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Primary sourceDocument23 March 789

Admonitio generalis

Charlemagne · 23 March 789

A capitulary issued by Charlemagne in 789 laying out sweeping religious and educational reforms, including the order to found schools.

This capitulary, issued by Charlemagne in 789, lays out his programme of religious and educational reform across the kingdom.

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Scanned manuscript page of medieval Latin handwriting in brown ink on aged, yellowed parchment, written in a dense column with some marginal annotations on the left. The text is the Admonitio generalis.
Admonitio generalis, 23 March 789. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 10758, p. 50.

About this source

What it is

The Admonitio generalis is a capitulary (a collection of royal legislation) issued by Charlemagne in 789. It covers 82 chapters on religious and educational reform within the Frankish kingdom, drawn up with the help of clerical advisers and earlier church rulings. A surviving manuscript page is held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Why it matters

In this document Charlemagne presents himself as a 'new Josiah', responsible for the moral health of his subjects, and orders monasteries and cathedrals to set up schools so that boys could learn to read, write and understand religious texts. It is one of the foundational documents of the Carolingian Renaissance and shows how closely Charlemagne tied together political power, religion and education.

Look closer

  • Why does Charlemagne compare himself to a biblical king like Josiah?
  • What does the order to build schools tell us about the state of education before 789?
  • Who would have had to carry out these orders, and how might that have been difficult?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Charlemagne on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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