…dated manuscript written in true minuscule) point to its development from a certain type of documentary hand used in the 8th century and to the likelihood that the monastery of the Stoudion in Constantinople had a leading part in its early development. Though its origins are obscure, the reasons that…
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Carolingian minuscule, in calligraphy, clear and manageable script that was established by the educational reforms of Charlemagne in the latter part of the 8th and early 9th centuries. As rediscovered and refined in the Italian Renaissance by the humanists, the script survives as the basis of the present-day Roman upper- and lowercase type.
A learned English cleric, Alcuin of York, was invited in 781 by Charlemagne to become master of the palace school at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). He returned to England in 786 and again in 790, but he eventually retired as abbot of St. Martin’s at Tours, where he built up a monastic school and gathered many books. He is credited with Roman Catholic liturgical reforms and with the promotion of Carolingian minuscule as the official court hand.
The crowning achievement of the Tours school of scholars, Carolingian minuscule scribes, and artists was attained in the mid-9th century in the Gospels of Lothair, produced by Alcuin’s successors.
