1. Framing the Carolingian Reforms: The Early Years of Louis the Pious -- Building an Empire -- Communities and Discourse Communities -- Between Cloister and Court -- 2. Model for Empire: The Councils of 813 and the Institutio Canonicorum -- Road to 813 -- Teaching the Empire -- `An Effort, not an Honour': Bishops and Their Responsibilities -- Church Fathers in Aachen -- Correcting Communities -- Communicating Correctio -- Channelling Authority -- 3. Monks on the Via Regia: The World of Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel -- Life in Context -- Directions for a King: The Via Regia -- Explaining a Way: The Expositio in Regulam Sancti Benedicts -- Crowning Achievement: The Diadema Monachorum -- Lives of Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel -- 4. Caesar et abba simul: Monastic Reforms between Aachen and Aniane -- Emperor and the Monks -- On the Outside Looking In -- Armed with the Javelins of Debate': Benedict of Aniane Goes to Court -- Death of an Abbot.

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By the early ninth century, the responsibility for a series of social, religious and political reforms had become an integral part of running the Carolingian empire. This became especially clear when, in 813/4, Louis the Pious and his court seized the momentum generated by their predecessors and broadened the scope of this correctio ever further. These reformers knew they constituted a movement greater than the sum of its parts; the interdependence of imperial authority and ecclesiastical reformers was driven by comprehensive, yet surprisingly diverse expectations.00Taking this diversity as a starting point, this book takes a fresh look at these optimistic decades. Extrapolating from a series of detailed case studies rather than presenting a grand narrative, it offers new interpretations of contemporary theories of correctio, and shows the self-awareness of its main instigators as they pondered what it meant to be a good Christian in a good Christian empire.

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