With the conversion of Teuton peoples and their introduction to the Latin culture accompanying the new religion, the factors of mediaeval development came at last into conjunction. The mediaeval development was to issue from their combined action, rather than from the singular nature of any one of them.[237] Taking up the introductory theme concerning the meeting of these forces, we followed the Latinizing of the West resulting from the expansion of the Roman Republic, which represents the political and social preparation of the field. Then we considered the antique pagan gospel of philosophy and letters, which had quickened this Latin civilization and was to form the spiritual environment of patristic Christianity. Next in order we observed the intellectual interests of the Latin Fathers, and then turned to the great Latin transmitters of the somewhat amalgamated antique and patristic material--Boëthius, Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great, and Isidore of Seville--who gathered what they might, and did much to reduce the same to decadent forms, suited to the barbaric understanding. Then the course of the barbaric disruption of the Empire was reviewed; and this led to a consideration of the qualities and circumstances of the Celts and Teutons, both those who to all appearances had been Latinized, and those who took active part in the barbarization and disruption of the Roman order. And finally we closed these introductory, though essential, chapters by tracing the ways in which Christianity, with the now humbled and degraded antique culture, was presented to this renewed and largely Teutonic barbarism. Having now reached the epoch of conjunction of the various elements of the mediaeval evolution, it lies before us to consider the first stage in the action of true mediaeval conditions upon the two chief spiritual forces, the first stage, in other words, of the mediaeval appropriation of the patristic and antique material. The period is what is called Carlovingian or Carolingian, after the great ruler Charlemagne. Intellectually considered, it may be said to have begun when Charles palpably evinced his interest in sacred and liberal studies by calling Alcuin and other scholars to his Court about the year 781. Let us note the political and social situation.