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Alcuin of York c735 to 19 May 804
The life of Alcuin of York
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Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
Alcuin
of York is also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin.
He was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and
teacher from York, Northumbria. He was influential as a writer, as a mathematician,
and in his writing.
There is an In Our Time podcast on Alcuin, the cleric,
educator and poet from York who put learning
for its own sake at the heart of the Carolingian Renaissance.
Humber
735
He was born around 735 and became the
student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York.
Alcuin was born in Northumbria,
presumably sometime in the 730s. Virtually nothing is known of his parents,
family background, or origin. In common hagiographical fashion, the Vita Alcuini asserts that Alcuin was "of noble English
stock", and this statement has usually been accepted by scholars. His desecndants possibly owned land to the east of York, possibly
in the area of the Humber. Alcuin's own work only
mentions such collateral kinsmen as Wilgils, father
of the missionary saint Willibrord; and Beornrad
(also spelled Beornred), abbot of Echternach and
bishop of Sens. Willibrord, Alcuin and Beornrad were
all related by blood.
In his Life of St Willibrord, Alcuin
writes that Wilgils, called a paterfamilias, had
founded an oratory and church at the mouth of the Humber, which had fallen into
Alcuin's possession by inheritance. Because in early Anglo-Latin writing
paterfamilias ("head of a family, householder") usually referred to a
ceorl ("churl"), Donald A. Bullough suggests that Alcuin's family was
of cierlisc ("churlish") status: i.e., free
but subordinate to a noble lord, and that Alcuin and other members of his
family rose to prominence through beneficial connections with the aristocracy.If so, Alcuin's origins may lie in the southern
part of what was formerly known as Deira.
York
750s
The young Alcuin came to the cathedral
church of York during the golden age of
Archbishop Ecgbert and his brother, the Northumbrian King Eadberht. Ecgbert had
been a disciple of the Venerable Bede, who urged him to raise York to an
archbishopric. King Eadberht and Archbishop Ecgbert oversaw the re-energising
and reorganisation of the English church, with an emphasis on reforming the
clergy and on the tradition of learning that Bede had begun. Ecgbert was
devoted to Alcuin, who thrived under his tutelage.
Ecgbert promoted learning for its own
sake at York, beyond merely religious learning.
The York school was renowned as a centre
of learning in the liberal arts, literature, and science, as well as in
religious matters. From here, Alcuin drew inspiration for the school he would
lead at the Frankish court. He revived the school with the trivium and
quadrivium disciplines, writing a codex on the trivium, while his student
Hraban wrote one on the quadrivium.
Alcuin graduated to become a teacher
during the 750s.
767
His ascendancy to the headship of the
York school, the ancestor of St Peter's School, began after Aelbert became
Archbishop of York in 767. Around the same time, Alcuin became a deacon in the
church. He was never ordained a priest. Though no real evidence shows that he
took monastic vows, he lived as if he had.
Rome
781
In 781, King Elfwald
sent Alcuin to Rome to petition the pope for official confirmation of York's
status as an archbishopric and to confirm the election of the new archbishop,
Eanbald I.
On his way home, he met Charlemagne
(whom he had met once before), this time in the Italian city of Parma
Francia
770s
Alcuin was a court chancellor in Aachen.
780s
At the invitation of Charlemagne, Alcuin
became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he
remained a figure in the 780s and 790s.
Alcuin's intellectual curiosity allowed
him to be reluctantly persuaded to join Charlemagne's court. He joined an
illustrious group of scholars whom Charlemagne had gathered around him, the
mainsprings of the Carolingian Renaissance: Peter of Pisa, Paulinus of
Aquileia, Rado, and Abbot Fulrad. Alcuin would later
write, "the Lord was calling me to the service of King Charles".
Alcuin was "The most learned man
anywhere to be found", according to Einhard's Life of Charlemagne (c. 817–833).
Alcuin is considered among the most important intellectual architects of the
Carolingian Renaissance.
Among his pupils were many of the
dominant intellectuals of the Carolingian era.
During this period, he perfected
Carolingian minuscule, an easily read manuscript hand using a mixture of upper-
and lower-case letters. Latin paleography in the
eighth century leaves little room for a single origin of the script, and
sources contradict his importance as no proof has been found of his direct
involvement in the creation of the script. Carolingian minuscule was already in
use before Alcuin arrived in Francia. Most likely he was responsible for
copying and preserving the script while at the same time restoring the purity
of the form.
Alcuin wrote many theological and
dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and a
number of poems.
782
Alcuin became master of the Palace
School of Charlemagne in Aachen (Urbs Regale) in 782. It had been founded by
the king's ancestors as a place for the education of the royal children (mostly
in manners and the ways of the court). However, Charlemagne wanted to include
the liberal arts, and most importantly, the study of religion.
From 782 to 790, Alcuin taught
Charlemagne himself, his sons Pepin and Louis, as well
as young men sent to be educated at court, and the young clerics attached to
the palace chapel. Bringing with him from York his assistants Pyttel, Sigewulf, and Joseph,
Alcuin revolutionised the educational standards of the Palace School,
introducing Charlemagne to the liberal arts and creating a personalised
atmosphere of scholarship and learning, to the extent that the institution came
to be known as the 'school of Master Albinus'.
In this role as adviser, he took issue
with the emperor's policy of forcing pagans to be baptised on pain of death,
arguing, "Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must
appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be
baptised, but you cannot force them to believe." His arguments seem to
have prevailed – Charlemagne abolished the death penalty for paganism in 797.
Charlemagne gathered the best men of
every land in his court, and became far more than just
the king at the centre. It seems that he made many of these men his closest
friends and counsellors. They referred to him as 'David', a reference to the
Biblical king David. Alcuin soon found himself on intimate terms with Charlemagne
and the other men at court, where pupils and masters were known by affectionate
and jesting nicknames. Alcuin himself was known as 'Albinus' or 'Flaccus'.
While at Aachen, Alcuin bestowed pet names upon his pupils – derived mainly
from Virgil's Eclogues. According to the Encyclopædia
Britannica, "He loved Charlemagne and enjoyed the king's esteem, but
his letters reveal that his fear of him was as great as his love."
After the death of Pope Adrian I, Alcuin
was commissioned by Charlemagne to compose an epitaph for Adrian. The epitaph
was inscribed on black stone quarried at Aachen and carried to Rome where it
was set over Adrian's tomb in the south transept of St
Peter's basilica just before Charlemagne's coronation in the basilica on
Christmas Day 800.
790
In 790, Alcuin returned from the court
of Charlemagne to England, to which he had remained attached.
He dwelt there for some time, but
Charlemagne then invited him back to help in the fight against the Adoptionist heresy, which was at that time making great
progress in Toledo, the old capital of the Visigoths and still a major city for
the Christians under Islamic rule in Spain. He is believed to have had contacts
with Beatus of Liébana, from the Kingdom of Asturias, who fought against
Adoptionism.
794
At the Council of Frankfurt in 794,
Alcuin upheld the orthodox doctrine against the views expressed by Felix of Urgel, an heresiarch according to
the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Having failed during his stay in Northumbria to
influence King Æthelred in the conduct of his reign,
Alcuin never returned home.
He was back at Charlemagne's court by at
least mid-792, writing a series of letters to Æthelred,
to Hygbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and to Æthelhard, Archbishop of Canterbury in the succeeding
months, dealing with the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in July 793. These
letters and Alcuin's poem on the subject, "De clade Lindisfarnensis
monasterii", provide the only significant
contemporary account of these events. In his description of the Viking attack,
he wrote: "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain. Behold the
church of St Cuthbert, splattered with the blood of God's priests, robbed of
its ornaments."
Tours
796
In 796, he was made abbot of Marmoutier Abbey, in Tours, where he remained until his
death.
In 796, Alcuin was in his 60s. He hoped
to be free from court duties and upon the death of Abbot Itherius
of Saint Martin at Tours, Charlemagne put Marmoutier
Abbey into Alcuin's care, with the understanding that he should be available if
the king ever needed his counsel. There, he encouraged the work of the monks on
the beautiful Carolingian minuscule script, ancestor of modern Roman typefaces.
804
Alcuin died on 19 May 804, some 10 years
before the emperor, and was buried at St. Martin's Church under an epitaph that
partly read:
Dust, worms, and ashes now ...
Alcuin my name, wisdom I always loved,
Pray, reader, for my soul.
The majority of details on Alcuin's life come from his
letters and poems. Also, autobiographical sections are in Alcuin's poem on York and in the Vita Alcuini, a
hagiography written for him at Ferrières in the 820s,
possibly based in part on the memories of Sigwulf, one of Alcuin's pupils.