ABSTRACT
Shortly after his accession to power in 814, the new Frankish emperor Louis the Pious called the first of two meetings held at his royal palace at Aachen. The council of 816 and a follow-up gathering the next year were early and revealing expressions of the new ruler’s plans to build upon the achievements of his father and to continue to foster reform, particularly ecclesiastical reform, through a focus on monasticism and religious life. Aachen’s main achievement was to consolidate and clarify monasticism and monastic discipline for the Frankish world.
