary, Bohemia and Poland under the direct control of the popes, thus by-passing the authority of the old-established Frankish episcopate. The gradual spread of the nuclear family and household introduced a new and dynamic element into the agrarian society of Europe.
