This volume of specially-commissioned essays takes as its theme the legacy of Rome in Carolingian culture in eighth- and ninth-century Europe. No such comprehensive survey of this kind exists in any language. The book is the more unusual by departing from the customary stress on the concept of renewal to emphasize the enormous creativity and inventiveness of the Franks. Carolingian culture provided the bedrock for the subsequent development of medieval European culture, and this is demonstrated amply by essays that are planned as a series of introductions to the study of each topic.