Carolingian schools comprised a small number of educational institutions which had a major share in the Carolingian renaissance, specifically cathedral schools and monastic schools. Precursors Under the Merovingian Kings of the Frankish kingdoms, a 'palatial' school -- scola palatina was established at the court. The chroniclers of the eighth century styled it—for the training of the young Frankish nobles in the art of war and in the ceremonies of the court. With the accession of the future emperor Charlemagne (768) a scheme of educational reform was inaugurated, first in the palace school itself, and later in the various schools established or reformed by imperial decrees throughout the vast empire over which Charlemagne reigned. The reform of the palace school, i.e. the change from a school of military tactics and court manners to a place of learning, was begun in 780, as soon as the victories over the Lombards, Saxons and Saracens (in Iberia) afforded. Beginning at the court It was not until the arrival of Alcuin at his court seat Aachen in 782 that the work of educational reform began to prove any success. Alcuin was not made head of the emperor's school in the palace, but was admitted to the council of the emperor in all educational matters and became Charlemagne's "prime minister of education". Charlemagne also built new monasteries and encouraged the learning of Latin. He represented the learning of the school of York, which united in its traditions the current of educational reform inaugurated in the South of England by Theodore of Tarsus and that other current which, starting from the schools of Ireland, spread over the entire northern part of England. He was not an original thinker, but he exerted a profound cultural influence on the whole Frankish Kingdom by reason of the high esteem in which Charlemagne and his courtiers held him. He taught grammar, rhetoric, dialectic and the elements of geometry, astronomy and music (see Seven Liberal Arts), and his success as a teacher of these branches seems to have been generally acknowledged by all the courtiers as well as by his royal patron. We know from Einhard's biography of Charlemagne that the emperor, the princes and princesses and all the royal household formed a kind of higher school at the palace in order to learn from Alcuin what would nowadays be considered the very basics of education. Further ambition Charlemagne was not content