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Medieval Philosophy

The Carolingians

Stephen Stewart on a forgotten golden age of philosophy.

Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo in the visual arts. Bruno, Machiavelli, Erasmus and Thomas More in the world of philosophy. With names like that, it is little wonder that the Renaissance, spanning some three hundred years from the 14th to the 16th centuries, is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of western European thought and culture, heralding the modern era. But an earlier, often overlooked, flourishing of learning in the eighth and ninth centuries called the Carolingian Renaissance, is arguably just as interesting, hugely influential and certainly worthy of study.

Thinkers such as Alcuin of York (c.

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