an the reorganization of the Frankish church, which had
fallen into confusion and decay during the political disorders of the
last years of the Merovingians. It was Boniface, too, who, with the aid
of numerous English priests, monks and nuns, introduced the literary
culture of England into Germany.

Pippin (d. 768) and Charlemagne (d. 814) built on the foundations laid
by Winfrid. For the importance of Charlemagne's work, from the point of
view of the Church, consists also, not so much in the fact that, by his
conversion of the Saxons, the Avars and the Wends in the eastern Alps,
he substantially extended the Church's dominions, as in his having led
back the Frankish Church to the fulfilment of her functions as a
religious and civilizing agent. This was the purpose of his
ecclesiastical legislation. The principal means to this end taken by him
was the raising of the status of the clergy. From the priests he
demanded faithfulness in preaching and teaching, from the bishops the
conscientious government of their dioceses. The monasteries, too,
learned to serve the Church by becoming nurseries of literary and
theological culture. For the purpose of carrying out his ideas
Charlemagne gathered round him the best intellects of Europe. None was
more intimately associated with him than the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin (d.
804); but he was only one among many. Beside him are the Celts Josephus
Scottus and Dungal, the Lombards Paulinus and Paulus Diaconus, the West
Goth Theodulf and many Franks. Under their guidance theology flourished
in the Frankish empire. It was as little original as that of Bede; for
on the continent, too, scholars were content to think what those of old
had thought before them. But in so doing they did not only repeat the
old formulae; the ideas of the men of old sprang into new life. This is
shown by the searching discussions to which the Adoptionist controversy
gave rise. At the same time, the controversy with the Eastern Church
over the adoration of images shows that the younger Western theology
felt itself equal, if not superior to the Greek. This was in fact the
case; for it knew how to treat the question, which divided the Greeks,
in a more dispassionate and practical manner than they.

The second generation of Frankish theologians did not lag behind the
first. Hrabanus of Fulda (who died archbishop of Mainz in 856) was in
the range of his knowledge undoubtedly Alcuin's superior. He was the
first learned theolo