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.
In many of Alcuin’s letters we find answers or allusions to questions
addressed to him by Karl. In Epistle 253 Alcuin writes twelve paragraphs
to the emperor in answer to twelve questions. In Epistle 252 he writes
to Homer (Angilbert), who has been commanded by the emperor to consult
him on the gender of the word _rubus_ and on the difference in meaning
of _despicere_ and _dispicere_. In regard to _rubus_, he sums up a long
list of authorities on both sides by the correct remark that a bramble
must not be counted as a tree, and therefore _rubus_ follows the ordinary
rule of words ending in _us_ and is masculine. On the difference between
_despicere_ and _dispicere_ he has much to write, and in the course of
his letter he makes free use of quotations from the Greek. From Epistle
254 we find that Charlemagne had inquired, through Candidus, as to
the distinction between _aeternum_ and _sempiternum_; _perpetuum_ and
_inmortale_; _saeculum_, _aevum_, and _tempus_. In Epistle 240, a very
long letter, he writes to the emperor in reply to his inquiry as to the
force of a question put by the Greek master—an Athenian sophist—about the
price of human salvation.
Considering the large part which the annalist Eginhart played in the
administrative work of Charlemagne’s reign, as secretary to the king
and emperor, it is remarkable that we find only one reference to him in
Alcuin’s letters. This one reference is affectionate in tone, and gives
no reason at all for supposing that Alcuin was jealous of the quick and
skilful secretary. The reference occurs in Ep. 112, A.D. 799, a letter
addressed to Karl by Alcuin. The letter itself is of so interesting a
character that the opportunity of giving it in its entirety should not be
lost. From its contents we gather that Alcuin had sent to Karl a treatise
which he had hastily dictated and had not read over and corrected. Karl
had noted errors in the writing and punctuation, and had sent it back to
be corrected, a charming piece of discipline which raises Karl higher
than ever in our appreciative regard.
[Sidenote: Ep. 112. A.D. 799.]
“To the most pious and excellent lord king David, Flaccus wounded[259]
with the pen of love sends greeting.
“We give thanks to your venerable piety that you have caused to be read
to the ears of your wisdom the booklet sent to you in accordance with the
injunction of your command; and that you have had errors in it noted, and
have sent it back for correction. It would, however, have been better
corrected by yourself, because in any work the judgement of another is
most frequently of more value than that of the actual author.
“You have done somewhat less than the full office of love demanded, in
that you have not in like manner noted opinions not learnedly set forth
or catholically worked out. I have a suspicion that your letter indicates
that not all which is written in my booklet has your approval. For you
have directed a defence of the work to be sent to your excellency,
whereas my poor words could have no defender or emender better than
yourself. The authority of him who commands should defend the work of him
who obeys.
“That the booklet does not run so scholarly in letter and punctuation as
the order and rule of the art of grammar demands is no unusual effect of
rapidity of thought, while the mind of the reader forestalls the action
of the eyes. Wearied with a bad headache I cannot examine the words which
flow by a sudden rush from my mouth as I dictate; and one who is not
willing to impute to himself the negligence of another should not impute
negligence to another.
“The account of the disputation of Felix with a Saracen I have not seen,
nor can we find it here; indeed I never heard of it before. But in the
course of very diligent inquiry whether any of our people have heard of
its existence, I have been told that it might be found with Laidrad the
Bishop of Lyon. I have at once sent a messenger to the said bishop in
order that if it can be found there it may be sent as quickly as possible
to your presence.
“When I went as a young man to Rome, and spent some days in the royal
city of Pavia, a certain Jew, Lullus by name, had a disputation with
Master Peter, and I heard in the same city that there was a written
record of the controversy. This was the same Peter who with such
clearness taught grammar in your palace[260]. Perhaps our Homer[261] has
heard something about it from him.
“I have sent to your excellency some modes of expression, supported by
examples or verses from venerable fathers, and also some figures of
arithmetical subtlety for your amusement, on the blank part of the paper
which you have sent to us; in order that what offered itself to our eye
naked may come back to you clothed. It seemed right that paper which
came to us ennobled by your seal should receive honour from our letters.
And if any of the said forms of expression are inadequately supported by
examples, Beselel[262] your familiar—yea and ours too—will be able to add
others. He can also make out the arithmetical puzzles.
“The major and minor distinctions of punctuation add greatly to the
beauty of sentences; but the use of them has been almost lost by the
rusticity of our scribes. Now that the beauty of all wisdom and the
ornament of salutary learning is beginning to be renewed by the exertions
of your nobility, so there is good hope that the use of punctuation is to
be restored in the hands of scribes.
“I for my part, though little proficient, fight daily against rusticity
at Tours. Let your authority teach the palace youths to produce in the
most elegant manner whatsoever your most lucid eloquence shall have
dictated, that documents which circulate in the name of the king may bear
on their face the nobility of the royal wisdom.”
That appears to be the only case in which Eginhart is spoken of by
Alcuin. Curiously enough, it appears that Alcuin is only once spoken of
by Eginhart. We might have expected some mention of Alcuin in Eginhart’s
statement of Karl’s fondness for foreigners[263]. The remarkable passage
in which Eginhart mentions Alcuin forms chapter 25 of the _Vita Caroli
Magni_, coming in the course of this fine description of a man clearly
worthy to be called Great:—
“In eloquence he was copious and exuberant; whatever he wished to express
he could express in the clearest manner. Nor was he content to speak only
in his native tongue; he worked hard at learning foreign tongues. Latin
he had learned so well that he was wont to pray in that tongue equally
with his own. Greek he understood better than he spoke. He was so able
in speech that he appeared as a teacher. He cultivated most studiously
the liberal arts, and exceedingly respected and greatly honoured those
who taught them. In learning grammar he heard the aged Peter of Pisa,
a deacon. In other studies he had as his preceptor Albinus, whose
cognomen was Alcuin, also a deacon, of the Saxon race, from Britain, a
man most learned. With him he spent much time and labour on rhetoric
and dialectic, and especially on the study of astronomy. He learned the
art of computation, and with much sagacity he scrutinized most closely
the courses of the stars. He made efforts, too, to become a scribe, for
which purpose he used to have tablets and specimens carried about under
the pillows of his bed, that he might practise his hand in writing when
he had any spare time; but he did not make much way with a task begun so
late in his life.”
[Sidenote: Ep. 13. A.D. 789.]
It would have been strange if Alcuin had not taken special interest in
the spread of Christianity among the pagan races on the eastern borders
of the kingdom of Karl. Our West-Saxon Boniface had made such a mark,
by himself and by his Malmesbury monks Lull and Burchardt and others,
and his Wimborne nuns and _magistrae_, that Alcuin found familiar names
in many parts of the eastern and north-eastern fringe, and made many
inquiries about the progress of the work. In one of the earliest of his
letters which have been preserved, he addresses an abbat who had gone
to visit the Bishop of Bremen. “Salute a thousand times my best loved
bishop Uilhaed. It sorely grieves me that I have parted from him. Would
that I could see him.” This was our own Northumbrian Angle Willehad,
born in 730, five years before Alcuin, and no doubt his school-fellow.
He had narrowly escaped martyrdom, and had bent before the storm; but he
returned to the scene of his dangerous labours, and Karl caused him to
be consecrated at Worms first bishop of Bremen on July 13, 787. He built
his cathedral church at Bremen, and consecrated it on November 1, 789;
on November 8 he died of fever at Blexen, close by. In this letter Alcuin
charges the abbat—
“Inform me by letter how far the Saxons fall in with your preaching, and
if there is any hope of the conversion of the Danes, and if the Wilts and
Vionuds[264], whom the king has recently[265] acquired, accept the faith
of Christ, and what is going on in those parts, and what the lord king
intends to do about the Huns[266].”
In a letter to Colcu[267], in the beginning of the next year, he says:—
[Sidenote: Ep. 14. A.D. 790.]
“Let your dilection know that by the mercy of God the holy Church in
the parts of Europe has peace, advances, grows. The Old Saxons and the
Frisians have been converted to the faith of Christ at the instance of
Karl, some by rewards, some by threats. Last year the said king with a
great host attacked the Sclaves, whom we called Vionuds, and brought them
into subjection.
“Further, the dukes and tribunes of the same most Christian king have
taken from the Saracens a large part of Spain, with a coast line three
hundred miles in length. But—ah the grief!—those same accursed Saracens
are dominant over the whole of Africa and the greatest part of Asia.”
To Higbald of Lindisfarne, in the letter given at page 132, he writes:—
[Sidenote: Ep. 24. A.D. 793.]
“Almost the whole of Europe was destroyed by the fire and the sword of
the Goths or the Huns. But now, by the mercy of God, as the sky shines
bright with stars so Europe shines with the ornament of churches, and in
them the offices of the Christian religion flourish and increase.”
Writing to his most intimate friend Arno, Archbishop of Salzburg, who was
about to accompany an army against the Avars, Alcuin warns him against
the premature imposition of tithes:—
[Sidenote: Ep. 64. post Mai. 796.]
“Be a preacher of piety, not an exactor of tithes; for the freshly
converted soul is to be fed with the milk of apostolical piety until it
grows, strengthens, and becomes strong enough to receive solid food.
Tithes, it is said, have subverted the faith of the Saxons. Why should
we place on the neck of the ignorant a yoke which neither we nor our
brethren have been able to bear?”
Again, writing to Karl after the subjugation of the Huns, Alcuin says
this:—
[Sidenote: Ep. 67. post Aug. 796.]
“Now let your most wise and God-pleasing piety provide for the new people
pious preachers, of honest life, learned in sacred science, imbued with
evangelical precepts, intent in their preaching on the examples of the
holy Apostles, who were wont to minister milk—that is, gentle precepts—to
their hearers who were beginners in the faith....
“These things being thus considered, let your most holy piety take into
wise consideration whether it is well to impose upon an ignorant race,
at the beginning of the faith, the yoke of tithes, so that they shall
be fully exacted from house to house. It is worth considering whether
the Apostles, taught by the God Christ Himself, and sent to preach to
the world, required the exaction of tithes or anywhere demanded them. We
know that the tithing of our substance is a very good thing; but it is
better to sacrifice the tithe than to lose the faith. And indeed we, born
and brought up and taught in the Catholic faith, scarce consent to tithe
to the full our substance; how much does feeble faith not consent to the
gift of tithe, and the infant will, and the covetous mind. But when faith
has become strong, and the practice of Christianity is confirmed, then,
as to perfect men, may stronger precepts be given, from which the mind,
become solid in the Christian religion, may not recoil.”
He then proceeds to urge that the adults of the conquered Huns shall
not be baptized until they have first been carefully taught, “lest the
ablution of sacred baptism of the body profit nothing.” On this subject
of the baptism of the Huns a long report is found in a tenth-century
collection of Alcuin’s letters, written by Paulinus the Patriarch of
Aquileia, describing a discussion which took place at a meeting of
bishops, or in the College of Bishops, summoned by King Pippin in the
summer of this year 796.
[Sidenote: Ep. 69.]
In the autumn of 796, Alcuin again writes on the subject of tithes, this
time addressing his friend[268] Megenfrid, the treasurer of the palace,
and dealing not with the Huns, but with the Saxons. Alcuin writes to him
as to one of the principal advisers of Karl, enters fully into the oft
repeated argument about milk and strong meat, and arrives thus at his
point.
“If the yoke easy and the burden light of Christ had been preached to
this most hard race, the Saxons, as carefully as the rendering of tithes
was required, and the legal penalties for the very smallest faults, it
may be that they would not have abhorred the sacraments of baptism. As to
those who are sent to teach them, _sint praedicatores non praedatores_,
let them preach, not prey.”
[Sidenote: Ep. 71.]
In another letter of that autumn, he sends full advice to Arno, the
bishop of Salzburg, as to the manner of teaching the faith to the Huns.
In the course of this letter he reminds Arno that the wretched race of
the Saxons has repeatedly lost the sacrament of baptism, because it never
had in heart the foundation of the faith.
In the year 801 the news reached Charlemagne that one Isaac the Jew,
whom he had sent four years before to the King of Persia, was returning,
bringing with him an elephant and many other presents. He had got as far
as Fez. Special arrangements were made for bringing the elephant across
the sea, and he arrived at Spezzia in October, wintering at Vercelli
because the Alps were already covered with snow. Eginhart thought the
arrival of the elephant at Aix-la-Chapelle to be of sufficient importance
to have the precise day named, the only event thus honoured in a year
rather full of events. It was the twentieth of July; and the elephant’s
name was Abulabaz. Under the year 810, another year full of important
events, Eginhart records that Charlemagne heard of a sudden and
successful raid of Northmen upon the Frisians; he set off in great haste,
summoned all his forces from all parts, crossed the Rhine at Lippenheim,
and waited there a few days for the troops to assemble. He had taken
his favourite animal with him. While he was waiting, the elephant died
suddenly. See Appendix E.
The strange form of an elephant made it a frequent subject for the
ornamentation of silk and woollen robes. We hear of silk pallia thus
adorned in Charlemagne’s lifetime, and it is probable that in a stuff of
this kind his body was clothed in the grave at Aachen. Alcuin’s great
predecessor in learning, Aldhelm, had a chasuble of scarlet silk, wrought
with black scrolls containing the representations of peacocks,[269] and
this chasuble was preserved at Malmesbury in the time of William of
Malmesbury, about 1140. The silk robes in which the body of St. Cuthbert
was wrapped were ornamented with large circular spaces containing men
on horseback with hawk and hound, and an island with trees, fishes, and
eider ducks.
[Illustration: PLATE VII
Elephant from the tomb of Charlemagne.
_To face p. 290_]
[Illustration: PLATE VIII
The fringe of the robe from the Tomb of Charlemagne.
_To face p. 291._]
Plate VII shows one medallion of a piece of silk found on the body of
Charlemagne when the grave was opened in the time of the present German
Emperor. It is certainly not of Charlemagne’s time. But it seems a fairly
safe guess to suppose that his well-known regard for his favourite beast
Abulabaz, who died only four years before him, caused his son to have
the body wrapped in one of the robes decorated with elephants which we
know that he possessed; and that either in the year 1000, when Otho
III opened the tomb, or in 1166, under Barbarossa, when Charlemagne
was canonized, this piece of silk replaced the decayed robe originally
buried there. We know of the two elephant-robes referred to from
Anastasius[270], who gives an enormous list of the art works in gold
and silver and silk and cloth of gold which were wrought for Leo III,
Charlemagne’s contemporary. One item is “two robes of Syrian purple, with
borders of cloth of gold wrought with elephants”. These robes Leo gave to
Charlemagne.
We can all but give the exact date of this remarkable Byzantine beast.
The inscription breaks off exactly where the date came. The Greek
inscription worked in the stuff (Plate VIII) sets forth that it was
made “under Michael the great chamberlain and controller of the privy
purse of the emperor, when Peter was the manager of Zeuxippos”, i. e.
the Byzantine court factory in Negropont. Then comes the tantalizing
_Indictionos_ (? B), and the date is lost.
Dreger, in his _Europäische Weberei und Stickerei_,[271] gives some early
examples of elephants in art. His Figure 37_b_ shows an archaic silver
relief of an elephant with a castle containing armed men. His Figure
37_a_ shows a silk stuff of the seventh or eighth century, of Asiatic
manufacture, with circular medallions containing elephants, griffins and
winged horses, hippogryffs; and he remarks that “the elephant is one of
the most holy beasts of Buddhism”. This silk stuff is shown in our Plate
IX from a photograph of the original. A comparison of these elephants
with the elephant shown in Plate VIII makes it fairly clear that the
Charlemagne stuff is later than the other, while in all of the details
of the beast itself, ears, three toes, eye, trunk, they are exactly the
same. Each has a tree behind the elephant; but while the Charlemagne tree
is a piece of stiff conventional work, the other is a natural tree with
leaves and fruit, much resembling the vegetable ornamentation of some
early Egyptian stuffs. Another feature pointing in the same direction is
the thirty-two conventional patterns on the circular enclosing border.
These in the earlier piece are twenty-eight plain disks.
There is an example of sculptured elephants something like this one, but
much more like the real beast, especially about the feet. The elephants
are the legs of the ivory chair[272] of Urso, at Canossa; he was Bishop
of Bari and Canossa 1078-89.
Something should be said about the language spoken by the people of
France and Germany in the times with which we are dealing, the reference
to a rustic tongue being not infrequent.
In the Council convened by Charlemagne at Tours in the year 813, equally
representing Eastern France and Western France, Austrasia and Neustria,
Germany and the Galliae, the bishops in the Transalpine Empire were
enjoined to be diligent in preaching, and to take care that their
discourses should be rendered either into Romana Rustica or into
Theotisc or Deutsch, that all might understand. It may be of interest
to give the earliest specimens we have of these native languages.
Philologically, these examples are of the very highest importance.
[Illustration: PLATE IX
Silk stuff of the seventh or eighth century.
_To face p. 292._]
In 841, after the dreadful battle of Fontenai near Vézelay in Burgundy,
where Charles-le-Chauve and Louis-le-Germanique combined against their
brother Lothar and their nephew Pepin and defeated them, they held a
Congress at Strassburg to confirm their alliance.
Louis and Charles each made announcement in Latin of the purpose of
their agreement, and of their intention to take in public an oath each
to other. That done, Louis, as the elder, first took the oath. Being
the ruler of the German portion of the empire, he took the oath in the
language of the Franks, the Romance tongue, Rustica Romana, in order that
the adherents of Charles might hear and understand his undertaking. These
were the words of his oath, probably read by a chancellor, for the Latin
account[273] says _haec se servaturum testatus est_:—
“Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, dist
di[274] in avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat[275], si salvarai
eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna[276] cosa, si cum
om[277] per dreit[278] son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi
fazet[279]; et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui meon vol[280]
cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.”
Then Charles said the same in the language of the Germans, the Teudisc or
Deutsch tongue. The Latin account uses a different phrase here, _haec
eadem verba testatus est_.
“In Godes minna ind in thes christianes folches ind unser bedhero
gehaltnissi, fon thesemo dage frammordes, so fram so mir Got geuuizci
indi mahd furgibit, so haldi thesan minan bruodher, soso man mit rehtu
sinan bruodher scal, in thiu, thaz er mig so sama duo; indi mit Ludheren
in nohheiniu thing ne gegango, the minan uuillon imo ce scadhen uuerdhen.”
The peoples then swore an oath, each in their own, not the other’s,
tongue. The Frank people swore in the Romance language:—
“Si Lodhuvigs sagrament, que son fradre Karlo iurat, conservat, et Karlus
meos sendra de suo part non los tanit, si io returnar non l’int pois: ne
io ne neuls, cui eo returnar int pois, in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuuuig
nun li iv er.”
The others then swore in the Teudisc language:—
“Oba Karl then eid, then er sinemo bruodher Ludhuuuige gesuor, geleistit,
indi Ludhuuuige min herro then er imo gesuor forbrihchit, ob ih inan es
iruuenden ne mag: noh ih no thero nohhein, then ih es iruuenden mag,
uuidhar Karle imo ce follusti ne uuirdhit.”
[Illustration: PLATE X
The _abrenuntiatio diaboli_ of Archbishop Boniface.
_To face p. 295._]
An example of language nearly a hundred years earlier than this is found
in the renunciation of the devil and the declaration of belief in God
which our own Boniface required of his converts from paganism. The form
is found attached to the decrees of a Council[281] held by Boniface,
probably in the year 743. It exists in a Vatican manuscript (Vat. Palat,
nro. 577, fol. 6, 7), which Pertz and other scholars believe to be of
contemporary date. The form is of such extreme interest that I have had
that part of it which is at the foot of folio 6 photographed, by the kind
help of a friend in the Vatican Library; see figure 10, the four lowest
lines.
This is the form:—
“Forsachistu diobolae? Ec forsacho diabolae.
End allum diobolgelde? End ec forsacho allum diobolgeldae.
End allum dioboles uuercum? End ec forsacho allum dioboles uuercum and
uuordum thunaer ende uuoden ende saxnote ende allum them unholdum the
hira genotas sint.
Gelobistu in Got alamehtigen fadaer? Ec gelobo in Got alamechtigen fadaer.
Gelobistu in Crist Godes suno? Ec gelobo in Crist Godes suno.
Gelobistu in halogen Gast? Ec gelobo in halogen Gast.”
An isolated piece of early “Saxon” is found in one of the letters
contained in vol. iii of the _Epistolae_ of the _Monumenta Germaniae
Historica_, the volume containing _Epistolae Meròwingici et Karolini
Aevi_ (Berlin, 1892). The letter is No. 146 of the “letters of Boniface
and Lull”. It is written by a poor and humble monk to a personage
described as _reverentissimus atque sanctissimus_, who would appear to
have had the reputation of not carrying out his purposes. The proverb
looks like the eighth century; Brandl thinks that it is pre-Christian.
The dialect is probably Northumbrian, varied by a West-Saxon or a German
scribe.
“I hear of thee that thou proposest to make a journey: I exhort thee not
to fail. Do what thou hast begun. Remember the Saxon saying
Oft daedlata dôme foreldit
Sigisitha gahuem suuyltit thi âna”.
That is, Often the tardy man (deed-late) loses glory, some victory; thus
he dies solitary.
The suggested date of the letter is A.D. 757-786.
Mention was made on page 57 of the inscriptions which exist on the great
shaft of a cross in the churchyard of Bewcastle in Cumberland. These
inscriptions are the earliest extant pieces of English prose. They give
the names of the King of Mercia, Wulfhere, his queen and her sister, with
the date “first year of Ecgfrith King of this realm”, that is, A.D. 670.
We have another inscription dated in Ecgfrith’s reign, that, namely, on
the dedication stone of the basilica of St. Paul at Jarrow, “in the 15th
year of King Ecgfrith and the fourth year of Abbat Ceolfrid”, so that
the manner of dating the Bewcastle cross was that usual at the time;
the Jarrow inscription is in Latin[282]. Plate XI shows a facsimile of
all except the two top lines (which were beyond my reach) of the main
inscription on the Bewcastle cross, a copy of which is given in a note
on page 57. The runes on Plate XI begin with the _gar_ of _Wothgar_, the
second of the three persons who “set up this slender token of victory in
memory of Alchfrith once King and son of Oswy”, the half-brother of King
Ecgfrith; mention has been made of him on page 9.
[Illustration: PLATE XI
Runes incised on the Bewcastle Cross.
_To face p. 296._]
[Illustration: PLATE XII
Runes incised on the Ruthwell Cross.
_To face p. 297._]
The earliest pieces of English verse in existence in their original
form are found on the Cross at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire, a monument of
equal magnificence with the Bewcastle Cross, and probably about fourteen
years later. King Ecgfrith was slain by the Picts in 685, and the Angles
were never dominant in the south-west of Scotland after his death. Plate
XII shows a portion of the many runes on this great monument, which is
described at pages 235-254 of my little book on _Theodore and Wilfrith_.
Reading across the top and down the right side the runes are as follows:—
_Krist wæs on rodi hwethræ ther fusæ fearran kwomu æththilæ til anum ic
thæt al bih[eald]._ Christ was on the cross, and there hastening from far
came they to the noble prince. I that all beh[eld].
Beginning at the top again and reading down the left side, we have:—
_Mith strelum giwundad alegdun hiæ hinæ limwoerignæ gistoddun him (æt his
licæs heafdum)._ With missiles wounded, they laid Him down limb-weary,
they stood at His body’s head.