Hrabanus Maurus’ De institutione clericorum was composed in AD 819 and is a manual for the education of young clerics. Being a genuine product of the Carolingian reform, it is often quoted in scholarly literature about that period, although it has often been misunderstood. For example, it is mostly referred to as a Liberal Arts encyclopaedia, when actually the Liberal Matters covers just a few chapters of the third part. This article analyzes internal structure of the contents of the De institutione clericorum, contextualizes them in relation to the cultural, theological and liturgical development of the Carolingian renaissance, gets an insight in the teaching and learning methods of the time and reflects on the didactic literary genres utilized during the Early Middle Ages.