Exploration On The Achievements Of Historiography In The Carolingian Period

The Carolingian period amounts to230years from in the middle of the eighth century to at the end of the ninth century. Meanwhile a unique western Christian civilization has taken shape. The period is the early periods of western civilization development. Because of the boost of the so-called Carolingian renaissance, a large number and a wide variety of historiographies in the period is left over, such as annals, chronicles, biographies of emperors and kings, hagiographies and the histories of the various monasteries and episcopates, they are all indispensable basic documents on the study of the early periods of western civilization. However, so far the study of domestic academia on Carolingian historiography is very little, whether translation of the sources or source that is introduced detailedly in the history of western historiography textbook, Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni is only a source. In order to consolidate the study foundation of the early periods of western civilization, it is imperative to study achievements of historiography in the Carolingian period. By means of the study, I will achieve the following objectives:clarify basically the origins and evolutions of various Carolingian historiography genres, survey of important historians and their works, study detailedly the history causes of historiography relative prosperity in the Carolingian period, historic features of achievements of historiography in the Carolingian period and historical position of achievements of historiography in the Carolingian period in the development chain of western historiography. This study includes4parts:western Christian historiography in the pre-Carolingian period, the cause of Carolingian historiography rose up, various genres of Carolingian historiography, features of Carolingian historiography.This first chapter mainly discussed the development history of the western Christian historiography in the pre-Carolingian period. Since the third century, with the slavery crisis of Rome Empire, once glorious classical culture gradually declined, and classical historiography lost its past glory as the other branch of classical culture. With the collapsed of the imperial regime, the Christian church once suppressed that developed greatly. The loss of the secular authority is the gain of the religious authority. It makes men’s soul experience a revolution on the divinity instead of humanity. By the revolution God walked into the historiography, Christian historiography replaced previous classical historiography, Eusebius, St Augustine and Orosius became forerunners of the Christian historiography in the later Roman Empire. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, western historiography further declined on the basis of early Christian historiography because of fighting and Germans’cultural backwardness, they just entered civilized area. The historiography situation of the Visigoths, the Ostrogothics, the Anglo-Saxons, the Merovingian Franks were all so bad:the number of historiography was small and inferior in quality, national history, chronicle and hagiography made great strides.The second chapter mainly discussed the cause of Carolingian historiography rose up, this rise was mainly reflected in the number of historiography was far more than the several dark centuries after the collapse of Western Roman Empire. In the Carolingian period, historiography creativity was superior to that of the several dark centuries after Western Roman Empire because of Charlemagne initiated a series of measures to revive classical culture, making more persons possessed literacy that was tool of preserve history memory. The parchment was used by Franks as main writing materials. It played important role in conserving history memory in the Carolingian period. The large numbers of Franks’ historiography achievements in the Carolingian Renaissance-original historiography and the previous historiography was copied-could hand down to the present as non-perishable of the parchment.The third chapter mainly discussed several historiography genres in the Carolingian period, including chronicles, annals, biographies of emperors and kings, biographies of religionist, political travelogue and history of political theory. The chronicles were founded by Africanus who was a early Christian historian. This genre had been popular in the middle ages because its form reflected Christian linear concept of time. The Carolingian historians inherited original paradigm of the genre and made some improvements in order to meet the requirements of new era. The annals were spread from Anglo-Saxon to Frank. It experienced a change from succinct minor annals that were written by monasteries to full major annals that were written by palace during several hundred years. The biographies of emperors and kings were old genres, but it gradually declined after the starting of Christian historiography. However, it rose up again in the Carolingian because the time needed heroes. In the context of the Civil Government and Church cooperated frequently and Church was growing steadily, the biographies of religionist were still active, including old hagiography and new genre called the deeds of bishops or the deeds of abbots that modeled Roman Liber Episcopalis. There were sharp political activities and military struggle in the Carolingian, so political travelogue and history of political theory appeared again. They recorded contemporary history and left a series of political theories that educated emperors and princes and described the relations between imperial rights and religious rights.The fourth chapter mainly discussed the features of the Carolingian historiography, including classical style appeared vaguely again, inheritance and development of the Christian historiography tradition, plural historiography condition, historiography content of political tendency, identity sense of both new and old. The historiography activity was a cultural activity that was created by special social and political conditions. It was bound to show different morphological characters because of the role of different social and political conditions. In the Carolingian period, we can see vaguely that classical historiography’s style from the Carolingian historiography documents because that Carolingian renaissance changed in part cultural conditions of the western European world just like desert in the early middle ages. This was because that the Carolingian historians imitated crudely classical historiography. The Carolingian period was also a critical period of the history of Christian culture in the Western Europe. The Christian historiography tradition that was founded by Eusebius was inherited and developed in the period, for example, general application of AD, inheritance and development of linear view of history. The traditional opinions of the domestic academic circle claim that historiography activity was controlled by church in the west Europe during the middle ages and historiography activity was a private activity in the west Europe during the middle ages. In fact, there were several historiography orbits in the Carolingian period, including royal historiography, private historiography, monastery historiography, episcopate historiography. The whole historiography business was a plural condition. The traditional opinions of the domestic academic circle claim that medieval west historiography is only a tool for religion service, and it doesn’t depend on the secular power. In fact, the opinion doesn’t conform to the actual situation. As ancient Chinese official historiography, there is also an interactive relationship that includes dependence and service between Carolingian historiography and Carolingian royal house, but the interactive relationship is not organizational, institutionalized systematic as the interactive relationship of the ancient Chinese official historiography. The Carolingian period was a critical period that the classical civilization split into the Western civilization, the Byzantine civilization, Islamic civilization. The Carolingian historiography documents appeared two different sense of identity because of the alteration of new civilization and old civilization. A new sense of identity was "Europe". An old sense of identity was "Rome"...