Tag: Carolingians

Free Download Kenneth Levy, "Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians"
English | ISBN: 0691017336 | | 296 pages | PDF | 27 MB
A world-renowned scholar of plainchant, Kenneth Levy has spent a portion of his career investigating the nature and ramifications of this repertory’s shift from an oral tradition to the written versions dating to the tenth century. In Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians, which represents the culmination of his research, Levy seeks to change long-held perceptions about certain crucial stages of the evolution and dissemination of the old corpus of plainchant-most notably the assumption that such a large and complex repertory could have become and remained fixed for over a century while still an oral tradition. Levy portrays the promulgation of an authoritative body of plainchant during the reign of Charlemagne by clearly differentiating between actual evidence, hypotheses, and received ideas.

Free Download Imperial Spheres and the Adriatic: Byzantium, the Carolingians and the Treaty of Aachen (812) By Mladen Aneciac
2017 | 364 Pages | ISBN: 1138225940 | PDF | 9 MB
Although often mentioned in textbooks about the Carolingian and Byzantine empires, the Treaty of Aachen has not received much close attention. This volume attempts not just to fill the gap, but to view the episode through both micro- and macro-lenses. Introductory chapters review the state of relations between Byzantium and the Frankish realm in the eighth and early ninth centuries, crises facing Byzantine emperors much closer to home, and the relevance of the Bulgarian problem to affairs on the Adriatic. Dalmatia’s coastal towns and the populations of the interior receive extensive attention, including the region’s ecclesiastical history and cultural affiliations. So do the local politics of Dalmatia, Venice and the Carolingian marches, and their interaction with the Byzantino-Frankish confrontation. The dynamics of the Franks’ relations with the Avars are analysed and, here too, the three-way play among the two empires and ‘in-between’ parties is a theme. Archaeological indications of the Franks’ presence are collated with what the literary sources reveal about local elites’ aspirations. The economic dimension to the Byzantino-Frankish competition for Venice is fully explored, a special feature of the volume being archaeological evidence for a resurgence of trade between the Upper Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean from the second half of the eighth century onwards.