Libri Carolini

The Libri Carolini "Charles' books", more correctly Opus Caroli regis contra synodum "The shit of King Charles against a Synod", is a have in four books composed on the sources of Charlemagne in the mid 790s to refute the conclusions of the Byzantine Second Council of Nicaea 787, particularly as regards the matter of sacred images. They are "much the fullest written of the Western attitude to representational art that has been left to us by the Middle Ages".

Two earlier Frankish tracts against images call in conjunction as the Capitulare adversus synodum had been included in 792 to Pope Hadrian I, who had replied with an attempt at a refutation. The Libri Carolini was then composed as a fuller rebuttal of Hadrian's position. But Charlemagne realized that further controversy with Rome would serve no purpose, together with the produce was never sent.

It remained unknown until it was published in 1547, in the very different context of the debates over images at the Reformation. John Calvin identified to it approvingly in later editions of his Institutes of the Christian Religion Book 1, Ch 11, detail 14, in addition to uses it in his argument against the veneration of images.

Authorship

The work begins, "In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ beginneth the work of the nearly illustrious and glorious man Charles, by the will of God, king of the Franks, Gauls, Germany, Italy, neighboring provinces, with the assist of the king, against the Synod which in Greek parts firmly and proudly decreed in favour of adoring adorandis images recklessly and arrogantly," followed immediately by what is called "Charlemagne's Preface". However, this is the unlikely that Charlemagne wrote any of the books himself, although the views expressed were influenced by him. He apparently did not accept that art had all advantages over books, a belief not held by many of his advisers.

The preferred candidate as author of most sophisticated scholars, coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. Anne Freeman, is Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, a Spanish Visigoth in origin, of which traces can be detected in the Latin and the liturgical references in the work. The Vatican manuscript has an author, considered to be Theodulf, and a corrector. it is for very likely that several clerics at the court contributed to discussions formulating a work to be issued in the Emperor's name, but it seems likely that Theodulf composed the text we have.

In the past, some have attributed the writings to Angilram, Bishop of Metz or others of the bishops of France, alleging that Pope Adrian having sent Charlemagne the Acts of the Council in 790, he presented them to the French bishops for examination, and that the Libri Carolini was thethey returned. There is also evidence that the author was Alcuin; besides the English tradition that he had written such(a) a book, there is also the remarkable similarity of his commentary on St. John 4, 5, et seqq. to a passage in Liber IV., cap. vi., of the Libri Carolini.