What was the Carolingian Renaissance?

Charlemagne facilitated an intellectual and cultural golden age during his reign that historians call the Carolingian Renaissance—after the Carolingian dynasty, to which he belonged. Charlemagne peopled his court with renowned intellectuals and clerics, and together they fashioned a series of objectives designed to uplift what they perceived as the flagging Christian populace of Europe. Improving Latin literacy was primary among these objectives, seen as a means to improve administrative and ecclesiastical effectiveness in the kingdom. A completely new writing system called Carolingian minuscule was established; libraries and schools proliferated, as did books to fill and be used in them; and new forms of art, poetry, and biblical exegesis flourished. The effects of Charlemagne's cultural program were evident during his reign but even more so afterward, when the education infrastructure he had created served as the basis upon which later cultural and intellectual revivals were built.