Paul Freedman, professor of history at Yale, traces the Carolingian Renaissance, the revival of learning sponsored by Charlemagne and his successors. He opens by describing the decline of lay literacy in the centuries before the Carolingians, when reading and writing became largely the domain of clerics and monasteries built scriptoria to copy manuscripts on a larger scale. He then turns to Charlemagne's educational program, which aimed to train literate officials for government while also deepening popular piety. The lecture closes with Einhard's account of the relics of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, a story Freedman uses to show that the devotional life of the well-educated elite was not so different from that of ordinary people. Part of Yale's Open Courses lecture series on the Early Middle Ages, recorded in Fall 2011, with chapter markers covering pre-Carolingian learning, Charlemagne's reforms, and Einhard's writings.