«Theodiscae dictamina». La voce e il canone nell’Alto Medioevo germanico

The notorious label ‘Dark Ages’, coined by the Italian humanists, has long indicated an age of utmost decay for Western European culture, ranging from the break-up of the Roman Empire to the so-called Carolingian ‘renaissance’ (end of the 8th-first half of the 9th century). This is a legitimate though somewhat drastic judgment since it does not recognize or, worse, deny that the breakdown of classical education (at least in its written forms) was the result of a slow and overall changeover. While concerning the economic, political and social spheres, it also affected both the religious and the cultural fields, some time joining their ranges, some other marking the hegemony of the former on the latter.