During the first part of the ninth century the region of the Scheldt and the Meuse became a beehive of activity. From every part of the world, merchants, theologians, artists and musicians crowded towards the new economic and intellectual centre of Europe. Arnon, a pupil of Alcuin, came to Elnone, the Irish Sedulius to Liege, the Italian Georgius to Valenciennes, while the schools of St. Amand, under Hucbald, acquired a world-wide reputation. Everywhere new monasteries were established, new churches and palaces built. The arts of illuminating, embroidery, carving and stained glass were brought to an unparalleled degree of perfection and refinement. Bishops and abbots competed in attracting to their courts and monasteries the best-known doctors and poets of the time. We have lost most of the artistic treasures and manuscripts of the period through the subsequent Norman invasions. Every vestige of Carolingian sculpture and architecture in Belgium has been destroyed. But, through the works accomplished in other countries and with the help of a few documents such as the inventory preserved in the _Chronicle of St. Trond_, we are able at least to appreciate not only their intrinsic value, but also the interest they awoke among clerics and laymen. That the great emperor encouraged this movement and took a direct part in it in attracting to the various centres of learning the best masters in Europe is sufficiently shown by his letter to Gerbald of Liege. Under his direction, European civilization was definitely established in the northern plain of Europe and Aix-la-Chapelle became indeed the "Northern Rome." The capital, with Tongres, Liege, St. Trond and other neighbouring cities, formed a centre from which civilization spread east and west towards Germany and France, just as it had spread, a few centuries before, from Central Italy towards the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. [_FRISIAN CLOTH_]