ALCUIN OF YORK
LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE CATHEDRAL
CHURCH OF BRISTOL IN 1907 AND 1908
BY THE
RIGHT REV. G. F. BROWNE
D.D., D.C.L., F.S.A.
BISHOP OF BRISTOL
FORMERLY DISNEY PROFESSOR OF ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM.
1908
PREFACE
No attempt has been made to correct the various forms of many of the
proper names so as to make the spelling uniform. It is true to the period
to leave the curious variations as Alcuin and others wrote them. In
the case of Pope Hadrian, the name has been written Hadrian and Adrian
indiscriminately in the text.
While Alcuin’s style is lucid, his habit of dictating letters hurriedly,
and sending them off without revision if he had a headache, has left its
mark on the letters as we have them. It has seemed better to leave the
difficulties in the English as he left them in the Latin.
The edition used, and the numbering of the Epistles adopted, is that of
Wattenbach and Dümmler, _Monumenta Alcuiniana_, Berlin 1873, being the
sixth volume of the _Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
The authorship of the anonymous Life of Alcuin.—Alcuin’s Life
of his relative Willibrord.—Willibrord at Ripon.—Alchfrith and
Wilfrith.—Alcuin’s conversion.—His studies under Ecgbert and
Albert at the Cathedral School of York.—Ecgbert’s method of
teaching.—Alcuin becomes assistant master of the School.—Is
ordained deacon.—Becomes head master.—Joins Karl 1
CHAPTER II
Alcuin finally leaves England.—The Adoptionist heresy.—Alcuin’s
retirement to Tours.—His knowledge of secrets.—Karl and the
three kings his sons.—Fire at St. Martin’s, Tours.—References
to the life of St. Martin.—Alcuin’s writings.—His interview
with the devil.—His last days 23
CHAPTER III
The large bulk of Alcuin’s letters and other writings.—The
main dates of his life.—Bede’s advice to Ecgbert.—Careless
lives of bishops.—No parochial system.—Inadequacy of the
bishops’ oversight.—Great monasteries to be used as sees for
new bishoprics, and evil monasteries to be suppressed.—Election
of abbats and hereditary descent.—Evils of pilgrimages.—Daily
Eucharists 51
CHAPTER IV
The school of York.—Alcuin’s poem on the Bishops and Saints
of the Church of York.—The destruction of the Britons by
the Saxons.—Description of Wilfrith II, Ecgbert, Albert, of
York.—Balther and Eata.—Church building in York.—The Library of
York 68
CHAPTER V
The affairs of Mercia.—Tripartite division of England.—The
creation of a third archbishopric, at Lichfield.—Offa and
Karl.—Alcuin’s letter to Athelhard of Canterbury; to Beornwin
of Mercia.—Karl’s letter to Offa, a commercial treaty.—Alcuin’s
letter to Offa.—Offa’s death 87
CHAPTER VI
Grant to Malmesbury by Ecgfrith of Mercia.—Alcuin’s letters to
Mercia.—Kenulf and Leo III restore Canterbury to its primatial
position.—Gifts of money to the Pope.—Alcuin’s letters to the
restored archbishop.—His letter to Karl on the archbishop’s
proposed visit.—Letters of Karl to Offa (on a question of
discipline) and Athelhard (in favour of Mercian exiles) 106
CHAPTER VII
List of the ten kings of Northumbria of Alcuin’s
time.—Destruction of Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and Jarrow, by the
Danes.—Letters of Alcuin on the subject to King Ethelred, the
Bishop and monks of Lindisfarne, and the monks of Wearmouth and
Jarrow.—His letter to the Bishop and monks of Hexham 122
CHAPTER VIII
Alcuin’s letters to King Eardulf and the banished intruder
Osbald.—His letters to King Ethelred and Ethelred’s mother.—The
Irish claim that Alcuin studied at Clonmacnoise.—Mayo of the
Saxons 140
CHAPTER IX
Alcuin’s letter to all the prelates of England.—To the Bishops
of Elmham and Dunwich.—His letters on the election to the
archbishopric of York.—To the new archbishop, and the monks
whom he sent to advise him.—His urgency that bishops should
read Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care 157
CHAPTER X
Summary of Alcuin’s work in France.—Adoptionism, Alcuin’s seven
books against Felix and three against Elipandus.—Alcuin’s
advice that a treatise of Felix be sent to the Pope and
three others.—Alcuin’s name dragged into the controversy on
Transubstantiation.—Image-worship.—The four _Libri Carolini_
and the Council of Frankfurt.—The bearing of the _Libri
Carolini_ on the doctrine of Transubstantiation 172
CHAPTER XI
Karl and Rome.—His visits to that city.—The offences and
troubles of Leo III.—The coronation of Charlemagne.—The Pope’s
adoration of the Emperor.—Alcuin’s famous letter to Karl prior
to his coronation.—Two great Roman forgeries, the Donation of
Constantine and the Letter of St. Peter to the Franks 186
CHAPTER XII
Alcuin retires to the Abbey and School of Tours.—Sends
to York for more advanced books.—Begs for old wine from
Orleans.—Karl calls Tours a smoky place.—Fees charged to the
students.—History and remains of the Abbey Church of St.
Martin.—The tombs of St. Martin and six other Saints.—The
Public Library of Tours.—A famous Book of the Gospels.—St.
Martin’s secularised.—Martinensian bishops 202
CHAPTER XIII
Further details of the Public Library of Tours.—Marmoutier.—The
Royal Abbey of Cormery.—Licence of Hadrian I to St. Martin’s to
elect bishops.—Details of the Chapter of the Cathedral Church
of Tours 219
CHAPTER XIV
Great dispute on right of sanctuary.—Letters of Alcuin on the
subject to his representatives at court and to a bishop.—The
emperor’s severe letter to St. Martin’s.—Alcuin’s reply.—Verses
of the bishop of Orleans on Charlemagne, Luitgard, and Alcuin
231
CHAPTER XV
Alcuin’s letters to Charlemagne’s sons.—Recension of the
Bible.—The “Alcuin Bible” at the British Museum.—Other supposed
“Alcuin Bibles.”—Anglo-Saxon Forms of Coronation used at the
coronations of French kings 246
CHAPTER XVI
Examples of Alcuin’s style in his letters, allusive,
jocose, playful.—The perils of the Alps.—The vision of
Drithelme.—Letters to Arno.—Bacchus and Cupid 264
CHAPTER XVII
Grammatical questions submitted to Alcuin by Karl.—Alcuin and
Eginhart.—Eginhart’s description of Charlemagne.—Alcuin’s
interest in missions.—The premature exaction of
tithes.—Charlemagne’s elephant Abulabaz.—Figures of
elephants in silk stuffs.—Earliest examples of French and
German.—Boniface’s _Abrenuntiatio Diaboli_.—Early Saxon.—The
earliest examples of Anglo-Saxon prose and verse 280
CHAPTER XVIII
Alcuin’s latest days.—His letters mention his ill health.—His
appeals for the prayers of friends, and of strangers.—An
affectionate letter to Charlemagne.—The death scene 298
APPENDICES
A. A letter of Alcuin to Fulda 305
B. The report of the papal legates, George and Theophylact, on
their mission to England 310
C. The original Latin of Alcuin’s suggestion that a treatise by
Felix should be sent to the Pope and three others 319
D. The Donation of Constantine 320
E. Harun Al Raschid and Charlemagne 324
INDEX 325
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Plate I. St. Martin’s, Tours, before the pillage _To face page_ 210
Plate II. The Tour St. Martin 211
Plate III. The Tour Charlemagne 212
Plate IV. The Tomb of St. Martin 213
Plate V. Some remains of Marmoutier 222
Plate VI. Early capital at Cormery 227
Plate VII. Elephant from robes in the tomb of Charlemagne 290
Plate VIII. Inscription worked into the above robe 291
Plate IX. Silk stuff of the seventh or eighth century 292
Plate X. Archbishop Boniface’s form for renouncing the devil 295
Plate XI. The earliest piece of English prose 296
Plate XII. The earliest piece of English verse 297
ALCUIN OF YORK.
CHAPTER I
The authorship of the anonymous Life of Alcuin.—Alcuin’s Life
of his relative Willibrord.—Willibrord at Ripon.—Alchfrith and
Wilfrith.—Alcuin’s conversion.—His studies under Ecgbert and
Albert at the Cathedral School of York.—Ecgbert’s method of
teaching.—Alcuin becomes assistant master of the School.—Is
ordained deacon.—Becomes head master.—Joins Karl.
The only Life of Alcuin which we possess, coming from early times, was
written by a monk who does not give his name, at the command of an abbat
whose name, as also that of his abbey, is not mentioned by the writer.
We have, however, this clue, that the writer learned his facts from a
favourite disciple and priest of Alcuin himself, by name Sigulf. Sigulf
received from Alcuin the pet name of Vetulus, “little old fellow,” in
accordance with the custom of the literary and friendly circle of which
Alcuin was the centre. Alcuin himself was Flaccus; Karl the King of the
Franks, and afterwards Emperor, was David; and so on. We learn further
that the abbat who assigned to the anonymous monk the task of writing
the Life was himself a disciple of Sigulf. Sigulf succeeded Alcuin as
Abbat of Ferrières; and when he retired on account of old age, he was in
turn succeeded by two of his pupils whom he had brought up as his sons,
Adalbert and Aldric. The Life was written after the death of Benedict of
Aniane, that is, after the year 823. Adalbert had before that date been
succeeded by Aldric, and Aldric became Archbishop of Sens in the end
of 829. The Life was probably written between 823 and 829 by a monk of
Ferrières, by order of Aldric. Alcuin had died in 804. The writer of the
Life had never even seen Alcuin; he was in all probability not a monk of
Tours.
That is the view of the German editor Wattenbach as to the authorship and
dedication of the Life. That learned man appears to have given inadequate
weight to the writer’s manner of citing Aldric as a witness to the truth
of a quaint story told in the Life. This is the story, as nearly as
possible in the monk’s words:—
“The man of the Lord [Alcuin himself] had read in his youth the books
of the ancient philosophers and the romances[1] of Vergil,[2] but he
would not in his old age have them read to him or allow others to read
them. The divine poets, he was wont to say, were sufficient for them,
they did not need to be polluted with the luxurious flow of Vergil’s
verse. Against this precept the little old fellow Sigulf tried to act
secretly, and for this he was put to the blush publicly. Calling to him
two youths whom he was bringing up as sons, Adalbert and Aldric, he
bade them read Vergil with him in complete secrecy, ordering them by no
means to let any one know, lest it come to the ears of Father Albinus
[Alcuin]. But Albinus called him in an ordinary way to come to him, and
then said: ‘Where do you come from, you Vergilian? Why have you planned,
contrary to my wish and advice, to read Vergil?’ Sigulf threw himself
at his feet, confessed that he had acted most foolishly, and declared
himself penitent. The pious father administered a scolding to him, and
then accepted the amends he made, warning him never to do such a thing
again. Abbat Aldric, a man worthy of God, who still survives, testifies
that neither he nor Adalbert had told any one about it; they had been
absolutely silent, as Sigulf had enjoined.”
It seems practically impossible to suppose that the monk would have put
it in this way, if Aldric had been the abbat to whom he dedicated the
Life, or indeed the abbat of his own monastery. It is clear that the Life
was written while Aldric was still an abbat, that is between 823 and 829;
and it seems most probable that it was written by a monk of some other
monastery for his own abbat. Nothing of importance, however, turns upon
this discussion. It is a rather curious fact, considering the severity
of Alcuin’s objection to Vergil being read in his monastery, that the
beautiful copy of Vergil at Berne, of very early ninth-century date,
belonged to St. Martin of Tours from Carolingian times, and was written
there.[3]
Not unnaturally, the Life, written in and for a French monastery, does
not give details of the Northumbrian origin of Alcuin. It makes only the
statement usual in such biographies, that he sprang from a noble Anglian
family. Curiously enough, we get such further details as we have from
a Life of St. Willibrord written by Alcuin himself at the request of
Archbishop Beornrad of Sens, who was Abbat of Epternach, a monastery of
Willibrord’s, from 777 to 797.
“There was,” he writes, “in the province of Northumbria, a father of a
family, by race Saxon, by name Wilgils, who lived a religious life with
his wife and all his house. He had given up the secular life and entered
upon the life of a monk; and when spiritual fervour increased in him
he lived solitary on the promontory which is girt by the ocean and the
river Humber (Spurn Point)[4]. Here he lived long in fasting and prayer
in a little oratory dedicated to St. Andrew[5] the Apostle; he worked
miracles; his name became celebrated. Crowds of people consulted him;
he comforted them with the most sweet admonitions of the Word of God.
His fame became known to the king and great men of the realm, and they
conferred upon him some small neighbouring properties, so that he might
build a church. There he collected a congregation of servants of God,
moderate in size, but honourable. There, after long labours, he received
his crown from God; and there his body lies buried. His descendants to
this day hold the property by the title of his sanctity. Of them I am
the least in merit and the last in order. I, who write this book of
the history of the most holy father and greatest teacher Willibrord,
succeeded to the government of that small cell by legitimate degrees of
descent.”
Inasmuch as the book is dedicated to Beornrad by the humble Levite (that
is, deacon) Alcuin, we learn the very interesting fact that Alcuin, born
in 735, came by hereditary right into possession of the property got
together by Wilgils, whose son Willibrord was born in 657. The dates
make it practically almost certain that Wilgils was born a pagan. Alcuin
informs us that he only entered upon marriage because it was fated that
he should be the father of one who should be for the profit of many
peoples. If Willibrord was, as Alcuin’s words mean, the only child of
Wilgils, we must suppose that Alcuin was the great-great-great-nephew of
Wilgils, allowing twenty-five years for a generation in those short-lived
times.
Alcuin three times insists on the lawful hereditary descent of the
ownership and government of a monastery. A second case is in his preface
to this Life of Willibrord. The body of the saint, he says, “rests in
a certain small maritime cell, over which I, though unworthy, preside
by God’s gift in lawful succession.” A third case occurs also in this
Life. “There is,” he says, “in the city of Trèves a monastery[6] of nuns,
which in the times of the blessed Willibrord was visited by a very severe
plague. Many of the handmaids of the Lord were dying of it; others were
lying on their beds enfeebled by a long attack; the rest were in a state
of terror, as fearing the presence of death. Now there is near that same
city the monastery of that holy man, which is called Aefternac,[7] in
which up to this day the saint rests in the body, while his descendants
are known to hold the monastery by legitimate paternal descent, and
by the piety of most pious kings. When the women of the above-named
monastery heard that he was coming to this monastery of his, they sent
messengers begging him to hasten to them.” He went, as the blessed Peter
went to raise Tabitha; celebrated a mass for the sick; blessed water,
and had the houses sprinkled with it; and sent it to the sick sisters to
drink. Needless to say, they all recovered.
In two of these cases, the two in which Alcuin speaks of his own
property, he uses the word succession, “by legitimate succession” in the
one case, _legitima successione_, “through legitimate successions” in the
other case, _per legitimas successiones_, the former no doubt referring
to the succession from his immediate predecessor, the latter referring to
the four, or five, steps in the descent from Wilgils to Alcuin. In the
case of the monastery of Epternach he defines it from the other end,
“from the legitimate handing-down,” _traditione ex legitima_, the piety
of the most pious kings being called in to confirm the handing-down.
It is remarkable that Alcuin should thus go out of his way to insist
upon the lawfulness of the hereditary descent of monasteries, when he
knew well that his venerated predecessor Bede, following the positive
principle of the founder of Anglian monasticism in Northumbria, Benedict
Biscop, attributed great evils to such hereditary succession to the
property and governance of monasteries. We shall see something of this
when we come to the consideration of Bede’s famous letter to Ecgbert,
written in or about the year of Alcuin’s birth.
It is probably not necessary to suppose that Alcuin intends to draw a
distinction between the constitutional practice in Northumbria and that
in the lands ruled by Karl, though it is a marked fact that he mentions
the intervention of kings in the latter case and twice does not mention
it in the former. Bede says so much about the bribes—or fees—paid to
Northumbrian kings and bishops for ratification of first grants by their
signatures, that we can hardly suppose there were no fees to pay on
succession. We cannot press such a point as this in Alcuin’s Life of
Willibrord, for he tells Beornrad in his Preface that he has been busy
with other things all day long, and has only been able to dictate this
book in the retirement of the night; and he urges that the work should
be mercifully judged because he has not had leisure to polish it. The
grammar of this dictated work needs a certain amount of correction;
Alcuin did not always remember with what construction he had begun a
sentence. In these days of dictated letters he has the sympathy of many
in this respect.
Alcuin’s young relative Willibrord was sent away to Ripon, as soon as he
was weaned, to the charge of the brethren there. Alchfrith, the sub-King
of Deira under his father Oswy, had driven out the Irish monks whom he
had at one time patronised at Ripon, and had given their possessions to
Wilfrith. Under the influence of that remarkable man the little child
came, still, in Alcuin’s phrase, only an _infantulus_. His father’s
purpose in sending him to Ripon was twofold. He was to be educated in
religious study and sacred letters, in a place where his tender age might
be strengthened by vigorous discipline, where he would see nothing that
was not honourable, hear nothing that was not holy. At Ripon he remained
till he was twenty years of age, and then he passed across to Ireland, to
complete his studies under Ecgbert, the great creator of missionaries.
With Ecgbert he spent twelve years.
Now in the thirty-two years covered by that short narration, from 657
to 689, events of the utmost moment had occurred in Northumbria, and
had mainly centered round Ripon. At the most critical juncture of these
events Bede becomes suddenly silent. Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon version of
Bede goes further, and omits the bulk of what Bede does say. A few
words from Alcuin would have been of priceless value, and he, writing
in France to a Frank, could have no national or ecclesiastical reason
for silence on points which Bede and Alfred let alone. The whole of the
variance between Oswy and his son and sub-King Alchfrith, on which Bede
is determinedly silent, the only hint of which is preserved to us solely
by the noble runes on the Bewcastle Cross, erected in 670 and still
standing, which bid men pray for the “high sin” of Alchfrith’s soul[8];
the whole secret of the variance between Oswy and Wilfrith; of Oswy’s
refusal to recognize Wilfrith’s consecration at Paris—with unrivalled
magnificence of pomp—to the episcopal See of York; all this, and more,
is included in the first thirteen years of Willibrord’s life at Ripon,
and Ripon was the pivot of it all. Alcuin has no scintilla of a hint of
anything unusual, not even when he mentions Ecgbert, the Northumbrian
teacher, dwelling in Ireland, of whom we know from another source that he
fled from Northumbria to safety in Ireland when Alchfrith and Wilfrith
lost their power, and Alchfrith presumably lost his life. It is quite
possible that if the head of the Bewcastle Cross were ever found[9] the
runes on it might tell us just what we want to know. The illustration
of this portion of the Cross given in Gough’s edition of Camden’s
_Britannia_[10] was drawn in 1607, at which time English scholars could
not read runic letters, and naturally could not copy them with perfect
accuracy. Still, it is evident that the runes stand for RIKAES DRYHTNAES,
apparently meaning ‘of the kingdom’s lord’, the copyist having failed to
notice the mark of modification in the rune for _u_, which turned it into
_y_.
Turning now to Alcuin himself, a remarkable story is told in the Life,
evidently and avowedly on his authority. When he was still a small boy,
_parvulus_, he was regular in attendance at church at the canonical hours
of the day, but very seldom appeared there at night. What the monastery
was in which he passed his earliest years we are not told; but inasmuch
as no break or change is mentioned between the story to which we now
turn and the description of his more advanced studies, which certainly
indicates the Archiepiscopal School of York, we must understand that York
was the scene of this occurrence.
“When he was eleven years of age, it happened one night that he and a
tonsured rustic, one of the menial monks, that is, were sleeping on
separate pallets in one cell. The rustic did not like being alone in the
night, and as none of the rustics could accommodate him, he had begged
that one of the young students might be sent to sleep in the cell.
The boy Albinus was sent, who was fonder of Vergil than of Psalms. At
cock-crow the warden struck the bell for nocturns, and the brethren got
up for the appointed service. This rustic, however, only turned round
onto his other side, as careless of such matters, and went on snoring.
At the moment when the invitatory psalm was as usual being sung, with
the antiphon, the rustic’s cell was suddenly filled with horrid spirits,
who surrounded his bed, and said to him, ‘You sleep well, brother.’
That roused him, and they asked, ‘Why are you snoring here by yourself,
while the brethren are keeping watch in the church?’ He then received a
useful flogging, so that by his amendment a warning might be given to
all, and they might sing, ‘I will remember the years of the right hand
of the Most Highest,’[11] while their eyes prevented the night watches.
During the flogging of the rustic, the noble boy trembled lest the same
should happen to him; and, as he related afterwards, cried from the very
bottom of his heart, ‘O Lord Jesus, if Thou dost now deliver me from the
cruel hands of these evil spirits, and I do not hereafter prove to be
eager for the night watches of Thy Church and the ministry of praise,
and if I any longer love Vergil more than the chanting of psalms, may I
receive a flogging such as this. Only, I earnestly pray, deliver me, O
Lord, now.’ That the lesson might be the more deeply impressed upon his
mind, as soon as by the Lord’s command the flogging of the rustic ceased,
the evil spirits cast their eyes about here and there, and saw the body
and head of the boy most carefully wrapped up in the bedclothes, scarce
taking breath. The leader of the spirits asked, ‘Who is this other asleep
in the cell?’ ‘It is the boy Albinus,’ they told him, ‘hid away in his
bed.’ When the boy found that he was discovered, he burst into showers
of tears; and the more he had suppressed his cries before, the louder
he cried now. They had all the will to deal unmercifully with him, but
they had not the power. They discussed what they should do with him;
but the sentence of the Lord compelled them to help him to keep the vow
which he had made in his terror. Accordingly they said, imprudently for
their purpose, but prudently for the purpose of the Lord, ‘We will not
chastise this one with severe blows, because he is young; we will only
punish him by cutting with a knife the hard part of his feet.’ They took
the covering off his feet. Albinus instantly protected himself with
the sign of the Cross. Then he chanted with all intentness the twelfth
psalm, ‘In the Lord put I my trust’; and then the rustic, half dead,
the boy going before him with agile step, fled into the basilica to the
protection of the saints.”
A cynical reader might suggest that the disciplinary officers of the
School of York resorted in those early times to unusual methods of making
an impression on a careless boy.
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.[12] They studied
the doctrine set forth by “the holy apostle of the English, Gregory;
by Augustine, his disciple; by holy Benedict[13]; also by Cuthbert and
Theodore, who followed in all things [a word is omitted here, presumably
the footsteps[14]] of their first father and apostle[15]; and by the man
most loved of the Lord, Bede the presbyter, Hechbert’s own preceptor.”
Then follows a very lifelike description of an ordinary day’s work, when
no inevitable expedition came in the way, nor any high solemnity or
great festival of the saints. “From dawn of day to the sixth hour, and
very often to the ninth hour, Ecgbert lay on his couch and opened to his
disciples such of the secrets of scripture as suited each. Then he rose,
and betook himself to most secret prayer, offering first to the Lord fat
burnt-offerings with the incense of rams, and afterward, following the
example of the blessed Job, lest by chance his sons should slip into the
pit of benediction,[16] offering the Body of Christ and the Blood for
all. By this time the vesper hour was coming near, and, except in Lent,
all through the year, winter and summer, he took with his disciples
a meal, slight but fittingly prepared, not sparing the tongue of the
reader, that both kinds of food might bring refreshment. Then you might
see the youths piercing one another with shafts prepared, discussing
in private what afterwards they are to shoot forth in proper order in
public. Does it not seem to you that of this too it might be said,[17]
“As an eagle provoketh her young ones to fly, fluttereth over them,
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings”?
“Twice in the day did this father of the poor, this great lover and
helper of Christ, pour out most secret prayer, watered from the most pure
fountain of tears, both knees bent on the ground, hands long raised to
heaven in the form of the Cross; once, namely, before taking food, and
again before celebrating Compline with all his flock. Which ended, no
one of his disciples ever dared commit his limbs to his bed without the
master’s blessing laid upon his head.
“He loved all his disciples, but of all he loved Alcuin the most, for
Alcuin more closely than any of them followed his example in act and
deed. There were two special virtues in Alcuin—one, that he never did
anything which he was not quite clear that his master’s approval covered;
the other, that whatever devices and temptations the enemy brought to
his mind, he told them all straight out to his master without any sense
of shame. Thus it came to pass that any stimulus of lust which he ever
felt was most gloriously conquered by this wonderful method, dashing the
children of Babylon against the stones, bruising the head of the serpent
with the heel. He was careful that against him the words of Christ should
not be spoken—‘Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved’; but rather that his lot
should be with them of whom it is added—‘But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought
in God.’ O true monk without the monk’s vow! how very seldom is thy
example followed by one whose vow binds him to it[18].”
In the chapter from which these details are taken the author three times
uses the name “Albinus” for his hero, in place of “Alchuinus” with which
he began the chapter. Throughout the Life he much more often calls him
Albin than Alcuin. We must probably understand that he was known from his
boyhood by both names; and it is evident that Albin would be more easy to
pronounce than Alcuin, and would not unnaturally be more generally used.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that he himself elected to call
himself Albin.
If Alcuin took the name Albinus from any English source, the source is
not far to seek. The English nation owes to the original Albinus the
first suggestion to Bede that he should write the Church History of the
English race. Bede tells us this in the Preface to his great work; and
we have it still more directly expressed in a letter from him to Albinus
in which he speaks of the History as _ad quam me scribendam iamdudum
instigaveras_, and of Albinus as _semper amantissimus in Christo pater
optimus_. He was Abbat of St. Peter and St. Paul, Canterbury, a pupil of
Theodore and Hadrian, the latter of whom he succeeded. He greatly helped
Bede by sending him full details of the conversion of Kent, “as he had
learned the same from written records and from the oral tradition of his
predecessors.” Bede sent to him the completed copy of the History, that
he might have it transcribed, and informs us that Albinus had no small
knowledge of Greek, and knew Latin as well as his native tongue, English.
Alcuin may well have taken his name of Albinus from one with whom he
had so much in common, who died only two or three years before Alcuin’s
birth.
If, on the other hand, Alcuin took the name from some foreign source,
again we have not far to seek. In Karl’s first year as King of the Franks
he gave a confirmatory charter to “the Monastery of St. Albinus, which
is built near to the walls of Angers”. The Tour St. Aubin and the Rue
St. Aubin are still to be found at Angers, at the extreme south-east
corner of the ancient city. Little is known of this martyr Albinus, and
in consequence the Acts of our St. Alban have been transferred to him. At
Angers, as at Alcuin’s own Tours, there are remains of a great church of
St. Martin; and, as was in early times the case at Tours, the Cathedral
is dedicated to St. Maurice. It is possible that Alcuin took his name of
Albinus from this local source, but it does not seem at all probable.
Alcuin’s supremacy in wisdom and other virtues caused jealousy among
his fellow disciples. This went so far that they could not look at him
with unclouded eye or address him with pleasant words. He consulted his
master, who by this time was Elcbert (Archbishop of York, 767-78), known
to Alcuin as Aelbert, and to us as Albert. The master advised him to try
the effect of heaping coals of fire on their heads. He followed this
advice, taking care that they should never hear from him a contrary word,
and very often yielding to them when their arguments were unsound. This
course of conduct he pursued until a complete change took place, and they
all rejoiced to acknowledge in him the second master of their studies,
next under Albert.
The Life relates at this point an interesting episode, in the description
of which we may seem to hear Alcuin himself speaking to us:—
“Alcuin was reading the Gospel of St. John before the master, in company
of his fellow disciples. He came to a part of the Gospel which only the
pure in heart can comprehend—that part, namely, from where John says that
he lay on the Lord’s breast, down to the point at which he relates that
Jesus went with His disciples across the brook Cedron.[19] Inebriated
with the mystical reading of the Gospel, suddenly, as he sat before the
master’s couch, his spirit was carried away in ecstasy, and by those same
who once in a ray of sunlight showed before the eyes of the most holy
father Benedict the whole world, collected as it were in an enclosure,
the whole world was now set before the eyes of Alcuin. And as he looked
intently at what he saw, he saw the whole of the enclosure surrounded
by a circle of blood. While he was held by this marvellous vision, his
fellow disciples gazed at him in wonder, for the blood seemed to have
left his face. They tried to rouse him, as one asleep; the noise they
made attracted the attention of Albert, who looked at him for some time
in silence, and then said, ‘Go on reading, my sons, do not disturb him;
if he rests awhile he will be able to follow me more effectively when I
expound the passage.’ When the reading was completed, and Albin came to
himself again, the father told them all to go except Alcuin. When they
were gone, he said, ‘What hast thou seen? I beg thee, do not hide it.’
Alcuin wished to keep secret what he had seen, fearing to fall into the
pitfall of elation; so he said, ‘Why, my lord father?’ The blessed man
said again, ‘Do not, my son, do not hide it from me. It is not from vain
curiosity that I require this of you, but for your own good.’ Alcuin saw
that he could not keep it secret, and he told, humbly, how he had seen
the whole world. Then the father said to him, ‘See, my son, see that
thou tellest not this vision to any but that one whom after my decease
thou shalt hold to be the most faithful to thy person. And charge him to
keep it secret up to the time of thy death.’ Acting on this counsel, he
told it only to Sigulf[20] during his lifetime. If any one desires to
know how the whole world could be seen in one enclosure, he may turn to
the book of Dialogues of the holy Gregory[21]; and in the meantime he
may know that it was not the heaven and the earth that were contracted
into a small space, but the mind of the seer that was dilated, so that
when rapt in the Lord he could without difficulty see everything that
was under God. Perhaps some one inquiring further may ask why under this
figure of an enclosure, or why surrounded by blood? He may know that the
Blood of Christ surrounds the fold of the holy Church, so that from the
rising of the sun to the setting thereof those who are redeemed by His
Passion can say the words which, without doubt, dominated the mind of
Albin when he read before the master: ‘O give thanks unto the Lord, for
He is gracious, and His mercy endureth for ever.’[22] The whole world,
then, is seen in one enclosure surrounded by the Blood of Christ; for all
that the holy fathers have done and have written figuratively since the
beginning of the world is unlocked by the Passion of Christ alone, who is
the lion of the tribe of Juda, the root of David. But if by the encircled
enclosure any should wish to be understood the life of his own carnal
crimes surrounded by blood, thus shown to him that it may be trodden
under foot by him, let that interpretation be left to his own judgement.”
Alcuin had been tonsured in early years. He was ordained deacon at York
on the day of the Purification of the holy Mary, in or about the year
768. Elcbert, who had been for some time in bad health, felt that his
death was drawing nigh, and he gave to Alcuin a sketch of the course of
life which he wished him to pursue. The writer gives us a report of his
actual words, stating that “they are now known”; this means, presumably,
that here also Alcuin had communicated them to Sigulf, to be made public
only after his death. They run thus:—“My will is that you go to Rome,
and on the way back visit France.[23] For I know that you will do much
good there. Christ will be the leader of your journey, guiding you
and controlling you on your arrival, that you may demolish that most
nefarious heresy which will attempt to set forth Christ as adoptive man,
and that you may be the firmest defender and the clearest preacher of the
faith in the Holy Trinity.[24] You will persevere in the land of your
peregrination, illumining the souls of many.”
The holy father, Bishop Elcbert, after blessing him with the benedictions
of his predecessor above named, migrated to God on the eighth day
of November, 780. “The pious Albinus mourned with tears, as for his
mother, and would not take comfort. Endowed in hereditary right with
the holy benedictions of the fathers,[25] he took pains to multiply
exceedingly the talent of his lord.[26] He taught many in Britain, and
not few later in France. It was now that he associated with him a man
dear to God, remarkable for the nobility of mind and of body, Sigulf,
the presbyter, Warden of the Church of the City of York, to remain with
him perpetually.[27] Sigulf had gone as a boy to France with his uncle
Autbert the presbyter, and by him had been taken to Rome to learn the
ecclesiastical order; he had then been sent to the city of Metz to learn
chanting. There he worked hard for some time, in great poverty, but with
much profit. After the holy man, his uncle, migrated to the Lord, he
came back to his own land.” We can almost see and hear Sigulf getting
these little facts about himself and his uncle incorporated in the Life
of Alcuin.
“When the Almighty God willed to glorify France with spiritual riches, as
already with earthly riches, granting to the land a King after His own
heart, a man of faith, fortitude, love of wisdom, and ineffable beauty
of body, namely Karl, most illustrious in these respects, He put it into
the mind of Albinus that he should fulfil the counsel and command of his
father Albert, by going to Rome and then visiting France.
“By the command of Eanbald I, the Archbishop of York, the successor of
Elcbert, he went to Rome to obtain the pallium for the archbishop from
the Apostolic—that is, Hadrian I. On his way back with the pallium he
met King Karl in the city of Parma.[28] The king addressed him with
great persuasiveness and many prayers, begging that after completing
his embassage he would come and join him in France. The king had become
acquainted with him some years before, for Alcuin had been sent on a
legation to him by the archbishop of the time.”
We may interrupt our author’s narrative at this point to state that the
fact and the date of this former visit to Karl are recorded in the Life
of Hadrian I, as also the further fact, not here hinted at, that Karl
on that occasion sent Alcuin on to Rome. “In the year 773 Karl sent to
Hadrian an embassy, consisting of the most holy bishop George,[29]
the religious abbat Uulfhard,[30] and the king’s favourite counsellor
Albinus.”
We may now return to the author of the Life. He tells us, to quote his
own words, that when Karl begged Alcuin to come to him, Alcuin desired to
do what would be useful, and therefore asked permission of his own king,
Alfwald, and of his archbishop, Eanbald I, to leave his mastership of the
School of York. He obtained permission, but on condition that he should
in time come back to them. Under Christ’s guidance he came to Karl. Karl
embraced him as his father,[31] by whom he had been introduced to the
liberal arts, in the study of which he could be somewhat cooled, but in
his fervour he could never be too completely saturated with them. After
Alcuin had spent some little time with him, he gave him two monasteries,
that of Bethlehem, otherwise called Ferrières,[32] and that of St.
Lupus[33] of Troyes.