Alcuin

“ It is clear that in the eyes of Karl and Alcuin, Offa was the one leading man in the whole of England, the most powerful Englishman of his time, and of all the kings and princes the most worthy.
To Athelhard, the archbishop of Canterbury, [99] who succeeded Jaenbert, Lichfield still being the chief archbishopric, Alcuin wrote a remarkable letter, considering the humiliation of the archbishopric:—
Ep. 28. A.D. 793.
“Be a preacher; not a flatterer. It is better to fear God than man, to please God than to fawn upon men. What is a flatterer but a fawning enemy? ”

“ It was fitting enough that Alcuin should have remonstrated with those who studied their Virgil to the exclusion or neglect of the Bible ; but the fact proves nothing as to his general regard for letters, and the testimony of his writings and acts is more eloquent than such private admonitions. Alcuin and the Scots, we take it, laboured, with whatever transient jealousies, in a common love of learning. The old temper which regarded religion and letters as irreconcilable sqq. opposites, was clean forgotten ; the spirit is caught up by the rulers of the church themselves ”

“ Who does not know that some of this wine, according to the command of the Virgin’s Son, [197] is to be borne to the ruler of the feast of the city of Tours? But remember this: You must not put new wine into old skins. No one, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new; for he saith—The old is better.
“Blessed is he that speaks to an attentive ear.”
Tours was not in Alcuin’s time the bright place which it is now. When Karl endeavoured to persuade Alcuin to accompany him to Rome in 779, Alcuin begged that he might be excused. The journey was long, and he wished to remain at Tours. ”

“ Now, adds the biographer, a certain Albinus, the name is an accepted classical adaptation of Alcuin, by race an Englishman, when he heard that the most religious emperor Charles was glad to welcome learned men, he too entered into a ship and came to him. Here we are no doubt still wider of historical accuracy : it was not in this manner that Alcuin made acquaintance with the Frankish king, nor is it probable that the arrival of the Irish scholars was attended by the picturesque circumstances which the monk relates. ”

“ Longius est visum, quam plectri postulet usus." [277]
Often did Alcuin think of these goodly times with a longing heart, and wish that he could revel among them whilst in France. How deeply would he have regretted, how many tears would he have shed over the sad destruction of that fine library, had he have known it; but his bones had mingled with the dust when the Danes dispersed those rare gems of ancient lore. If the reader should doubt the ardor of Alcuin as a book-lover, let him read [181] the following letter, addressed to Charlemagne, which none but a bibliomaniac could pen. ”

“ It will be seen that Alcuin does not quote exactly. The Vulgate has frater et soror et mater.
[151] Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum, p. 272.
[152] No doubt oil specially pure, and vegetable; we may safely say olive oil, for purposes of chrism. Theodore of Canterbury informs us (Theodore and Wilfrith, S.P.C.K. p. 180) that “according to the Greeks a presbyter can ... make the oil for exorcism and the chrism for the sick, if necessary; but according to the Romans only a bishop can do so”. Hence the mention of bishops in the letter of Alcuin. See also page 245, note 2. ”

“ Alcuin is the most prominent figure of the Carolingian Renaissance, in which have been distinguished three main periods: in the first of these, up to the arrival of Alcuin at the court, the Italians occupy the chief place; in the second, Alcuin and the Anglo-Saxons are dominant; in the third, which begins in 804, the influence of the Goth Theodulf is preponderant. Alcuin transmitted to the ignorant Franks the knowledge of Latin culture which had existed in England since the time of Bede. We still have a number of his works. ”

“ The Life proceeds to inform us that Alcuin was trained under the prelate Hechbert, whom we know as Ecgbert, Bishop and later Archbishop of York, 732 to 766. That learned man was a disciple of Bede. He had under his tuition a flock of the sons of nobles, some of whom studied grammar, others the liberal arts, others the divine scriptures. ”

“ Show yourself gentle and humble to the better; hard and rigid to the proud; all things to all men that you may gain all. Have in your hands honey and wormwood; let each man eat which he chooses. Let him who would live on pious preaching have the honey; let him who needs hard invective drink of the wormwood, but so that he may hope for the honey of pardon to follow, if the blush and confusion of penitence go before.”
[166]
Alcuin would have been an excellent man to have as preacher at the consecration of a bishop. ”

“ Two of Alcuin’s pupils, Candidus and Nathanael, held offices in the court of the Emperor at Aachen. Nathanael was the pupil to whom Alcuin wrote a well-known letter about the temptations and occupations of the court, his warnings against the temptations being conveyed under cover of figurative language. “Let not the crowned doves come to thy windows, that flit about in the chambers of the palace; let not wild horses break in at the door of thy chamber; do not occupy thyself with dancing bears.” ”

“ To Arno, Bishop of Salzburg, Alcuin wrote a long and very valuable letter of advice as to the manner in which the Huns whom Karl was conquering should be brought to the faith. He speaks strongly of the necessity of adapting the teaching and discipline to the character of each individual, as also of each race.
“There be some infirmities which are better treated by sweet potions than by bitter; others better by bitter than by sweet. ”

“ West finds evidence that as early as the time of Alcuin, the monks trained by him or in his schools, wrote from dictation. “In the intervals between the hours of prayer and the observance of the round of cloister life, come hours for the copying of books under the presiding direction of Alcuin. The young monks file into the scriptorium and one of them is given the precious parchment volume containing a work of Bede or Isidore or Augustine, or else some portion of the Latin Scriptures, or even a heathen author. ”

“ Alcuin may perhaps be taken as representing the position of the more rigid disciplinarians on this point. His letter to the English bishop, Higbald, does not stand alone. In several others he warns his pupils against the dangers lurking in ludi and spectacula [134] , and he shows himself particularly exercised by [Pg 36] the favour which they found with Angilbert, the literary and far from strict-lived abbot of St. Richer [135] . The influence of Alcuin with Charlemagne was considerable, and so far as ecclesiastical rule went, he had his way. ”

“ The last words of Alcuin’s interpretation of the vision suggest that he was an Englishman, one of the youths whom Alcuin brought from York as his assistant masters.
[42] This was Benedict, the Abbat of Aniane in Languedoc. That region is here spoken of as Gothia, because the Goths had settled about Toulouse in the fifth century. The fact that Benedict used often to come to consult Alcuin is an interesting illustration of the disregard of distance in those days. As the crows fly, Toulouse is some 270 miles from Tours, and the journey was a long and arduous one. ”

“ Ut felix tecum vivat in arce poli.
Pro me quisque legas versus orare memento,
Alchuine dicor ego. Tu sine fine vale.
“May Charles, who bade this book be written, receive eternal rewards. May the giver of all good accept this offering of His own gifts, which Father Albinus has made, whom may Thy hand preserve to live with Thee. Thou who readest these verses, remember to pray for me; my name is Alchuine; mayest thou for ever fare well.”
That these verses were written in the great Pandect of Alcuin’s recension, which Alcuin presented to Charlemagne, we may take to be certain. ”

“ Alcuin wrote to the Emperor Charles in 802, or possibly in 803, begging that he might be allowed to stay quietly at St. Martin’s, Tours. “I am so very weak in body that I am unequal to any more travelling or labour. To speak truth, all the fitness and strength of my body has left me ”

“ It profits thee and him. Thee, that thou dost it in faith and love; him, that either his pain is lightened or his bliss is increased. [150] Great and inestimable is the pity of our Lord Jesus Christ, who would have all men be saved and none perish.”
Our next episode takes us back to York, where one of Alcuin’s own pupils was elected to the archbishopric. It may be well to mention here, and to dispose of, a curious question which has been raised in connexion with Alcuin’s studies in the time of his youth, pursued as we believe only at York. ”

“ Alcuin occupies a distinguished place in the literary history of the middle ages, not on account of his actual writings, but through his position as foremost man of letters in the restoration of teaching under Charlemagne. He was not a profound writer on any subject, nor have his Latin poems much artistic merit, but he was the best representative of a cultured life in a somewhat uncultured time, and his lively, active disposition seems to have harmonised exactly with the functions he was called on to discharge. ”

“ The head master in Alcuin’s time was Ecgbert, Archbishop of York and brother of the reigning king of Northumbria; and the second master was Albert, Ecgbert’s cousin, and eventually his successor in the chief mastership and in the archbishopric. Alcuin succeeded to the practical part of the mastership on Ecgbert’s death in 766, the new archbishop, Albert, retaining the government of the school and the chief part of the religious teaching. ”

“ Before proceeding to examine Alcuin’s letter to a Mercian nobleman on the death of Offa and his son Ecgfrith, it should be remarked that we of the diocese of Bristol must not allow the mention of this poor young king Ecgfrith to pass without our acknowledgement for a deed of justice done. When Offa defeated the West Saxon king at Bensington, he took possession of a good deal of the border land, including two tracts of land which King Cadwalla of Wessex had given to Malmesbury, namely Tetbury in Gloucestershire and Purton in Wilts. ”

“ What reward may be given by God to thy best devotion, who is able to say? For eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Alcuin ends his letter with a pair of hexameters and some elegiacs, both because Karl was interested [195] in his versification, and—we may suppose—because high-flown compliments, from which Karl was not averse, come better in so-called poetry than in prose. ”

“ We have letters of Alcuin to King Ethelred, to Higbald the Bishop of Lindisfarne, and to the monks of the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, on this catastrophe. The letter to Ethelred comes first:—
Ep. 22. A.D. 793.
“To my most loved lord King Ethelred and all his chief men the humble levite Alchuine sends greeting.
“Mindful of your most sweet affection, my brothers and fathers and lords honourable in Christ; deeply desiring that the divine mercy may preserve to us in long-lived prosperity the fatherland which that mercy long ago gave to us with gratuitous freedom ”

“ Alcuin is writing to the monks of Wearmouth. He tells them how well he remembers what he saw at Wearmouth long years ago, and how much he was pleased with everything he saw. He encourages them to continue in the right way by reminding them of the virtues of their founders. “It is certain,” he writes, “that your founders very often visit the place of your dwelling. They rejoice with all whom they find keeping their statutes and living right lives ”

“ It was in 781, on occasion of the king's second visit to Italy, that the meeting took place at Parma, the result of which was to fix the English scholar at the Frankish court. Having obtained the consent of his own bishop and sovereign to this arrangement, Alcuin came over to France in 782, bringing with him several of the best scholars of York, among whom were Wizo, Fredegis, and Sigulf. Charlemagne received him with joy, and assigned him three abbeys for the maintenance of himself and his disciples, those namely, of Ferrières, St. Lupus of Troyes, and St. ”

“ When Joseph, the bishop of the city of Tours, a man good and beloved of God, heard that the blessed Alchuin was dead, he came to the spot immediately with his clerks, and washing Alchuin’s eyes with his tears, he kissed him frequently. He advised, moreover, using wise counsel, that he should not be buried outside, in the place where the father himself had willed, but with all possible honour within the basilica of the holy Martin, that the bodies of those whose souls are united in heaven should on earth lie in one home. ”

“ Many that are still sound in body testify the same. To more persons, however, this brightness appeared in the same manner, not on that but on a former night, namely, on the night of the first Sunday after the Ascension.
“At that same hour there was displayed to a certain hermit in Italy the army of the heavenly deacons, sounding forth the ineffable praises of Christ in the air; in the midst of whom Alchuin [71] stood, clothed with a most splendid dalmatic, entering with them into heaven to minister with perennial joy to the Eternal Pontiff. ”

“ But if the quantity of the liquid added be so slight as not to permeate throughout, but to reach only a part of the species, Christ's blood will cease to be under that part of the consecrated wine, yet will remain under the rest.
Reply Obj. 1: Pope Innocent III in a Decretal writes thus: "The very accidents appear to affect the wine that is added, because, if water is added, it takes the savor of the wine. The result is, then, that the accidents change the subject, just as subject changes accidents; for nature yields to miracle, and power works beyond custom." ”