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 alphabet. A learned English cleric, Alcuin of York, was in charge of Charlemagne's program, which was in itself a true literary renascence. The principal centre was St. Martin's at Tours, of which Alcuin was abbot. Alcuin had previously been head of the cathedral school at York and of Charlemagne's Palace School at Aachen and had to his credit a number of splendid manuscripts known as the Golden Gospels. The most famous of these is the Godescalc Gospels (Bibliothque Nationale, Paris), written before 783, with a dedication in Carolingian minuscule to Charlemagne. 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.