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Background to Readings on Learning and belief in the ninth century

The four selections we're reading today all touch on different paths to, and kinds of, knowledge in the ninth-century world, as seen both from the more visible perspective of educated Carolingian elites like Ratramnus, the abbot of Corbie; Hrabanus Maurus, the archbishop of Mainz; Agobard, the bishop of Lyon; or the famous schoolmaster Alcuin of York, whom we've already met -- and -- glimpsed through the writings of the same -- the viewpoint of ordinary people. These readings transport us from the palace school at Aachen to the vast forests and rural villages of the European hinterland.