What was Charlemagne's contribution to western civilization?

Answer 1

Charlemagne made contributions mainly to medieval Western European Civilisation. Two contributions have been more enduring. One was the development of lower case letters with the Carolingian minuscule. Writing in lower case made writing easier and is still used today, even though it is different than Carolingian minuscule. The other was commissioning monks around Europe to transcribe Roman manuscripts. Without this we would have lost most of our knowledge of Roman civilisation and history.

The Italian humanists of the Renaissance, who believed in reviving knowledge of the Romans for the education of the elite and to recoup their lost knowledge, travelled around Europe in search for these transcripts. This played a pivotal role in shaping the Renaissance.

Charlemagne created an educational system which formed the basis of medieval education. This was needed because a lack of literacy in Latin (the language of scholars) severely limited the number of people capable of serving as court scribes and administrators. Charlemagne ordered the creation of schools and recruited many of the leading scholars from around Europe to his court. A standardised curriculum based on the Greco-Roman system, the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), and textbooks were produced.

A standardised version of Latin, which became Medieval Latin, was developed. It allowed for coining new words while retaining the grammatical rules of Classical Latin. It became the common language of scholars. This solved the problem of caused by Late Latin beginning to diverge into the regional dialects which were becoming mutually unintelligible (the precursors of Romance languages), preventing scholars around Europe from communicating with each other. It also allowed imperial officials and travellers to be understood in the various regions of Europe.