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It is commonly accepted that the inestimable Charlemagne surrounded himself with a court of international scholars and churchmen, individuals who would become the intellectual mentors and administrative architects of the revitalized Christian oikumene he was attempting to establish. His strategy of organization was based upon a deliberate program of coherent standardization: the codification of religious practices, the systematization of doctrinal instruction, and the establishment of a imperial judiciary that would incorporate even the general swath of the empire's population.1
Charlemagne's motives were several, but among the more principal intentions was his ambitious, and sincere, desire to sustain a unified, harmonious Christian kingdom. He relied upon the conscientious services of his select court circle of teachers, diplomats, and clerics to help realize this dream, and numbering among those courtly luminaries were two quite significant individuals, the tenacious and indefatigable Alcuin of York, and his sometimes rival and younger colleague, the insightful and incisive Theodulf of Orleans.
Together, and with others like Paulinus of Aquilea, they assisted Charlemagne in his quest to refashion western European culture, as it had long since fallen into despair, into a civilized stronghold firmly grounded in doctrinally orthodox (Christian) belief. Alcuin was recognized as "the Master" or "the Master Teacher" of the Carolingian court, just as Theodulf was noted for his exceptional ecclesiastical and theological contributions. The Carolingian renovatio, then, was a decidedly male enterprise, civilizing renewal by men for men.
Yet, in their capacities as courtly masters of both a cultural and religious reformation, leaders like Theodulf and Alcuin also assumed the role of spiritual, somewhat paternal, mentors to eager, capable women, including noble religious, as well as sovereign queens and princesses, who were becoming increasingly prohibited by the throne from directing their own spiritual programmes.
While formal treatises of Carolingian theology and ecclesiology manifest the official declarations on matters pertaining to the Church as a whole, and articles of restriction to women in particular, it is in the catalogue of letters, or other personal documents, that more individual, and thereby, probably more sincere, commentaries on faith, belief, and faithful practice, can be discovered. In order to arrive at a more authentic understanding of women's spirituality of the Carolignian world, this paper will turn to some examples of those individual,...