Alcuin II: Theology and Thought 0227173945, 9780227173947

Citation preview

Alcuin

Alcuin Theology and Thought

Douglas Dales

C James Clarke & Co

James Clarke and Co P.O. Box 60 Cambridge CB1 2NT www.jamesclarke.co [email protected]

ISBN: 978 0 227 17394 7

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A record is available from the British Library

Copyright © Douglas Dales, 2013

First Published, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this edition may be reproduced, stored electronically or in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Publisher ([email protected]).

For Colin Fraser & my pupils

Optima et pulcherrima vitae supellex amicitia Cicero – De Amicitia

Those ancient and far distant ages . . . we may, we ought to leave far behind in what we hope to achieve. But in our eagerness for improvement, it concerns us to be on our guard against the temptation of thinking that we can have the fruit or the flower, and yet destroy the root; that we may retain the high view of human nature which has grown with the growth of Christian nations, and discard that revelation of Divine love and human destiny of which that view forms a part or a consequence; that we may retain the moral energy, and yet make light of the faith that produced it. It concerns us that we do not despise our birthright, and cast away our heritage of gifts and powers, which we may lose, but not recover. Dean Church, Gifts of Civilization

Sis memor Albini per tempora longa magistri. In Christo sit unitas, sine quo nulla perfecta est caritas.

Contents Foreword by Dr Rowan Williams Preface Abbreviations Alcuin’s Principal Writings Latin and Greek Vocabulary

9 11 13 14 15

Part One Alcuin’s Formation and Reputation Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

1 2 3 4

The Legacy of Bede Formation at York Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court Controversy over Images

19 28 39 48

Part Two The Adoptionist Crisis Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

5 6 7 8 9

Spanish Adoptionism The Frankish Reaction Felix and Alcuin Alcuin’s Christology Alcuin’s De Fide

59 66 75 85 94

Part Three Mission, Episcopacy and Monarchy Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13

Mission Hagiography Alcuin and the Bishops King Dei Gratia

112 123 132 140

Part Four The Bible Chapter 14 The Tours Scriptorium Chapter 15 Alcuin and the Old Testament Chapter 16 Alcuin and the New Testament

149 154 161

Part Five Prayer Chapter 17 Cultivating Prayer Chapter 18 Penitence Chapter 19 Liturgy

171 180 186

Part Six Education Chapter 20 The Teacher Chapter 21 Cultivating the Mind Chapter 22 Theology for the Laity

193 204 216

Part Seven Poetry Chapter 23 The Poet and his Friends Chapter 24 The Poet at Work Chapter 25 Alcuin’s Theology of Friendship Notes Appendices Bibliography Index

220 228 239 245 317 322 351

Foreword by Dr Rowan Williams Alcuin of York was one of the most influential intellectual and spiritual presences in the Europe of Charlemagne; heir of the sophisticated scholarship of Bede and Bede’s immediate pupils, he played a key role in the major doctrinal debates of his era, exercising a formative influence on the Western Church’s response both to its internal troubles with theological innovation in Spain and to challenges from the unfamiliar world of Byzantine thought. While he was not an original theological mind of the stature of Augustine or Gregory, he had a genius for synthesis, and his clear and elegant summaries of the main points on which the Fathers of the Church converged made his work an indispensable tool of education for centuries. But he was also a liturgist, a poet and a grammarian of great skill. Like Bede, he was the channel through which a whole world of classical as well as patristic learning flowed on to a new generation. At the same time, he was wholly committed to the programme of Church reform that was under way in Charlemagne’s empire and to the missionary endeavours that were constantly enlarging the Church’s boundaries: his educational concern was to create not simply good scholars but prayerful and effective pastors and evangelists. He was a significant figure in the politics and diplomacy of Charlemagne’s court and a man who formed deep and lasting friendships with colleagues. His work is an all-important bridge between the world of Boethius, Cassiodorus and Gregory the Great and that of Anselm, or indeed of Bernard of Clairvaux and Aelred. The present book fills a serious gap. We have not had an up-to-date overview of the copious research of recent decades on Alcuin and on the controversies of his day, or a guide to the way in which his theological writing helped to create a shared doctrinal idiom in Western Europe. In these pages, written in tandem with a full biographical study, Douglas Dales, who has already published distinguished studies of the AngloSaxon Church, offers just such a survey and guide, presenting Alcuin’s thought with the greatest possible insight, sympathy and lucidity. The comprehensive character of his reading is evident in a most impressive and helpful bibliography, and he covers all the diverse areas of Alcuin’s interests with a sure hand.

10

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Alcuin deserves to be recognised – far more than has often been the case – as a key figure in the evolution of the mediaeval mind; and no one reading this book could fail to see him in this light. This is a fine and welcome tribute to one of the greatest gifts the British Church gave to the wider Catholic fellowship in the early Middle Ages. + Rowan Cantuar 22 August 2012 – Lambeth Palace, London

Preface This book complements Alcuin – His Life and Legacy and completes my study of Alcuin’s contribution to the formation of Catholic Christianity in Western Europe at the end of the eighth century. I am grateful to Dr Rowan Williams who, as an old friend and as Archbishop of Canterbury, has always showed me every kindness and encouragement, and who has generously contributed a foreword to this book. This volume is dedicated, with great gratitude and respect, to Colin Fraser, my close friend and colleague, an outstanding Classics teacher and for a long time a senior master at Marlborough College; and also to my many pupils there, whose company I have always valued and the memory of whom is a very happy one. I have found teaching them to be a real stimulus to my studies and writing: their friendship and questions have been a great inspiration and help to me in my work as a priest and scholar over many fruitful years as Chaplain of Marlborough College. It is most fortunate that Alcuin’s principal theological work De Fide has now been published, edited by E. Knibbs and E.A. Matter in a full critical edition and it is good to know that other theological writings by him are in the process of preparation for future publication. I hope that this study, along with these critical editions, will demonstrate Alcuin’s seminal importance for early medieval theology, and that in due time he will be formally recognised as a Doctor of the Church alongside his great mentor and inspiration – Bede. At a time of considerable confusion in the Anglican Communion and challenge for the Roman Catholic Church in much of Western society, the foundation laid by Alcuin and others as disciples of Christ and of Gregory the Great remains to be rediscovered, affirmed and appropriated for the unity, life and effective witness of the Christian Church now and in the years ahead. Douglas Dales Feast of St Dunstan & Memorial of Alcuin 19 May 2012 – at Marlborough College.

Abbreviations AGG Tremp, E., & Schmuki, K., (eds.) Alkuin von York und die geistige Grundlegung Europas (St Gallen, 2010) AL Archiv fur Liturgiewissenschaft ALC Jullien, M-H., & Perelman, F., (ed.) Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi – Auctores Galliae 735-987: tomus II – ALCUINUS (Turnhout, 1999) ASE Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge) AY Depreux, P. & Judic, B., (eds.) Alcuin de York à Tours: écriture, pouvoir et réseaux dans l’Europe du haut moyen âge (Rennes) 2005 CBA Council for British Archaeology DA Deutsches Archiv DAB Bullough, D.A., Alcuin – achievement & reputation (Leiden & Boston) 2004 EETS Early English Text Society EHD Whitelock, D., (ed.) English Historical Documents vol.1 (London) 1979 EHR English Historical Review EME Early Medieval Europe EL Ephemerides Liturgicae FK Berndt, R., (ed.) Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794: Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur (Mainz) 1997 GL Houwen L. & MacDonald, A., (eds.) Alcuin of York: scholar at the Carolingian court – proceedings of the third Germania Latina conference held at the University of Groningen, Germania Latina 3 (Groningen) 1998 H&S Haddan, A., & Stubbs, W., (eds.) Councils & Ecclesiastical Documents (Oxford) 1869 HBS Henry Bradshaw Society (London) HE Colgrave, B. & Mynors, R.A.B., (trs.) Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English people (Oxford) 1969 HTR Harvard Theological Review JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JML Journal of Medieval Latin JMH Journal of Medieval History JTS Journal of Theological Studies MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica MLR Modern Language Review PL Patrologia Latina PMR Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval & Renaissance Conferences RB Revue Benedictine SSCI Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto) TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society VG Vulgate

Alcuin’s Principal Writings Correlated with the Clavis numeration

ALC 5 ALC 6 ALC 9 ALC10 ALC 11 ALC 12 ALC 15 ALC 17 ALC 26 ALC 28 ALC 30 ALC 32 ALC 33 ALC 34 ALC 36 ALC 37 ALC 38 ALC 40 ALC 41 ALC 44 ALC 45 ALC 49 ALC 50 ALC 51 ALC 61 ALC 64 ALC 75 ALC 76 ALC 78 ALC 87 ALC 89 ALC 90 ALC 91 ALC 92

Adversus Elipandum Adversus Felicem Ars grammatica Calculatio Albini Carmina Comes ab Albinus emendatus Compendium in Canticum Canticorum De Animae ratione De Dialectica De Fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis De Laude Dei De Orthographia De Psalmorum usu De Saltu lunae De Trinitate ad Freegisum Quaestiones xxviii De Virtutibus et vitiis Disputatio de Rhetorica et de virtutibus Disputatio de vera Philosophia Disputatio Pippini cum Albino Enchiridion in psalmos Epistulae Explanatio Apocalypsis Expositio in Ecclesiasten Expositio in Iohannis evangelium Inscriptiones Liber contra Felicis haeresim Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes Quaestiones in Genesism ad litteram Ratio de luna XV et de cursu lunae Versus de patribus regibus et sanctis Euboricensis ecclesiae Vita sancti Martini Vita sancti Richarii Vita sancti Vedasti Vita sancti Willibrordi

Latin and Greek Vocabulary Key words in the Christian Latin and Greek used by Alcuin and his contemporaries Abbas Acta Adoptio Adoptivus Adorare Agnus Amabilis Amicitia Amoenus Amor Anima Armaria Assumpta Auctoritas Beatus Capitula Cappa Caput mundi Caritas Carmina Cartula Casta Castigatio Castitas Cella Charta Christianitas Christus Civiles Clerici Codex Colonia Computus

abbot acts adoption adopted to adore lamb loving friendship attractive/congenial love mind/soul chest of books assumed authority blessed chapters hat head city of the world (i.e. Rome) Christian love poems document chaste chastisement chastity monastic cell document Christianity Christ/anointed civil clergy book Roman colony calculation

Communio sanctorum communion of saints Concordia harmony/peace Confessio prayer of confession /tomb of an apostle or martyr in a Roman church Correctio correction Credendi of belief Cultor cultivator Cursus rhythmic pattern in a prayer or poem Defensor defender Deus God Diaconiae papal food-stores Dialectica the art of argument Dicta sayings Diligenter diligently Doctissimus most learned Doctus educated Doctor teacher Dominus lord Domus cultae papal farms Dulcedo sweetness Dulcis sweet Enchiridion hand-book Essentia essence Exul exile Familia household of a bishop/monastery Familiaritas family feeling in a religious community Fidelitas faithfulness Filioque ‘and the Son’ (in the Nicene Creed)

16 Filius Florilegium Glossa ordinaria Grammatica Gratia Hagia Sophia Hibernicus Homo Honestus Hortus conclusus Imitatio Imperialis Imperium Iniquus Iustitia Labarum Lectio divina Lector Lex Libellus Liber vitae Limina Linguae Locus Magister Matricularius Mendacia Mens Mimesis Miserere Missus Mores Natura Nomina Noster Nuncupativus Onera Optimus Orandi Orbis caput Ordinata

Alcuin – Theology and Thought son collection of extracts of texts glosses on the text of the Bible grammar grace holy Wisdom Irish man honest enclosed garden imitation imperial empire/overlordship unjust justice standard holy reading reader law little book book of benefactors of a monastery thresholds (i.e. of the apostles, Peter & Paul in Rome) languages place master beneficiary, pensioner falsehoods mind imitation have mercy envoy customs nature names our nominally burdens best of prayer head of the world (Rome) ordained

Opus geminatum Palatium Pallium Paradises Pastor Pater Paterfamilias Patria Pax Peregrinus Perihermeneias Perihermenias Persona Pietas Pontifex Populus Potentes Potentia Potestas Praeclarus Praedicator Preces Presbyterus Primicerius Prudens Psychomachia Pueri Ratio Rector Regnum Res publica Reddere Refulgens Renovatio Rex Romanitas Rustica Sacer Sacerdos Sacra via Sanctorale Sacramentum

work of poetry and prose palace token of primatial authority given by the pope of Paradise shepherd/bishop father head of a clan/family homeland peace pilgrim of Paradise hermeneutics person/character piety/devotion Pope people powerful ones authoritative capacity power notable preacher prayers priest chief minister prudent spiritual/moral struggle boys reason/account ruler kingdom polity to render/ to give back resplendent renewal king Roman ethos rustic holy priest/bishop holy way liturgical feasts commemorating saints sacrament

Latin and Greek Vocabulary Saeculum Sanctus Sapientia Schemata Schola

Scolastici Scrinarius Scriptorium Scriptura Sermo Servus Servulus Sophia Subsistentia Substantia Sylloges

this age holy wisdom diagrams school/group of dedicated people/residential area in Rome scholars scribe writing room Scripture sermon servant/slave little servant divine wisdom subsistence substance collections

17 Symbolus Temporale Theotokos Titulus Traditio Transitus Triclinium Trivium Trisagion Vestigia Via media Via regia Vir Vita Urbs

credal statement ordinary liturgical seasons God-bearer title of a church tradition crossing dining hall three basic disciplines of learning the thrice holy hymn – the Sanctus footsteps the middle way royal way man life city/fortified community

Part One Alcuin’s Formation and Reputation Chapter 1 The Legacy of Bede Alcuin was a conscious heir to the rich traditions of the English Church, which had been created among the Anglo-Saxons in the century and half before his birth in around 740. The father of this church was Pope Gregory the Great, the ‘apostle of the English’; and all that Alcuin set out to accomplish was consistent with the pastoral and evangelistic approach outlined by Bede which had governed the pope’s mission, led by Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York, to the Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century. As a Northumbrian, born probably near York and certainly educated there, Alcuin modelled his learning and teaching upon the memory of Bede, who had died in 735 just around the time that he was born. Bede’s study of the Bible, and his History of how the early Anglo-Saxon church had been created, provided the framework for much of Alcuin’s own thinking. Bede and Alcuin were both disciples of Gregory, and their own work in expounding the Bible and Christian theology flowed from his example and legacy and complemented it. In many ways the life and career of Alcuin can be seen as a continuation of the work of Bede. Bede’s significance and influence is therefore essential background not only to understanding Alcuin, but also to the emergence of the school of York in which he was formed. Consideration of how far the writing of Alcuin mirrored that of Bede and developed it also gives a conspectus of his intellectual horizons and resources. Alcuin’s example and legacy is one of the reasons why Bede’s writings became so widespread in the continental Church. Bede is generally remembered in England for his History,1 in which he recounted in careful detail the story of how Christianity came to the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the seventh century. On the continent, however, in the century immediately after Bede’s death in 735, and for the rest of the Middle Ages, it was his biblical exegesis and mathematical work that was most highly valued.2 Alcuin was one of those who did as much as anyone to secure and enhance Bede’s reputation on the continent, and his own work can be seen in part as a conscious development from where Bede left off. So much so, that for many centuries afterwards some of their work was so

20

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

intertwined in the manuscripts that writings by Alcuin were often attributed to Bede, and work by Bede was bound up with texts that took their origin from Alcuin and his circle of disciples. At a much deeper level, Bede was in many ways the key to the person Alcuin became, both as a scholar and as a theologian, even though he never knew him personally, probably being born around the year that he died.3 Bede and Alcuin saw themselves as disciples of Gregory the Great, continuing and completing his work in moral theology and the study of the Bible. Both men were natural teachers and masters of lucid Latin prose, poetry and prayer. Bede grew up in the monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, in the north-east of England by the mouth of the river Tyne.4 His Lives of the Abbots5 records in loving detail the founding of the monastery, its lavish endowment by its abbot, Benedict Biscop, and its development under his successor, Abbot Ceolfrith. Bede was fortunate to be able to spend the bulk of his life from his childhood within the rich environment of prayer, art and study that Benedict had created. The architecture of the monastery was modelled on buildings in Gaul, and it possessed an extensive library by the standards of the day. Its scriptorium was capable of producing the famous Codex Amiatinus of the Bible, which is now in Florence: this is one of the earliest complete editions of the Vulgate text of the Bible. The rule of the monastery was derived from Benedict Biscop’s experience of visiting numerous continental monasteries, acknowledging among these the particular significance of the Rule of St Benedict. Bede himself devoted his time exclusively to the life of being a monk, which included teaching, reading and writing. In addition to his work on the Bible and his History, he composed hagiographies and a martyrology, works on poetry and metre, and studies in chronology and the calculation of time. He was of a scientific turn of mind, but he was also a poet in both Latin and English. Bede was also instrumental in helping to establish the cult of Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, composing Lives of the saint in prose and verse. He was at times a frank adviser to his pupil, Egbert, Archbishop of York, under whose patronage Alcuin himself was later educated. Everything Bede did was designed to undergird the intellectual and spiritual life of the English Church. Bede was a great theologian of the Church and it is essential to grasp his ecclesiology or doctrine of the Church in order to do full justice not only to his History but also to his other writings. This ecclesiology is found notably in his treatises De Tabernaculo6 and De Templo,7 concerning the spiritual significance of the descriptions of the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament. His competence as a theologian of the Church is also evident in his computistical work, both in his early work De Temporibus and especially in his much later and fuller work De Temporum Ratione,8 which remained one of his most influential legacies.9 This book was a fusion of natural history with the science of computing calendars; and the calculation of Easter in the western Church has rested upon Bede’s methods ever since.

Chapter 1 – The Legacy of Bede

21

Bede believed that the life of a saint, or the development of a national Church, revealed the way in which eternal and divine reality interacted with and fashioned temporal experience, giving it its true and abiding meaning, as evident in the Bible. In his De Templo, Bede set out his mature reflection on the nature of the Church, as the framework in which divine transformation can occur in the lives of saints, both known and unknown. This dynamic dimension accounted also for the mission of the Church to England that he described with such care in his History: there was an outer meaning for the English people to the events that he records; but there was also an inner one, as in a hagiography: and each dimension of history shed light on the other. This was supremely true of the Bible itself, which was the yardstick by which Bede measured the events and people that he studied. His belief in the divine pattern of salvation, discernible in the recent history of his own Church, led Bede to some forthright moral exhortation and criticism, directed towards the clergy and bishops of his own day, as well as to those aspiring to the monastic life. In many ways his approach to the Bible, reflected also in his History, set forth the morally exemplary as spiritually significant, as he indicated in his introduction to his History and demonstrated throughout his exegetical writings about the Bible. In his letter to Archbishop Egbert of York,10 written at the very end of his life in 734, Bede was quite outspoken in his strictures on the ways in which the Northumbrian church was developing. Unlike Alcuin however, Bede was not so actively involved with political life in either church or state. His sense of moral theology was reinforced by the way in which he portrayed some of the people who were, to his mind, crucial in establishing the life of the English Church, for example Aidan or Cuthbert. Commissioned by the king of Northumbria, and relying on widespread collaboration throughout the English church, his History was a mirror for princes as well as for bishops and abbots. It was striking too in the way in which it saw the English people as constituting one Church and therefore one people, transcending their tribal and ancestral traditions: its title makes this important assertion of embryonic national identity.11 Bede died as he had lived, dictating to a young pupil called Wilbert a translation of the gospel of John into English, while preparing also a selection of Isidore of Seville’s De Natura Rerum. He passed away on the floor of his cell while at prayer.12 Within Alcuin’s lifetime it was believed that miracles occurred at his tomb, while later some of his relics made their way to York, and others to St Boniface’s church at Fulda in Germany.13 The inherent intellectual strength of the Northumbrian church owed much, as Alcuin perceived and indicated, to Bede’s teaching, and Egbert’s primacy and educational programme at York was its immediate memorial. Some letters remain from English missionaries on the continent that reflect how swiftly Bede’s legacy empowered their mission, including one from Boniface, who apparently did not initially know Bede’s writings; for in 746 or 747 he wrote to Archbishop Egbert in York: ‘I beseech you to copy and send to me some treatises from the work of the teacher, Bede, whom lately, as we have heard,

22

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

divine grace has endowed with spiritual understanding and allowed to shine in your province, so that we may benefit from that candle which the Lord bestowed upon you.’14 He wrote around the same time in similar tones to Abbot Hwaetberht of Monkwearmouth.15 In a later letter Boniface thanked archbishop Egbert for sending him some books, and asked him to send Bede’s homilies, ‘because it would be a very handy and useful manual for us in our preaching,’ along with his commentary on the book of Proverbs.16 Some ten years after Boniface’s martyrdom in 754, Abbot Cuthbert of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow wrote to Lullus, Archbishop of Mainz, Boniface’s close colleague, disciple and successor, thanking him for a silk robe that he had sent for the relics of Bede ‘our master of blessed memory’. He wrote: for it seems right to me that the whole race of the English in all provinces wherever they are found, should give thanks to God, that He has granted to them so wonderful a man in their nation, endowed with diverse gifts, and so assiduous in the exercise of those gifts, and likewise living such a good life. Abbot Cuthbert sent with this letter a copy of the two Lives of St Cuthbert, written by Bede in prose and verse, and would have sent more copies of works composed by Bede had not the winter been so severe ‘that the hand of the scribe was hindered from producing a great number of books.’17 In a subsequent letter to Abbot Cuthbert, now lost, Lullus requested Bede’s book De Templo and also his commentary on the Song of Songs. A few years later, Lullus wrote to the new Archbishop of York, Aelberht, who was Alcuin’s immediate and beloved master, asking for Bede’s commentaries on I Samuel, Ezra and Nehemiah, and on the gospel of Mark. Another letter of Aelberht to Lullus mentions a request received for books, probably written by Bede, on cosmography and natural phenomena like tides: but no suitable scribe was then available who was capable of handling such complicated works with their diagrams.18 Nearly a century later, in the midst of the Viking attacks, Lupus Abbot of Ferrières, a pupil of Hrabanus Maur who was himself a pupil of Alcuin’s, remembering the reputation of the school at York, wrote to Ealdsige, an abbot in York, requesting books by Jerome, Cassiodorus, Quintilian and the Questions of ‘your Bede’ on both testaments of the Bible.19 Levison pointed out long ago that Cuthbert’s letter on the death of Bede reached the continent at an early date. Furthermore some of the most important texts of early Anglo-Saxon church history only survive today because of their having been copied there before the Viking era: notably the first anonymous Life of Cuthbert from Lindisfarne, the first Life of Gregory the Great from Whitby, and Bede’s Martyrology; also some of the earliest Anglo-Saxon calendars, for example that of Willibrord himself, as well as the poem by Alcuin about the church at York, which survives in only two manuscripts from Rheims.20 This state of affairs is a good measure of the depredations caused by the Viking invasions upon settled monastic life and learning in England in the ninth century, about which King Alfred the Great was later to lament.

Chapter 1 – The Legacy of Bede

23

Alcuin shared in his contemporaries’ veneration for the memory of Bede. He included an extensive encomium of him in his poem about the church at York:‘Bede grew up in the monastery and from childhood was a model monk, wise beyond his years. Eager to learn and diligent as a writer and teacher, he wrote many books, plumbing the depths of Scripture, compiling a handbook on the art of metre and writing with great clarity about the calculation of time; . . . he was a lucid writer of history and a prolific poet. He followed closely the steps of the Fathers in his deeds, his spirit and his faith, by treading their narrow path throughout his life.’21 Alcuin described Bede in these lines as presbyter eximius meritis, praeclarus doctor, and elsewhere as praeclarus sacerdos.22 He saw him as the latest in a long line of Church Fathers,23 and it would seem that the tradition of active scholarship that Bede had nurtured passed from Monkwearmouth-Jarrow to York while Alcuin was being educated there. As Bullough says, ‘What above all Bede seems to have done for the young Alcuin was to provide a standard by which he could measure himself, and to have given or confirmed a sense of purpose underlying the most immediately practical parts of a Christian education; and also, by implication, to have drawn attention to some of the areas where his work required supplementation.’24 The apparent link between Bede and Alcuin must surely be through Egbert, the Archbishop of York himself, although this is never made explicit by Alcuin, who was closer personally to Egbert’s successor Aelberht. This likely succession of influence was probably a common perception within the church at York and beyond, and it certainly passed into the memory of Alcuin’s disciples as is evident in the Life of Alcuin. Detailed examination of the writings of Alcuin reveals how intimate was the connection between his work and Bede’s in range, style, and content. In part it was a case of supplementation and completion; it was certainly not mere imitation. But at a deeper level there was a dialogue going in Alcuin’s mind with the thought of his revered predecessor. Like Bede, he was concerned to elucidate and distil the wisdom of Christian Latin theology and to communicate it to a rising and receptive generation. Both men felt a moral urgency in this matter, and for Alcuin in particular as a teacher the duty to communicate and to engage with his readers was always paramount. Both were disciples of Augustine, whose thought was mediated to them in varying ways through the writings of Gregory the Great and others, as well as by direct access to his theology.25 Overt association with the works of Bede is apparent in a wide range of Alcuin’s writings and this gives a good introduction to the variety of his interests and research. There are four main groups: educational; computistical; exegetical, and historical. But there are many other allusions to Bede’s poetry and modes of expression embedded throughout Alcuin’s writings.26 Bede’s work was one of the principal sources for Alcuin’s Ars grammatica, which was an elementary introduction to grammar written at Tours around

24

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

the year 798.27 This presented an entertaining approach comprising a dialogue between two teenage pupils, Frankish and Saxon. Closely related to this is Alcuin’s De orthographia which for many years was transmitted as a work of Bede’s.28 It is mentioned in the Vita Alcuini and it was later used by William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century in his compilation of authorities on orthography. Both Bede and Alcuin were concerned with the correct use of Latin in an environment where standards could easily be lowered by vernacular influences, defective manuscripts or poor education, to say nothing of the vulnerability of written records to destruction by fire, damp, and vermin. In his De dialectica, written around 795-7 in the form of a dialogue between himself and Charlemagne, Alcuin alluded in his poetic prologue to the resources that he had been able to bring with him from his native land, prominent among which were evidently the writings of Bede.29 Fundamental to his Versus de laude metricae artis was Bede’s De arte metrica.30 Alcuin’s short poem was a very neat way of remembering the quantities of Latin syllables, classifying verbs by the length of their vowels. It seems to have been composed by him towards the end of his life at Tours, probably for use by his pupils at the school there. Both Bede and Alcuin had a mathematical turn of mind and there was a steady demand for computistical clarity at a high level.31 Charlemagne himself had an active interest in this matter and there remain letters between the king and Alcuin, raising and clarifying questions related to the calculation of time and other astronomical matters. The first of these was written by Alcuin in November 797 to Charlemagne, addressing the correct way of adjusting the calendar to allow for the progression of the lunar months.32 There is just one letter now remaining by the king, written in March 798, addressing Alcuin affectionately as dilectissimus magister et abbas, and questioning some of the points that he had made in an earlier letter33 about the calculations behind the keeping of Lent and its preceding Sundays, by appealing to the authority of Gregory the Great – ‘as our blessed and wonderful Gregory used to teach.’34 Both letters demonstrate the close connection between computation of time and Christian theology, as is evident at a more elaborate level in Bede’s De Temporum Ratione. This work stands behind much of what Alcuin wrote on these matters and had a long influence among the Carolingian scholars of the ninth century. Alcuin’s correspondence with the court continued throughout 798, dealing with the proper calculation of the movement of the moon,35 and also setting forth an elaborate treatise on various astronomical matters for the king, which rested heavily upon chapter sixteen of Bede’s work De Temporum Ratione.36 This letter was a significant statement of some of the most important principles governing Alcuin’s understanding of the relationship between theology and science, for both disciplines of thought concern reality and truth. There was a further letter, written in July 798, which dealt among other things with the planet Mars, which was highly visible that

Chapter 1 – The Legacy of Bede

25

year, and again challenged the views of some of his rivals at court.37 Finally, there was a further response to some questions of astronomy to do with movements within the solar system.38 This intense correspondence reveals Alcuin’s lively interest in astronomy for its own sake, and his reluctance to advance opinions beyond those of established authorities such as Pliny and Bede himself, referring directly to Bede’s treatise De Temporibus. His reticence was evident again in a letter of 799, replying to one by the king, enquiring into the diminution of the paschal moon, in which Alcuin professed the hope that Athens was being reborn in Francia. 39 After receiving the king’s response to this letter, Alcuin wrote yet again on various matters, defending his calculations and summarising his understanding of the solar cycle.40 Closely associated with this correspondence was Alcuin’s treatise De saltu lunae, which addressed the calculation of intercalary days.41 This work was for a long time associated with a text attributed to Alcuin, De bissexto, though this in fact rested upon Irish traditions antecedent to Bede.42 A glimpse into a possible root of Alcuin’s interest and formation may be found in an anonymous treatise called Calculatio Albini, attributed to him in a single manuscript copied at Lorsch in the ninth century, now in the Vatican.43 It may have come from York and been an early essay on the subject by him, derived from antecedent material; it was sometimes attributed to Bede and it exists in two recensions, one of which is dated 776. The most obvious and potent parallel between the work of Bede and that of Alcuin lay in the field of biblical exegesis. Alcuin set out to supplement or distil the work of Bede and, before him, of Gregory the Great. His Compendium in Canticum canticorum was an abbreviation and adaptation of Bede’s own work on the subject.44 An Explanatio Apocalypsis attributed to Alcuin took the form of questions and answers derived from Bede’s work on this text in the New Testament, and also from Gregory’s Moralia.45 It may have sprung from Alcuin’s immediate circle. There is also an incomplete commentary on the Apocalypse in five books, Expositio Apocalypsis, sometimes attributed to Bede, and possibly by Alcuin himself.46 Alcuin’s commentary on John’s gospel, however, was developed rather than simply derivative from the Latin Fathers, Augustine, Gregory, and Bede.47 It was transmitted in two parts in 800 and 801, to and at the request of two royal nuns, Rotrudis, and Gisele the Abbess of Chelles. Bede’s work on Genesis also lay behind the exegetical treatise that Alcuin composed in the form of 281 questions and answers concerning the meaning of the opening chapters of the book of Genesis in the Bible.48 These manifest examples of his dependency upon Bede’s work are just the tip of a close association in method and understanding, to the extent that for many centuries Alcuin’s biblical work stood alongside that of Bede’s as fundamental for medieval biblical education and spiritual formation. Alcuin’s biblical work has also to be seen in close conjunction with his work on the text of the Bible, encouraging its accurate proliferation, which was one of his most abiding and important legacies to the western Church.49

26

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Alcuin’s letters explicitly reveal his respect for the work of his great predecessor in England.50 For example, in a letter, written perhaps in 800 to a pupil, probably Hrabanus Maur, Alcuin promised to obtain for him a copy of Bede’s treatise In Epistulas canonicas expositio.51 In a letter of similar date he asked Ricbod, Archbishop of Trier, to obtain for him a copy of Bede’s work on the apocryphal book of Tobit, Expositio in Tobiam allegorica.52 Writing to his close friend, Arno Archbishop of Salzburg, in 802, Alcuin sent him an abbreviated psalter, attributed to Bede, along with some other books, including his own.53 Nor was he averse from including lines from Bede’s poetry among his poetry, for example in a fine poem in honour of the Cross.54 His Life of Willibrord was modelled in its form upon Bede’s double life of St Cuthbert in prose and verse as an opus geminatum.55 This was a very personal tribute because of his kinship with the great missionary saint; but his other works of hagiography reflect his debt to Bede’s approach, as well as to the earlier and classic Christian hagiographies that influenced them both. One of Alcuin’s most popular and widely copied works was his ethical manual De virtutibus et vitiis, intended for lay Christians, written between 800 and 840 for Wido, Count of Nantes, which drew extensively from the whole range of Latin theology, including Bede.56 More than 150 manuscripts of this manual remain, some in vernacular translations. This work left its mark deeply on the generation that followed Alcuin, notably his pupil Hrabanus Maur, who replicated much of it in his own writings, as did Jonas of Orleans and Halitgar of Cambrai, both of whom wrote moral treatises for the laity in the first half of the ninth century. In many ways Bede and Alcuin were apostles to the laity, as well as encouragers of monks and nuns. As such they were also critics, implicit and sometimes explicit, of certain elements and behaviour among the clergy and bishops; and both wrote with kings in mind. Alcuin never lost contact with the double monastery in which Bede had lived and worked at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, and he wrote some important and revealing letters to the community there. The first of these was written to the monks of St Peter’s, Wearmouth, probably before the sack of Lindisfarne in 793, as there is no mention of this catastrophe.57 Alcuin recalled his happy times among them, painting an idyllic picture of regular monastic life unsullied by secular fashions, and urging them to maintain the integrity of their common life of prayer as viri Deo amabiles. They were to be sensitive to the visitations of the holy founding fathers at times of prayer in church, recalling the words of Bede himself: ‘I know that angels visit the canonical hours and gatherings of the brethren. What if they did not find me among the brethren? Would they not ask, “Where is Bede? Why has he not come to the prescribed acts of worship with his brethren?”’ Alcuin emphasised the bond between common prayer and common life as the true strength of a monastery, repudiating the temptation to adopt secular styles of life and dress, which was clearly a perennial hazard in the life of the English church. There remains a very similar letter to the monks at Jarrow,

Chapter 1 – The Legacy of Bede

27

with whom he also had some personal connection.58 Alcuin reminded them of their spiritual forebears and laid particular emphasis upon their duty to maintain the life of learning that they had inherited, using the library there properly: ‘What is the point of having so many books if there are not those who can read or understand them?’ The sack of Lindisfarne by the Vikings in 793 shocked Alcuin and his English contemporaries to the core, and called forth from him a number of heart-felt letters to friends and contacts in the Northumbrian church. One of these was directed to the monastery at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow and it was one of Alcuin’s fullest defences of the monastic life and its meaning.59 He cited Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana about the fourfold nature of love and recalled to them their founding fathers, Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith, warning them against secular pursuits. They were to teach the Rule of St Benedict in English as well as in Latin and to make it the centre of their common life. God was their true defence against the Vikings and in this they should put their trust, being rooted in religious integrity. The disaster at Lindisfarne was therefore an awful warning: ‘it is because of interior enemies that exterior ones have this power.’ Their proximity to the sea should also keep them alert to the chastisement of God and deter them from turning their backs and hunting wolves! Once again Alcuin enjoined the pursuit of learning, using the great resources of their library, ‘for he who does not learn while young can hardly teach in old age.’ He reminded them of the example of Bede in this regard: ‘so open the books, master the letters, and understand their sense.’ He cited the authority of Gregory the Great who condemned the love of luxurious clothes: instead disaster should warn them of the brevity of this life and the imminence of divine judgement. He commended them to the protection of God and assured them of his own prayers for their safety in this world and the next. These are significant letters for they reveal the depth of feeling that Alcuin had for the churches of his homeland and the importance of monastic life as central to his vision of how the Church should be. He was far from home when he wrote them, but the memory of his recent visit to England was still vivid and fresh. His first reaction to disaster was to see within it the chastisement of God. He himself felt divine judgement breathing down his neck, and was ever sensitive to the pull of secular life away from the demands of true Christian discipleship. The sack of Lindisfarne was undoubtedly a shaking of the foundations of his own personal life and the understanding of the Northumbrian Christian tradition that he had received. It called forth from Alcuin one of his most memorable and moving poems, lamenting the ravaging of such a holy place, and trying to place the catastrophe within a theodicy that embraced the whole sweep of biblical and ancient history.60 The political turmoil in Northumbria that accompanied and followed this event made it seem all the more ominous and traumatic. Against such a darkening sky, the memory of Bede shone like the pole star.61

Chapter 2 Formation at York It was probably through Archbishop Egbert of York1 that the legacy of Bede’s learning passed to York. Nothing is known about the origins of the school there before his time, if there was one at all. On the other hand, Alcuin described him in his poem about the church of York as ‘an excellent teacher’,2 and there is an interesting reminiscence in the Life of Alcuin that portrays Egbert, ‘a most learned disciple of Bede’, as Alcuin’s first master,3 someone standing in the tradition that reached back through Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury in the seventh century, and Cuthbert to Augustine of Canterbury and Gregory the Great himself. The picture painted of the content of Alcuin’s education in this Life is rather stylised, perhaps, but it embraced grammar, the liberal arts, the Bible and the Fathers, with regular participation in the worship of the Church, both at the offices and at the Eucharist. Egbert regarded Alcuin as a favoured son because of his ability and piety and his biographer described him as ‘a true monk without monk’s vows.’4 His formation within the episcopal familia at York was quasi-monastic as Egbert was a person of deep prayer, whose example left an indelible impression on the memory of his disciples.5 He was effectively an abbot and father-in-God to Alcuin. Although the Life of Alcuin was written many years after his death, the memory transmitted by his friend and successor, Sigwulf, appears strong and convincing, and corroborates the picture given by Alcuin in his York poem of an archbishop, beloved of his people, gentle yet severe. There is a glimpse in the Life of Alcuin of Egbert’s care of his pupils, teaching them from his bed in the morning, eating with them in the evening while listening to a lector, and saying Compline together before retiring with his blessing to bed. At the very end of his life in 734, Bede wrote a formidable letter to his friend and disciple Egbert when he became Bishop of York but before he received the pallium as archbishop in 735.6 Its pastoral and admonitory tone was one that Alcuin would make his own in later years, as Bede challenged the abuse of monasticism by landowners and weaknesses in church and state. It reveals another side of Bede, acutely informed, and fearless in his analysis and advice; it is also very long and may represent other similar letters now lost. Its beginning gives a glimpse of the relationship between monk

Chapter 2 – Formation at York

29

and bishop, alluding to regular meetings at an un-named monastery, perhaps mid-way between York and Jarrow, for the purposes of study and intellectual exchange. Only Bede’s poor health precluded their planned meeting and so necessitated a letter instead, perhaps his last communication to his friend. Egbert apparently inherited a vast diocese in some disarray, and there remains a later letter from Pope Paul I to him and to his brother the king, criticising royal appropriation of monastic lands in order to reward a nobleman.7 The only surviving relic of Egbert’s writing is his Dialogus ecclesiasticae institutionis, which was written to regulate relations between the Church, its ministers and secular society in matters of judicial dispute.8 It was close in spirit to the decrees of the Synod of Clovesho, which met in 747 to regulate the southern province of the English church, and with which it was probably contemporary. 9 According to Alcuin’s York poem, Egbert did much to restore the Northumbrian church, generating a trained clergy and promoting church music. He presided at York for thirty-four years throughout the period of Alcuin’s childhood and adolescence. It may have been the old archbishop who ordained Alcuin as a deacon one Candlemas.10 The person who undoubtedly exerted the most influence upon Alcuin’s intellectual formation was Aelberht, who succeeded Egbert as Archbishop of York in 767 and who died in 780. He was the magister to whom Alcuin paid lavish tribute in his York poem and whose deep impact can be glimpsed in one of the stories in the Life of Alcuin. While reading aloud to his master and his fellow disciples, Alcuin became transfixed by the final discourses of John’s gospel and had a vision of the world encircled with the blood of Christ, rather like Benedict of Nursia who saw the world caught up within a beam of divine light.11 The Life of Alcuin also asserts that towards the end of his life Aelberht prophesied Alcuin’s ministry and mission outside his own country, an intimation to which Alcuin also alluded in one of his letters. Clearly they were very close and Alcuin was distraught at his death. His tribute to Aelberht in his York poem is the principal historical monument remaining to someone so important in the development of the school and church of York. Otherwise there exists only a single exchange of letters between Aelberht and Lullus, Archbishop of Mainz, the successor to Boniface, concerning the sending of books by Bede and others from York.12 At the end of his reply, Aelberht added a short poem of six lines, all that now remains of his many writings. What is significant about this valediction is that it reveals in all its brevity some familiarity with the Latin poets whom Alcuin lists in his poem as being in the library at York; Alcuin himself echoed some of the phraseology in his own poems.13 What Alcuin felt about his close friend and mentor, his ‘father and teacher’, was expressed in his encomium for him, after recalling in his York poem his personal grief at Aelberht’s death and funeral in 780:14

30

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Christ was his love, his sustenance and his all: Life, faith, wisdom, hope, light, His way, glory and power. . . . O father and our pastor, the utmost hope of our life, Without your guidance we are tossed on the sea, Not knowing which harbour we shall reach. . . . Your honour, memory and praise will remain with us forever! Alcuin travelled with Aelberht to the continent, both to Francia, where he stayed at the abbey of Murbach (very happily as he later recalled in a letter), and also by way of Pavia to Rome.15 The prophecy recorded in the Life of Alcuin may perhaps signify that it was Aelberht who first opened Alcuin’s eyes to the wider world of western Christendom as it was developing under the Carolingians during the papacy of Hadrian I.16 It would seem that the commemoration of Aelberht was one of the main catalysts for Alcuin completing his poem about the church of York. His life and achievement fill the last part of the poem and in many ways Aelberht was portrayed by Alcuin as the model scholar-bishop.17 Like Alcuin himself, he was placed in a monastery as a child, becoming in due time a deacon and then a priest. He was a close friend of Archbishop Egbert’s, to whom he was related, and who made him defensor of the clergy and magister at York. He was a master of grammar and rhetoric and a keen musician, knowledgeable in astronomy, natural science and the calculation of sacred time, being steeped in theology and the Bible. He was a natural teacher, cherishing and loving his pupils. He travelled often to the continent in search of books, as a pilgrim to Rome and other holy places. Unlike Alcuin himself, ‘he returned to serve his homeland,’18 and was apparently elected Archbishop of York ‘by popular acclaim’ as the natural successor to Egbert in 767 on the feast of St Wilfrid, a predecessor in the Northumbrian episcopate. As a ‘wise teacher and a pious priest’ Aelberht used his learning in the pursuit of justice, as a good shepherd to his people, while leading a modest life. He was generous to the churches and clearly able to dispose of considerable wealth. His initiative secured the building of the basilica of Hagia Sophia with which Alcuin was closely involved, as he was with the library that Aelberht assembled, and which passed to his care after his death. In Alcuin’s mind, and that of his audience, he was a true ‘shepherd, patriarch and teacher.’

Books What were the resources accumulated by Egbert and Aelberht that created the cathedral school at York and which gave Alcuin his intellectual formation? There are hardly any manuscripts now remaining that can be traced with any certainty to York at that time, so much of the evidence has to be inferred from Alcuin’s own writings, initially his York poem, but also from some other material that sheds partial light upon the life of the church and school

Chapter 2 – Formation at York

31

there. Although most of Alcuin’s writing dates from his residence in Francia, the roots of his formidable learning and capacity lay in the York years, as he himself often made clear. It would seem, in fact, that York was the first place in Europe to create a cathedral school of this scale and character.19 It was the model to which Alcuin turned in his mind while serving Charlemagne in the later part of his life, and he saw himself, in some ways, as its ambassador. It is important, however, not to project back upon this period the scale of later medieval schools and libraries. The closest parallel was Bede’s library, built up by Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, a place that Alcuin knew well and evidently loved. It is possible to conjecture that there may have been up to 250 titles there, but not necessarily so many actual books. It seems that this may actually have been the largest library ever assembled throughout the Anglo-Saxon period.20 Hardly any of it now remains, though perhaps some of its volumes, or copies of them, could have found their way to York itself. In his York poem, Alcuin proudly lists forty authors whose works adorned the library built up by Aelberht.21 To this may be added a further eighteen works from one of the few of Alcuin’s writings that can be dated to his time in York. It is not likely, therefore, that the York library in its heyday exceeded 100 books, some of which Alcuin later exported to Tours.22 Mostly these would have been kept in chests rather than on open shelves. Among them would have been liturgical books, Bibles, lectionaries, sacramentaries and so forth. To York came requests for the copying of books throughout the eighth and ninth centuries, from the continent, and presumably from within England itself. Its scriptorium was important and respected, but of the York library itself nothing certain now remains. Close examination of Alcuin’s writings reveals how deeply his roots ran into the likely titles represented by the representative though not necessarily exhaustive list that he included in his York poem. He indicated that he had omitted other titles for reasons of space or rhythmic metre.23 It would be a mistake therefore to draw too narrow a conclusion from his selective but revealing catalogue. Godman has shown in his fine edition of Alcuin’s York poem that the poem itself draws on several clear categories of poetical authors, many of which were included in his catalogue. Prominent among these were the insular Latin authors: Gildas, Bede, Aldhelm, and Boniface. Alcuin’s poem stands squarely within this tradition. It was coloured also by the late Latin poetry of the Christian church, the works of Arator, Sedulius, Juvencus, Prudentius; also Paulinus of Nola, Prosper, Licentius, and Venantius Fortunatus.24 Virgil is the most widespread presence alongside Bede and Aldhelm, while others like Isidore, Statius and Lucan also appear occasionally.25 His poem itself is therefore a precise example of how the roots of his learning are to be found in the authors that in his mind’s eye he associated with his home at York.26 Alcuin first left York for Francia when he was approaching fifty, probably

32

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

in or shortly after 786, by which time his intellectual life had been well formed and exercised. He could not have generated the work of the last fifteen years of his life while abroad if this were not so, especially as he lamented on one occasion about the inaccessibility of his books left behind in York. In a letter to Charlemagne, written between 796-7, he spoke of nourishing some of his pupils at Tours on ‘the honey of Scripture’, others with ‘the old wine of ancient learning’, and yet others with the ‘fruits of grammatical subtlety’, while ever eager to open their eyes to the mysteries of the heavens and the stars. ‘But I do miss to some extent the rarer books of scholastic learning that I had in my own country through the excellent and devoted zeal of my master [i.e. Aelberht].’ He asked the king to give permission for some of his pupils to go and fetch certain volumes from York, as from ‘a garden enclosed’.27 The catalogue in the York poem comprised the Church Fathers Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory the Great, Leo the Great, Basil, Fulgentius, Cassiodorus, and John Chrysostom; also Orosius the historian. Bede and Aldhelm are listed immediately after the Fathers. Then many of the Christian poets already mentioned; Aristotle was also included, so were Victorinus28 and Boethius, along with several of the Latin grammarians whom Alcuin used extensively in his own work and teaching.29 What is not clear, however, is which titles of these authors were intended, although some can be reasonably conjectured.30 When comparison is made with the writings and likely resources of Bede, a pattern emerges of a rather wider selection available at York, including Boethius, whose De Consolatione was unknown to Bede but virtually rediscovered by Alcuin himself, either in England or more likely in Francia.31 It is only a close examination of the sources used by Alcuin in his many later writings that can begin to indicate his debt to the library at York, and the way it equipped him to respond to the books that he then encountered for the first time in the latter part of his life on the continent. Alcuin’s list of authors would therefore have been familiar to his English audience as representative rather than complete, a rich display of learning by the standards of the time, and a reminder of titles read and unread. The other most revealing source for glimpsing the relative wealth of the York library is the unpublished compilation, made by Alcuin around the year 790, almost certainly in York, of patristic and liturgical material called De laude Dei et de confessione orationibusque sanctorum collecti ab Alcuino levita,32 that is preserved now in only two manuscripts.33 It is from this source that a further seventeen possible authors can be identified.34 For from this work, unlike from the York poem, it is possible to deduce with more precision some of the actual titles probably present in the York library to which Alcuin referred; and these correlate closely to sources used by him in a similar manner in his later writings. Some of the books at York were no doubt purchased or acquired by Aelberht on his travels abroad, like Benedict Biscop before him. It is a sad measure of the inroads made by the Viking

Chapter 2 – Formation at York

33

invasions that no books now remain that can be firmly identified as having been part of the library at York in the eighth century. Alcuin summed up his own expectations of a library in his concluding words to his catalogue in the York poem: he looked for teachers who were ‘outstanding for their learning, art and style’, and who could write ‘many volumes with a clear meaning.’35 This summed up well the character and quality of his writings that followed in the footsteps of the Fathers – veterum vestigia patrum.36 They are without a doubt the fullest memorial now remaining to the wealth of Christian theology accumulated and taught at York by Aelberht and others. Alcuin’s memory was very well stocked when he came to write his major works in the latter part of his life in Francia. His fidelity to the spirit of the Fathers and his extensive knowledge of the Bible reflected his formation over many years in York. Jerome, Gregory and Bede guided his approach to the Bible, while Augustine’s thought moulded his own theology.

Liturgy Examination of the De laude Dei also opens up the prospect of liturgical material providing some context for understanding Alcuin’s religious formation and work at York in the first part of his life, as well as of the life of the church there. ‘Time spent in classes was only a small part of “schooling.” For pueri and clerici, then as later, the collective celebration in choir of the daily offices or hours, the Sunday and feast-day masses and the occasional sacrament was an instrument of education, of mental formation as well as an ordering of life, which it is difficult now to grasp. It was the dominant influence on almost every aspect of a participant’s later language, thought and writings.’37 The De laude Dei appears to be a ‘personal reflection of the public worship and private study of Alcuin’s York years.’38 It corresponds with other private prayer-books created in England in the eighth and ninth century, notably the Book of Cerne and the Nunnaminster Codex.39 These open a window into the spiritual resources that formed Alcuin and his contemporaries in Northumbria: they have strong biblical references, and many of their prayers are strikingly Christocentric. They were intended to build a bridge between the set lections from the Bible, the more formal prayers of the liturgy, and the needs of private devotion. Central to the use of these books was the psalter, absorbed as the intimate language of prayer that was also the prayer of Christ and his saints.40 In De Laude Dei, the Psalm citations were mostly from the pre-Roman version with which Alcuin had grown up and which often furnished his memory throughout his life and writings. ‘Collectively, the psalter quotations and their echoes which came readily to Alcuin’s mind as he wrote or dictated are enduring evidence of the version he had intoned as a participant in the York community’s daily worship.’41 This was also true of the biblical canticles; and many of his scriptural citations in his other writings reflect liturgical usage anchored

34

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

in his memory. Book four of De Laude Dei reveals central elements of the prayer and liturgy at York in which Alcuin was nourished.42 These included a form of the Nicene Creed without the filioque clause,43 a distinctive pattern of antiphons for seasonal use, including ten ‘O’ antiphons for Advent; and also one that reflects the monothelite controversy of the seventh century. Alcuin’s choice was quite eclectic, including material for the week after Pentecost, and this probably reflected his experience in the church at York. This was also true of the office hymns that find their way into De Laude Dei. In a later letter to Archbishop Eanbald II of York, written in 801, Alcuin deflected Eanbald’s request for new mass-books back to York’s own treasury of sacramentaries for the mass of the Roman rite: ‘you certainly have plenty of the larger sacramentaries of the old usage: so why innovate when the old would suffice?’44 York was clearly a conservative centre and the De Laude Dei reflected this.45 So too does an interesting metrical calendar, whose precise connection with York remains unclear but which perhaps came in part from the Northumbrian church in the eighth century, which was preserved in an early ninth century Mercian manuscript.46 Its wider importance is that it contains the earliest known commemoration of All Saints day on 1 November.47 This feast had its origin in the consecration of the Pantheon in Rome as a Christian church by Pope Boniface IV on 13 May 631, the original date of the feast.48 Alcuin commended the keeping of this autumn feast with remarkable ardour to his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg, in a letter written in 800.49 He recommended three days of fasting, services and almsgiving in preparation for it on the basis that the saints of the new covenant were likely to prove even more effective intercessors than those of the old such as Elijah.50 The driving force behind this commemoration on 1 November may also have been a missionary one, perhaps of Irish origin, as it replaced (gradually and only partially) the northern European festival of the dead that marked the onset of winter. Wilmart dated this metrical calendar to the Northumbrian church at the close of the eighth century, and to the York area in particular because of the pattern of its English commemorations. It commemorated Boniface among others and was therefore completed after 755, even if some of its other commemorations indicate a more complicated origin.51 It is illustrative of the religious world in which Alcuin grew up. Wilmart did not think, however, that it should be seen directly as part of the liturgy of the church of York:52 perhaps it was a pastoral, even a missionary tract. It certainly served an obvious educational purpose inasmuch as it could be easily memorised. This calendar may therefore shed light on the work of the Northumbrian church at a more basic level, outside the city and the ecclesiastical world in which Alcuin moved, although he and other clerics would surely have used such mnemonic texts for instruction of pupils, perhaps especially as parish priests. York’s educational role must have embraced its own diocese,

Chapter 2 – Formation at York

35

even though Alcuin gives little hint of this in any of his remaining writings or letters. But he did commend such a policy as part of the grand strategy of Christian education in Frankish society in Charlemagne’s letter De litteris colendis and in the Admonitio Generalis of 789 that he helped draft; and it found echoes in the decrees of the papal legatine visitation of England in 786. ‘It is legitimate to claim that the mid-century cathedral community [of York] had taken over from Bede a concept of Christian education memorably characterised as “the only serious and successful attempt to put into practice the principles of Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana”, and proceeded to develop it in directions for which there were few, if any, recent precedents.’53

Asceticism Another window may be opened into the spiritual and intellectual life of the church of York by the Northumbrian poem De Abbatibus, which was written soon after Alcuin’s death in 804.54 This is the only work from Northumbria now remaining that was directly influenced by Alcuin’s own York poem, and it is very similar to the metrical Miracula Nynie Episcopi which was sent to Alcuin by his pupils at York and which he mentioned in a letter.55 The monastery described in De Abbatibus, founded early in the eighth century, could well be Crayke, just a dozen miles from York, with its links to Lindisfarne to which it later belonged.56 In structure and language this poem echoed Alcuin’s and it drew on the same Christian Latin authors. It is permeated by what Lapidge calls ‘Alcuinian diction’, and he lists a number of phrases that ‘occur in no poet earlier than Alcuin.’57 Most occur only in poems that Alcuin wrote while abroad, so they may reflect his mode of teaching before he left, as there is no evidence now that any English poet ever read any of Alcuin’s continental poetry so early. Aediluulf, the author of De Abbatibus, makes no mention of having been taught personally by Alcuin, but he does mention an unknown figure Eadfrith as his teacher, who was devoted to St Cuthbert. He also mentions another teacher and lector, Hyglac, whom he describes in his poem, and who seems to have flourished in the 770s. There is a letter written by a hermit Alchfrith to Hyglac, lector and priest, which is preserved among the letters of Alcuin that were collected at York.58 Its spiritual tenor is very close to that of De Abbatibus, and also to the visionary material included in Alcuin’s York poem. In the Book of Cerne there are also three prayers attributed to a hermit Alchfrith. Another hermit called Echa, whom Alcuin commemorated in his York poem, died at Crayke in 767 according to the northern annals.59 So Hyglac may well have been a pupil of Alcuin’s, or of his immediate disciples, and thus the source of the ‘Alcuinian diction’ in this poem. The ascetic and visionary element in De Abbatibus also raises the question of why Alcuin included so much material of this character in his York poem. In part he owed this to Bede’s History where there is a similar emphasis.

36

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

The saints were the glory of Northumbria, the sign that the kingdom of God was indeed at hand and at work in both church and society. But it may also reflect a more hidden dimension to Alcuin’s own spiritual formation,60 which coloured his vision of what a true monk was called to be. In the world described in De Abbatibus, the relationship between learning, asceticism and craftsmanship was close and inextricable: this was also evident earlier in the creation of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Alcuin emphasised in his own poem how notable Northumbrian figures retired from their royal or episcopal duties to pursue a contemplative life at the end. He himself was drawn to the contemplative life as the Life of Alcuin and some of his letters made quite clear: if he had had a free choice in 796, he would have become a monk at Fulda; but it was not to be. In the York poem, the posthumous miracles of Oswald of Northumbria (c. 604-42) the martyr-king receive extensive treatment and it seems that Alcuin composed a mass setting for his feast.61 St Cuthbert also received loving treatment as the pre-eminent saint of all Northumbria, who was most at home on his island retreat of Inner Farne where ‘he lived in sanctity as a hermit’,62 working miracles in his life and after his death. Queen Aethelthryth’s sanctity, as recorded by Bede in his History, finds its place in Alcuin’s poem, as does the vision of Dryhthelm, which occupies lines 876 to 1007. Egbert, who went in holy exile to Ireland, and his friend Wihtberht, who later separated from him ‘to lead a life of contemplation in strict solitude’, also feature as examples of sanctity in Northumbrian history. This is the hidden golden thread running through the Church’s life, as exemplified in Alcuin’s account of the spiritual warfare of the hermit Balthere on the Bass rock in the Firth of Forth. The ‘venerable hermit’ Echa has already been mentioned; and Alcuin’s great poem concludes with an account of a close friend’s vision during his own youth. However much the York poem is an encomium and a saga of national history, it is also a work of hagiography comparable to Bede’s own and in the spirit of his History, but with a Northumbrian and patriotic focus. In the world in which Alcuin grew up, the living tradition of sanctity was the hidden power behind the cultivation of Christian theology and mission that occurred at York in his time. Its impact upon his spirituality was profound.

Lector In his York poem, Alcuin portrayed himself as the direct successor to Aelberht in his leadership of the York school. When Aelberht retired from the archbishopric in 778, Alcuin’s friend Eanbald became coadjutor bishop, while Alcuin inherited his library and no doubt the supervision of its use. ‘Father-like he entrusted his books, treasure that he valued above all else, to this other son [i.e. Alcuin himself], who was constantly at his side, and whose thirst for learning Aelberht would satisfy.’63 These words preface the

Chapter 2 – Formation at York

37

famous description by Alcuin of the York library. Alcuin later mentioned this inheritance in two of his letters: the first was in a moving letter to his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg, written in 796, asking him to pray for the soul of Archbishop Eanbald of York who had died.64 ‘He was both a father and a brother to me, and a most faithful friend and fellow-disciple of my master [i.e. Aelberht]. Now I alone am left from that schola.’ The second letter was written from Tours to Charlemagne around the same time and contained Alcuin’s formal request to be allowed to send for his books in York, which had been collected there by his master, Aelberht.65 There is now no firm evidence for material that Alcuin would have used as magister at York, apart perhaps from a brief computistical tract called Calculatio Albini, which may have its roots in his time teaching computus at York.66 This can be dated to 776; it also contains three hexameters which may be the earliest glimpse now remaining of Alcuin’s poetry. He referred to the teaching of computus in his York poem, and his expertise is evident in some of his letters to Charlemagne already discussed. In this area he was a direct successor to Bede.67 It is perhaps appropriate that the fullest picture of Alcuin as master or lector at York should come from the continental mission-field, to which the Northumbrian church sent a stream of clergy from the time of Wilfrid and Willibrord.68 It is found in the ninth-century Life of Liudger, written before 849, recounting the involvement of the Northumbrian church with Frisia, with which close trading links through York were maintained.69 After Boniface’s martyrdom, the church at Utrecht was led by one of his Frankish disciples, Abbot Gregory.70 Liudger was a third generation Frisian Christian, educated by Gregory alongside other pupils of noble birth. Utrecht was an outpost of York in its educational mission to which an English missionary, Aluberht, came. Gregory wanted him to serve as a bishop to the Frisian converts and, as he himself was simply a priest, he sent Aluberht back in 767 to be consecrated at York as bishop for the ‘Old Saxons’.71 Liudger was ordained a deacon at the same time alongside another older Frisian called Sigbod, who was being ordained a priest. ‘In that place [i.e. York] Alcuin was the master, who afterwards in the times of Charles was in charge of the teaching at Tours and in the Frankish kingdom.’ Liudger and his friends returned to Utrecht after a year at York, but he soon wanted to return to study further with Alcuin. He overcame his parents’ and his abbot’s reluctance and ‘they sent him back to his master at York . . . where the illustrious master Alcuin received him with joy.’72 He remained with Alcuin for three and half years, probably from 769 until early in 773, when he had to flee York for his own safety with other Frisian merchants caught up in a local vendetta.73 So concerned was Alcuin for his safety that he sent his fellow-deacon, Pyttel, with him to escort him from England, accompanied by a supply of books. Pyttel went on to Rome on Alcuin’s behalf, and later came with him as a priest to Francia. Liudger became in due time the first Bishop of Munster, his diocese straddling parts of the Saxon and Frisian lands.

38

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

A letter of Alcuin’s gives another glimpse of his involvement in the English missionary work overseas: writing late in 789 to an unknown abbot in Saxony, he asked him to convey his greetings to Willehad, Bishop of Bremen, seeking news about the conversion of the Danes and the Wends.74 Willehad was sent with the full approval of the Northumbrian king and church in 770, at first to Frisia.75 After the suppression of the Saxon revolt in 785, he returned to earlier work among the Saxons, and Charlemagne created him the first bishop of those conquered people and the founder of the see of Bremen, where he died in 789. The Life of Liudger also sheds light on another English missionary among the Frisians and the Saxons, called Leofwine.76 He died at Deventer in Holland; and in 775 Liudger rescued his relics from the site of the church that had been destroyed by the Saxons. Liudger himself died in 809 and was buried in his monastery at Werden. The vigour of this English missionary enterprise over several generations reflected the resources and support of the church of York during Alcuin’s time there.77 It also provides a context for Alcuin’s going to the continent, following in the footsteps of Boniface and others; and it accounts in part for the way in which he became accepted and influential at the court of Charlemagne. His own work there became a personal kind of mission and spiritual exile, while his heart remained at York to the end of his days.

Chapter 3 Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court The St Gallen Life of Charlemagne emphasised the way in which the king patronised scholars who came to his court, beginning with two Irishmen, one of whom was called Clement.1 He became an important teacher in the first phase of the revival of learning under Charlemagne. Einhard’s comment is also germane: he noted that the king loved to entertain foreigners in such numbers as to cause grumbling by some on occasions. Charlemagne ignored this, however, ‘for he considered that his reputation for hospitality and the advantage of the good name which he acquired more than compensated for the great nuisance of their being there.’2 His scholars became his publicists, directly through their poetry and encomia, and indirectly through the prestige attached to the restoration and proliferation of learning and decorated books in which they engaged, with the king’s personal encouragement and endowment. The longevity of Charlemagne’s reign, the great wealth at his disposal, and his own sincere intellectual interests all contributed to making his court, peripatetic or settled, a magnet for scholars and craftsmen. The writings and activities of the known scholars of his circle need to be seen in the wider context of the remarkable quality of art and building that marked the king’s reign.3 When he joined the king’s entourage, Alcuin was just one of several scholars at court, albeit coming to enjoy a close friendship and rapport with the king. His work and its significance have to be seen therefore within the context of what was already being established around Charlemagne before he arrived permanently in Francia in the 790’s. He was associated with a tide of scholars from England and Ireland to the very end of his life, when the monks at Tours protested at the swarm of British visitors gathering around their abbot.

Insular Scholars The letters which Alcuin wrote to his Irish friend and pupil, Joseph, presuppose a circle of scholars from the British Isles at the Frankish court, within which Alcuin’s own early journeys to and from the continent have initially to be placed.4 He assumed that his friend could keep him apprised of developments at court while he was absent in England. Many of these

40

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

English and Irish scholars remain unknown figures, some only identified by passing references in the remaining literature: for example, Dungal, Cadac-Andreas, and the mysterious ‘Hibernicus exul’, who composed a poem dedicated to Charlemagne. Others have emerged from the shadows, however. In a notable article, Lapidge identified an unknown figure, perhaps an abbot of St Trond near Aachen, called Columbanus, whose poems for a long time were attributed to his great namesake who lived two hundred years earlier. 5 His use of adonic poetry, however, places him firmly in the circle of Alcuin and Paul the Deacon who came from Pavia in Lombardy, who both used adonic poems as expressions of friendship. Their model was the later Latin poet, Ennodius. Paul arrived at the court of Charlemagne in 782, and his poetic practice soon caught on. In 786, Alcuin wrote just such a poem to a friend nicknamed Eulalia, who was in fact Gundrada and a cousin of the king’s.6 He wrote another similar poem to his English friend Credulus.7 There is also a hymn for him attributed to Alcuin in this form of verse;8 it provides a good example of this terse and direct mode of poetry: Nunc tibi, Christe, Carmina leta, Laudes canamus Pectore toto Menteque pura Perpete vota.9 So strong are the similarities between these three poets that Lapidge concluded that Columbanus’ adonic poem to his friend Fidolius ‘could best be explained by the supposition that Columbanus was active at the court of Charlemagne in the late eighth century, after the arrival there of both Paul the Deacon and Alcuin in the 780s.’10 Its inclusion in a particular manuscript dating from Verona in the later part of the eighth century is also significant.11 This is principally a grammatical compendium, which also contains poems from various other members of Charlemagne’s court. Columbanus, Abbot of St Trond, was later remembered in the chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg as having composed an ode of lament upon the death of Charlemagne, which would confirm that he was a long-standing and respected member of the king’s ecclesiastical entourage.12 He seems to have had some close contact with Alcuin himself, for some of his poetry has strong affinities with a monastic work attributed to Alcuin called Praecepta Vivendi; even if this was, as Lapidge suggests, the work of Columbanus himself, the fact that a line of this book appears in a poem of Alcuin’s would seem to confirm their association.13 The fragmentary nature of the manuscript and the other evidence for this interesting identification is, however, a reminder of the incomplete nature of any picture of the intellectual life at the court of Charlemagne. It highlights how the range of material preserved from the pen of Alcuin is so unusual but nonetheless confined in terms of its dates and range. A letter written by the English scholar Cathwulf to Charlemagne in 775

Chapter 3 – Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court

41

applied Irish biblical traditions in order to establish principles of Christian kingship in a manner emulated by Alcuin some years later. 14 ‘Perhaps the most characteristic contribution of the Insular scholars was their reliance on the Bible and their application of the Old Testament to current affairs,’15 reintroducing and popularising the idea of the Franks as God’s chosen people, His new Israel.16 Cathwulf ’s letter was paralleled and anticipated by one written in 772 to Tassilo of Bavaria by another insular scholar, ‘Clemens Peregrinus’.17 This provides a significant window into the culture of his court and helps explain in part the acute rivalry that developed between Tassilo and Charlemagne, who were contemporaries. Tassilo was also an active patron of learning and monasteries, whose rule thus received biblical endorsement from this unknown Irish scholar. 18 He was therefore perceived by Charlemagne as a threat to his own ascendancy, political, cultural and spiritual. Originally the popes in the mid-eighth century had hailed their Carolingian protectors in biblical terms drawn from the Old Testament, but under Pope Hadrian this lapsed. If anything the new monarchy might be thought of as fulfilling the role of Constantine, as is evident in the iconography of Leo III’s triclinium at the Lateran in Rome. Both these insular writers, however, drew heavily on the language of the history books in the Old Testament and the Psalms to impress on their hearers their religious duties. The motif of Charlemagne as another King David later became dominant in the court circles in which Alcuin moved, he himself so designating the king in his writing and poetry. Cathwulf and Clement took up the intercessory language of the English prayer-books of the eighth century, such as the Book of Cerne, seeking divine protection and victory for their devout ruler. ‘The prayerful character of both letters is remarkable, and sets them apart from a number of earlier letters of admonition and instruction to kings.’19 There could however only be one avatar as ruler of the new Israel, as Tassilo discovered to his cost. Clement’s letter was preserved at Salzburg long after the demise of Tassilo’s dynasty. Cathwulf ’s letter was preserved at St Denis, which under the leadership of Abbot Fulrad had close associations with the ruling Carolingian house. Both letters also contained a note of warning, drawing baleful parallels with biblical rulers who had failed and been found wanting as a result of their sins.20 Their emphasis on the relevance of the Old Testament to contemporary situations had important consequences in another area – the genesis of Carolingian law, modelled on that of the Bible. ‘As both letters show, [this outlook] envisioned a leader radically dependent on God’s actions through him, and on God’s approval; less an autonomous agent than a channel for God’s will.’21 Charlemagne was accountable therefore, and certainly endowed with divine authority; but he was also vulnerable to divine judgement, ruling Dei gratia – by the grace of God alone. In the case of Cathwulf, he wrote to provide justification for Charlemagne’s sole rule, and to celebrate his recent victory over the Lombards in 774/5. But his biblical references are shrewd rather than flattering: would Charlemagne

42

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

prove to be another David, or another Saul, who fell under the shadow of divine disapprobation? Biblical language and historical parallels gave to clerics like Cathwulf, and later Alcuin, the language of moral authority and criticism of arbitrary rule. They insisted on the accountability of kings before God as Judge and Christ as the King of Kings, whose judgement was inexorable and could be perceived in the fortunes of war and political ascendancy. The unjust ruler threatened the prosperity of his people, even the natural order itself, an ancient belief evident in the writings of both Cathwulf and Alcuin, and derived from the pseudo-Cyprianic tract De duodecim abusivis saeculi, a work of Irish origin.22 To guard against moral decline, Cathwulf enjoined observance of the feasts of All Saints, Trinity, St Peter and St Michael, all of which could be construed liturgically in a militant manner, as they were by the Carolingians. He emphasised how Charlemagne had gained his recent victory over the Lombards without great conflict, and signed off with the words ‘lege et intellege diligenter’23 – words which might imply that he had been one of the king’s teachers in his youth. In his closing poem, he reminded the king that his rule fell within the wider sovereignty of God, promising that He would prove the king’s true helper in his battles against the wicked if he were faithful to Him.24 In language echoing the Magnificat and Old Testament prophets like Samuel, Cathwulf reminded the king of the transience of his power.

Wigbod and the Centrality of the Bible Various influences therefore led Charlemagne to put the study of the Bible and its proliferation central to his programme of learning and law. Alcuin moved into an environment in which systematic commentary on Scripture was already a priority. His own contributions were therefore part of a larger endeavour. One of the key people in the earlier part of Charlemagne’s reign was Wigbod, the abbot who accompanied the legatine mission to England in 786 and whom Alcuin met then, though not necessarily for the first time. Wigbod’s work has received detailed study by Gorman, and the picture that emerges is highly significant for understanding the culture being engendered at the Carolingian court, to which Alcuin made such significant contributions.25 In 789, Charlemagne published his decree Admonitio generalis, stipulating among other things a programme of education and learning throughout his realm. It seems that around that time he also commissioned Wigbod to compose an encyclopaedic commentary on the Octateuch, comprising the first five books of the Old Testament, along with three of the historical books. He is likely also to have compiled a commentary on the gospels at the king’s request, perhaps some time earlier. In one of the remaining manuscripts,26 his commentary on the Octateuch is attributed to Alcuin, which may imply collaboration at some point between them, either in its composition, or more likely in its distribution and use. Wigbod’s commentary gives a valuable

Chapter 3 – Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court

43

insight into the resources he and others had at hand. Seeking the thought of Ambrose and Augustine, and citing directly the writings of Jerome, he used existing handbooks and summaries, for example one called Exhymeron which was an epitome of Augustine’s De Genesis ad litteram.27 After the early chapters of Genesis, however, Wigbod was obliged to rely predominantly on the work of Isidore of Seville. This is also true of his commentary on the other books of the Old Testament in the Octateuch, and Wigbod’s work is an important testimony to Isidore’s earlier work. His commentary also confirms the existence of works like the Quaestiones Orosii et responsiones Augustini and the Recapitulatio de fonte paradise as existing before he began his own compilation, which became really a catena of earlier authorities. Books like these were the foundations for the Carolingian ‘return to the Fathers’ in which Alcuin played such a decisive role. In the manuscript of Wigbod’s commentary, originally preserved at Trier but now lost,28 the work was headed by a solemn title declaring that ‘Charles, king of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans ordered this book to be written for his own use.’ This was followed by a poem praising the king among other things for his energy in collecting books from many lands ‘to renew the writings of the holy fathers who have gone before us.’29 As Gorman observes, ‘Wigbod’s re-use of Christian poetry from late Antiquity [in this encomium] is precious evidence for the literary tastes of Charlemagne and his court.’30 The important focus of the king’s initiative was the collection of Christian patristic texts and works of biblical exegesis, while classical texts played essentially a supporting role. Many of the works used by Wigbod were in fact listed in the library of the abbey at Lorsch, where perhaps he completed much of his work; many of the early manuscripts of his work emanated from there. No less interesting is Wigbod’s work on the gospels, found in three manuscripts from the early ninth century and designed as a sequence of questions and answers, a mode used later by Alcuin himself. Wigbod’s principal source was the work of Augustine, his sermons and his commentary on the gospel of John. Both of Wigbod’s commentaries, on the Octateuch and on the gospels, were late epitomised and bound up together; the one on the gospels may have been written first as part of a programme to prepare up-to-date commentaries for use at court and elsewhere.31 Gorman outlines a valuable scheme by which Christian patristic learning was assimilated and used between the end of the Roman era and the establishment of the Carolingian empire. Initially leading churchmen could read the originals of the great fathers, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome. In the age of Gregory the Great and Isidore, their work had to be synthesised by those who could still read and understand them for those who could not, or who did not have immediate access to them in libraries, as the Church expanded into northern Europe. Bede was an example of this mediating role. In the seventh and eighth century, even simpler summaries had to be prepared, comprising questions and excerpts, suitable for learning at a more basic level, for memorisation by clergy and for work on the mission field.

44

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

‘Wigbod’s work represents an encyclopaedic tendency, which set in at the dawn of a new, optimistic era. In his commentary on Genesis he attempted to draw together the disparate streams of the many derivative exegetical works which had proliferated in the previous period, for he generally uses this kind of material and usually avoids direct recourse to patristic writings.’32 His range of learning prompted further epitomes and excerpts, however, some perhaps by himself. But at the same time the appetite for direct encounter with the writings of the Fathers became firmly established, and in this Alcuin played a decisive role by his own meticulous and masterly work. By the midninth century it was possible to engage directly with the text of the Bible with the writings of the major Fathers alongside. Wigbod’s commentaries laid the foundation for the later flowering of biblical exegesis associated with Claudius of Turin and others in the generations after Alcuin.33

Peter and Paul from Italy Einhard records in his Life of Charlemagne how the way was paved for Alcuin by Peter, an elderly deacon from Pisa, who taught the king grammar.34 In a letter of Alcuin to the king, written in 799, he recalled encountering Peter many years earlier, engaged in a debate with a Jew named Julius at Pavia, while Alcuin was on one of his early journeys to Rome in the 760’s. He identified him as ‘an outstanding teacher of grammar in your palace’, known to their mutual friend Angilbert of St Riquier.35 Alcuin also remembered that the debate had been recorded in writing.36 Einhard implies that Alcuin was in some ways Peter’s successor as the king’s pre-eminent teacher.37 Peter may have come to the court of Charlemagne in the wake of the king’s victory over the Lombards in 774, which led to his conquest of Verona and Pavia. He came with a friend called Fiducia and both men are mentioned in some of the court poems, and also in a charter drawn up in Pisa in 796. His most tangible monument is now a handsome royal manuscript38 preserved in Brussels with its remarkable title page, written in dignified capital letters: ‘Here begins the book containing various brief questions with his answers which the lord king Charles ordered to be copied from archdeacon Peter’s original.’39 It implies that it was copied by royal command from a book in Peter’s possession, and it may have been copied at the royal scriptorium at the very end of the eighth century. This fine manuscript is another window into the cultural world of the Carolingian court. It begins with a series of questions about the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, drawing heavily upon Jerome’s commentary. It is in a similar mode to Alcuin’s own book of questions and answers about the text of Genesis.40 There follow three sets of further short questions, based on the later Latin grammatical writers Priscian, Diomedes, and Pompeius.41 These corroborate the reputation of Peter of Pisa as a grammarian to whom other works have traditionally been attributed.42 The important and typical feature of

Chapter 3 – Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court

45

this manuscript is the close association between the study of the text of the Bible and the study of grammar, both of which were also close to the heart of Alcuin’s teaching and writing. It also illuminates the fruitful confluence of cultural influences that came about as a result of Carolingian rule over Lombardy, and the advent of scholars and craftsmen from northern Italy to the court of Charlemagne. A manuscript from Verona, copied by two Italian scribes, contains a famous list of classical texts, which Bischoff believed constituted the core of Charlemagne’s court library.43 Even if this is not true, it has close connections with Peter of Pisa and Fiducia, and also with Paul the Deacon. It may have been ‘created for a student or friend of Peter of Pisa.’44 It is a tantalising glimpse of the wealth of classical learning still available at that time, sheltering under the wings of Christian biblical and patristic study and grammatical learning.45 Paul the Deacon appears to be the most interesting person from Italy to have made his mark at the court of Charlemagne.46 He and Peter of Pisa were already colleagues, perhaps even friends, when Alcuin got to know them.47 Peter praised the arrival of his fellow Italian in the persona of the king himself, in a famous poem in 783, hailing him as a light in a backwater, who was versed in some Greek as well as Latin, alleging his wide knowledge of classical authors, and his ability to fertilise the hearts of those who wished to learn with streams of Latin grammar and some cognisance of Greek too.48 There was both wit and irony running through this piece, perhaps some rivalry as well, to which Paul reciprocated in kind, professing his ignorance of Greek and Hebrew, and playing down his alleged reputation.49 There remains a much sadder and more direct poem from his hand, however, to Charlemagne himself, in which he pleaded for the release of his brother from seven years of captivity after the failed Lombard uprising in 776. It was presumably written soon after he finally joined the king’s entourage in 782. He painted a plaintive picture of his brother’s wife reduced to poverty and bringing up four children, while her husband languished ‘desolate and disheartened, naked and needy’ in some Frankish prison. The family could not inherit their ancestral lands and they felt their loss of social position keenly. The poet was on his knees to his new lord, begging for mercy.50 Paul had grown up at the Lombard courts in Pavia, Monza and Benevento and was the cultivated representative of a proud tradition. He was the court poet who in 763 had written an encomium for Adelperga, the daughter of King Desiderius, whom Charlemagne subsequently dethroned. In it he praised the wisdom and learning of both father and daughter. He later praised the ruler of Benevento, Arichis, in similar terms, hailing his new buildings at Salerno as emulating and surpassing those of ancient Rome itself, being motivated however by Christian rather than pagan values.51 In this line of acclamation, Paul anticipated the heyday of Carolingian court verse thirty years later. ‘To the Frankish king he later dedicated his epitome of the dictionary of Festus Pompeius, as he had previously presented a text of Eutropius to the Lombard princess.’52 In his dedicatory letter, he said explicitly to Charlemagne that his

46

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

gift was to add to the royal library.53 The pre-eminence of both Peter and Paul, and their rivalry, lasted until Paul returned to Monte Cassino monastery before the year 787, and Peter returned to Italy sometime after 790. Thereafter Alcuin and Theodulf of Orleans took centre stage in the same spirit of intellectual wit and rivalry expressed in court poetry, and backed up by energetic teaching and wide learning. The widespread influence of Paul the Deacon can be tracked through many of the remaining manuscripts, and the range of his own writings imitates those of Alcuin himself, if far fewer in number. They comprise, in addition to his writings at the Lombard court, epitaphs for the nobility, both Lombard and in due course Carolingian also, further correspondence with Peter of Pisa, and letters between himself and Charlemagne. His History of the Lombards was copied early in the ninth century in north-eastern Italy, perhaps at Verona, where it was clearly valued as an important testimony to a still lively Lombard cultural tradition.54 His History of the Romans was similarly copied, perhaps in his lifetime in central Italy and later taken to northern Italy, where it found a home at Bobbio.55 There was a manuscript, now lost, recorded in the catalogues of the monastic libraries at Lorsch and St Riquier in the early ninth century, in which Paul’s commentary on Donatus was included among a collection of similar grammatical works.56 His epitome of Festus was copied at least twice early in the ninth century, probably in western France.57 Some of his court poems are preserved in the Verona manuscript already discussed, along with those of Peter of Pisa.58 A rare survivor of the revival of learning in which Paul played such a leading role is a manuscript from Monte Cassino itself where he ended his days. Similarly there remains at Erfurt in Germany a codex entitled Ex libro breviario Pauli abbatis containing explanations of didactic terminology from Cassiodorus and Isidore.59 The arrival of Paul the Deacon at the court of Charlemagne was part of the subtle way in which Lombard culture and learning was infused north of the Alps; and when Paul returned to Monte Cassino, he remained a centre of intellectual influence and interest to Frankish visitors and pilgrims. Paul’s most abiding legacy was undoubtedly his famous History of the Lombards.60 Over one hundred manuscripts still remain such was its popularity in the Middle Ages, although it is not as meticulously ordered a work as Bede’s History. It is as much saga as history, the legends of a people as well as a record of their Christianisation and their unfolding relations with Rome and Byzantium. He saw himself and his family as part of this history, probably being born in Cividale in the duchy of Friuli at the head of the Adriatic between 720 and 730. Even before the fall of the Lombard dynasty, he made his home at the monastery of Monte Cassino, while retaining links at court. There he remained as a monk for the rest of his life, apart from his years at the court of Charlemagne between 781 and 785. He composed for his fellow monks a poetic version of the miracles of St Benedict, whose body lay there, and he may have composed his Life of Gregory the Great at this time or perhaps later.

Chapter 3 – Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court

47

He probably encountered Charlemagne, the new conqueror of Italy, on his visit in 781 to keep Easter in Rome. This was the likely occasion of Paul’s poem appealing for mercy for his captive brother. Like Alcuin, who met the king that year at Parma on his return, Paul was invited to join the royal court. While with the king, he was commissioned to produce a history of the bishopric of Metz, a see close to the interests of the ruling dynasty.61 On his return to Monte Cassino, he compiled a collection of the letters of Gregory the Great for Abbot Adalhard of Corbie, a friend of Alcuin’s. It was at this time that he wrote his epitome of Festus, and also drew together his collection of homilies at the king’s request which were to have an abiding influence on medieval preaching. Like Bede, the composition of his History of the Lombards was the culmination of his life’s work and he died, perhaps in 799, aged around seventy before he could complete it. In the later years of his life, he possibly played an important if hidden role as an intermediary between Charlemagne and the rulers of Benevento. His History may have been intended for the Carolingian protégé there, Grimoald III, the last representative of Lombard autonomy. Like Alcuin, his roots lay in a different realm to that of Charlemagne and his immediate followers. Both men were steeped in rich and long traditions of Christian culture and learning, Lombard and English, which the king sought to appropriate for his own purposes as the paramount Christian ruler of Western Europe. Both Alcuin and Paul enjoyed a position of relative independence vis à vis their patron as a result of their backgrounds as well as on account of their outstanding abilities. In their day, the role of the deacon as teacher was well established and clearly authoritative. Other scholars and teachers are also known, many of whom became friends of Alcuin’s and recipients of his letters: Adalhard, Abbot of Corbie, Arno, Bishop of Salzburg and Paulinus, Archbishop of Aquilea were most notable as theologians and church leaders. To these might be added Leidrad, Bishop of Lyons, Angilbert, Abbot of St Riquier, as well as those of a younger generation, notably Benedict of Aniane, the reformer of Benedictine monasticism. The most outstanding intellectual figure at the court of Charlemagne whom Alcuin encountered and had to reckon with was undoubtedly Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, a Visigoth from Spain, whose knowledge of the Bible and Christian patristic theology matched and in some areas even surpassed that of Alcuin himself. His writings, most notably the composition of the Libri Carolini, commissioned by Charlemagne, afford the fullest picture of the wealth and vitality of theology that was emerging under royal patronage, to which Alcuin would make his own important and decisive contributions. It also helps to explain the attraction that he must have felt when invited by the king to join his court, a decision that obviously reflected his established reputation as the leading magister at York in the eyes of the Charlemagne, and of the scholars that he had gathered around him. For Charlemagne stood as an active participant and instigator at the centre of this web of patronage, learning and mutual communication.

Chapter 4 Controversy over Images The Libri Carolini represents the theology and preoccupations of those around Charlemagne during the years leading up to the Synod of Frankfurt in 794. It was prompted by news of the Council of Nicea of 787, whose ill-translated acta reached Charlemagne some three years later in 790, when work on the book was begun by Theodulf of Orleans at the king’s command.1 Theodulf was a Visigothic cleric from Spain who arrived at the court of Charlemagne about the same time as Alcuin, and for similar reasons. There is now no doubt about Theodulf ’s authorship of this magnum opus, which reveals the measure of his abilities as a theologian and biblical scholar; although in the past it was attributed by some to Alcuin himself.2 But Alcuin was out of the country, visiting England at the time, as a missus for Charlemagne to the English church about the very subject that provoked Theodulf ’s work: the terms, as Charlemagne believed, of the repudiation of iconoclasm by the Byzantines at Nicea in 787. The York annals for 792 report that: Charles, king of the Franks, sent to Britain a synodal book, directed to him from Constantinople, in which book – grievous to say – were found many things improper and contrary to the true faith; especially that it had been asserted with the unanimous consent of nearly all the scholars of the East, around 300 bishops, that images ought to be adored, which the Church of God utterly abhors. Against this Albinus [i.e. Alcuin] wrote a letter, wonderfully supported by the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and presented it with the same book, and in the name of our bishops and nobles, to the king of the Franks.3 This is the most immediate contemporary witness to the initial Frankish and English reaction to the purported acta of the Synod of Nicea, which revolved around the way in which Latin word adorare was used both for the worship of God and the veneration of images, which in the original Greek were described by two different words. The annals also indicate that Charlemagne and his entourage thought that the badly translated Latin acta came directly from Constantinople itself, rather than from Rome, though with no covering letter it would seem and not from the Pope directly. It gave them a chance to tilt at the authority of Byzantium and to contrast it with that of Charlemagne and the orthodoxy of the Western church.4 The

Chapter 4 – Controversy over Images

49

York annals also confirm the picture, evident during the legatine visitation to England in 786, of the close collaboration between the English and Frankish churches at this time. They show Alcuin as a trusted emissary and intermediary between the two churches, and between the rulers of England and Charlemagne himself. Sadly, Alcuin’s carefully composed response to the Nicene acta is now lost: it might well have provided a fuller context for understanding the genesis of the Libri Carolini. Given the strength of three dimensional stone and metal work in England and its church during the eighth century, however, Alcuin’s response may have been more muted than that of Theodulf, who came from a rather different theological and artistic tradition in Spain which was also in close proximity to Islam. By the time Alcuin returned to England in 793, Theodulf ’s great work was nearing completion. To understand its importance, the iconoclastic conflict in the Eastern Church must be outlined, and its place within the wider context of relationships and tensions between the Byzantine emperor, the papacy and the Carolingian monarchy in the eighth century.5

Iconoclasm In the early part of the eighth century in the Eastern Church, the veneration of images came to assume a significant role in Constantinople, fostered in part by monks and aristocrats, as well as by popular piety.6 Meanwhile the Byzantine Empire was coming under increasing and repeated attacks from the Arabs, losing many valuable provinces and wealth. Around the years 725/6 there was a major volcanic eruption in the eastern Mediterranean at Santorini (Thera), and Emperor Leo III responded to the loss of the key cities of Nicea and Caesarea by promulgating a ban on images, whose spiritual intercession had clearly failed.7 Were these human and natural disasters signs of God’s wrath? Were images indeed offensive to God, as the victorious followers of Islam asserted along with the Jews, often criticising crude popular superstition towards them which verged on idolatry and which also caused concern to many Christians? There were other aspects to Byzantine iconoclasm: the role of monks in promoting the cult of images, the proliferation of images in private homes and their intrusion into public worship. There were also major theological concerns about whether images were indeed connected in some way spiritually with the realities they portrayed? Was Basil of Caesarea right when he said that ‘veneration shown to the image passes to its prototype’, for example in the reverence shown to saints, some of which imitated the honour shown to the emperor and his retinue? How should such reverence be paid without seeming to parody the practises of pagan idolatry which still existed? How was the second commandment in the Old Testament about not making any graven images, nor bowing down and worshipping them, to be interpreted? Under Emperor Constantine V, iconoclasm in Byzantium assumed the

50

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

character of sometimes violent persecution within the Church. In 754 he received support from the synod of Hieria in which all possession of images was banned as heretical, using many of the arguments that Theodulf would include in the Libri Carolini.8 At the same time there was a clamp-down on monks and the whole rationale of the monastic life. The issue divided the Church to the very top, leading to the fall of the patriarch Germanos in 730, and the controversial rise of the layman Tarasios who became the patriarch of Constantinople in 784. The importance of this issue in the eighth century has been magnified however in later Orthodox theology and ecclesiology. While both sides at that time could appeal to traditional devotional practices, those individuals opposed to what they perceived as the misuse of images had the weight of long Christian practice on their side with its roots in Jewish theology. The Roman church, led by Pope Gregory II and his successors, resisted forcible iconoclasm along with other imperial attempts to raise taxes to pay for the defence of Italy against the Lombards. In 751 Ravenna fell to the Lombards and the Byzantine exarchate was no more. Further conflicts over territory ensued between the papacy and the remains of the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Italy. Meanwhile, at a synod in Rome in 731, the proper use of images was defined and defended at some length. This approach was endorsed some years later in 769 by another Roman synod at which Frankish bishops were present; and in the same year Pope Stephen repudiated the Byzantine synod of Hieria that had condemned all images in 754 and had also claimed ecumenical authority. In the meantime many Greek artists found refuge in Rome during these years, leaving their mark on churches like St Maria Antiqua.9 The Western view about the proper use of images in church had its roots in the teaching of Gregory the Great, who defended their educational as well as their devotional role, a teaching which Bede developed further in his book De Templo.10 Bede’s contention was that what was banned in the Bible was the creation of images for the purpose of worship and idolatry, not the creation of images per se, which could ‘elicit compunction in the beholders, and also make available to those who are illiterate a living narrative of the story of the Lord’, as was evident in his own monastery of MonkwearmouthJarrow. He defended veneration of the Cross, for example, by reference to the Israelites in the desert looking to the brazen snake on the pole in order to be saved.11 The Temple itself was a rich recreation of the Garden of Eden, replete with representations of trees and flowers; and the Ark of the Covenant was overshadowed by figures of the cherubim, created explicitly at divine command. These were all important arguments that were deployed by Western critics of iconoclasm, including some of the Frankish bishops, who became involved in further discussions about this matter with Greek emissaries at the synod of Gentilly near Paris in 767. In 780, Emperor Leo IV died and his wife, Irene, became ruler as regent.

Chapter 4 – Controversy over Images

51

She persuaded the layman Tarasios to become patriarch in 784 and ordered him to convene a synod, initially in the capital, but then in Nicea in 787, where the policy of iconoclasm was overturned, with the support of legates from Pope Hadrian I. The pope disapproved of a layman becoming patriarch, however, and was also anxious to regain jurisdiction over lost territories in Illyricum around Thessalonica; so he only gave moderate support to the Byzantine restoration of images which reversed the decision of the synod of Hieria, as he told Charlemagne in a letter. The position of Tarasios and the manner in which the synod of Nicea was conducted did not pass unchallenged in Constantinople, however. Nor were the acta of Nicea initially understood or accepted in the West: hence the compilation of the Libri Carolini. The issue revived in Byzantium the first part of the ninth century with a new wave of iconoclasm before the veneration of icons was finally admitted as orthodox.12

The Libri Carolini The Libri Carolini comprises the most wide-ranging and systematic conspectus of Frankish theological concerns in the critical Carolingian decade of the 790’s, the years leading up to the Synod of Frankfurt in 794 and approaching the imperial coronation of Charlemagne in Rome in 800. In this ferment of creative theological and political thought, Alcuin played an important but by no means always dominant role. He shared many of the same theological and political concerns as Theodulf, and these were shared also by others as well as by Charlemagne himself. For the king played an active role in the final version of the Libri Carolini, as is evidenced by the marginal notes of his approval that are carefully preserved in Tironian shorthand in the original draft of the manuscript that is now in the Vatican library.13 Noble observes that this work ‘is a stunning achievement in biblical exegesis, a penetrating theological assessment of a whole series of interrelated problems, and the first western discussion of art and aesthetics since antiquity.’14 It is a large and very learned compilation, full of interest. Its generation and its wider significance for the king and his advisers may well be one of the reasons why Alcuin and Theodulf were separately summoned to assist. Although it was occasioned by the controversy over image veneration and the faulty acta of the second council of Nicea, the Libri Carolini mounted a profound challenge to the authority of the Byzantine rulers as guardians of Christian orthodoxy, a role now claimed increasingly by Charlemagne and those around him, while paying due deference to the authority of the pope in Rome. It attacked the patriarch Tarasios for moving so rapidly from a layman’s state to become the highest authority in the church of Constantinople. It questioned, for example, his teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, which conflicted with increasing Frankish insistence on the Filioque that was intended to safeguard the Church against Christological heresy in the west in the form of Spanish Adoptionism.15 It challenged also the pretensions of the Byzantine

52

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

rulers to share their authority with God Himself. Above all it repudiated utterly any claim by the Byzantines that Nicea II was ecumenical in character or authority, despite the presence of papal legates.16 This led to the outlining of a new theory of church councils towards the end of the work in which Alcuin may well have had some direct influence. With regard to the Byzantine theology underlying the restoration and commanding of image veneration, Theodulf had a full picture, and he rested his critique on a very different line of theology, alleging that this eastern initiative was a revolution in theory and practice for the entire Church. Running through his entire discussion was a sharp criticism of the faulty use of language and biblical exegesis by the Greeks. Instead, the Frankish church asserted its own preoccupations with tradition, order and worship, claiming to be a new and more spiritual ‘people of Israel’ and heirs of divine providence and purpose.17 The assumption of imperial rule by Irene, a mere woman, was denigrated, overtly portraying Charlemagne as a more fitting protector of all Christian people.18 The authority of the Bible was upheld as paramount, as Christian worship was to be ‘in spirit and in truth.’19 Material images could not partake in this worship though they might assist it. Charlemagne’s concern as ruler was to be obedient to the will of God as revealed in the Bible and maintained by the traditions of the Roman church, to whose authority in matters of doctrine he would and did always defer. This was his solemn duty as a Christian ruler, as it would also secure the safety and well-being of his realm. Theodulf ’s authorship has been carefully established by Freeman and she has shed much light on his own background and theological approach.20 Her introduction to the definitive edition of the text summarises her findings over many years. 21 The acta of Nicea II came by a roundabout route to the court of Charlemagne without the apparent cognizance of Pope Hadrian I. The Franks assumed, wrongly, that they recorded the very words of the participants, unaware it would seem that they were originally written in Greek. They misunderstood also Byzantine diplomatic conventions and railed against the empress as arrogant, even in the title of the book. Before Theodulf got fully underway, a summary of the intended contents – a capitulary – was sent by Angilbert in 792 to Rome for papal approval. With him went Felix, Bishop of Urguel, who had been condemned for his Adoptionist views at the synod of Regensburg that year. Progress on the compilation of the Libri Carolini went swiftly ahead, while a copy of the original Nicene acta was sent with Alcuin to England in 792. Meanwhile the pope reacted sharply to the Frankish remonstrance, having given cautious backing to the synod of Nicea in an attempt to heal the rift between the papacy and Byzantium. The Roman response to the Frankish capitulary was a weighty rebuttal of the Frankish objections and misunderstandings. Alcuin returned in 793 and may have contributed to the composition of the final part of the Libri Carolini,22 both in terms of its theory of church councils and also in its anti-Adoptionist

Chapter 4 – Controversy over Images

53

emphases. Alcuin’s own letter on the subject, now lost but mentioned in the York annals, probably played an important role in supporting the consensus that underpinned the labours of Theodulf. His final work was read aloud to the king and his comments were recorded. In the autumn of 793 the papal response arrived and it did not support the king and his advisers: but they were committed to deferring to papal authority in matters of doctrine, as they had said in the Libri Carolini itself. So the matter slipped into the background at the ensuing Synod of Frankfurt that convened in 794. The sole copy of the book, now in the Vatican, was later rediscovered by Hincmar of Rheims, who made a copy of it in the middle of the ninth century, another being made about that time for the monastery at Corbie.23 Theodulf ’s authorship has been confirmed by his widespread Spanish spellings of Latin that were subsequently corrected by other Frankish scribes. His citations from memory of the Bible, and particularly of the Psalms and their antiphons, reflect his own upbringing within the Mozarabic liturgical tradition, whose roots originally lay in the church of North Africa. These may be corroborated by a unique Leon antiphonary of the tenth century, and also the Verona Orationale from the early eighth century. The particular variants within the Libri Carolini have been confirmed by the chance discovery of an ancient Latin psalter in the library of St Catherine’s monastery beneath Mount Sinai.24 ‘This uncommon and illuminating coincidence demonstrates very effectively the conserving power of chant in liturgical use. The Biblical text, over time, is subject to corruption from scribal errors, omissions, and the like. A living liturgical tradition, passed from generation to generation in singing, can survive intact for centuries’.25 This is something already demonstrated in relation to Alcuin’s own liturgical upbringing in York, his use of scripture, and his endless concern for accuracy in the written texts of the Bible, an insistence he shared with Theodore. From very early Spanish tradition came Theodulf ’s wariness towards the veneration of images in Christianity, something intensified perhaps by the advent of Islam into Spain. The council of Elvira in 306 had condemned the painting of pictures in churches lest they be worshipped by the ignorant. So in the decoration of the bibles that Theodulf commissioned, non-figural motifs were used, and the apse of his private chapel at Germigny-des-Pres, the Ark of the Covenant was portrayed accompanied by four angels. Its inscription declared that its purpose was to inspire prayer, not adoration. Theodulf himself clearly had no objection to certain images in church per se, only to their being worshipped or made into objects of a superstitious cult. He endorsed on behalf of Charlemagne, in whose name he was writing, the position of Gregory the Great in his letter to Serenus of Marseilles, confirming the educational value of images and rejecting their destruction.26 For Theodulf had a keen appreciation of art, ancient and Christian, which he described at some length and in interesting detail in the Libri Carolini. This great work was however a collaborative effort and various changes

54

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

were introduced along the way by other minds and hands. The rich array of sources used to create the Libri Carolini reflects the wealth of resources with which Theodulf was familiar, both from memory and from books associated with the court of Charlemagne. Central to Theodulf ’s modus operandi was the use of logic and syllogisms: his argument could be terse in the extreme and forceful towards his putative opponents the Greeks. He had a great mastery of the Bible, as is evident in other manuscripts associated with him, including the versions of the Bible with their variant texts and the detailed commentaries that he commissioned or associated with them.27 What is particularly interesting about Theodulf ’s theology is the way that, like Alcuin’s, it went beyond the tradition that he had received. To Theodulf ’s mind only the Ark of the Covenant, the Cross and the Eucharist could be regarded as divinely permitted symbols of saving spiritual realities; relics of saints were also holy means of grace. But no material object made by a human artist could participate in divine realities. This challenged head-on the incipient theology of icons, developed by John of Damascus in the East, though not explicitly taken up at Nicea II by the Byzantine church until after the final spasm of iconoclasm in the first part of the ninth century. Eastern theology came to assert the sacramental nature of icons in particular and their miraculous potential, believing indeed that veneration shown to the image passes to the prototype in heaven, and from that reality grace and healing can flow through an icon. In that sense the theology of the Libri Carolini marked a breach in the Church’s vision, for it asserted unequivocally the superiority of the written word of the Bible to any visual portrayal of its message, condemning image-worship as a ‘novelty’. Reverence to saints might be prompted by painted images in churches, but it was essentially spiritual in character and educative in purpose and should remain that way. Chazelle has shown how radical was the separation between the spiritual and the material in the thought of Theodulf and those whom he represented among the Frankish clergy at that time.28 He believed that the material world was good but incapable of itself in leading human beings to the spiritual reality of God, unless it was so enabled by divine grace, as in the case of the sacraments and the Bible. This was a sharper division than that envisaged by Augustine, whose ultimate authority lay behind Theodulf ’s arguments. In this respect his thought anticipated the arguments of the ninth-century Frankish theologians, Claudius of Turin and Agobard of Lyon, who condemned all veneration of images. This single-minded perception and distinction gave unity to the various points of theological focus in the Libri Carolini. The assertion was that the Greeks had muddled the proper relationship between matter and spirit in Christian belief and worship. The teaching of Gregory the Great was reduced to the declaration that images should be neither worshipped nor destroyed. No artist however skilled and devout could portray anything intrinsically spiritual or efficacious. Thus the Bible itself, as a unique fusion of the spiritual within the material,

Chapter 4 – Controversy over Images

55

required a spiritual interpretation, affirming the unique significance of writing and language for conveying saving truth. Literal interpretation of the text could err in much the same way as image-worship, resting on the material letter of the text without discerning the spiritual meaning: hence the many challenges to Greek exegesis of the Bible as Theodulf perceived it to be. Error in interpreting the Bible led to error in the matter of image-veneration. Only the church of Rome could interpret faithfully and authentically the spiritual meaning of Scripture in the light of Christ, who is the only mediator between earth and heaven, Old and New Testament, God and humanity. The Cross was the supreme symbol as well as the saving means of this union. For Theodulf ’s theology was as Christocentric as was Alcuin’s when he was dealing with Adoptionism. This was the cornerstone of Carolingian orthodoxy, resting as it did on the authority of the Bible: ‘What defines Christian tradition and Roman doctrine in the Libri Carolini is largely determined by the demands of intellectual consistency.’29 There is a driven character to Theodulf ’s arguments, supported by his confidence in reason and in the logical command of accurate language. As a result of this line of thought, which was not confined to the Libri Carolini, there appears to have been little figural three-dimensional representation in Carolingian church art at this time, unlike in England; nor were there any accounts of miracle-working images. Instead it was church architecture that came to be spoken of in the highest terms as the appropriate framework for worship, preaching and the visual arts. ‘It is crucial to recognize that for the Carolingians only architecture could be talked about in spiritual terms, not images . . . Architecture, although just as material as images, was able to express divine truths.’30 The foundation for this was Bede’s De Templo, and it derived its authority from the use of the spiritual building as a metaphor in the teaching of Peter and Paul in the New Testament.31 The church of the Holy Wisdom that Alcuin helped to build in York, Charlemagne’s rotunda at Aachen, Theodulf ’s chapel at Germigny, Angilbert’s church complex at St Riquier and Einhard’s proprietary churches, were all examples of this commanding vision and belief. Theodulf valued, understood and appreciated art and described its scope and limitations vividly and perceptively in the Libri Carolini. He went so far as to declare that the Franks invested much money and care in the decoration of their churches as fit places for divine worship: ‘we cover our churches with beautiful images out of respect for the holy place and the acts of worship that take place there.’32 But ‘Theodulf was captivated by beauty’, like Augustine before him; 33 and awareness of its allure made them both wary of its place within Christian worship.

Alcuin and the Libri Carolini Alcuin was clearly involved in the Frankish response to the image controversy, as the York annals make clear,34 and by the opening of the Synod of Frankfurt in 794 he was in a position to be commended formally

56

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

to that gathering by Charlemagne as ‘a man learned in the doctrines of the Church’ and as an authoritative figure in the Frankish church.35 It was the onset of the Spanish heresy of Adoptionism that propelled Alcuin to prominence, however, and he would deal with its challenge with the same vigour, learning and ability that Theodulf had brought to the question of image veneration. There is some evidence that preoccupation with Adoptionism in Spain, which alleged that, in his human nature, Christ was the adopted Son of God, made its mark on the Libri Carolini in the closing stages of its preparation. In the beginning of book three, a creed was inserted that was attributed to Jerome, although it originated with Pelagius. It may well have been brought by Alcuin from England, as parts of it found their way into the profession of faith made earlier by Lullus, Archbishop of Mainz around the year 780.36 This creed described Christ as ‘truly the only-begotten Son of God, not created nor adopted, but begotten of one substance with the Father.’37 Its insertion in the Libri Carolini replaced an earlier creed or set of creeds collated by Theodulf for inclusion in his original draft, from various Church Fathers rather than just one. The creed attributed to Jerome is a very full Christological commentary and a defence against a whole range of heresies, similar in some respects to the Quicunque Vult or ‘Athanasian Creed’ but much fuller. Its relevance to Alcuin’s writings against Adoptionism and to the credal profession of the Frankish bishops is readily apparent. The Libri Carolini concludes with a careful statement of conciliar theory whereby bishops from several realms could define faith in accordance with the canons of the first six ecumenical councils.38 The language of Book IV.28 is not Alcuin’s, but its argument is consistent with the tradition of councils held in England with which he was familiar, and which Boniface had developed in the Frankish church.39 As Bullough says: ‘The denial of the universality of Nicea II, contrary to the claims of the Greeks, and the proposition that a gathering of the bishops of several provinces, “which professed without reservation the whole body of doctrine taught by the Fathers” in the six ecumenical councils, could claim to share in their universality as well as their orthodoxy, were as bold as they were appealing. They put into the hands of the Frankish king a formidable instrument of authority over Christian peoples and the faith they professed; and it is noteworthy that Alcuin did not need, or did not choose, to articulate such views a second time, even at the peak of his contest with the Adoptionist bishop Felix.’40 Such a clear and unequivocal view challenged the pretensions of Nicea II and was the basis for the Synod of Frankfurt in 794, for which Alcuin’s visit to the English church and its declaration had been a necessary prelude. It clearly articulated a strong theological consensus among the Frankish bishops and their English counterparts about how to proceed under the leadership of Charlemagne himself.

Chapter 4 – Controversy over Images

57

Other traces of Alcuin’s presence and influence may be detected in the authorities used by Theodulf to support his arguments against the Greeks.41 ‘The Perihermeneias of Aristotle, as translated and interpreted by Boethius, received its first documented use in medieval times in the Libri Carolini. . . . Alcuin also knew and used the commentary of Boethius in his De dialectica which, together with the De rhetorica, was completed after his return from England in 793.’42 A manuscript given by Leidrad of Lyons in 814 to the cathedral there contains many of the sources for the Libri Carolini, including the creed inserted at the beginning of book three. Leidrad accompanied Theodulf as a royal missus in 798 and was probably a pupil and certainly a friend of Alcuin’s, who addressed him as filius noster in a letter to Arno of Salzburg in 800.43 It is an important and very early collection of dialectical works, illuminating the common resources available to both Theodulf and Alcuin. Another work used in common was the treatise called Tractatus de categoriis Aristotelis or Categoriae Decem, which Alcuin discovered before his departure to England in 790.44 Alcuin commended it to the king as a work of Augustine, prefacing it with a poem hailing Charlemagne for his love of wisdom.45 Theodulf used it three times in the Libri Carolini and on the last occasion his wording reflects the way the text was rendered in Alcuin’s De dialectica. This would imply that elements that were incorporated later by Alcuin in his treatise were already circulating as teaching material drafted by him and available at court for Theodulf ’s use.46 This confirms Bullough’s wider view that much of Alcuin’s final written educational material was the culmination of many years of teaching, first at York and then at the Frankish court. It also indicates that the use of logic was well developed before Alcuin arrived at the court of Charlemagne.47 Alcuin’s reaction to Theodulf ’s dynamic use of logic in the Libri Carolini was to develop his own in a distinctive manner. As can be seen from their subsequent poems, there was an intellectual and perhaps also a temperamental rivalry at times between them.48 Alcuin’s De Dialectica is a good example of how he worked. ‘Nowhere in the works attributed to him did Alcuin put forward an argument that is original and striking. Yet in his choice and juxtaposition of second-hand material, he reveals a mind clear and resolved in its purpose.’49 He drew creatively, not just derivatively, from several sources50 while changing their emphasis; unlike Theodulf he placed less weight on a merely verbal approach to logic. ‘In these ways, without being in any way an original logical thinker, Alcuin managed to create his own approach to logic, quite distinct from that found in the Libri Carolini: one where logic ceases to be mainly a verbal discipline, which provided an ostentatious way of setting out arguments, and comes to be regarded as a key to understanding reality.’51 This was the reason why Alcuin commended so strongly the Categoriae Decem52 in his poem to Charlemagne as containing in ten words the key everything perceptible to reason and the senses. He

58

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

reiterated this view in his dedicatory letter to the king that prefaced his De fide sanctae Trinitatis.53 For ‘early medieval philosophers thought through the ancient texts they studied, but their ideas were not bounded by their sources.’54 In his Disputatio de vera philosophia55 Alcuin drew upon knowledge of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae to develop a deeper view of the Christian pursuit of the liberal arts than that outlined by Theodulf in the Libri Carolini. ‘One of the most important pieces of evidence for the relationship between Alcuin and the Libri Carolini is a short discussion of how human nature bears God’s image and likeness in a manuscript written in Verona around the year 800.56 The passage appears among a collection of material from Alcuin’s circle called ‘the Munich passages’, and it is entitled Dicta Albini de imagine Dei.’57 A substantial part of this text appears verbatim in the Libri Carolini after an extract from Ambrose’s De Fide. Marenbon was of the view that this was a text created by Alcuin himself, which may have been interpolated into the manuscript of Ambrose that Theodulf was using. Bullough dissented, however, suggesting that it was part of the material that Alcuin was assembling from various places in the 780’s. But this rests on the assumption that Alcuin could not have composed any original pieces of theological writing before 790, which seems most unlikely given his interests and abilities as a teacher as well as his reputation. Either way it indicates a close link between Theodulf and Alcuin in their use of the resources that were at hand at that time. Despite their differences of temperament and background, Alcuin and Theodulf had much in common and each was the measure of the other. Both had a well developed sense of beauty and vision derived from Augustine, and Alcuin wrote many poems to accompany works of art in churches. In a letter to his pupil Fredegisus, written around 798, Alcuin outlined three ways of seeing: symbolic, bodily and mental.58 So for example, when considering the commandment of Christ in the gospel to love one’s neighbour as oneself, the letters of the text are read by the eyes, the imagination envisages the neighbour, but love itself is perceived by the mind’s spiritual understanding alone. Alcuin returned to this theme elsewhere, notably in his commentaries on the Apocalypse and the Song of Songs, but also in his commentary on John’s gospel.59 He also alluded to it in his De animae ratione with reference to how the mind can conjure up an image of Rome from the memory of a visit there and the precise nature and significance of that reminiscence.60 ‘Alcuin and Augustine both drew attention to the powers and limitations of physical sight . . . Augustine really had little to say about material images: nor did Alcuin. Mental images, for Augustine as for Alcuin, were a different matter, however. Spiritual vision, interior perception, and the mind’s eye – that alone sees truly.’61 Theodulf would not have dissented from this conclusion: it was central to his argument in the Libri Carolini and fundamental to Carolingian theology, belief and worship.

Part Two The Adoptionist Crisis Chapter 5 Spanish Adoptionism The crisis over the heresy of Adoptionism that appeared in Spain in the closing decades of the eighth century has been referred to in passing already and Alcuin’s role in combating it must now be examined in detail. To judge from his theological treatises and some of his letters, this was his ‘finest hour’ and perhaps his single most important contribution to the orthodoxy of the Western Church in terms of clearly articulating its Christology and Trinitarian belief. This was certainly the view of his biographer who records how Alcuin’s mentor, Archbishop Aelberht of York, had predicted his future ministry on the continent, and his role in rebutting the Adoptionist heresy and proclaiming the truth of the Trinity, devoting a whole chapter in his Life of Alcuin to the controversy itself.1 This story probably had its origin in Alcuin’s own conviction about his vocation that led him to work on the continent as a theologian.2 In this task, however, Alcuin was not alone: Paulinus of Aquilea, Benedict of Aniane and others emerged as friends and collaborators, acting on behalf of Charlemagne and with the support of both popes, Hadrian I and Leo III.3 Their combined actions left an indelible mark on the life and worship of the Western Church that is evident to this day, both in terms of the final insertion of the Filioque into the Nicene Creed as a matter of dogma, and in the placing of that creed immediately after the gospel in the Mass, where it has remained as the regular profession of orthodox Christian belief. Seen in conjunction with the iconoclast issue that has already been examined, Adoptionism imposed upon the Carolingian church and its temporal ruler, as rex et sacerdos, a leadership role that Charlemagne was only too ready to adopt and Alcuin to endorse, to the discomfiture of distant Byzantium, of Elipandus of Toledo, the primate of Spain, and in the end even of Pope Leo III himself, who refused in 809, shortly after Alcuin’s death, to authorise the formal insertion of the Filioque into the creed.4 To his mind and judgement as pope the argument that it was dogmatically correct did not justify tampering with the wording of the historic creed that still united the Church, eastern and western. The pope ordered the inscription of the original version of the Nicene Creed to be made on silver panels, in Greek and Latin, either side of the door

60

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

leading down into the shrine or confessio of St Peter as an expression of his own devotion to, and also as a safeguard for, the historic orthodox faith.5 The Filioque was not sung in the creed in Rome during the ninth century as a result. So close was the connection between the arguments against Adoptionism and the rationale behind the Filioque, however, that a treatise entitled De processione Spiritus sancti was for a long time attributed to Alcuin himself: it was probably written however around 809 and therefore after his death as a distillation of the Carolingian understanding of Christology.6 In the minds of the Frankish and Italian critics of Adoptionism, Christology was integral to correct Trinitarian belief. In this they were guided by the wording of the Quicunque Vult which spoke of the unity of the two natures in Christ, ‘not by the transformation of his divinity into flesh, but by the taking up of his humanity into God.’7 For Alcuin and his contemporaries, the ‘assumption’ of human nature by the Word of God was not appropriately described in terms of ‘adoption’, which seemed to posit a divided subject in Christ, as it had done in the earlier Nestorian controversy, to which they repeatedly compared this new Spanish heresy.8 Spanish Adoptionism was not however simply Nestorianism redivivus, even if its implications as a mode of Christology had similar consequences and dangers, as Alcuin and others certainly perceived them. On the other hand, the Carolingian theologians were seriously concerned with doctrinal orthodoxy and uniformity, insofar as these could be achieved within the wide domains of Charlemagne’s rule. For Alcuin there were parallels with the earlier Monothelite controversy about Christology in the seventh century, with which Bede had been much concerned. The Carolingian church was also heavily engaged in Christian missionary work, including on the borders of Spain; and in that context terms like ‘adopted’ and ‘nominal son’ were misleading for converts, and inconsistent with liturgical language that ultimately derived from Rome, by which they learnt the Christian faith by heart. Their use also cut across the drive to raise educational standards among the clergy, for which task the creeds had long been indispensable instruments of instruction and discipline: hence the minatory tones of the Quicunque Vult. It was during the time of Charlemagne that this creed9 became inserted into psalters to be part of the worshipping discipline and formation of the clergy on the principle of lex orandi lex credendi.10 Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquilea11 addressed their Spanish interlocutors in terms derived from the earlier Church councils, notably the council of Ephesus, which had overthrown Nestorius in 431.12 In so doing they further appropriated the mantle of determining and clarifying Catholic orthodoxy, with the authority of Charlemagne and the Fathers behind them, in much the same spirit in which Theodulf of Orleans attacked the restoration of icons by Byzantium and its church at that time. Alcuin also perceived Adoptionism as another sign of the impending end of the world, the ‘last times’, when apostasy would insinuate itself into the citadel of the Church.

Chapter 5 – Spanish Adoptionism

61

The crisis called forth a remarkable enterprise of theological polemic by him and others, based on extensive patristic research and knowledge, in order to assert the orthodox faith of the Church in terms that has governed Western thought and belief about Christology for many centuries.

Spanish Adoptionism Spanish Adoptionism was essentially a kenotic Christology, rooted in the theology of Leo the Great and Augustine, and springing from the liturgical language and conciliar thinking of the Spanish church that had developed distinctively in preceding centuries.13 Kenotic Christology takes its bearing from the early Christian hymn included in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, which speaks of Christ ‘not clinging to his equality with God, but emptying himself, taking the form of a servant . . . and becoming obedient even to death on the Cross.’14 The key word in Latin, translating the Greek verb for kenosis, was exinanivit. How, and with what consequences and implications, did Christ ‘empty himself ’? Did the word describe simply the form in which he appeared in the world, the humility of his self-giving?15 Or did it intimate so profound a change of state as to place his human experience at some necessary distance from his divine nature and origin in order to be truly human and so ‘one with us’? In short, was this kenosis, this self-emptying, an ontological state, or a profound mode of divine selfgiving? What did it reveal about the nature of Christ’s human existence and how did this bear on the nature of human salvation? What might it also reveal about the nature of the being of God the Trinity? Elipandus Archbishop of Toledo and Felix Bishop of Urguel were addressing these questions, with their important corollaries for human salvation, Christian morality and belief about God. So too was their leading critic within the Spanish church, Beatus of Liebana. This was therefore initially a debate within Spanish Christianity, precipitated by a local heretical sect; but it quickly became caught up within wider ecclesiastical politics in which Charlemagne and the popes developed a keen interest. The theology at stake provoked Alcuin and others into a sharp and sustained reaction, which did not always do justice, however, to the subtleties and traditions within which the Spanish bishops were debating, because the Frankish theologians, led by Alcuin, measured what they heard by the great Church councils of the fifth century and the categories of earlier eastern disputes about Christology. Elipandus had been Archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain since 754 when around the year 782 he challenged a cleric called Migetius, who had drawn around him a following that exalted the status of priests and sought separation from non-believers – mainly Muslims. It also elevated the significance of the see of Rome in apocalyptic terms, which affronted Spanish traditions of ecclesiastical independence. Reports about Migetius and his sect drew the attention of Pope Hadrian I, who referred to this problem in some correspondence between the years 785 and 791. The context of these

62

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

papal letters is important because they were precipitated by concern about a missionary called Egila who had lapsed into heresy, having been originally commissioned by a Frankish bishop called Wilcharius, with Charlemagne’s support and with reluctant papal approval. Such a conjunction of Frankish missionary initiative, straying across a boundary into areas nominally under the purview of the Spanish primate, with notional papal blessing and having to contend with distortions of Christianity in the process, may be compared with the work and experience of Boniface earlier in the eighth century, whose letters reveal similar difficulties and moments of papal embarrassment.16 Mission was also a well-tried strategy for extending Carolingian political influence and rule, however, as at this time happened throughout the Spanish marches. Elipandus alleged that Migetius erred in his Trinitarian theology by asserting that the personae of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were present in the key biblical figures of King David, Christ himself, and the apostle Paul. This novelty Elipandus was eager to condemn.17 Migetius’s greatest error was his failure to distinguish the unique nature per se of Christ as the Son of God. Such caricatures and distortions of Christian belief were (and are) not uncommon in missionary areas: hence the concern of Alcuin for proper biblical education to support the missionary work of the Church. Elipandus asserted unequivocally the unique persona of Jesus as the Son of God, and not merely as a persona assumpta, as he believed Migetius was asserting, while drawing the dubious conclusion that he and his followers were similar, even ‘equal to’ Christ, in their prophetic ministry. It was this controversy within the Spanish church that brought the language of ‘assumption’ and also ‘adoption’ to the fore, as the writings of Beatus of Liebana reveal.18 From a political point of view, Elipandus as Archbishop of Toledo was under Moorish rule and independent of Charlemagne, who in 777 had failed in his military campaigns in Spain. He and his predecessors also maintained an independent and sometimes hostile attitude towards the papacy in Rome. His fiercest critic appears to have been Beatus of Liebana who lived in northern Spain, an area which was still free from Moorish rule. His treatise against Elipandus, and the documents that he cites there, are the only direct evidence for the state of this theological controversy within the Spanish church before the intervention of Charlemagne and his theologians at the council of Regensburg in 792. Beatus is also significant because he was later in touch directly with Alcuin as the controversy developed throughout the 790’s.19 Beatus certainly provoked the ire of Elipandus, and relations between them were bitter, as is revealed in a letter in which Elipandus wrote condemning him as a ‘precursor of Antichrist’.20 In it Elipandus asserted that failure ‘to confess that Jesus Christ is adoptive in his humanity but in no way adoptive in his divinity’ constituted heresy. In another document, a symbolus cited by Beatus, Elipandus appeared to insist that Christians could only be conformed by divine grace to Christ by means of his human nature; this was based on the key assertion of ‘likeness to Christ’ derived from the

Chapter 5 – Spanish Adoptionism

63

first letter of John.21 In a later letter to the Frankish bishops, Elipandus declared that the Spanish church believed that in his incarnation, Christ in his human nature was ‘Son of God’ by adoption and grace but not by nature.22 He became ‘adoptive’ in order to enable human beings to become ‘adopted’ in and through him: in his humility Christ assumed the status of adoption to become like us in all things apart from sin, echoing the teaching of St Paul. The pivot of his teaching therefore turned on the ‘self-emptying’ – the deitate exinanita – of Christ, as described in Philippians 2.7. Christ placed himself willingly where we are so that we might become united with him in his divine humanity. The laying aside of divine attributes made possible the union of the divine nature with human nature in its inherent, but not its sinful, limitations: therein lay the means of human salvation in Christ ‘by adoption and grace’. This was not in dispute: its correct mode of expression was however. The authority behind Elipandus’ teaching lay in a letter of Pope Leo I to the Emperor Leo I, and also in some of the theology of Augustine, as Elipandus made clear in a later letter to Alcuin. Christ became the first-born of many brethren ‘through the adoption of grace’, to echo earlier teaching of Isidore of Seville, which was derived once again from language used by Paul. Christians therefore come into a new and saving relationship with Christ through their adoption by grace, being conformed to him. This was the distinctive note of Spanish Christology at this time, and also of Spanish liturgical language. It laid less emphasis on the role of Christ as the unique mediator between man and God, which was to become the key point in Alcuin’s Christology and in his response along with that of Paulinus of Aquilea. Elipandus was not strictly a Nestorian therefore, inasmuch as he insisted on the single nature of Christ’s persona as the eternal Word of God. His use of the word adoptio in relation to Christ was therefore soteriological, being descriptive of his modus operandi as the incarnate one, who was made flesh in this way for the salvation of humanity. The sources of his theology were those of the creeds of Toledo, but also Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Isidore, and Julian of Toledo, to name the most prominent, as he himself did.23 Elipandus did not regard his position as unorthodox or inconsistent with Catholic tradition. Why therefore was he condemned by his fellowcountryman, Beatus of Liebana? Beatus was probably an abbot, living in Asturias beyond Muslim rule in the north of Spain. With the support of a younger protégé, Heterius Bishop of Osma, he had rallied support against Elipandus and his theological teaching. There may have been an element of political and ecclesiastical rivalry in this, but it is not clear to what degree. Beatus left two writings, however: a very full if derivative Commentary on the Apocalypse, and a substantial remonstrance against Elipandus, written in 785 well before the Frankish intervention. Like Alcuin, Beatus was a master of his patristic sources and a skilful and articulate theologian. It is hardly surprising that they later became allies. Beatus in fact shared much common ground with Elipandus in his approach

64

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

to Christology.24 He moved firmly within the classical framework of ‘one person, two natures in Christ’, using effectively the analogies of the body and soul constituting one person or agent, and also the structure of a book – its physical externals and its inner meaning, united but not mingled. His striking contribution was to conjoin Christology with ecclesiology: the Church is not only one Body with Christ but also one persona. This had apocalyptic overtones: the Body of Christ existing in contrast to the following of the devil; moreover ‘the Body of Christ is constituted by solidarity with him in suffering,’25 for the Head and the Body are one. The Church’s human substance becomes Christ’s own, having being redeemed by his shed blood. It is now one ‘person’ in him, united to his redeeming humanity: for he is the mediator who joins us to God in his own persona. It is the unique capacity of God the Son to be able to empty himself to this extent for human salvation: ‘I say that only the Son dies, because only the Son empties himself. His emptying is his coming: his coming is his humanity, a humanity which is both soul and body, that is, a full and complete human being.’26 The act of selfemptying belongs therefore to his person, not to his nature: the divine act of self-emptying is embodied in Christ the Son of God, revealing something also about the nature of divine being and love: for only God could achieve so complete a self-emptying; and this self-emptying now defines the true character of the Church, where self-giving love is expressed by humility. As the first-born, Christ is also the mediator, making possible something that transforms human nature by an act of divine initiative and grace. Beatus challenged Elipandus on this very point. Christ is Lord by virtue of his divine humility, into which we have to be conformed; his being a servant was the perfect human expression of his divine nature. The Head is therefore above the Body, though united to it by his own act: it is into his likeness that we have to be formed. Elipandus was criticised for obscuring this crucial role of Christ as mediator, his uniqueness as the divine servant, and as the full embodiment of the divine initiative in human salvation. Christ became like us in all things apart from sin so that we might, by his grace, become like him, and so enter into union with God through his own Sonship. It is for this reason that Christ the only Son of God must be worshipped as the divine Lord. The letter that Alcuin wrote to Beatus over ten years later in 798 at the height of the Adoptionist controversy is therefore revealing of both protagonists.27 By this time, Alcuin had met his match in Felix, Bishop of Urguel, whose diocese was within the Spanish march now ruled by Charlemagne, and who had become the most articulate and sophisticated advocate of an advanced Adoptionist Christology. In 793, Alcuin had exchanged letters with Felix and learnt about the role of Beatus of Liebana as the first to have challenged Adoptionism, to whom he was now able to write personally because of a visit to Tours by a Spanish pilgrim called Vincent. The letter closed with a characteristic poem of greeting for Beatus, saluting him as a beacon of Catholic light in western parts and castigating the heretics for their infidelity to

Chapter 5 – Spanish Adoptionism

65

the teaching of the Fathers. The final lines commended Alcuin to the prayers of Beatus despite the high mountains that separated them, through which the letter would have to travel. Alcuin clearly felt that Beatus was someone whom he would trust, whose position he already knew about and agreed with. In his letter Alcuin enjoined Beatus to stand firm against theological novelties that transgressed the boundaries laid down by the Church Fathers. He asserted their unity in spirit, in faith and in charity. He alleged that Felix had gone from bad to worse, declaring Jesus to be the ‘adopted’ Son of God, needing baptism as a human being like ourselves, referring to him as ‘nominally’ divine, along with other saints who had become through him ‘divine’. This surely resulted in two Christs – one divine, the other human, one truly God, the other only ‘nominally’ so. Felix claimed that Christ’s adoption arose from the assumption of human nature undertaken by the Word of God. But this was an absurdity and would entail the human ‘Son of God’ becoming, as it were, a ‘grandson’ of God! Against this Alcuin argued the classical position of the one person of God the Son, the only Son of God, who was truly God, existing in two natures, human and divine. Likewise in the Trinity there were three persons in one being, ‘as we are wont to sing in the Catholic creed of peace.’28 Alcuin repudiated rationalistic enquiries into and speculations about the mystery of the divine nature. Those who can barely fathom the depths of their own human nature, comprising soul and body, can hardly opine about the hidden mysteries of the incarnate Christ. He alluded to the first treatise that he had composed against the heresy of Felix, which rested on exhaustive patristic references, and which he now asked Beatus to read and respond to, should a copy come his way: ‘for it is better to be corrected by a friend than reproached by an enemy.’ Alcuin declared that his sole intention was to follow faithfully the footsteps of the Fathers in order to build up Catholic peace. To that end he sought the friendship and prayers of Beatus, whom sadly he probably never actually met. The important thing about this letter is the trust that Alcuin showed in Beatus, and the sense that they were united in attacking a deep error in Christian belief about Christ, even though they came from different traditions and were separated by these and also by geography in the form of the Pyrenees. Spanish Adoptionism had baneful consequences in the hands of less informed theologians however, and it was becoming clear by 798 that Felix of Urguel was incorrigible and turning his line of Christology into a system of articulate belief. Customary expressions of belief of considerable antiquity were being metamorphosed into a definite heretical movement, urged on it would seem to some extent by Elipandus, and confirming the worst fears of both popes. Because Felix was a bishop whose diocese had only recently in 789 been included within the domains of Charlemagne, the king was authorised to take action and felt obliged to do so, which he did in the years between 791 and 799, with the assistance of Alcuin, Paulinus of Aquilea, Benedict of Aniane and others. Meanwhile as a movement within the Spanish church it apparently attracted wide support in the border areas, according to Alcuin and Benedict.

Chapter 6 The Frankish Reaction It is in the letters and theological treatises of Alcuin that the full measure of the Frankish political reaction to Adoptionism may be seen and measured during the last decade of the eighth century.1 The first move in challenging Adoptionism from outside Spain came, however, from Pope Hadrian I. In a letter of 785, the pope alluded vaguely to Elipandus’ reported description of Christ as ‘adoptive’, a term which he deplored.2 He repudiated any form of Adoptionism as a recrudescence of Nestorianism and profoundly misleading. The pope’s second letter was written sometime before the council of Frankfurt in 793, in response to a letter that Elipandus had sent to the Frankish bishops.3 After repeating the line of argument of his original letter, Hadrian accused Elipandus of sundering the Son from the Father by making the eternal Son ‘adoptive’. The result was the same as Nestorianism – two sons, one of them merely human. He also attacked the way in which the term servus – slave, or servant – was being used about Christ in a way that demeaned him, because in the mind of Hadrian it implied a state of being in servitude to sin. He made no reference to the crucial kenotic passage in Philippians 2. 6-7, but insisted instead upon the exaltation of Christ and his Lordship as being the heart of the apostolic kerygma or preaching. Hadrian approached the matter from the standpoint of the council of Chalcedon of 451, in which his distinguished predecessor, Leo the Great, had played such a decisive part. This papal perception governed the whole response of the Franks and of Alcuin in particular to Adoptionism in the subsequent years. While it may have been technically an error to see Spanish Adoptionism as Nestorianism in Latin dress, the impact and implications were the same as the earlier heresy; and it was that which concerned Hadrian, as it also concerned Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquilea. In 791, Felix of Urguel appealed to Charlemagne, his new overlord, with a tract outlining his position. He was duly summoned by the king to a synod at Regensburg in 792 where he was examined by Paulinus of Aquilea and his views were condemned. He was then sent to Rome under the escort of Angilbert of St Riquier, who also took with him the summary of the Libri Carolini that was being composed at this time for papal approval. Meanwhile

Chapter 6 – The Frankish Reaction

67

a copy of the acts of Nicea II was sent to the English church by the hand of Alcuin. Pope Hadrian I duly condemned Felix, who professed his orthodoxy, but then managed to slip custody and return to the protection of Elipandus and to his see of Urguel in Spain. This occasioned the letter that Elipandus wrote to the Frankish bishops defending the Spanish position. In it he set forth his kenotic Christology, alleging that his critics under-valued the humility of God the Son. Charlemagne recalled Alcuin from England to address the crisis, which he did by his subsequent writings on the subject and by his presence at the synod of Frankfurt in 794, where he drafted the letter of the Frankish bishops to their Spanish counterparts. Elipandus as primate was their principal target while Felix was only mentioned once.4 Paulinus of Aquilea meanwhile drew up a document on behalf of the Italian bishops called the Liber sacrosyllabus, and Charlemagne sent a letter to Elipandus, also drafted by Alcuin, which asserted his duty as the paramount Christian ruler to resolve such disputes.5 Paulinus and Alcuin urged the use of the Nicene Creed in the Mass, which was endorsed by an Italian synod at Friuli in 796, in which the revised Latin text created by Paulinus was also authorised, the one used to this day in the Catholic Church. In 797 it seems that Felix was again promoting Adoptionism with the support of Elipandus, so Alcuin wrote eirenically to Felix6 and began his compilation at Tours of the patristic florilegium that became his Liber contra Felicis haeresim.7 One of the manuscripts that he used, which contained a crucial Latin translation of the acts of the council of Ephesus of 431 that had condemned Nestorius, still remains, with notations in Alcuin’s handwriting; it was preserved at Tours.8 His treatise against Felix was completed well before the summer of 798 because one copy was sent to Charlemagne for his approval with mention of it by Alcuin in a following letter;9 another was sent to Theodulf of Orleans,10 while a third went by the hand of Benedict of Aniane to the monks of Septimania, the border area affected by Adoptionism. Alcuin referred to this missive in a letter written to them a year later, after the synod of Aachen.11 Two other letters from Alcuin to Charlemagne also provide a context for this initiative: in one12 he added a postscript to his treatise and asked the king to give his full support against the heresy of Felix; in the other,13 which was written on 23 July 798, Alcuin proposed sending copies of his treatise against Felix to Pope Leo III and Paulinus of Aquilea, as well as to the bishops Ricbod of Trier and Theodulf of Orleans as allies in the cause. It was around this time that Alcuin wrote also to Beatus of Liebana, as he mentions in his letter the existence of his first treatise against Felix. Paulinus of Aquilea, whom Alcuin regarded with great respect as his elder and who had a significant influence upon his own theological writing at this time, composed a learned and sophisticated riposte to Adoptionism,

68

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

his Liber tres adversus Felicem Urgellitanum, which was probably used by Alcuin in the composition of his third treatise, called Adversus Felicem, written in seven books against Felix, compiled in the later part of 798 and ready for the synod of Aachen in 799.14 This was prompted by a tract that Felix had written against Alcuin which had clearly shaken him. His second treatise was prefaced by a letter referring to this response by Felix15 and it was accompanied by a further letter to Charlemagne seeking his approval.16 This it duly received along with that of the Frankish bishops, and a copy was sent to the bishops Leidrad of Lyon and Nefridus of Narbonne, who were most immediately concerned with combating the spread of Adoptionism, and also to Benedict of Aniane. At the synod of Aachen, held in the spring of 799, Alcuin debated with Felix face to face. He referred to his preparations for this encounter and its progress in several letters to his friend, Arno of Salzburg.17 Felix was again condemned and placed under house arrest in the custody of Leidrad of Lyons, where he remained unrepentant however until his death in 818.18 In the autumn of 799, Alcuin composed his final polemic against Adoptionism in the form of four books addressed to Elipandus himself, his Adversus Elipandum Toletanum.19 He sent it with covering letters to his allies, Leidrad, Nefridus and Benedict of Aniane.20 The first two parts replied to a letter that Elipandus had sent to Alcuin in 798, to whom Alcuin had written directly at the end of 797 or early in 798.21 The last two parts set forth classical Catholic teaching about the Incarnation of Christ.22 The condemnation of Adoptionism at the synod of Aachen brought peace of a kind on one front; but at that moment trouble erupted in Rome and Pope Leo III fled for his life to Charlemagne at Paderborn, returning under his protection to his see, his authority much reduced at a critical moment for the western Church. The year 800 saw the traditional standing of the pope and the Byzantine emperor hamstrung, laying upon Charlemagne and his advisers the heavy responsibility, as they saw and felt it, of maintaining and strengthening orthodox Catholic Christianity. This was by no means secure by 804, the year in which both Alcuin and Elipandus of Toledo died. The tenacity with which the Carolingians continued to press the dogmatic significance of the Filioque has to be seen therefore against this background.23 Meanwhile, urgent missionary work was undertaken to challenge the spread of Adoptionism as a heresy throughout the Spanish March, led by Benedict of Aniane and his monks. Alcuin intended his writings to be of assistance to them in this cause, and his friendship with Benedict was close and important, as his own Life and the Life of Benedict make clear.24 Benedict wrote a small treatise against Adoptionists, regarding the ‘Felicians’ as a sect rather than addressing Felix directly.25 In it he actually repudiated all use of the term ‘assumed’ about the humanity of

Chapter 6 – The Frankish Reaction

69

Jesus as misleading at the more popular level. This was not the formal position however of Alcuin or Paulinus, or of the mainstream of western Christology as derived from the teaching of Leo the Great and Augustine. Benedict taught also that the ‘self-emptying’ of Christ described in Philippians 2. 7 was a moment of willing poverty on the part of the divine Word of God rather than the taking on of another mode of existence. In this and in his understanding of the Church he was closer to some of the preoccupations of Beatus of Liebana, for example in asserting that it is Christians that are ‘assumed’ into the Body of Christ. Unlike his more learned mentors, Alcuin and Paulinus, Benedict also relied directly on the Tome of Leo the Great that the pope had sent to the council of Chalcedon. Like Beatus, Benedict was a Visigoth and perhaps closer to the realities on the ground of the continuing theological conflict within the Spanish church and its impact. Another glimpse of the Frankish engagement with Adoptionism may be found in a compilation of canon law which seems to date from this period and which was probably drafted at Lyons.26 This document also reveals an awareness of the Spanish dimension to the controversy as expressed by Beatus of Liebana, and it was probably occasioned by direct encounters with Felix or his followers. It was unusual in demonstrating, as Alcuin himself did, that his Frankish opponents were not lapsing into something approaching the heresy of Eutyches, who so reacted to Nestorius as to insist on Christ having only one composite nature after the Incarnation. Instead it alleged that Felix and his followers were descendants of the Photinians, whose leader had taught in the fourth century that Jesus was a ‘mere man’ and called ‘the son of God’ on account of his holiness, in which others also might share by themselves becoming ‘sons of God’.27 Like Alcuin and Paulinus, this tract emphasised the exaltation of Christ’s human nature as the main dynamic of the kenotic hymn found in Philippians 2, and as the crucial corrective to the Adoptionist interpretation of ‘self-emptying.’ It also challenged the pretensions of the see of Toledo directly and seems to have emerged as part of negotiations between the differing parties, hence its rhetorical tone and singular use of juridical material in its arguments. It appears to have been rooted in the life of the southern Gallic church and somewhat removed from the court-centred preoccupations of Alcuin and his collaborators; it makes no reference, for example, to the involvement of the two popes in the controversy. Links between this area of southern Gaul and Spain were historically very close, and traditional ecclesiological considerations predominate in this document in its approach to the issues. The writings of Benedict of Aniane and the nature and content of this tract indicate that the Frankish response to Adoptionism, though orchestrated at the highest level, had local dimensions, with corresponding varieties of emphasis and approach.

70

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

The Battle of the Creeds In his letter of 793 to the Frankish bishops, Elipandus went to great lengths to define his position and that of his fellow Spanish bishops in a credal statement.28 He declared their faith in the divine nature of Christ in terms with which there could be no quarrel, portraying his relationship with the Father as being ‘not by adoption but by generation, and not by grace but by nature.’ He drew a contrast however, ‘according to the traditions of the Fathers’, asserting that as a human being, ‘Christ was Son of God not by generation but by adoption, and not by nature, but by grace.’ The divine Son of God became therefore adoptive ‘in the adoption proper to the flesh’, in order to become a human being ‘full of grace’, as ‘the first-born’ of many brethren, taking the form of a servant or slave. He rested this on a passage in Augustine’s Enchiridion discussing the crucial text in Philippians 2. 6. Christ became ‘adoptive’ in order that with him we might become ‘adopted.’ The Lord of glory could therefore properly be described as ‘adoptive’ in his saving role. There was nothing heterodox in the intention of Elipandus and those whom he represented. It was the consequences of this belief for understanding the nature of the true humanity of Christ that caused concern to his critics in Spain, in Rome and at the Frankish court. These were perceived to be demeaning and divisive of Christology and ‘Nestorian’ in their impact if not in their antecedents. It was felt to be another version of an old problem that the Church had settled long before at Ephesus and before that at Nicea. Appeal to these councils, prompted by the papal response, strengthened the Frankish belief in their theological significance, and also in their own duty as representatives of patristic tradition to define again and to assert for their own generation the heart of orthodox Christian belief. This indeed they sought to do also with regard to the veneration of images, and in due course by insisting on the dogmatic importance of the Filioque as well. The impact of the Adoptionist crisis on the later stages of the formation of the Libri Carolini has already been discussed. One of the most striking things to have happened was the replacement of a version of the creed (or creeds) used initially by Theodulf of Orleans with one that explicitly repudiated any use of the word ‘adoption’.29 This statement went on to repudiate all the classical errors of Christology and Trinitarian belief. It was an elaborate and self-conscious commentary on the meaning of the Nicene Creed and as such it stood in the tradition of the Quicunque Vult or ‘Athanasian Creed’, which came to assume a central importance at this time in the life and education of the Carolingian church.30 In the legislation of Charlemagne, the Quicunque Vult was to be learnt by heart along with the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed. Its inclusion in psalters in the ninth century has been noted. Set around the classical creeds were other credal statements or commentaries that played a vital role in the theological debates of these times, and also in the drive to raise educational standards among the clergy.31

Chapter 6 – The Frankish Reaction

71

The credal framework became a catalyst for theological thinking and writing which in turn came to embody Carolingian orthodoxy: ‘This expressed the integrity of the faith that the king was committed to defend.’32 For example in the Libri Carolini the authority of orthodoxy was explicitly traced back to the apostolic witness embodied in the Apostles’ Creed. Theodulf of Orleans, Alcuin, Paulinus of Aquilea and Benedict of Aniane all emphasised the essential and indivisible integrity of the Christian faith and its theology in every age. For if mission reached outwards to pagans and heretics, it also reached inward in securing uniformity of sound belief that was based upon knowledge of the Bible as interpreted by the Church Fathers. Insisting on the Filioque was therefore an integral part of a wider missionary and educational process within the Carolingian church, as well as a rebuttal of the Byzantines and the Adoptionists. Both Paulinus and Alcuin insisted on the inherent relationship between the being of God, the dispensation of the Incarnation, and Christ’s role as the sole mediator between God and humanity. For the Carolingian theologians, therefore, profession of the creeds, properly understood in the light of the Fathers, was itself a participation in salvation, as well as their best weapon against heresy without and disorder within the Church. The creeds thus assumed a virtually sacramental role as well as an ideological one that was associated with the authority of Charlemagne.33 ‘Analysis of the use of the creed in the theology and thought of the early Carolingian period enables us to detect how, in the time of Charlemagne, it was one of the means of syncretisation of political thought and theology.’34 For the differences between the Carolingian theologians and their Greek and Spanish interlocutors were both political and theological, having their roots in differing understandings of Christology, as well as in Frankish insistence upon the significance of accurate Latin language to express what they believed to be true about God. The creeds thus became weapons of Frankish and Roman orthodoxy. So in 794, the Frankish bishops sent back to their Spanish counterparts an elaborate credal statement of their own, probably drafted by Alcuin,35 in which they spoke of the Son of God as ‘born not created, natural and not adopted’.36 It also asserted the same belief as the Filioque37, and its exposition of Trinitarian belief was closely modelled on the Quicunque Vult. In its Christological part it asserted unequivocally that the Son of God was perfect man in his humanity: God before all the ages, man at the end of the age; true Son of God in both natures, not putatively but truly, not by adoption but by nature; God and man in one person, being the one mediator between God and man; in the form of God equal to the Father, in the form of servant less than the Father; in the form of God as creator, in the form of servant as redeemer; one Son of God in both forms, perfect and natural.38 This episcopal statement is one of the finest and clearest commentaries

72

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

on the meaning of the Nicene Creed as seen in the light of the Quicunque Vult.39 It revealed the intimate connection between the repudiation of Adoptionism and the assertion of the Filioque. This credal statement also enshrined the heart of the matter with regard to Adoptionism and demonstrated clearly how a traditional belief in the Filioque as an orthodox gloss on the meaning of the original form of the Nicene Creed40 could become propelled to a dogmatic status as the ultimate safeguard against any form of Adoptionism. For if the Holy Spirit truly proceeds from the Father and the Son within the life of the Trinity, the Baptism of Jesus revealed the reality of the Spirit already indwelling the divine Son of God, who was revealed as having become man for human salvation. The Baptism did not therefore constitute Jesus as the Son of God by ‘adoption’: it affirmed what was already true in him in his eternal relationship with the Father and the Spirit, now revealed in time and for the purpose of human salvation. The Filioque at this stage was thus part of Christology, rather than an ultimate statement about any causative principle within the Trinity. This other dimension however became later the underlying theological objection of the Eastern Church, in addition to justifiable resentment about the intrusion of the Filioque into the original wording of the Nicene Creed as such. The question confronting Pope Leo III in the years 808-10 was not whether the Filioque was a legitimate gloss on the meaning of the original creed, but whether it was right for the Frankish church to insist on its insertion into the Nicene Creed per se.41 A liturgical and didactic practice among the Franks and their English supporters had become the touchstone of a more strident orthodoxy in a way that the pope would not allow nor deem either wise or necessary. Western dogmatism on this matter flowed directly from the synodical theory adumbrated by Alcuin and others into the determined and highly articulate Frankish response to the perceived errors of the Spanish and Byzantine churches. Belief in what the Filioque declared about Christ had actually been widespread for several centuries in the Church, eastern and western. Its inclusion in the Nicene Creed had its origin in Spain in fact, in response to the Priscillianist heresy;42 and it was reasserted at the council of Toledo in 589, when it became a touchstone for the conversion of the Visigothic kingdom to Catholic Christianity from Arianism.43 It was also proclaimed by the English church under the leadership of Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus at the synod of Hatfield in 680 in response to the Monothelite controversy.44 The first recorded collision on the issue of the Filioque between eastern and western Christians was at the Frankish synod of Gentilly in 767 during the time of Charlemagne’s father, Pippin. Charlemagne for his part believed fervently in the Filioque and accused the Patriarch Tarasius of failing to affirm it too in his correspondence with Pope Hadrian I in connection with the second council of Nicea.

Chapter 6 – The Frankish Reaction

73

Charlemagne’s brisk response to the Adoptionist crisis, which was backed by the pope, appeared to clinch the indispensable importance, authority and necessity of the Filioque in the minds of those advising him, including Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquilea. It was therefore Frankish usage, shared perhaps by the English and originally derived from Spain, which secured the Filioque firmly and in the end irrevocably within the Latin form of the Nicene Creed, despite initial papal refusal to endorse the change early in the ninth century. It was the Adoptionist crisis that forced the issue, though other considerations in relation to Byzantium also played their part. Frankish insistence also recalled the Spanish church to the mode of expressing orthodox Christology that had long been used in their own version of the Nicene Creed with the Filioque included, but now interpreted in the light of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon in order to suppress Adoptionism in their midst. It appears to have been Paulinus of Aquilea who insisted that the Nicene Creed45 should be learnt by heart and sung regularly at the Mass. This was his declared position at the synod of Friuli in 786/7 and the version he set forth there became normative in the western Latin Church.46 Its position after the gospel may well have been due to the influence and experience of Alcuin, for that was clearly Irish and presumably English practice too. The change probably also asserted Frankish superiority over the Spanish church, which had sung the Creed after the consecration but before the Lord’s Prayer, as a preparation for receiving communion, since the synod of Toledo in 589. The practice of singing the Creed in the Eucharist actually originated in Constantinople.47 During negotiations with Pope Leo III in 810 about the Filioque, the Frankish emissaries asserted that he had given permission for the singing of the Creed within the Mass, sometime after his accession in 795. The pope did not dispute this, but said that he had not given permission for the insertion into the text of the Creed as such of the phrase Filioque. Writing later but before the middle of the ninth century, Walahfrid Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, reported the history and rationale of this development.48 He confirmed the Byzantine origin of the custom and said that the Creed as a response to the gospel secured its message in the hearts and minds of Christians; it also lent itself to musical rendition. He concluded by saying that its widespread use among the Franks dated from the Adoptionist crisis and the condemnation of Felix of Urguel in the years leading up to and following the synod of Aachen in 799. This explanation was confirmed by close examination of the primary materials by Dom Capelle over many years.49 Alcuin in his letter to the Spanish bishops on behalf of Charlemagne and the Frankish bishops affirmed the fundamental importance of the Catholic creeds. Paulinus of Aquilea in his tract against the Adoptionists defended the interpretative clarifications of the council of Constantinople in 381 and the emergence of the use of the

74

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Filioque. It is notable that the decrees of the synod of Frankfurt in 794, however, make no mention of the use of the Creed in the Mass, whereas a couple of years later at the synod of Friuli it had become a clear policy in the mind of Paulinus of Aquilea and others. The final condemnation of Felix of Urguel occurred at the synod of Aachen in 799, and it was probably at this council that the policy of insisting on the Filioque was promulgated throughout the Frankish realms, though its use did not quickly become widespread. The version of the Creed drawn up by Paulinus was however an innovation, a deliberate correction of earlier versions to tighten the Latin wording that related to Christology;50 and his policy became the Carolingian norm, with Alcuin’s active support for its place after the gospel, both as an educational tool and as a profession of orthodox Christian faith. Alcuin’s inspiration and insistence probably lay behind the whole initiative, as his friendship with Paulinus was a strong one.51 Dom Capelle also drew attention to an interesting credal statement that is found at the end of Alcuin’s treatise on the Trinity.52 It was much copied during the Middle Ages as a synopsis of the teaching contained in his main treatise, although it was sometimes attributed anachronistically to Pope Leo III because it included an affirmation of the Filioque.53 Dom Capelle demonstrated with great care the way in which each clause was anchored in Alcuin’s main work. In its style it mirrors the Quicunque Vult. It also provides a fitting summary of the assumptions underlying Alcuin’s arguments against the Adoptionists; it demonstrates the integrity of thought and doctrine that he and Paulinus of Aquilea and others achieved in response to that crisis, and how Christology and Trinitarian theology were integral in their whole approach.

Chapter 7 Felix and Alcuin Alcuin’s skill and learning as a theologian, steeped in the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers, was fully developed in the books that he produced to challenge and repudiate Adoptionism. They provide an opportunity to examine his approach to and mastery of theology and they preoccupied him in the last decade of his life. Their genesis and progress may be tracked also through some of his letters, which accompanied them or were immediately connected to them. He did not see himself as an innovator, however; rather as the defender of orthodox Catholic Christianity as it had been received in the West through the Church of Rome. His particular concern was with the accurate citation and interpretation of the Fathers, often criticising Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urguel for what he perceived to be their distortions and inaccuracies. It was however customary at that time to cite the Fathers from memory, or from florilegia of extracts, and this easily could lead to variant traditions of interpretation.1 One of the things that Alcuin achieved was a more disciplined reliance on the most accurate written versions of patristic texts, making these the norm for Catholic interpretation. Although his catenae of patristic references can seem derivative and even at times monotonous, they were crucial to his argument and to the weight of its authority. They also reflect the quality of the texts made available to him. Nonetheless there runs throughout everything that he wrote a strong pastoral concern: his approach was always irenic, often pleading rather than polemical, and avoiding the tone of episcopal condemnation evident in the writing of Paulinus of Aquilea. Alcuin was never provoked, even by the dogmatism of Elipandus, and he clearly retained respect and affection for his principal antagonist, Felix of Urguel, to the very end of their engagement. What is interesting and quietly notable is the way in which Alcuin subtly interpreted and enlarged upon the patristic tradition in which he was so well versed. His was a creative rendition and articulation of Catholic Christianity, to address the wider pastoral and spiritual needs of the Western Church at that time and not just the exigencies of the Adoptionist controversy. The influence of his writings was therefore profound and long-lasting, although the remaining manuscript transmissions appear now to be often rather thin. Alcuin compiled an incomparable conspectus of

76

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Christological teaching from the Fathers; and the range of his references reflects the considerable patristic library that was at his disposal, principally it seems at Tours, where most of the writing of these books took place. His final Christological work De Fide was based on the De Trinitate of Augustine: it was a highly original epitome and adaptation of certain of its central themes to undergird the Christology and Trinitarian belief of the Western Church. It was one of the most copied and influential of his writings, forming the foundation of much medieval theological education right up to the Reformation.2 Alcuin’s books represented a major and sustained investment of time, energy and resources, with the active support of Charlemagne, and in collaboration with others like Paulinus of Aquilea and Benedict of Aniane. His writings followed a strategy of driving out bad theology, as he saw it, by good theology that had a definitive character and which made accessible in an accurate manner the rich tradition of the Fathers. There was a consistency and demonstrable integrity to their teaching and interpretation, he believed, and that held the key to the correct interpretation of Scripture and so to saving faith in Christ. This was the meaning of traditio – the essence of what had been carefully and faithfully handed down about faith in Christ through many generations of Christians from the earliest apostolic times. Two letters indicated the path that Alcuin would take in his rebuttal of Adoptionism; the first was the letter that Pope Hadrian I wrote in 785 when he first heard about the heresy in Spain;3 the second was the letter that Alcuin drafted on behalf of Charlemagne in the aftermath of the council of Frankfurt in 794.4 The pope’s letter established the context in which Adoptionism would be judged as a latter-day version of Nestorianism, and this certainly determined Alcuin’s own approach. Alcuin’s own letter written nearly a decade later on behalf of Charlemagne opens a window into the concerns of the Frankish church and its ruler, and their mode of approach to the Spanish heresy. Together they provide the theological context in which the specific treatises of Alcuin need to be seen. In his first letter addressing Adoptionism, Pope Hadrian did not miss an opportunity to assert the primacy of Rome in safeguarding the orthodox teaching and faith of the Catholic Church. This assertion has to be seen as part of a long running friction between Spanish church leaders and the papacy: the Spanish church had always maintained considerable independence from Rome. Hadrian used the image of the Body of Christ, of which the pope was the temporal head, to call back into line a part of the Church that he perceived to be slipping into heresy. He made a deliberate appeal to the teaching of the apostle Paul to support his case and declared that the Spanish had received orthodox Christianity from Rome itself, though whether this was strictly true historically was questionable as it may have come to Spain originally from North Africa. 5 Tackling reports that the missionary work of Egila had gone astray, he urged the Spanish bishops to

Chapter 7 – Felix and Alcuin

77

follow ‘the norms and discipline of the holy Roman church.’ He naturally considered any professed belief in Christ in terms of being ‘adopted’ to be a recrudescence of Nestorianism. To rebut this he cited the explicit teaching of Paul and of Peter.6 Hadrian also turned to a tract attributed (wrongly) to Athanasius on the Incarnation of the Word of God, which repudiated explicitly any separation between the divine Son of God and the child of Mary, reinforcing his position by quoting extensive passages from what he believed to be the writings of Gregory Nazianzus, Amphilocius of Iconium and John Chrysostom.7 Having appealed to the Fathers of the Eastern Church, Hadrian turned inevitably to the writings of Augustine, notably his commentary on John’s gospel and his sermons. These were texts to which Alcuin in his turn would appeal, though using better quality manuscripts. The pope also cited Hilary on the Beatitudes and Leo’s sermons for the feast of the Epiphany: for what was at stake was the correct understanding of the Baptism of Jesus.8 Was Jesus declared to be God’s Son in that moment in a constitutive way, or revealed as such in act of divine theophany? Did the divine words ‘You are my beloved Son’ address Jesus in some adoptive state in solidarity with sinful humanity, or did they reveal in time and history, through his humility and self-emptying, the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son? Hadrian thus laid the basis for the subsequent rebuttal of Adoptionism by Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquilea. It is important to note, however, that this initial response from Rome to perceived heresy was in the context of other papal pastoral concerns about heterodox beliefs within the Spanish church relating to the keeping of Easter and predestination. In the letter that Alcuin drafted, almost ten years later for Charlemagne in the wake of the synod of Frankfurt in 794, much is revealed about the political and ecclesiastical context in which Adoptionism was handled by the Frankish king and his bishops.9 The letter is strong on ecclesiology, and its basic thrust was to implore the Spanish bishops to return to the citadel of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. It painted a militant picture of Christians as either inside or outside this fortress. Only within the walls of the Church could true peace be found, ‘for faith is the foundation of our salvation.’ Catholic faith is one and universal, resting upon the testimony of its ‘apostolic teachers.’ The letter goes on to say that the documents sent from Spain had been carefully examined and replied to elsewhere.10 The authority of the Fathers was fundamental to the position that Alcuin was articulating: ‘Let us follow therefore the venerable precepts of the holy Fathers in all charity.’11 A desire for unity and a genuine pastoral concern arising from Christian charity motivated Alcuin’s appeal so that both Frankish and Spanish churches might collaborate in evangelism: for it was in areas of mission along the borders of Spain and the Frankish realms that collision occurred on this issue with detrimental consequences for new converts to Christianity. This was also the reason for summoning the synod

78

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

of Frankfurt with its representatives from the Church of Rome and also from Britain, presumably meaning Alcuin himself, though perhaps with others unknown:12 for a synod of this character vindicated the current Frankish belief, expressed in the Libri Carolini, about regional synods being able to defend and assert Catholic and orthodox faith on the basis of the decrees of earlier ecumenical councils. The letter then listed the documents addressing the Adoptionist controversy: these were the recent (and second) papal letter, the submission by the Italian bishops under the leadership of Paulinus of Aquilea and Peter of Milan, as well as the letter of the Frankish bishops in synod, to which this royal letter was a companion. In his letter Charlemagne professed his loyalty to the orthodox Christian faith in Christ in his two natures, divine and human, as interpreted by the Roman church, and also asserted his authority and duty as defender of the Faith. In the king’s name, Alcuin challenged the temerity of the Spanish theologians in ratiocinating about the nature of the union of the two natures in Christ: ‘we should not think that by so doing, we can come to any conclusion about the mysteries of God’s nature’ that are beyond the frailty of human thought. Instead they should realise that their adoption as sons of God came through and from Christ, who is the true Son of God. This was the pivot of the issue throughout Alcuin’s subsequent writings. The letter closed with a virtual sermon exhorting repentance, before appending the credal statement of the Frankish bishops that has already been discussed.13 Taken together with the letter from the Frankish bishops that Alcuin also drafted, and Hadrian’s second letter that had paved the way for the synod of Frankfurt, the lines by which the Frankish theologians would establish orthodox Christology and tackle Adoptionism were clearly laid down. Any detailed examination of the nature and content of Alcuin’s theological reaction to Adoptionism must therefore start with the letter that he drafted on behalf the Frankish bishops.14 It responded to a letter that Elipandus had sent to the synod of Frankfurt, which was sharp in its polemic against Beatus of Liebana, but well rooted in the Bible and the patristic tradition, resting the case for an Adoptionist understanding of the humanity of Jesus on classical passages about the Suffering Servant found in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, as well as such key Adoptionist texts as Philippians 2. 6-7 and I John 3. 2. The letter contained a Spanish credal statement that asserted that the human nature of Christ was assumed as the first-born of many brethren, and that by being in the form of a servant it was adopted.15 Alcuin’s letter on behalf of the Frankish bishops examined minutely the document sent from Spain that set out the beliefs of the Spanish bishops. It can be immediately seen in this exchange of letters that what was at stake in addition to orthodox Christology was the correct citation and interpretation of the Fathers, and through them of the Bible: for both sides could claim authority for their respective understandings of Christology, though Alcuin often accused the Spanish bishops of selective manipulation of their sources. This debate

Chapter 7 – Felix and Alcuin

79

therefore precipitated an increasing reliance on written texts being exactly established as authentic and therefore authoritative for doctrinal purposes, which was one of the abiding legacies of Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquilea to the Catholic Church as a direct result of this controversy. The letter of the Frankish bishops that was drafted by Alcuin runs to 26 chapters and reveals the pattern of his subsequent theological approach.16 It was matched by the Liber Sacrosyllabus authorised at the same time by the Italian bishops, who were led by Peter of Milan and Paulinus of Aquilea. There are important parallels between the two responses, notably the emphasis on the work of the Trinity in the Incarnation as revealed in the Baptism of Jesus. The crucial axiom of the Liber Sacrosyllabus against the Adoptionists was that what is adopted must be necessarily alien and not cognate to the one adopting.17 The fact that Christ is consubstantial with the Father and also consubstantial with humanity, however, enables him in his person to be the mediator between God and man. Unlike in the letter drafted by Alcuin, there were no explicit patristic citations, although due deference was paid to ‘the tradition of the Fathers’. Both documents took a global view: the letter of the Frankish bishops asserted that their intention, enjoined by Charlemagne, was ‘to renew by peaceful counsel the unanimity of the holy Church of God and to ensure the true proclamation of the orthodox faith.’ A key-note of Alcuin’s approach may be discerned in his insistence that divine matters should be revered by faith rather than subjected to rational scrutiny.18 The Spanish were criticised for their imprecise references to patristic authorities, and their document was subjected to extensive citation, scrutiny, criticism and rebuttal. Citing John 1. 14, for example, the crucial question was how the only-begotten One could in any way be regarded as ‘adopted’: for if he were not the true Son of God, how could he be ‘full of grace and truth’? This was the nub of the issue, because for the Adoptionists, Jesus in his human nature was made to be ‘full of grace and truth’, whereas for Alcuin and Paulinus he was in his person and by his divine nature already ‘full of grace and truth’, and able therefore to endow others with salvation from himself and not just through himself. The intricacies of the patristic quotations shed light on the state of the texts available to both sides at that time. A tell-tale phrase probably reveals Alcuin’s handiwork when he spoke of ‘our Gregory’, a characteristic English phrase, and referring to the practice of Gregory the Great in referring to Christ as ‘the only-begotten’ in his prayers, a good example of lex orandi lex credendi that was based on John 1. 18 and the usage of Hilary in his De Trinitate. It was because Christ was the only-begotten and true Son of God that his shed blood could secure human redemption. Central to Alcuin’s argument were the writings of Augustine, especially his Enchiridion which commented thus on the crucial but paradoxical text in Philippians 2. 7: ‘he emptied himself by accepting the form of a slave, but in no way did he abandon or

80

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

diminish being in the form of God.’19 The stories of the Baptism and the Transfiguration in the gospels were pivotal to the orthodox position, being the moments when the divine Sonship of Christ was revealed by the voice of the Father and the presence of the Holy Spirit. With consummate irony, the pretensions of the Spanish bishops were exposed: for their novelty of belief in the ‘adopted’ nature of Christ was quite unknown to the patriarchs and prophets, nor was it the preaching of the apostles or the teaching tradition of the Fathers. Use of the term ‘adopted’ could only signify that Jesus was not truly in his single person the Son of God; nor could it be used in allegorical terms like other significations of Christ in the Bible such as Agnus Dei – ‘the Lamb of God’. This ‘novelty’ was what aligned their teaching with that of Nestorius in effect and so justified citation of the repudiation of his teaching by Cyril of Alexandria. Alcuin’s concern was any transgression of the boundaries of Christian belief established by the Fathers outside of which lay error:20 the Nicene Creed was the epitome of these boundaries. By way of conclusion the testimony of Peter and of Paul, ‘the two luminaries of the whole world’, was adduced to confirm the divine nature of Christ. Only the language of the creeds and of the Bible could convey the truth of this divine mystery. The Spanish bishops were urged therefore to abandon the cracked cisterns they had hewn for themselves and their followers, and ‘to hasten along the royal way to the most pure spring of Catholic purity of faith.’21 They were commanded to remain within the parameters of patristic teaching and not to be diverted by new questionings. Nor were they to deceive themselves into thinking that a part of the Church could countermand the teaching of the whole Catholic Church, as expressed by the pope, the Fathers and the churches represented at the synod of Frankfurt.

Felix of Urguel Felix, Bishop of Urguel, emerged as the most articulate and innovative of the Spanish Adoptionists, and Cavadini has carefully and lucidly delineated the development of his thought, insofar as it may be discerned through the writings of his critics like Alcuin.22 He aroused Alcuin’s alarm in 798 by his willingness to describe Christ as ‘nominally’ God – nuncupativus. This provoked Alcuin’s longest polemic against him, his Adversus Felicem.23 But before that Alcuin addressed a personal letter to Felix,24 followed by a preliminary treatise, his Liber contra Felicem,25 in which he rebutted the Adoptionist approach to Christology. Alcuin knew that he was dealing with a sincere and able theologian and it drew from him some of his best writing and thought. He engaged with him personally and directly at the synod of Aachen in 799, which led to Felix’s condemnation and house arrest. After this denouement, Alcuin completed his Adversus Elipandum.26 Alcuin’s initial letter to Felix bears close scrutiny for his whole approach.27

Chapter 7 – Felix and Alcuin

81

It stands alongside a comparable letter written at the same time to Elipandus,28 seeking to bring the controversy to a peaceful conclusion after the synod of Frankfurt in 794. It seems that Alcuin’s appointment as Abbot of Tours in 796 was intended to give him a well-resourced base in which to work at this major enterprise of Carolingian theology. His experience led him to conclude that a more thorough and wide-ranging patristic framework of reference of proven accuracy was required to lay the matter to rest and to establish once and for all the Christology that would in fact determine the whole course of subsequent Western Latin theology. His inability to revisit Northumbria because of the murder of King Ethelred in April 796 confined him to Tours and so gave him ample time and material resources for his research and writing. The scale of his anti-Adoptionist writings is significant and represents a very sustained and concentrated effort on his part in the last decade of his life, and of those in the monastic scriptorium copying up his work. At this stage it would appear that Alcuin had not read any of the writings of Felix as such, regarding those of Elipandus as representative of the Spanish position. He did not seek to antagonise him, however, rather ‘daring to love him ardently in the interests of the love of Christ and the unity of Catholic peace.’ He asserted the essential integrity of the Church as professed in the Nicene Creed, shrewdly portraying the Spanish church as isolated in ‘a corner of the world and trying to build a new church.’ Against the whole Christian tradition, centred on the Roman church, the Spanish now wished to intrude use of the term ‘adopted’ with reference to Christ. Alcuin applauded all that was just and true in their writings, expressing bafflement at their perverse pursuit of this ‘novelty’. There followed a catena of patristic quotations to support his case. No sane Christian should stand against the tradition that flowed through the Fathers from the Bible itself. In the mind of Alcuin, this was the precious bridge between their own time and the time of the gospels and the apostolic experience of Christ. In the Liber contra Felicem that followed,29 Alcuin firmly followed the lead of Pope Hadrian in regarding Adoptionism as a reincarnation of Nestorianism, which he had explored by his close research into the acts of the council of Ephesus.30 The crucial confusion lay in the tendency of the Spanish to consider the words ‘to assume’ and ‘to adopt’ as synonymous, and to regard grace and adoption as one and the same.31 They mistook the grace of assumption as applied to the unique incarnation of Christ with the grace of adoption that through him applied to those who believe in him.32 Although there was a gulf of perception between Elipandus and Alcuin which the latter did not fully recognise, the fundamental point that Alcuin was making rested on the teaching of Augustine, especially in his Enchiridion, whose authority underpinned this treatise.33 The Liber contra Felicem was a much more forthright assault on Adoptionism, which Alcuin regarded as a dangerous infection within the Church. He was not ready to speculate on the

82

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

mode of the incarnation, let alone the self-emptying of Christ, falling back on the inscrutable mystery of God as Creator. One of the contrasts that emerged between Felix and Alcuin was that whereas Felix was a speculative theologian of considerable sophistication, Alcuin’s approach to theology never strayed from the moral responsibility of the teacher or the deep but simple piety of someone moulded by the liturgy of the Church. Blumenshine has shown how the analogies that Alcuin drew between the many sons of King David and the unique role of Solomon as his natural heir, in order to highlight the difference between adopted and natural sons, possibly had resonance for Charlemagne himself at that time in the light of the uncertainties surrounding his own succession.34 His thesis is that ‘Alcuin drew up an apologetic treatise which mirrored his eschatological vision of history, and his commitment to the reform of the Church as the expression of the militant imperialism of the orthodox Frankish kingdom under Charlemagne.’35 The see of Urguel was in a part of the Spanish March newly under the suzerainty of Charlemagne. Alcuin’s catena of patristic quotations, resting on the authority of Ambrose and Augustine, ‘are tied to a cultural and historical setting embracing the Frankish king,36 the Roman Popes, and the ecumenical councils.’37 Orthodox Christology bore directly on his vision of Christian kingship: this tract was therefore indirectly ‘a work of political Christology’.38 Blumenshine also makes the interesting point that whereas ‘in Roman law, adoption merely implies a non-natural sonship; in Frankish law adoption implies a lower form of sonship.’39 It is this concept of adoption that Alcuin assumed and repudiated when he laid such emphasis on the unique person of Christ as the true Son of God, rejecting ‘adoption’ therefore as unworthy and inadequate, as well as misleading. What this thesis illuminates is the fact that the writings of Alcuin and other Carolingian theologians always had several dimensions, engaging as they did with an ongoing cultural and theological debate within the circles surrounding Charlemagne. For example, ‘in the eighth century [Frankish] Catholic church, the words of the second psalm alluded to both orthodox Christology and Charlemagne’s theocratic imperialism.’40 The driving force of the Adversus Felicem was nonetheless the articulation of classical Christology as Alcuin understood it to be in the light of the Fathers, the council of Ephesus and also that of Chalcedon, in concord with papal teaching, most recently that of Hadrian himself. It is this informed conviction that gives to all his writings on this subject their force of argument and expression. It was the response of Felix to Alcuin’s eirenikon of 797 that provoked Alcuin’s major work against him, the Adversus Felicem, forcing Alcuin to take issue with the description of Jesus as ‘nominally God’ by virtue of his ‘adoption’. Such usage strayed into new territories of thought that Alcuin regarded as dangerous and erroneous. His Adversus Felicem arose in conjunction with the summons to Felix by Charlemagne to attend in person the synod of Aachen in 799, and it was a careful refutation of Felix’s letter,

Chapter 7 – Felix and Alcuin

83

now interpreted in the light of the debates that Alcuin had had with Felix at that synod.41 Alcuin regarded this theological development by Felix as final confirmation that Adoptionism was in its essence, if not in its genesis, the same as Nestorianism and pernicious. He also regarded the teaching as illogical: ‘true’ and ‘not true’ were not the same thing. Therefore the one person of Christ could not be at the same time ‘true Son’ in his divine nature and ‘not true Son’ in his human nature. For Alcuin, as for those Fathers to whose authority he appealed at great length, the unity of the person of Christ was fundamental at every point of the argument. His belief was the same as that set forth in the Quicunque Vult: ‘although he is God and man, yet he is not two but one Christ: one, not by conversion of the divine nature into flesh, but by the taking of human nature into God . . . one by unity of person.’ This was the true significance of the passage in Philippians 2, which lay at the heart of the controversy: the self-emptying of Christ was the path of his exaltation as the divine Lord. It was the mode of his being the mediator between God and men. The Adversus Felicem runs to seven books: it is a rich treasury of patristic thought, and also a window into Alcuin’s creative work as a theologian. For him, dialogue with the Fathers lay at the heart of theology: ‘let us enter the fragrant cells of the holy Fathers’ are words used by him more than once which express his confidence and spiritual expectation.42 Only by this means could a Christian gain access to the primordial experience of Christ. ‘Alcuin collects and labels extracts from earlier exegetes and writers: and the result is not simply a collection but rather a “confection”, a creation, something new and different from the sum of its parts. For Carolingian exegesis is very much an exegesis of exegetes.’43 To achieve his end, Alcuin would select and subtly slant his excerpts from the Fathers to challenge and correct, to his mind, the way in which they were being misused by the Adoptionists. Whether citing Hilary, Ambrose or Augustine, Alcuin was effectively giving a new context to their teaching, and combining it to address an issue that they had perforce only addressed in part in their day. ‘He speaks with the unified voice of the tradition, and it is Alcuin’s creation, or at least demonstration, of this unified voice, rather than the effectiveness of any particular citation on its own, that is his brilliant accomplishment and that in itself is the strong medicine against Adoptionism.’44 Thus, for example, ‘distinguishing the true Ambrose from the false became an urgent problem for Alcuin during the height of the Adoptionist controversy, when dispute over the correct readings of passages from Ambrose’s dogmatic treatises served Alcuin to vindicate his own orthodox faith and to expose the bad faith of his opponents.’45 As a result Alcuin’s own citations were often highly selective and very much focussed on the specific issue that he was addressing. Both Paulinus of Aquilea and Alcuin accused Felix of similar selectivity in citing, for example, only a part of a passage from Ambrose’s De Fide which appeared

84

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

to support a description of Christ as ‘adopted’ in his human nature.46 To remedy this tendency, Alcuin was assiduous in giving the references to his patristic extracts, criticising his opponents for their dilatoriness in this respect. This was an important advance in approach to primary authorities, forced upon him by the exigencies of the controversy,47 though in his approach he followed closely the example of Bede; and he was followed assiduously in this discipline by his disciple, Hrabanus Maur. Alcuin’s most important witness against the Adoptionists was initially Augustine, as is evident in the synodal letter of the Frankish bishops for example.48 His writings were generally cited more often than those of any others of the Fathers throughout all Alcuin’s theological writings. As the controversy with Felix proceeded, Alcuin fell back on the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria, which he had studied closely, because it seemed more condign to the challenge posed by the Adoptionists: in the light of this, the charge of Nestorianism against them seemed to be vindicated. The Spanish could also claim spiritual descent for their Christology from the theology of Augustine, however, because they associated ‘adoption’ with ‘grace’; and they preserved elements of Augustinian theology even if they exaggerated them.49 So ‘the Adoptionists had a greater affinity with the Augustinian doctrine of resemblance in the human nature of Christ than did Alcuin.’50 Augustine’s treatment of the themes of assumption and grace were fundamental to Adoptionism, although for Augustine the integrity of human nature was in the single human person. The incarnation was therefore the assumption of human nature by God the Word, expressed in the unique person of Christ, not the adoption of a human being. Grace flowed into human nature from this union, but Christ was not the Son of God by grace. By wresting this point from the teaching of Augustine, notably in his Enchiridion, Alcuin exposed the false assumption at the root of Adoptionism, reclaiming the authoritative interpretation of Augustine for Catholic orthodoxy as he perceived it to be, which was also congruous with the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria. The crucial axiom was expressed in the Enchiridion: ‘Grace prevented [or went before] us so that we might be adopted.’51 Christ alone was the source of grace for human beings. In his book De Fide, Alcuin would demonstrate the depth of his appropriation of Augustine in the service of Christology in his day.

Chapter 8 Alcuin’s Christology The crisis over Adoptionism, and the rigour and sophistication of Felix’s theology, drew forth from Alcuin some profound reflections about Christology, which were imbued with his earnest desire as a teacher and pastor to articulate clearly, and in a demonstrably authoritative manner, the core of the Christian faith. This becomes readily apparent when his seven books against Felix and his subsequent four books against Elipandus are read, not just as polemic, but more deeply as creative and responsive theology of a pastoral and didactic kind. They work tenaciously within the patristic tradition of the Catholic Church, and evince thereby great mastery of the Bible and also access to a range of high quality patristic texts. Nonetheless it is sobering to realise the tenuous manuscript tradition that now underlies Alcuin’s four remaining writings against Adoptionism: his initial letter to Felix, written in 797, survives in a single manuscript in Vienna;1 likewise the Liber contra Felicem only survives in a single Vatican manuscript.2 The slightly later Adversus Felicem is found in just two Paris manuscripts of the ninth century,3 while his final work Adversus Elipandus fared slightly better, being preserved in four manuscripts, two of which are from the ninth century.4 Yet we know from Alcuin’s own letters that several copies of his anti-Adoptionist writings were circulated simultaneously for consultation and approval by the king and others during the development of the controversy. His last two substantial works in particular give an invaluable insight into Alcuin’s method and prowess as a theologian at the height of his powers, during the last phase of his life and ministry. The paucity of manuscripts remaining therefore cautions against assuming too wide a circulation of this material beyond those immediately involved in the controversy at the time, and its later use by certain disciples of Alcuin such as Hincmar of Rheims. By the end of the ninth century, Adoptionism was a fading memory, although Alcuin’s contribution to the stability of Western Catholic theology remained secure and of abiding importance right up to today. The Adversus Felicem begins with a preface addressed to Charlemagne in which Alcuin carefully listed his principal patristic sources: Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, Hilary, Leo, Fulgentius and Ambrose; also Cyril of Alexandria against Nestorius, Peter of Ravenna, Bede, Gregory Nazianzen,

86

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Isidore and Juvencus from Spain, whom he deployed against Felix and his compatriots in a deliberate manner. Interestingly he also defended his selective use of Origen and Cassian, both of whom were suspect in some Catholic circles, by appealing to the example of Jerome himself. Alcuin noted the way in which Paul alluded to pagan writers: ‘nearly all the holy teachers followed his example and inserted many things into their books drawn from the philosophers and poets of the Gentiles,’ as did Augustine himself, who quoted Virgil at various points in his Enchiridion. Alcuin went on in the opening part of his book to lament that his eirenikon to Felix had fallen on deaf ears and how in response Felix had sent him a tract, in which he advanced his use of nuncupativus or ‘nominal’ when referring to the divine character of Christ in his human sonship. This novelty was unheard of in the Catholic Church, alleged Alcuin, while Felix defended it by a dubious use of patristic authorities. Neither this term nor the original term ‘adopted’ could be found in use in the Creeds or in the decrees of the ecumenical councils, nor among the Fathers properly understood. ‘There are two things among human error that are most difficult to tolerate: presumption rather than open truth; and then, when things are made clear, a persistent defence of false assumptions.’ To rebuff this, Alcuin promised to ‘seek out the solid ground of truth and to shore up the defences of the holiness of the Catholic faith.’ Alcuin took apart passages from the writings of Felix with great skill and determination, showing their inconsistency in professing, for example, the unity of the Church while persisting in an error that was entirely local in character and origin. ‘Who then is to be deemed a heretic: the one who follows the Catholic meaning of the holy Fathers and the entire Church since the beginning of the Christian faith, or the person who devises at the end of the ages new categories to describe the humanity and divinity of Christ our Lord who was born of a virgin?’ By reference to both Eastern and Western synods, and to those of Spain itself, Alcuin ascertained that neither of these new terms had ever been used before. ‘We should never, as you might say, transfer the stones of Catholic meaning from the stable structure of the Church of God; but rather choose the Stone that was cut from the mountain without human hands, that fills the whole world. Let us build upon this foundation, and place it at the root of our own structure of belief.’5 Alcuin accused the Adoptionists through Felix of disturbing the long and well-established peace of the Church. He urged Felix and his followers instead ‘not to be exiles from her brilliance, or aliens from the clear fullness of her perpetual light.’ What is striking about Alcuin’s starting point was his ecclesiology: this was inseparable from Christology in his mind; and in this his approach was very similar in its intuition to that of Beatus of Liebana, whom he overtly supported in this book against Felix’s criticisms. Alcuin’s sense of the Church was truly global, being found in the historic patriarchates of

Chapter 8 – Alcuin’s Christology

87

Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria; but also in Italy, Germany, and Gaul, Aquitaine, ‘and even in Britain’. He asked, ‘do any of these churches support you in your assertion?’ Very much in the spirit of Bede in his De Templo, Alcuin portrayed the Church as the holy city of the Bible and Augustine’s City of God: ‘the bulwarks of this city are the Holy Scriptures, and also the examples of the Fathers who have gone before us, by whom it has been armed against all its foes.’ Alcuin’s understanding of Christ was consistent with that set out in Augustine’s Enchiridion, which was fundamental to his whole approach, both in terms of his doctrine and also his mode of argument. The unity of the two natures within the person of Christ was such that there was a true communicatio idiomatum: 6 On account of this inherent unity it may truly be said that the Son of Man descended from heaven and that the Lord of glory was crucified.7 Thus the Word of God suffered impassibly, and the Son of Man miraculously descended from heaven. His hands, that created heaven and earth, were fixed by nails to the Cross; and His blood, by whom all things were created, was outpoured for the salvation of all, even as the apostle affirms, saying: “The blood of the Son of God has redeemed us.”8 All these things we should venerate in faith rather than subject to rationalistic discussion. For where reason fails, there faith becomes necessary.9 The foundation of Alcuin’s argument was the complete sovereignty of God the Creator: ‘is He able to procreate His own Son in the flesh of the Virgin, or not? For which is the greater dignity: to be the natural Son or an adopted one? What can be born of God except true God?’ It was in this context that Alcuin cited explicitly the middle section of the Nicene Creed concerning belief in Christ, using the revised version drawn up by Paulinus of Aquilea. From this fundamental conviction about God’s omnipotence the rest of his extensive and informed argument against Adoptionism flowed: he urged his interlocutors to ‘recall to yourselves the eyes of your heart and understand the implications of this most reliable creed.’ Repudiating Nestorianism, Alcuin asserted that ‘Christ is one, both as God and man, uniting in his words and deed whatever pertains to the divine and human natures, so that they each express themselves in his one person, and so that the proper nature of the Son and the dignity of his deity are one.’ To his mind the use of terms such as ‘adopted’ and ‘nominally God’ fatally divided Christ, as Nestorius had done in a different way much earlier. Nestorianism was therefore the template against which the implications of Adoptionism might be measured and found wanting from the standpoint of orthodox Christianity: but it was not simply a matter of asserting that it was in fact the old heresy redivivus. The Nativity narratives in the gospels and the stories of the Baptism and the Transfiguration were, as for Paulinus of Aquilea, the starting points for Alcuin’s Christological argument, supported

88

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

by the exegesis of Bede and Gregory the Great. In the light of these stories, Christ could not in his person be the unique Son of God and ‘adopted’ at the same time. One of the interesting features about the Catholic response to Adoptionism was the prominence given by Alcuin and others to the story of the Transfiguration as well as to the Baptism of Jesus in the gospels. To corroborate his argument, or rather that of the Fathers, Alcuin laid down a rich tapestry of Biblical references, weaving them together like a great symphony that was harmonious because of its inherent unity. With consummate irony he asked whether Felix had received some new revelation ‘from the midst of a Pyrenean whirlwind?’ Consistent with the teaching of Augustine, Alcuin affirmed that ‘it was no diminution of Christ’s divine nature to assume human nature, but rather the exaltation of humanity by participation in divinity,’ teaching encapsulated in the Quicunque Vult. Around this fundamental principle, Alcuin wove a copious cloud of patristic witnesses, asking generally about heretics: ‘Do they not diminish the fullness of divine love, who refuse to believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God?’ Polemic was thus transcended, and Christian theology articulated anew with clarity, learning and urgency, but also in a creative dialogue with those who had taught and written it earlier. Alcuin and the Fathers were each responding critically to heresy in their day, but also creatively to the language of the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. They demonstrated what they each discovered in their different generations: that the language of the Bible is its own landscape of thought and expression, the living environment for encountering Christ the Word of God, who is ‘the same, yesterday, today and forever.’10 It was the genius of Alcuin to be sensitive to this dimension and to give it voice in his day: it was for him the threshold of divine mystery, and a living tradition of experience in prayer and worship. The sense of the reality of the person of Christ was what compelled him in his belief and teaching, and therefore in his response to Adoptionism, which was always deeper than merely polemical. To read Adversus Felicem is therefore to hear Alcuin as he taught. For he wrote as he spoke, drawing from his carefully ordered memory as well from actual texts that he had checked, revealing thereby his rich and sympathetic knowledge of the Bible and of the Fathers, which was moulded by deep meditation and long years of instruction of others. The last of Alcuin’s direct writings against the Adoptionists was his Adversus Elipandus, written in the summer of 799 and prefaced by two letters to his colleagues, the bishops Leidrad of Lyon and Nefridus of Narbonne, as well as to his close friend the Abbot Benedict of Aniane, seeking their help in perfecting his work as he had been pressed for time. These letters provide the context for Alcuin’s final overt assault on this heresy that they were tackling directly in the mission field along the borders between the southern Frankish church and Spain.11 The first letter is dedicatory, while the second relates the treatise to relevant correspondence between himself,

Chapter 8 – Alcuin’s Christology

89

Elipandus and Felix.12 The book was clearly written to try and secure Spanish agreement for the settlement being imposed with papal support by the Frankish church at the synod of Aachen in the spring of 799, which resulted in Felix’s house-arrest and apparent recantation. Adversus Elipandus is in two parts:13 the first two books replied directly to a letter sent by Elipandus to Alcuin in 798; the third part is a treatise in two books on Christology, entitled De Incarnatione Christi et de duabus in eo naturis libelli duo necnon de veritate unius personae. Together they constitute a fitting summary of his Christological teaching and his approach to the Bible and the Fathers. His dedicatory letter contains an interesting personal allusion to the prophecy made to him while in England by a certain very holy man about his mission to assist Charlemagne in his great enterprise of reform of the Church, a tradition also found in the Life of Alcuin and attributed there to his mentor, Archbishop Aelberht of York. For Alcuin saw himself alongside his missionary friends as allies in a great and timely vocation on behalf of the Catholic Church. Their duty was to follow the footsteps of the Fathers and to preach the Christian faith in its original apostolic purity. His letter to Elipandus, with which he prefaced his treatise, gave a clear and irenic summary of Catholic doctrine in repudiation of Adoptionism in the hopes yet of winning Elipandus over, and with him Felix too. He concluded with this appeal: ‘let he who reads, read happily, understand truly and believe faithfully.’ Once again his charitable instincts and reasonableness were bent towards his antagonists in the hope of a pastoral response resulting in a willing return to the peace and unity of the Church. This tone persists throughout the first two books of his reply to Elipandus, tempered perhaps by a certain weariness and sense of advancing age. He drew strength for his argument once again from the collects of Gregory the Great, in which he spoke often of Christ as ‘the Only-begotten’, prayers that Alcuin clearly prized and had used for many years. The Christological treatise, begins with the Baptism of Jesus in the gospels of Luke and John, linking it closely once again with the Transfiguration as interpreted in the light of John’s discussion of the divine glory in Christ, and with a reference also to the first letter of John, as well as to the testimony to the Transfiguration in II Peter.14 Reflecting on the meaning of the Transfiguration, Alcuin says that in it was revealed ‘the entire truth and fullness of divine power, the perfection and consummation of our salvation.’15 This theophany became for him the focal point for his demonstration of the truth of the unity of person of Christ in his two natures. The other crucial testimony was the special way in which Christ spoke of his Father in the gospels, notably in the gospel of John. It was around this central conviction that Alcuin assembled a backdrop of Old Testament texts from the Psalms and the prophets before embarking on another catena of patristic teachings, citing the same authorities as he had

90

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

done in his Adversus Felicem, giving pride of place once again to Augustine, and concluding the first book with quotations from Isidore of Seville, whom he deliberately described as ‘the light of Spain’. The second book begins by appealing to the authority of the first council of Nicea and then of all the subsequent ecumenical councils, giving no quarter to the novel terms ‘adopted’ and ‘nominal’ being used by Elipandus and his Spanish fellowbishops. Did they really want to stand obstinately contra mundum? After citing Gregory and Jerome, Alcuin again reached for Cyril and his denunciations of Nestorianism, distilling his teaching with considerable skill and tenacity. He sensed that this was probably his last chance to get through to Elipandus, and Alcuin’s mastery of the decrees of the council of Ephesus and their context was very evident. For Alcuin, as in every generation of the Church, right Christology was the heart of the matter, the grand cause celebre. He urged Elipandus for the last time to lay aside the weight of heresy and to return to the serene light of truth and unity in Catholic peace. What could be a greater blasphemy than not to believe in the explicit testimony of the Father to His own Son recorded in the gospels? To do this was to spurn the whole authority of the Scriptures, and to ignore the tradition of the Fathers in their correct exegesis and consensus of faith. Towards the end of the treatise, Alcuin adopted the singular device of addressing Elipandus as a bishop by using the voice of God and recalling him to his charge, and challenging his infidelity in the face of the inscrutable mysteries of divine existence. The last chapter of the work is a little Christological creed, comprising a beautiful hymn in praise of Christ, ‘the mediator of our life and our remunerator in glory’. The heart of Alcuin’s response to the Adoptionist challenge and his understanding of its spiritual significance and theological importance was summed up in a short letter that he wrote in the middle of 799 to a noble virgin, perhaps Gundrada, the sister of Adalhard of Corbie, mentioning how his friend and pupil Candidus was taking a copy of the Adversus Felicem to Charlemagne, and outlining to her the key questions of the controversy and how to respond to them.16 It is notable for his use of dialectic to advance his cause and his assumption of her education and intellectual proficiency. It is appended here as a fitting glimpse of Alcuin’s writing as a theologian about the issue that commanded all his powers and experience towards the end of his life, as well as of his capacity to address a woman friend as an equal. Your devoted father in faith sends greetings to his most beloved daughter in Christ. I have often written to your most upright charity when your love has given me opportunity, either in words of peaceful greeting or in cheerful and familiar letters. . . . I read these words once in St Jerome: ‘A friend is long sought after, hard to find and difficult to retain.’ Indeed as the Apostle testifies in words that I often carefully reflect upon: ‘It is impossible without faith to please God. (Hebrews 11.

Chapter 8 – Alcuin’s Christology

6)’ Any friendship among human beings that is pursued without trust counts for nothing and is of no esteem. Therefore faith must be conjoined to love, so that by careful agreement and harmony its twofold nature may be nourished. I have sent Candidus by command of my Lord the King (i.e. Charlemagne) with a copy of the book which I completed recently against those who assert that Christ is ‘adopted’, intending thereby to strike at the roots of this novelty wherever it may be found. You of course remain firm and inviolate of mind in the Catholic faith, with your answers prepared by which you may overcome your adversaries. . . . We often speak using proper nouns which are not according to our substance, but which have special significance for our substance. For example, we are accustomed to speak about our landed possessions, which came to us by inheritance, as ‘ours’ even though they are far removed from our own substance as human beings. There is a good example of this when the evangelist says of the Son of God: ‘He came unto his own people and his own received him not (John 1. 11).’ The people of whom he spoke were not of his nature as God; however the evangelist could speak of them as God’s own upon divine authority. For long before in the Psalms this privilege was granted to the people of Israel in the words: ‘In Judah God is known: His Name is great in Israel. (Psalm 76. 1)’ If then in human affairs many things are described in this way, why must it be asserted only of the unique Son of God that he cannot be the true Son of God who was born of the Virgin? For he alone among the sons of God has this property of being one divine and human person in himself, being eternally begotten of God the Father. He is not twofold but a single person; nor is there one entity and another on account of the difference between the divine and human natures. There is rather the one true Son: as man become divine because of his divine nature, and as God become man because of his human nature, being the true and perfect Son of God in both natures. Your own revered faith firmly holds this belief and faithfully proclaims it. Because I know that you are well versed in the subtleties of dialectic, I will now set before you in this letter some questions of a dialectical nature, in order thereby to render void the assertion that Christ is either ‘adopted’ or ‘nominal’ as the Son of God. It must first be asked whether any human person, comprising soul and body, is the true child of its parents. If so, it may then be asked whether the soul descends from the parents as does the flesh? If the answer is ‘no’, it remains to enquire in what way the soul is natural to the child if it does not descend with the flesh? It may also be asked why this is not to be believed about Christ as the son of the Virgin when it is true of all other human beings. Then it may further be asked, which is the higher dignity, to be a natural or an adopted son? If the answer is ‘natural’, then it must be asked why Christ’s sonship is second-rate? It may then be asked whether a son of a father can be both adopted and natural. If this is denied, then how can it be believed of Christ, who is most certainly

91

92

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

a single person, that he is both the natural and the adopted Son of God? If it is then asked whether a son can be adopted from the same nature of the father or from another’s, and the reply is ‘from another nature’, then it implies that Christ must be of another nature in relation to God the Father, being thus adopted as His Son. Surely in his conception and birth Christ was truly God and the natural Son of God, both conceived and born? If it is asked whether the true Son of God can be also the son of a Virgin, and the answer is that he is both true and natural, then it must be asked in what way this might be ‘true’, as divine and human natures are so diverse? It must be asked also how the son of the Virgin cannot be the true Son of God, if according to the Catholic faith he is both the Son of God and the true son of the Virgin? For if the son of the Virgin is merely the adopted Son of God the Father, it is clearly absurd that the Son of God should have to be adopted as son of the Virgin. Therefore if the Son of God is truly the son of the Virgin, then the son of the Virgin is indeed the Son of God, and there is no room for speaking of him as ‘adopted’. It may then be asked whether it is appropriate to adore one who is only ‘nominally’ God. If the answer is ‘no’, then how come that Christ was adored by the angels of heaven, of whom the Apostle says: ‘When He brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship him. (Hebrews 1. 6)”’ For it may further be asked that if Christ is only nominally God, why is it not written that he prohibited his being worshipped as God in the way that Peter prevented Cornelius? If the reply is that St Peter was only a man, whereas Christ is both God and man, the inference is that if God and man comprise one person, then that one person is truly God and man, and the term ‘nominal’ is irrelevant to both. If it is then asked what is the common ground between truth and untruth and the answer is ‘nothing’, it means that Christ as a human being either is or is not true God. For it would be absurd to describe him as God but not truly so! If your adversary dares to do so, let him resolve what is common between truth and untruth. Let him be asked this according to the principles of dialectic, whether a person can be at once a genuine human being and an apparent one, and therefore not a true one? If the reply is that this is impossible, then it must be conceded that it is no more possible for Christ to be truly and only apparently human at the same time, for he exists as one person in two natures. Rather in all things is he true, for in himself he is true God and truly the Son of God: for in him indeed is the fullness of truth, and there is nothing contrived in him. Let it then be asked whether we should adore or worship anything other than the one true God, and if this is accepted then it must be asked upon what basis we may adore the son of the Virgin unless he is truly God? The next question concerns whether one who is only ‘nominally’ God should be so adored? If this is denied, then it follows that Christ being born of the Virgin should not be adored, because he is not truly God. But this results in two sons of God: Christ who is God and Christ the man: one may be adored but the other not.

Chapter 8 – Alcuin’s Christology

May God turn away this misunderstanding from every Catholic heart! For Christ is entirely God, to be venerated in a single act of worship. Then it may further be asked, if he is not God, who was also the Son of David, then by what power could he give sight to the blind man, who acclaimed him with the words, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me! (Mark 10 .47-8).’ Who can give illumination from himself in this way except God alone? If he is God, who thus healed the blind man, then he is both God and the Son of David. It may further be asked if the blessed Virgin gave birth to one God or to two. If the answer is ‘one’, then it can again be asked whether this one person is true or untrue. If ‘true’ then it must be concluded without doubt that the son of the Virgin is one and true God. For if she gave birth to one who was both true and ‘nominally’ God, without doubt she would have procreated two gods, one ‘nominal’ and the other true. Finally it may be asked whether she in fact bore two sons or just one. If only one, was he natural or adopted? If the reply is ‘both’ then it must be concluded that the blessed Virgin in reality bore two sons: one the natural Son of God the Father and the other the adopted son, because adoption does not pertain to natural birth. Thus it may be confirmed by these questions and answers that Jesus Christ must be believed to be truly and fully God, being the one and natural Son of God the Father, to be perfectly adored and praised by all creatures, even as the psalmist says: ‘Let heaven and earth praise Him, the sea and all that is therein. (Psalm 69. 34)’

93

Chapter 9 Alcuin’s De Fide In a letter to his friend, Arno Archbishop of Salzburg, written in 802, Alcuin mentioned the completion of his recent book on the Catholic faith De Fide, which at the request of their friend Adalhard, later Abbot of Ferrières, he was sending to Arno as well as to Charlemagne, who had commissioned it, perhaps with the forthcoming synod of Aachen in view.1 He asked that the book should not leave his hands but instead be widely copied so that the heart of the Christian faith might be properly understood.2 To judge from the proliferation of accurate manuscripts of this work, entitled De Fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis, that still remain from the ninth century and their likely provenance, Arno had a key role in fulfilling his friend’s request.3 In most of the early manuscripts, De Fide was associated not with Alcuin’s anti-Adoptionist writings, however, as it is in Migne, but with his 28 question-and-answer dialogue entitled De Trinitate ad Fredegesium, his De Animae, the hymn Adesto, the credal exposition Credimus, and the poem Qui mare.4 Although the third book of De Fide treats directly of Adoptionism, the purpose of this book was deeper, examining and elucidating the relationship between Christology and Trinitarian theology. In some ways Alcuin’s compilation is a little Summa Theologica, perhaps even an ‘official Carolingian textbook of theology’. It was certainly regarded as such for many centuries after Alcuin’s death, to judge from the large number of manuscripts remaining that contain De Fide often with its accompanying works.5 It was only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that De Fide came to be copied alongside other texts. It would seem that from the time of Alcuin, the original grouping of texts associated with De Fide was intentional, giving a valuable insight therefore into the theological education of the clergy and monks, and also of some of the nobility, men and women, at the Carolingian court in the ninth century after his death.6 Not until the time of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo would Christology again be examined in the western Church such detail and with such clarity. Until the Reformation and well into the age of printing, Alcuin’s De Fide was regarded as a cogent and seminal exposition of the heart of Christian Latin theology.7 It remains very useful today. Alcuin prefaced De Fide, his last significant work, with a letter to Charlemagne explaining his approach.8 In it he extolled the emperor’s power

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

95

and wisdom, unparalleled by any of his predecessors, each facet contributing to the stability and peace of his realm. To assist the king in his duty as the defender of the Christian faith, Alcuin commended his new book as a manual to have at hand.9 He said that it rested upon the greater work by Augustine, his De Trinitate, indicating that so deep a matter needed a dialectical approach to theology.10 This was an important assertion and it lay close to the heart of Alcuin’s own method of writing and teaching.11 His De Fide would make the essence of the great Father’s thought with regard to the Incarnation and the Trinity accessible and usable for ordinary bishops, clergy and teachers, whose duty it was to commend the inner integrity of the Christian faith. He therefore commended it to the king for his blessing, so that there might be ‘vigour in preaching the Word of God, perfect knowledge of the Catholic faith and holy devotion for the salvation’ of his subjects, which in turn would secure the well-being of his kingdom. The letter closed with a short poetic encomium of Charlemagne as ‘the leader, teacher and glory of the empire.’ It would be misleading therefore to regard De Fide as an epitome of Augustine’s great work. Its central teaching clearly rests upon his authority, but not his alone. In the words of Cavadini, ‘it is rather a deliberately composed treatise with a movement and emphasis all of its own . . . it has its own unique structure. . . . Augustine’s text appears not as a prototype for an essentially imitative essay, but as the dominant source for a distinctly new work.’12 Its orientation was overtly credal in the sense that Alcuin sought to expound the deep relationship between Christology and the Trinity, drawing only selectively from those parts of Augustine’s work that served his purpose.13 No doubt he intended it to stimulate interest in the greater work, serving as a bridge into Augustine’s thought that might not otherwise be readily accessible to many of his contemporaries, because of its sophistication and perhaps also the paucity of manuscripts available. Thus ‘Alcuin conceived a structure which gives the work an emphasis and a dynamic flow all of its own.’14 It is in no way a speculative work unlike the original De Trinitate of Augustine. There is within it a metamorphosis of Augustine’s theology, shedding many of his idiosyncratic preoccupations and ignoring much of his most distinctive argumentation. It was his authority and orthodox teaching, and also in part his method, that Alcuin was keen to sequester and develop. The De Fide is therefore essentially a teaching manual, characteristic of Alcuin’s manner of thought and expression. The success of De Fide as such must account for its accurate replication over so many centuries, making it one of the foundation stones of western medieval theology. It did not rest upon Augustine’s authority alone, however, and to some extent Alcuin’s selection from his primary authority was coloured by that of another earlier Augustinian disciple, the fifth century North African bishop, Fulgentius of Ruspe, from whom he derived some of his citations of Augustine. Alcuin also turned to Marius Victorinus, a precursor of Augustine’s, who had been active in rebutting Arianism in the fourth century,

96

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

to elucidate certain key points of theology, notably the unique nature of God’s being;15 and his hymns inspired and influenced Alcuin’s poem Adesto that is associated with De Fide in the manuscript tradition.16 Alcuin probably knew Victorinus from his time in York, as his some of writings are listed in his poem as being in the library there, as are those of Fulgentius.17 There are fleeting references to other Fathers, notably Isidore of Seville, Cassian, Leo the Great and Arnobius. What is notable is that it is not just Augustine’s De Trinitate that underpins Alcuin’s De Fide, although that is the largest single source. He also drew significantly on Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, most strikingly by adapting its famous conclusion for his own. He also used Augustine’s Enchiridion quite decisively in the third book of De Fide which he devoted to Christology, as well as drawing on his letters, sermons and commentaries on the Psalms and on John’s gospel.18 This conspectus was a very different range of patristic sources to those that he had relied upon and cited in his extensive anti-Adoptionist writings, confirming that this culminating work had a significantly different orientation, though clearly coloured by his other endeavours. It was probably composed at Tours alongside the anti-Adoptionist writings nonetheless. Alcuin’s precise selections were focussed, however, and they reveal knowledge of entire texts and not just extracts from a florilegium. But he steered them to his own ends, in an active dialogue with the inner meaning of Christian theology that they revealed and corroborated. Resting his own argument on those of others before him was not merely a derivative process, however: it authenticated what he was saying and placed it within the great and living tradition of Christian theology as he perceived it to be. As Cavadini says, ‘he uses patristic texts . . . like a kind of raw material, which he appropriates and moulds freely, pressing it into structures of his own choosing.’19 For deep down, and from long experience as a teacher, Alcuin believed that theology was ‘a natural outgrowth and a clarifying development of the creed of every believer.’20 Although his metamorphosis of Augustine’s works was in a way so radical, Alcuin made them more accessible and helpful to medieval theologians when considering how Christology related to Trinitarian theology. Although De Fide comprises three sections or ‘books’, it is best appreciated thematically. There are several interlocking themes. Firstly, as has been noted already, it is essentially an educational enchiridion expounding the meaning of the Nicene Creed, and so it finds its place within the wide range of similar material generated and used at this time in the Western Church. For the creeds stood at the heart of the Carolingian renovatio of education within the Church. Secondly, and central to Alcuin’s purpose was the right relationship between Christology and Trinitarian theology. This entailed the rebuttal of Adoptionism and an exposition of the Filioque with its bearing upon belief in the Holy Spirit. Underpinning this were key texts from the Bible, whose proper handling determined orthodox Christian theology. The book therefore

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

97

enabled the teaching and pastoral ministry of the clergy, while reflecting on the nature of Christian thought and prayer, with due recognition of the limitations of human language in theology. Alcuin’s genius as a teacher fielded all these dimensions, and this contributed to the evident value of De Fide as a teaching primer for many generations. As this book represents the culmination of Alcuin’s intellectual and spiritual development, as well as being a fine distillation of his mode of thought and teaching, discussion of its contents will be illustrated by excerpts from the text.21

De Fide – Book I The preface of De Fide asserts its fundamental educational goal: it represents the epitome of Alcuin’s long teaching experience. ‘The entire course of Holy Scripture urges us to raise ourselves from earthly to heavenly things, where true and eternal blessedness is to be found. It is most certain that it is only possible to arrive there through the faith of Catholic peace, and the working together within us of the love of God and also of our neighbour.’22 The role of preachers was therefore inherently educational: ‘it follows that every rational soul must learn the Catholic faith during each appropriate stage of life, and this is true above all for preachers serving a Christian people as teachers of the churches of God. They must be able to resist those who contradict the Truth, and to promote Catholic peace among those who love it. How indeed can someone teach what he has not learnt?’23 Note how intimate in Alcuin’s mind was the relationship between sound teaching, Christian truth over against heresy and error, and their goal – ‘Christian peace’. A vital contribution was made to this process of Christian formation and education by the right use of language: There are ten forms of human speech by which men are disposed to express their meaning to each other. I am speaking about those terms which grammarians call ‘parts of speech’, but which the Greek philosophers call ‘categories’, or in Latin ‘qualities’. These are described by words like substance, quantity, quality, etc. Others are relative terms, such as condition, position, time, place, doing, and suffering. These are therefore the principles of our speech.24 Nonetheless the language of the Bible is unique in its character and function. ‘Holy Scripture has been providentially designed by holy teachers to lead us to the knowledge of God, guiding us up by earthly and human sense to heaven and to the divine, to the extent that its language descends to the level of human use and custom.’25 Its anthropomorphic character therefore indicates, but it should not confine, its transcendent quality and purpose. ‘God mercifully consoles the weakness of men: because we cannot know Him directly, He chooses to intimate Himself to us according to the fashion of our human speech, in order to draw us to Himself by those things that are ours. As He condescends in mercy to our weakness, so let

98

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

us ascend to Him by a pure understanding, which is the gift of His grace.’26 This ascent is therefore more than just intellectual: it is also spiritual and life-transforming; it is certainly not speculative, anthropocentric, subjective or introspective. Alcuin’s use of the Bible in De Fide was masterly and also very revealing of his sense of the foundations of Christian theology. The book provides some of the key texts for Christian doctrine in contexts that were as compelling as they were lucid. He placed two favourite texts at the beginning as axiomatic: ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God,’ followed by the words of the Lord to the faithful servant in the gospel parable that he often repeated in his letters, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant . . . enter now into the joy of your Lord.’27 He deduced the Trinitarian nature of God from Paul’s doxology in his letter to Romans, as well as from the classic text in Genesis 1 about human beings made ‘in the image and likeness of God’, regarding Isaiah’s vision of the angels in the Temple singing the Trisagion in a similar light.28 Yet he was able to argue at some length, as Anselm did later, without any reference to Scripture at all in many parts of De Fide. The theology of John’s gospel was however fundamental to Alcuin’s belief, as it was to Augustine before him: for example the beginning of the prologue, and the Lord’s assertion that ‘I and the Father are one.’29 The story of the Baptism of Jesus and the day of Pentecost were cited to confirm the distinct persons of the Father and Holy Spirit in relation to Christ.30 The poetry of the psalms also played a part in evoking the mystery of God in metaphorical language.31 The great prayer of Jesus in John 17 provided important clues to the nature of the essential unity of God,32 as did the text in Philippians 2. 6 about Christ’s equality with God, which the Adoptionists had purloined to their own ends.33 In a chapter discussing God’s existence in heaven, Alcuin could range across the whole of Scripture, from the Lord’s Prayer to the language of the psalms and the wisdom literature, from Isaiah to Paul, with references to the gospels along the way.34 This habit he had developed through his teaching and it is evident also in his letters, many of which were similarly studded with biblical references that were interwoven within his argument in an effortless manner and often clearly from memory. Precise biblical allusions or references need always to be seen in their whole context as well. Alcuin knew his way around the Bible, and its language was the matrix for his thought and its expression. The Psalms played a potent part in his theological vocabulary, springing from long years of recitation from memory in prayer since childhood. What is interesting is the way in which biblical quotations served as hinges to his own thought: in this he was a true disciple of Bede. Every biblical reference in De Fide would bear analysis for its precision of selection and place. What is striking is the fluent superstructure of well-argued theology raised upon such foundations, elucidating an integral framework of Christian thought in dialogue with the scriptural text. Biblical authority thus enabled the flowering of reason, true to the spirit of Augustine himself, who firmly maintained that

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

99

while authority was inevitably prior to reason in time, reason was prior to authority in nature; or in words derived from his teaching and made famous later by Anselm – ‘faith seeks understanding’.35 This was the whole tenor of Alcuin’s approach, and De Fide is the pre-eminent example of it: he believed that reason cannot function properly and truly without faith. The relative restraint with which he cited Scripture was also striking. He clearly expected his hearers and readers to have rich panoply of biblical references to which he could allude, and there are therefore resonances to his writing which are difficult now fully to fathom. Finally, it may well be the case that each of the precise passages that he highlighted was to his mind a crucial clue to the meaning of the Nicene Creed: its authority was that of the Fathers who had distilled within it the truth about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit as revealed in the Bible. In fact De Fide concludes with a brief consideration of the closing clauses of the creed about the Last Things. Its fundamental starting point was that ‘all Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, being inspired by God, if understood in an orthodox sense, indicates that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, of the same substance and single essence, inseparable in their divine unity.’36 Central to De Fide was his understanding of the classical teaching about Christ, and the light that this sheds upon the nature of God the Trinity. To this end Alcuin clearly bent all his powers of thought as well as his long experience of memory, reading, teaching and prayer. The correct beginning was to establish the nature of the unity of God’s being. All that could be said about the persons of the Trinity rested upon this principle. It was therefore critical to be clear about what may be said about God’s being, and what might be properly said about the relationships between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The relationships define the persons and distinguish them; and this arises in the light of revelation through the person of Christ in the gospels. In this context, the distinct nature of the Holy Spirit emerges as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. ‘It must immediately be said that the Holy Spirit is also spoken of in relationship to the Father and the Son; but not in quite the same way as that concerning the relationship between the Father and the Son. For just as the Father and the Son are spoken of in terms of their mutual relationship, so the Holy Spirit is also spoken of, but in a particular way, because He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Moreover this relationship of the Holy Spirit cannot be spoken of in reciprocal terms, as can that between the Father and the Son: for the Father is described as the Father of the Son, and the Son is described as the Son of the Father. But the Holy Spirit is rightly spoken of as relating in the same manner to the Father and to the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.’37 It is clear from this passage that the Filioque expressed a vital truth for Alcuin. He concluded that ‘the Gift of God, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds equally from the Father and the Son, is in an inexpressible way the communion between the Father and the Son. Perhaps he may be so described because this concept is able to draw into union the Father and the Son.’38

100

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

The divine nature of the Son from all eternity was integral to belief in the Fatherhood of God. These words were his direct exposition of the meaning of the Nicene Creed: Therefore, whatever may be said of the Father and the Son cannot be said of one without the other, if it pertains to their common being, but must be said of both together. Thus it arises that the Father is not God without the Son, nor is the Son God without the Father; nor may the Father be called God as if the Son were not God, nor vice versa: but both are one and the same God. Wherefore whatever can be said about the eternity of their existence applies to both equally. Although it may be said of the Son that he is ‘God from God’, ‘Light from Light’, there is still one and the same God and Light. But the Father is not described in this way, only the Son. However both are always and equally one God and one Light. This also applies to all else that may be said of their being: for example, omnipotence, magnitude, goodness, eternity and whatever else. That being so, this alone can properly be said of them: namely, something from something that they both share. Thus it is not right to say ‘Word from Word’ because they are not both ‘Word’, but only the Son; nor ‘Image from Image’ for they cannot both be ‘Image’, and only the Son is the Image. Likewise ‘Son from Son’ is impossible, for they cannot both be ‘the Son’; nor ‘Father from Father’ because both can hardly be ‘the Father’. That is why the Evangelist says: ‘The Word was with God.’39 There is a great matter here to be understood: the Word, who alone is the Son, was with God, because the Father is not alone; but the Father and the Son together constitute one God. By which it may be perfectly understood that the Begetter does not precede that which He begets: as Christ himself says in the gospel: ‘I and the Father are one.’40 He says ‘we are one’ meaning that ‘He’ and ‘I’ are one according to essence, and not just in relationship. Thus when we say ‘Light from Light’ we do not mean thereby two lights, but a separation or distinction within Light itself. The conclusion is that the Son is the eternal effulgence of eternal Light, as the Image of eternal being is itself an eternal Image.41 Alcuin was anxious to demonstrate that there is nothing accidental in God and that the threefold relationship within the Trinity was of the essence of His being. The attributes of each person in no way detract from this essential unity, as these two chapters of De Fide make clear: Although the Father is one person, and the Son is another, there is however no division of substance between them. For this distinction is not according to substance, but according to relationship; and this relationship is in no way accidental, because it is not subject to change. For inasmuch as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are single persons, they are equally one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

101

not, however, according to a threefold mode of existence within God, nor is this how the perfection of the Holy Trinity emerges. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each perfect; and the one perfect God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit: and thus the Trinity is described, rather than some threefold mode of divine existence. There are, however, certain attributes proper to each person of the Holy Trinity, which each reveals within an inseparable equality. The Father alone is the Father, and likewise the Son alone is the Son, and the Holy Spirit alone is the Holy Spirit. The Father has this property that he alone among all others does not derive from anyone else. In this way to him alone pertains Fatherhood, and not just divine being. The Son of God has the property of being only-begotten, by which he alone is begotten of the Father consubstantially. The Holy Spirit has the distinctive characteristic of proceeding equally from the Father and the Son. He is the Spirit of both, and is of the same substance and eternity as the Father and the Son. These three are truly three distinct persons, ineffably and essentially possessed of their distinctive properties. But at the same time they are one, truly one, and also threefold in their unity; for there are not three fathers, sons or holy spirits, but three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These three are one in nature, omnipotence and eternity. However this principle must firmly be maintained, that nothing may be said or should be said about the Holy Trinity by way of plurality. For the nature of the highest divinity is simple; and it must therefore be spoken of singly, never in the plural. It is not fitting to say that there are three gods, nor three almighty powers, nor three goodnesses, greatnesses, or essences in God. For the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct as persons: but one Name, God, describes the divine nature and also those qualities that pertain to God essentially and not relatively, namely substance, essence, omnipotence, and all else.42 As a true Christian theologian, Alcuin knew and affirmed that ‘the nature of the highest divinity is simple; and it must therefore be spoken of singly, never in the plural.’ He concluded that ‘the inevitable plurality of the names (i.e. Father, Son and Holy Spirit) signifies nothing about the inner nature of God.’43 To speak of one person was simply to reveal the others. Furthermore ‘God is therefore called ‘Father’ by affirmation, but ‘unbegotten’ by negation.’ The Son springs as ‘life from the living one’, as the begotten one from the Father. However ‘the Holy Spirit is nowhere described as either begotten or unbegotten. For if he were described like the Father as ‘unbegotten’, there would be understood to be two fathers within the Holy Trinity; or if he were described as ‘begotten’ like the Son, then it would likewise appear that there were two sons in the Holy Trinity. It is just for this reason that saving faith must proclaim him as proceeding from the Father and the Son.44 The Spirit

102

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

does not, however, proceed from the Father to the Son, and then from the Son for the sanctification of creation, as some ill-thinking people suppose should be believed. But he proceeds simultaneously from the Father and the Son, because the Father has so begotten the Son that the Holy Spirit can proceed from him in the same way as from himself.’45 This passage is of crucial importance with regard to understanding the weight given to belief in the Filioque by Alcuin and his contemporaries. It was of necessity in the light of the unique relationship between the Father and the Son, whose person was from all eternity, although revealed in human form for the salvation of humanity. There was no question of there being two principles of being or origin in God: not at all, as Alcuin made unequivocally clear. But he did not think that the variant form ‘from the Father through the Son’ did full justice to the divine reality insofar as it was revealed in Christ. He thus overturned deliberately a formula of some antiquity, popularity and plausibility. The authority of De Fide and Alcuin’s memory as a theologian must therefore stand behind the Carolingian insistence on the dogmatic stature of the Filioque in the years immediately after his death.

De Fide – Book II If Book I of De Fide concentrated on the proper expression of Trinitarian theology, Book II examined more closely the nature of God’s being as the foundation for understanding Christology. The ontological difference between the Creator and the creature was fundamental, as it was in the theology of Augustine. God as the Creator was the ultimate cause of existence, unchanging in His existence while creating a changeable reality. Alcuin noted that Christ prayed that his disciples should become ‘one in us’ and not ‘one with us’.46 For ‘we believe God to be above all existence, all life and all intelligence. Indeed He is the highest Existence, Intelligence and Life. All other life, intelligence and existence emanate from Him: for it is all of a piece in springing from God, whose power, substance and divinity and all else is one; and this divine unity is essentially simple.’47 This is the bedrock of Christian and indeed Jewish and Islamic belief about God, deriving its authority from the story of Moses and the Burning Bush in Exodus 3 where God revealed Himself as ‘I AM’.48 In the light of this core belief, Alcuin rebutted obliquely the Adoptionists who had misinterpreted the reference to Christ ‘not snatching at equality with God’,49 whereas Alcuin believed that it was better to ‘speak of equality within God rather than of likeness.’ The single substance of God meant that there was one substance equally of the three persons. He also dismissed the Arians for asserting the priority of the Father to the Son: the eternal nature of the Father presupposed the eternal nature of the Son. ‘Likeness’ was however an inadequate term to use because it could imply the possibility of ‘unlikeness’. ‘In the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, however, there is no likeness

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

103

of substance, but only one substance that is equal to them all. Thus we say homoousios – of one substance, and not homoiousion – of similar substance, as some heretics would have it.’50 Once again this was a direct commentary on the meaning of the Nicene Creed. Human language quailed in its limitations before the immensity of God’s being, however, for ‘He is within all things so as to contain them, yet outside them in order to enfold them all within the confines of the immensity of His greatness.’51 In the light of this profound truth, Alcuin repudiated any spatial sense of ‘heaven’. Rather ‘heaven’ was better understood as the resting place of God within his saints, whose temple they are. It did not pertain to the eternal being of God as such for ‘He dwelt in Himself and with Himself as God, and has remained ever thus.’52 Following the footsteps of his great mentor Augustine, Alcuin proceeded to examine how God relates to human beings. ‘God therefore draws nigh to those who are good both by nature and by grace: by nature inasmuch as He has made them human beings and by grace because he justifies them as sinners: for they are born human by nature, but by grace God gives them the power to become sons of God. By nature He causes them to live, but by grace He causes them to live justly, wisely and devoutly. By nature God has caused them to remain for a short while in this world; but by grace He has caused them to reign forever in heaven.’53 He went on to declare the necessity of belief in ‘the reality of human free will’ as well as divine grace: the choice in time was real that would determine the ultimate fate of human beings in their eternal relationship with God.54 Within the life of the Church, therefore, ‘it is one thing to be made, another to be born, and yet something else to be reborn. For man is made by God, born of parents, but reborn by the grace of God through the mystery [or ministry] of Baptism’55 Christ came into the world to make possible human salvation: For the merciful Creator did not wish humanity, created in his own image, to perish eternally, so he sent his Son, God the only-begotten, through whom he created mankind, that he might be redeemed by him by whom he was created. He took flesh of the Virgin and was united to human nature, so that as human he remained God, but as God he became human. Such was this undertaking that God was made man so that man might become divine.56 Nor was there any separation within the human person of Christ by this union of the two natures, divine and human. Christ, being in the form of God, assumed the form of a servant: thus he could be both God and man. On the one hand he was God because he was beloved by God; on the other hand he was truly man, having assumed human nature. This union entailed no change or alteration in each nature, however. The divine nature was not changed into that of the creature, nor was its divinity lessened in any way. Nor indeed was the creature divinised so as to be any less a creature. One aspect of this miracle is clear: the divine nature endured real injuries.

104

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

However, the other aspect is no less miraculous in that the human nature suffered those injuries. But Christ was always one and the same person, fully human in mind and flesh. In the form of God, he was consubstantial with his Father, and in the form of a servant he was consubstantial with his holy mother.57 This passage is of central importance for all that Alcuin was saying in De Fide and elsewhere. It was a classical exposition of Christology articulated by Leo the Great in his Tome which he sent to the council of Chalcedon in 451. Alcuin’s style it is very close to the tenor of Leo’s letters and sermons with its clarity and sense of paradox, closer to Leo in fact than to Augustine; and Leo’s influence is everywhere apparent in De Fide because Leo and Alcuin shared the same purpose in what and how they wrote about Christology. It is also beautifully expressed, the product of mature reflection and teaching over many years. From it Alcuin derived the conclusion that Christ was unique in his divine nature and could not be described as ‘adopted’; equally his human soul had ‘full cognizance of the divine nature with which he was united to God as one person.’58 He was therefore to be distinguished from the saints, who received the Spirit from Christ, who alone could give it to them. ‘By the phrase “fullness of the Spirit”’59 it is clear that Christ receives the fullness of the knowledge of God’ because of the eternal nature of his relationship with the Father. It follows therefore that the Father, indeed the whole Trinity, work through Christ:60 ‘for the Son of God was begotten, the eternal from the eternal, ‘God from God, Light from Light’, as we have always most wisely professed, and will continue to profess.’61 Christ was therefore ‘begotten, not made’: he exists eternally as Creator over against his creatures, even though he took their nature upon him to become the giver of divine life to them. ‘Therefore as there is light from light, yet one light, so there is wisdom from wisdom, but one wisdom; because in the simplicity of the divine nature it is not one thing to know and another to be; nor to be and to be able to do; nor yet to be so able and to live. It is of the essence of God to be wise, powerful and living; and all these are one reality in the one God.’62 God’s essence is therefore unknowable and incomprehensible, even to the angels:63 only His self-giving love can reveal His glory.64 Some of Alcuin’s finest writing in De Fide expressed his deep belief in the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is fully and perfectly God, being of one substance with the Father and the Son, one God as we have already discussed above. The Holy Spirit is described in the Scriptures as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Father and also the Paraclete65, the Spirit of Truth. He is the Spirit of Life who proceeds equally from the Father and the Son, and with them is equally adored. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are fully and equally God, being of one nature. The Spirit proceeds fully from the Father and from the Son, while remaining fully and equally in the Father and

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

105

in the Son. He so remains that he may proceed, and so proceeds as ever to remain. With the Father and the Son, the Spirit possesses the fullness of unity and that unity in its fullness, possessing fully the Father and the Son; all that he has is from the Father and the Son. He is given equally by the Father and the Son, even as he gives himself; for as the Son says concerning him: “The Spirit blows where it wills”.66 The Spirit spoke through the prophets, and by his power the apostles proclaimed Christ without fear of the secular authorities. He spoke in them, as the Lord himself said: ‘It will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you.’67 In him all the faithful receive remission of their sins, in baptism and through penitence. The Holy Spirit is described as the Love of God, for the Father and the Son are love. Just as the Son is called the Wisdom of God, so are the Father and the Holy Spirit Wisdom also. The Spirit is called the Paraclete or Comforter, because he gives comfort to the soul by the holy sacramental gifts that he distributes. Thus he sheds abroad in our hearts that love of God by which the entire Trinity comes to indwell us. It is therefore most fitting that the Holy Spirit, who is God, is called the Gift of God. What is this gift if it is not that love which leads us to God, and without which no good deeds can bring us to Him? The Gift of God, which is the Holy Spirit, is coeternal and consubstantial with the Giver: for a gift can be in existence before it is given to someone; and this gift of the Holy Spirit proceeds from eternity and is not subject to time. In order to become something given it must exist before that to which it is given; and there is a distinction to be made between the giving and the gift. A gift may precede the beneficiary; but the giving itself requires a recipient in order to take effect. Thus the gift of God lay hidden from all eternity in the Father and the Son, waiting the moment of its revealing to those to whom it might be revealed. The gift of the Holy Spirit exists in unity of substance and in equality with the Father and the Son. Their unity is a unity of love and holiness: unity because love, and love because holiness; and each of these is of equal importance. This is the highest form of love, by which the begotten is beloved in its begetting, and loves its begetter. Thus there are no more than three: the one who loves him who springs from him; the one who loves him by whom he exists; and the divine love itself; for as it is written: ‘God is love.’68 This sublime and ineffable Trinity should not however be described as being made up of one God, but simply as the one true God.69 This eloquent passage indicates the depth of belief and spiritual awareness that underlay Alcuin’s insistence on the Filioque. A safeguard against Adoptionism and other heresies it might be; but essentially it articulated a sensibility, intuited first by Augustine, towards the mystery of God the Trinity as revealed in the prayer of Christ as the Son to his Father in the Holy Spirit.70

106

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

De Fide – Book III In the prologue to Book III of De Fide, Alcuin addressed the same question that Anselm would answer in his Cur Deus Homo: how God in Christ reversed the fall of mankind, which Alcuin construed as an assault by evil out of envy upon the children of God. ‘The merciful Creator would not permit this, and had compassion for humanity, desiring to reform and restore to man the nobility of his primordial dignity. He sent His only Son to take upon him our flesh, so that as he was God from God, so he might be man from man, restoring immortality to those who would otherwise die. The Son of God therefore assumed our mortality so that, preserved by his own immortality, he might experience death. Thus by justice rather than by power he might overcome the devil, the conqueror of man, and might demonstrate the eternal fairness of God’s righteousness and the mercy of His eternal goodness: justice towards the fallen angelic order for its murder of mankind, and mercy towards the human beings it so seduced to ruin, whom God desired freely to redeem by the generosity of His great goodness and compassion.’71 Thus Christology and soteriology were inextricably bound together in the divine economy of human redemption. Alcuin explained the words of the Creed that Christ was ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary’ as the unique act of divine grace. ‘How could he who began to be man be other than the Son of God, one person, only-begotten and unique? The Word of God became flesh, even as he was divine, becoming a fully human person, possessed of a rational mind and flesh: so Christ was a single person, in two natures – Word and flesh.’72 Central to his understanding of the Incarnation was the person also of the Virgin Mary, to whom he clearly felt a deep devotion, evident here and elsewhere in his writings and poetry. She who was ‘full of grace’ gave birth to Christ, who ‘so received human nature in the unity of his person that he became Son of Man, who was at the same time the only-begotten Son of God . . . full of the grace of his humanity and full of the truth of his divinity.’73 This miracle was wrought by the Gift of God – the Holy Spirit. Alcuin went on to discuss the manner in which Christ and the Holy Spirit were sent into the world: ‘yet this mission was entirely the work of the Holy Trinity, and no Catholic Christian should doubt that.’74 From this belief he drew this conclusion: ‘The Father is invisible but is in union with the Son, who in himself is also invisible. The Son was made visible, and so he is described as being sent. He assumed the form of a servant so as to remain in the form of God unchanged.’75 This was a far cry from the Adoptionist rendering of a kenotic Christology. In chapter seven of book three of De Fide, Alcuin addressed the question of how Christ could be ‘in the form of God’ and ‘in the form of servant’.76 In the first form, he was equal to the Father; in the second form he was less than the Father, being a human being. He became ‘less’ of his own accord, ‘even as it is written, ‘he emptied himself ’.77 ‘As equal to the Father

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

107

he made man; as less than the Father he was made man.’78 Alcuin drew the interesting conclusion that the fullness and perfection of Christ’s human nature, ‘in which man was created in the beginning’, meant that ‘Christ was far removed from the rest of mankind: for this man was one person with God the Word.’79 This was the very thing, however, that Elipandus and Felix criticised about a Christology that seemed not to take seriously the reality of the humiliation of Christ’s humanity. Alcuin went on to draw a contrast between the forms in which the Holy Spirit appeared in the Bible and the definitive form of a servant that pertained to Christ, ‘being united to his person forever.’80 As mediator, Christ embodied at all times the divine initiative of saving grace. In chapter nine,81 Alcuin directly rebutted Adoptionism along the familiar lines of its alleged Nestorianism: this evinced his most lucid statement of Christology. Christ, however, did not himself receive the Word of God as other saints did, but he is the Word of God. It is one thing to be the Word made flesh, and another to be the Word making flesh; likewise to be God among men, and God made man. Therefore the Son of God is truly God, not only according to his true divinity, which he has from God the Father, but also according to the flesh, which he truly received from the body of the blessed Mother of God:82 this is what is believed and preached by all Catholic Christians. For the eternal divinity of the Son is one person within the Holy Trinity. It is united with his full humanity as his human nature is united with his entire divinity.83 This does not occur by ‘adoption’, but properly and perfectly, so that he is truly the only-begotten Son of God in the fullness of his divinity and of his humanity.84 He is thus one and true God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit; and not just ‘nominally’ so, as the Spanish heresy [i.e. Adoptionism] dares so impiously to affirm. They assert that whereas he is truly the Son of God in his divine nature, he is only ‘nominally’ so in his human nature. Likewise he is properly called the Son of God in his divine nature, but only so by ‘adoption’ in his human nature. They thus divide the one person of the Son of God into two persons, as did Nestorius, identifying the true Son of God and the ‘adopted’ one. Nonetheless it remains most certainly the case that the Son of God assumed human nature in that person which was eternally begotten of the Father. No Catholic secure in their faith would dare to assert him to be ‘adopted’: for God, the Son of God, assumed human nature and not a human person, thus receiving into his eternal person the temporal substance of humanity. Humanity thus crossed over into God, not by any change of nature, but by union with the divine person. Thus there are not two ‘christs’, nor two sons, but one Christ, and one Son – God become man.85

108

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

The influence of the Quicunque Vult can readily be discerned here in this epitome of Alcuin’s repudiation of Adoptionism. True to the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, Alcuin maintained the completeness of the two natures in Christ. ‘To the person of the Word of God was joined the form of a servant; but nothing of the divine plenitude was lost, nor did the assumption of humanity exert any domination over Christ. In the one and same person of Christ, the truth about human nature shone forth, while the eternal and unchanging divine nature remained.’86 This was a ‘high Christology’, akin to that of Cyril of Alexandria, and perhaps an inevitable reaction by Alcuin to the blandishments of Adoptionism. For only the act of divine union inherent in the Incarnation could make the humanity of Christ a saving reality: ‘he alone so assumed human nature as to remake it, thereby to impart knowledge of his divine nature out of his mercy for mankind.’87 This enabled Christ as priest and sacrifice to become the only mediator between God and humanity: ‘He comes to us to offer for us what he received from us, so that he might bear away from us what he found in us, namely our sins.’88 It was by Christ’s humility and humiliation that human beings were recalled by repentance and love to their original obedience and integrity. This was Alcuin’s answer to the concerns of the Adoptionists. So, although Christ’s distinct natures may be discerned in the gospels in his words and actions, the unity of his person was never in doubt. He was therefore the one Son of God, whose eternal nature became man in a moment of time by the Virgin Mary. Alcuin’s devotion to the Virgin Mary was elegantly expressed in chapter fourteen: ‘the blessed evangelist, when he wished to indicate the particular nature of the one person of Christ, said: “The Word was made flesh”’.89 The Word, because he was with God, existed before the world, and through him the world was made. Nor did the Word lay aside his eternal nature when he chose to become man by taking flesh in time through the Virgin’s womb. The Word so willed by his almighty power to assume this particular human nature in time, however, because he ever exists beyond time as the true Son of God. Thus it is not possible to posit two sons of God, one begotten before time and the other born in time: there is only one perfect and complete Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Blessed Virgin Mary, preserving the integrity of her body, brought Christ forth as both God and man. By this act she was like the purest wool, resplendent in her virginity, and surpassing all other virgins under heaven. Such she was, and so great, that it was her dignity alone to receive the divine nature of the Son of God within herself. For just as wool takes up purple dye, and so becomes purple wool worthy of imperial dignity, which none may wear unless they be nobly born, so the Holy Spirit approached the blessed Virgin, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, that she might become as wool dyed purple with divinity, and thereby become alone most worthy of an eternal Kingdom. Thus the Blessed Virgin Mary was made both Theotokos90 and ‘Christ-bearer’.91

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

109

Before her there were indeed others among the people (of Israel) who might be described as ‘christ-bearers’ in the sense that they were mothers of anointed ones (i.e. kings and prophets). But they were not virgins, nor were they overshadowed by the Holy Spirit or by the power of the Most High, and so found worthy to bear God Himself. She alone is called ‘Christbearer’ and Theotokos, being the only virgin to have conceived by the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High. She is therefore glorified as having borne God, the eternal Son of God, who is consubstantial with the Father. She was a virgin before the birth, during it and after it: for she was worthy to grow in the merit of chastity, even as God was born within her, lest by His coming He should damage her integrity, He who came to heal what was corrupt. Nor did the Ruler of heaven disdain to enter the confines of a virgin’s womb, even He who fills the breadth of all creation, and whom the host of angels acclaimed at His birth with the words: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of goodwill.’92 The language of worship and the liturgy, and especially of the Te Deum, coloured this encomium as well as Alcuin’s patent devotion. Alcuin also explained in chapter 15 the meaning of the communicatio idiomatum in Christ in relation to his two natures, as seen in the gospels: ‘his human nature slept in the boat and was awoken by the disciples, but in his divine nature he commanded the winds and the waves. As a man he wept over a dead friend, but as God he alone could summon him back from the grave and restore him to life.’ Thus ‘he endured humiliation in majesty, weakness in strength, and mortality as one who is eternal. . . . In his deeds it is possible to discern the properties of each nature, but in his power can be perceived only the unity of his person.’93 Like the Burning Bush of old, Christ was not consumed by his sufferings: ‘the divine nature did not abandon the human nature, not even in the depths of his passion.’94 For Christ ‘permitted all that he suffered; and nothing occurred that he had not willed: for he was indeed the work [of God] and the author of that work.’95 Alcuin’s Christology was moulded by long reflection on John’s gospel and in this he shadowed closely the theology of Augustine himself. His perception rested also on the teaching of Paul: ‘If he was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God.’96 In support of this and with an eye to the Apostles’ Creed, Alcuin also mentioned the reference in I Peter to Christ’s descent into hell.97 Once again Alcuin had both the Creeds and the Adoptionists in mind when he discussed the significance of the Baptism of Christ, regarding it as the first supreme revelation of his humility as well as of the Trinity. ‘Christ, begotten by the Spirit, had no need of any regeneration. Instead the Holy Spirit was seen to descend on him at his baptism in the form of a dove. Nor should it be believed that it was only then that he received for the first time the gifts of the Holy Spirit: for from the moment of his conception he was always full of the Holy Spirit; but the mystery of the holy and undivided

110

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Trinity was revealed at the moment of his baptism. The Son of God was baptised as a man, the Spirit of God descended as a dove, and God the Father was present by His voice. Thus no baptism can proceed without the invocation of the Holy Trinity. Indeed, the Son of God wished to intimate from the beginning the personal presence of the Trinity, when he instructed those who would dispense the sacraments to ‘teach all nations, and to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’98 Thus the Baptism of Jesus, like his Transfiguration, was a theophany, not the moment of his adoption. Alcuin had this to say about both the meaning of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds: Whatever, therefore, that was accomplished by the cross of Christ, his burial and resurrection on the third day, his ascension into heaven, and session at the right hand of God the Father, was done so that these things should remain not just mystical utterances, but become the realities whereby Christian life might be formed. Thus Paul speaks of the meaning of the cross when he says: ‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.’99 Or of the burial: ‘You have been raised with Christ through baptism into his death.’ Or of the resurrection: ‘As Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we must walk in newness of life.’100 And of the ascension into heaven and session at the right hand of the Father, he says: ‘If you have been raised with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on earthly things: for you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.’101 Alcuin was ever the pastor, preacher and teacher; and the person of prayer too, steeped in the liturgy, being someone for whom its words were gateways to the truth and reality of Christ’s Incarnation, ‘whereby Christian life might be formed. His statement about the nature of divine judgement is also very interesting and compelling: ‘Through the Word, the Son of God, God Himself raises up the souls of those who live in Christ. God will likewise raise up their bodies at the end of the age, through the Son of Man, that they may live eternally with Christ. For it is not the Father Himself who will come to judge the living and the dead: nor will He withdraw this from the Son. Why therefore does He not come himself ? It is because He did not take on the form of a servant, nor will He be seen in judgement: for the wicked ‘shall look upon him whom they pierced.’102 Their judge will appear in that form in which he himself stood under judgement: he will be the judge who was himself condemned. He was condemned unjustly, but he will judge justly. Such a judge will appear so that he can be seen, both by those whom he will crown, and by those whom he will condemn. He will be seen in the form of a servant, but his being in the form of God

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide

111

will remain hidden: for only the just are promised to see this as the reward of eternal blessedness.’103 Alcuin concluded his commentary on the Creeds with conventional teaching about the end of the world and the nature of bodily resurrection, affirming its rational basis thus: ‘there is no nook or cranny of nature that can receive anything taken from our senses that does not lie wide open to the knowledge of the Creator of all or can evade His power.’104 Nature’s reality is ultimately rooted in God’s knowledge of its existence. In his last chapter, Alcuin consciously echoed the final chapter of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei. There the eternal Sabbath rest awaits all the saints: there they will see and they will love, they will love and they will praise. Now therefore the goal has been reached for which this discourse was begun: it is indeed complete and at its end. We therefore implore the love of those who read it to intercede for us for God’s mercy that we might merit, all unworthily, coming to that Kingdom, which is without end. Amen.105 The unique value of Alcuin’s De Fide was that it answered directly the evident contemporary need for a clear understanding of the nature of Christology and its intimate relationship to orthodox theology of the Trinity, both for the clergy and for the laity. The way Alcuin wrote sprang from his long experience of answering questions, and formulating answers that were lucid but rooted in patristic tradition and the Bible. His own mature belief shines through, as does his earnest desire to communicate his thinking and its reasoning, in order to empower the rational belief of others. Alcuin emerges in these pages as a true spiritual father, a person of deep learning, prayer and reflection. The long use of De Fide over eight medieval centuries and beyond is remarkable by any standards, and for a modern reader it still remains lucid, accessible and compelling.

Part Three Mission, Episcopacy and Monarchy Chapter 10 Mission Baptism Alcuin’s theology was nothing if not applied in its nature and intention, and one of the most important areas in which he was deeply involved concerned the missionary work of the Church. He challenged and perhaps altered Charlemagne’s policy towards the Saxons. Central to his concern as a theologian was the policy that should be taken towards the baptism of adults, newly converted, from tribes whom the king had recently conquered. In the case of the Saxons, the attempt to impose baptism by force as a sign of submission and fealty to Charlemagne provoked a disastrous reaction, and finally induced a sharp reversal of royal policy in the second Saxon code, promulgated in 797. Matters of principle came to a head for Alcuin and other churchmen with the surrender in 796 of the Avars in the Danube basin after several years of sharp warfare. How were they now to be handled? This immediately affected his close allies, Paulinus of Aquilea and Arno of Salzburg, whose dioceses had been affected by the wars and which now became spring-boards for mission. In the midst of his preoccupations with the Adoptionist controversy, which itself had its roots in missionary activity in Spain, Alcuin was plunged into addressing adult baptismal policy, a matter of crucial concern to the Church as well as to the king. His initiative and teaching laid the basis for a consistent policy pursued by the Carolingian church for many years after his death in 804.1 A group of his letters remain which give a vivid insight into the urgency of the matter and Alcuin’s energetic response to it. In a famous letter to Charlemagne, written when news of his sensational victory over the Avars had reached him, Alcuin congratulated the king on his success, seeing it as sign of divine providence and approval.2 The king’s victory meant that peoples long lost in error might be directed into the path of truth. Alcuin did not balk at the fact that conquest opened the way for evangelism and he had little sympathy with the unfortunate Saxons who were ‘hardened in their unfaithfulness.’ They appeared to him to be condemned and excluded from divine election; a harsh judgement indeed, but reflecting perhaps the

Chapter 10 – Mission

113

frustration at court over a failed policy. Instead Alcuin saw the king as a kind of evangelist, ‘a lover of truth and of the salvation of many,’ whose vocation it now was to turn his military victory into a means of genuine conversion of his former enemies. Yet how was this to be done? ‘Now your peaceable and most wise devotion to God should provide preachers of honest morals for this new people, educated with knowledge of the holy faith, and imbued with the principles of the gospel, having as their examples the holy apostles in their preaching of the Word of God.’ Alcuin went on to cite various biblical and patristic passages to urge a more gentle approach than had been applied hitherto. The king was urged not to impose tithes immediately on a ‘rude population’. Alcuin knew that this was a sensitive issue, given the costs of warfare and the inevitable need to reward followers; but he boldly asserted that ‘it is better to lose money than to lose faith.’ Only those long nurtured in the Christian faith could understand and accept the principle of the tithe. Forcible exactions would alienate new converts, as had happened with the Saxons, although he does not directly mention this. It was in this context that Alcuin outlined a policy of adult catechumenate prior to baptism that became central to his thinking at this time: for mere washing in water meant nothing if it were not preceded by understanding and acceptance of the Catholic faith. He cited the authority of Jerome commenting on the great commission of Christ at the end of the gospel of Matthew, that teaching must precede baptism; 3 and central to this teaching must be a proper understanding of the Trinity. Faith, instruction, baptism – that was the correct order from a spiritual and pastoral point of view. Alcuin drew the analogy of children needing a suitable diet and not being forcefed. He cited also the authority of Augustine’s De catechizandis rudibus, knowing the respect that Charlemagne had for so great a Father. It was in the interests of the king to get this matter right, lest resentment undermine fidelity to him as the new over-lord. It was also his duty before God. Alcuin then outlined his own approach to preparation for baptism as a model. Converts were to be instructed first about the immortal nature of their souls, eternal life, and the divine retribution for good and evil deeds with their eternal rewards. The fate of the devil and the prospect of heaven were to be spelt out unequivocally. Then belief in the Trinity and in the purpose of the Incarnation of Christ was to be taught, in terms derived from the creeds. ‘Thus confirmed in the faith, a person was ready for baptism.’ There should be continuing preaching of the gospel and its precepts thereafter so that a baptised person became a worthy dwelling place for the Holy Spirit and a true child of God. The succinct nature of this exposition, with which Alcuin’s letter to the king ended, probably reflected his own practice over many years dating back to his time in York. The depth of his feeling about how the newly conquered Avars were

114

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

to be treated is revealed in a letter that Alcuin wrote about the same time to his friend, the king’s treasurer, Megenfrid,4 who had been an active warleader against the Avars and Huns in 791. He reminded him of his duty as a Christian lay-man and of his accountability towards God. Alcuin again cited explicitly the great commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel, spelling out the threefold pattern of teaching, baptism and nurture in the gospel precepts. Quoting Augustine, he reminded his friend that faith had to be voluntary and never compelled. ‘A person can be drawn towards faith but not forced.’ Compulsory baptism was no good spiritually and likely to be destructive, except in the case of infants. His line of argument reiterated that already set out in his letter to the king, revealing a high level of engagement with pastoral theology on the part of Megenfrid and others who would hear the letter at court; for this was a form of lobbying by Alcuin who was now absent at Tours. He used the writings of Paul to very good effect, concluding memorably that evangelists were ‘to be preachers and not predators.’ Megenfrid was to use his influence with Charlemagne to establish quickly a sound policy that would not back-fire, as the matter was urgent. The king was to emulate Christ and send out into the harvest-field many workers, for advancing the mission of the Church was the true glory of his kingdom. It was another powerful and cogent letter, fearless in its moral stance and in its implicit criticism of earlier royal policy that had clearly failed. Letters of Alcuin at this time written to Paulinus of Aquilea and Arno of Salzburg also shed light on this turning-point in Carolingian church policy. Arno was in the front-line of mission towards the conquered Avars and Huns; and in the wake of a Frankish council to settle policy in 796 he was sent the pallium by Pope Leo III so that as an archbishop he might be able to create new dioceses as the mission advanced. Alcuin and Paulinus were already in deep collaboration in combating Adoptionism. His letter to Paulinus in 796 was quick off the mark after news reached him of the king’s victory over the Avars.5 In it he expressed his vision of the missionary opportunity now opening up in which he expected his friend to play a leading role. In a letter to Arno of Salzburg, written slightly earlier in early summer of 796 and before the final successful campaign against the Avars, upon which the bishop was to embark himself, Alcuin thanked him for his letter, which had arrived in time for Pentecost. He reminded him that all royal power and victory was in the hands of Christ, the King of Kings, for a purpose, and urged Arno to exert his influence immediately in the interests of the peaceful conversion of the Avars. He was to be ‘a preacher of piety and not an exactor of tithes’; for it was the imposition of tithes that had subverted the faith of the Saxons and alienated them. He was also to encourage the king to be generous to churches and monasteries along the way. Arno wrote back to him, just as news arrived about the victory over the Avars, asking Alcuin to send him a suitable handbook for preaching to the pagans. Alcuin replied by apologising that the pressure of business and the haste with which

Chapter 10 – Mission

115

the courier had had to return had precluded this for the moment, but he sent him instead a copy of the letter that he had already sent to Charlemagne.6 Soon afterwards, however, Alcuin did compose a lengthy letter to his friend, outlining his approach to evangelism and preparation for baptism.7 He began by associating the episcopal office with the original work of mission entrusted to the first disciples as ‘fishers of men.’ Arno too was to steer the ship of the Church so that Christ might be able to preach from its poop while he cast the drag-net of the gospel far and wide; Alcuin drew out the symbolic and universal significance of the 153 fish caught in the story at the end of John’s gospel. Alcuin referred again to the seminal text – the great commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel, ‘for in these very few words Christ set forth the order for all holy preaching: twice he reiterated the command to teach, and only then to baptise. He commanded them to teach the entire Catholic faith, and only after acceptance of the teaching of the gospel did he command their washing in sacred baptism.’ Only for children was it appropriate to reverse the order, for ‘without faith, what profit is baptism?’ Again the tragedy of the Saxons haunted him: they had lost the effectiveness of the sacrament because the faith was not rooted in their hearts, despite the best efforts of English missionaries known to Alcuin personally. Citing the authority of Augustine, he emphasised the impossibility of faith by coercion: ‘a person might be compelled to baptism but never to faith’, and he might end up instead like the Adoptionist heretics in Spain who were incorrigible. Alcuin stated very clearly his own deep belief in the role of education in evangelism. People had to be drawn to faith by reason and love – indeed by the Father Himself, so that they might apprehend the mysterious reality of the Trinity. ‘For what the priest accomplishes visibly by baptism of the body in water, the Holy Spirit achieves invisibly in the soul through faith.’ Three visible components constituted baptism: the priest, the body of the person to be baptised, and the consecrated water; these were matched by three invisible elements: the Spirit, the soul of the person, and faith itself. The evangelist and priest were therefore fellow-workers with the Holy Spirit. Candidates for baptism had to offer their bodies for baptism and their minds voluntarily to receive the Catholic faith. Alcuin deployed the image of planting trees, as well as the Pauline one of milk before solid food: for the gospel could not reside in a heart steeped in pagan error, as new wine needed new wine skins.8 He went on to cite examples of pastoral flexibility and sensitivity, appropriate to age and situation, in the gospels and in the writings of the apostles.9 The evangelist was to think like a doctor, using sweet and bitter remedies as needed, but always with love, keeping at hand and mastering the Pastoral Rule of Gregory the Great, while committing to memory relevant parts of the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. It is in this letter to his great friend Arno that Alcuin’s own missionary heart is most fully revealed. The fruit of his thinking about preparation for adult baptism was distilled

116

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

in two other letters that Alcuin wrote in 798: one to a young priest whom he had trained called Oduin, and the other to monks in Septimania on the borders with Spain who were combating Adoptionism.10 In both letters he included a short tract on preparing adult converts for baptism that began with the words Primo Paganus and which was to have a long life after Alcuin’s death. Its potency lay in its simplicity and the fact that it could be easily memorised by priests and catechists in the field. It became the framework around which Arno of Salzburg and others working with him would develop their own more elaborate catechetical material;11 and its popularity and relevance in the Carolingian Church are reflected in the proliferation of manuscripts in the ninth century that contain all or parts of it.12 The letter that Alcuin wrote to Oduin clearly continued a dialogue of preparation between them and distilled well-established practice: 13 it was designed to help a new priest in his ministry. What is striking about the treatise describing how a catechumen came to baptism is the way in which each ritual act is accompanied by a pithy explanation of its meaning, so that the whole rite becomes a teaching guide and therefore readily memorable. Coming for baptism meant firstly the conscious renunciation of the devil and his delusions, which was the plight of the pagans. The priest then breathed on the person to drive away evil and to open the way for Christ, and this culminated in a solemn exorcism. The person was then given salt to cleanse away their sin. Then he or she formally received the Apostles’ Creed, its meaning having been explained earlier, to furnish the soul for the coming of Christ. Then the candidate was scrutinised about their understanding of the faith, whether ‘it had taken deep root in their heart.’ The nostrils were then touched so that the person might remain steadfast while they yet breathed, and the breast was anointed with oil in the sign of the Cross to bar the return of evil; the shoulders were also signed to achieve protection all round and to secure commitment to the Christian life. Then in the name of the Trinity the person was baptised three times, ‘for it is right that a person who was made in the image of the Holy Trinity should be remade in the image of the Holy Trinity.’ The threefold raising from the water signified the reversal of the fall of mankind. The candidate was then clothed in white garments as a sign of joy and chastity restored, emulating the angels. The head was anointed with chrism and wrapped with a band representing royal and priestly status. He or she was given Holy Communion to strengthen their life in Christ as part of his Body, the Church. Finally the bishop confirmed the person by the laying on of his hands, so that they might receive the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to preach the faith to others, having now received the gift of eternal life in Christ. Alcuin’s letter to the monks of Septimania was part of an ongoing dialogue about the problems of Adoptionism and the mission of the church in the borderlands between Spain and the Frankish realms.14 He reminded them of the spiritual and moral responsibility of their vocation as monks: ‘what is the

Chapter 10 – Mission

117

monastic life if it is not charity, humility and obedience?’ Then he attacked various errors of the Spanish heretics, urging them instead to follow in the footsteps of the Fathers and the practice of the Catholic Church, not tampering with the wording of the Nicene Creed. He reiterated the decrees of the synod of Frankfurt of 794 concerning the unity of Christ in his two natures, repudiating any description of him as ‘adopted.’ Alcuin rejected the use of salt in the Eucharist as not sanctioned by Roman practice: only three elements could be offered – bread, wine and water. These taken together signified the mystical reality of the Body and Blood of Christ into which his people were incorporated. He rejected also the old Spanish custom of baptism by single immersion as it obscured the three nights in which Christ lay in the tomb. In support of his position he cited Leo, Jerome and also a poem celebrating the number three in the Christian faith that was attributed to Ambrose. It was in this context that he included his tract Primo Paganus as a template of orthodox practice. In all things the monks were to follow the authority of the holy Roman church, while Alcuin expressed his doubts about the genuineness of a letter attributed to Gregory the Great, which the Spanish church claimed justified baptism by single immersion.15 After some observations about the proper celebration of Easter Saturday in a monastic community, he asked them to send a copy of his letter to the monks of Lerins off the coast of Provence. The tract Primo Paganus has attracted much investigation, standing as it does on the boundary between two distinct phases of mission on the Continent. Wilmart was of the view that it was the work of a single mind, probably Alcuin’s, even if it was a collation of earlier material; and he believed that it was compiled at Tours.16 This view was later challenged by Bouhot in several articles in which he discerned more precisely the elements embedded in this work.17 In so doing he shed much light on the ferment of thought in the Carolingian church at this time about the proper preparation for adult baptism.18 He alleged that the principal root of Primo Paganus lay in a letter of a deacon called John who lived in the early sixth century in Rome.19 But large and significant parts of it were also drawn from a sermon attributed to Augustine. Alcuin may have known John’s letter from some existing florilegium, possibly put together earlier in the eighth century for the use of missionaries, perhaps even of Alcuin’s own family. Its influence was also apparent in the enquiry which Charlemagne later sent out in 812, after Alcuin’s death, checking on how baptism was conducted, as well as in some of the episcopal replies that he received, notably that of Odilbert of Milan. Examination of the actual order of events in the baptismal rite described in Primo Paganus reveals a close similarity to what is known about the liturgical practice of St Martin’s at Tours during Alcuin’s time. The most recent study by Phelan has confirmed the strong likelihood that Alcuin was indeed the compiler of this short tract. ‘Primo Paganus, considered in its entirety, reflects careful construction by an individual

118

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

who had Alcuin’s concerns about baptism, in terms of its ritual structure and theological emphases.’20 It is of a piece with the skilful selection and editing found in many of Alcuin’s other works. It is also consistent with Alcuin’s theology about baptism, evident in the letters that have already been discussed. Moreover his emphasis on the Trinitarian meaning of the threefold immersion was different to that of the Roman deacon John. It was a classic example of adaptation by Alcuin to rebut the errors of Adoptionism with which he was so preoccupied at that time. It is of course possible that he had compiled it in some form many years earlier, perhaps even at York. Meanwhile baptism also played a key role in his polemic against Adoptionism.21 For him liturgy was an effective antidote to heresy as it embodied Christian truth; it was also a primary teaching instrument, as well as an expression of belief and prayer. Many of the copies of Primo Paganus found in ninth century manuscripts seem to flow from Alcuin and his circle. His authority was further enhanced by his penitential teaching which will be examined later:22 for Alcuin, penitence was participation anew in the grace of baptism. The most significant channel for his wider influence was through Arno, Archbishop of Salzburg, who preserved so many of his writings, and whose clergy were actively engaged in missionary work. Several manuscripts remain as evidence of their activity and of Alcuin’s continuing influence upon it. The fact that sometimes the tract Primo Paganus was copied without reference to its original context in his letters shows how popular and useful it was throughout the ninth century and beyond, even when its original author became forgotten. The fact also that there was considerable variety in the ways in which it was adapted and augmented shows that while the Carolingian church was united in its evangelistic intentions, it was not uniform in its ritual or pastoral practice. Ninth-century ‘composers altered their models to conform their instructions better to local rites of baptism.’23 The proper conduct of baptism with which Alcuin and Arno were so concerned represented a united doctrinal emphasis and interpretation, the enactment of orthodoxy according to the teaching of the Roman church, though not necessarily conforming to its detailed liturgical practice. This was their legacy to the ninth-century Carolingian church. It was essentially a spiritual and educational legacy aimed at the clergy: for the rite of baptism had to be explained and appropriated by the priests first, and then through them by the people. ‘Baptismal instructions were a vehicle for educating the clergy in the broadest sense. . . . The goal of the [Carolingian] reform was to make effective pastors.’24 The Carolingian legacy was a lasting one and it is evident that throughout the ninth century ‘an Alcuinian programme of baptismal training was readily available to thinkers across the Carolingian world.’25 Crucial to its initial effectiveness was the web of friends and contacts that Alcuin so assiduously cultivated and for whom he wrote.

Chapter 10 – Mission

119

Mission Alcuin grew up in a family and a Northumbrian church deeply involved in Christian mission on the continent for more than a hundred years, starting with his kinsman Willibrord and continuing with Beornrad, who was Abbot of Echternach from around 775, and later Bishop of Sens until his death in 797. Alcuin dedicated his Life of Willibrord26 to Beornrad and the community at Echternach, revealing in it that he and his successor as abbot, Aldbert, were both kinsmen of the saint and therefore distantly of himself too. The Life of Willibrord was almost certainly composed in its finished form at the very moment when the issue of how to conduct missionary policy came to a head in 796. Echternach played a supporting role in missionary work at that time and the second Life of Liudger reported how another abbot called Beornrad embarked upon a mission to the area around Munster but died soon after. Liudger was one of Alcuin’s own pupils and the first Bishop of Munster. It was from Echternach also that the Northumbrian missionary Willehad and his clergy went forth once again to evangelise the Saxons after their initial set-backs and flight during the uprising of Widukind between 782 and 785.27 Charlemagne made Willehad the founding Bishop of the see of Bremen in 787, although he died shortly after the consecration of its new cathedral in 789. Alcuin wrote a letter in 789, before this sad event, to an unknown abbot based in Saxony asking for news about the progress of the mission there and also among the Danes and the Wends, sending greetings also to Willehad, who was later believed also to have been a relative of Beornrad and therefore of both Alcuin and Willibrord.28 What this letter reveals is Alcuin’s close interest in the progress and the setbacks of the Saxon mission which may account for his impatience at its misfiring due to royal political misjudgement. This evidence points towards the significance of the family of Willibrord, based at Echternach, as a connection just as important to the story of Anglo-Saxon missionary activity in the eighth century as that of Boniface and his helpers. The formative influence of such a missionary network upon Alcuin himself was likely to have been profound during his formative years at York. In another letter written at the beginning of 790 to a friend in Ireland called Colcu, Alcuin mentioned with some satisfaction the advance of Christianity once again among the ‘Old Saxons’ and the Frisians.29 He reported also the assault by the armies of Charlemagne upon the Wends further east in Germany, and the ascendancy of the Frankish navy in the Mediterranean over the Greeks, who were then attacking Italy. He also knew about the twofold attack of the Avars, ‘whom we call the Huns’, upon north-eastern Italy in Friuli and also in Bavaria, and their resounding defeat. He mentioned finally the Frankish assault on the Saracens in Spain, seizing three hundred miles of coastline from them. Alcuin was clearly at that moment at the hub

120

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

of the Carolingian world, when the tide seemed to be running providentially in Charlemagne’s favour. Two other senior bishops were further points of contact for Alcuin with the missionary work of the Frankish church: Ricbod Archbishop of Trier, who was also a friend of Beornrad; and Riculf archbishop of Mainz. With both of these Alcuin maintained long and friendly correspondence, on one occasion addressing a letter to Riculf, who was then on a campaign with the king against the Saxons in 796.30 Alcuin’s contacts with the king remained close throughout his campaigns at that particular time, interceding at the end of 796 with Charlemagne and his son Pippin, King of Italy, on behalf of Avar prisoners.31 He was also in touch with one of the principal Frankish military leaders, Eric of Friuli,32 whose death he later lamented to Arno of Salzburg in 799.33 In another letter to Arno written in the late summer of 798, he asked him for further information about the Avars.34 The contacts glimpsed in these letters can only be part of a much wider web of information available to Alcuin about what was happening along the southern, eastern and northern borders of Charlemagne’s realm.35 At a deeper level, the reality of pagan peoples, which at once threatened the fragile order of the Carolingian imperium and on the other hand provided an opportunity for its aggrandisement spiritually as well as politically, loomed large in Alcuin’s thinking and writing.36 On a practical level, if the king alienated the Avars as he had the Saxons, his armies would be overstretched; as it was he had been repulsed earlier in Spain, which had probably contributed to the truculence of the Adoptionist bishops there, safe behind the Pyrenees. After the sack of Lindisfarne in 793, the vulnerability of the North Sea coasts of both England and the Frankish realms became increasingly apparent, even in Alcuin’s lifetime. The dark colours in which he described the savagery of the recalcitrant Saxons contrasted sharply, however, with the high hopes that he had for the successful evangelism of the Avars, who were to be cherished as long lost children and to be nurtured by mother Church. His optimism about a programme for their education before baptism and nurture thereafter might seem unrealistic, and it is almost impossible now to know what impact his arguments actually had on events on the ground. The Franks were not in a position to treat the Avars as forcibly as they had the Saxons, however, while they remained unreconciled to Carolingian overlordship. The Saxons threatened the Rhine, which was the principal artery of transport, trade and wealth for the Carolingian heartland; the Avars straddled another no less important route-way – the Danube. They also threatened the passes down to the fertile plains of northern Italy and the Adriatic coast. For Alcuin there was also the fear of the enemy within the Church, of heresy in the form of Adoptionism, and of the vulnerability of new converts to forms of Christianity that were not within the pale of Roman orthodoxy as the Carolingian churchmen perceived it.

Chapter 10 – Mission

121

Alcuin’s reaction to the sack of Lindisfarne has already been discussed, and the heightening of his eschatological sense is evident throughout most of his writings in the last decade of his life. The onslaughts of the pagans were the hammer-blows of God against moral and spiritual corruption in both Church and state. Their existence was therefore a multiple challenge – military and economic, but also cultural and spiritual, as is evident in a sweeping condemnation in his letter to Colcu of how the Saracens had the whole Mediterranean in their grasp. This was a standing reproach to Christendom, and it would be felt to be so for many centuries yet to come, as was the perfidy of the Greeks to which he also alludes in the same letter. Once again the language of the Bible, and especially of the Old Testament, came to the fore to challenge as well as to inspire the new people of God, the Franks, and on occasion the English too. For ‘a bad king meant catastrophe; a bad people attracted chastisement.’37 Using historical examples in his letter to the community at Lindisfarne, Alcuin showed how the onslaughts of the pagans could nonetheless induce penitence among God’s people. This was evident in the Bible primarily, but also in secular history and in the poetry of Virgil: they were necessary divine instruments. To Alcuin’s mind, the existence of the pagans along the borders of his realm kept Charlemagne up to the mark as the paramount Christian king. Alcuin was constantly appealing to the moral conscience of the king, reminding him of his duty before God, to whom he would one day have to give an account. Like the Church’s preachers, he too was an agent of evangelism; indeed only this could really justify his campaigns and warfare from a moral point of view. For he was a player in a bigger picture interpreted to him by Alcuin in the light of the divine plan vouchsafed in the Bible and adumbrated in the king’s favourite book, the City of God by Augustine. Charlemagne might be terrible to the pagans as his enemies and God’s, but they were also the means of his triumph when his power was seen to serve as a minister of God within an eschatological perspective.38 Even pagan kings could be portrayed as examples for Christian rulers in the way in which Alcuin rewrote the hagiographies of the great missionaries. Their repentance was the key to the conversion of their people, for repentance could change things. In the face of dangers and uncertainties on every hand, Alcuin asserted the potency of penitence by ruler and people to ward off catastrophe and to hold open the door for evangelism. Like Gregory the Great before him, he was no optimist; but he was courageous in his hope, and this coloured his writing and gave force to his intellectual vision and its moral appeal. Alcuin had a lively sense of the Christian past and especially its missionary dimension, as is evident in his poem about the church of York.39 It is also evident in the numerous dedications that he composed for Frankish churches to commemorate earlier generations of Christian

122

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

missionaries. His devotion to the memory of St Boniface was evident in a letter he wrote towards the end of his life in 801 or 802 to the community at Fulda where he was buried, sending them a robe steeped in gum in which to wrap his remains, as well as a missal so that they might venerate him among the saints.40 He also composed this fine poem commemorating his martyrdom and that of his companions for a new church built by Liudger as Bishop of Munster containing relics of Boniface and his companions: it was incorporated in the first Life of Liudger by its author Altfrid, who was one of his successors.41 The noble father, St Boniface of blessed memory, Founded this church with his companions by their shed blood, Joining the noble race of the holy martyrs. O blessed land made rich by the blood of such saints! These victorious soldiers crossed over to the rewards of heaven, Leaving their last footprints on this very turf. I am sure therefore that as you bend your knee in all humility You who read this will look intently at this piece of ground. Great will be your hope as your tears ascend to heaven: For you will be supported by such heavenly patrons. Their shed blood remains here, more precious than gold, While their limbs rest in peace now, suffused by heavenly dew.42 Alcuin wrote many other pieces to commemorate the missionary saints of the Frankish church as well. For his friend Arno, when he was abbot of St Amand, he composed an epitaph for its founder, who had been a missionary in northern France and Flanders in the first half of the seventh century.43 He composed a similar epitaph in the monastic church of St Vedast for his friend abbot Rado to commemorate its founder Vedast, the Bishop of Arras who had prepared Clovis for baptism by Remigius, Bishop of Rheims.44 Within the same church he placed another inscription in honour of Remigius and Ouen.45 Other poems were composed for a church elsewhere to honour Bavo, a disciple of Amand and a recluse at Ghent who was buried in the abbey of St Peter there;46 and also for Hilary of Poitiers.47 Alcuin honoured too the Irish saints, mindful of their decisive role in the evangelism and education of Europe right up to his own day, for he had many friends among them:48 Patrick and Ciaran, the glory of the Irish people, Columbanus, Comgall and Adomnan, Noble fathers, masters of morals and life, May their piety assist us all with their prayers.

Chapter 11 Hagiography Alcuin did not only acculturate himself within the spiritual inheritance of the Frankish church: he also appropriated its missionary traditions in order to restate them afresh in a way which addressed directly the issues of the day, notably how Christianity was to be proclaimed and taught with due royal and episcopal support, and what form such support ought to take.1 While he was Abbot of Tours, Alcuin not only rewrote the classic Life of St Martin for his new community but also significantly re-rendered the lives of three missionary saints: his own kinsman Willibrord for Beornrad and the monastery at Echternach; and also the lives of Vedast and Riquier, which were commissioned by his friends the abbots of their two monasteries. Vedast died around the year 539 after forty years of energetic ministry and mission as Bishop of Arras. Riquier was of the next generation, who died around the year 645, being the founder of the royal monastery at Chelles and for a time a missionary in England; he was a great preacher to king Dagobert and his nobility. Alcuin’s rewritten Life of St Riquier was intended to contribute to the celebration of the rebuilding of the monastery of St Riquier by Angilbert, a major project with which Charlemagne was deeply involved.2 Alcuin also composed new orders of the Mass for the celebration of these saints, material from which was used frequently for other saints’ days for many centuries later.3 Alcuin’s Life of St Willibrord has already been discussed in relation to his own family origins and spiritual formation. He poured a great deal of his own fervour and vision into its composition partly as an act of familial piety. But he also designed it as an exemplar, to address and guide the conduct of Christian mission in his own day: it was in many ways a tract for the times. It laid great emphasis on the pastoral and educational work of a missionary bishop, using language dear to Alcuin in his letters and elsewhere about nurture and growth. This approach had its roots in earlier English hagiography, notably the anonymous Life of St Gregory, the anonymous first Life of St Cuthbert, and also Bede’s own two-fold Life of St Cuthbert.4 Similar language may be found in Alcuin’s poem about the church of York, describing its saintly history. The biblical image that linked nurture with mission was that of the harvest-field to which Willibrord had felt called

124

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

to work. Even his miracles were portrayed as essentially life-giving. In this way his work was truly apostolic in terms that were clearly redolent of the gospels and which would kindle the memory of those hearing the account, placing his mission in the same spiritual and eschatological context. For Alcuin’s purpose in writing was always a moral one: in this case to inspire those who were following Willibrord’s footsteps and teaching in his own monastic community at Echternach. In some respects Alcuin felt himself to be the spiritual heir to his holy kinsman’s vision: his writing too was a contribution to an ongoing mission. There was however a political dimension to the memory of Willibrord’s life as well: for, as has been already discussed, his mission was closely associated with the rise of the Carolingian house under Pippin, and was dependent utterly on his patronage for its safety and ultimate success. Royal and papal support for him as a preaching missionary bishop enhanced, with hindsight, the status of both Church and State; for the Franks were, according to Alcuin and others, the new Israel of God, a ‘chosen people’. The close marriage of interest between ruler and missionary bishop is one of the controlling themes of this book, even if it did not fully accord with the historical reality of Willibrord’s mission.5 Moreover Willibrord’s vocation had been revealed prophetically to his mother in a symbol of light like one of the prophets in the Old Testament; and like them he was fearless in his prophetic authority and preaching.6 Like John the Baptist, he was a herald of Christ, a sign of the continuing presence of the Lord in His Church. Many details of his life paralleled those of Christ in the gospels. This too had political implications, as this was the prophetic light in which Christian monarchy should be seen and should reflect: here lay the root of its true power, significance and authority. The message to Charlemagne and his court was clear: their glory had its root in obedience to a continuing of a biblical pattern of prophetic authority and mission: for in their day also saints had arisen as proof of divine providence and purpose. This was also one of the principal messages of Bede’s History and of his own nuanced understanding and portrayal of the relationship between kings and bishops, for example in the case of Aidan. Bede rewrote and amplified the Life of St Cuthbert to address the needs of the church in his day; so too did Alcuin in his poem about the church of York. The continuity of Christian mission was a living one, urgent and challenging in its demands; but offering security to the ruling house, and moral justification for its policies in advancing the mission of the Church.7 As a result Alcuin’s own generation, like Bede’s before him, could envisage themselves as part of an ongoing history with its roots in the Bible. The life of a saint mirrored this reality and in its turn shed light upon the meaning of the Bible, being subject a similar pattern of exegesis. In the words of Leclerq: ‘Holy Scripture inspired hagiography, and it in its turn commented on Scripture.’8 Thus it is possible to read Alcuin’s hagiographies at four

Chapter 11 – Hagiography

125

levels, comparable to the way in which he understood the text of the Bible: the historical; the exemplary; as a moral mirror; and as a harbinger of the heavenly Jerusalem.9 Yet each of these three missionary hagiographies has its own subtle emphasis and ethos, reflecting the development of Alcuin’s thought and reflection on the traditions as he and his audiences received them, and upon the demands of his day as he perceived them to be.

Alcuin’s Two Lives of St Willibrord Alcuin was himself related to the family of Willibrord, who went to the continent at the end of the seventh century to work as a missionary to the Frisians and other Germanic peoples of the lower Rhine area, with the active support of Pippin, the Frankish ruler, and also of Pope Sergius, to whom he went first in 690 for approval.10 According to Bede, Willibrord was the protégé of a priest and monk called Egbert, whose vision inspired the first generation of Anglo-Saxon missionaries to the continent. Egbert had gone to Ireland as a peregrinus, and later as a peace-maker to the monastic church of Iona to resolve the issue of the correct date of Easter.11 Willibrord received his education at Ripon, under the spiritual rule of Wilfrid, who had been the first Anglo-Saxon missionary to Frisia while on one of his many journeys abroad.12 Both bishop and pupil left Ripon in 678; they remained friends, and Wilfrid visited him on his last journey to Rome.13 Willibrord spent the next twelve years in Ireland at the important Anglo-Saxon monastery there of Rath Melsigi which had been founded by Egbert. In 690, he was sent with eleven companions to Frisia, working in the southern part of the country recently conquered by Pippin, from a base in Antwerp associated with the earlier Frankish missionary, Amand. In 695, Pippin sent Willibrord again to Rome to be created archbishop of the Frisian church. In his personal liturgical calendar,14 there is a handwritten account by Willibrord of how Pope Sergius consecrated him on 21 November 695, in the church of St Cecilia in Trastevere, with the name ‘Clement’ in honour of the Roman saint whose feast fell on 23 November, and whom the liturgy of the Mass associated closely with the mission of the Church.15 On his return to the north, Utrecht became the seat of Willibrord’s bishopric. He dedicated its cathedral to Christ, probably imitating the dedications of the Lateran basilica in Rome and the cathedral at Canterbury. He maintained contact with his homeland, and Bede’s close friend Acca, Bishop of Hexham, was also one of his friends. Bede concludes his account of Willibrord’s mission with the comment that Willibrord was still alive and active as he was writing his History. Some of his known collaborators, mentioned by Bede, were commemorated in his personal calendar. Meanwhile his mission made progress under Frankish protection, despite a setback between 715 and 719 when Radbod, ruler of the Frisians, rebelled after the death of Pippin. Under his successor, Charles Martel, progress resumed for the next thirty years until Willibrord’s death in 739 at the age

126

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

of 81. He was a person of great vision and energy, seeking to evangelise Danes as well as pagan German tribes. In 700 he was granted land by the Abbess of Trier and the royal family at Echternach, which became his place of monastic retreat and where he is now buried. The story of its foundation and endowment is confirmed by some of the charters that remain, and the ties between Echternach and Lindisfarne were close, as contemporary manuscripts from both houses reveal.16 His calendar remains as a vivid personal memorial to his spiritual and evangelistic zeal and to the others who laboured with him, whose memory he and his successors treasured. Alcuin commemorated both Egbert and Willibrord and their generation of missionaries in his poem about the church of York. Alcuin’s interest in Willibrord was very close and personal, and this is reflected in the Lives of the saint that he composed. These constitute an opus geminatum in both prose and verse, modelled to some extent on the comparable double Lives of St Cuthbert, written by Bede. Before examining them in some detail, it is worth noting that the story actually begins with Willibrord’s father, Wilgils, to whom Alcuin dedicated an elegant encomium at the end of his verse Life. He clearly regarded him as the spiritual patriarch of his kin and in his prefatory letter Alcuin said that his body now rested in the little family monastery that he had created.17 Wilgils was a paterfamilias, married with a family. In due time he withdrew to become a hermit on a headland at the mouth of the river Humber, in a little chapel dedicated to St Andrew, the apostle and missionary.18 He worked miracles and generated a local following, so that the king and some of the nobility endowed the place as a small monastery; and there he died. ‘His successors, who still follow the example of his holiness, are in possession of this church until the present day.’19 At the time of writing and while still abroad, Alcuin was its inheritor and trustee. The opening chapter of the prose Life records a story about the conception of Willibrord by his parents that might seem to be a typical hagiographical motif. But in fact it is an interesting affirmation of the sanctity of conjugal relations: because the mother of Willibrord had a vision of a waxing moon that she then swallowed, filling her with light and portending the child’s future spiritual significance, at the very moment of intercourse, according to the judgement of her local priest. Alcuin’s encomium of Wilgils at the end of his verse Life recalls this story, using it as an elaborate parable setting forth the character of Willibrord’s spiritual formation and education. Alcuin evokes a serene and triumphant picture of his saintly father as a person ‘patient, moderate, honest, noble in his lifestyle, meek and devout’, and beloved by all. He was buried in a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary hard by the sea.20 He was a ‘holy and wise person steeped in piety’. The devotion of his parents was the root of Willibrord’s life and sanctity. Alcuin’s bond with the place and the memory of this holy forebear is manifest and was probably highly significant for his own spiritual vocation. Alcuin wrote his double Lives of St Willibrord at the request of his friend,

Chapter 11 – Hagiography

127

Beornrad, Archbishop of Sens, who had for a long time been the Abbot of Echternach; he died in 797. Alcuin’s nickname for his friend was Samuel and he addressed a poem to him, also mentioning him in several of his letters to mutual friends.21 By the time Alcuin wrote the Lives of Willibrord, a cult had grown up around the tomb of the saint in his own monastery, and many of the miracle stories that he includes in the latter part of the Life occurred at Echternach. The last such miracle occurred as the monastery was commemorating the memory of Wilgils. Alcuin regarded Beornrad as the spiritual heir of the saint, having presided over the community and its shrine from 775 until 792, when he was made a missionary bishop just as Willibrord had been. According to a later Abbot of Echternach, Theofrid, writing in the eleventh century, Alcuin’s work rested upon an earlier Irish Life of Willibrord that was subsequently lost. Certainly Alcuin recognised that Irish Christianity played an important part in Willibrord’s formation and missionary activities, and there are several features of his Life that are similar in style and content to those in the Lives of Columba and Columbanus. It is also interesting that Alcuin appends to his prose Life a homily that could be preached on the saint’s feast-day. This has a four-part structure: firstly he justified the cult of saints in their burial places, citing Rome – orbis caput, Milan, Tours and Rheims as examples. Then he summarised the spiritual significance of Willibrord’s life and memory, concluding that ‘he now rests in peace because he laboured in hope. He has entered eternal life because he relinquished his temporal one; now lost to us he keeps company with the angels.’ The third part comprises a lengthy prayer to the saint, while the final section urged his hearers to follow the footsteps and example of Willibrord. It is a succinct, simple and eloquent piece, designed for an audience of both monks and pilgrims. In his prefatory letter to Beornrad, Alcuin declared the double purpose of his work: the first prose Life was intended for reading to the monastic community, out loud in refectory and in church: it comprised a series of lections, pursuing well-known traditions of the saint. The other in verse was intended for more private use in the cell, and for ‘rumination’ by the pupils of the monastery. It was a convenient way of polishing their Latin, imbuing them with a sense of the tradition in which they were being formed, as well as an appreciation of the spiritual significance of its founding saint. This theological and hagiographical use of opus geminatum was pioneered by Aldhelm and Bede in England, being derived from later Latin models initiated by Sedulius.22 Alcuin apparently broke fresh ground by publishing both parts together and partly for an educational purpose. For whereas the verse Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert is a very compressed and allusive theological work,23 Alcuin’s verse Life of Willibrord is a relatively straightforward poetic summary and reflection upon the spiritual significance of the saint, with the historical detail scaled back to a minimum. As ever he was concerned as an educator to make things

128

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

accessible. By contrast, his final encomium for Wilgils was more elaborate, and more typical of his developed poetry. Thus his two Lives of the saint comprise a compendium of material suitable for different audiences within the life of the monastery at Echternach, its school and its shrine. Alcuin’s prose Life of Willibrord shadows the brief account given in Bede’s History; but it also rests upon inherited traditions, some very Irish in flavour and others local to Echternach and Trier. There is also a slight element of personal and familial reminiscence. It is not really an original work, more an act of piety in deference to traditions already well established, and to a cherished memory that was valued personally. It highlights details such as the encouragement shown to Willibrord while in Ireland by the former missionary Wihtbert, who had laboured in vain among the Frisians. The figure of the pagan King of the Frisians, Radbod, looms large in Alcuin’s account of the ups and downs of Willibrord’s attempts to evangelise the Frisians; his dependency upon the protection of Pippin was quite evident, as in the account in Bede’s History.24 Alcuin erred it seems in recounting only one visit to Pope Sergius in Rome, when in fact Willibrord went twice. He also gives a different date and place for his consecration in Rome. The Pope is described as ‘one of the holiest men of that time’, who had a vision before Willibrord arrived intimating his vocation as a missionary bishop. Alcuin like Bede emphasised the importance of the relics of Roman martyrs as vital instruments of mission, along with ecclesiastical resources such as vessels, books and vestments. In the background of Bede’s account lay the martyrdoms of some of the early Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and the shadow of real personal danger is seldom far from Alcuin’s account of Willibrord’s activities. His approach to mission was at times quite forceful and risky as he followed the example of Martin of Tours by attacking potent symbols of paganism, such as idols and holy trees. He attempted a mission to the Danes but returned instead with thirty boys whom he sought to evangelise, ‘returning with them to the chosen people of the Franks.’ On one occasion he landed on the island of Heligoland, destroyed a pagan shrine there by baptizing in a holy well and slew some sacred cattle. He and his companions endured the wrath of the local king, who drew lots to decide which of the missionaries should be sacrificed: one died there as a martyr. Willibrord was also portrayed by Alcuin as a prolific founder of churches, challenging local pagan customs, and withstanding the animosity of landowners who sometimes resented his activities. As in the earlier Irish lives of saints, those who crossed the holy man seldom got away with it, and there is a minatory streak running through some of the miracle stories in this Life. The latter part of the work contains a succession of healing and other miracles, falling into a pattern rooted in the Bible and the gospels, and modelled on classic hagiographies like the Lives of Anthony, Benedict, and Martin of Tours.25 Quite a number are to do with remedying shortages of wine!

Chapter 11 – Hagiography

129

Willibrord’s reputation as a healer continued long after his death and he was remembered as a prophet of the future greatness of the Carolingian dynasty, a point that Alcuin was careful to emphasise in both Lives. Their protection of the saint was vindicated by their subsequent political success, a theological point reiterated in his York poem also. Alcuin described Willibrord as a person ‘of middle height, dignified appearance, of attractive countenance, cheerful in spirit, wise in counsel, pleasing in his speech, both grave and energetic in his ministry for God.’ Miracles were associated with his death at his tomb at Echternach, the saint punishing those who desecrated his shrine. He died on 7 November 739, around the time that Alcuin was born.26 When Boniface went first to the Continent in 716, he stayed with Willibrord in the hopes of advancing the mission among the Frisians, but in vain. After returning to England he went in 718 directly to Rome to be commissioned by Pope Gregory II as an evangelist among the Germans. He returned to help Willibrord for three years before moving to work in Hesse, returning to Rome in 722 to be made a bishop of the Germans by the pope.

The Lives of St Vedast and St Riquier Earlier Lives of both these missionary saints existed in Alcuin’s time, associated with the monasteries which they had founded in northern France. The Life of St Vedast had been written by the biographer of Columbanus, Jonas, while the Life of St Riquier in Alcuin’s day was in bad Latin rhyme and anonymous.27 Alcuin reworked both Lives to a much higher standard of Latin, but turned them into moral tracts to which he appended sermons, as he did to his prose Life of Willibrord, which had a lasting influence as models of preaching throughout the middle ages.28 Both revised Lives were commissioned to mark major rebuilding of the two monasteries of St Vedast and St Riquier; and, with the liturgies and inscriptions that Alcuin composed for both places, they contributed to a revival of the cult of these saints within the programme of Carolingian renewal of monastic life in the Church. These saints were among the founders of Christianity among the Merovingians, and their appropriation was part of a wider policy of cultural assertion pursued by the Carolingian dynasty to secure its historical and moral legitimacy. Alcuin had close personal friendships with both abbots, Rado and Angilbert, and in the case of his Life of St Riquier it was dedicated to Charlemagne himself. The Life of St Vedast was prefaced by a letter to Rado, who in 795 had become abbot of the monastery and who died in 815 after an extensive rebuilding programme. In it Alcuin made clear his expectations for monastic life in community and reminded him of the ‘perilous times’ in which they were living and the role of monasteries as bulwarks against heresy. ‘It is necessary for the Church to have many defenders, who may strive valiantly to protect the fortress of God, not only by the sanctity of their life but also by the teaching of truth.’ Vedast was described again and again as a notable

130

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

preacher, an active bishop and missionary with the authority to command even kings. The Life opens with the story of Clovis being converted to God as a result of victory in battle, like Hezekiah of old in the Bible.29 Vedast prepared him for baptism by Remegius, an event which was preceded by a miracle of healing a blind man; the king is portrayed as receiving his kingship afresh from Christ and then, like King Oswald of Northumbria, joining in an active alliance with Vedast in the work of evangelisation. The work of Vedast as a missionary is described in terms of bringing light to those in darkness, and his becoming a bishop is portrayed as placing him within the candelabra of the Church to give to light to all. His ministry as a ‘pious preacher’ lasted for forty years and he died in an odour of sanctity. The cult at the place of his burial, the monastery of Nobiliacus near Arras, continued for over 160 years up to the time of Alcuin himself, when it was renewed within the reformed monastic life being led by abbot Rado. In his homily in honour of the saint, Alcuin affirmed one of his deepest beliefs concerning saints: ‘greater than all his miracles was his commitment to preaching the gospel and the fragrance of holy charity in his heart.’ In his commemorative hymn, Alcuin extolled someone who ‘moved with pity towards the faces of the blind, gave them by his own sanctity brilliant light, becoming a fire-bearer to banish the darkness of their hearts by his radiance.’ The Life of St Vedast was therefore a parable that spoke to the work of mission in Alcuin’s day, celebrating the fidelity of Clovis as the father of the Frankish people and the enabler of their conversion to Christianity. He became as a result an heir and successor to the glory of the kings in the Old Testament, while the Church claimed a supreme and unique moral authority over God’s people, which was embodied in its missionary bishop, Vedast.30 In his opening letter to Charlemagne, whom he described as ‘the most pious tutor of holy churches’, Alcuin prefaced his revised Life of St Riquier by mentioning how the commission had came about and the raw materials with which he had had to work. Abbot Angilbert, who was also the king’s nephew and a close friend of Alcuin’s, had been the prime mover. The book was now commended to the king as an ornament in ‘the diadem of Christian philosophy.’ The story was set against a background of rapid church growth and founding of monasteries under King Dagobert. Riquier found his vocation as a Christian priest and missionary by sheltering some Irish missionaries, whose example converted him to a committed Christian life. As a priest he was very active as a preacher and also as a pastor, redeeming slaves for example, and for a time working in Britain as a missionary, though where this was is not mentioned. Once again Alcuin emphasised that this work surpassed any miracles associated with his memory; and in this he was a true disciple of Bede, whose History clearly influenced how he rewrote and interpreted these saints’ lives. Both Vedast and Riquier were modelled on Bede’s picture of Aidan, not least in their capacity to challenge kings, as Riquier did with Dagobert and his retinue. In a lovely story, Riquier also

Chapter 11 – Hagiography

131

matched the humility of Aidan: on leaving the home of a Christian woman, he mounted his horse and took up her tiny child for a blessing. The horse suddenly reared and the child flew out of his hands and fell down towards the ground, while Riquier himself was thrown. Miraculously the child’s fall was broken and the horse calmed down. The mother picked up her child and all was well. But thereafter Riquier refused to ride on a horse, choosing instead an ass for the rest of his journeys in emulation of Christ. His demeanour was a true imitatio Christi as ‘a devout comforter of the wretched and a firm scourge of the powerful.’ In many ways, Riquier was similar to Columbanus and he died as a hermit in the place where his monastery of Centula was developed in his memory and miracles occurred at his tomb. He was remembered as a poor man who was rich in Christ, whose relationship with Dagobert and other rulers was an ambiguous one, like the prophets in the Old Testament, who challenged but supported King David. For in the mind of Alcuin, Christian rulers, like Dagobert and Charlemagne himself, were accountable to God, to whom one day they would have to give an account.31 Royal obedience to prophetic ministry anchored a king’s authority in the greater authority of God Himself.32 The role of secular authority was therefore to defend the Church and advance its mission on its own terms.33 Figures like Vedast, Riquier, and more recently Willibrord himself, thus embodied the dual moral authority that Alcuin recognised at work in the Carolingian Church and state. With the active collaboration of the kings under whom they lived, their Lives became critical epitomes of an understanding of Christian polity, of the balance between potestas et auctoritas, that had its model in Bede’s History and its roots in the Bible, and especially the time of the kings in the Old Testament.34 Alcuin’s Lives of these saints were deliberate pieces of moral rhetoric, for public recitation in church, modelled on the gospels in particular, and creating a lively dialogue and resonance in the mind and memory at prayer between the message of the Bible and the opportunities and challenges confronting the Church in its mission in his own day. Hagiography thus shed new light on the meaning of the Bible, while the Bible shed familiar light on the meaning of hagiography for the life of the contemporary Church and the society it served and was evangelising. These Lives were also parables to mould the thinking and standards of bishops and abbots, and of course of Charlemagne himself and those around him, providing Frankish Christianity at the same time with its own eloquent ‘holy history’, much as Bede had done for the Anglo-Saxons in his History. Such saintly and prophetic figures were proof that ‘as the new chosen people, the Franks had become privileged with a new covenant’ and this laid obligations upon its rulers, both political and ecclesiastical.35 In his royal predecessors, Clovis and Dagobert, Charlemagne could see, as in a mirror, what kind of Christian ruler he should be; and in the saints, the present leaders of the Church were confronted by their predecessors and exemplars.

Chapter 12 Alcuin and the Bishops One of the most remarkable features of Alcuin’s letters was the vigour with which he wrote to many of the bishops that he knew, both in his homeland, England, and on the continent. The careful preservation of some of these letters by Arno of Salzburg and others, even in his lifetime, was a testimony to their moral and theological stature. Yet Alcuin was not a bishop, nor even a priest. Nonetheless he used his position as a learned deacon, secure under the patronage of Charlemagne, to good effect, addressing bishops and abbots as equals, and sometimes also as a mentor to those older and younger than himself. He had a very clear vision of the duties of a bishop, regarding them as pivotal to the mission of the Church and its renewal. From this belief in their pastoral authority and its meaning sprang his singular understanding of the nature and role of Christian monarchy, embodied, he believed and hoped, in his lord and friend, Charlemagne. In some ways he was a ‘bishop to the bishops’ and his expectations of them are revealing of his inner priorities as a Christian thinker and educator. Alcuin’s letters reveal his intimate knowledge of the pastoral realities with which they had to contend, something reflected in the Admonitio Generalis and other synodal decrees with which he was associated.1 Considering the difficulties of communication about which Alcuin often complained, he was clearly well-informed, and none of his strictures or admonitions was ever divorced from an awareness of practical matters. His knowledge of earlier canonical legislation and patristic teaching was extensive, though he drew most immediately from the Bible; and his theological approach was most obviously moulded by that of Gregory the Great, Bede and Boniface. Like Boniface, he was particularly critical of the ease with which prelates could lapse into unprincipled worldliness and a lifestyle unworthy of their calling. Although as Abbot of Tours he was himself lord of a great domain, he never lost the essential simplicity of a deacon’s calling. He saw the role of the bishop as engaged in the castigatio and correctio2 of the people of God, and especially of their clergy. He did not hesitate to subject his correspondents to the same treatment. For in his mind, ‘the fundamental characteristic of a bishop lay in the potestas corrigendi and the libertas praedicandi,3 the power to correct and the liberty to preach.

Chapter 12 – Alcuin and the Bishops

133

Alcuin and the English Bishops Some of Alcuin’s most revealing letters are those directed to anonymous English recipients who appear to have been bishops. One is really quite personal, sent perhaps to mark the consecration of a good friend, who was enjoined to nurture love in the hearts of all as a ‘priest of the Most High God, a trumpet of heaven and a herald of salvation.’4 Alcuin bade him not to fear earthly power, which was fragile, nor to let worldly ambition smother his priesthood, citing the words of Jesus, ‘Do not fear those who can kill the body but are unable to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.’5 Instead as a bishop he was to be ‘the light of life, a forerunner along the ways of God and an example of honesty.’ For a bishop was to be ‘the consoler of the wretched, a healer of the wounded, a comfort to the afflicted, a pastor and not a hireling, a dwelling of God and not a den of thieves’. He must not trade the cure of souls, and his life was to embody Christian doctrine to his people: his conversation should build up the lives of many. ‘Read diligently the gospel of Christ and also those other books of canonical authority. But most often read and re-read the Pastoral Rule of blessed Pope Gregory.’ For by feeding his own soul the bishop would be able to feed those of others. In another letter,6 probably directed to England around the same time and before he became Abbot of Tours, Alcuin cautioned humility, and reminded the new bishop of his duty to ensure the fitting worship of God in the churches under his care – the canonical hours with their appropriate psalms, other prayers and vigils, and solemn masses with litanies of intercession. Temperance and honesty were vital, to be expressed by moderation in dress, avoidance of luxury and all drunken feasting, while keeping judicious company. The bishop was to be generous to the poor and kind to his friends: ‘Be a faithful steward of the household of God.’ In another letter, written while Alcuin was ill and presumably from Tours, there is a similar list of episcopal duties and qualities, explicitly setting out the bishop’s responsibility for Christian education, determining who should teach grammar, who should read the letters and smaller books, and who might be worthy to plumb the depths of Holy Scripture.7 In the study of the Bible the bishop himself was to lead by example. Another letter seems to have been directed to a bishop on the mission field, written towards the end of Alcuin’s life.8 He acclaimed him as one ‘whose tongue was a key to the kingdom of heaven,’ and who was accountable to Christ for his ministry. He was not to be silent in the preaching of the Gospel. His was a spiritual battle: ‘for it is rare for the ancient enemy to fight with Christians head-on, but rather to insinuate his poisonous and deadly suggestions under the pretext of piety.’ The bishop was to take a stern line against auguries, listening to bird calls and regarding the braying of horses as omens – apparently common practices. These were subterfuges of the devil. Like a wise shepherd and doctor he was to remove these from the flock of Christ, so that in the end he would be fit to receive the approbation of his Lord.9

134

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Several named English bishops were among his correspondents: Ethelbert of Hexham,10 Cyneberht of Winchester,11 the East Anglian bishops of Dunwich and Elmham,12 and Unwon of Leicester.13 Alcuin wrote also to Leutfrid, Bishop of Mayo in Ireland.14 A common theme was the danger of bishops keeping bad company and becoming carelessly assimilated into the lifestyle of the aristocracy. The bishop should instead challenge all his hearers, rich and poor alike, with the demands of the gospel. To the Bishop of Leicester he reiterated his advice about regular reading of Gregory’s Pastoral Rule, describing him as ‘our preacher’. He was to inscribe it upon his memory as well as have it readily to hand, so that he might always know where his duty lay in relation to the various people with whom he had to deal. For neither precious metal, resplendent jewels, extravagant dress nor secular display counted for anything in the eyes of the Lord: only acts of generosity and mercy. How could Christ’s flock be protected if its shepherds were out hunting? There is a good definition of Alcuin’s understanding of the episcopal ministry in a letter he wrote to the two East Anglian bishops: ‘your task is to preach the Word of God to everyone, to illuminate all in the house of God, so that all may know the light of the truth through you and be led forth into the pastures of eternal blessedness. Your mouth should be the trumpet of Christ our God, for your tongues of authority are the keys of heaven, having the power to open and close: to open to the penitent, but to close to the enemies of truth . . . for episcopal honour lies not in the games of this world.’ He wrote in a similar vein to the bishop of Winchester, whom he had not seen since the legatine synod of 786: ‘in all things may the light of truth shine through you, setting forth the way of eternal salvation.’ To the bishop of Hexham Alcuin wrote emphasising the importance of education and of a well furnished library, where young people might become educated to serve as the teachers and intercessors of the future: as Alcuin said elsewhere, ‘he who will not learn can hardly teach.’ It was great indeed to feed the bodies of the poor, but greater still to satisfy a hungry soul with spiritual doctrine; for the healthy multiplication of the flock was the true glory of a pastor. A separate cluster of letters addressed the leaders of the English church, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and some of these have already been noted for their political significance, and particular relevance to Alcuin’s time in York and his relationship with the church and community there. It is obvious that Alcuin’s theology of episcopacy was formed in England long before he ever went to the continent and the archbishops were known to him personally. The letters to all these English bishops that remain are probably only a fragment of a much fuller correspondence; if so, it is interesting to consider why they might have been preserved. One of the reasons may well have been the quality of their pastoral theology and its relevance to the continuing life of the Church in the ninth and tenth centuries.15 Often they convey the sense of an episcopal charge, echoing the language and

Chapter 12 – Alcuin and the Bishops

135

preoccupations of the synodal legislation on both sides of the Channel. They were also rich in biblical imagery and teaching, highlighting crucial texts and themes in the gospels and the Pastoral Epistles, as well as drawing on the prophetic texts of the Old Testament. Together with allusions to the Psalms, these references would have resonated in memories already steeped in their liturgical use and practical pastoral applications. They were therefore eminently useable as teaching documents as well as model letters. Alcuin wrote two striking letters to the church at Canterbury in 797 in response to the political crisis in Kent that had forced Archbishop Ethelhard temporarily to abandon his see after the death of Offa and then of his son and heir.16 In his letter to the archbishop Alcuin chastised him for dereliction under duress of his pastoral duty. He challenged the muddled thinking of the community of Christ Church, Canterbury which had advised their archbishop to flee, carefully weighing up different sayings of Christ and directing him back to Gregory’s gospel homilies for their exegesis. He referred also to Bede’s account in his History of the near flight of an earlier archbishop, Laurence.17 Interestingly Alcuin did not judge the motives of the archbishop but held up to him a mirror for his conscience. His advice was that whatever the cause or motivation, penance should now be done by declaring a fast ‘with the common consent of the people,’ recognising the error both of the community and of their archbishop. It was an extraordinary letter for an archbishop of Canterbury to have received, the only parallel being some of the papal letters recorded from this period: ‘Wash away your flight, done in simple error, by the multiple good of your preaching.’ Central to Alcuin’s concern was the maintenance of learning and education so that a worthy successor might emerge from the Canterbury community. ‘Let your preaching be done in all places and deliberate before all the bishops in a general synod concerning just ordinations, perseverance in preaching, the ecclesiastical offices and the sanctity of baptism, the bestowal of alms and the care of the poor throughout the various churches and parishes.’ Quoting a proverb from Jerome’s letters, Alcuin gently encouraged his friend with the reminder that ‘often the wounded soldier fights more bravely.’ The pastoral wisdom and considerate humanity of Alcuin emerges most clearly in this long and revealing letter. He truly cared for his friend and loved the church at Canterbury, and for that reason his letter was preserved in England and not resented.18 His judgement about how the hapless Archbishop of Lichfield was to be treated after Offa’s death was shrewd and fair: Hygberht was to retain the pallium for his lifetime, while episcopal consecrations reverted to the archbishops of Canterbury and York as before. It was a gracious letter of restoration of moral authority and confidence to a humiliated archbishop and in its closing paragraph Alcuin’s own courtesy and humility is manifest. His slightly earlier letter to the community at Christ Church, Canterbury revealed his keen sense of history and his veneration for the fountainhead of English Christianity, citing the strictures of Gildas against the British church as an awful warning, and seeing the Vikings as a contemporary

136

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

scourge from God. He criticised directly the vacancy in the see: ‘it is not good that the see of St Augustine our first preacher should remain vacant.’ He urged reconciliation and a change of heart at Canterbury in the interests of the welfare of the whole English church at a time of political conflict and division between and within Kent and Mercia. His letters to the two archbishops of York are no less revealing, not least because the second Eanbald was a younger contemporary and close friend of many years standing. Dealing with many of the same issues as his letters to Canterbury and to the other English bishops, there is a more immediate and intimate tone, which was no less direct, for Alcuin did not mince his words.19 The three letters to Eanbald II, written in 796 or perhaps 797, form a group marking his consecration as Archbishop of York and its consequences. One of them was sent by Alcuin as a copy to Paulinus of Aquilea, who incorporated brief extracts from it within his Libellus exhortationis, which was probably composed the next year. 20 Inasmuch as Alcuin was writing to someone with whom he had grown up and studied under a common and well-beloved teacher, these letters to Eanbald are an indirect testimony to their theological formation in York. The first letter saluted Eanbald upon his consecration as archbishop, calling forth from Alcuin many fond memories of their home church and their education under Aelberht, for York was a ‘treasury of wisdom.’21 He reminded his friend that he had received all things from God, and was called to be an example of salvation to everyone. He recited the duties and lifestyle of a bishop in terms familiar from his other letters to bishops. The archbishop was to be ‘a temple of the living God, built firmly upon the rock, whose inhabitant was the Holy Spirit the Comforter.’ Alcuin reminded him of the brevity of human life-span – often only fifty years. In dealing with his people, Eanbald was to have in one hand honey but in the other wormwood. Like Aaron of old, the bishop was to be the preacher of the word and will of God to the people, an intercessor and also a mediator between God and men. He would be accountable before Christ, and if he fell he was to rise up and go on. The letter is rich in biblical references – twenty-one in all: this is a long and carefully worked epistle. ‘The hands of the poor are the treasury of Christ:’ for Alcuin never lost sight of the basic responsibility of a Christian pastor for active compassion. He was himself generous in this regard and on this topic he waxed eloquent and passionate, adopting the tone of a homily. This letter also sheds light on the liturgical duties of an archbishop of York: he was only to wear the pallium with a deacon standing by. He was to surround himself in an orderly way with sub-deacons and the other sevenfold orders of ministry in the Church, so that together they represented the work of the Holy Spirit in his sevenfold gifts. There was to be due order in church; the chanting was to be in a moderate voice, not raucous, and in a style consonant with Roman practice: for Rome was ‘the head of the churches of Christ’ as a consequence of Christ’s charge to Peter, the prince of the apostles.22 Eanbald

Chapter 12 – Alcuin and the Bishops

137

was to provide masters for the boys, keeping them separate from the clergy and apportioning distinct tasks to each – reading books, preparing the chants, or working in the scriptorium. Eanbald was to have special care of the hostel in York for the poor and pilgrims, for which Alcuin himself had sent money. He was also to nurture the community of which they were both members. Alcuin closed on a note of real affection, addressing Eanbald as ‘my son, my most beloved son, most beloved in Christ’ – a note of real joy. Alcuin’s nickname for Eanbald was Simeon as is evident in his subsequent letter, which is very brief and may have accompanied a gift, for it alludes directly to the earlier more formal charge.23 On this occasion, Alcuin was anxious that the new archbishop should surround himself with suitable counsellors. His was a highly political role at the Northumbrian court, which was in some disarray at this time, and he would be vulnerable to manipulation. His third letter was prompted by the death of Ethelred of Northumbria and Offa of Mercia, which brought to an end the relatively stable world in which Alcuin had grown up.24 ‘Times in Britain were perilous indeed’, for the death of kings was always ominous, and discord was often the cause of captivity. The archbishop was not to be swept away by the love of riches: he was to be a sure steersman of the ship in tempestuous seas. He was not to flinch from preaching or from continuing good works; and wherever he went he should take with him a copy of Gregory’s Pastoral Rule, for it was ‘a mirror of episcopal life and a remedy against the wiles of the devil.’ He was not to be flattered nor seduced by worldly wealth and power. Instead he was to be a firm pillar in the house of God, a lamp set on a lamp-stand for the salvation of all. In this letter, Alcuin’s anxiety for his friend and his homeland is palpable, reflecting once again the basic fragility of social order in his day. Two later letters from Alcuin to Eanbald remain: one written in 801 is important for the light it sheds on political tensions within Northumbria involving the archbishop.25 In it Alcuin reported the progress of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ethelhard, and his party on their way to Rome: they had met Alcuin’s emissary at his monastery on the coast of France at St Josse-sur-Mer near the port of Quentavic, and Alcuin had been updated by a letter on the problems that Eanbald was encountering. Eanbald was not to lose heart: ‘let your anchor of hope be fixed in Christ.’ Alcuin feared however that Eanbald was in some way compromised with the king through his own fault.26 Otherwise he was to stand fast as a standard bearer in the Lord’s battle, supported by a battery of biblical texts provided in this letter by Alcuin: ‘Strengthened by these testimonies, run with intrepid feet after Christ, so that you may deserve to receive his mercy for all eternity.’ Eanbald was clearly younger than Alcuin, who now felt that his own death was fast approaching. By this time he had just retired from his burden of active pastoral care as Abbot of St Martin’s at Tours. In another letter from the same year, Alcuin sent Eanbald, who was ill, a gift of one hundred pounds of tin for making bells, and also some wine

138

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

along with four drinking vessels.27 But he chided him for requesting a new style missal and ordinal when he had an abundance of books containing the Roman rites, including many sacramentaries. ‘What use was something new when the old would suffice?’ This was a slightly ironic, and perhaps rather jaded, comment in the light of Alcuin’s own work at that time in developing and enriching the Latin liturgy. Eanbald, however, was to hold fast to the traditions that he had inherited and to inculcate them in his clergy. Lamenting his own illness, Alcuin remembered with fondness the great library at York which he now commended to the care of his younger friend: ‘For the multitude of the wise is health to the world and praise to a city.’ These words echoed his York poem: truly in his end was his beginning.

Alcuin and the Continental Bishops At the synod of Frankfurt in 794, Charlemagne formally commended Alcuin to the Frankish bishops as a special friend and adviser and he was immediately plunged into working alongside them in the composition of their letter to the Spanish bishops. From his input earlier in 789 to the Admonitio Generalis, and some of his letters and poems, he was clearly already familiar with some of them and known to them. His letters to them were no less forthright as well as friendly, and they often shed light on various aspects of his work while at the Frankish court and then subsequently as Abbot of Tours. The capitula of the Admonitio Generalis continued the reforming impulse set in train by Boniface and Chrodegang of Metz, and many of them directly concerned the conduct of bishops. They are significant for their knowledge of precedents set by earlier Church councils; there was a strong emphasis on accountability to God for their office, and on their duty to ensure that their clergy knew the basics of the Christian faith and its liturgy. Altars were to be venerated and the house of God should not be accessible to dogs; the consecrated vessels were to be kept safe and clean, and secular business and gossip banished from church buildings. Closely connected to these provisions were those regulating the behaviour of the clergy and safeguarding the integrity of monastic life. The Admonitio Generalis also contained a credal summary of the Christian faith which was to be learnt and taught. Subsequent legislation often returned to these themes, as in England, indicating the energy behind the Carolingian reform of the Church, but also its endemic difficulties. As Alcuin’s life was drawing to its close, the capitularies of Aachen, promulgated in 802, addressed in length and in detail many of the concerns expressed in his letters and other writings. Bishops and other clergy were not to possess hunting-dogs or birds of prey; they were to have legally trained officers, and to be active in the defence of the poor and helpless.28 All that Alcuin wrote and taught was consistent with these provisions. His was not the only articulate voice of reform, however, and it is hard now to gauge the extent of his particular influence among the Frankish bishops beyond those to whom letters from him still remain.

Chapter 12 – Alcuin and the Bishops

139

Alcuin wrote letters to both popes, Hadrian I and Leo III.29 These were sent to Rome via his friend Angilbert of St Riquier in the year 796 when the papacy changed. No less notable was his letter to George, patriarch of Jerusalem, who was at that time experiencing pagan persecution. The tone of this letter was similar to those to the popes, for Jerusalem, like Rome, clearly loomed large in Alcuin’s spiritual imagination, as the place of human redemption by Christ, and therefore a potent centre of intercession as well as of pilgrimage. 30 In his letter to George he asked for his name to be enrolled for prayer along with those of several of his friends, including Eanbald the Archbishop of York. His request was a long shot to a symbolic figure that he did not even know; but it was no less moving and sincere for all that.31 Most revealing, however, of Alcuin‘s expectations of the Frankish bishops was a letter to his friend at court, Megenfrid the treasurer, in which he also counselled a more conciliatory approach towards the evangelism of the peoples newly conquered by Charlemagne.32 Towards the end of the letter, Alcuin challenged explicitly the dereliction of duty by some of the senior clergy in their pursuit of secular wealth and honours. He also repudiated the practice of delaying appointments, presumably for financial reasons of gain by the king or other clerics, indicating the pastoral risks to the churches involved. He urged Megenfrid to use his good offices with the king directly in these matters. This was a weighty letter, well supported by biblical references and reflecting a high level of knowledge on the part of the king’s treasurer, who was clearly a committed layman, and whose vocation Alcuin sought to encourage in the opening part of his letter. Part of Alcuin’s influence on ecclesiastical policy may well have been behind the scenes therefore as that of an eminence grise, channelled through highly placed members of the lay aristocracy and the royal family who were his friends and interlocutors.33 He also knew that the king was often in agreement with him even if political pressures and clerical blandishments sometimes inhibited his action in the interests of reform. In addition to Alcuin’s extensive correspondence with his friend Arno of Salzburg, to whom he often opened his heart and his most important thinking, and which will be examined later, Alcuin wrote also to a number of other Frankish bishops: Paulinus of Aquilea; Peter of Milan; Riculf of Mainz; Leidrad of Lyons; Remegius of Coire; Ricbod of Trier and Theodulf of Orleans.34 For example, Alcuin eloquently described Paulinus’ episcopal role as being ‘the trumpet of God, like a cockerel in his preaching and a ram in defence of truth, a light set upon a candelabra in the house of God, whose tongue could open the doors of heaven.’35 For in the mind of Alcuin, preaching was at the heart of a bishop’s calling: ‘Follow again and again the example of Christ who went through the villages, cities and farms preaching the good news, entering even the homes of publicans and sinners.’36 It is also evident here and elsewhere that preaching lay at the heart of Alcuin’s own vocation as a deacon; and to judge from the eloquence of his writing, and his effortless mastery of biblical quotations, he was himself a powerful preacher.

Chapter 13 King Dei Gratia A much studied and discussed feature of Carolingian culture is its formulation of the principles governing Christian monarchy. It is within this broad development that Alcuin’s distinctive voice may be heard, without however wishing upon him an influence greater than he actually had. There was for a long time the need to legitimize the Carolingian usurpation of the Frankish kingdom from their Merovingian predecessors. To do this they had to assert their title Dei Gratia – ruling by the grace of God that was mediated through papal anointing. Their practical claim to rule lay in the effectiveness of their military leadership, which was reinforced by a system of government and jurisdiction that anticipated some of the features of the later feudal regime. Charlemagne was almost continually at war, however, harnessing the resources of both Church and State to his enterprise, seeking divine blessing along the lines of an Old Testament king, while instituting liturgical and penitential rites to weld his forces into a potent military force backed by the fear of God. He commanded great wealth from the traderoutes that his strategy sought to dominate, for Charlemagne was a great businessman as well as political ruler and war-leader. This too constituted a temptation to personal indulgence by his family and entourage as well as to his own conspicuous expenditure and royal display, for example the great building programme at Aachen. When Alcuin called Charlemagne David it was not just a flattering conceit; others did so too. For in his understanding of monarchy, and that of some other royal theological advisers, there was a direct application of Old Testament political history to the affairs of the Frankish realm, including biblical law. Moreover, in the king’s commitment to the reform of the Church, Charlemagne was hailed as a second Josiah – the biblical king who had discovered the lost book of the Law in the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem and who had led a national resurgence based upon its precepts. The Franks saw themselves, or at least some of their leaders did, as the ‘new Israel’, a people under God with a manifest destiny, to the chagrin of their neighbours. It was out of this melting pot of ideas and aspirations that some notion of a Christian imperium surfaced, an overlordship in the interests of ‘Roman Christian’ orthodoxy, before which even popes might quake. Charlemagne’s

Chapter 13 – King Dei Gratia

141

coronation in Rome at Christmas in 800 seemed to some extent to embody this, perhaps at the time and certainly retrospectively. His was a monarchy with a religious mission, a temporal headship of the Church in order to safeguard its unity and integrity and to rival the waning pretensions of the Byzantine emperor, as well as to put on guard the Islamic rulers and heretical Christian bishops of Spain. Alcuin insisted that Charlemagne had a solemn vocation to kingship of this nature along Old Testament lines. But its corollary was that he was ultimately and strictly accountable to Christ, the King of Kings, for his rule. This is what makes Alcuin’s remonstrances and blandishments so significant, because behind them lay a stern moral expectation and a lively anticipation of what could so easily go wrong, as he witnessed, powerlessly and from afar, in his native Northumbria. Once again it is notable that his writings on these matters were preserved with care: for he was no mere sycophant, but more of a prophet and critical friend to the king.1 Alcuin’s grasp of and use of Old Testament language in discussing the duties of monarchy was more than triumphalist. It was constitutive and subtle, and close examination of it reveals the nuances of Alcuin’s thought and perception.2 In addition to the historical Books of the Kings, the Psalms and Ecclesiastes furnished the vocabulary of his reflections on the nature of Christian political order and its moral basis. Fundamental to this was obedience to the Law of God by both subjects and their rulers. ‘The political and social vocabulary of Alcuin is essentially that of the Old Testament’;3 this was its predominant source, tempered by the teaching of Christ and of Paul. The historical development recorded in the Bible spoke directly to the comparable political developments underway in his time. Alcuin’s language did not draw upon classical models of political thought however: the term res publica was never used, and little distinction was made between imperium, potentia and potestas. There are only vague reminiscences of Roman juridical language. Neither he nor his audience were exercised by terms and concepts already remote from the political realities with which they were engaged. As a result his moral address was to the person of the ruler rather than to the system; and this was reflected also in his letters to bishops and other lay figures. For Alcuin’s was no theoretical standpoint: his duty towards them was that of a pastor and teacher and for some of them a friend too. The personal moral commitment of an individual endowed with power was the instrument for creating a Christian polity: hence his emphasis on individual penance, self-discipline and conscience. All political duty led to one place – the judgement seat of Christ. Insofar as this framework of thought had an inherent unity, it derived it from its biblical source. Mastery of the Bible was therefore an essential component in the whole Carolingian enterprise, for this was the source of true and tested wisdom, rooted in divine authority, which therefore enhanced the authority of those acting in consistency with it. ‘From the Old Testament therefore, and from the Psalms in particular,

142

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Alcuin derived his conception of the pastoral monarchy, which would make of Charlemagne a new David.’4 Given the weakness of the papacy, the incursions of the Adoptionists and the ambivalence of Byzantium, the western Christian emperor alone could act as the true shepherd protecting the flock of Christ. His aegis might even reach across the narrow seas into the English realms. Under him stretched the many ranks of society, as mirrored in Charlemagne’s favourite book, the City of God by Augustine, which Alcuin also knew intimately. Alcuin believed that the ultimate goal of Christian monarchy was therefore the salvation of God’s people, which would ensure in the end the favourable judgement of God for his royal deputy. Charlemagne, for all his prowess and power, clearly needed that sense of endorsement and support which alone came from God, whose majesty would nonetheless enhance his own in the eyes and ears of his farflung subjects. Alcuin’s strictures about the duties of a ruler were already well-honed in his letters to the English rulers. If bishops were not to be silent in proclaiming the Word of God, rulers were duty bound to obey them and diligently to implement their teaching.5 Rulers in their turn had an absolute obligation to curb violence and rapine. The ease with which Alcuin could cloak political obligations in the pastoral language and theology of the Church is evident in a letter written to Charlemagne around the year 800, in which he likened his kingdom to Jerusalem being built up of varying stones, citing words from the Psalms.6 In an earlier letter, written shortly after he had assumed the abbacy of Tours, Alcuin spelt out the implications of divine judgement and the transience of life as if Charlemagne were another bishop or abbot: he too had to be prepared to give an account at the last day.7 Royal power enabled due authority to be exercised by his missi as well as by his bishops in the interests of building up a Christian society: that was its ultimate raison d’etre. This belief accounted for the zeal with which Alcuin and others endorsed the king’s resolute action against the Adoptionists, or in challenging Byzantium and addressing and rectifying the vicissitudes of the papacy in Rome. In his remonstrance to Elipandus of Toledo, for example, Alcuin described Charlemagne as incorruptible because he was ‘catholic in faith, a true king in his power, a pontiff in preaching, an equitable judge, a philosopher steeped in liberal studies, noble in his habits and foremost in his honesty towards all.’8 This idealised picture, often contradicted as Alcuin must have known by the policies of a sometimes ruthless ruler, was coloured most directly by Christology, although it also had distant echoes of Plato’s philosopherking. It reveals the extent to which Charlemagne became a necessary symbol in Alcuin’s thinking in his later years, ignoring the inevitable gap between rhetoric and reality. For from 796 until the end of his life Alcuin was haunted by the instability in his homeland from which he felt himself an involuntary exile, and also by the haplessness of Pope Leo III. The Davidic king, who

Chapter 13 – King Dei Gratia

143

was a type of Christ, represented the sole bulwark of lawful stability in a world prone once again to predatory pagan attacks on many fronts, such as the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in 793 which had such a traumatic impact upon Alcuin, or Saracen inroads in the Mediterranean. There is a text of Alcuin’s that sheds particular light on his expectations of a Christian ruler: it is his treatise, written between 793-6, called Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus.9 This was cast in the form of a dialogue between Charlemagne and Alcuin, claiming therefore royal authority as well as flattering the king in the opening poem as the ‘father of the world’; it survives in many manuscripts across Europe. Like Cathwulf and others before him, Alcuin was cognisant of the earlier Irish tract dealing with just and unjust rule, called De duodecim abusivis saeculi. Most of his own treatise was in fact comprised of borrowed material from Cicero’s De Inventione, Julius Victor’s Ars Rhetorica and other antique authorities, but all carefully moulded by Alcuin. The influence of Cassiodorus and Boethius may also be detected along with that of Venantius Fortunatus and Isidore of Seville. There are parallels with Alcuin’s other popular treatise on lay ethics De Virtutibus et Vitiis, which had an even more extensive frame of reference.10 In the Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus, Charlemagne was portrayed as the ultimate arbiter whose judgement was open to reason and morality. The text also reflected Alcuin’s intimate knowledge of the legal and political processes at court and elsewhere and his own role within them, about which there is otherwise relatively little direct knowledge.11 Both at court and later as Abbot of Tours, Alcuin was no arm-chair commentator. He was used to dialogue with Charlemagne about the issues distilled in this work: its format therefore carried some credibility, reflecting the king’s known interest in learning as well as his relationship with Alcuin. The Disputatio begins by Alcuin responding to the king’s desire for an informed understanding of the liberal arts, asserting that God alone can provide the wisdom necessary for a king to legislate and rule effectively. Embedded in a disquisition about the parts of rhetoric along classical lines are interesting observations about, for example, the constitution of a court and its insignia, each party equipped for their role. Alcuin cited ancient philosophers to clarify the work of rhetoric in the administration of justice, including adjudicating marriage disputes. When challenged about their implications for separation of marriage, Alcuin replied that the arguments of the pagan philosopher proceeded along their own lines, even if they were opposed to the teaching of the Gospel. But the conclusion of the work is thoroughly Christian: ‘How can justice be done unless by the love of God and the keeping of His commandments?’ The whole duty of man is the love of God, who is superior, the rule of that which is inferior – the body, and the nurturing of the souls of others by kindness. If the king established his governance upon these principles, stability would be secured in this life and in the next.

144

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

In several of his letters, Alcuin described the king as rex praedicator – king and preacher – for which there was a distant parallel in the description of Constantine the Great as ‘bishop to the outsiders’.12 A notable example is found in a letter written around the year 798 to Charlemagne by Alcuin in which he expounded the meaning of the word ‘sword’ in the gospels.13 Under the title De Gladio, this had an independent life, circulating in eighteen ninth-century manuscripts quite independently from the letters of Alcuin.14 It was originally part of an ongoing correspondence between the king and Alcuin at Tours and in it he began to use the term ‘imperial’ to describe Charlemagne’s rule. The king had posed in his earlier letter, now lost, a question ostensibly from his aristocratic laity about the apparently ambiguous references to the use of swords in the gospels: Alcuin clearly relished theological questions from the laity. ‘Why did the Lord command his disciples to obtain two swords before their flight, one of which was used to strike the servant of the High Priest?15 If elsewhere the sword is described as the Word of God,16 does it mean that its impact is inevitably destructive?’ To which Alcuin replied very wisely that the context in the gospel is crucial to understanding the text, as is the ability to discern in what ways a word might be used elsewhere; as for example in the use of the word ‘lion’ in the Bible, which can stand either for Christ or for the devil. Following Augustine, Alcuin declared that the Scriptures are a vast abyss of meaning: indeed the word ‘abyss’ itself is used in the Bible in various ways. ‘The Word of the Lord is hidden and may be penetrated from many angles; such is the height and depth of the mysteries of God: who can investigate all their secrets?’ So in the Bible, the word ‘sword’ can refer to the tongue, to the attacks of an enemy in the Psalms, to the wound in the heart of Mary the mother of Jesus; it can be a symbol of division between good and evil, but also the symbol of rule and justice, a harbinger of divine judgement, as well as representing the Word of God.17 This led Alcuin to address the real question behind the challenge of the laity: the proper use of the sword as a Christian, bearing in mind the Lord’s warning that ‘all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.’18 Did not this saying also contradict the Lord’s instruction to his disciples to procure swords in Luke’s account of the passion narrative?19 Alcuin made the point that the biblical sword was double edged whereas the lay warriors’ swords were not. In Matthew’s account, Christ commanded Peter to lay up his sword, thus repudiating revenge. But in Luke’s account, the sword represented the Word of God which could alone rebuke human wickedness; it was only purchased with difficulty, after purchasing all else necessary to secular life: for it alone could contend with evil and prevail within the human soul.20 Alcuin clearly envisaged his lay interlocutors, including the king, as ‘soldiers of Christ’ along the lines described by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.21 But it is quite possible that the question in this letter came indirectly from the king himself and that Alcuin’s reply was an elaborate contribution to

Chapter 13 – King Dei Gratia

145

his theology of Christian kingship and leadership:22 the second part of the letter addresses the scope and nature of royal power – potestas. Either way, it is an important window into the level of theological discourse, which was at the same time often political in intent, in which Alcuin and others were engaged. Theology thus provided the vocabulary for political ideology, while at the same time enabling Alcuin to harness raw politics and power to more moral and spiritual ends, a goal which to some extent Charlemagne himself shared. His was a militant role therefore as defender of the Faith against all its enemies, a role to which Alcuin alluded in his exegesis in this letter. For Alcuin, the many levels of Scripture thus addressed and held together the many levels of politics, faith and morality, each interpenetrating the other and influencing their formulation and articulation. The two swords of the gospel could also signify the distinct roles of soul and body in obedience to the will of God. On the other hand, how could the Lord heal the deaf servant unless by preaching and except by forgiving his enemies? ‘Thus the preachers in the Church of Christ show forth the love of our Redeemer to the people by their careful preaching.’ As such they are lights burning brightly in the house of the Lord, firm citadels set upon hills, pastors leading their flocks to eternal life. The convergence of pastoral theology in relation to clergy and laity, king, and bishops, could not be closer. Over this process Charlemagne was called to preside as ‘ruler and defender,’ bringing his people with him, like Paul, into the presence of Christ. The last part of the letter turned to practical issues about which Alcuin wanted the king to put salt on the tails of the bishops. He had heard that some bishops were actually preventing priests and deacons from preaching in church, alleging canonical authority. This touched a raw nerve in Alcuin as a deacon and preacher himself, and he had little difficulty in refuting it by reference to the New Testament, and pointing out that if written homilies might be read, why not live preaching? He cited the authority of Jerome, who in his day had condemned the silence of priests and bishops in church.23 Alcuin also drew to the king’s attention the widespread dereliction of altars, leaving churches open to birds and vulnerable to fouling by dogs. He was shocked at such lack of respect for the place where the Christian sacraments were celebrated. Alcuin thus projected onto Charlemagne the full weight of pastoral authority enshrined in Gregory’s Pastoral Rule, with the expectation that he would prove to be in a way a ‘super-bishop’ for the well-being of the Church. As rex et praedicator, his position was that of the temporal head of the Church, with a prophetic and teaching role, in a way partly revived and implemented in England at the Reformation. His was indeed the sword spiritual in a way that would be actively repudiated by the papacy later in the Middle Ages.24 The English monarchy and constitution remains now the last embodiment of this earlier vision which Alcuin helped to articulate. It has been alleged that Alcuin was instrumental in fomenting the idea

146

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

of a ‘Christian empire’ and steering Charlemagne into the role of ‘emperor’ in the years immediately leading up to his coronation in St Peter’s, Rome in 800.25 This letter De Gladio26 marks therefore the emergence of a distinct strand of thought in Alcuin’s letters at this time, though its roots lay a little earlier in his Life of Willibrord, probably composed between 796-7.27 The challenge of evangelising the newly conquered Avars in 796/7 and of avoiding the mistakes that had been made with the recalcitrant Saxons prompted Alcuin to lobby his allies Paulinus of Aquilea, Arno of Salzburg and the treasurer Megenfrid, as well as Charlemagne himself in pursuit of a more Christian and pastoral approach to mission, as has already been discussed. The key question was therefore ‘how could the hegemony of the Carolingians promote the Church’s mission to convert the nations before the Last Judgement?’28 Alcuin’s idealised picture of Willibrord’s evangelisation was modelled on Bede’s approach to the relationship between missionary and overlord.29 Both Bede and Alcuin conceived of imperium as hegemony over various peoples now brought within the framework of a single Church: this was its moral justification;30 thus ‘both sword and mission served God’s purposes within salvation history.’31 The saint’s patronage of the Carolingian dynasty placed their rulers under a moral obligation to carry on supporting the mission of the Church in the same spirit. But in the crisis of 796, Alcuin changed tune somewhat and sought to harness the greatly enhanced authority of Charlemagne to a more militant model of imperium, while challenging the superficiality of enforced conversion and baptism. In expanding the ‘kingdom of Christianity’ – Christianitatis regnum – the laity had a key role as patrons of mission, who would prevent ‘preachers’ from becoming ‘predators.’ The king was the unifying principle of this collaboration of clergy and laity. ‘Charlemagne governed a Christianitatis regnum, a universal [and spiritual] empire which turned all baptised Christians towards Christ’s service and the harvesting of the elect before the Last Judgement.’32 This vision had its origins in the teaching and action of Gregory the Great in sending the mission to England in 597. Such an imperium33 transcended race and tribe, embracing potentially the whole Western Church, and herein may have lain its appeal to Charlemagne in dealing with the Saxons and other conquered people, while asserting his moral authority over the quarrelling kings in England and heretical bishops in Spain.34 What are notable here are the notes of eschatological anxiety and expectation evident in other writings of Alcuin at this time, for example with regard to Adoptionism, and in his reaction towards the inroads of the Vikings and the plight of his native Northumbria. Thus in some of the liturgical texts from the decades either side of 800 there emerge prayers for Charlemagne as ruler of ‘the Christian empire of the Franks and the Romans,’ as well as its sole defender against barbarians.35 Ganshof ’s observation about a change in tone and temper in Alcuin’s letters in the years 798-800, reflected in his use of the conception imperium

Chapter 13 – King Dei Gratia

147

Christianum, cannot therefore be lightly set aside.36 Alcuin was not alone, however, in his expectations, which were probably shared by Arno of Salzburg and certainly articulated by Angilbert of St Riquier, who spoke in similar language about Charlemagne in his poem Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa. In the precise circumstances that led to the restoration of Pope Leo III and the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome, Ganshof almost certainly over-exaggerated the role played by Alcuin and his disciples, Candidus and Fredegisus, in securing the imperial elevation in Rome of the Frankish ruler.37 Nonetheless the king was with Alcuin at Tours before he set out for Rome in the summer of 800 and they were closely in touch throughout that year. But there may well have been a considerable and perhaps inevitable gap between what Alcuin envisaged such a Christian imperium might mean and the political realities that came to a head in Rome when the king arrived there at the end of November 799. The synod that tried the pope was comprised of Frankish, Lombard and Roman bishops and Alcuin’s party could only have been an articulate minority. The very ambiguity of what occurred was expressed by the slyness of Pope Leo and the irritation of Charlemagne himself. It is notable that the new imperial title in no way impacted upon his other regnal titles as king of the Franks and of the Lombards. The interest in the matter lies in the way in which Alcuin expressed his vision in a sequence of letters throughout those years. The first of these, which contained what became De Gladio, has already been noted and there the use of the idea was largely rhetorical, meaning the whole realm of the western Christians.38 The second letter was written to Charlemagne, also in the summer of 798, dealing with various astronomical enquiries, but concluding with an exhortation to him to rise up against the Spanish heresy embodied in Felix of Urguel. This was surely a threat to the whole world of the Christian imperium which had been committed by God to his rule and governance, so that his secular power and moral authority might profit his eternal glory.39 In another letter to the king, written in the summer of 799, Alcuin addressed directly his anxiety about the plight of the papacy, urging the king to intervene as the defender of the churches of Christ, so that through his prowess the ‘Christian empire’ might be defended and the rule of law restored – sacrae regimine justitiae – words which closed his concluding poem for the king as he set forth for Rome.40 In a letter to Arno, written at the end of 799, he commiserated with him about the death of Eric, Duke of Friuli, who guarded an important boundary of the ‘Christian empire,’ and who was a mutual friend and ally.41 He spoke in similar terms in his letters to Elipandus and Felix, asserting Charlemagne’s orthodox authority rebuking their heresy, and also in a letter to Pope Leo III written in 801.42 By the time he was writing to his disciples, Candidus and Fredegisus at court, seeking their intervention with the king in his dispute with Theodulf of Orleans, he could describe Martin of Tours as ‘a true servant of God in the Christian empire’, while styling Charlemagne as ‘most Christian emperor’ giving him

148

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

the title of ‘Augustus’.43 Alcuin’s accompanying letter to Charlemagne, seeking to exculpate himself as abbot and to protect the monks of Tours from royal reproach, used similar language, addressing his irate lord in words culled from the Bible and normally directed to God: ‘if you were to observe iniquity, Lord Emperor, who could stand?’ Clearly Alcuin was badly rattled! He reminded Charlemagne of the maxim of the Roman Emperor Titus that ‘no-one should depart from the emperor sad.’ The role of the monks of Tours was to be faithful intercessors for the king’s well-being and the stability of ‘the Christian empire.’44 It would seem that Alcuin regarded the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome as a fitting assertion of the authority that only a Christian emperor was able to wield in the interests of the unity and stability of the Church. In a letter written in the summer of 799, he had reacted to news about the scandals surrounding Pope Leo III by pointing out to the king that they had a direct impact upon the stability of his kingdom as well as of the Church. Of the three pillars of Christendom, two were down: the pope was unseated, and the Byzantine throne was occupied by a usurping woman, the Empress Irene.45 The third pillar was the regal dignity of Charlemagne himself whom God had set as governor of the Christian people: ‘In you alone now resides the complete welfare of the churches of Christ!’46 This letter probably sheds most light on Alcuin’s sense of urgency at that time. Otherwise his vision of a ‘Christian empire’ remained in some ways a loose one, embracing the geographical boundaries of Charlemagne’s domains certainly, but stretching beyond them by a moral authority rooted in orthodoxy and coterminous with the western Church. As a term of endearment, flattery or exhortation it added to his armoury when addressing Charlemagne, whether to encourage him or in selfdefence. It should not therefore be detached from the wider repertoire of language by which Alcuin was wont to write to his lord. Stability and unity were always central to his thinking and anxieties, and with good reason: and therein lay their common purpose and alliance of interest. Alcuin died in 804, too soon to see how the events of Christmas 800 in Rome would be perceived and manipulated by a rising generation of theologians and other interested parties at the court of Charlemagne and his successors. At that time, 798-800, his was simply one voice among several urging the king to act with regard to the plight of the papacy. In his case, Alcuin’s intention was to steer the expansion of Charlemagne’s authority and domains so that they might become the framework within which the mission of the Church could proceed in an orderly manner. In its breadth the phrase Christianum imperium represented a renewed and effective Catholicism. In its moral and judicial integrity, it safeguarded orthodoxy of Christian belief, and under-pinned the authority of Charlemagne without which the episcopate of the Church could hardly function, nor its monasteries and education be established or safeguarded.

Part Four The Bible Chapter 14 The Tours Scriptorium In all his theological writings and also in many of his letters, Alcuin showed a real mastery and love of the Bible. Biblical language was fundamental to his thought, and to its expression in Latin that resonated richly with the rhythms of Scripture. When Charlemagne appointed Alcuin to become Abbot of Tours in 796, it was not a retirement move. Instead he was entrusted with the reform and revitalisation of a venerable and wealthy institution that was deeply rooted in the history of the Frankish monarchy, under the Merovingians as well as the Carolingians, and which was richly endowed already. The royal monastery of Tours, dedicated to St Martin who was buried there,1 commanded 20,000 dependents many of them probably virtual serfs, and its wealth was reflected in the great programme of copying of the Bible and other texts, which began in Alcuin’s time and continued under his successors for half a century, producing on average two Bibles per year of 450 pages that each required the slaughter of over 220 sheep to produce enough vellum.2 The scriptorium of Tours rapidly became one of the most important centres of Carolingian learning, producing many other fine manuscripts in elegant Caroline minuscule. But ‘this multiple reproduction of the biblical text during a sixty-year period cannot be paralleled:’3 in all, some forty six Bibles were produced along with eighteen gospels that still survive from the years before 853, when the Viking attacks began to make a serious impact on the life of the monastery. During Alcuin’s lifetime, at least six Bibles were produced, two of which were for Charlemagne himself. The script itself was consistently clear, as was the visual structure of each page: for the structure designed by Alcuin was intended to make the text of the Bible intelligible both for public reading and for private thought and teaching.4 The style of the Tours Bibles also gave to the Scriptures royal authority, setting a norm of presentation that would have a long influence on the way the Latin Bible was perceived and used.5 This exemplary role was part of the wider programme of establishing the authority of the Bible in the Carolingian church and state. The policy was commanded by Charlemagne and his advisers, which included Alcuin, in the Admonitio Generalis and in the De Litteris Colendis;6 and

150

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

developments at Tours under Alcuin and his successors need to be seen in the context of comparable activities at Corbie under Alcuin’s friend Abbot Adalhard; and also at Orleans under Bishop Theodulf, where at least six Bibles, very different in format and intention and much smaller in size, were produced.7 Theodulf ’s own scholarly interest in the text of the Bible, and his deep belief in its supreme authority in matters of faith, doctrine and worship have already been examined in relation to his role in creating the Libri Carolini. The concern of all these reformers was to establish a clear and accurate Latin text of Scripture, though not necessarily a standard one as has sometimes been thought; and to establish alongside it a consistent and orthodox interpretation of that text in the light of the teachings of the Church Fathers. Thus the copying of Bibles was complemented by the proliferation of copies of the Fathers and especially of their commentaries on Scripture. It was to facilitate this whole process that Caroline minuscule was developed in the early ninth century as an efficient, elegant and lucid mode of visual communication and standard replication, which would minimise errors of spelling and copying: in many ways therefore Caroline minuscule acted as a font. There is, however, no direct evidence of Alcuin’s involvement in its creation. The development of the scriptorium at Tours has been minutely examined, both in terms of its script and also of its illuminations.8 Its genesis provides a context for understanding more precisely Alcuin’s contribution to the study and the text of the Latin Bible, and also the resources upon which he was able to draw when he became Abbot of Tours, where his final theological works were produced. For Alcuin’s predecessors as abbots, Itherius and Wulfardus were not idle in their patronage of learning, inheriting a venerable library from earlier eras of which only a few manuscripts now remain, and encouraging the copying of texts. One of these was a copy of the Acta of the council of Ephesus, which in 431 had condemned Nestorius.9 It contains what appear to be annotations by Alcuin himself, probably made while he was compiling his anti-Adoptionist writings, which contain many citations from these Acta.10 The style of writing used at Tours before Alcuin’s arrival in 796 also reflects Irish influence, which probably helps to account for the proliferation of scholars from the British Isles who continued to make their way to Tours during his abbacy, to the chagrin of some of the Frankish monks. Examination of the books likely to have been at Tours before 796 reveals some of the foundations of the Carolingian renovatio of biblical and patristic learning: works on the Octateuch;11 books by Augustine – his Enchiridion and De Musica; also by Optatus on the Donatist schism; books by Boethius and Livy, alongside monastic rules and other liturgical material relating to the cult of St Martin. From the Irish phase in particular date manuscripts containing commentaries by Jerome on the Bible as well as by Donatus on Virgil.

Chapter 14 – The Tours Scriptorium

151

Under Alcuin’s influence, the script of Tours began to develop in a manner that gradually conformed to his own preoccupation with the intelligibility of Scripture in terms of its visual structure as well as its textual and grammatical accuracy.12 For a while, under his benign rule as abbot, two styles of writing ran alongside each other, while he developed the best features of what he had inherited, designing for example the elaborate Tours Bible which still remains.13 Rand was of the view that Alcuin had earlier influenced the resplendent Bibles produced at court under the direct patronage of Charlemagne: the Gospels of Godescalc, the Ada Gospels and the Dagulf Psalter. Alcuin knew and liked Dagulf and wrote a letter to him, probably while he was in England between 790 and 793.14 Rand also saw the Bamberg and the Zurich Gospels as reflecting closely the type of Bible copied at Tours in Alcuin’s day.15 What was significant about Alcuin’s design was the use of a range of fine lettering, in capitals, semi-uncials and uncials, to highlight the sections of the Bible, with chapter headings and explanatory introductions, while the text was written in Caroline minuscule. Alcuin’s pattern for the presentation of the text of the Bible exerted a wide influence16 and was continued under the leadership of his immediate successors, the first of whom was his pupil and friend, Fredegisus, Abbot of Tours from 804-834. In two letters relating to the dedication of a copy of the Bible to Charlemagne in 801, Alcuin outlined his intentions with regard to the text of Scripture.17 In the first he declared to the king his intention of adding to the rich treasury of books already owned by him ‘a complete collection of the divine books, dictated by the Holy Spirit and mediated by Christ for the salvation of the whole human race,’ in a coherent, unified and corrected form. In the second letter to Fredegisus, he commanded him to transmit the volume and its accompanying letter safely on his behalf to Charlemagne. These two letters relate closely to two poems of dedication composed by Alcuin for the presentation of the same Bible to the king at Christmas 801.18 The first, which begins with the words Magni magna Dei, compared Alcuin’s offering with the widow’s mite in the gospel. It alluded to the composition of the whole Bible within a single pandect:19 ‘this book resonates with the eternal words of God.’20 The second poem was placed at the end of the Bible: Go forth, holy book, more radiant than all that is baneful, Prosper now in peace by the mercy of God. Seek out the resplendent palaces of the noble King; Remain forever in the holy house of Christ. Bring the blessing of peace to all God’s servants there, Who with a devout heart and faith, and unfailing holy love, With tears of desire, seek to flourish and to prosper.21 These poems have to be seen among several others written by Alcuin during the last five years of his life to accompany other copies of the Bible. They are largely found with some variations in two Alcuinian pandects:

152

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

the Vallicelliana in Rome, and the Bible from Grandval now in London.22 Some were written for another Bible commissioned by Charlemagne in 800; others for a Bible for Tours itself. There also remains a magnificent encomium to the whole sweep of the Bible in the form of a poetic preface for a Bible commissioned by Gerfrid, Bishop of Laon, which he offered at the dedication in 798-9 of the church and abbey of St Riquier, newly rebuilt by Abbot Angilbert, the king’s nephew and Alcuin’s friend.23 ‘This holy book contains in one body all the mysteries of the old law and the new. Here is the fount of life; here are the precepts of salvation; here is the holy faith.’ Another was for the nun Ava to place in a Bible to be given to the royal nunnery at Chelles.24 There is a much longer poem copied into a Bible produced at Tours in 810, which is closely associated with Alcuin’s longest poem about the shape and purpose of the Bible, which itself may have been composed to accompany the presentation of the Bible to Charlemagne at Christmas 801. In it, Alcuin may perhaps reveal knowledge of the great pandect, the Codex Amiatinus, prepared at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow during the time of Abbot Ceolfrith.25 These poems intimate the deep love that Alcuin felt towards the Scriptures and his confidence that they were indeed the ‘lively oracles of God’.26 Alcuin’s influence on the actual text of the Vulgate was probably much more limited than was thought to be the case in the past. His influence was rather on how it was perceived, taught and received as the authoritative text of the Western Church. The only surviving example of the text of the Bible that Alcuin used at Tours is now in the library of the monastery of St Gallen in Switzerland.27 Although less polished and ordered, its form and structure underlie the subsequent pandects produced at Tours under his successors, of which the Bible now at Monza is a fine early example.28 These have common features in terms of script and ornament, with a distinct order of books that differs from that set out by Jerome in the Vulgate. Their distinctive character comprises careful summaries and chapter headings, although there is considerable variety within the actual text in the various codices produced. Because of the proliferation of Bibles and gospels from Tours with royal authority during the first half of the ninth century, however, the pattern of textual presentation initiated by Alcuin spread far and wide. Charlemagne regarded an accurate version of the Bible as the sine qua non of his reforms and an important instrument for uniformity and education in the life of the Church. He mentioned his commissioning the correction of biblical texts to eradicate the errors of earlier generations in his Admonitio Generalis;29 and Alcuin mentioned his own labours in this task at the king’s command in the letter to the abbess Gisele of Chelles that accompanied the first part of his commentary on the gospel of John.30 He drew on theological resources from England, notably Northumbria, as well as texts of the Bible from Italy and elsewhere, which were close to that of Jerome.31 Alcuin was therefore heavily engaged in the revision of biblical texts while

Chapter 14 – The Tours Scriptorium

153

he was writing his major theological works during the last decade of his life. This was clearly another reason for his appointment as Abbot of Tours, and he must have had trained clerics and monks to support him in so wideranging an output of work, as he was still summoned by the king and had to travel considerable distances on his behalf until his health grounded him in the last three years of his life. Alcuin’s work on the text of the Bible constituted therefore a significant though not decisive contribution to the long-term development and acceptance of the authority of the Vulgate text. It was part of broader initiatives fostered by Charlemagne, evident for example in the work of Theodulf of Orleans, or earlier at Corbie and at Metz.32 In many ways Theodulf ’s was a more strictly scholarly effort, seeking to establish a definitive text by evaluating variants, including Alcuin’s,33 and using elucidations from patristic commentaries, as may be seen in the six extant copies of his Bible, with their detailed notes and tiny script. In his own commentaries, Alcuin did not always use the version of the Latin Bible associated with him. One reason for this variation in usage by Alcuin may well have been his reliance on memory and his long practice in teaching the Scriptures orally. His preoccupation was with the clarity, accuracy and meaning of the text, not necessarily its original provenance. This was because the text in front of him was more like a musical score than an archaeological record. The text of the Bible was still subject to and contributory towards a dynamic oral tradition rooted in prayer, liturgy, and memory.34 On the other hand ‘Alcuin’s more limited aim was to produce, not a special revision or new recension, but a reliable, practically useful text, grammatically consistent and free from errors.’35 He created a model of a high standard that was widely emulated; but as a text of the Latin Bible, his was simply one step along the way to the eventual triumph of the Vulgate, as was Theodulf ’s: both scholars were important and significant, but in different ways. For ‘no one textual tradition was used exclusively or even predominantly in the production of Bibles in the later Carolingian period and after.’36 The aura of the Tours Bibles, as ‘authorised versions’, emanated from their royal patronage and their majestic presentation, designed by Alcuin, as well as in the value of their lay-out and their intellectual and liturgical accessibility.

Chapter 15 Alcuin and the Old Testament The Old Testament appealed directly to the English and Carolingian rulers and reformers as it seemed to speak directly to their social conditions and understanding of religion, kingship and law. Much of their legislation was steeped in references, direct and indirect, to the biblical law-codes, and the role of the monarchy was interpreted as the kingship of Israel redivivus. Indeed the Franks regarded themselves as the heirs of Israel of old, a ‘chosen people’ with ‘a manifest destiny’, justified in smiting and converting their enemies.1 It fell to Alcuin and others to steer this bellicose tendency in a more Christian direction by copious reference to the New Testament as the companion to and interpreter of the Old. At the same time, the Bible was seen by Alcuin and his fellow reformers as the foundation for educational reform, the key instrument of the Church’s life and mission and, as in the Libri Carolini, the ultimate arbiter of sound doctrine. Its message was a living voice within the life of the Church that was heard daily through the Psalms and readings in the offices and the liturgy, some of which, notably the Psalms, were committed to memory long before they were ever read and studied. Thus the Latin Bible became the fountain of literacy as well as the well-spring of art. The moral and spiritual authority of the Bible was of central concern to Charlemagne himself, for it gave legitimacy and cohesion to his ever widening rule as the western Christian emperor: its study and application, and indeed its very language, became literally the lingua franca of his domains. One of the key witnesses for the composition of the Life of Alcuin was his friend and pupil Sigwulf, who became abbot of Ferrières in the same year that Alcuin died, 804.2 Towards the end of the Life the unknown monastic author included a careful list of Alcuin’s writings. Among these were several works of biblical exegesis including the book of Questions and Answers on Genesis that Alcuin composed for Sigwulf himself. The list also mentions his commentaries on the texts of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, as well as his work on the Psalms, which was to have so profound an influence on the praying life of the Church in subsequent centuries. His work on Proverbs has been lost, but the other books remain, and the Questions and Answers on Genesis exerted great influence for a long time: its text survives in 52 manuscripts from the ninth century and throughout the

Chapter 15 – Alcuin and the Old Testament

155

Middle Ages right up to the Reformation.3 Its opening letter of dedication to Sigwulf is of great importance as a window into Alcuin’s mind and mode of approach. It helps also to explain the precise purpose and nature of this extensive work, which contains 280 questions and answers and concludes with a longer treatise entitled De Benedictionibus Iacob patriarchae.4 Alcuin’s interest in the exegesis of the Bible was also evident in the encouragement that he gave to his Irish friend, Joseph, who composed an abbreviated commentary on Isaiah derived from that of Jerome.5 Alcuin’s work and influence clearly gave great impetus to the surge of interest in direct biblical exegesis among his contemporaries and successors: over a quarter of the writings in Migne’s Patrologia Latina for the Carolingian period in the ninth century are in fact works of biblical exegesis; if homilies are included, the proportion rises even further. The foundations were laid by older contemporaries of Alcuin, notably Wigbod, who composed a massive compilation on the Octateuch,6 and Peter of Pisa, who wrote about the book of Daniel.7 Alcuin’s own short treatise about the interpretation of the meanings of Hebrew names of the ancestors of Christ at the beginning of the gospel of Matthew, which was inspired and largely derived from a comparable work by Jerome, needs to be seen in this context.8 It concludes with a little poem of dedication to Charlemagne in which Alcuin names himself as its author.9 Alcuin’s Questions and Answers on Genesis has been studied closely.10 As a result a much richer understanding has emerged of Alcuin’s role as an exegete and teacher of the Bible, and of the sources upon which he was able to draw. The key to understanding the precise significance of this book is to be found in the letter that Alcuin wrote to Sigwulf, and also in the format of the treatise, which is comparable to the 28 questions and answers concerning belief in the Trinity that Alcuin composed for his pupil and successor, Fredegisus.11 This particular book on Genesis, however, distilled his long experience of dealing with questions from pupils and others, first at York and then on the continent at Aachen, Tours and elsewhere.12 In his opening letter to his friend and pupil, Alcuin said that he had summarised some of the many questions that Sigwulf, and no doubt others, used to ask him about Genesis to serve as an aide memoire to enable ‘the recreation of memory’: ‘because the memory often loses what it should retain unless it is kept safe in a treasury of writings.’13 This book is evidence for the deliberate mental structure often created at this time in the minds of scholars in order to ‘pigeon-hole’ their learning for future reference.14 It also reveals explicitly what is often evident implicitly; that Alcuin’s mind was naturally geared to answering questions in dialogue with his pupils. He went on to point out to Sigwulf that travelling around on secular business precluded carrying a portmanteau of books for reference. Instead a brief synopsis of interesting questions would, like pearls, stimulate the mind of a bored and weary traveller at the end of a day’s journey. It would also remind Sigwulf of his older friend and teacher. Alcuin’s enchiridion

156

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

was intended therefore simply to address some of the many historical questions inherent in Genesis rather than to treat of weighty theological ones, in which Sigwulf was apparently less interested. Alcuin asked him to correct any errors. This book is therefore a monument to their friendship and to Alcuin’s collaborative learning with others over some considerable time. The text itself is full of interesting questions that reveal the agenda and mode of theological learning in Alcuin’s circle. The opening part of the book deals with general questions of theology arising from consideration of Genesis. The first question deals with the apparent contradiction between God’s ‘rest’ on the seventh day and Christ’s declaration about the continual work of the Father in John 5. 17. Alcuin explained that this ‘rest’ intimates the completion of creation, whereas God as Creator governs the continuing existence of the world. He tackled, too, a matter hardly touched upon in Genesis itself but relevant to its divine cosmology: the fate of the angels and the nature of their fall. Alcuin contrasted the gravity of their primordial sin and the nobility of their nature with the fragility of humanity, which was deliberately deceived and betrayed by evil.15 The ‘dominion’ granted to Adam was one of obedience to divine law rather than exploitation of nature.16 The creation of humanity within the ‘sixth day’ revealed its close relationship to the rest of nature, which was created to be the environment in which human beings might live.17 Evil seduced man out of envy but also out of despair at its own salvation.18 In classical patristic terms, Alcuin affirmed that the phrase ‘in the beginning’ signified creation through God the Son as the Word of God.19 Likewise the creation of human beings ‘in the image and likeness of God’ signified their eternal destiny as well as the moral and spiritual affinity of human existence with God.20 The creation of Eve from the side of Adam pointed forward mystically to the flow of water and blood from the side of Christ, dead on the Cross, by which the Church was created and humanity redeemed.21 Wherein lay the true liberty of man? ‘The greatest freedom is to serve righteousness and to be free from sin.’22 These are well honed answers arising from many years of debate, explanation and reflection on the biblical text. Alcuin did not duck the hard questions, asserting for example that evil has no inherent existence, being the deprivation of good, just as darkness is simply the absence of light.23 His debt to Augustine is clear in his understanding of theology, here as elsewhere. Alcuin grew up in a church fascinated by the historical nature of the Bible. The commentaries of Bede and the earlier teaching of Theodore of Tarsus as Archbishop of Canterbury emphasised the historical character of biblical testimony.24 So for example, Alcuin explained in some detail the nature of bitumen25 and went to considerable lengths to describe the dimensions of the ark of Noah. His exposition was very similar to that of Bede in, for example, his De Tabernaculo or De Templo, moving from intelligent

Chapter 15 – Alcuin and the Old Testament

157

consideration of the historical detail of the text to its deeper moral and spiritual meaning for the life of the Church in the light of the mystery of Christ. What is striking about the line of exegesis that flows from Gregory the Great through Bede to Alcuin is its restraint and moral emphasis, and its careful anchoring of the allegorical and mystical meaning of Scripture in the historical reality described in the Bible. For example, Alcuin reconciled the apparently contradictory statements about God ‘tempting’ Abraham in Genesis and James affirming in his epistle that ‘God tempts no-one’26 by explaining that God might put a person to the test but never in a way that would lay them open to sin or evil.27 When Jacob poured oil over the stone at Bethel, it was not an act of idolatry as there is no evidence that he worshipped the stone: it was an act of prophetic consecration.28 Names in the Bible always denoted meaning: thus Ephrata signified Bethlehem – the ‘house of bread’ where Christ would appear as ‘the bread from heaven.’29 The Old Testament was always to be understood as pointing to the Gospel, and to Christ the Word of God yet to be fully revealed. The final question of this book addressed the question of whether the blessings that Jacob gave to his sons were to be understood historically or allegorically.30 Alcuin affirmed both: they signified historically the division of the Promised Land and spiritually the nature of the Church. ‘But first the historical foundations must be established so that the peak of allegory may rest more fittingly upon this prior structure.’31 Alcuin’s reputation as an exegete of Genesis was reflected in a tract attributed to him, which was widely copied, concerning the Trinitarian interpretation of the phrase ‘in the image of God’ in Genesis 1. 26.32 Alcuin’s Questions and Answers on Genesis reveals much about his method and use of sources. He knew neither the writings of Ambrose on Genesis nor Augustine’s masterpiece De Genesi ad Litteram directly.33 His knowledge of Augustine’s work came to him mainly through Bede’s commentary on Genesis; but he did know and use Augustine’s own Questions on the Heptateuch as well as Jerome’s Hebraicae Quaestiones. Other sources included Augustine’s De Civitate Dei and Bede’s De Natura Rerum. Comparison of how Alcuin adapted Bede’s work on Genesis is revealing of his own innovation and insight.34 What is striking however is the fact that ‘for over half the questions dealing with Genesis 1-3, Alcuin appears to have composed his answers without explicit resort to patristic quotations.’35 No less notable was Alcuin’s willingness to deal directly with the implications of Augustine’s teaching about the nature of evil.36 Comparison with the earlier work of Wigbod reveals the extent of material by Augustine that was now available for Alcuin’s reference. Alcuin thus produced a masterly introduction to many of the important questions arising from Genesis for Christian theology, and as such his work was valued and copied for many years. In the later part of the tenth century it was translated into English with some adaptations by Aelfric.37

158

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Alcuin’s two remaining commentaries on the Wisdom literature in the Bible are different in character and intention to his Questions & Answers of Genesis, which was written for a particular person, Sigwulf, and was clearly part of an ongoing teaching dialogue between them.38 His commentary on Ecclesiastes was written with three former pupils in mind: Onias, Candidus and Fredegisus, whom he addressed in a dedicatory letter.39 With it are associated three poems, one of which was addressed to Arno of Salzburg. In another of them, addressed to the reader, a notional pupil, Alcuin spoke of his work as wandering through the meadows of the Fathers culling flowers to enable him to apply the moral and spiritual message of the Bible. In his letter to his friends and pupils he enjoined them to take to heart the moral demands of Ecclesiastes and not to be seduced by the glamour and affluence of the world in which they were living. This letter is of a piece with many other similar moral exhortations by Alcuin that were rooted in the Bible. The main points of the Old Testament text were corroborated by some explicit instructions of Christ in the Gospels. Alcuin declared quite openly that the bulk of his work was derived from Jerome’s commentary, whose teaching he now wished to make available in a direct and distilled manner for his disciples. Throughout the book, the putative author, Solomon, was described by the word concionator, which was a translation of the original Hebrew designation and which in Latin meant public demagogue and moral exhorter, a role with which Alcuin himself clearly identified in his letters and elsewhere. So this book has to be seen within that particular moral strand of his thought and communication. He was addressing the ethical state of both Church and society during a boomtime in a manner similar to some of the biblical elements in Carolingian legislation. This was therefore an exercise in applying theology to public morality, in the leadership of which he expected his disciples to play an exemplary role. It was intended as a direct challenge to the vanity, rapacity and moral disorder that were evident in the rapidly developing Carolingian state. Which parts of the life of Solomon, who presided over a similar expansion of Israel’s fortunes, would those leading society, including Charlemagne, actually follow, however? Alcuin perceived a movement from Proverbs through Ecclesiastes to the Song of Songs that shadowed the development of Solomon to maturity, and which laid out a similar path of spiritual development for a Christian. This in turn reflected the movement in education from ethics through ‘physics’ to theology. At the same time the figure of Solomon also represented Christ. He noted the way in which Gregory the Great commended Ecclesiastes: he too was exercised by the fragility and imminent breakdown of society. In many ways this work continues Gregory’s inner debate about the spiritual pressures that impeded his ability to lead a good and morally integrated life. Once again Alcuin’s mode of thought was essentially that of a teacher, answering questions by reference to his own experience and reflections, as

Chapter 15 – Alcuin and the Old Testament

159

well to other parts of the Bible and occasionally to the Fathers too. Over everything hung the impending judgement of God and his acute recognition of the limitations of human knowledge: ‘For he who fears the Lord is neither elevated by prosperity nor oppressed by adversity.’40 A passage such as Ecclesiastes 10. 16-7 spoke directly to the current political and dynastic situation, as people began to anticipate with some dread the eventual demise of Charlemagne and its implications. Alcuin pressed home its warning against immature and unjust rule, drawing a contrast with the true nature of the Church itself. The blandishments of heretics were condemned as so much false philosophy, which distracted from the life and work of the Church and the truth of the Christian faith. Alcuin’s conclusion was severe: ‘Scripture admonishes us, while we yet live, always to consider the future judgement in which all that we have done will be judged.’41 He certainly believed this himself, and its impending reality pressed upon him as his life drew towards its close, as he revealed in many of his later letters. The Song of Songs42 clearly meant a great deal to Alcuin, for he was a person of contemplative disposition in his prayers and moved by a strong love of Christ and of his friends in him. This is apparent, for example, in the language of a letter that he wrote to Charlemagne shortly after his arrival at Tours as abbot, in which he described York as a ‘garden enclosed’ rich in books, while seeking to create in Tours a similar outpost of Paradise restored.43 He also referred to the Song of Songs several times in his anti-Adoptionist writings as well as some of his poetry. There are two recensions of his Compendium in Canticum Canticorum: the shorter one is an abbreviation of the longer one.44 Both versions draw heavily on Bede’s commentary on the Song of Songs and on a similar work by Justus of Urguel. In some of the manuscripts there is a dedicatory poem addressed to an unknown pupil. There is also a letter to another pupil nicknamed Daphne that deals with a point of exegesis of a particular passage in the Song of Songs.45 Both these documents witness to the appeal of this text within the circle of Alcuin and his disciples. The confused state of its manuscript transmission is perhaps another indirect witness to this. In a little prefatory poem, the Song of Songs was compared favourably with the blandishments of Virgil. It also asserted the axiom of its exegesis: the belief that the Song of Songs, like the Psalms, spoke mystically about the relationship between Christ and his Church.46 The ecclesiological orientation of Alcuin’s commentary is evident from the beginning, making a clear association between the anointing of which the Song of Songs speaks and chrismation at baptism, the seal of the Holy Spirit. Alcuin also stressed moral purity as the sine qua non of the spiritual life, commending ‘the simplicity of a pure heart.’ The incarnation of Christ was the spring-time of renewal for the human race, while the little foxes ruining the Lord’s vineyard were the heretics and schismatics, who were ‘shrivelled in faith and deceitful with words, lacerating the minds of the faithful

160

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

with their depraved doctrines.’47 Alcuin can speak directly and simply too about compunction of the heart through the love of Christ, and about the enclosed heart of the Church’s life as the spring of health-giving doctrine, being protected by God. Commenting on the description of the Beloved as ‘white and ruddy’,48 Alcuin taught that Christ is portrayed as ‘white because without sin but ruddy by the blood of his passion, elect among ten thousand because he is the only mediator between God and man.’ At the end of the same chapter in the Song of Songs, there is a further reference to the controversy with the Adoptionists: Christ is ‘wholly desirable because he is totally God and totally man, he whom the angels seek to fathom. He is God in the majesty of the Father; man by the virginity of his mother: in the one the Creator and in the other the Saviour.’49 What Alcuin did in this book was to provide a simple but sure bridge into the heady language of the Song of Songs, all the while relying upon those like Bede who had gone before him. The subsequent abridgement of his work took this process one stage further.

Chapter 16 Alcuin and the New Testament One of the most striking things about reading the letters of Alcuin is their great number of biblical references: only a minority are without them, mainly to noble and secular figures. Alcuin’s familiarity with a vast range of texts and quotations from both the Old and New Testaments enriched and corroborated many of his arguments, moral appeals and expressions of sympathy and friendship. They are important for revealing the way in which both parts of the Bible marched in step in his mind and thinking. His English correspondence in particular was full of biblical references, reflecting perhaps the climate of thought and study in his homeland, and the way in which he could appeal to a common hinterland of familiarity with the Bible and theological intercourse. For example, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ethelhard, written in 793 after the sack of Lindisfarne, there are no fewer than 25 references, mainly from the New Testament, but also from the prophets.1 In another letter to the new Archbishop of York, Eanbald II, written in 796 or 797, full of pastoral advice for a former colleague, there are 21 biblical references appearing at every turn in this letter.2 Another letter to the Bishop of Leicester from around the same time, when Alcuin was well established at Tours, is similarly replete.3 Writing to monks in Septimania, the marchlands with Spain, Alcuin outlined the course and dangers of the Adoptionist controversy, among other issues, in an important letter supported by a wealth of biblical exegesis – 23 references in all, mostly drawn from the New Testament.4 More personal letters also utilised texts from the Bible: his two letters of condolence to Charlemagne upon the death of his queen, Liudgard, at Tours on 4 June 800, gave to the king some of the most poignant biblical passages for his comfort.5 One of his more formal letters to the king, which circulated later as a treatise entitled De Gladio, was a major piece of biblical exegesis in its own right, making no less than 40 textual references.6 What these and other letters demonstrate is the binocular approach that Alcuin took to the Bible, thinking and writing from within a lively and informed dialogue about and exegesis of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, showing how each complemented the other in a single voice. In that sense Alcuin was a great servant of the Bible, eager to elucidate and convey its meaning and its power by his teaching and letters, as much as by the visual presentation of its text.

162

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

The Life of Alcuin lists his four commentaries on letters by or attributed to the apostle Paul as well as his commentary on John’s gospel, which was commissioned by Rotrudis and Gisele, Abbess of Chelles. Later tradition associated with him works on the Apocalypse. His commentaries on the Letters to Philemon and Titus were epitomes derived from those of Jerome.7 Nonetheless they contain points of emphasis that are revealing of Alcuin’s concerns. The commentary on Titus begins by asserting the unity of the Father and the Son. It makes the distinction between intellectual knowledge arising from learning and theological knowledge arising from prayer and study of the Bible – knowledge about God and knowledge of God. Alcuin’s discussion about the duties of a bishop is especially sharp, as is his condemnation of heresy, both topical issues. The moral duties of Christianity are set forth at length with a strong emphasis on accountability and obedience to the powers that be, a crucial balance in his mind. Alcuin’s discussion of Christology (notably in reference to chapter 2. 11-14) is clear and definite, taking a swipe at the classical heresies of the past with a view to those of the present. When discussing chapter 3. 4-7, he did not hesitate to draw out the Trinitarian implications from the Pauline text, showing their relevance to the correct mode of baptism: ‘No-one will be legitimately baptised unless the Name of the Holy Trinity is invoked over the person to be baptised.’ Alcuin’s commentary on the short Letter to Philemon inevitably picked up its more personal character. He clearly sympathised with its appeal to Christian friendship, seeing it as a particularly moving evidence of the power of intercession. He also considered it a vindication of the often obscure workings of Providence.8 A clever piece of detective work has located significant portions of Alcuin’s lost commentary on the Letter to the Ephesians buried within a commentary on the same letter, written by Hrabanus Maur, who was one of Alcuin’s ablest pupils.9 Thirty passages are marked with the abbreviation ‘ALB’ alongside twenty others marked ‘HIER’, signifying Jerome that were probably Alcuin’s work as well. This commentary by Hrabanus Maur survives now in only one ninth-century manuscript, originally written at Rheims but now in Cambridge. He probably worked from the text listed in the library of Fulda and he incorporated the earlier commentaries of Ambrosiaster and Jerome, as well as extensive quotations from nine works of Augustine and a few from Cassian and Gregory the Great.10 Ephesians is obviously a key text for understanding both Christology and ecclesiology, so its relevance for some of Alcuin’s principal concerns, not least with Adoptionism, is not difficult to discern in the fragments that now remain. What is evident also is a dialogue of understanding in response to the biblical text, shared across the ages by Jerome in the first instance, and then by Alcuin the master and Hrabanus Maur his mature pupil. They felt themselves to be within a living tradition of thought and belief that had to address the life of the Church now amidst its enemies. An early section

Chapter 16 – Alcuin and the New Testament

163

gives a careful definition of ‘adoption’ and an exposition of its meaning. ‘Adoption’ is something that occurs to us ‘in [not to] Christ, who never was not the Son of God, whereas we were not sons until we were predestined to be so in him.’ Further on the question is asked: ‘what is the word of truth unless it is the Son of God who is Truth.’11 There is a very interesting symbolic reflection on the significance of the Cross as embodying the extent of the love of God to which human beings are called. It concludes with the words, ‘the profundity of the Cross which is invisible demonstrates divine grace, whence all these things proceed and grow.’12 Another passage emphasises and explains the unity of the person of Christ.13 There is also a forceful statement of ecclesiology in terms of the unity of the Body of Christ, a unity found only through knowledge of Christ and within the unity of Catholic faith.14 Towards the end there is a fine piece about the nature of Christian married love.15 This whole text is a fascinating insight into the dynamic way in which the Christian tradition was appropriated by Alcuin and those who came after him. Fragments of Alcuin’s learning and teaching may also be seen in brief comments on various Pauline passages found in a single manuscript in Vienna, one of which carries Alcuin’s name as its authority.16 Alcuin’s commentary on the Letter to Hebrews had a similar Christological focus. It is incomplete, however, dealing only with the first ten chapters of the text, and was for a long time attributed to Ambrose, being closely associated with commentaries of Ambrosiaster in some of the manuscripts.17 It comprises for the most part a collation of passages from the homilies of John Chrysostom, which Alcuin knew in the Latin translation of Mutianus, while drawing also on commentaries on the Psalms by Augustine and Cassiodorus.18 Alcuin’s commentary on Hebrews appears to have been the first of its kind in the Middle Ages and it reflects the depth and originality of his thought. It rekindled interest in this book of the New Testament, stimulating commentaries by other Frankish theologians who came after Alcuin; and it was to have a lasting impact on the Eucharistic controversies that erupted in the Frankish church later in the ninth century.19 In it Alcuin reflected deeply on the mystery of the sacrificial role of Christ as the mediator and the spiritual potency and meaning of his shed blood. Following in the footsteps of Gregory the Great, Alcuin emphasised the intercessory role of the clergy, emulating and participating in the unique self-offering and intercession of Christ himself. The sacerdotal role of Christ on Calvary and the sacrificial reality of the Eucharist found their fulfilment by an inner self-offering in compunction and penitence upon the altar of the heart. This commentary gives an intimate window into some of Alcuin’s deepest spiritual preoccupations that are also reflected in the story of his vision of the blood of Christ encircling and redeeming the world, as recorded in the Life of Alcuin.20 From the beginning of this commentary on Hebrews, Alcuin was

164

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

addressing the pressing Christological controversy of his day, Adoptionism. For example, commenting on a statement of Chrysostom about the Incarnation, Alcuin added the words, ‘by which action the human being received by the Word of God is the only-begotten Son of God.’21 Commenting on a statement of Chrysostom about the distinction between Christ and those whom he saved, in which he said: ‘He is the Son while we are sons,’ Alcuin then added the words, ‘he is naturally so, while it is we who are adopted.’22 A little further on he affirmed by way of elucidation: ‘for just as God is the one by whom all things exist, so Christ is one existent reality, while we are something else. He exists as the natural Son, we as the adopted children. We indeed have one God and Father. Christ as the natural Son is the one who sanctifies, while we as adopted children are the ones who are sanctified’: for ‘in Christ, God and human nature constitute one Person.’ There is no doubt that careful examination of this counter-point to his selection from Chrysostom’s homilies on Hebrews reveals the foundations and rudiments of his rebuttal of Adoptionism, wrought out of many years of personal reflection and answering the questions of his pupils, as well as having to respond to the exigencies of the controversy itself. Written towards the end of his life, Alcuin’s commentaries clearly distilled the teaching tradition of York as well as making the writings of the Fathers more generally accessible, both as summaries and explanations. His conviction was that just as the Fathers addressed the issues of their day, so the living tradition that they articulated, rooted in their understanding of the Bible, could and should be appropriated and applied anew to the life of the Church in his day. Commenting on the Christian confession of faith in every age, he summarised it in words clearly drawn from the Apostles’ Creed: ‘Christ is the Son of God, so Christ is truly God, who suffered and was buried, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. Through him we receive all good things – redemption, resurrection, and an eternal inheritance with him.’23 His own interjections in this commentary and also in the one on Ephesians constitute a veritable spiritual treatise inherent within the whole. ‘What is it to worship God in Spirit if it is not done in charity and perfect faith, in undoubting faith and with all the holy virtues of the soul?’24 What is interesting about this entire text is the lively and creative dialogue between Alcuin and his principal source, John Chrysostom. Indeed it is probably evidence of the influence that the great Archbishop of Constantinople exerted on Alcuin’s own understanding of the prophetic role of the preacher vis à vis the rulers of the day, which he exercised so eloquently, most notably in his letters. All his biblical commentaries clearly distilled many long years of teaching and thought, with their roots in York, where he probably knew the translation of Chrysostom by Mutianus. Once again in this commentary the implicit question-and-answer mode of his thinking and teaching becomes evident.

Chapter 16 – Alcuin and the New Testament

165

Alongside Alcuin’s commentary on Hebrews may be placed a very significant letter that he wrote to Charlemagne in the last few years of his life, between 801 and 804, in which he responded to the reported theology of redemption expressed by a visiting Greek theologian at court, questioning the nature of the price of human salvation of which Paul wrote in I Corinthians 6. 20.25 It is also an important letter as evidence for Alcuin’s knowledge of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae and his confidence in deploying philosophical criteria of thought within Christian theology following his example.26 It constitutes the most significant treatise on the Atonement in the West until Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo, and it also corroborates the line of theology adumbrated by Alcuin in his commentary on Hebrews. The visiting Greek theologian had suggested that Christ paid off death itself by his suffering and death. This ‘ransom theory’ of atonement had slipped from view in the Western Church in the early Middle Ages, while it still circulated in the Eastern Church. Crucial to Alcuin’s argument against it was the active collaboration between the Father and the Son in the redemption of humanity, revealed by the self-sacrifice of Christ and the shedding of his blood on the Cross.27 In the Carolingian church, this belief underpinned understanding of both Baptism and the Eucharist. By a careful examination of the meaning of the words ‘death’, ‘redemption’ and ‘price’ in Paul’s writings, Alcuin elucidated the way in which Christ redeems human beings from the burden of their sin and its destructive consequences, which otherwise end in the death of the soul. The meaning of ‘redemption’ was therefore liberation rather than any buying back. Christ achieved this by willingly offering up his spirit to the Father by his death on the Cross.28 The piercing of his side29 revealed the price by which the birth of the Church occurred, enabled now for individual Christians through participation in its principal sacraments, with their implications for the transformation of human nature. The death of Jesus was thus the price or cost of redemption, being a sacrifice of love freely made to the Father. For he was truly ‘priest and sacrifice, price and offering;’ and also ‘the victor because victim, just as he was priest because of his own self-sacrifice.’30 Thus Christ remains forever as the heavenly intercessor for humanity.31 No payment could be made to death itself or for that matter to the devil, because death, like evil, has no real substance; nor would so excellent a self-offering be appropriate to such an end. For death stands in relation to life as darkness does to light.32 Instead the shed blood of Christ, an innocent human being who was also the Son of God endowed with divine and life-giving power, is the sole means whereby human beings are redeemed; and this is mediated through the sacraments and appropriated by compunction in the heart. ‘What is at stake in freeing man from sin is less directly Christ’s action as man towards God than God’s action towards man, through the channel opened up by Christ’s sacrifice.’33 The price of this redemption was borne by the Father and the Son together.

166

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

To support his position, Alcuin turned again to Augustine’s De Trinitate, notably book four, which he actually cites in this letter as he did also in his commentary on Hebrews.34 For him the Incarnation was the foundation of the Atonement, and the Atonement was proof of the reality of the Incarnation: for only divine power could redeem human nature in this way. Alcuin never lost his own keen sense of the need for forgiveness, being haunted by human vulnerability to sin throughout his life, as his letters and other writings make clear. This ‘first thorough refutation of the “ransomtheory” of the Atonement, is the reason that this letter’s importance in the history of medieval Christian thought deserves recognition. Although Alcuin’s attack on the Greek magister drew upon some earlier theologians, such as Augustine, its clear differences from previous writings that consider the nature of redemption provide fitting testimony to the originality of the intellect that produced it.’35 It is notable too that it was addressed directly and fully to a layman – Charlemagne himself, and to those immediately around him. It is one of the finest pieces of his writing, equipollent in its use of the Scriptures and the Fathers, while pursuing a line of thought that clearly sprang from Alcuin’s own formation, deep reflection and spiritual experience. It connects strongly with the devotion to the Cross so evident in the art of the Carolingians and Anglo-Saxons, as well as in Alcuin’s own poetry and prayers. The most fascinating work of biblical exegesis left by Alcuin was surely his commentary on John’s gospel.36 It is highly significant and interesting for a number of reasons: its composition was described in a sequence of letters by Alcuin to those who commissioned it; it arose from many years of preparation and thought and was written towards the end of his life; it reveals his mastery and moulding of his patristic authorities in order to address the crises and needs of the Church in his day, notably Adoptionism; and it contains over 400 of his own comments along the way.37 It engaged energetically with the sermons of Augustine on the fourth gospel, which exerted such an influence on the Western Church in the Middle Ages, acting as a bridge into his thought, but at the same time appropriating and applying it in a novel manner. This work reflects Alcuin’s own skill and stamina as a theologian. It was copied and re-edited within and shortly after his own lifetime, and most of the manuscripts remaining are from the ninth century. Alcuin was prompted into writing his commentary on John’s gospel by a request from two members of the royal family who were close friends of his, Rotrudis the daughter of Charlemagne, and his sister, Gisele, who was also Abbess of Chelles. Their first letter is now lost, but Alcuin’s gracious reply to it is included within the body of the commentary just before book six.38 They later turned on the charm and also revealed themselves to be his able disciples, appealing to Alcuin in a second letter to compose for their benefit a complete commentary, which would obviate some of the difficulties they encountered when reading Augustine’s homilies.39 They reminded him of

Chapter 16 – Alcuin and the New Testament

167

the willingness of Jerome to correspond about theology from Bethlehem with noble ladies far away in Rome; and Chelles was not that far from Tours after all! They concluded their blandishments with a prayer that the Holy Spirit would fill Alcuin with perfect doctrine, wisdom and love. It was a powerful piece of writing that reflects well on their own education, as well as their affection and respect for their ‘most sweet master.’ Alcuin responded by compiling first a commentary on the latter part of the gospel, sending it to them shortly before Lent 800. In a letter of 801 accompanying the subsequent commentary on the first five books, he described his labours as something ‘hard and demanding,’ explaining how he had trawled through the ‘treasury’ of the Fathers, collating their wisdom.40 Alcuin confessed to having contemplated such a work ‘thirty years ago’ and there is a reference in another letter, written in 795 to his friend Ricbod, archbishop of Trier, asking him to locate from a mutual friend, Beornrad, Archbishop of Sens, a little book of excerpts from John’s gospel, which he had compiled in order for a copy to be made.41 The writer of the Life of Alcuin also knew about the royal request for this commentary on John’s gospel as he mentions it in his list of Alcuin’s works. There is a striking and very precise instruction in this letter as to how the nuns were to have his work copied in its entirety and then to return the manuscripts of both parts to him at Tours.42 In another letter he had already sent them a copy of a work by Bede for copying in their scriptorium.43 They were to ‘enter the chapter numbers for each pericope and to mark off the beginning of each book.’ He wished also to augment his initial work on the latter part of the gospel. Whether Chelles had a key role in the publication of this entire book is now unclear, but it is possible. What is notable is that Alcuin had only one copy of his own manuscript to loan to them: what if it had been lost in transit? This brings home the sheer effort and fragility of the transmission of learning in those days, even between wealthy royal foundations such as Chelles and Tours. Books could not easily be produced or quickly replicated. The two stages in which this commentary was produced was subsequently reflected in its manuscript tradition in the ninth century, in which some manuscripts had part one and others had part two, while some had both parts.44 Gorman’s judgement still stands: ‘the only new commentary on John which seems to have achieved a measure of success between the end of Antiquity and the twelfth century was Alcuin’s.’45 This has been confirmed by Andrée who demonstrated the decisive influence it exerted indirectly upon the formation of the Glossa ordinaria on this gospel, compiled around the year 1100.46 At the head of the final version of his commentary on John, Alcuin placed his long and careful dedication to the two royal and religious sisters in which he outlined his purpose and method in its compilation. Much of what Alcuin says was derived unattributed from Bede’s writings: from two of his homilies on John and his commentary to the gospel of Luke, as well

168

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

as Augustine’s work on the consensus of the gospels.47 Alcuin portrayed himself as a physician culling various flowers and plants in order to make a medicine that could heal the soul, a humble and diligent servant, ‘who collects and mixes the ingredients into a medicine.’ So he said, ‘I have had to search for the flowers of many Fathers throughout the countryside so that I could satisfy your request without usurping a name which is not mine.’ He then proceeded to list his sources, giving Augustine pride of place. His modesty and reticence were purposeful therefore, as was his adaptation of the cumulative message of the Fathers. He noted that the fourth gospel sought to establish the coeternal and equal divinity of the Father and of Christ himself in order to dispel the dark clouds of heresy that were already arising as the evangelist was living and writing. He highlighted some of the Johannine texts that rebutted the errors of Adoptionism, notably the opening of the prologue of the gospel, and the statements in John 10. 30 and 14. 9-10, which spoke directly about the relationship between the Father and the Son. He felt confident that the evangelist was indeed the beloved disciple, who was intimate ‘to the mystery of Christ and his eternal nativity.’ Alcuin did not believe that such testimony could be subject to human rationalism or critical speculation. His own creation of a book in seven parts was deliberate – a mirror of the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit. The weight of this letter is considerable and reflects the theological interest and capacity of his immediate patrons, as well as the wider audience for which it was undoubtedly intended. Once again, it is evidence of how seriously Alcuin took the royal and religious women who were his friends. Alcuin listed his sources as principally Augustine ‘who attempted very diligently to interpret the most sacred words of this holy gospel.’ He said that he had also taken a few passages from Ambrose and many from the homilies of Gregory the Great and of Bede. In this work, as in his other exegetical commentaries on the New Testament, Alcuin was preoccupied with the challenge posed by Adoptionism and the correct exegesis of Scripture as determined by the consensus of the Fathers. Just as Paulinus of Aquilea did not hesitate to adjust the very words of the Nicene Creed in Latin to clarify and emphasise the reality of the Incarnation, so Alcuin did not hesitate to interpret the writings of Father to create a potent and authoritative harmony, melding their utterances into a single voice that would address and resolve the controversies of the day. This was, after all, the rationale behind the Libri Carolini and the Carolingian insistence on the Filioque. As Gorman says, ‘Unlike other early medieval exegetes, Alcuin made the texts that he chose from Ambrose and Augustine say what he wanted them to say. He made the selections he chose from their works read as he felt they should read.’48 This process is apparent to varying degrees in many of his other writings, both exegetical and polemical. At stake was the crucial question of the day: who had the correct understanding of the mind of the Fathers? For this was the

Chapter 16 – Alcuin and the New Testament

169

key to interpreting the Scriptures truly; and upon this authority solely rested the integrity of Christianity as saving faith. In this Theodulf of Orleans and Alcuin were at one. The integrity of Scripture and its authority also underpinned the moral and political integrity of the Carolingian state and its monarchy. Gorman has subjected Alcuin’s commentary on John’s gospel to a minute examination in order to identify his sources and their use in his argument. In the first appendix in his article49 he compiled a list of passages from Augustine, and also from Gregory and Bede that were available to Alcuin for him to be able to insert comments into those of the great master himself. In the second appendix he listed exhaustively the precise use of these sources throughout the text, highlighting the many occasions when Alcuin wrote his own commentary to supplement the material that was available to him. 50 He has also demonstrated how Alcuin did not hesitate to adapt and edit the writings of the Fathers to strengthen and clarify his line of interpretation. As elsewhere in his writings, there was a lively counter-point between Alcuin and his mentors, the fruit of dialogue, teaching and reflection over many years. The roots of his approach clearly lay in his Northumbrian education: Bede after all was remembered as dying while translating John’s gospel;51 and the Life of Alcuin records a vision that Alcuin experienced while reading the text of this gospel out loud in the presence of his master. Alcuin used a text of the gospel that had the same chapter headings as those found in the Codex Amiatinus and the Lindisfarne gospels, adding two more.52 But he was not averse to strengthening the language of Bede’s commentary to assert orthodox faith more unequivocally, sometimes rewriting the material to elicit a clearer doctrinal statement; this was also true on occasions in his handling of Augustine’s homilies. His use of Ambrose, however, was quite sparing.53 It is among the 400 comments by Alcuin that he interspersed among his authorities that his stature as a theologian can be perceived in this commentary. ‘Some passages composed by Alcuin cover several verses and show how he was capable of writing his own commentary on the entire gospel of John had he so desired.’54 These are worth examining as an epitome of the whole quality of this book. His guiding principle, however, even in composing these passages, was the Pauline challenge to the Corinthian church: ‘what have you that you have not received?’55 He did not see himself as an innovator, rather as an interpreter, elucidating, defending and commending the Catholic faith. Later tradition associated a commentary on the Apocalypse with Alcuin, although there is no mention of such a work in the Life of Alcuin. In an unpublished manuscript in Munich from the ninth century there is a commentary in catechetical form that probably emerged from the circle of Alcuin and may have been by him.56 Its principal source was Bede’s commentary on the Apocalypse, while its prologue drew heavily on the Moralia in Job of Gregory the Great. It was preserved alongside Alcuin’s Questions and Answers in Genesis and some of his letters. The commentary

170

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

in Migne on the Apocalypse attributed to Alcuin is incomplete, however, reaching only to chapter twelve; and after a preface derived from Bede’s commentary it is based largely on the work of Ambrosius Autpertus that was composed earlier in the eighth century, which in turn was derived from a commentary by Primasius.57 If it is by Alcuin, it adopts the similar selective method already evident in his other exegetical works. Two other interesting fragments remain embedded among the genuine works of Alcuin: a short poem introducing the Apocalypse and often associated with Bede’s commentary;58 and a short treatise entitled De septem sigillis, written around the year 800 in two distinct manuscript traditions that are discerned by their use of the Bible, one pre-Vulgate, and the other using the Vulgate text.59 It bears close resemblance to the apocalyptic exegesis of Beatus of Liebana which, like that of Bede, was rooted in the approach of Tyconius, a Donatist who wrote in North Africa at the time of Augustine.60 It may have circulated in Alcuin’s circle and he may have known it: his own thought and teaching in this area of theology was likely to have been coloured by that of Bede. Its interest lies in its linking of the seven seals of the Apocalypse to key moments in the coming of Christ, and also to the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit embodied in Old Testament figures. It would have served as a very useful tool of Christian mission and education, firmly rooted in an orthodox understanding of eschatology and proper Christological and Trinitarian teaching. It would still make a useful summary of Christian faith and understanding of the Bible for catechetical purposes today. Alcuin’s understanding of the significance of the Apocalypse is best perceived as a running theme throughout his letters. His own view of the future was full of apprehension, believing like Gregory the Great before him that the End was at hand.61 Yet like Gregory and also Bede, this eschatological sense drove him even harder in his labours as a Christian teacher and theologian, sustained by the belief so eloquently expressed by Bede in his commentary on the Apocalypse that ‘Christ is the morning star, who when the night of this age is passed, sends forth the light of life to his saints and opens to them eternity.’62

Part Five Prayer Chapter 17 Cultivating Prayer The range and richness of Alcuin’s liturgical writing and influence was extraordinary and long-lasting, in both the public and private spheres. It was perhaps his most abiding legacy, and certainly something very close to his heart. It represents a living link between his work as a theologian and his impact as a monastic reformer, educator and poet. For Alcuin gave to the western Church a mode of prayer that sustained for more than two hundred years a dynamic link between the worship of the Mass and the liturgical offices on the one hand, and semi-private meditation upon Scripture and use of devotional collects in the lives of monastic communities and individuals on the other: so much so that it has been hard for scholars always to discern with confidence what Alcuin actually wrote, and what his example enabled others to compose later in the same style and for similar purposes. Indeed every time Anglicans begin the service of Holy Communion with the Collect for Purity they are using Alcuin’s words, which have become very distinctive of Anglican theology and devotion across the world.

Charlemagne’s Piety Einhard testified in his Life of Charlemagne to the king’s personal devotion in church and his regular attendance and attention at services. Two letters remain between Alcuin and the king in 798 addressing very fully and precisely questions to do with the Sundays leading up to Lent, called Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima.1 Alcuin referred to Roman custom and recalled debates that he had conducted with Greek Christians while visiting Rome about the proper length of Lent. In a very full and detailed letter, he set out the theological and mathematical basis for the observation of the fast and the significance of its preceding Sundays, emphasising the rational basis for everything that was done in church worship.2 In his reply, Charlemagne addressed Alcuin as magister and also as abbot. This letter was no less detailed and was probably drafted for the king by one of his advisers at court. Both letters are windows into the intense interest at court and elsewhere that surrounded questions of liturgy and the due computation of sacred time. A further reply of Alcuin’s remains, though not directly to

172

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

this letter, concerning the correct calculation of Easter, challenging some of those around the king, and describing them ironically as ‘Egyptian students in the school of King David.’3 Once again he appealed to Roman practice as the orthodox norm as well as being inherently correct. The royal chapel at Aachen was being built during Alcuin’s lifetime, modelled on San Vitale in Ravenna and filled with marble and other artefacts from there and elsewhere, as befitted the ‘new Rome’ north of the Alps. It was octagonal in shape, similar perhaps to the church of Hagia Sophia, whose building Alcuin had supervised at York. It was a highly symbolic construction from both theological and political angles, ‘living stones held in the bond of peace,’ as it is described in Charlemagne’s own inscription around its rotunda.4 It stood in a tradition going back to Constantine’s baptistery at the Lateran. It may be that for a while Alcuin served there as a matricularius – one of its chaplains, and in one of his letters he may have referred to it as ‘our chapel,’ revealing familiarity with its worship.5 What is more certain is that Charlemagne commissioned Alcuin to produce a prayer book for his personal use, whose preface and shape had a wide circulation long after their respective deaths.6 Its likely contents have been reconstructed using two manuscripts and also a sketchy reference in the Life of Alcuin: ‘he taught Charlemagne which psalms of penance to sing all his life, along with litanies, collects and prayers: which psalms to sing for special occasions – in praise of God, or in tribulation, or in divine worship.’7 In the text that remains Alcuin explained the significance of the sevenfold canonical hours, enabling the king to pray at each of them, using the opening words: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, in your Name I lift up my hands,’8 followed by ‘O God, make speed to save me’ three times;9 then the designated psalm, followed by the Lord’s Prayer and other prayers. It was a compact primer for a busy layman and therein lay its later wider appeal. By asserting the example and practice of the biblical King David as the author and authority behind the Psalms, Alcuin was also trying to mould the king’s own ‘Davidic’ sense of kingship once again. For his preface began with the words Beatus igitur David rex magnus and it was later associated with his book on how to use the Psalms, as well as later books of prayers for semi-private use throughout the ninth century and beyond. It also emulated an abbreviated psalter attributed to Bede,10 and its spiritual antecedents lay in the tradition that created the English prayer-books, with whose material Alcuin was surely familiar, evident now in the Book of Cerne and the Nunnaminster Codex, as well as in the compendium De laude that he produced while he was still at York.11 The prestige of this particular prayerbook for Charlemagne, however, lay in its double association; with Alcuin, as a renowned spiritual father, and also with the king himself, whose reputation for sincere piety was testified to by both his biographers. Its utility lay in its simple but intelligible structure, which served as a model and catalyst for numerous similar productions over the next hundred years. A manuscript containing it, now in the Bodleian library in Oxford, for example, was

Chapter 17 – Cultivating Prayer

173

beautifully produced, perhaps in the Cluniac monastery at Moissac in France in the first part of the eleventh century, testifying to the longevity of this pattern of prayer that Alcuin had initiated and popularised by his original composition for Charlemagne.12 This Moissac volume contains also the famous confession of sins long associated with Alcuin, which began with the words Deus inestimabilis misericordiae.13 Notable too are the brief collects that pick up salient themes in the psalms being used.

Alcuin and the Psalms The Psalms were clearly central to Alcuin’s piety, both as a member of a worshipping monastic community, and as a private person. In the middle ages they were learnt by heart long before they were read, and for many centuries they provided the vocabulary of spiritual expression for those educated and formed within monastic and cathedral communities. It was Alcuin’s achievement to extend this meditative spirituality beyond the confines of such places into the praying life of the educated laity, as well as presumably many of the ordinary clergy: his introduction and also his commentary explaining to how to use the Psalms remain two of his most accessible and relevant writings.14 The Life of Alcuin paints a vivid picture of Alcuin’s own use of the psalms in his prayers at Tours as his life drew towards its close: after citing as entirely apposite to him the words of Psalm 119. 127,15 it spoke of his love of the Psalms since his youth, to the extent that he was ‘saturated’ in them. It was his custom privately to stand with arms outstretched cross-wise, as he had been taught by his master at York, praying the psalms with deep emotion as a contemplative and penitent outpouring of his soul.16 He also taught this practice to his immediate disciples. Elsewhere it speaks of his composing for them a Libellus de ratione orationis. This was identified wrongly with a ninth-century compilation, called De psalmorum usu liber, that was probably put together at the Italian monastery of Nonantola, but prefaced with Alcuin’s own brief introduction to the use of the Psalms and so later attributed to him in one of the late ninth-century manuscripts.17 By the time the works of Alcuin came to be printed his introduction was hitched to another comparable compilation called Officia per ferias.18 This was probably compiled in western France by disciples of Alcuin shortly after his death though it contains some of his genuine writings.19 Alcuin’s own introduction was well known, however, being cited in the almost contemporary Liber manualis by the noble woman Dhouda; and so it became the authority behind a whole devotional development in the use of the psalms. It can be found incorporated in over 200 manuscripts from across the Middle Ages and it set a pattern for approaching and using the psalms christologically in a way that made them more readily the key to understanding the Old Testament. After citing words of Gregory the Great from his commentary on Ezekiel about the nature of the spirit of prophecy, Alcuin went on to open a window into his own heart and soul:

174

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

For the voice of psalmody, when aroused by the pure intention of the heart, becomes the means whereby the heart is again prepared by Almighty God, and filled with either an intent mind, or prophetic mysteries, or the grace of compunction. . . . By this sacrifice of praise comes the revealing of the way to Jesus: for when through psalmody compunction is poured into the heart, the way is open within us by which we may come to him. For it is indeed fitting that as the mind grows strong in its awareness of all things, it should cleanse itself, and join itself to divine praises and spiritual realities, so that the things of heaven may be revealed to it. Nothing else in this mortal life can enable us to draw near to the presence of God than to abide in His praise. Nothing therefore, neither word nor intellect, can explain to us the power of the psalms, except insofar as we avoid their superficial expression while we sing the praise of Almighty God with an intent mind. For in the psalms may be found, if approached with an intent mind and spiritual understanding, the incarnation of the Lord the Word, his passion, resurrection and ascension.20 With intent mind you may thus discover a secret prayer that you could not devise for yourself. In the Psalms you will find an intimate way of confessing your sins, and a sincere mode of prayer for the divine mercy of the Lord. You may perceive through them the hidden work of divine grace in everything that happens to you. In the psalms you may confess your weakness and wretchedness, and thereby draw to yourself the mercy of God: for you will find all manner of virtues in the psalms, if you merit from God the revelation of their secrets.21 Along with a letter of reply to Arno of Salzburg, written in 802, Alcuin sent a manualis libellus by the hand of his friend and disciple Fredegisus, which contained his commentaries on the penitential psalms, Psalm 119 and the psalms of ascent.22 It also contained an abbreviated psalter attributed to Bede and one of his hymns, Alcuin’s own tract on confession for the boys at St Martin’s in Tours, and some other hymns and prayers.23 The most substantial of Alcuin’s work on the Psalms, mentioned also in the Life of Alcuin as Ad Fredegisum in psalmis, still remains, along with his prefatory letter to Arno.24 These texts appear to have been deliberately grouped together by him. His letter to Arno also reveals his interest in the numerological significance of the Psalms, mindful too of the alphabetical construction and significance of Psalm 119 in Hebrew.25 This letter has a very different orientation to the heartfelt spiritual appeal of his preface, however. It was more an intellectual ‘heart-to-heart’ between two old friends of considerable theological expertise and stature. It concluded with an elegant poem of tribute to his distant companion, whom he described as a ‘father, pastor, patriarch and priest.’ What is interesting about Alcuin’s actual commentary on the psalms is its brevity, deliberately mirroring the succinct nature of the psalms themselves.

Chapter 17 – Cultivating Prayer

175

This was a book to assist meditation by both heart and intellect, to deepen prayer, to enable lectio divina and not to distract. His comments focus on illuminating the suffering of Christ, the costly discipleship of his apostles, and the inner nature of the Church. Some of the comments take the form of brief collects in response to the spiritual association of a particular text: It is clear, Lord Jesus, that the Father raised you from death on the third day and placed you at his right hand in the heavens above all powers and principalities, giving you the Name that is above every name: because the battles in your flesh were so grave, O Lord, may you therefore come to our aid and be our salvation in our times of tribulation. This whole commentary on the psalms brings the heart of Alcuin’s own spiritual experience very close, distilled over many years of prayer, teaching and Christian ministry. It represents a mature dialogue with texts long absorbed and vindicated by painful experience. His words constituted a moral and spiritual self-examination in the light of the Word of God now made intelligible through the life and sufferings of Christ and his saints. Alcuin’s was a deeply contemplative but informed approach, tempered by compunction, deep knowledge and rumination on the text of the Bible. By entrusting this compendium to his friend Arno as his life drew towards its close, it represented in some ways Alcuin’s last will and testament from a spiritual point of view. Thus, for example, Alcuin commented on the opening words of Psalm 127 – ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it’, in the light of his own experience of defending Christian faith against heresy and his confidence in Christ as the Head of the Church: ‘Unless the Lord builds the Church without spot or wrinkle a preacher labours completely in vain. Who are those who labour in vain except the heretics, who seek to gather together a church, but without its Lord? Their work is indeed futile. Whereas a faithful people is built up whose guardian is our Lord Jesus Christ, who builds, preserves, protects and repays. He alone is in all things the true builder and protector. Thus it says in the next verse: ‘Unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.’ For this city, as is so often sung in the psalms of ascent, is indeed ‘the spiritual Jerusalem.’

Libelli Precum Alcuin’s approach to the Psalms also stimulated a rich tradition of private prayer, using collects that were often deeply personal but at the same time distillations of doctrine, rich in biblical resonance and liturgical association.26 His memory and spiritual authority enabled a rich flowering of prayer in the ninth century on both sides of the Channel, as may be discerned in the Libelli Precum, and in the way in which prayers associated with him or his disciples found their way back into English prayer-books as well.27 Wilmart identified four key manuscripts, all emanating from Tours at the time of Alcuin or shortly afterwards.28 One of these seems to have been

176

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

written while he was Abbot of St Martin’s, being closely associated in the manuscript with his treatise on lay morality, De Virtutibus et Vitiis.29 These manuscripts generally comprised the seven penitential psalms and various forms of confession, including the one attributed to Alcuin, Deus inestimabilis misericordiae.30 Their tone was deeply reflective and penitential, with prayers that referred to regular confession to a priest, something that Alcuin certainly commended strongly elsewhere as vital to Christian life.31 It was his particular genius as a monastic deacon, rather than as a priest or bishop, to be able to come alongside the spiritual needs of the devout lay-person as a fellow-penitent. To this end he indicated psalms for use each day of the week with titles indicating their devotional and moral intent. Each psalm concluded with a collect. The books also contained daily litanies to the saints, hymns, prayers attributed to the Fathers, the Te Deum and the Benedicite.32 This was private prayer in tandem with liturgical prayer, not apart from it: it was material that could be used communally as well as individually, even though its format was that of an enchiridion.33 Alcuin’s role here, as elsewhere, was as a learned compiler and experienced practitioner rather than strictly an author: a spiritual authority whose own example of practice and pastoral sympathy, lay behind a pattern of prayer that clearly spoke directly and for a long time to the needs of the age. True to the eclectic English tradition represented in the Book of Cerne, the Nunnaminster Codex and other related prayer books of that period, his aim was to connect the prayer of the present with that of the past, and to instil a strong sense of patristic tradition as well as familiarity with the Bible, particularly the gospels and the Psalms.34 What is notable about these collects in particular is their Roman provenance or style, their penitential element, and their connection to some aspect of Christian doctrine within the life of the Church: they are rich epitomes of theology as prose poetry. They are also profoundly personal in their feeling. The more elaborate forms of confession, often listing sins and associating them with parts of the body, probably reflected Irish influence, being more affective in their impact upon the conscience.35 Thus the form of confession Deus inestimabilis misericordiae attributed to Alcuin fell within this tradition, regarding sin as an illness of the soul and seeking the healing art of the Saviour. Particularly striking are his prayers to the Holy Spirit, devotion to whom was close to Alcuin’s heart, as may be seen in his votive order for the Mass of the Holy Spirit. As an example of the full scope of this ninth-century tradition of prayer, the Offica per Ferias remains as a remarkable early ninth-century compendium closely associated with Alcuin and his circle by his contemporaries and successors.36 It contains prayers written by him along with his hymn Miserere, Domine, Miserere his confession composed for Charlemagne, Confessio peccatorum pura, and his poem Qui placido in puppi.37 Another work later attributed to Alcuin, De Divinis Officiis, sheds further light on the rich spiritual tradition sustained in the ninth-century Frankish church that flowed from Alcuin’s teaching, exerting an influence on the spirituality of Peter Damian in the eleventh century while

Chapter 17 – Cultivating Prayer

177

he was still Abbot of Fontavellana.38 This addressed the spiritual meaning of the Church’s liturgy and customs, having its roots perhaps in works such as the treatise Expositio super Missam, of which the Worcester manuscript De Officio Missae in the Bodleian library at Oxford is a fine early example, being copied in an elegant Irish hand in England, perhaps at Worcester, during or shortly after the time of Alcuin.39 Alcuin therefore ranks with Anselm as a seminal influence upon early medieval prayer in England and on the continent during the three centuries that lay between them.

The Trinity and the Cross Another very interesting influence exerted by Alcuin was upon devotion to the Trinity and to the Cross. At the end of his great treatise De Fide,40 Alcuin appended a lengthy poem in praise of the Trinity, which drew elements from Augustine’s Soliloquies.41 It found its way into later compilations associated with the Alcuinian tradition, notably the Libellus sacrarum precum.42 Alcuin conflated material from three hymns by Victorinus, to whom he also turned in the composition of De Fide,43 tightening and clarifying the theology in places in a more firmly Augustinian direction. He did the same thing with his poem Miserere.44 In later prayer-books both poetic prayers were expanded by others, cast in the form of litanies. Alcuin’s deliberate and skilful conflation of Victorinus and Augustine left its mark on later theology and liturgy, for example at the beginning of the Confessio Fidei of John of Fécamp, ensuring that some of the distinctive language of Victorinus remained current in the language of medieval prayer and in the later office of the Trinity. The hymn Adesto is a remarkable example of Alcuin’s capacity as a poet of prayer, giving wings to the words of others, but in a new mode: Be present, O true Light, the Father, who is God Almighty. Be present, O Light from Light, Word and Son of God. Be present, Holy Spirit, bond of union between the Father and Son. Be present, One Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Teach us faith, awaken hope, and fill us with love. Give me the purity that comes from you, and cannot come from me, That I may forsake earth and seek heaven. You are love, grace and communion: For God is love, Christ is grace, and the Holy Spirit is communion: Begetter, Begotten and Regenerator – O blessed Trinity. The true Light, true Light from true Light, the Illuminator; The fountain, the river, and the refreshing stream: All things are from one, through one, and in one – O blessed Trinity. From whom, through whom and in whom are all things: Living Life, Life from the Living One, Life-giver to the living.

178

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

One in Himself, One from the One, and One from both – O blessed Trinity. Increase in us faith, enlarge our hope, and expand our hearts in love – O blessed Trinity.45 Alcuin’s devotion to the Cross was part of a long tradition in England and on the continent, which took fresh expression and urgency during the Carolingian period, influenced in part by the pressures of the Iconoclast and Adoptionist controversies. His famous poem on this theme was composed for Charlemagne as early as 780.46 It was an acrostic poem, where the very structure represented visually the theme of the Cross. As a mode of writing this type of poetry had a long history, in the Church as well as in late antiquity, being used now however as a subtle instrument combining theology with adulation of Charlemagne: for others at court vied with Alcuin and each other in reviving this style of poetry at that time.47 The framing lines, which form both a diamond and a square, asserted the victory of the Cross in language redolent of the English poem The Dream of the Rood. Alcuin portrayed Christ in the body of the poem as king, victor and shepherd. The whole poem is rich in vivid imagery as these framing lines reveal: O Cross, glory of the world, hallowed by the blood of Jesus. Receive, exalted one, this reddened diadem. Holy Cross, true salvation of the entire globe. Beloved Cross, Christ reigns – receive your crown. Hail, holy ruddy Cross – you have broken the chains of the world: Miracles now shine forth, revealed anew for the salvation of the world. Arise, for generations will be washed clean in the font of your faith. The Ruler has healed the pagans throughout the globe by your sign. Devotion to the Cross runs like a golden thread throughout Alcuin’s many writings and letters. It was central to his belief and his theology, and he was eloquent in expressing both.48 For him the Cross was the paramount symbol of Easter, the place where suffering and victorious love met in the overthrowing of evil and the healing of human sin by the blood of Christ. It was also the moment of ultimate revelation and the harbinger of imminent divine judgement, as he concluded in his profession of faith that comes at the very end of De Fide:49 Christ will come thence to judge the living and the dead, whom the impious will see judging them in the form in which he was crucified; not however in his humiliation, in which he was condemned unjustly, but in that glory by which he will justly judge the world: whereas the eternal vision of all the saints will be of his majesty, which will be their glory and beatitude. Following Augustine and the evangelist John, both of whom Alcuin had studied minutely over many years, he took to heart the profound insight of the fourth gospel that the glory of Jesus is seen most fully in his being uplifted on the Cross; and that his condemnation is itself the divine condemnation of those who perpetrated his suffering and death.50 In a title for an altar, Alcuin

Chapter 17 – Cultivating Prayer

179

wrote of Christ as ‘the life of the world hanging on the Cross, dying for the world, washing away all sins by the tide of his blood, whose head drooped while the world reached for the stars, the wonder of the ages, whose death was in fact life, the Lamb of God who led his people through the sea, far away forever from their enemy.’51 Tradition associated the hours of Terce, Sext and None with decisive moments in the Lord’s passion, and prayers remain attributed to Alcuin for each of these hours of the day.52 The art of the period reflects this theological preoccupation too, notably the Gellone Sacramentary, which was created in the closing decade of the eighth century in the milieu of Hildoard of Cambrai, and used by Benedict of Aniane: its image of the crucifixion is striking for its juxtaposition of glory and suffering, victory and self-surrender.53 Inscribed as the initial letter of the phrase Te igitur in the canon of the mass, it demonstrated the intimate association between the cup of the Eucharist and the blood of Calvary, the moment of life-giving death and of divine glory. Its closest known parallel of that period is in the church of St Maria Antiqua in Rome; in both portrayals the saving death of Jesus was witnessed only by angels, which was most unusual, but perhaps indicating that the moment of Christ’s death was also the moment of resurrection, an event and a divine mystery nowhere described in the gospels, a moment of divine re-creation ex nihilo witnessed only by the angels. In a manner that rebutted the Adoptionists and Iconoclasts, Christ in his two natures was truly the sole mediator between God and humanity, alone to be worshipped and adored: for all in him was from God. The Cross was the unique symbol of this divine-human reality in its saving power. Alcuin distilled the theology that he had received, and in which he so deeply believed, in the elegant language of his votive mass De Sancta Cruce.54 It comprised five elements: the collect, the offertory prayer, the proper preface within the canon, the post-communion prayer, and a final blessing prayer to be said over the people: O God, who willed to hallow the standard of the life-giving Cross by the precious blood of your only-begotten Son: grant, we beg you, to those who rejoice in honour of the same holy Cross, also to rejoice everywhere in your protection. May this offering purge us from all our offences, O Lord, who bore the offences of the whole world upon the altar of the Cross. You achieved the salvation of the human race upon the wood of the Cross: so that whence death arose there life might resurge, and so that he who conquered by a tree might also be conquered by a tree through Christ our Lord . . . Be present, O Lord our God, and defend with your perpetual assistance those whom you cause to rejoice in honour of the most holy Cross. O God, who dedicated the joys of this festival for us today in radiant honour of the saving Cross, grant also that we may always be armed with the protection of this life-giving sign from all our adversaries.

Chapter 18 Penitence Alcuin’s distinctive teaching about the nature and importance of penitence in Christianity and the proper use of confession and penance sprang in large measure from his own deep awareness of the Cross and its meaning, and of the nature of human sinfulness, not least in himself. It must also reflect his personal spiritual formation at York. This was evident also in the tone of his epitaph, which drew a sharp contrast between his earthly prosperity and the humiliation of his burial. It sought the prayers of any who chanced upon his tomb, to seek Christ’s mercy for his unworthy servant before the great Judge of all.1 Towards the end of his life, Alcuin was much exercised by whether he would be acceptable to God, and on one occasion he addressed these private words to his close friend Benedict of Aniane: ‘I ask this of Christ: grant me to know my sins and to make a true confession and a worthy penance; and grant me remission of all my sins.’2 To which Benedict said, ‘Let us add one more line to this prayer: “and after remission, save me.”’ Alcuin replied, ‘May it be so, most reverend son, may it be so.’ Then venerating the Cross, he said, ‘We adore your Cross, O Lord, and honour your glorious passion. Have mercy upon us, you who suffered for us.’ ‘The true value of the writings of Alcuin [on the subject of penitence] resides in the fact that they emerged from his own spiritual experience. . . . Alcuin comes across as someone who gave central place to penitence in his spirituality.’3 This path of repentance, supported by sacramental confession to a priest and sincere penitence, may be tracked through all his writings, from his letters to the popes, his advice to pastors, lay men and women, and to his pupils. It is equally evident in his commentaries on Scripture, most notably on the psalms, as well as the form of confession associated with him which he composed for Charlemagne, Deus inestimabilis misericordiae, his penitential hymn Miserere, Domine, Miserere and some of his other poems. His revised hagiographies of the missionary saints also highlighted their role in administering penance and absolution, their moral authority, and their impact in strengthening the inner spiritual integrity and life of the Church, both lay and clerical. Two specific works on penitence in particular distilled Alcuin’s teaching and were copied extensively throughout the middle ages: his Liber de virtutibus et vitiis4 and his De confessio peccatorum,5 both of which have important accompanying

Chapter 18 – Penitence

181

letters. In addition to these was a very specific letter to monks in Septimania challenging those who sat light to the need for full sacramental confession to a priest.6 Taken along with Alcuin’s careful exposition of the penitential psalms in particular and the rest of his exegetical writing, this corpus of material exercised a profound influence on the whole way in which penitential life was pursued and understood after Alcuin’s death, in the ninth century and beyond. Careful analysis of the biblical foundations of his teaching in all these particular texts reveals his heavy reliance upon the Psalms and the gospels, supported by select references to Isaiah, as well as to the teaching of Paul.7 Alcuin’s posthumous influence was probably evident in the capitula of the Carolingian councils of 813 dealing with penitential discipline, and also in the writings of his disciples, for example Hrabanus Maur. For Alcuin’s compositions, whether letters or fuller treatises, were intended for audiences beyond their immediate recipients, as may be seen for example in a manuscript now in Paris dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries, which contains in a small manual mostly of these specific works, bound up together for easy reference.8 It is striking that there are still over 150 manuscripts of De virtutibus et vitiis remaining from every century of the Middle Ages up to the Reformation. The fifteen manuscripts of De confessione peccatorum tend to originate from the ninth and tenth centuries, however, having circulated it would seem either as an independent letter or as part of a libellus of kindred works by Alcuin.9 His teaching left its mark too on many of the prayers in the ninth century libelli precum which have already been discussed. The constant emphasis running through all his teaching, and that which flowed from it was his insistence on the need for complete sincerity in confession and in acts of penitence alike.10 Here clearly his personal example was of decisive importance. For Alcuin, confession was not so much a sacramentum, a word he rarely used, but rather a way of lifelong metanoia or repentance in response to the divine mystery revealed in the humility, love and suffering of Christ. Alcuin’s penitential hymn Miserere, Domine, Miserere is most commonly found appended to his treatise De animae ratione, written for Gundrada, nicknamed Eulalia, the sister of Adalhard, Abbot of Corbie, and a cousin of Charlemagne, written sometime between 801 and Alcuin’s death in 804.11 So popular was this work addressed to a lay-woman that it was extensively copied throughout the Middle Ages.12 The influence of Alcuin’s hymn may also be measured by the fact that it was copied independently and developed further, as may be seen in the three ninth-century prayer collections already discussed, De psalmorum usu, Officia per ferias and Libelli sacrarum precum.13 Alcuin’s hymn takes the form of a rhythmic litany, modelled on one by Victorinus at the end of his treatise Adversus Arium. Alcuin also drew from this work for his hymn Adesto.14 Both hymns have an affinity with passages in Augustine’s Soliloquies. In the Libelli precum, generated at Tours during and shortly after Alcuin’s lifetime, the Miserere may be found already being developed further.15 Its earliest form encapsulates very well the spirit of Alcuin’s approach to penitential prayer:

182

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Have mercy, Lord – have mercy, Christ. You who are my mercy – have mercy upon me. Have mercy, Lord – have mercy, Christ: That I may believe in you; That I may know you; That I may love you; That I may hope in you; That my soul may live in you; That my flesh may rejoice in you; That my life may progress in you; Have mercy, Lord God the Father, my glory and my life. Have mercy, Christ the Saviour, my salvation and my strength. Have mercy, Holy Spirit the Paraclete, my consolation and my light. Have mercy, Lord God the Trinity in Unity. I praise you, I adore you, and I confess you: My peace, my hope, my praise, my light; My beauty and my blessedness. To you be praise and glory, To you be thanksgiving, always and forever and unto the eternal ages. In the Latin original, each of the middle suffrages is prefaced by the rhythmic phrase ‘Have mercy, Lord – have mercy, Christ.’ This was a prayer for meditation, either out loud or sotto voce; it also had a mnemonic character, inscribing itself upon the memory, and acting as a framework for praying and meditating within the communion of God the Holy Trinity. The sequence ‘My peace, my hope, my praise, my light’ is one that sometimes appears with variations at the end of some of Alcuin’s letters as a form of benediction. There are also significant parallels with the closing part of his hymn Adesto. Its debt as a hymn to Victorinus is limited to its beginning and conception; but the passage of Augustine drawn from the Soliloquies was clearly a favourite one that Alcuin had long taken to heart. It too concluded with the invocation ‘my salvation, my light, and my life.’16 Once again Alcuin was in creative dialogue with his patristic sources, speaking from his heart as well as from the depths of a firmly grasped Trinitarian theology. By contrast, Alcuin’s form of confession, composed initially for Charlemagne’s use,17 was of very different character, reflecting the Irish ascetic element in his own Northumbrian upbringing and spiritual formation. Beginning with the words Deus inestimabilis misericordiae, it bore the title Confessio peccatorum pura Alcuini.18 It was a measured adaptation of an ancient Irish Lorica – a prayer of protection for each part of the body, and it found its way also into the ninth-century collections of prayers Officia per ferias, Libelli precum sacrarum and some of the other Libelli Precum.19 It was certainly included in the libellus manualis that Alcuin sent in 802 to Arno of Salzburg.20 Alcuin’s prayer of confession was a mirror for the conscience. It addressed God as ‘of inestimable mercy and immense devotion, the Creator and re-

Chapter 18 – Penitence

183

creator of humanity, who purifies the hearts of those who confess to Him, and absolves from all their chains of iniquity those who accuse themselves before the face of His divine clemency.’ Alcuin sought not only to make a clean breast of his sins but to achieve a worthy penance as well, seeking divine healing for each part of his body and soul. He approached God as the great Healer, regarding the consequences of his sins as an inner disease with many sad symptoms. ‘But you, Lord, know all hidden things and have said that you prefer the repentance of sinners rather than their death – to you therefore I will reveal all the secrets of my heart.’ He prayed for the gift of tears, both of repentance and of compunction, seeking redemption within the Church as the Body of Christ, placing his trust only in divine mercy, and asking for admission to the sacrament of reconciliation. The treatise De virtutibus and vitiis was perhaps one of the most important that Alcuin ever wrote for a lay audience.21 It was written towards the end of his life to make Christian moral theology more accessible and intelligible, probably between 800 and 804, and it was intended for Wido, Count of Nantes and prefect of the Breton march, to whom Alcuin wrote two letters as top and tail of the book. It comprises 35 discreet chapters, setting out the various virtues and vices, the eight deadly sins and the four cardinal virtues: it is also a rich biblical reference book. Thirteen of these chapters distil material from the sermons of Augustine. Elsewhere the influence of a variety of Fathers is evident. Parts of the book were copied by the next generation of Carolingian theologians, Hrabanus Maur, Jonas of Orleans and Halitgar of Cambrai; in the tenth century it was translated into Anglo-Saxon.22 Among these distillations of Augustine are two particular chapters entitled ‘On Confession’ and ‘On Penitence’.23 They contain the core of Alcuin’s penitential teaching. Sacramental confession is again described here by Alcuin in terms of medicine for the soul. ‘Scripture often exhorts us to flee to the medicine of confession, not because God needs our confession, for to Him all things that we think or speak or do are present. It is that we cannot be saved unless we as penitents confess what we have done wrong through our negligence. The person who accuses himself of his sins will not have the devil accuse him again on the day of judgement, so long as having confessed with repentance his misdeeds, he does not renew once again what he has done wrong.’ Alcuin then listed a catena of biblical passages in support of making a full confession of sins.24 He emphasised the urgency of repentance while still in this world: for there could be no repentance in the next, only the perpetual torment of conscience and remorse. There was no point in hiding sins that would only come back to haunt a person: better to be judged in this life than condemned on the last day. ‘Confession is a work of mercy: health thus returns to the sick person, providing a medicine for our sins through penitence.’ Alcuin approached penitence similarly, citing the teaching of Jesus and of John the Baptist, as well as various Old Testament injunctions.25 Penitence was a form of washing and was measured not by its longevity but

184

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

by sincerity and bitterness of heart. Peter’s remorse was so profound that he was reconciled to Christ immediately. God alone can see the secrets of the heart, requiring not a lengthy penance but sincerity; for ‘a person only confided whole-heartedly in Christ when he died to his sins and by his faith lived eternally’. Alcuin cited the authority of Jesus who proclaimed himself to be the resurrection and the life: ‘for he spoke of the death of the soul.’ 26 God’s express desire was that all should be saved and none perish.27 ‘For whoever as a sinner and wicked is converted through penitence should not doubt that it is possible to receive forgiveness through the mercy of God.’ In the next chapter Alcuin continued to urge the need for conversion, the choice of life rather than death.’ Do not desire to perish, but return to God and live. Do not despair of forgiveness for your sins, nor trust in a long life: change therefore and do penance.’ Teasing his hearers for their procrastination, he pointed out that the word cras! (i.e. ‘tomorrow’), endlessly repeated, sounded like crows crowing; but it was not a crow that returned to the ark of Noah, only a dove. In many ways the rest of the book was a manual of practical repentance. What this whole treatise reveals is Alcuin’s fair-mindedness and candour, his ability to speak directly to his lay audience in a language that was essentially practical and encouraging, coming alongside them. Honesty rather than fear was his guiding principle, reflecting once again the spiritual tradition in which he had been formed in England. Nonetheless Alcuin was adamant that confession to a priest was a necessary, if costly, part of penitence. He was not content with merely private or generalised prayers of confession. In two letters to monks in Septimania on the borders of Spain, he wrote about this matter. In the first letter, probably written in either 797 or 798, he associated the reluctance of the laity to confess to a priest with the influence of heretics in Spain.28 This was at the height of the Adoptionist controversy about which he had already addressed them in another letter.29 What was the meaning of the power to bind and loose, given by Christ to his Church, if not to break the chains of sin? Yet the work of medicine is frustrated if wounds are concealed. ‘If the injuries of the fleshly body await the hands of the doctor, how much more should the wounds of the soul be laid before a physician of the soul?’ The cleansed leper in the gospels had to report to the priests; others were bidden to unfasten the bands of Lazarus. Why did the Lord ask the blind man in John’s gospel what he actually wanted? ‘It seems to be a form of pride to despise the spiritual judgement of a priest.’ To quote words from the Psalms about how good it is to confess to the Lord, however, is to confuse the double meaning of the word ‘confess’ in the Bible, for its primary meaning is to praise God. ‘Do you think that by your prayers [i.e. of confession as a sinner] you will please God?’ This letter was a carefully worked and very full exposition of the theology of confession and penance, which served as a second baptism to wash away sins. In both sacraments the priests played a crucial and indispensable role on behalf of the Church and Christ as its Lord. In a very interesting piece of exegesis in this context, Alcuin interpreted

Chapter 18 – Penitence

185

the three acts of resurrection by Christ recorded in the different gospel traditions – of Jairus’ daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus.30 ‘What are these three deaths if not three types of sinners, each of whom had to be revived by divine grace?’ The daughter who was raised to life while still in her home represented those rescued while still considering sin in their hearts. The youth outside the city gate represented those who flee to the medicine of penitence while out and about committing sin. The decaying corpse of Lazarus represented those who could only be rescued from their sins with great difficulty and many tears, being liberated by the authority and holiness of the Church, and restored to communion with their Lord. In this matter, therefore, ‘let us therefore follow once again in the footsteps of the Fathers.’ Alcuin’s most notable writing about the need for confession and penitence was one that revealed also his deep devotion to those who would become his pupils at Tours: his De confessione peccatorum ad pueros Sancti Martini.31 It was actually written before he became Abbot of Tours and reveals his close connection with the monastery there in the first half of the final decade of the eighth century. Alcuin mentioned it in a letter to Arno and sent a copy of it to him in 802 at his request as part of his libellus manualis.32 As a result it had a very wide circulation and influence after Alcuin’s death. It was cast in the form of a letter addressed to the young, though of course it was also intended for a wider and more adult audience. It reveals Alcuin’s pastoral skill and sympathy as well as his affinity with the young, which made him such an effective and well-loved teacher. It was also brief, practical and entirely positive and encouraging in its tone: God was made man for you; and, so that he might redeem you, he delivered himself up to death, so that you might be saved and given life. Why should you therefore cast yourself into the death of sin? Arise, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned before heaven.”33 Take upon yourself the faithful testimony of your own repentance. You like to wear clean clothes: why do you not seek even more to have a clean soul? You do not wish to appear dirty in front of other people: why do you not fear all the more to appear defiled by your sins in the sight of God? Wash yourself in the fountain of your tears, lest in anything you offend the eyes of His majesty. Who, I ask you, when he falls does not seek immediately to get up? Who, sensing danger, does not choose to evade it? You will repent later of your present delay, if you do not think now about what will benefit the salvation of your soul. Consider carefully the meaning of our Lord’s devotion when he says, “I came to call sinners and not the self-righteous to repentance.”34 The Lord calls sinners to penitence, for he would rather save than condemn them. He prefers that we rejoice with the saints than be punished with the devil. He calls us himself and through the Holy Scriptures. He also calls us through the holy teachers of the Catholic Church, so that we should return to him who is prepared to welcome us, if only we are not reluctant to come to him.35

Chapter 19 Liturgy Reform of the liturgy lay at the heart of Carolingian policy, partly to ensure some measure of intelligent uniformity, partly to reinforce the majesty of the dynasty, and partly to assert a self-conscious identity as heirs to Christian Romanitas. In this enterprise, sustained over several generations, churchmen, reformers and rulers had a common interest. Thus in the Admonitio Generalis, Charlemagne looked back to the liturgical initiatives of his father, Pippin.1 In the Libri Carolini there was a long defence of royal policy in this area.2 Meanwhile ‘Rome was seen as the treasure-house of unsullied tradition.’3 Revitalisation of the liturgy involved standardising also its musical traditions. This was crucial for effective memorisation over time and also as a subtle instrument to achieve uniformity in a society where educated memory had such a dominant role. Music was one means of rooting a sense of Christian identity and discipline deep in a people and their clergy.4 This had happened in England long before, for example, with the arrival of the John, the arch-precentor of St Peter’s, invited by Benedict Biscop to ‘teach the monks of his monastery [and Bede’s] the mode of chanting throughout the year as it was practised at St Peter’s in Rome.’ His writings were preserved into Bede’s time and used for copying far and wide. John’s own work of musical teaching led him elsewhere to other monasteries in England. On his way back to Rome he died and was buried at Tours, rather appropriately as he was the abbot of a monastery that was dedicated to St Martin just behind St Peter’s in Rome.5 In Bede’s History, musical uniformity was conjoined to orthodoxy: for John was also the pope’s emissary, sent to ascertain the Catholic faith of the English church in the face of the Monothelite controversy. Alcuin was therefore formed in a well-established liturgical and musical tradition that had its conscious tap-root in Roman practice; and he alluded to this in his York poem. A musical dimension therefore lies behind all his writing about the Psalms as well as the liturgy, and the Life of Alcuin asserted that he wrote a book about music which is now sadly lost. 6 Like Augustine before him, Alcuin’s sensitivity to music was likely to have been an important element in his perception of theology as well as in his participation in the life of prayer. Perhaps it was Alcuin’s prowess as a liturgist that first attracted him to Charlemagne’s attention, because one of the earliest of his known continental

Chapter 19 – Liturgy

187

works was his Comes, a revised epistolary that contained the prophetic readings and epistles for the mass, though not the gospels, for an entire cycle of 216 celebrations, the Temporale as well as the Sanctorale.7 It was attributed to Alcuin quite precisely by Helisachar, the chancellor of Charlemagne’s son and successor Louis the Pious, who described Alcuin as ‘the most learned of men’.8 It was also mentioned in an inventory of books at the monastery of St Riquier, composed in 831.9 Essentially Alcuin was working with a system of readings drawn up in Rome in the early part of the seventh century during the time of Pope Honorius and unaltered since the accession of Pope Gregory II in 715. Alcuin’s revision must have occurred during the period between his arrival at Charlemagne’s court around 780 and the advent of the sacramentary sent by Pope Hadrian I at the king’s request in 785, the famous Hadrianum, by which previous and subsequent Frankish sacramentaries would be measured.10 Alcuin’s work was therefore conservative in its intention, and compared with the Hadrianum some of its features were archaic. Nonetheless it bore a few hall-marks of his own innovation, notably the insertion of a vigil for the feast of St Martin of Tours, and provision for the celebration of the feast of All Saints. Alcuin may also have been responsible for extending the vigil of the Ascension with a lengthened litany, and for marking the beheading of John the Baptist on 29 August. Alcuin’s role in popularising the feast of All Saints on the continent was significant. The Life of Alcuin also mentions a two-volume homiliary, compiled from lengthy extracts of the Church Fathers, which was described as being bound in one codex in the library inventory of Fulda in the ninth century. Despite the best efforts of various scholars its identity remains obscure, however, and it is almost certainly lost.11 For many years it was thought that Alcuin was directly responsible for the augmentation of the Hadrianum that proved necessary if it were to become usable as well as normative within the Carolingian church.12 Careful research has elucidated a complicated skein of liturgical traditions and reforms, within which Alcuin played his part, but which came to completion in the work of his close friend, Benedict of Aniane, who it appears was the author of the Supplement and its preface beginning with the word Hucusque.13 Sometime fairly early in his reign, Charlemagne asked Pope Hadrian I to send him an accurate papal sacramentary that would have the immediate authority of Gregory the Great. His emissary was Paul the Deacon. This insistence in itself probably reflected the Rome-ward influence of Boniface and other English missionaries upon the reforming zeal within the Frankish church and monarchy. After some delay, the pope replied with a letter in 784/5, sent by the hand of abbot John of Ravenna, along with a sacramentary that represented the forms of prayer at mass which the pope himself used at the Lateran and at the stational masses throughout the city of Rome.14 It arrived sometime in 785-6 and was regarded as an archetype for reference, being placed in the library of the royal palace at Aachen, so that subsequent copies all carried a title indicating their authenticity in relation to it.15 It now survives in the careful copy made

188

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

by Hildoard of Cambrai and also in two imperfect copies from Verona. For practical purposes, however, it left many liturgical gaps, which Alcuin and others set to work to remedy. Its arrival from Rome was clearly a catalyst for wideranging reform of the order for the mass and other services.16 The reformers had an earlier version of a papal mass-book to work from, however, and this guided their corrections. The supplement that now remains to the Hadrianum was thus compiled by Benedict of Aniane, initially in close collaboration with Alcuin himself, but also with Arno of Salzburg; it was probably completed between 810-5.17 The revival of Benedictine monasticism and the renewal of the liturgy flourished together under the Benedict’s leadership.18 His preface to the Supplement, beginning with the word Hucusque, was an important statement of the principles governing Carolingian liturgical reform at that time.19 Benedict believed the Hadrianum to be essentially the work of Gregory the Great, but interpolated with later errors and not entirely complete. He marked with an obelisk those elements of whose original authenticity he was unsure. He was also unclear about the precise role that the pope played liturgically in Rome. Benedict did not apologise, however, for supplementing the Roman text with other material from various sources, which together constituted the new Supplement, heralded by its preface. He was fully aware of the liturgical conservatism that confronts any such reform, hoping nonetheless that people would find within it ‘prayers dear and familiar’ for their use: ‘We have collected many items from many authors in order to serve the needs of all.’ This was the principle that he also applied to his collection of monastic writings. At every turn, like Alcuin before him, Benedict did not hesitate to correct faulty Latin, enjoining care on all subsequent copyists. He included four of Alcuin’s own votive masses in the midst of many others, and his intention was to provide a prayer-book that would serve the wider pastoral needs of the Church beyond the mass itself, including feasts well-beloved by the Franks. This enhanced version of the Hadrianum proved the backbone of Catholic worship in Europe for many centuries. Alcuin’s own contribution to this reform of the liturgy was no less important and his influence on his younger friend, Benedict of Aniane, was evidently profound. In many ways Benedict took up where Alcuin left off, and his work was connected also to his energetic renewal of Benedictine monastic life. Alcuin’s own reforms at Tours shed light on the process behind and contributing to Benedict’s work. Careful research by Deshusses and others has established that Alcuin in 797-8 reformed the usage at the monastery of St Martin at Tours, of which he was now the abbot, using a Gregorian Sacramentary that antedated the Hadrianum, merging it with the older Gallican rites that were in use at Tours already. His was therefore essentially a conservative reform. Shortly afterwards in 799-800 he replaced it with another version, derived in part from the first version, but using an eighth-century Gelasian sacramentary along with various novel features including his own compositions. A copy of this second book found its way into the library at St Riquier, probably via Angilbert its abbot

Chapter 19 – Liturgy

189

who was Alcuin’s close friend, where in 831 it was described as a ‘Gregorian and Gelasian missal organised by Alcuin in recent times.’20 This is the version in which Alcuin included the orders for the mass that he composed and described partially in two letters to the monastic communities of St Vedast at Arras and at Boniface’s monastery at Fulda.21 These votive masses passed into the usage of the wider Church and are found in many subsequent manuscripts. Arno of Salzburg included some of them in his own revised missal, including a special mass composed by Alcuin in honour of the patron of Salzburg cathedral, St Rupert.22 It is evident also that Alcuin passed to Arno and Benedict copies of the earlier papal sacramentary which guided Benedict in his analysis of the Hadrianum.23 He may well have obtained this from York which he knew was well stocked with such books, as his letter to the Archbishop of York in 801 revealed.24 In return when Alcuin composed his second sacramentary for Tours, he used the corrected version of the Hadrianum prepared by Benedict: their collaboration was indeed very close.25 So although Alcuin was not the author of the Supplement as it finally appeared, it would seem that his authority, guidance and inspiration, and probably that of Arno too, lay behind it. In the words of Vogel, ‘The result was a remarkable assimilation and fusion of Roman and papal materials in a variety of Carolingian books, which were destined to transmit to the rest of the Middle Ages the heritage of this Romano-Germanic combination.’26 It remains now to do justice to the elegance and spiritual clarity of the orders for the mass that Alcuin actually composed.27 In his letters to the monks of St Vedast and at Fulda, with whom Alcuin had long and close connections, he set out his reasons for these votive masses.28 Writing to the monks of St Vedast he also mentioned the set of poetical inscriptions that he was sending them to adorn their newly reconstructed abbey church.29 His orders for the mass, whose titles he outlined, were to facilitate daily celebration by the monastic community, a practice to which he was himself deeply committed according to his Life.30 His devotion as a deacon to daily celebrations of the mass was notable, indicating the active role played by deacons in the liturgy at that time, both as servers, readers of the gospel and as occasional preachers; and also more contemplatively, emulating the angels standing in worship around the altar of God. He urged this pattern of daily observance upon them too, encouraging them in their singular commitment as monks, and enjoining them to keep up their spiritual reading: ‘for in holy books God speaks with a person and in his prayers a person speaks with God.’ He closed his letter by promising them his revised Life of St Vedast,31 which he rightly described as a ‘homily of admonition’, an exemplar for their own life in community. In his second letter to the monks at Fulda, written towards the end of his life between 801-2, he revealed his deep devotion to the place and its association with Boniface, who was buried there as a martyr and for whose body he sent a pallium soaked in preservative gum. He sent them also a copy of his missal, with a list of titles very similar to that in his letter to the monks of St Vedast, seeking their prayers.

190

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

In their seminal studies, Barre and Deshusses established the criteria by which it may still be possible to ascertain which of the orders for the mass now remaining were actually composed by Alcuin rather than imitations inspired by his example, of which the ninth century produced 200.32 The missals that Alcuin sent to St Vedast and to Fulda were copies of the one that he had adapted for use at his monastery at Tours. His own contributions were intended to enrich what was, or perhaps should have been, a regular daily custom of celebration of the mass in the monasteries. They were not to be found in earlier sacramentaries, Gelasian or Gregorian, however, although composite sacramentaries and missals were not uncommon at this time. Alcuin’s votive masses are to be found in the early sacramentaries of St Martin’s at Tours and also of the cathedral there. Careful examination of ninth-century manuscripts has led to the identification of at least 23 votive masses that are almost certainly from Alcuin’s hand. They comprise the following intentions, not all of which were mentioned in Alcuin’s two letters to St Vedast and Fulda, which were probably selective in character anyway:33 1. The Holy Trinity 2. For Wisdom 3. For Charity 4. The Holy Cross 5. In honour of St Mary 6. To seek the prayers of the angels 7. In honour of all saints 8. For the priesthood 9. For the gift of tears 10. For the grace of the Holy Spirit 11. For a pure heart by invocation of the Holy Spirit 12. For a living friend 13. For living friends 14. For the salvation of the living and the dead 15. For the forgiveness of sins 16. For the community itself 17. For almsgiving 18. For the dead 19. For deceased brethren 20. For the vigil of All Saints 21. For All Saints day 22. In veneration of the saints whose relics are in a particular church 23. For a church dedicated to either martyrs or confessors 24. For the vigil of a feast of St Mary 25. For the vigil of an apostle 26. For the feast of the birth of St Martin 27. For the octave34 of the birth of feast of St Martin To these should be added the orders of mass composed by Alcuin

Chapter 19 – Liturgy

191

commemorating various saints like St Willibrord. It is most likely that in organising the revision of the sacramentary at Tours, Alcuin deliberately inserted these compositions to fill various lacunae and to enrich the practice of the monastery in a manner consonant with his own practice and spirituality. They reveal also a deep familiarity with older liturgical prayers in their vocabulary, rhythms and construction. Many familiar phrases are repeated ‘reinforcing the impression that the whole ensemble derives from a single hand.’35 Their style is highly indicative of Alcuin’s mind and sensibility: accurate grammar, elegant constructions that often placed the verb between the adjective and the noun, or placed the personal pronoun ahead of both noun and adjective; and a steady rhythmic cursus.36 Through them all runs a keen sense of Christian tradition. Deshusses considered five criteria to be decisive in discerning the authenticity of Alcuin’s votive masses: their mention in either or both of the two letters of Alcuin; their presence in the sacramentary of St Martin at Tours; their widespread diffusion in the ninth century manuscripts;37 their characteristic four-fold structure; and their Latin style. They were preceded in many manuscripts by a short preface which began with the words Catholica est fide, commending their use, and probably written by Alcuin himself. Each order of the mass normally comprised an opening collect, a prayer over the gifts, a preface and a post-communion prayer; sometimes a final blessing prayer was included as well.38 These three examples, addressing themes close to Alcuin’s heart and teaching, may speak for themselves as monuments to his spiritual wisdom and devotion.39

Mass in honour of the Holy Trinity 1. Almighty and eternal God, who has granted your servants by the confession of a true faith to know the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your Majesty to worship the Unity: we ask that we may always be protected from all adversities by the firmness of this faith.40 2. Sanctify, we pray you, Lord God, by the invocation of your holy Name this sacrificial offering, and through it bring to completion the eternal reward of ourselves to you. 3. . . . Who with your only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, one Lord, not in singularity of person, but in one being as the Trinity: for we believe that the glory revealed in you pertains also to your Son and to the Holy Spirit, without any distinction. So that in confessing the true and eternal Deity, the property of each person and the unity of essence should be adored as equal in majesty; Whom the angels and archangels praise, the cherubim and seraphim proclaim with incessant voice, saying . . . 4. May the reception of this sacrament and the confession of the eternal holy Trinity benefit us, Lord God, for the salvation of our bodies and souls.

192

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

5. O Lord God, the Father Almighty, bless and protect the obedient servants of your Majesty, through your only-begotten Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we may perpetually be secure in your praise from every enemy.

Mass for Wisdom 1. O God, who through your eternal Wisdom created man when he was not and reformed him mercifully when he was lost: be present we pray, so that we may run to you with our whole heart, inspired by that same Wisdom in our breasts, and love you with our entire mind. 2. We pray, Lord God, that with the help of your Wisdom the duty of this our offering may be sanctified, so that it may redound to your praise and the benefit of our salvation. 3. . . . Who desired to reveal the knowledge of your Name and the glory of your power by the assistance of your Wisdom, so that confessing your Majesty and abiding by your commandments we might have eternal life . . . 4. We pray you, Lord God, to pour into our hearts the light of your Wisdom by these holy things, so that we may know you truly and love you faithfully. 5. O God, who sent your Son and showed to the creature its Creator, look favourably upon your servants and prepare in our hearts a dwelling-place worthy of your holy Wisdom.41

Mass for purity of heart by the Holy Spirit 1. O God, to whom every heart is open, each desire speaks and no secret lies hidden, purify the thoughts of our hearts by the infusion of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and be worthy fittingly to praise you.42 2. May this offering cleanse the defilements of our hearts, O Lord our God, so that it may create within us a dwelling-place worthy of your Holy Spirit. 3. . . . Eternal God, who sees the secrets of our thoughts and to whom by the insight of your providence the intention of our whole mind lies open, look kindly on the hidden recesses of our hearts, and purify our thoughts by the dew of the Holy Spirit, so that we may think and love things that are worthy of your Majesty . . . 4. As we offer to you the sacrifice of our salvation, grant us, Lord God, more often to celebrate this mystery of your holiness with purified minds. 5. Almighty God, we pray that we may merit by our devout prayers the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we may be liberated from all temptations, and be worthy to receive the forgiveness of our sins.

Part Six Education Chapter 20 The Teacher Alcuin’s formidable reputation as a teacher was never in doubt. Einhard paid tribute to his high abilities as ‘the most learned man to be found anywhere.’ Notker similarly described him as ‘a man more skilled in all branches of knowledge than any other person of modern times’, to be measured by comparison to Bede himself, drawing attention to the prowess of Alcuin’s many pupils. His reputation at York was clearly one of the reasons why Charlemagne ‘head-hunted’ him in the first place, as someone suitably equipped with the experience and resources to contribute in a decisive way to the reform and development of Christian education that the king and others envisaged and in which Charlemagne took a keen interest. The personal bond between them was to some extent always one of teacher and disciple, and Charlemagne proved an eager learner, able to converse with Alcuin and others at a high level on occasion. Alcuin’s likely role in the genesis of the Admonitio Generalis and the Epistola de litteris colendis, has been established. These were two documents that encapsulated royal policy towards developing education, with the bishops and monasteries playing a leading part.1 His rival, Theodore of Orleans, paid tribute in a poem to Alcuin’s prowess as a teacher at court often in dialogue with the king and his retinue, describing him as ‘a powerful man of learning . . . of great understanding’, who was able to expound the teaching of the Bible and to solve problems with numbers with superior cheerfulness, being well versed in sacred or secular subjects.2 Not without some irony and flattery, however, he gave to the king the last word as the arbiter of such discussions in which he was no less an able and witty interlocutor.

The Palace School and Library There has been much discussion about Alcuin’s precise role in the emergence of a ‘palace school’ at Aachen and what form this school might have taken. Inasmuch as the word ‘school’ could mean a group of people who, like fish, swim in concert together, then the key personnel around Charlemagne were precisely that, among whom Alcuin was perhaps for a time, though not necessarily always, primus inter pares. For many years however, Charlemagne’s court was inevitably peripatetic, only settling down at Aachen in the last

194

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

decade of Alcuin’s life: the ‘palace school’ was therefore an entity comprised of personnel rather than any one place. By the time Alcuin arrived sometime after 786, Paul the Deacon had already returned to Italy and Riculf left to become Archbishop of Mainz.3 Peter of Pisa was someone with whom Alcuin had perhaps an uneasy initial relationship, while his friend Arno became Bishop and in due time Archbishop of Salzburg. Alcuin made no mention in his remaining letters of Wigbod, however, whom he probably encountered in the context of the papal legatine visitation of England in 786 before his likely permanent departure to the court of Charlemagne. Angilram, Archbishop of Metz was an ally, as was Adalhard, Abbot of Corbie, whereas Theodulf, later Bishop of Orleans, would prove to be at times something of a rival. Hints of these dynamics emerge from Alcuin’s letters and poems, and what they confirm is that the group gathered under Charlemagne’s patronage from far and wide was a fluid one, seldom altogether in one place for long, rewarded by the king with wealthy appointments as bases for their individual and disparate activities. Hence the importance of the letters between them, of which only Alcuin’s now remain in any quantity as a largely one-sided and inevitably selective body of evidence. Nonetheless these learned clerics clearly pursued a common line in their theological teaching and reform of the Church. Their unity of purpose, supported actively by the king, was one of the most striking features of this period, enabling them to deal robustly and effectively with the issue of images, the challenge of Adoptionism and the plight of the Papacy; and Alcuin was manifestly on occasion a highly articulate and influential spokesman for their common policy. In a letter to Charlemagne, written in the spring of 799 from Tours, Alcuin alluded to their hope of recreating an academic tradition that would emulate that of Athens of old, where the seven liberal arts would now be completed by the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit.4 In another letter written after 801, he referred more precisely to some theological enquiries about the gospels made to him by the kings ‘academics’, to which he proceeded to reply, having prefaced his comments by a story associated with Plato.5 In other letters he referred critically to the ‘boys’ or pupils of the palace.6 At the moment when he departed from Aachen to take up the abbacy of Tours, Alcuin composed a fulsome poem by way of farewell.7 It hailed the king as ‘the glory of the Church, its ruler, defender and lover’, and it painted a picture of a definite and familiar hierarchy at court, of clergy in their various orders, and also of the medical doctors, whose duty it was to offer their services free for the love of Christ. Alcuin lamented the absence of a master of Latin poetry, including Virgil’s, cryptically asking why Einhard himself, whom he nicknamed Bezaleel, was not in that role.8 Otherwise ‘every rank had its own master,’ presided over by the head of the chancery and the arch-chaplain. The deacons were led by a bishop, followed by the lectors; then the director of music with his choir of boys. Even the cooks and the cup-bearer were praised: Alcuin certainly appreciated his hot porridge!9 In its portrayal of a learned clerical order at court, replete with young

Chapter 20 – The Teacher

195

pupils, the picture painted in this poem was matched by that alluded to in a long letter of Alcuin, written at the same time, to his friend Eanbald, the new Archbishop of York, in which he urged him to maintain a very similar pattern in his familia on the model of their common experience of growing up there.10 Pupils were to be divided into three groups – readers, singers and copyists, along lines that would become common in the Frankish monasteries.11 Alcuin’s role as ‘Master’ within, rather than of this ‘palace school’ lay at a deeper level however.12 He was able to distil many years of effective teaching in the writings that flowed from his pen during the last decade or so of his life, and these were widely appreciated, copied and used after his death. Likewise his letters were selected and preserved because they enshrined a highly articulate, enabling and unifying vision of learning and morality. Under his aegis, a Christian humanism emerged that was deeply rooted in the Bible, but able to appropriate and utilise important fragments of classical learning. In this Alcuin was much influenced by Boethius. Within this intellectual tradition, logical thought had its place alongside the authority that sprang from divine revelation. Moreover education was not to be confined just to clergy or monks: it was to be accessible to the laity as well, men and women, some of whom were Alcuin’s closest allies and friends.13 Learning and morality were to go hand in hand, whether in the policy of the Carolingian state, or in the conduct of private individuals. It was also Alcuin’s moral authority vis à vis Charlemagne that enabled him to challenge the snares and limitations surrounding the ruling elite, whether in relation to the treatment of the Saxons or the corrosive impact of riches at court, and not to lose his bearings, either as a teacher or as a theologian among them. He did not hesitate to Christianise the liberal arts, to which Charlemagne also attached great importance according to Einhard, making them the basis of the Christian state and the education of its ruling class. In the end, Alcuin’s view was effectively theocratic, if rather Erastian as well, inasmuch as the state’s raison d’etre was that of moral renewal, underpinned by education at home and evangelism abroad, while maintaining Catholic orthodoxy. Alcuin was thus the progenitor of a lay Christian establishment that was to be reborn in his own country in the tenth century and to emerge again in a different guise in England at the Reformation.14 For given the weakness of the Papacy and the remoteness of Byzantium, Charlemagne was called to serve as the temporal head of the Church in the West. Alcuin did not flinch from addressing the right use of authority by Charlemagne, for Alcuin’s was a sustained exercise in applied theology, relating the principles of Christian morality to the demands of rulership, and speaking well-informed truth to someone with supreme power. In 801, Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne in these terms: ‘How blessed are the people to whom divine clemency has provided so pious and prudent a ruler. Happy indeed are the people who are ruled by so wise and devout a prince; even as it is read in the Platonic proverb, saying: “Happy are kingdoms if philosophers rule them as lovers of wisdom and their kings study philosophy:

196

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

for nothing in the world can be compared to wisdom.”’15 For Alcuin however, ‘wisdom’ meant the following of Christ by the king and his subjects: and the purpose of education was to enable the achieving of this goal. Crucial to education were books, as well as those capable of copying, reading and teaching them. The preservation and proliferation of books, Christian and classical, was one of the most abiding and striking legacies of the Carolingian renaissance. Alcuin clearly profited from this development and undoubtedly contributed to it as well, directly and indirectly. As has already been discussed, Tours under his leadership continued its role as an important scriptorium, with the wealth to sustain a considerable output of new copies of books, including many Bibles, for half a century after his death. Charlemagne’s court library has been the subject of much scholarly research and its scope is now somewhat more apparent. Its seminal role is testified to in the rich panoply of books copied throughout the ninth century and the creation of numerous monastic libraries. It is important too for shedding light on the resources available to Alcuin and others in the last two decades of the eighth century, and upon their priorities and tastes as scholars and teachers. Towards the end of his Life of Charlemagne, Einhard recorded how the king commanded that his own extensive library should be sold for the benefit of the poor. To what extent this actually happened is unknown, but it confirms Charlemagne’s personal commitment and fascination with books and also their material value.16 Some prestige volumes remain, which were almost certainly commissioned by those at court before it settled at Aachen, notably the Dagulf Psalter and the Ada group of gospel books.17 Bischoff was of the view that a list of classical and other authors appended at the end of the eighth century to a manuscript now in Berlin was a partial record of Charlemagne’s library.18 Even if it is not, it is certainly testimony to the crucial role played in the transmission of classical literature by Carolingian scholars at this time. In two letters, for example, Alcuin mentioned a volume of Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, which he believed was available at Aachen.19 Elsewhere he mentioned the imperial armaria of books as a possible source of works by Augustine.20 Contributions from Rome have already been discussed, notably the collection of canon law sent by Hadrian I in 774, and the sacramentary that arrived between the years 784 and 791 which was described and used as a definitive text, a codex authenticus. Scholars like Paul the Deacon and Alcuin himself brought other volumes: in the case of Alcuin, for example, he gave to Charlemagne a copy of the putative letters of Alexander and Dindimus and those allegedly exchanged between Paul the apostle and Seneca, for which he wrote dedicatory verses.21 The most important known work which Alcuin probably contributed to the royal library was the version of Aristotle’s Categories which he and others at that time attributed to Augustine, and for which he wrote a summary poem; this was closely linked later with his own De Dialectica, for which the Categories was an important source.22

Chapter 20 – The Teacher

197

Alcuin’s use of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae in his Disputatio de vera philosophiae probably reflects its availability at Charlemagne’s court rather than at York.23 Alcuin may also have known Boethius’ other theological works which dealt with topics close to his heart, on the Incarnation and the Trinity. Bischoff was also of the view that many books may come north from Ravenna and Lombardy after Charlemagne took over the kingdom there, an influx that would parallel known artistic influences. A broad pattern emerges of interest at court in patristic writings as well as classical literature, along with more technical books about grammar and computation. Proliferation of texts, probably using court copies as exemplars, occurred wherever scholars, trained under Charlemagne’s patronage, went to take up their posts as reformers and educators. One of the most famous books known to have been at court around the year 800 and copied there was the Moore Bede, the oldest copy now remaining of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, written in Northumbria around the time of his death.24 But whether Alcuin was instrumental in obtaining this volume for the king is quite unknown. The composition of the Libri Carolini also reflects a wide range of patristic authorities available to Theodulf and others, as has been discussed. No less significant was the example set by the fourth-century Latin poet Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius, whose acrostic carmina figurata were imitated by Alcuin and Theodulf, and also by Alcuin’s Irish friend and disciple, Joseph.25 Alcuin’s own De Rhetorica et de virtutibus reflects the availability of Cicero’s De Inventione and other classical writings on this theme.26 He was also familiar with the work De architectura by Vitruvius.27 One of the most notable features of the books that may have been connected to the library which Charlemagne built up was that many of them were ‘handbooks, manuals . . . compilations, abbreviated ‘standard’ texts, with a not unexpected bias towards grammatica, assemblages of extracts of variable length, inherited and newly created, on secular and theological topics, summary introductions to complex subjects, with in some instances simple visual aids – schemata.’28 This practical and educational orientation raises the question of the manner in which books were used and proliferated in furthering education at the time of Alcuin, and how his own contributions fitted into this broader picture.29 Bischoff identified a definite shift of royal policy from around the year 780: ‘libraries were urged to acquire texts which were copied out in several closely regulated scriptoria’; and of central importance to this initiative was the establishment of the court library.30 The monasteries of Corbie and Lorsch were also important centres of this process as well as Tours. Adalhard, Abbot of Corbie, was a cousin of Charlemagne’s, and also a friend of Alcuin, as was Ricbod, Abbot of Lorsch, who had been his pupil for a time.31 In the earliest catalogue from Fulda, composed before the year 800, there are 32 titles in addition to copies of the Bible in its various parts, and this number is matched in the slightly later catalogue from Wurzburg which listed 35 volumes.32 Its range is typical and indicative: biblical codices,

198

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

liturgical volumes, 21 patristic titles, a canon law codex, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, and five texts for the work of the school, including Boniface’s grammar.33 By the year 820 or thereabouts, however, the monastic library at Reichenau contained over 400 volumes, a monument to the industry with which books were being copied in Alcuin’s lifetime and immediately after his death. Among these were 20 grammatical texts and ten volumes of poetry for teaching purposes. ‘This catalogue provides extremely valuable insights into the role that books had begun to play in the schools.’34 This pattern was replicated by the mid-ninth-century catalogues from the monasteries of St Riquier, Cologne, Murbach, and St Gallen. They represented a balance between Christian patristic writings, classical literature, and technical books of various kinds, many of which were geared to education. Alongside this development was the renewed royal library assembled under Louis the Pious. Central to the whole enterprise was the study of grammar to the extent that ‘three quarters of Roman and early medieval grammar is transmitted through Carolingian manuscripts of this period.’35 No less important was the study of metre and poetry, including Virgil, who ‘was the first non-Christian author read by students in Carolingian schools, and . . . the first poet to be studied at school with the help of commentaries.’36 Computus was also an important part of the curriculum, stimulating a renewed interest in mathematics and fostering the study of astronomy, for this had practical relevance in terms of calculating church festivals as well as plotting the stars. The goal of all education was the study of the Bible, supported by extensive patristic exegesis, and in furtherance of this Alcuin wrote several exegetical works, as has already been discussed. The proliferation of biblical and patristic manuscripts, as well as classical and other writings, all deploying the elegant and efficient script known as Caroline minuscule, provides the most complete record of the growth of monastic libraries in the first half of the ninth century. ‘In the course of two generations, the Carolingian library developed from inauspicious beginnings into a wellbalanced and functional institution, capable of meeting the needs of schools. Intellectual life in the Middle Ages depended upon the type of library which first came into being during the age of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.’37

Alcuin’s Educational Writings By the time the Life of Alcuin came to be written, he was already being remembered as the author of a significant body of writing, principally theological, but among which were numbered his works on rhetoric, dialectic and music, his treatise on the human mind, De animae rationis, and his works on grammar and orthography.38 In fact his works of an educational nature constitute a remarkable and composite corpus, whose utility was demonstrated by the extensive manuscript transmission of some of them through many centuries of the Middle Ages right up to the Reformation. Taken together, Alcuin’s educational writings, including those now lost, provide a valuable

Chapter 20 – The Teacher

199

conspectus of the shape of Carolingian learning in the early ninth century and proved an important foundation for its development. The extent to which they were copied in the ninth century is testimony to this reality.39 Alcuin’s interest in grammar was fundamental to all his educational endeavours, as is reflected in his Excerptiones super Priscian maiorem.40 Alcuin’s Ars grammatica was probably written at Tours in 798 and takes the form of a dialogue between two teenage pupils, one a Frank and the other a Saxon,41 beginning thus: ‘There were in the school of Alcuin the master two boys who only recently had burst into the dense thickets of grammar’! Its aim was to establish consistent Latin usage and it was often linked in the manuscripts with one of Alcuin’s other seminal works, his Disputatio de vera philosophia.42 This work contains his theory of Christian education whereby the seven liberal arts constitute stepping-stones to the study of the Bible.43 It is in this work that his debt to Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae is most apparent.44 With his work De dialectica, these works provided the bedrock of the study of the Trivium throughout the Middle Ages; the majority of the remaining manuscripts are ninth-century in origin. Alcuin’s De Dialectica was probably composed a little earlier, perhaps while he was at court or just after his arrival at Tours, and it also takes the form of a dialogue, this time between Alcuin and Charlemagne himself.45 In a little prefatory poem, Alcuin alluded to the resources that he had been able to bring with him from his homeland in England. Closely associated with De Dialectica in some manuscripts was a poem composed to extol the virtues of the Categoriae decem ex Aristotle decerptae, whose translation Alcuin attributed to Augustine and which was one of the many sources for his own seminal work.46 The De Dialectica survives in nearly forty manuscripts across Europe, some as late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of which over half date from the ninth century.47 It was closely associated in the ninth and tenth century manuscripts with Alcuin’s Disputatio de rhetorica, and between them were placed various diagrams of teaching analysis as well as a poem O vos est aetas which extolled the value of learning while young.48 The Disputatio de rhetorica also took the form of a dialogue between Alcuin and Charlemagne and it was probably composed before Alcuin went to Tours in 796.49 In its moral concerns it was very close to his later treatise De virtutibus et vitiis, which was written towards the end of his life for an aristocratic friend called Wido, the count of Nantes and prefect of the Breton march.50 This work had a very wide circulation and is found in many manuscripts. No less significant was his work De Orthographia, which for a long time was attributed to Bede, but which Alcuin wrote probably at Tours.51 As early as the late eighth century it circulated in two redactions, of which the second seems to be a revision and augmentation, and which was used by William of Malmesbury in England in the twelfth century. One of Alcuin’s most popular works was clearly his De Animae Ratione, which was a letter addressed to Gundrada, the sister of Adalhard of Corbie and a cousin to Charlemagne, who had requested a treatise on the nature of

200

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

the human soul.52 Alcuin’s work once again reveals the influence of Boethius among others and it concluded with two elegant poems on the same theme. De Animae Ratione circulated in many ninth-century manuscripts along with Alcuin’s De Fide and his De Trinitate ad Fredegisum Quaestiones as an educational compendium, possibly put together by Alcuin himself.53 It is found in over fifty manuscripts. Its two poems are some of his finest, of which this is part of the first one, entitled Carmen de nobili et sagaci natura animae: He who established the height of heaven, the sea and the land, Who rules all creation by his sovereign power, Commanded man to preside over things below the stars, For he alone flourishes by reason and by sense. Man alone is strong enough among all living things To know the Creator of the world, within the citadel of the mind. Created from eternity, blessed and intended for eternity, He alone possesses the wonderful image of the great God. Noble indeed is the nature of the mind in its wisdom, And capable of discerning all things by its power: The sea, the lands, high heaven itself as it revolves, Even though it is confined within the prison house of the flesh God, who is light eternal, is its reward, To whom be praise and glory: If the mind itself has lived well, In a manner that is worthy of God.54 In addition to these principal educational works, whose influence extended far beyond the classroom, were a number of texts that also reflected other aspects of Alcuin’s skill and experience as a teacher. One of the most interesting is the Disputatio Pippini cum Albino.55 This was a most useful and imaginative tool of instruction in which Pippin, the second son of Charlemagne, interrogated Alcuin about the meaning of key Latin words and concepts, some of them scientific in character, while others were artistic in scope: What is the sun? Splendour of the earth; beauty of the heavens; grace of nature; honour of the day; distributor of the hours. What is the moon? Eye of the night; measurer of dew; foreteller of storms. What are the stars? Pictures in the heights; guides for sailors; adornment of the night. What is rain? Begetter of earth and life-giver of nourishment. What is a cloud? Night in the midst of day; labour for the eyes. What is wind? Disturbance of air; mover of waters; drier of earth. The sources of this work are interesting, reflecting once again the range of material upon which Alcuin could draw. It had its roots in a tradition of Latin riddle sequences composed by English scholars such as Aldhelm, Boniface and Tatwine that imitated the vernacular Anglo-Saxon tradition.56

Chapter 20 – The Teacher

201

Alcuin’s version drew also upon traditional wisdom dialogues and curiosity conundrums. Question and answer texts followed late classical models, for example the Altercatio Hadriani et Epicteti, to which Alcuin made reference in one of his letters.57 In this dialogue, the young prince, Pippin, was flatteringly associated with the great Emperor Hadrian, while Alcuin assumed the role of Epictetus. It presupposed a real relationship of discipleship and affection while clearly intended for a wider audience, and it may have been written for Pippin and others while Alcuin was away in England. ‘As a master in Charlemagne’s palace school, Alcuin seems to have had a flair for imaginative and playful teaching . . . all of his teaching texts share his stamp: a concern with engaging his pupils, with personalising his materials, and with expressing human warmth as he did so.’58 What is striking in this dialogue is the way in which Alcuin diverts into humorous asides and conversation, in which his princely interlocutor also participates as an equal: for example, a riddle referring to bells: ‘I heard the dead speaking copiously; but not very well, unless they were hanging in the air!’ In another riddle Pippin was challenged to identify ‘a person who was standing, moving and walking, but who never really existed’ in response to his own question, ‘What is a wonder?’ When Alcuin gave him the answer – ‘a reflection in water’, Pippin wryly observed that he saw such a thing every day.59 Elsewhere the young prince teased his master in response to a riddle about an egg: ‘I saw something born before it was formed.’ ‘You saw it and perhaps you ate it too.’ ‘I did indeed eat it!’ What this lively interchange demonstrates is the ease with which Alcuin overturned the conventional conduct of pedagogic dialogue, enabling the pupil to interrogate the master as a matter of course. ‘Alcuin’s interest is not stylistic display but communication in the service of affection.’60 His sympathy for his teenage pupils was also well expressed in this witty poem that he probably wrote for their amusement addressing the perennial adolescent preoccupation with alcohol:61 At this point, pilgrim, stop in your tracks, And read carefully these little lines. In front of you there now opens up a double path: This one leads to the tavern for those who wish to drink; The other leads to the seat of wisdom for those who wish to know. So choose which journey you wish to make, pilgrim: Do you wish to imbibe with me, or learn from holy books? For if you wish simply to drink, you will have to proffer money; But if you desire to learn, you will obtain what you seek for free. Closely associated with the Disputatio Pippini cum Albino was another more elaborate Disputatio for pupils, later attributed to Alcuin, and cast in the form of a dialogue of questions and answers, derived in part from the Etymologia of Isidore of Seville.62 This was a weighty and extensive text-book of basic theology that reads more like an elaborate catechism, and which gives an ample picture of the scope of basic theological teaching in the ninth century.

202

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Among educational works directed explicitly at younger pupils should also be numbered Alcuin’s letter about the confession of sins that he composed for the boys at St Martin’s in Tours, over whom he was shortly to preside as their abbot and teacher.63 This too had a very wide circulation after his death in various contexts. Mathematical works remain that are monuments to Alcuin’s teaching style and capacity. The most striking is his Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes cum solutionibus, to which Alcuin probably referred in a letter to Charlemagne, written in 799.64 It comprises 53 mathematical problems, some involving geometry and algebra, and reflecting Roman, Byzantine and Islamic antecedents, while some are found also in Indian and Chinese sources; but over half were in fact original compositions by Alcuin himself. ‘It is the oldest collection of mathematical problems in Latin and the first novel mathematical material to appear in Latin.’65 Four problems about river crossing appear for the first time in Alcuin’s treatise: for example, ‘if a person had to carry a wolf, a goat, and some cabbages across a river and the boat was only capable of ferrying two at a time, how could a person do it and still protect each item?’ This was a pedagogic challenge, like a riddle, rather than the birth of any mathematical theory, however.66 Alcuin’s practical solution was to take the goat first and return for the wolf; then take the goat back for safety to pick up the cabbages, before returning finally for the goat: and as he observed, ‘plenty of rowing but no disaster!’ Copies of this text proliferated especially in the ninth and tenth centuries in north-eastern France and south-eastern Germany, although the text was not explicitly attributed to Alcuin by name.67 It was later attributed to Bede, whose disciple Alcuin was widely perceived to be. ‘The Propositiones seems to have had great influence. Items from the collection reappear in collections of problems which were compiled, largely from mathematical material, in the later middle ages. . . . They form part of the ties that bind antiquity, the oriental and occidental Middle Ages, the renaissance and modern mathematics.’68 Alcuin’s aptitude for mathematics and his interest in astronomy are evident in many of his letters, including a remarkable exchange of letters between Alcuin and Charlemagne in 798.69 It is evident also in various other works attributed to him, for example a brief computistical tract called the Calculatio Albini, which is found in two recensions, one of which may date from Alcuin’s time at York.70 The treatise De Bissexto was closely associated with his De saltu lunae in the manuscript tradition, comprising together a very technical disquisition addressing various problems concerning the proper calculation of intercalary years. This was crucial to the system by which the Church calculated the date of Easter and much else, to which Alcuin referred in one of his letters on this subject to Charlemagne, written in 798.71 With this may also be associated his Ratio de luna XV et de cursu lunae, which are two fragments of an important letter, probably addressed to Charlemagne, whose substance was closely paralleled in two of Alcuin’s other letters, one written in July 798 and another in the autumn of that year.72 Taken together, these letters and tracts constituted a significant

Chapter 20 – The Teacher

203

contribution to computistical science, generated at a time when Alcuin was immersed in other major issues, distilling no doubt his teaching and expertise over many years, as well as his formidable knowledge of Bede’s influential works on the subject, with which they were subsequently closely identified.73 Further witness to the range of Alcuin’s abilities and reputation as an educator may be found in the titles of works attributed to him but now lost: copies of De arithmetica and De Astronomia, mentioned in later monastic library catalogues;74 also De Geometria.75 The Life of Alcuin mentions his De Musica, as does the library catalogue of Fulda; but that is also sadly lost.76 Two other works, De arte metrica and De arte poetica, attributed to Alcuin much later, are now unknown.77 Among the pseudo-Alcuin texts may be noted derivative texts wrongly attributed to him on the subjects of arithmetic, astrology, grammar, music, the parts of speech, the seven liberal arts, as well as various theological works.78 This spurious tradition nonetheless reflects Alcuin’s posthumous reputation. Although serious reservations have been expressed recently about the range of Alcuin’s likely literary output during the final decade of his life,79 these various educational texts, genuine or otherwise, testify to his reputation as one of the foremost masters of his generation, as well as to his capacity to distil and communicate learning in a way that his pupils, and others following them, found useful and accessible for many generations. It is also important to realise that many of his letters were preserved, copied and circulated throughout the ninth century because of their intrinsic educational content and value.80 Perhaps the most striking monument to Alcuin’s reputation as a teacher in the ninth century is to be found in the remarkable library of the monastery of St Gallen in Switzerland, with which Alcuin may have had some personal association.81 It contains no less than 38 manuscripts, mostly from the ninth century, that contain works by Alcuin.82 Some of these volumes came from Tours itself, notably a copy of the Bible written in his lifetime at Tours, a collection of his letters, an early copy of the Disputatio de vera philosophia and Ars grammatica, a composite volume containing the De Virtutibus et vitiis, and his theological trilogy, De Fide, with his tract answering questions on the Trinity for Fredegisus, along with his De animae ratione, and also a copy of his commentary on the gospel of John. These constitute the heart of his most creative work, elegant to read in beautiful Caroline minuscule. Notker the Stammerer, who was a monk of St Gallen, alleged that his master Grimald, who died as abbot in 872, had studied the liberal arts under Alcuin in Italy as well as in Francia. This was unlikely, but it probably represents a tradition in the monastery that claimed an association with Alcuin, while remembering his reputation as a teacher who reinvigorated monastic life.83 Elsewhere in his Notatio, Notker listed the works of Alcuin as part of the monastic syllabus in his time, as the remaining library and its earliest catalogue also corroborate. Most of these works of Alcuin seem to have reached St Gallen early in the ninth century and many fine copies of his writings were also made there at that time.

Chapter 21 Cultivating the Mind Alcuin grew up within a strong tradition of teaching Latin grammar in England, nurtured in part by the Irish, and it was central to his concern as a Christian educator at York and on the continent.1 Nor was he alone in this, as Paul the Deacon and Peter of Pisa both played equally important roles in advancing grammatical studies at the court of Charlemagne.2 Alcuin’s own contribution to its development broke fresh ground, however, and was of decisive importance in his own lifetime and for long afterwards.3 His three works on the subject of grammar have therefore to be seen together: his Ars Grammatica and his Excerptiones super Priscian maiorem; and also his De Orthographia in its two recensions.4 In addition there are some of his letters that contain grammatical teaching; and also poems that allude to the importance of sound grammar and its place within the discipline of monastic life, especially in the scriptorium, as well as in the education of the young. In his York poem, Alcuin recalled a range of books that mediated the learning of the classical past, listing many authors not apparently much read in England at that time but certainly known at Charlemagne’s court.5 Among these were ‘those masters of the grammatical art’ – Probus, Phocas, Donatus and Priscian, Servius, Euticius, Pompeius, and Cominianus.6 The deliberate linking together of Donatus and Priscian portended what Alcuin would achieve in his Ars Grammatica, in which he melded their teaching together.7 Around the time that he was completing his Ars Grammatica, probably at Tours, but perhaps after drafting it while still at court, Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne outlining his educational programme there as abbot in which, among other things, he was nurturing the young in ‘the fruits of grammatical subtleties.’8 He also wrote at that time to various monastic friends in Ireland, setting out more fully his vision of Christian education, with grammar as the foundation for mastering the liberal arts.9 For Alcuin and his contemporaries, ‘grammatica was considered a constitutive precondition for, rather than a constituent part of, the whole order of knowledge.’10 In his Ars Grammatica, Alcuin defined grammatica as ‘the science of letters, the guardian of speaking and writing correctly, established by nature, reason, authority and customary use.’11 Many years after his death, Notker the Stammerer paid tribute to Alcuin’s reputation as a master of grammar on a par with Donatus and Priscian.12

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind

205

Alcuin’s skill as a scholar and teacher may be seen in his Excerptiones super Priscianum maiorem, which comprised extensive but selective extracts made by him from Priscian’s compendious Institutiones grammaticae.13 In a letter written by Alcuin to Angilbert of St Riquier sometime between 796 and 799, Alcuin replied at length and in some detail to two linguistic questions sent to him by Charlemagne, citing Priscian’s work as an authority.14 Until Alcuin’s time, the larger and principal grammatical work of Priscian had been largely overlooked north of the Alps, and basic Latin teaching relied on the two works of Donatus, who had been the mentor of Jerome in Rome. Due to Irish influence, the works of Donatus had spread across northern Europe from the British Isles. His influence could be seen, for example, in the grammatical writings of Tatwine and Boniface. Alcuin was the first to appreciate and use the full panoply of Priscian’s grammatical analysis, however, and his evident personal affinity for Priscian’s approach reveals much about his own mind, which was highly analytical as well as finely honed to the nuances of effective language and teaching. Alcuin was almost certainly responsible for introducing Priscian to the court of Charlemagne. Alcuin’s Excerptiones were an enchiridion compiled for his own use and probably intended for a higher level of pupil than the Ars Grammatica. This may explain their limited circulation, as well as Alcuin’s selective suppression of material originally included in Priscian’s work but not immediately relevant to his own pupils.15 Into a strong grammatical tradition, that ran back through Bede to Isidore of Seville, Cassiodorus and so to Donatus, Alcuin inserted and gave priority to Priscian, as his Ars Grammatica makes quite clear.16 As a result, interest in Priscian grew steadily in Carolingian circles in the first three decades of the ninth century until it gradually replaced the Ars maior of Donatus as the preferred way of learning Latin. ‘Given its far-reaching influence, the reception of Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae on the Carolingian continent about 800 AD is an important event in the history of medieval linguistics.’17 Priscian’s preoccupation with accurate definitions was emphasised by Alcuin in both of his grammatical writings as the yardstick for correct Latin and also as the spring-board for dialectical thought. ‘Alcuin reformulates the discourse of linguistic definition by merging the methodology of grammatica with that of dialectica.’18 Accuracy was essential to understanding the text of the Bible and Christian doctrine, and this was the goal of learning Latin properly. In Alcuin’s mind much moral error and heresy arose from inaccurate understanding of the texts of both. A sound mastery of grammar was the foundation for the proper use of rhetoric as well, as Alcuin made clear in his Disputatio de rhetorica. ‘Style will only be eloquent if it preserves the rules of grammar laid down by ancient authorities.’19 It is in the Ars Grammatica that one of the most vivid pictures emerges of Alcuin’s skill and preoccupations as a teacher.20 The whole construction is a careful primer for a fuller understanding of Latin, in which an older Saxon pupil leads his younger Frankish companion, both of them teenagers aged fifteen and fourteen respectively. It is also a convincing monument to the

206

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

standard of Latin that Alcuin expected to be able to achieve with some in that age-group, as well as to the distinctive way in which he taught his pupils and was remembered by them. In addition to Priscian, Alcuin’s principal sources for the Ars Grammatica were Donatus and Bede; but also Phocas, Cassiodorus, Cicero, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. In the early stages of the dialogue, Alcuin as the master intervenes from time to time, before fading into the background quite deliberately. At one point the pre-eminence accorded to Priscian over Donatus is made quite explicit: he is described as ‘the glory of Latin eloquence’ whose judgement about the number and nature of pronouns was to be preferred to that of Donatus.21 Elsewhere Alcuin himself criticised Donatus for vagueness, demonstrating his preference for the rulings of Priscian and explaining why, thus inculcating a critical appreciation towards authorities in his pupils.22 Yet as in the dialogue with Pippin, there is much humour along the way and parody of how boys react and behave while trying to learn something hard systematically. After an exhaustive recitation of the forms of the verb volo, for example, the Saxon youngster expires with the words. ‘Just copy me, Frank! Look – what a burden you have put upon me, leading me through these thorns and briars! Give me a break!’ The dialogue is interspersed with well chosen extracts from classical writers, notably Virgil. Inasmuch as most learning then was primarily the initial training of memories that could already understand Latin orally through recitation of the Psalms, this was clearly an effective and even entertaining medium of formal instruction in Latin literacy, and one that could be handled in various ways by teachers less adept than Alcuin himself. What it enshrines is the central importance of dialogue and the active participation by pupils that was clearly Alcuin’s preferred mode of teaching. In its standard, range and versatility, as well as in its repertoire of classical references, it was way ahead of what is achieved in teaching Latin to that age-group today. ‘In an important sense, all subsequent medieval Latin culture was Alcuinian, a product of the methodological models, authoritative textual practices, and administrative policies that Alcuin and his successors instituted in the Carolingian kingdoms.’23 Orthography – the correct spelling of Latin vocabulary – was of critical importance to the mastery of Latin grammar and its lucid expression as well. It also played a vital role in the correction of texts, notably the Bible, which was a major priority for Charlemagne as well as for Alcuin and others, as the Admonitio Generalis and De Litteris Colendis make clear. Alcuin’s work De Orthographia was a clear attempt to update the work of Bede for a new generation and situation.24 His own views on the importance of orthography in Latin are manifest throughout his letters. The rapid development and deployment of Caroline minuscule was another major contribution to this end in the early ninth century, establishing clarity, accuracy and accessibility in the copying and reading of Latin texts.25 This elegant script came closest to the function of the modern printing font, and was indeed its ancestor through its recovery and popularisation during the Italian Renaissance.26

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind

207

Careful examination of the manuscripts that contain Alcuin’s De Orthographia has established the provenance and character of two recensions that seem to date from his own time and hand, and which are now found in 23 manuscripts.27 Alcuin’s work was a careful reworking of Bede’s De Orthographia, enriched by material drawn from Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, Donatus and Priscian.28 The earliest recension appears to have been the original and this was the one used in the twelfth century by William of Malmesbury in his work on orthography.29 The second recension was completed by the year 799, the date of its earliest manuscript.30 The differences between the two versions are not that significant, apart from their beginning with two different distiches.31 They afford a rare glimpse into how Alcuin actually set about preparing and revising a work in progress, which arose from his regular practice of teaching. Almost certainly he had at hand selections that he had prepared over some time from his Ars Grammatica, and it was mainly through this route that so much Priscian found its way into his De Orthographia.32 Notable too is the fact that the few classical allusions that there are in this text are all drawn from Virgil. ‘The impact of his ‘Grammar’ on De Orthographia shows that Alcuin’s aims and experiences as a teacher of Latin usage determined his objectives as a writer on orthography.’ 33 Once again, this work distilled the proven experience of many long years of effective teaching. Moreover his De Orthographia ‘gives further proof of Alcuin’s high esteem for the Institutiones as a reliable and inexhaustible source book of Latin usage, and also of Priscian’s impact on Alcuin’s teaching and scholarship.’34 For what also distinguishes De Orthographia is Alcuin’s concern for pronunciation as well as spelling, for example in his careful distinguishing between when b and v were to be used.35 The result was the creation in the early ninth century of a definitive ‘book Latin’, associated initially with Tours, for the purposes of the Church and administration, which began to become distinct from more vernacular forms of Latin.36 Thus in church for example, ‘the new pronunciation applied at that time only to reading aloud, for all liturgy was to consist of fixed written texts; and it was based on the simple principle of pronouncing one specific sound for each written letter.’37 This led very quickly to a gulf between bishops and people, inasmuch as ‘book Latin’ became unintelligible to many worshippers, especially when used in preaching. Within a decade of Alcuin’s death therefore the church councils, held in 813 throughout Charlemagne’s realm, decreed that preaching had to be in the vernacular, be it Germanic or Romance. A feel for language and its morphology, however, marched in step with an intelligent understanding of its inner principles and meaning: for underlying all Alcuin’s teaching and practice was the sense that words alone could enshrine truth in a permanent way.38 Grammar was thus rather like mathematics is today: an invisible but inexorable framework for understanding reality, exerting its own demanding discipline. Alcuin’s confidence in this matter rested on two deep beliefs: in demonstrable and disciplined reason when

208

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

applied consistently to language and the thought arising from it; and in divine authority encapsulated in the Scriptures. It was ‘the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us’,39 and in him reason and revelation converged as the truth accessible to human thought and expression; for Christ is ‘the light that enlightens everyone coming into the world.’40 Grammar therefore paved each step of the ladder of divine ascent, which culminated in understanding the Bible itself, in which the Word of God was contained, and through whose language he might be heard and obeyed. Alcuin believed that Christ is the Wisdom of God, and in his words, direct and indirect, the mind of a person encountered the mind of God Himself.

Dialectic and Philosophy Alcuin’s role in reintroducing the full grammatical teaching of Priscian was matched by his use of Boethius, his grammatical and theological works, and especially his De Consolatione Philosophiae.41 He identified with both figures, intellectually and morally, and in some ways he and his contemporaries were seeking to recreate the elite culture that Priscian and Boethius were each addressing in their own day.42 Alcuin may also have identified particularly with Boethius in his concern for learning and logical thought, his contention with heresy, and his duty as a counsellor to a demanding ruler. Together these authorities became the creative mentors of Carolingian theology and learning, and the fundamental pillars of subsequent medieval culture. In the manuscripts, Alcuin’s De dialectica was often closely associated with his Disputatio de rhetorica:43 both of them were constructed as dialogues between Charlemagne and himself, and between them were sometimes inserted interesting schemes of teaching-diagrams, not necessarily by Alcuin himself however, that outlined the components of the seven liberal arts.44 The one describing dialectic makes a good outline of the contents and import of Alcuin’s own De Dialectica: Dialectic is divided into isagogics, categories, topics, perihermeneias, and definitions. Isagogics are introductions, of which there are five species; categories comprise ten terms; topics are the grounds and origins of arguments, of which there are sixteen; perihermeneias are interpretations of the various modes of speech; definitions are the boundaries of things perceived, of which there are fifteen. These diagrams and their accompanying notes afford a precious glimpse of how this subject was actually taught and learnt in class, probably learnt by heart and copied by pupils with styli onto wax-filled wooden tablets. They also provide a context for appreciating the essential nature of Alcuin’s two dialogues as comprising the distillation of well-honed teaching material, like his Ars Grammatica, but now given the imprimatur of royal authority. Charlemagne had a sincere personal interest in these things, and was persuaded by Alcuin and others that their dissemination was an expression

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind

209

and obligation of his authority as a Christian king. From his letters to Alcuin it is evident that the king was an active and at times forceful intellectual interlocutor, whose commitment to grammar and dialectic was praised by his courtiers in their poetry. The De Dialectica opens with an important definition by Alcuin of philosophy: ‘Philosophy is enquiry into the nature of things and understanding of human and divine matters, inasmuch as this is possible for human beings. Philosophy is also honesty of life, the study of how to live well, meditation upon death, and contempt for this world.’45 Alcuin was not indulging in speculative philosophy, therefore, but in intellectually guided moral philosophy that was in step with Christian doctrine; and in this, his aims were not far removed from his Disputatio de rhetorica et vitutibus.46 His sources for the De dialectica were found in the earlier works of Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville, as well as Boethius indirectly, with reference also to Bede, as well as the active use of a paraphrase of Aristotle’s Categories called De decem categoriis, whose translation and authority was attributed by him and others at that time to Augustine.47 What is striking about De dialectica is the way in which Alcuin handled his authorities, as well as some of the conclusions that he advanced in the process. For example in discussing the nature of ‘substance’, he asserted of God that there can be in Him no distinction between substance and accidents: ‘goodness and justice do not happen to Him, for He is Himself goodness and justice.’48 There are important connections with Alcuin’s theological works too: his example of a ‘similitude’ being when a portrait of a person and the true person are joined in likeness only.49 This had a direct bearing upon the Adoptionist crisis and the contrast between a true and an ‘adopted’ Son of God, inasmuch as ‘image and likeness’ in Christ meant affinity of nature and not just moral similarity. It also had an indirect bearing upon the nature of images in Christian worship: for how did an image relate to the personal or spiritual reality that it portrayed? Greek theology asserted that veneration afforded to the image passed to the prototype. This was directly challenged in the Libri Carolini, and Alcuin is unlikely to have dissented from the criticisms expressed by Theodulf there.50 Alcuin’s De dialectica is prefaced in Migne’s edition with an encomium commending the De decem categoriis to Charlemagne: ‘This little book contains the ten terms relating to all nature, comprising by a remarkable feat of intellect the words describing everything that our understanding can relate to.’51 This poem was originally written by Alcuin to herald a gift of a copy of this book to Charlemagne. It was a well-established paraphrase of Aristotle’s Categories, and it had a wide circulation in the ninth century alongside Boethius’ translation of the Isagogics of Porphyry of Tyre and his translation of and commentary on Aristotle’s De perihermeneias, which in Latin went under the title De Interpretatione.52 Tours became an important centre for the dissemination of works of this kind, as it did for the circulation of Boethius’ Opuscula sacra and the De Consolatione Philosophiae, both of which were known to Alcuin and clearly influenced him profoundly.53 ‘Ninth century scholars did not confuse

210

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

logic with theology, but they moved easily from the one to the other. Alcuin’s De dialectica presents logic and theology as complementary wings of the same diptych.’54 His use of the De decem categoriis in De dialectica, however, was such as to shift the focus away from the simply verbal aspect of logic towards its becoming the ‘key to understanding reality’ itself.55 One of the most striking things about Alcuin’s De dialectica is his extensive use of the Latin text of Apuleius’ De perihermeneias, at the king’s explicit request.56 Charlemagne began by citing the well-known image of Aristotle dipping his pen into his mind to write.57 Boethius’ first commentary on this text also lies behind how Alcuin presented its substance.58 When the king challenged Alcuin about embarking upon another pilgrimage through the landscape of grammar, he replied that this would be a more sophisticated journey, in which Charlemagne would discover by his questioning how far the subtlety of dialectic differed from the simplicity of grammar.59 In the process, for example, Alcuin developed the original definition of a noun and included Boethius’ elaboration of it in a philosophical direction, as he did also in his Ars grammatica, emphasising its strictly nominative use.60 Alcuin’s definition of a verb and its use, in the De dialectica and in Ars grammatica, was also derived from Boethius’ first commentary on Aristotle’s work.61 The range of his discussion of Aristotle’s work was determined, however, by that of Isidore’s De perihermeneias, which was his principal and immediate exemplar. Alcuin reiterated his reliance on Aristotle’s analysis of language embodied in De decem categoriis in the dedicatory letter to Charlemagne that prefaced his De Fide.62 He said that his intention was that he would use the reasoning of dialectic to demonstrate the essential coherence of Augustine’s teaching in his De Trinitate, in which it was apparent that questions about the Trinity could only be expounded with ‘the subtleties of the categories.’63 Thus Alcuin declared that ‘there are ten forms of human speech . . . which the Greeks call categories,’ of which only one – ‘substance’ – can properly be used of God: ‘For God is described properly as one in being, the highest and most ineffable.’ Fundamental to his whole argument was the distinction between relation and accidents with regard to the persons of the Trinity.64 God the Father relates to his Son, who is one in being with Him and in no way simply a manifestation of Him; likewise the Holy Spirit relates to both the Father and Son, but as a distinct person. A text remains that serves as a measure of the growth of interest in and application of dialectic during the years that Alcuin was on the continent. The Dicta Albini de imagine Dei is an exposition of Genesis 1. 26, discussing the meaning of human beings being created ‘in the image and likeness of God.’65 Its theology had its roots in Augustine’s De Trinitate and his understanding of the Trinitarian patterns inherent in human nature, as mediated through the writings of Marius Victorinus.66 It circulated in many manuscripts throughout the middle ages, the earliest of which may perhaps be associated with Alcuin himself and certainly with his circle of disciples.67 It is first found in a

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind

211

manuscript written at Verona around the year 800, but a significant part is found earlier in the Libri Carolini.68 It was conflated early in the ninth century, however, with the Dicta Candidi, attributed to one of Alcuin’s closest friends and disciples, Candidus, and it was included in a compilation of dialectical texts commissioned by Leidrad of Lyons early in the ninth century. The theology and approach of the Dicta Albini were of a piece with Alcuin’s known theology and dialectical teaching.69 It associated the Trinity with the creation of humanity, male and female, in ‘our image and likeness’, indicating how the inherent unity in man of body and soul – anima - imitated the essential unity of God. This in turn reflected as a ‘true image’ the mystery of the Trinity in three persons, identifying the procession of memory from intellect and will as mirroring the double procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.70 Its conclusion was thoroughly moral in its demand and expectations, imitating the love, goodness, justice, patience and meekness of the merciful God, wherein lay the true moral ‘likeness’ between God and human beings. It was a very concise and attractive epitome that made Augustine’s teaching immediately accessible, morally as well as intellectually; hence its popularity through many centuries. The context in which the Dicta Albini was preserved is also very important. For closely associated with it was the Dicta Candidi that addressed the same question but in a different tone.71 Candidus has emerged as a significant theologian in his own right and the author of a number of theological and philosophical texts.72 He was a protégé of Higbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne, before he joined Alcuin in 793, to become one of his closest friends and emissaries. It is thought that he died around the same time as Alcuin in 804; ‘He must be considered pre-eminent among the philosophers of Charlemagne’s court.’73 Alcuin’s friend and successor as Abbot of Tours, Fredegisus, also wrote a famous letter around the year 800 De nihilo et tenebris.74 It asserted that because ‘nothing’ – nihil – and ‘darkness’ – tenebrae – are nouns they must signify something that actually is, and not just conceptually existing, a definition of the significance of nouns close in some respects to Alcuin’s in De dialectica.75 This debate has to been seen in the wider context of a growing fascination with dialectically charged grammar, at court as well as at Tours and elsewhere, to which Fredegisus referred; and the fact that Alcuin composed at the end of his life an appendix to his work on the Trinity, the De Trinitate ad Fredegisum Quaestiones XXVIII, and also his Quaestiones in Genesim ad litteram per interrogationes et responsiones.76 Clearly the opening chapters of Genesis in particular continued to exercise the minds of theologians, with their potent bearing upon the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity, as well as the character of evil and the nature and fall of humanity. Fredegisus’ obsession with the dictates of grammar for right belief was matched by a preoccupation with gematria – the attribution of numerical values to letters and therefore words, evident

212

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

in how he composed his treatise.77 This preoccupation with the numerical construction of Scripture and theology was a component of memorisation as well, for had not God constructed all things ‘by number, order and measure?’78 The manifest limitations of his approach cannot obscure the fact that these questions could be asked at all, and in this systematic manner, which reflected a confidence in dialectic that proved to be the seed-bed of a revived interest in philosophy itself in the ninth century.79

Cultivating the Mind In two of his most attractive and lucid works, Alcuin set out his philosophy of the human mind, the cultivation of which was the goal of education and the spiritual life. The first, the Disputatio de vera philosophia precedes his De Grammatica in most of the manuscripts, although its brief was far wider than simply an introduction to learning grammar, being cast in the form once again of a dialogue between royal master and pupil.80 Its deeply Christian character and its close reliance on Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae are evident.81 ‘His principal inspiration, which furnished the thread of his reflections, is Boethius. Alcuin derived from the author of the De Consolatione Philosophiae the essence of his doctrine about the moral endeavour that alone attained to philosophy, and about the metaphysical value of the academic disciplines. . . . These disciplines were only legitimate in his eyes inasmuch as they pertained to Christian wisdom; indeed at his hand, Boethius’ figure of Philosophy became the Wisdom of God Himself. . . . This Christianised interpretation would permit the De Consolatione Philosophiae to exercise a considerable influence for many centuries.’82 Alcuin’s Disputatio de vera philosophia was therefore an outline of educational philosophy, as well as a study in psychology and moral theology as the basis for a Christian approach to and appropriation of wisdom: it ‘upholds the unity of all philosophical knowledge in Christ the Incarnate Word.’83 Indeed defence of the key beliefs in the Incarnation and Trinity was one of the main goals of the approach to education that Alcuin set out in this short treatise. Alcuin’s starting-point was a deeply positive view of the potential of the human mind to access truth and to be moulded by it. John 1. 9 provided the first explicit biblical reference in this treatise, speaking of Christ the Word of God, who ‘illumines everyone coming into the world.’ Alcuin asserted boldly that ‘the light of knowledge is natural to human minds’. He had taken to heart words that come later in St John’s gospel: ‘those who do what is true come to the light so that it may be seen that their actions have been wrought in God.’84 All that pertains to the well-being of the human mind springs from the love and knowledge of God, and everything that is deleterious represents a falling away. In words echoing Augustine in his Confessions, Alcuin asked, ‘What therefore, O mortals, do you seek outside yourselves, while you have within you that which you seek?’

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind

213

The goal of intellectual and spiritual life is also a mystical one, expressed in terms derived from the Song of Songs: ‘Divine grace prevents us and Wisdom leads us into the treasuries of the Spirit.’85 It is in this context that Alcuin drew his famous composite picture of Wisdom incarnate in Christ and expressed in the nature of the Church, and the sevenfold pillars of learning that support its life: for the sevenfold liberal arts find their fulfilment and transformation in the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit that flow from Christ in and through the Church. In a letter to Charlemagne, Alcuin explained that ‘the philosophers were not the creators of these arts but their finders, or inventors: for the Creator of all things created them within Nature, just as He willed.’86 Within Christianity they now constitute a ladder of ascent up which divine and perfecting grace leads all who truly seek truth and allow it to fashion their lives. Alcuin concluded his Disputatio de vera philosophia with this exhortation: By these paths indeed, my most beloved sons, may your adolescent years so daily run that at a more perfect age, and with your faculties of mind more fully developed, you may attain to the summit of the sacred Scriptures: so much so that thereafter you may be effective as defenders of the true faith and assert truth invincibly in every way. The other work which reveals much about Alcuin’s inner mind was the elegant treatise he composed for Eulalia, Gundrada, the sister of Adalhard of Corbie and a cousin of the king’s. It was written in response to her request for something about the nature of the human soul, and Alcuin composed it as his own life was drawing to its close, between the years 801 and 804; it was entitled De animae ratione ad Eulaliam virginem.87 It is distinctive in regarding the soul ‘as more or less identical with the conscious, rational mind. In equating the soul with the mind, Alcuin is consciously differing from Augustine, who consistently distinguishes the two.’88 This again reflected his independence of mind as well as his confidence in the essential affinity between man and God by virtue of the divine ‘image and likeness’ inherent in everyone: ‘humanity is made noble by the image and likeness of its Creator in its governing part, called mens or the mind.’89 For ‘if it is natural for all men to love what is good, it is all the more natural to love God: for God is the highest Good; and without Him that is good, no-one may attain to goodness. . . . It is natural therefore for everyone to love God.’ Because the mind is the superior part of a person, it must however rule over everything in a way that mirrors God’s rule. The mind is indeed triple in its nature: rational, desiring and wrathful: desire and wrath are shared with the beasts; reason alone marks humanity out as being in the divine image: and so it should rule a person in accordance with the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, which Alcuin proceeded to define. Love perfects the whole person in relation to God and to neighbour. Sin, however, is deformation of the divine image in man, a dereliction of moral and intellectual duty, and a compulsive

214

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

and self-destructive malaise. Following Augustine, Alcuin identified the threefold dynamic of intellect, will and memory: ‘but the soul, which is called the mind, is one in its life and substance, possessing these three within it: for there are not three lives, but one life, nor three minds but one mind, not three entities but one substance.’ The parallel with the Trinity was quite apparent, both conceptually and in the language used here. Alcuin was not afraid of the role of imagination: The mind’s ability to conjure up images of things known and unknown mimics God’s work as creator. Its ability to be mentally present in an instant at any point in the world or in time imitates the divine ability to be everywhere at all times. What is striking about this view of the soul’s mental powers is Alcuin’s insistence that the soul’s likeness to God resides in its engagement with the real material world. . . . There is for him no essential conflict in the soul between the activity of the rational mind and the realms of imagination and sensation.90 Only capitulation to evil and wrong moral choices can undermine and distort this essential unity of mental and spiritual function. To illustrate his point, Alcuin alluded to the ease with which a person might remember Rome, not just as a place visited but as an abiding mental construct of its essential character and significance, which did not necessarily have to accord with any detailed memory of the place itself. It was equally possible to conjure in the imagination a place like Jerusalem which a person might never have visited but whose reality and spiritual significance could not be doubted. With remarkable psychological insight he commented on the speed of the mind in processing what it received through the bodily senses, as if ‘messengers’ ran to and fro, filing away carefully ‘figures’ of what was encountered, storing them in the treasury of the memory.91 The crucial thing was his assumption that these ‘messengers’ were conscious and willed agents of the mind, whose function had to be trained and nurtured diligently. Memory thus records the essence of an experience or a concept, not necessarily every detail, because ‘human beings think in images.’ Alcuin’s artistic and imaginative temperament is very apparent here. In this great treatise, written for one of his friends, an educated and holy woman, Alcuin reveals the full measure of his mind and understanding of human nature, seen in the light of classical learning, biblical revelation and patristic teaching.92 ‘Truly the beauty and adornment of the human mind is the pursuit of wisdom: not those things which preoccupy earthly affairs, but those which ensure rather that God is loved and worshipped.’93 This path could not be found through the ‘deceits’ of Virgil, but in the outpouring of truth in the gospels. ‘”For all wisdom is of the Lord God.” 94 Whatever may rightly be understood and loved through wisdom is the gift of God’; and Christ is the Wisdom of God. Although Alcuin was haunted at the end of his life by the sense of time passing and death and judgement approaching, he did not relinquish his hope: ‘Few are the days of this life and the retribution

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind

215

for our merits will be endless. This is true wisdom – to love true Life with the whole heart, to seek her with every faculty, so that the one who loves her may merit arriving in her presence, most truly advancing beyond words: for the Kingdom of God exists far more in the power of the Holy Spirit and the perfect glory of the saints and their merits than in words alone.’95 In the thought of Alcuin and those around him, knowledge and wisdom were reunited and ultimately transcended within the Trinitarian understanding of the mind.96 In this process the liberal arts had their own part to play as handmaids of the gospel, as pedagogues to the divine didaskalos or teacher, Christ the Word and Wisdom of God. They equipped the mind to co-operate with the work of divine grace, enabling reason to appropriate the riches of the past in order to furnish the minds and souls of the present and the future. Christian learning, carefully written and recorded in books, could alone withstand the ravages of time, and the brevity and fragility of human existence. The Bible represented the mountain of the Lord, a rock in the desert, the summit of a landscape whereupon the human person might find refuge ‘within the citadel of the mind.’ At the end of the De animae ratione Alcuin appended for his friend this elegant poem: Beloved Creator, A person should praise you With heart and mind, And by the love of peace: Not only because she is a small part of creation, But because she alone is the image Of you, the great and holy Creator, While she lives devoutly with a pure heart, Within the citadel of the mind. O God of light, Praise becomes you always From heart and lips, That we may love you, The Holy One, always and forever. Guard with your lips These holy words, O faithful Eulalia, That Christ may govern in meekness all your days. Direct your inner sanctuary With chastity of mind and body, sweetest friend, That you may prosper forever. May He alone be to you always, I pray, Light and love and the beauty of salvation, Your eternal life, and perpetual glory.97

Chapter 22 Theology for the Laity While there are at least 100 extant manuscripts from the Middle Ages that contain Alcuin’s De Fide, there are around 140, some quite late, that contain his De virtutibus et vitiis.1 The foundation for Alcuin’s moral theology was evident in an earlier work, however, his Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus, probably composed between 793 and 796.2 Moreover many of Alcuin’s letters were steeped in moral theology and its application, hence their permanent value and their overt educational and admonitory tone.3 Alcuin as a magister and deacon, and as a person who had worked closely with influential laity at court and elsewhere, was well able to address the spiritual and moral needs of lay Christians. He often had as high an expectation of many of them as he had of any priest, monk or bishop; and in some of the ways that he chastised his episcopal hearers he seemed to speak for the Christian laity. This integrity and capacity, coupled with his genius and long experience as a teacher, able to command the obedience and loyalty of the young in particular, gave him an articulate moral authority that was inherent in him as a person, and not just a consequence of the inevitable prestige arising from his close relationship to Charlemagne and his family: for the king was his pre-eminent layman and self-professed disciple, and Alcuin communicated freely and with confidence with his sons and daughters. The earlier work, therefore, the Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus, is an interesting book that is cast in the form of a dialogue between Alcuin as master and Charlemagne as the eager pupil.4 Its goal, according to its opening poem, was instruction in the mores of ordered society,5 and it claimed the joint authorship, and by implication the authority, of both of its protagonists.6 What is striking about this work was Alcuin’s determination to sum up the classical tradition of rhetoric and place it firmly within the broadest social and political sphere. The book closes with a discussion of the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance as the root of all other virtues, and indicates their close relationship to the great commandment in the Bible to love God and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. It has been seen as an early form of the literature later described in the middle ages as a speculum principis – a moral guide as to how rulers should rule.7 These distinctive emphases by Alcuin marked a decisive development

Chapter 22 – Theology for the Laity

217

beyond the tradition articulated by Cicero, and they constituted an application of Christian moral theology to the purpose and practice of rhetoric. ‘Generally speaking, when Alcuin does choose to deviate from the authoritative model that he is otherwise imitating and emulating, it is through these differences that his interpretative originality is often revealed.’8 This fusion of morality and language was central in much of Alcuin’s thought, and this work is a good epitome of it. For in his mind, rhetoric, being the correct use and intention of language, enabled virtue to permeate society: ‘On this basis, rhetoric is concerned with two fundamental moral qualities, namely equity and goodness.’9 In this conviction Alcuin was guided by the way in which Marius Victorinus had approached Cicero’s De Inventione. He also clearly owed much to Cassiodorus and Julius Victor: from them he derived the belief that rhetoric marked humanity off from the beasts, and that its proper use was critical to the well-being of a law-abiding stable society, whose values were what he meant by the opening phrase of his prefatory poem – civiles mores. In highlighting the fundamental relevance of the cardinal virtues to Christian thought, Alcuin was following the example of Augustine in his De diversis quaestionibus, who challenged Christians to surpass the righteousness of their pagan forbears. ‘The only source of happiness, Alcuin explains, the measure of the correctly ordered soul, is that it loves God, rules what is inferior to it (namely the body) and supports its fellow human beings in love.’10 By so doing the classical cardinal virtues are fulfilled and transcended by participation in divine wisdom – sapientia. In spirit, Alcuin’s approach was close to that outlined in Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, in which the Christian use of classical learning was justified as a means to mastering the message of the Bible. It was probably from Cassiodorus’ Institutes that Alcuin derived the conviction that moral virtue was the vital precondition for the proper use of eloquence.11 ‘In establishing such a firm connection between eloquentia and moral virtue, Alcuin argued that rhetoric could not, and should not, be exercised except by the vir civilis, by the individual who was perfect in the exercise of the cardinal virtues. . . . Alcuin’s understanding of rhetoric was central to his understanding of how wisdom should be applied by individuals within human society. Read in these terms, the Disputatio de rhetorica is much more than just a textbook. It provides a profound insight into how Alcuin put together the instruments of his public and literary activity, as a means of discharging his own duty as a vir civilis, his own personal responsibility as a servant of sancta sophia.’12 The theme of sophia – divine wisdom, runs like a golden thread throughout so many aspects of Alcuin’s thought and writing, including his poetry: for ‘in Alcuin, rhetoric and poetry formed an intellectual, moral and social union.’ 13 The close association of Charlemagne’s interest and authority should not be regarded as a mere conceit: for however flattering, its portrayal and deployment must have rested upon recognition within the ruling elite that such dialogues and considerations did occur and were credible, with the king as an active and receptive protagonist. This book may therefore be regarded as a summation

218

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

of Alcuin’s experience and political role while at court in the years before he became Abbot of Tours. By contrast, his most popular book, De virtutibus et vitiis, was written in the last years of his life between 800 and 804 at the request of a particular lay friend, Wido, Count of Nantes and prefect of the Breton march.14 Its dedicatory letter reveals the depth of their friendship and also Alcuin’s sympathetic understanding of the demands that Wido faced in his public life. It closes with a warm-hearted reassurance that it was perfectly possible to lead a good Christian life as a layman, and that God is no respecter of persons: I have dictated these words for you, dearest son, in a brief compass even as you requested, so that you may have a manual set before you for daily use. In it you may yourself consider what you should do, and also of what you should beware. It will alert you to the various prosperities and adversities of this life, and indicate to you how you should ascend the pinnacle of perfection. The quality of your lay way of life, with its secular activities, should never make you fear that from this mode of existence you may not be able to enter the gates of heaven: for blessedness is offered to all equally within the Kingdom of God. Each person may enter if they are worthy of that Kingdom, according to their merits, be they men or women of whatever age. There is no distinction made there between laity and the clergy of this age, nor between rich and poor, young and old, servant and master: but each person will be crowned with perpetual glory according to the merits of their faith expressed in good deeds.15 It is not difficult to see how such a compact book of moral theology, written in this reassuring spirit, would appeal to Christian laity throughout many generations, as indeed it did right up to the Reformation. It distilled and made available the direct teaching of Augustine, derived from some of his sermons, and indirectly that of Ambrose, Bede, Isidore of Seville, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory the Great, and Cassian as well. It is a brilliant summary of all that Alcuin believed and had found to be important and applicable to living a Christian life; in some ways it epitomised the spirit of Gregory’s Pastoral Rule, a work to which Alcuin attached great importance.16 It was used word for word by Hrabanus Maur in some of his writings, and also by his contemporaries, Jonas of Orleans and Halitgar of Cambrai, all before the year 830. Its influence reached down into ordinary sermons too: for example in a collection of homilies put together in Salzburg in the time of Arno.17 In due time, parts of it were translated into Anglo-Saxon, Old German and Old Norwegian. Its structure comprises consideration of each of the virtues and their corresponding vices, the eight deadly sins and the four cardinal virtues. Its ethos was derived from monastic life, describing the perpetual battle within the human heart between good and evil.18 For his catalogue of the vices Alcuin followed Cassian and Gregory the Great.19 In his treatment of the cardinal virtues this book is close to his earlier dialogue about rhetoric and virtue. The author of the Life of Alcuin described it as a homiletic work; and the character

Chapter 22 – Theology for the Laity

219

of this book is really a series of short homilies: it may therefore shed light on how Alcuin himself preached and taught.20 The strength of its spiritual ethos is well captured in this discussion of the nature of compunction: Compunction of heart is born from the virtue of humility. From compunction comes the confession of sins, and from confession comes penitence; and from true penitence proceeds the forgiveness of sins. Compunction of heart consists of humility of mind accompanied by tears, the recollection of sins and the fear of divine judgement. Tears flow from the twin fountains of compunction: firstly when a person considers carefully the merits of their own deeds; and then when someone longs with great desire for eternal life. . . . The sweetness of compunction is a treasury of desire in the heart of a human being. Insofar as the soul of a person is moved to compunction through prayer, good progress is being made towards salvation. When through prayer compunction is poured out, the Holy Spirit is undoubtedly present in the depths of our hearts.21 It is hardly surprising therefore that elements drawn from various Latin versions of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis are to be found embedded in AngloSaxon homilies of the tenth and eleventh centuries.22 Two English manuscripts from this period remain that contain significant parts of the work itself, the earliest being from the middle of the tenth century and probably written at St Augustine’s, Canterbury, right at the heart of the reform movement under Dunstan.23 Corresponding to these are several partial translations into English found in later twelfth-century manuscripts. Even before the reforms of Dunstan and his collaborators, material from this work of Alcuin appears in early homilies in English, notably Vercelli homily XX and Vercelli homily III.24 This implies a significant dissemination of Alcuin’s work, possibly by means of a Carolingian florilegia, in the first part of the tenth century, and perhaps even earlier in the time of Alfred the Great. By the end of the century similar material appeared in England in some of the homilies of Aelfric25 and Wulfstan.26 They mainly used varying versions of Alcuin’s treatment of the vices and virtues: ‘Even though Aelfric and Wulfstan often draw on similar material, the translation of this brief extract by both writers for their own purposes indicates that this Alcuinian passage had become thoroughly absorbed into an established tradition of the vices and virtues.’27 What this indicates also is an early fragmentation of material derived from De virtutibus et vitiis, probably in the later ninth century, translated from varying Latin texts and evident in different renditions in the early tenth-century English homilies.28 Alcuin emerges therefore as a hidden influence in England, antedating the monastic reform movement of the tenth century and then sustaining its development, as the Church communicated the Christian faith within and beyond the monasteries, by utilising to the full the rich bilingual liturgical and educational tradition29 in England in the period before, and also for a time after, the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Part Seven Poetry Chapter 23 The Poet and his Friends In his poem describing the intellectuals gathered at the court of Charlemagne, Theodulf of Orleans not only paid tribute to Alcuin as a great teacher, but also as ‘the glory of our poets’, referring to him by his nickname Flaccus, and describing him as melodious as a poet as he was eloquent as a teacher.1 The range of Alcuin’s poetry is extraordinary and voluminous, reflecting his remarkable sympathies and interests as well as his temperament and friendships. In addition to the two major historical poems celebrating the church at York and the life of Willibrord, along with his lament for the fate of Lindisfarne, there remain numerous inscriptions for churches and monastic buildings in Francia, epitaphs and riddles, several elegies, encomia and pastoral poems, as well as some hymns.2 Ten poems are actually embedded in letters, sixteen exist as prefaces or dedications to his treatises, twelve are epitaphs for various saints and monks, while there are many groups of inscriptions that reflect his engagement with the cult of the saints and their artistic, architectural, and liturgical commemoration.3 Nine poems could in fact be considered as forms of hymns, although only two are clearly identified as such. The welter of inscriptions attributed to him also reflects the scope of his friendship, as well as his active patronage of the renewal of monastic life in the Frankish church. Central, however, were his poems directed to those at court, to Charlemagne himself, but also to members of his family; among these may properly be included the encomia that he composed for the two popes, Hadrian I and Leo III. His poetry is therefore as important as his letters in divulging the personality of Alcuin, his character, learning and aspirations, as well as his influence, friendships and beliefs.

A Poet at Court Alcuin was one of a circle of scholar-poets attracted to the court of Charlemagne who, in the years after it finally settled at Aachen, probably in 794, produced a vigorous and idiosyncratic body of Latin poetry with conscious classical references.4 A distinctive trait of Alcuin and of those closest to him was the use of nick-names, the king being described as David,

Chapter 23 – The Poet and his Friends

221

a clear reference to the poet-king of the Old Testament.5 They shared a common literary culture and used their poetry to flatter the king, seeking his patronage and vying with each other for it. It was a form of ritualised conflict that marked the brief interlude of prosperity and relative stability created by Charlemagne at the apogee of his power. As Christian poets they looked back to the role played by Venantius Fortunatus in the fifth century, who had transferred the poetic inheritance of late imperial Rome to the barbarian court of the Merovingians.6 Alcuin himself composed an elegant epitaph to his memory for the church in Poitiers where Venantius lay buried.7 This process of adulation of Charlemagne began relatively early in his reign, however, with a poem composed in the name of the grateful pope, Hadrian I, celebrating the king’s victory over the Lombards in 774, one of the most decisive events in Charlemagne’s long reign and that of the papacy, which also brought the cultural legacy and influence of northern Italy directly to bear upon Carolingian art and learning. A similar Frankish encomium celebrated the king’s first victories over the Saxons in 777. The comparison of these with Alcuin’s contemporary York poem is interesting, both in terms of character and function.8 Moreover Alcuin’s early poem, addressed to members of Charlemagne’s entourage, whom he had met on a visit at that time but before he settled on the continent, reflects a shared mentality and frame of reference, as well as a high level of knowledge of their affairs.9 Alcuin’s appeal to the king, as ‘protector, guardian and defender’ against the poetical jibes of his retinue, was ‘the first Carolingian encomium to evoke the ancient criterion of the rex doctus, given currency by Venantius Fortunatus.’10 Equally striking was Alcuin’s appeal to his own letter as cartula to serve actively as his tangible ambassador to his friends and contacts, a conceit that he would deploy elsewhere. Permeating the poem was a desire to be remembered by those whom he valued, and whom he might not see again for some while, if at all. This too was a recurrent theme in his poems, as in his letters.11 The context for Alcuin’s engagement with this mannered, if fragile, courtly culture was provided by the abilities of others known to him within the orbit of the king. The Italian scholars, Paulinus of Aquilea, Peter of Pisa and Paul the Deacon, were also poets, who came into the king’s patronage as a result of his conquest of Lombardy.12 Alcuin’s contribution made its mark, and his own introduction in the early 790’s of acrostic poetry, for example, modelled on late antique patterns, was quickly emulated by his disciple Joseph the Scot and others.13 His description of the king as Flavius Anicius Carlus recalled the glory days of Constantine’s reign and also the memory of Boethius.14 Another poet who followed Alcuin’s lead in this form of poetry was Theodulf, a Visigoth who became bishop of Orleans and a force to be reckoned with on a par with Alcuin himself. Theodulf ’s poem about life at court has already been referred to; and to some extent it challenged Alcuin’s pre-eminence, gently mocking his idiosyncrasies and tastes.15 It gave to

222

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Charlemagne an almost divine stature, ruling over land and sea, likening him to the Old Testament kings Solomon and Josiah, praising his new buildings at Aachen, and attributing to his aegis fertile harvests and clement weather. Theodulf produced a remarkable word-picture, comparable to the elaborate manuscript illuminations of that time, whose message about royal glory was in many ways the same. Closer in temper to Alcuin’s court poems, however, was one by his friend, Angilbert, the king’s nephew, who became lay-abbot of St Riquier.16 Almost unctuous in its praise, it acclaimed Charlemagne as ‘the lover of poets and their glory’, words that run like a refrain throughout the poem. It praised the king for his piety, wisdom and learning, as well as his intention to raise a new temple to the Lord at Aachen. It went on to praise the rest of the royal family, as well it might, for Angilbert was the lover of one of the king’s daughters by whom he sired two children. Angilbert and Alcuin were close friends and both deployed the same range of nicknames for each other and for some of those around them: for example, Alcuin was Flaccus, Angilbert was Homer.17 It seems that Alcuin may have been the instigator of this practice, and his own field of reference was wide, embracing friends among the bishops like Arno of Salzburg, whom he called Aquila,18 Beornrad Bishop of Sens, formerly Abbot of Echternach and a kinsman, whom he styled Samuel, and his fellow-disciple Eanbald Archbishop of York, nick-named Simeon; also a younger courtier and admirer, Einhard who would become famous in his own right, whom he hailed Bezeleel for his building proclivities,19 as well as some of his own disciples and pupils, for example Hrabanus Maur.20 The royal women also received sobriquets: Eulalia, Eugenia, Columba21 and so forth. Some nicknames had biblical associations, others Roman and imperial ones; some used names from early Christian antiquity, while others were culled from classical literature, notable Virgil’s Eclogues. A few of his more intimate nicknames were animal names, notably Cuculus22 and Vitulus,23 for two of his monastic disciples. His closest friends also had nicknames – Witto was called Candidus and Fredegisus was called Nathanael. Many of these names appear in his letters as well as in his poetry, where they assume the wit and familiarity of friendship. ‘Imagination rather than necessity guided Alcuin’s renaming of his world.’24 Generally speaking Alcuin preferred Virgilian and Old Testament names for secular members of the court, while saints’ names were mainly applied to his male and female friends in religion. This panoply of court nicknames had another character and intent, however, consciously masquerading as a new Athens, an Academia reborn under the patronage of a great philosopher-king; a circle of literati conversing against the backdrop of a richly acquired but ancient cultural inheritance, newly appropriated and celebrated both visually and verbally in a self-conscious and sophisticated manner. It is against this backdrop, and within this sometimes fraught web of competing relationships, that Alcuin’s own court poetry has to be seen.

Chapter 23 – The Poet and his Friends

223

Its political significance has already been discussed within the context of Alcuin’s own relationship with Charlemagne. In addition to the acrostic poem mentioned above,25 there remains a more personal one by Alcuin to the king as David, rejoicing in the news of victory brought to him by Angilbert, who is referred to again as Homer.26 Notable too were his several poems dedicated to members of the royal family.27 Details from his famous poem to Charlemagne portraying the court in its hierarchy have already been considered.28 Its language is distinctive, and revealing of the rich range of Latin that Alcuin deployed in his verse. In it he addresses the king in affectionate terms and describes him as ‘the glory, ruler, defender and lover of the Church.’ It contains a full range of nicknames and also an allusion to Virgil as representing the absent master of poetry, from whose writings some of the nicknames were drawn: Drances, Menalcas and Thyrsis.29 Alongside these were biblical names: Bezaleel, Zacchaeus, Nehemiah; also Jesse and Sulpicius are mentioned as proper names.30 This was the poem in which Alcuin expressed his expectations of the royal doctors and also his appreciation of porridge, a predilection mocked by Theodulf in his subsequent court poem. Alcuin’s was a poem permeated by a subtle but firm theological agenda, however, affirming his expectations of Christian political authority as the focus of a well-ordered courtly elite. Closely related to these royal encomia were those composed to commemorate the popes Hadrian I and Leo III, being closely associated with Charlemagne’s patronage, most notably Alcuin’s epitaph for Hadrian which remains extant high in the portico of St Peter’s in Rome. Sometime before Charlemagne’s coronation in Rome in 800, Alcuin wrote a more plaintive poem of great beauty to the king, imploring his protection of ‘old Flaccus’ against his critics.31 It is not without irony; and it shadows closely a letter written about the same time, in which he challenged the pretensions of the rising generation of scholars at court, whom he described as ‘Egyptian boys.’32 It is in these texts that he postures as ‘old Entellus’, still quite able to win a boxing match against his youthful adversaries, an allusion drawn from a letter of Jerome to Augustine. ‘Alcuin’s whole letter is a rarefied and deliberate mixture of open satire of his scholarly adversaries and ironic displays of subservience to his patron, Charlemagne.’33 This is equally true of the poem as well. But rhetoric thus deployed as self-defensive flattery does not tell the whole truth about the relationship between Charlemagne and Alcuin at that time however. By contrast and openly triumphant in its tone was the encomium that Alcuin composed to salute and encourage the king as he made his way to Rome in 800.34 Here Alcuin was writing as a senior adviser to the king, whom he would have accompanied to Rome had he been well enough to do so. It adumbrates the rationale behind the policy that they had deliberated together while the king was staying with Alcuin at Tours that summer, when Queen Liudgard died, and that Charlemagne was to adopt towards the beleaguered papacy and the pacification of the city of

224

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Rome to restore it as Roma caput mundi. It was an overt statement of Alcuin’s belief that Charlemagne alone could and should wield the power necessary to reinstate credible spiritual authority at the heart of the Church. It remains a potent witness to and a very important expression of their vision at a critical moment in the history of Europe and the western Church. Alcuin’s court poetry was not therefore in itself unique. What gave it authority and distinctiveness was its place within his wider correspondence and relationship with the king on matters of policy, expressed by letter and by discussion. It was also part of a broader dialogue with his friends in their own right away from the court as such. These other poems were much more personal, sometimes witty, and were part of his written correspondence with them, which comprises such a large and significant component of his remaining letters. Among these may also be placed his poems written to younger disciples and pupils. There can be no doubt that the use of poetry was an important pastoral instrument in his hands, as well as an expression of sincere friendship. For Alcuin delighted in composing poetry and this is evident even within the traditional constraints of his Latin verse. Although few of his remaining poems appear to have been written while he was in England, there is no doubt that his proficiency had its roots there; and it was towards Northumbria and its ecclesiastical traditions that his three longest poems were in part directed.35

Poems for Friends and Disciples Alcuin’s close friendship with Angilbert has already been mentioned and they shared a common interest in the renewal of monastic life and the theological elaboration of the liturgy. There is a moving short poem, probably written by Alcuin towards the end of his life, in which he implored the support and prayers of his friend as he entered old age.36 It mentions their common friend and Alcuin’s kinsman, Beornrad Archbishop of Sens, for whom he also wrote a personal poem.37 In an earlier poem, presumably written at Tours, when Alcuin felt keenly his absence from court, he wrote to Angilbert asking him to represent him to the king with an appended epistolary poem.38 The rhythmic pattern of the first poem is interesting inasmuch as the first seven syllables comprise words that begin one line of a couplet and conclude the next.39 In a much lighter tone, Alcuin addressed a charming poem to his friend to celebrate the arrival of the spring: it was rich in Virgilian allusions.40 Why would his friend remain silent when nature around him was alive with such lovely sounds? Their friendship was a participation in the peace of Christ himself, for ‘whoever loves peace is a child of God.’ The parallels with Alcuin’s famous poem O mea cella are close and evident.41 Another recipient of Alcuin’s poetic affection and respect was Paulinus, patriarch of Aquilea. Similar in tone to the spring poem for Angilbert was one that seems to have been directed at Paulinus, though this is not entirely

Chapter 23 – The Poet and his Friends

225

certain.42 A more formal salutation is found in another poem expressly sent to him by Alcuin to renew their friendship after an interval without any contact.43 It hailed him as ‘the light of Italy and glory of his fatherland, a famous author, the upholder of justice and a lover of divine worship.’44 It may well have been composed at the height of their collaboration against Adoptionism. In another poem, addressed to Arno as well as to Paulinus, Alcuin praised their orthodoxy and devotion, expressing his own love for them both in quite graphic terms, while hoping that his verse would surpass that of the classical poets.45 In one of his most formal poems, Alcuin revealed the reverence that he clearly felt for his older friend, Paulinus, as the leading archbishop in Charlemagne’s enlarged Italian realm and in their common struggle against heresy, hailing him as ‘father, pastor, patriarch and priest.’46 He sought his prayers; and in return Alcuin prayed for him, invoking explicitly the Virgin Mary as ‘the Mother of God.’47 Towards the end of this prayer-poem, Alcuin hoped that Christ would be to Paulinus as a bishop – ‘love, virtue, honour, and in all things the way, life, salvation, hope, praise and perpetual glory.’48 More intimate were Alcuin’s poems for his great friend, Arno, who became Archbishop of Salzburg and who collected together many of his letters. The poem already mentioned above addressed to Paulinus was also addressed to Arno, using his sobriquet Aquila – the eagle, and celebrating their threefold friendship in very affectionate as well as symbolic terms.49 Most striking perhaps is another poem for Arno that begins with the image of the manuscript containing the poem as a letter winging its way across the mountains and fields to his distant friend in Salzburg.50 This letter as emissary was to request Arno’s prayers for Alcuin, while commending his virtues and duties as a bishop. It stands alongside several of his poems and letters of admonition and pastoral advice to other bishops that he knew.51 It paints a noble picture of the bishop as an intercessor and teacher, a spiritual father and an example of Christian life. This picture is notable too for its Christ-centred character, by which Arno’s own ministry would be measured. In fact Christ is mentioned six times: in terms of his divine nature, worthy of praise and worship; as the judge to whom a bishop would be answerable for his own judgements; and as the source of mercy and love, which would flow towards Alcuin himself as a result of his friend’s prayers. What is striking about this poem is the way in which it distils Alcuin’s theology of the episcopate as a source of spiritual authority and vitality, while articulating his high expectations of his friends who were called to discharge its onerous duties. Alcuin truly was to them a pastor pastorum. The range of other people to whom Alcuin also wrote occasional poems is no less interesting: to Theophylact, who was either the Bishop of Todi, or the librarian of Hadrian I in Rome;52 to Ricbod, Abbot of Lorsch and later Archbishop of Trier;53 and to Adalbert, Abbot of Ferrières, for whom Alcuin wrote two poems.54 No less revealing are ten short poems

226

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

for various unnamed friends contained in a single manuscript in Munich.55 They communicate Alcuin’s wit and sensitivity, addressing friends in various contexts of travel and domestic life, as well as revealing his wider theological sensibility and knowledge.56 A poem seemingly written for his friend Gisele, Abbess of Chelles, reflects well his unique capacity, like Boniface before him, to relate to women: ‘Greetings, noble sister, who will always be sweet love to me: keep your brother in your memory and in your prayers.’57 To his pupils, Alcuin showed wit and tenderness as well as stern rebuke on occasions, just as in his letters. He did not mince his words: ‘Why, I ask, my son, do you love to anger your father?’ The pupil concerned had run away and caused Alcuin real concern.58 In one of his most artful poems, he chafes the drunken escapades of another of his other pupils, calling him Corydon, one of the rustic shepherds of Virgil’s Eclogues.59 Alcuin had just returned from a visit to England, relieved to be safe from the merciless sea. He reminds his disciple of his education in the Bible, drinking ‘Falernian wine’ from the cellars of ancient learning, recovering their wisdom and making it his own. For Corydon was in fact a priest and a preacher; he also was a poet. Now his mind and tongue slept the sleep of the inebriate, a slave of old father Bacchus, and forgetful of his friends, including his returning master, Alcuin: ‘and yet Corydon is a priest?’60 The long poem that Alcuin composed to accompany his disciple and friend, Candidus Wizo, on his journey to Rome to visit the new pope, Leo III, was very different in tone and intention. It is a veritable vade mecum for a pilgrimage to Rome, comprised of two parts derived from different manuscripts, and written by someone familiar with the long and arduous journey across the Alps to Italy, and who knew Rome and its churches well.61 Alcuin imagined his friend’s progress through the holy city, venerating its shrines on his behalf as well as his own – ad limina sancta Petri – but also at St Paul-outside-the-walls.62 Candidus was to implore the forgiveness of God for his father-in-God, praying cross-wise on the ground. The circuit of martyrs in Rome represented the court of heaven itself: their relics induced penitence and devotion.63 Candidus was also to ask the pope for some relics to bring back to Alcuin at Tours, actual fragments perhaps, or more likely pieces of hair and clothing associated with the saints and martyrs of the holy city. He was then to return with haste and without distraction, undeterred by the rigours of the weather, spurred by love for Alcuin himself, who would await him as did Jacob of old for his son Joseph: for love conquers all – omnia vincit amor. Other poems remain of a more pastoral nature sent to his pupils. One such was directed to someone called Friducin, seeking his prayers while on a pilgrimage to unnamed holy places, and reminding him of his Christian duty to be ‘truthful in speech and faithful in heart.’64 He was to lead a sober life and to be generous to the poor along the way, in whom Christ was often present however deprived and wretched they might appear to be.

Chapter 23 – The Poet and his Friends

227

Another addressed a person called Monna, perhaps the priest to whom Alcuin addressed one of his letters, asking him to await his arrival at Tours. Once again he criticised any tendency to over indulgence in food or drink.65 Among a group of six poems intended for the monks at Fulda, where he had hoped to retire, is one addressed almost certainly to Alcuin’s most famous pupil, Hrabanus Maur, who emulated his poetry and incorporated some of it within his own.66 Most striking is another poem, composed in adonic form, for a pupil whose nickname was Credulus, to whom Alcuin also wrote a letter.67 Its rhythms almost certainly echo those of Anglo-Saxon poetry.68 It would readily lend itself to memorisation, but its distinctive pattern is hard to capture in translation: Nunc bipedali Carmine laudes Credule dulces Mi tibi nate Chare canemus Certo valeto!

Chapter 24 The Poet at Work Alcuin’s Latin poetry embodies a confluence of influences, both Latin and Anglo-Saxon. His debt to the Christian Latin poets of late antiquity was evident and admitted, not least by the inclusion of so many of them in the list of books mentioned in his York poem, notably Venantius Fortunatus, but also Boethius. Indeed the dynamic and tone of much of Alcuin’s poetry seems influenced strongly by the poetry included within the De Consolatione Philosophiae itself in its preoccupation with the transience of life and the human sense of the loss of things loved.1 Equally important, however, for Alcuin as for Bede, was the poetry in the Bible. Virgil was his other great mentor, even though his professed attitude towards him as a Christian educator and theologian was at times ambiguous. Alcuin was also formed in the rich tradition of Latin poetry in England, associated with Bede, Aldhelm, and Boniface, which had close affinities with the equally vibrant tradition of Anglo-Saxon verse, Christian and pagan, in the eighth and early ninth centuries as represented by the poet Caedmon and Beowulf. There is, however, no Anglo-Saxon poetry attributed to Alcuin; and probably little of his remaining Latin verse can confidently be dated to his time in England, nor was it much known there in the early ninth century. For Alcuin, Latin poetry represented the more refined element of a revived Christian Roman culture and urbanity: it was also the language of worship and reflection. It was in his hands an instrument for the expression of deep friendship, as well as contributing to the commemoration of the saints. His artistic temperament warmed particularly to the pastoral and bucolic tradition of late antique poetry and it drew forth from him some of his most lovely creations.2 In the Life of Alcuin there is the rather amusing story of how as a young boy of around eleven years of age, he saw a fellow monk snoring when they should have arisen for early morning prayers, and accordingly being assaulted by demons. In terror the young Alcuin prayed fervently to Christ to protect him from the assaults of evil, promising to be more faithful about vigils in church, and committing himself to the Psalms rather than the poetry of Virgil.3 The point of the story is made explicit by the writer: it revealed to Alcuin his preference already for the finer poetry of the great Roman poet. It probably marks the moment in his development and education when he

Chapter 24 – The Poet at Work

229

was able to progress from the Psalms, which he would have learnt first by memory before learning to read them, to actually reading Latin poetry itself, with Virgil as the guide to accurate grammar and eloquent expression. Much later in the same Life, it is recorded that Alcuin as an older man deterred his pupils at Tours from reading too avidly and merely for their entertainment value the writings of the classical authors, and from imbuing the ethos of their poetry, including Virgil’s ‘deceits’: ‘The divine poets should suffice them, lest they become polluted with the luxuries spun by the words of Virgil.’ His disciple and biographer Sigwulf quietly dissented, however, allowing a chosen few to read with him the forbidden poetry secretly. But Alcuin challenged him with the words: ‘What have we here – a Virgilian? Why have you decided to go against my wishes and advice by taking advantage of my ignorance?’4 Yet throughout his poetry, and manifestly in his grammatical writings, Virgil was ever present, explicitly and more often by allusion: for example, in his York poem, Alcuin makes at least 155 allusions to his poetry.5 On the other hand, Virgil makes no appearance in his theological writings, appearing only fleetingly in some of his hagiographies. Alcuin’s ambivalence towards Virgil and what he represented is evident, for example in a letter to Ricbod of Trier, challenging him for his tardy correspondence, asking him whether he loved Virgil more than his friend, while wishing that the four gospels would preoccupy him more than the twelve books of the Aeneid.6 The same note of condemnation is struck elsewhere, for example in a poem prefacing his commentary on the Song of Songs, drawing the contrast between the value of the biblical poem and the misleading poetry of Virgil.7 In a couple of letters he warned of ‘falsehoods’8 spoken by Virgil;9 yet in other poems he extolled by his own usage the virtues of Virgil as a poet.10 It seems that while Alcuin repudiated the theology and beliefs of Virgil as pagan and false, and had to make that quite clear to his pupils,11 he warmed to his skill as a poet and to his mastery of the Latin language, which Alcuin was prepared in certain contexts to press into the service of Christ. The crucial question for Alcuin was therefore how properly to use and commend Virgil in order to appropriate and deploy his language as the standard for accurate and mellifluous Latin.12 ‘The courtier did not behave as the monk’ however:13 hence Alcuin’s willingness to adopt and deploy classical nick-names for his friends and patrons, including names drawn from the poetry of Virgil; but it was only within the charmed circle of Charlemagne and those closest to him that his own assumed sobriquet of Flaccus was used.14 The choice of this name probably arose from a parallel between Alcuin’s relationship with Charlemagne as his adviser and at times amanuensis, and that of the poet of Horace with the Roman Emperor Augustus long before.15 Familiarity with Virgil’s poetry by those at court was of course a self-conscious hall-mark of its cultivation and exclusivity, as well as to its pretensions to be the heir of Christian imperial Rome.16 So, for example, in Alcuin’s letter to Charlemagne in the momentous year 800, outlining the

230

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

justification for his intervention in the affairs of Rome and the papacy, he cited words from the Aeneid about the king’s duty ‘to rescue those oppressed and to throw down the mighty.’17 These were words cited by Augustine in his opening of the City of God, which was one of Charlemagne’s favourite books. What interested Alcuin and his master was the relation of these words to the exercise of power and its moral basis, for these words echoed those in the Magnificat in the gospel as well.18 They added rhetorical weight to the arguments that Alcuin was advancing in several of his letters to the king in those years about the nature and duties of Christian monarchy. It is however in his pastoral poems that the legacy of Virgil shines most clearly through Alcuin’s Latin. The most famous of these, O mea cella, almost certainly has its roots in Alcuin’s formation at York, and his authorship is no longer in any serious doubt.19 It is a rich and evocative piece of nostalgia for a lost paradise, for a well-loved community set in a locus amoenus, wherein he alluded to himself as Flaccus and probably to Angilbert as Homer. The poem begins by painting a vivid picture of a tranquil pastoral environment, full of flowers and herbs, with streams abundant in fish, and fruit-trees laden with fruit, fragrant with the smell of white lilies and red roses. It was in this place that wisdom was taught and received at the hand of a master, accompanied by liturgical worship, poetry and music. With his sharp lament to the now tearful Muses, the inheritance of Boethius becomes apparent, echoing the poems in the De Consolatione Philosophiae. For the place is now vacant of poets, ichabod – the glory has departed: for ‘nothing is eternal’, all is in flux. Night, winter and wind sweep across the world, watched helplessly by an old man leaning on his staff. ‘Why do we mortal human beings love you so, O fleeting world?’20 In a striking line, Alcuin lamented the flight of the ordered world away from him as a human being, not the other way round. Confronted with the inexorable passage of time and loss, wherein lay the root of his identity as a sentient and reflective human being? The poems ends with a doxology to Christ, whom alone ‘we may always love’, and whose love for a person is the only true security and guarantee of the hope of an eternal existence: ‘so may the love of God, therefore, always hold fast our hearts!’21 For only Christ can protect men from their ancient enemy by snatching their hearts to heaven, wherein alone is their glory, life and salvation. In its mood of lament for a passing world and the sense of impending death and separation, this poem was not far from the tone and preoccupation of many of Alcuin’s later letters to his close friends. It echoed too the preoccupation with the inevitable doom of mankind that is evident in Beowulf and other contemporary Anglo-Saxon poems: a fear captured forever in the vivid story of human life being like the hasty flight of a sparrow through the fire-lit halls of men and then out into the storm and lost forever, as recounted by Bede in his History.22 Alcuin’s picture of the locus amoenus is modelled on that portrayed in the exquisite biblical poem, the Song of Songs, as well as on classical models, an Eden

Chapter 24 – The Poet at Work

231

restored: all its details have theological symbolic significance, even if its language is Virgilian.23 ‘In re-working Latin in the ways he did, Alcuin allows himself to become the poet of the classical locus amoenus. Because his engagement of Virgilian pastoral is so convincing, Alcuin places himself in the paradoxical position of seeming to embrace precisely what he rejects at the poem’s end: a love of earthly beauty.’24 Virgil’s Georgic 2 was his principal guide in determining how he portrayed the lost paradise of his younger years at York, and perhaps on the continent for a time too with Angilbert, even if the meaning was biblical in inspiration and allusion. ‘There is a firm parallel between Alcuin’s ideal pastoral recollection of his cell and Virgil’s rustic pastoral ideal.’25 There is also a reference mid-way in this poem to Aeneid 6, which describes the journey of Aeneas to the underworld in pursuit of knowledge: for Alcuin himself is entering a darkness which he would prefer to avoid, looking back towards a receding but beloved pool of light and life. For his faith, evident at the end of the poem and elsewhere in his writings, did not preclude deep uncertainty.26 The note he finally strikes, here and in some of the letters from the end of his life, reflects his keen sense of the fragility of human life and its brevity, encapsulated in words uttered in the gospel to Christ: ‘I believe: help thou my unbelief!’27 There is no end to the darkness of this world: there is only the hope of a light and life that is eternal and which is solely God’s gift in Christ. Natural human life in this world as experienced by Alcuin reflected his deep intuition that ‘what is supremely and uniquely human is also entirely and sublimely divine . . . Alcuin, like Dante, suggests the paradoxical: that something abides in this temporal world, though nothing is ever supposed to remain.’28 In that important respect his poetry is another, if subtle, expression of his deep belief in the reality and immediacy of the Incarnation of Christ. Alcuin’s other pastoral poems are no less interesting and revealing of his psychology and beliefs, as well as of his spontaneous capacity to draw from a memory replete with Virgil and the Bible. In one, he composed an elaborate debate between spring and winter, melding together classical and Germanic traditions with a subtle Christian interpretation.29 It was a bucolic interpretation of a story originally told by Aesop,30 deploying two of Virgil’s shepherds, Daphnis and Palaemon.31 Central to the poem is the advent of the cuckoo, which assumed great significance in Germanic lore as the baleful harbinger of spring. The structure of the poem as a rhetorical conflict is the first known example of such a composition. It is also a subtle adaptation of the original fable told by Aesop, with underlying themes from Christian theology.32 There are numerous phrases drawn from Virgil’s Eclogues, and occasionally from the Aeneid and Georgics as well.33 The tone of the conflict is established before the opening exchange: spring appears wearing a garland of flowers, whereas winter has hair like bristles standing up on end, rigid with frost:

232

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Spring ‘I hope that my cuckoo will arrive – most beloved of birds! Everyone always regards him as a most welcome guest, Singing his good songs upon the roof-tops with a shining beak!’ Winter Glacial winter responded in grim tones: ‘Let the cuckoo not come – let him slumber still in dark caverns! After all he always brings famine in his wake.’ Permeating the whole poem is the perennial moral conflict between winter, which amasses wealth to devour it, and spring, which creates and restores it: the poem is a veritable psychomachia. Spring taunts and condemns winter as essentially parasitic, a ‘proud pauper’ incapable of supporting itself without the provisions generated by spring and summer, condemned also by the shepherds as profligate with the wealth of others. In their carillon of anticipation and welcome for the cuckoo, the bird becomes the harbinger of a deeper spring, however: that of ‘sweet Love’ itself. Winter by contrast is the prison of the soul, offering only those things that pander to the seven deadly sins.34 This poem thus stands alongside some of Alcuin’s letters, in which he alerted his friends and pupils to the moral hazards of wealth. In contrast he extolled the piety of the shepherds, their simplicity of life, and the clarity of their values.35 At the end of the poem, the cuckoo stands for Christ himself, whose coming as ‘the sweet friend of the shepherds’ alone can bring repose and refreshment to the soul, for he is the life giver and their ‘sweet love.’36 Alcuin has closed and resolved this poem on a Christocentric and eschatological note of hope: but there is a painful irony too inasmuch as the cuckoo is not always welcome, being seen as an ugly intruder and an outcast, ‘the cuckoo in the nest’, as was Christ himself. Its beauty is not always apparent, and its note is plaintive, sombre at times, and even minatory – ‘cuckoo, cuckoo.’37 Closely associated with this poem were two others where the cuckoo is a central leitmotiv. In the first, the Virgilian shepherds are Daphnis once again and Menalcus. 38 The poem takes the form of a stately dialogue lamenting the flight of their friend the cuckoo, lost in a storm and drowned in a whirlpool created by Bacchus, the god of drink.39 The song is a prayer for his safe return, lest he be lost forever by his master and his fellow disciple. They fear that Bacchus, ‘who ever seeks to capture human hearts’, is poisoning the cuckoo. Will the prodigal return, even in tears: for ‘once we were three, joined in unity of spirit?’40 Will their songs of lamentation reach his ears and induce the compunction necessary to enable him to repent and return? It is a poem in which fear and desire, love and irony are perfectly balanced.41 The affinity with Virgil’s fifth Eclogue is particularly apparent in the midst of a plethora of Virgilian echoes.42 This poem is notable for its movement back and forth between symbol and reality: its underlying structure is one of falling away, possible repentance, expressing the hope of redemption in response to the intercession of a true

Chapter 24 – The Poet at Work

233

spiritual father and the compassion and loyalty of a friend. ‘The meaningful echoes of his poem are a matter not so much of conscious wit as of an archetypally attuned mind’,43 in which his hearers share. Alcuin’s sense of typology sprang from his experience as a biblical exegete, as well as someone steeped in the poetry of the liturgy.44 In this poem, as in his letters, the choice for Alcuin was not ‘against, but between loves: intimacy is seen as the antithesis of profligacy.’45 For the waters of this world’s whirlpools may touch but they cannot damage or stifle Christian love; and the hall-mark of this sensibility and hope in the poem is the alternation of serenity and an urgent pathos, expressed in tones drawn from the Psalms. This poem is an appeal to the heart through the inner vision of the mind. ‘Such an effortless balance between evocation and statement, idyll and prose, allusive background and affective foreground, makes Alcuin the most important writer of pastoral poetry between Virgil and Dante.’46 The roots of his mastery lie as much in the Song of Songs in the Bible, however, as in the models and language provided by Virgil.47 His skill lay in ‘sacramentalising the immediate, of seeing the present in the rich context of a timeless [Christian] past.’48 For Alcuin, all human love, and friendship in particular, was sanctified in its expression as ordinata caritas, a phrase drawn from one his more intimate letters to Arno at Salzburg.49 ‘His art is unequivocally for the sake of his vision and not vice versa.’50 His vision was that of friendship in Christ that was the only true and lastingly shared human reality. His poems were written, as were some of his letters, to capture in words his fleeting impression and sense of that experience and reality. The other poem about the cuckoo is different again, though no less rich in its Virgilian associations, for in the middle of the poem Alcuin speaks about his friends in York ‘seizing the lyre of Maro [i.e. Virgil] to wake the sleeping Muses.’51 It is a celebration of spring, and also a tribute to the community where he first learnt the art of poetry. Alcuin envisaged a response to his message by means of the Frisian sailors trading to and from York. His poem invoked a transitus emanating from a classical evocation of spring, kindled by the memory of shared friendship and discipleship, passing through meadows of patristic teaching in pursuit of divine wisdom – sophia. He enjoined those who remembered him as their master to use wisely the gifts of wisdom, and not to become dissipated by the snares of Bacchus, lest drink rot their minds. Once again the poem closed with a reference to Christ, to whom they should sing with truly sweetened lips: ‘May he be to you your food and drink, your song, your praise, and your glory.’52 Like the other poems, in its moral character as well as in its structure, it moved between two poles of choice and reality, in this case of well-being or of dissipation. In this respect it was very close to Alcuin’s moral exhortations in his letters and treatises.53 It reveals an intimacy of language born of a deep love for his friends and former pupils, who are ‘cherished by their father, privileged in their birth, our nation’s praise and glory.’54 Despite his duty to Charlemagne, his Northumbrian patriotism was never in any doubt.

234

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Perhaps the most charming and moving of Alcuin’s pastoral poems is the one describing the nightingale.55 It is more biblical in its inspiration and language than Virgilian, although there are two references to the Aeneid. Its range of language revealed Alcuin’s debt to the Lombard poets, Paul the Deacon and Paulinus of Aquilea, whom he met at court, as well as to Bede and Aldhelm.56 Yet it is the most personal of his poems, reflecting his sensitivity to nature in a way possibly nurtured originally by Irish teachers and friends. It is once again a poem about loss, in this case of a favourite bird that sang near his window: its destruction is perceived as an act of envy in the face of joy. Yet the darkness of this intuition does not cloud what follows in the poem: for the song of the nightingale has inspired his poetry and often soothed his unquiet mind. Alcuin summons a host of different birds to join him in his lament. Like Christ himself, or the bride in the Song of Songs, who was ‘black but comely’,57 the nightingale was ‘spurned for its colour but not for its song.’58 It was the melodic range of its singing that attracted Alcuin and etched it on his memory, providing another hint of his own musicality. The bird led his praise to the Creator; its songs were holy: this was its glory. If such a voice sang the praises of God daily, it pointed beyond itself to the continual praise of the angels in heaven. Would that human beings had such a constant praise of God upon their lips! The singing of the nightingale had an insistence that was not distracted by the need for food or company: it was in fact the model for a true monk. Its fidelity was a gift of God to awaken men from the torpor of wine, sleep and mental laziness. Alcuin held up the diligence of the bird, guided only by instinct, and without reason or understanding, to his hearers who were endowed with both, and whose words should always praise God in the same manner. The bird’s natural vocation pointed the way for the diligent pursuit of their heavenly vocation by those who were made in the divine image and likeness and, unlike the bird, conscious of their origin and the divine call. It is hard not to see here the profound influence of Augustine upon Alcuin’s aesthetic sensibilities: for this poem supremely echoed the haunting words of Augustine in his Confessions: ‘late have I loved thee, beauty so ancient and so new.’59 The loss of Alcuin’s writings about music leaves a significant gap in understanding his artistic sensibilities as well as his likely debt in this area to the writings of Boethius on music.60 Augustine also was a deeply musical person, keenly aware of the allure of aesthetic considerations when responding to theology and the conduct of divine worship. Once again Alcuin as a poetic artist was close in spirit to his great master.

Anglo-Saxon Poetry and the Vernacular One of the most interesting but elusive questions relating to Alcuin’s Latin poetry is its affinity to contemporary Anglo-Saxon poetry.61 There is no reason to suppose that, like Bede before him, Alcuin was not a bi-lingual poet;

Chapter 24 – The Poet at Work 62

235

but there is no Anglo-Saxon verse now remaining that can be attributed to him, just as there is none of his Latin poetry and little of his other writings that can confidently be dated to his life in England. If such material were once preserved at York, it most probably perished during the Viking raids and conquest of that city in the ninth century, when the life of the church in Northumbria was almost destroyed for a while. Most of the Anglo-Saxon verse that still remains was collated and copied in Wessex from the very end of the ninth century onwards as the result of a deliberate cultural policy, initiated by King Alfred the Great, and perpetuated by reforming monks such as Dunstan in the tenth and early eleventh centuries.63 The first and most obvious parallel between the poetry of Alcuin and his Anglo-Saxon contemporaries must be his poems about the Cross. The most famous of these, Crux, decus es mundi was composed relatively early in 780 for Charlemagne in an acrostic form.64 This form emulated the late court poetry of the Western Roman Empire, as has already been discussed; but its theological content and imagery is thoroughly English and bears comparison with the Dream of the Rood in its use of paradox.65 The theme of the Cross and its recovery is also central to the contemporary Anglo-Saxon poem, Cynewulf ’s Elene.66 In some other early Anglo-Saxon poems it is easy to see affinities of thought and expression with the writings and poems of Alcuin in Latin: they draw on a common Anglo-Latin inheritance modulated by Christian theology and the imagery of the Bible. In some cases there are actual modes of expression that are identical in both languages, while in others patterns of thought follow similar lines of development:67 for example, the cuckoo appears as the harbinger of spring in the Anglo-Saxon poem The Husband’s Message.68 It is possible to use the writings of Alcuin to illuminate Anglo-Saxon poetry and vice versa. ‘Alcuin can, in one sense, be thought of as standing in relation to his own age much as Shakespeare stood to his: he was representative of it, but to a superlative degree.’69 Thus in Cynewulf ’s Elene, there is a description of the Day of Judgement and an interpretation of the nature of purgatory that is also found in Alcuin’s commentary on the gospel of John.70 There is no evidence of interdependency, however; but both testify to a common origin in patristic teaching that was earlier than that of Augustine and Gregory the Great, and which was mediated through writers such as Caesarius of Arles and Eligius of Noyon, probably springing from some of the writings of Ambrose.71 The description of the Day of Judgement in Elene is also very similar to Fursey’s vision in Bede’s History72 as well as to that in the Anglo-Saxon poem The Phoenix.73 What each text reflects is the fluidity with which some central doctrines of the Church were treated and portrayed at that time in both art and poetry in England. In a letter to the Bishop of Leicester, written in 797 after the death of Offa and his anointed son in Mercia, Alcuin asked the famous rhetorical question by which his attitude towards ‘pagan’ poetry has too often been judged: ‘What has Hinieldus in common with Christ?’74 Alcuin’s question

236

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

as a Christian theologian echoed that of Jerome and also those of Paul.75 Yet what was at stake was a participation in something that had pagan roots rather than a repudiation of pagan poetry as such. The context and intention of its declamation was all important. The significance of this reference by Alcuin has been much discussed, and its context seems to have been a discreet rebuke to a bishop who was too close to the seat of power, and at whose feasts the genealogies of the ancient kings were recited, perhaps in an incantatory form or as professions of loyalty to Offa, whose dynastic roots were far from secure. Hinieldus has been identified with Ingeld, who appears in Beowulf and also in the early Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith. The story of Ingeld was about revenge by a ruler; so the reference may have had a cryptic topical relevance to the critical situation in Mercia, with which Alcuin was certainly concerned in some of his letters, after the death in 796 of so powerful a king with so young a successor.76 Mercia in the eighth century appears to be the environment in which Beowulf took its final form.77 In a magisterial study, which is the finest examination of Alcuin as a writer, Bolton has shown how Alcuin illuminates many details and themes in Beowulf and vice versa.78 He demonstrates how a Christian intellectual like Alcuin might have approached the material and themes in the great poem, which is itself a rich fusion of many influences, Germanic, Christian and patristic, and notably Virgil as well.79 Bolton’s conclusion about the purpose of the literary devices in Beowulf would also be true about Alcuin’s poetry: ‘These literary devices enable the poem to serve the goals of literature as Alcuin saw them: to emulate and embody divine wisdom; to provide a mirror for a meditative man, and especially for the prudens lector, in which to contemplate his destiny; to be in itself an act of charity of the kind so signally missing among the heroic acts of Beowulf. By its use of material from the pagan past in an eclectic mixture with Scripture, and by its alteration of history so as to point a moral meaning, the poem Beowulf is a literary employment of history that seeks to overcome both time and temporalia by means of contrastive juxtaposition and comparison.’80 Beowulf and many of the poems and some of the other writings of Alcuin are governed by the reiterated or implicit comparative rhetorical question quanto magis – ‘if this could be so then, how much more should it be so now?’81 By this means, the legacy of the past, classical and Germanic, pagan and Christian, could be safely held up as an exemplar, and at times a warning too, in order to spur the hearers or readers to a higher moral effort in response to the demands of their Christian destiny. To this end the language of the past might be deployed safely, ‘tongued with fire’ as it was, but this time with the fire of the Holy Spirit; and it was indeed so eloquently used in both languages, Latin and Anglo-Saxon, in a creative but parallel symbiosis. Alcuin expressed from time to time a great horror at the down-drag of vernacular forms of Latin, or ‘rusticity’ as he described it. He was also fully

Chapter 24 – The Poet at Work

237

conscious of the inherent divide between Germanic speakers and Frankish ones in Charlemagne’s realm, as his Ars Grammatica reveals, which was composed as a clever dialogue between a Frankish and a Saxon pupil under his supervision as their master.82 His De Orthographia addressed the matter of correct Latin pronunciation as well as spelling, as has been noted already.83 This preoccupation with a high standard of written and spoken language is evident in everything that Alcuin wrote, from his advice to the king about the educational reforms necessary in his realm, through his liturgical and theological writings, to his educational treatises and poems. Alcuin was also of the view that heresy arose from incorrect use and understanding of language, for accurate words participate in and mediate the truth that they describe.84 He brought to bear the full weight of his learning, drawn from both classical and patristic writers, to address the need for sound language to underpin law and right belief. Over against the correct Latin that he promoted in these various ways, there was the daily Romana lingua rustica, the various dialects of Latin that were spoken across Francia, Italy and elsewhere.85 Alcuin was also sensitive to the varieties of Old German manifest on the eastern side of the Rhine, the area of expanding monastic mission.86 For his part, he consciously cultivated a more urbane and regulated Latin, accurately underpinned by grammar, and consistent in its pronunciation and spelling.87 Nonetheless from time to time the impulse of familiarity with more popular modes of speech breaks through Alcuin’s writing, and his own emotional insistence can drive and generate the almost modern way that he sometimes uses Latin, notably in a few of his more personal letters.88 To what extent Alcuin addressed the separation that was inevitably appearing between ‘book Latin’ and spoken Latin in his homilies, for example, is unknown, as they have been lost.89 Yet his awareness of different audiences is evident in the way that he designated his two versions of the Life of Willibrord, or in his determination to update and improve existing hagiographies, for example that of St Martin his patron at Tours, as well as in the hymns that he composed for more general use.90 One of the loveliest of these was for the night: O fountain of light, you are Light and the origin of Light, Listen with favour in your mercy to our prayers. O Light, as we flee from the darkness of our sins, Rescue us, whose bountiful and holy power first created us, Whose justice condemned us, and whose devotion has redeemed us: Be in all things merciful, just and almighty.91 Perhaps the considerable number of inscriptions that Alcuin wrote for various churches and monasteries should be seen as an attempt to bridge the gap between the cultivated culture of the clerical elite and the needs of more ordinary pilgrims. The Latin of these inscriptions was derived from Christian poets like Prudentius and Venantius Fortunatus, and they constitute a distinct and extensive genre within Alcuin’s poetic writings, comprising in fact the largest part of his poetry.92 Some were in response to

238

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

the requests of friends, for example Arno of Salzburg or Rado of St Vedast in Arras; others were groups of inscriptions for monasteries and churches known to him, for use within the church itself and its side chapels, or for other buildings. Some are modelled on north Italian tituli, and many remain for destinations now unknown. They constitute an important contribution to the cult of the saints not least that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, often being simple and brief in their form: Virgin Mother of God, queen of our salvation, Assist here the prayers of your servants: This altar has been made holy by your prayers: May praise, honour and salvation be offered to your holy virgins.93 Many of Alcuin’s inscriptions commemorated the local saints of the church, distilling their virtues into lines that could be easily remembered, and which would interpret what the pilgrim encountered in a particular chapel, including its works of art and decoration. For church buildings were often designed as places for internal pilgrimage around the various shrines within it, for example at St Riquier. This inscription by Alcuin for an altar dedicated to Laurence, the Roman deacon and martyr, is typical: May the deacon of God, Laurence, protect this entire chapel, To whom this altar has been dedicated. As a man he overcame by his courage and faith All the burning flames and torments out of his love for God. Now he cares for the poor, wherever they may be in the world: For he has the care of Christ’s riches in heaven.94 Some of the most charming and revealing are those designed to encourage fidelity to the monastic life: This is a holy house, a place of peace, a haven of salvation, For upon it rests forever the blessing of Christ. May he multiply the fellowship of the brethren within it, Who once satisfied five thousand of his people With the riches of heaven, by the miracle of the five loaves.95 Others convey Alcuin’s love of learning and his warm encouragement of the young. This inscription was intended for the cupboard where the books were carefully stored: These little quarters hold gifts of heavenly wisdom, Which, joyful reader, you may learn to read with a devout heart. The wisdom given here is better than all treasures, In so far as a person takes them as light for his journey.96 This inscription for a refectory makes a fitting epitome of Alcuin’s hopes for the renewal of monastic community life and worship: May brotherly love be everywhere among you, brethren. May there be peace, a pure faith in Christ and sweet concord. May Christ be on your lips and dwelling in your hearts. May Christ be your food and drink, your life and your salvation.97

Chapter 25 Alcuin’s Theology of Friendship It is, of course, in the many letters of Alcuin as well as in some of his poems that his distinctive beliefs about the role of friendship within Christianity emerge; and the letters to Arno of Salzburg are most consistently revealing of this deep strand within Alcuin’s psychology as well as his skill as a writer. Their collaboration as theologians in combating Adoptionism and advancing Christian mission has already been discussed. There are fifty-eight letters preserved, and also a few poems that Alcuin wrote to Arno, making them the largest component of his material intended for any one individual apart from Charlemagne himself. Their preservation was the action of a friend in honour of an older friend, and so they afford a unique insight into a relationship that spanned at least the last fifteen years of Alcuin’s life: for Arno, who was evidently younger, outlived Alcuin by seventeen years, dying in 821.1 The first letter remaining from Alcuin to Arno was in fact written towards the end of 790 while he was in Northumbria, explaining why he was remaining in his homeland longer than he had anticipated.2 Like many of his other letters to his friend it contained a short poem. These letters provide a fascinating thread through the momentous events with which they were both involved as leading churchmen: the evangelisation of the Avars and the Saxons,3 the battle against Adoptionism,4 and the vicissitudes of Pope Leo III.5 They had many friends in common: thus in 799, Alcuin wrote a letter of condolence to Arno to mark the murder of Eric of Friuli, Charlemagne’s champion of the south-eastern march of his domain, which was at the head of the Adriatic and thus a key trade route into the Frankish realms and the Danube basin.6 Leidrad of Lyons and Angilbert of St Riquier were close to them both, and some younger monks get a mention also: Hildegar, who was a nephew of Arno’s and under Alcuin’s wing for a time;7 Cuculus, an English disciple of Alcuin’s who was occasionally an intermediary to whom Arno also wrote;8 and Vitulus who was perhaps Sigwulf, Alcuin’s biographer, and who may have had to take refuge with Arno for a while after a fracas at Tours.9 Candidus Wizo was also a common friend and an active link.10 On one occasion at least Alcuin wrote directly to the monastic community at Salzburg on behalf of his friend their bishop.11 On another occasion he

240

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

wrote congratulating Arno on his reception of the pallium from the pope as Archbishop of Salzburg in 798.12 Alcuin sent Arno several copies of his writings towards the end of his life. In 802 he responded to a request from his friend and transmitted a version of his much earlier letter to the pupils at Tours about the need for confession.13 The facilitator of this exchange was Adalbert, the future Abbot of Ferrières. This was followed by a much fuller body of writing on the same theme, sent by the hand of Alcuin’s disciple and successor, Fredegisus, and comprising a libellus manualis or enchiridion containing Alcuin’s commentary on the penitential psalms, Psalm 119 and the gradual psalms; it also contained an abbreviated psalter attributed to Bede, along with one of his hymns and some other kindred material.14 In the same year Alcuin sent to Arno his first and, at the time, the only copy of his commentary on Ecclesiastes for copying at Salzburg and swift return.15 Most moving perhaps is the cluster of letters that Alcuin wrote in the final years of his life to Arno, as ill health was beginning to dog him and he sensed his approaching death.16 Yet he could still tackle energetically a theological crux in a letter dealing with the proper use of the terms substantia, essentia, subsistentia and natura in relation to the existence of God.17 The preservation of these final letters was a fine tribute by Arno to his older friend, and it reciprocated the depth of Alcuin’s appreciation of him that was evident in a couple of his poems composed in Arno’s honour.18 Close examination of the style of some of the letters between Alcuin and Arno sheds further light on the quality of their friendship and their intellectual affinity. Arno’s sobriquet was Aquila, meaning in Latin ‘eagle’ and therefore a direct translation of his Germanic name; a person called Aquila was also a close colleague for a time of the apostle Paul whose influence on the tone of Alcuin’s letters was considerable.19 ‘The word-play on Arno’s name in the letters sent to him by Alcuin is a distinctive feature of the correspondence. Epistolary flights of fancy involving eagles, other birds, fishing and quills of charity, the flight of Habakkuk and effusive embraces – all come into play. Dazzling mental leaps link these images: metaphors and allusions abound.’20 Arno for his part preserved Alcuin’s letters so carefully, not just for personal reasons, but because he recognised their exemplary quality of auctoritas, their fidelity to patristic teaching. For him as for many of Alcuin’s other disciples he was a true and eloquent Father of the Church himself as their teacher and spiritual mentor. Some elements in these letters appear to be personal; but their careful preservation by Arno was as a corpus of material suitable for public reading, teaching and emulation, as well as for more private meditation, reflection and memory. Alcuin’s predilection for nicknames has already been noted and discussed, and his penchant for bird and animal names was usually restricted to his pupils, past and present.21 It was an expression of endearment but also of spiritual nurture and moral responsibility on Alcuin’s part towards them. Arno as a fishing eagle was also a suitable metaphor for his role as a pastor and ‘fisher of

Chapter 25 – Alcuin’s Theology of Friendship

241

men.’ Alcuin’s longing for the capacity to fly over the mountains to his friend, like Habakkuk did to Daniel in the lion’s den in the Bible, was another conceit, drawn from the letters of Jerome.22 In yet a further mode, the eagle was the distinguished symbol of John the evangelist and great theologian, frequently portrayed as such in Carolingian art, carving and manuscript illumination.23 The apostolic eagle’s vision was therefore to be spiritual and commanding, appropriate for one who was upholding orthodoxy while exercising the cure of souls.24 From the letters of Jerome Alcuin also drew the language of affectionate and physical embrace as a rhetorical metaphor for the quality of their friendship and the pain of his often lengthy separation from his friend.25 In one of only two letters remaining from Arno’s pen, addressed to their common and sometimes wayward protégé, Cuculus-Dodo, Arno also used bird imagery, as well as allusions to the Song of Songs in the Bible in the manner of Alcuin’s own poetry.26 They were clearly united in their expressions of care towards those under their moral authority. ‘The rhetorical play on aquila and its associations appears to be an idiom particular to Alcuin and Arno, one which could evoke a special amicitia, purvey reminders of episcopal duty, and shade off into an animal codelanguage of parental concern for shared pupils . . . It is clear that Alcuin regarded him as inhabiting the same world of thought, as capable of grasping allusions to Isidore, Jerome and Virgil as well as to the Bible; and that Arno himself greatly prized the correspondence and fully grasped its hints and admonitions about episcopal responsibility.’27 Permeating and sustaining this important correspondence between Alcuin and Arno was a strong belief in Christian friendship as a pre-eminent hallmark of the Kingdom of God and the reality of the Church, a share in the communio sanctorum.28 This belief is also very evident in many other letters that Alcuin wrote to his friends and disciples which were very much in the spirit of the pastoral elements in the letters of St Paul. Even today, to read his letters is to be embraced by his outgoing conviction and warmth of expectation, which transcends the conventional language and allusions in which they were expressed. Alcuin clearly had a great capacity for friendship and an eager desire to communicate effectively in a way which he hoped would be reciprocated, which is why it is so sad that no letters now remain from his friends to him. But his amicitia was surely reciprocated; otherwise it is hard to know how he could write to his friends so eloquently, and with such affectionate trust and confident demand for a response. Herein Alcuin was sometimes frustrated, as no doubt they were too, by the exigencies of travel and the often haphazard nature of reliable communications at that time: people could easily miss each other just by passing up adjacent valleys, and messengers were often in too great a hurry to permit lengthy epistles to be composed in addition to the demands of more formal business. On the other hand, it was a measure of Alcuin’s privileged status that he had the resources to write so much, and also to command the services of royal and other couriers.

242

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

For Alcuin as for his friends, tangible letters were surrogates for meetings, indeed almost sacramental signs and embodiments of the affections, prayers and aspirations that united them, as well as being public documents. They were often tokens of trust as well, to be placed quite literally under the stole of intimacy and friendship.29 Consideration of the spiritual significance of Christian friendship in the writings of Alcuin is to come very close to the heart of the man, and to the reason why he was so respected and loved by his friends and disciples. 30 Alcuin’s own language of friendship in prose and poetry was influenced by that of Venantius Fortunatus. Its pattern ‘shows amicitia as a special form of Christian caritas, whose source is the divine image’ recognised in the other person.31 In one of his poems, Venantius described a true friend as a homo dulcis or even a homo paradisus, and on one occasion he spoke of the amor beatus that draws souls to God by means of human friendship.32 Alcuin’s eloquence in this matter marks him off from other letter-writers of the Carolingian period, whose language and expectations of friendship appear more prosaic. He by contrast was a theologian of Christian friendship. Moreover some of his poems, like those of Venantius Fortunatus, were veritable letters of affection in themselves. His Latinity was influenced also by Cicero, as was Bede’s before him, in the formal expression and expectations of friendship.33 ‘Alcuin was a man full of initiative and originality, with the measure, tact and skill of a diplomat. He had modesty and a pleasant humour, a lovable irony and a gaiety that helped his learning to win the esteem and friendship of Charlemagne. He had no use for sadness, the “death of the soul.”’34 For him the Christian love of a friend meant care for his or her soul and its well-being: hence the note of moral admonition in many of his letters. In fact, Alcuin uses the word caritas seventy-seven times as the unique term for Christian amicitia.35 In its reality lay the key to the hidden image of God in human nature, the bond of unity and of unanimity between friends in Christ. Alcuin regarded such Christian friendship as a unique gift of God Himself, a sacramental reality that conduced towards holiness. This made him openhearted towards others and especially towards the young. In a letter to Arno about his nephew, he could speak about his willingness to embrace all who came to him, never repudiating them, so that he might be able to draw them within the orbit of his affection.36 He spoke of Arno himself as closer to him than a brother, as one whom he regarded with a parental affection, and for whom he had an absolute trust. ‘Such love between friends is holy: it is the sacra via, along which only a friend can pass.’37 For ‘caritas is of God, in that God commands it, infuses it and is its reward:’38 and such caritas has to be built upon castitas, as only that can enable true friendship to spring up and be sustained in a life-giving way. In Alcuin’s experience, such love and friendship were a gracious charism from God Himself, a participation in His reality as revealed in Christ, but hidden within the life of the Trinity. ‘May there be that unity in Christ without which there is no perfection of charity.’39

Chapter 25 – Alcuin’s Theology of Friendship

243

To the monks of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria Alcuin painted a dynamic picture of a flowering tree to symbolise the inner quality of monastic community life, whose roots are friendship, capable over time of bearing the flowers and fruits of faith and eternal bliss as a result of mutual care and nurture.40 In a letter to Candidus Wizo, he remarked how the sudden memory of his friend had raised him to the thought of Christ Himself; in another letter to the priest Onias, he asserted that ‘Christ is our best and closest friend.’41 Foreshadowing the spirituality of the Cistercians,42 Alcuin believed fervently that Christian friendship pointed beyond itself towards communion with God. The apparently erotic language of the Song of Songs signified this potentiality within human nature, giving a transcendent meaning to sexuality, affection and personality, as well as pointing to deeper affinities of mind and heart that could hardly be adequately expressed, thus revealing the true purpose of God in creating human persons in His image and likeness: for ‘what is charity unless it is the unity of souls?’43 Unanimity means what it says – a union of souls in which each is responsible for the other, and holds the other person in love as a living memory or presence. Love’s essence is a faithful self-giving that mirrors that of God Himself in Christ and in the Holy Spirit: mirroring the mystery of the Trinity, Alcuin declared to Arno that ‘where love is one, there no will is diverse.’44 Writing an emotional appeal to his wayward pupil Cuculus-Dodo, Alcuin could exclaim: ‘I give myself completely to you: so you give yourself totally to me too.’45 In the case of his relationship with Arno, Alcuin averred that each dwelt in the soul of the other.46 His relationship with Paulinus of Aquileia was equally strong, it seems, marked by a wound that Alcuin felt in his heart, burning as a flame, so that he could truly use the words echoing the Song of Songs, ‘I am wounded by love.’47 In a letter probably written to Ricbod, Archbishop of Trier and Abbot of Lorsch, Alcuin spoke in similar terms about the flame of burning love.48 What is notable here is that ‘this text is a link between love as unity by presence and likeness with love as a mystical fire and wound.’49 ‘The unity of friends in a mutual interiority and possession is a reflection of the unity of God. The quality of likeness and their interior presence reflect the relation of the Father and the Son: the love which springs from this likeness, and which causes union, reflects the Holy Spirit. That friendship even reflects the mutual presence of the Father and Son in the Holy Trinity is suggested by Alcuin’s adoption of the words of Christ, “and yet I am not alone, for the Father who sent me is with me.”50 The bond of the friend’s love, as in the Trinity, is the Holy Spirit.’51 Alcuin was clearly a mystic, for whom friendship and prayer were ladders of divine ascent. ‘This mystical friendship is symbolized in the related

244

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

images of fire, water, darkness, wound and sweetness.’52 His understanding of the process hidden within Christian friendship is governed by a subtle intuition that therein the lost likeness in human nature is being painfully but lovingly restored, so that the hidden image of God in a person, in loving relationships with others, may once again reflect divine reality and love. That is why the language of the Song of Songs speaks of paradise restored: ‘Love of his friend is a flame that seizes him suddenly and transports him to the love of Christ. It is a fire in the “cave” of the heart . . . The fire-symbol almost always signifies the identity of friendship-love with God’s love: for love is the fire of God.’53 Writing to Adalhard of Corbie, Alcuin declared that love within Christian friendship is a deep mystery, ‘a reality experienced darkly, so intense that it surpasses understanding; only God, whose gift it is, can measure it.’54 Alcuin’s language here assumes the richness of the poetry of the Song of Songs itself that also infuses some of his more personal poetry; but it is also the ‘language of mysticism, of the ineffable experience of love, likened to taste and sweetness.’55 For permeating his language is the potent use of the words dulcis and dulcedo, responding to the voice of divine calling coming to him through the words, affection and memory of his friends. Thus in a poem he could speak of someone as his ‘sweet love, a song of the heart on the lips, forever engraved upon his memory.’56 ‘In Alcuin’s thought, the transcendence of this movement of love is maintained. The image is of divine goodness, of Christ Himself; it is also sweet – dulcis. The bond of friendship is the work of the Holy Spirit that united friends with and in Christ, and that draws them to perfect likeness and possession. Dulcedo is the manifestation in time, with all its pain and darkness, of the serenity, peace and light of eternity, an eternity that is “pax Christi et concordia dulcis.” . . . Friendship was the only force capable of recreating humanity, for friendship was the most complete actualization of the caritas Christi.’57 It is this depth of human love and spiritual experience that gives such resonance to Alcuin’s liturgical writing and prayers, and that accounts for the sensitive vitality and hope expressed in his poetry and letters. It also accounts for the depth and clarity of his conviction about the central realities of the Christian faith, notably the Incarnation and the Trinity, as well as his sensitivity to the path of penitence, loyalty to others, moral rectitude and the desire for holiness. His eagerness to teach and to communicate, and to distil the wisdom of the Fathers in expounding the Bible, was fundamental to his moral authority and legacy as a teacher and intellectual. Alcuin was clearly a person who made God real to many of his contemporaries in a way that was not quickly forgotten, and which enabled them also to follow the narrow and afflicted path that leads to the Life that is life indeed.

Notes Part One – Alcuin’s Formation and Reputation Chapter 1 – The Legacy of Bede 1. Colgrave, B. & Mynors, R.A.B., (tr.) Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English people (Oxford, 1969) (hereafter abbreviated as HE). 2. It was because of his stature as a theologian that Bede was finally declared a Doctor of the Catholic Church by Pope Leo III in 1899. 3. See Veyrard-Cosme, C., Bede dans les ‘lettres’ d’Alcuin: de la source à l’exemplum in Lebecq, S., Perrin, M., Szerwiniack, O., (eds.) Bede le vénérable entre tradition et posterité, Villeneuve d’Ascq: Université Charles de Gaulle (Paris, 2005) 223-30: ‘La figure de Bede subit, dans la correspondence alcuinienne, une metamorphose. Insensiblement, d’auteur de réference, Bede devient exemple a suivre’, 226. 4. For what follows, see Dales, D.J., Light to the Isles – mission & theology in Celtic & AngloSaxon Britain, (Cambridge, 1997) chapter 8; also Mayr-Harting, H., The coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed. London, 1991). A good general account of Bede’s life and work is Ward, B., The Venerable Bede (London, 1990). 5. Translated in Farmer, D.H., The Age of Bede (London, 1983). 6. Holder, A.G., (tr.) Bede – on the Tabernacle (Liverpool, 1994). 7. Connolly, S., (tr.) Bede – on the Temple (Liverpool, 1995). 8. Wallis, F., Bede – the reckoning of time (Liverpool, 1999). 9. See for an example in the tenth century in England – Henel, H., (ed.) Aelfric’s De Temporibus Anni, EETS (1942/1970). 10. EHD 170; c.f. Kirby, D.P., Bede’s ‘Historia ecclesiastica’: its contemporary setting (Jarrow, 1992). 11. Brooks, N., Bede and the English (Jarrow, 1999). 12. Cuthbert’s letter on the death of Bede is in HE p.580f. 13. In the middle of the eleventh century his body was translated from Jarrow to the cathedral at Durham; and in 1370 it was placed in the Galilee chapel where it remains to this day. 14. EHD 179; & H&S iii. 358-60. c.f. Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946) 140. 15. EHD 180; c.f. Rollason, D., Bede & Germany (Jarrow, 2001). 16. H&S iii. 388-90. 17. EHD 185. 18. H&S iii. 437. 19. EHD 216 – H&S iii. 635-6; c.f. Whitelock, D., After Bede (Jarrow, 1960). 20. Levison, W., op. cit. 146-7. 21. Ibid. lines 1301-1314; translated and slightly abbreviated in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004) 98.

246

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

22. Ibid. lines 685-6. 23. DAB 227-8 n.299. 24. Ibid. 229. 25. Thacker, A., Bede & Augustine of Hippo: history and figure in sacred text (Jarrow, 2005). See also Biggs, F., Bede’s use of Augustine; echoes from some sermons, Revue Benedictine 108 (1998) 201-213; & Dolbeau, F., Bede, lecteur des sermons d’Augustin, Filologia Mediolatina 3 (1996) 105-133. 26. See for example Veyrard-Cosme, C., art. cit. 27. ALC 9; c.f. Brown, G.H., Bede the educator (Jarrow, 1996). 28. ALC 32: Orthography is the correct mode of writing a language, in this case Latin. 29. ALC 26; c.f. Ray, R., Bede, rhetoric, and the creation of Christian Latin culture (Jarrow, 1997). 30. ALC 11. 118 – Carmen Lux est orbis honor. 31. Stevens, W.M., Bede’s scientific achievement (Jarrow, 1985). 32. ALC 45. 126. 33. ALC 45. 143. 34. ALC 45. 144: sicut beatus Gregorius mirabilis doctor edocet. 35. ALC 45. 145. 36. ALC 45. 148. 37. ALC 45. 149. 38. ALC 45. 155. 39. ALC 45. 170. 40. ALC 45. 171. 41. ALC 34. 42. [ALC 23] 43. ALC 10; note also ALC 11. 72 – a dedicatory poem to Charlemagne accompanying a text called Libellus annalis, which contained the argumenta veterum sophorum that Alcuin attributed to Bede and later included within the volume containing the Calculatio Albini. 44. ALC 15: see the edition by Gugielmetti, R.E., (ed.) Alcuino – Commentato dei Cantici: con I commenti anonimi ‘vox ecclesie’, ‘vox antique ecclesie’: edizione critica (Florence, Millennio Medievale, 53, 2004). 45. ALC 48; c.f. Bonner, G. St Bede in the tradition of western apocalyptic commentary (Jarrow, 1966). 46. ALC 49. 47. ALC 51. 48. ALC 76. 49. See Lampe, G.W.H. (ed.) The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol.2, (Cambridge, 1969) chapters v & vi.2. 50. See Veyrard-Cosme, C., art. cit. 51. ALC 45 .88; c.f. ALC 45. 216; c.f. Hurst, D., (tr.) Bede the Venerable – commentary on the seven Catholic epistles (Kalamazoo, 1985). 52. ALC 45. 191; c.f. Connolly, S., (tr.) Bede on Tobit & on the canticle of Habbakuk (Dublin, 1997). 53. ALC 45. 259; c.f. Ward, B., Bede & the Psalter (Jarrow, 1991). 54. ALC 61. 109. 11. 55. ALC 92. 56. ALC 37. 57. ALC 45. 284; & H&S iii. 470-1.

Notes

247

58. ALC 45. 286. 59. ALC 45. 19; there is a fragment of this letter in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum 1.70; c.f. Bullough, D.A., A neglected early-ninth-century manuscript of the Lindisfarne ‘Vita S. Cuthberti’, ASE, 27 (1998) 105-37. 60. ALC 11. 9: carmen: Postquam primus homo; translated by Godman, P., in his Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 127-39. 61. ALC 11. 72 where Bede is described as nostrae cathegita terrae.

Chapter 2 – Formation at York 1. AD 732-766. 2. Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982), line 1260 – egregius doctor. 3. Vita Alcuini cap 2.7. 4. Cap 3. 8 - O vere monachum, monachi sine voto – monastic life was not then as closely defined as it became after the ninth century Carolingian attempts to impose the Rule of St Benedict as a norm. 5. Ibid. Egbert had the charism of tears, making prostrations, and praying standing for long periods with his arms outstretched like a cross; c.f. Godman, P., op .cit. line 1264. 6. EHD 170; the Latin text is in H&S iii p.314-326; also in Plummer, C., Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896), vol. i p. 405-423. 7. EHD 184; H&S iii 394-6. 8. H&S iii 403-413. 9. H&S iii 360-376; see Cubitt, C., Anglo-Saxon church councils, c.650-850 (Leicester, 1995). 10. Vita Alcuini cap 5. 11; but c.f. Bullough’s caveat about this date in DAB 30-33. 11. Ibid, cap 4. 9-10; c.f. Dialogues of Gregory the Great II.35. 12. EHD 188; H&S iii 435-7. 13. See Orchard, A., Wish you were here: Alcuin’s courtly poetry & the boys back home, in S. Rees-Jones et al (eds.) Courts & regions in medieval Europe, (York, 2000) 21-44, especially 24-5. 14. Godman, P., op. cit. lines 1581-2 & 1589-1592 & 1596; translated in Dales, D. J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich) 2004, p.99. 15. ALC 45. 271; c.f. DAB 242-3. 16. AD 772-795. 17. Godman, P., op. cit. lines 1396 – end; Alcuin’s approach emulated that of Venantius Fortunatus. 18. Ibid. line 1465 – does this draw a subtle contrast with Alcuin’s own lot, and so give a clue to the place and dating of this poem’s completion – i.e. while Alcuin was in fact abroad? 19. DAB 236-7. 20. Lapidge, M., The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006) 35-7. 21. Godman, P., op. cit. lines 1535-1560. 22. Lapidge, M., op. cit. 40-42 & listed 228-233. 23. Godman, P., op. cit. lines 1558-1562. 24. See Lapidge, M., Knowledge of the poems [of Venantius Fortunatus] in the earlier [AngloSaxon] period – appendix to R.W. Hunt, Manuscript evidence for knowledge of the poems of Venantius Fortunatus in late Anglo-Saxon England, ASE 8 (1979) 287-295 [also in Lapidge, M., Anglo-Latin literature (London, 1996) 399-407].

248

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

25. Godman, P. ibid. p.lxxiii-lxxiv. 26. Godman makes this clear in his notes to the lines in question on pages 122-126. 27. ALC 45. 121: EHD 201 (part only): this letter is full of allusions to the Song of Songs. 28. Hadot, P., Marius Victorinus et Alcuin, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Âge, 29 (1954) 5-19: ‘Il y a une grandeur émouvante dans cet effort d’Alcuin pour se hausser à noveau vers les sommets atteints par Augustin et Boece . . . Ce n’est pas seulement la lettre, c’est l’ésprit d’Augustin qui renaît. . . . Victorinus est pour lui un modèle.’ (p.6 & 19) 29. See appendix I at the end of this chapter for a full list of authors and putative titles at York at this time; c.f. Crick, J., An Anglo-Saxon fragment of Justinus’s ‘Epitome,’ ASE, 16 (1987) 181-196. Comparison may also be drawn with a contemporary book list associated with the monastery of Montecassino in Italy from the time of Charlemagne and Paul the Deacon: c.f. Holtz, L., Le Parisinus Latinus 7530, synthèse cassinienne des artes liberaux, Studi Medievali, 3/16 (1975) 97-152. 30. See the discussion by Lapidge, M., The Anglo-Saxon Library 229-231; and Godman’s notes to the actual lines. 31. But see Blair, P.H., From Bede to Alcuin, in G. Bonner (ed.) Famulus Christi (London, 1976) 239-260. 32. ALC 30; c.f. Constantinescu, R., Alcuin et les ‘libelli precum de l’époque carolingienne, Revue de l’histoire de la spiritualité, 50 (1974) 17-56: this is a study of the Bamberg manuscript listed below in note 33. 33. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Misc. part.17 (saec.x) f133-62; & El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo, B.IV.17 (southern France, saec.ix med) f93-108. 34. See Lapidge op. cit. 231-3, where these possible titles are listed. 35. Godman, P., op. cit. lines 1559-60. 36. Ibid. line 1536 – ‘the legacy [literally ‘footprints’] of the ancient Fathers’. 37. DAB 176. 38. Ibid. 177. 39. Kuypers, A.B. (ed.), The prayer book of Aedeluald the bishop commonly called the book of Cerne (Cambridge, 1902); & Birch, W de G., An ancient manuscript of the eighth or ninth century formerly belonging to St Mary’s abbey [Winchester – the Nunnaminster Codex] (London-Winchester, 1889); recently discussed by Brown, M., The book of Cerne: prayer, patronage and power in ninth-century England, British Library studies in medieval culture (London/Toronto, 1996); see also Sims-Williams, P., Religion & literature in western England, 600-800, Cambridge studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (Cambridge, 1990); also Bestul, T.H., Continental sources of Anglo-Saxon devotional writing in Szarmach, P., (ed.) Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Kalamazoo, 1986). 40. A Durham cathedral manuscript B.II.30 from Werden contains an abbreviated version of Cassiodorus’ Expositio psalmorum and seems similar to one used by Alcuin in his own work on the Psalms: see DAB 256-8; c.f. also M. Lapidge Latin learning in ninth century England in Anglo-Latin literature 600-899 (London, 1996) 427. 41. DAB 185. 42. DAB 193-9; c.f. Constantinescu, R., art. cit. 17-56. 43. Bullough, D.A., Alcuin, Arn and the Creed in the Mass in Niederkorn-Bruck, M., & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbishof Arn von Salzburg, Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40 (Vienna & Munich, 2004) 128-136; c.f. the

Notes

249

version of the Nicene Creed in the Bodleian manuscript in Oxford MS.Add.A.173 [f.xix(v)], which can be dated quite closely to the decade after Alcuin’s death in 804 and before the use of the filioque became widespread in the Frankish church: the later changes reflecting this development are inserted in a less elegant hand. 44. ALC 45. 226 – quid opus est nova condere, dum vetera sufficient? c.f. DAB 204 n.224. 45. The Bodleian manuscript Hatton MS 93, written in an Irish hand at Worcester around the year 790, reflects a very rich and traditional approach to the Eucharist and its meaning in England, containing as it does the earliest copy of De Officio Missae, a work popular among the Carolingian reformers. A text of this interesting work, not precisely the one in Hatton ms. 93, may be found printed in Migne PL 138. 1173-1186. 46. Wilmart, A., Un témoin Anglo-Saxon du calendrier métrique d’York, RB, 46 (1934) 41-69; but c.f. DAB 208-9 for some reservations; see also Lapidge, M., A tenth century metrical calendar from Ramsey, RB, 94 (1984) 326-69 for its subsequent influence in England and on the continent. A similar fate befell the calendar that Bede appended to his De Temporum Ratione – Meyvaert, P., Discovering the calendar (Annalis Libellus) attached to Bede’s own copy of ‘De Tempore Ratione,’ Analecta Bollandiana, 120 (2002) 5-45; this is also discussed in Bullough, D.A., York, Bede’s calendar and a pre-Bedan English martyrology, Analecta Bollandia, 121/2003 p.329-353. See again Lapidge, M., A tenth century metrical calendar from Ramsey, RB, 94 (1984) 326-69 for its subsequent importance in tenth century England. 47. Multipli rutilet gemma ceu in fronte Novembri: cunctorum fulget sanctorum laude decorus. 48. HE II. 4; the original dedication of the Pantheon was to St Mary and the martyrs but the commemoration of its consecration on 13 May was kept as the feast of All Saints until the feast was transferred to 1 November. 49. ALC 45. 193. 50. Arno himself was committed to the cause, as a decree of the synod of Riesbach in 798 made clear; and there is mention of this date and feast in the poetic martyrology of Oengus the Culdee. See also a letter of Cathwulf to Charlemagne written around 775 commending an annual feast of All Saints at a date unspecified. 51. See also DAB’s contrary conclusion: p.209. 52. Wilmart op. cit. 64 – ‘mais à condition d’écarter toute association directe avec la liturgie de cette église.’ 53. DAB 229 – citing the view of Gerald Bonner: c.f. note 302. 54. Campbell, A., (tr.) Aethelwulf ’s ‘De Abbatibus’ (Oxford, 1967). 55. Ibid. p.xlvii; it is preserved only in the Bamberg manuscript immediately after the De Laude Dei. c.f. ALC 45. 273: for Alcuin’s letter to the community of Candida Casa at Whithorn. 56. Lapidge, M,. Aedilwulf & the school of York in Anglo-Latin literature 600-899 (London, 1996) p.381-98. 57. Ibid. 390. 58. Ibid. 392-3 c.f. Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946) appendix ix, p.295-302. 59. EHD 3 p.268; he is commemorated in lines 1387-1392 of Alcuin’s York poem where he is described as ‘devoutly leading the life of an angel on earth.’ 60. As it did in the early life of St Dunstan: see Dales, D.J., Dunstan – saint & statesman (Cambridge, 1988), 23-4. 61. Orchard, N., The English and German masses in honour of St Oswald of Northumbria, AL 37 (1995) 347-358.

250

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

62. Godman, P., op. cit. line 664. 63. Godman op. cit. lines 1526-8. 64. ALC 45. 112: the word schola means here the pupils who were part of the retinue or familia of a bishop. 65. ALC 45. 121 – c.f. EHD 201. 66. ALC 10; c.f. DAB 287-293; it is also discussed but more sceptically in Borst, A., & Lohrmann, D., Alkuin und die Enzyklopadie von 809 in P.L. Butzer and D. Lohrmann (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilisation in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 71-112. Computus was the calculation of sacred time and used in astronomy. 67. Lohrmann, D., Alcuins Korrespondenz mit Karl dem Grossen uber Kalendar und Astronomie in ibid; see also Wallis, F., Bede – the reckoning of time (Liverpool, 1999) lxxxv-xciii for the Carolingian use of Bede’s works. 68. See Dales, D.J., Light to the Isles – mission & theology in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Britain, (Cambridge, 1997) 158-9. 69. EHD 160. 70. Levison, W., op. cit. 95-6 & 108-9. 71. EHD 3 – p.268 s.a. 767 – from early Northumbrian annals included in Simeon of Durham’s Historia Regum. 72. EHD 160 p.788. 73. DAB 305. 74. ALC 45. 6: the Wends were a Slavic people inhabiting the southern Baltic coast. 75. Levison, W., op. cit. 110. 76. Talbot, C.H., The Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany (London, 1954) – the Life of St Lebuin [i.e. Leofwine] is translated on pages 229-234. 77. There is a penetrating study of the affinities between Alcuin and Boniface in Schmitz, G., Bonifatius und Alkuin: ein Beitrag zur Glaubensverkundigung in der Karolingerzeit, AGG, 73-90.

Chapter 3 – Scholars at Charlemagne’s Court 1. Garrison, M., The English and the Irish and the court of Charlemagne in Butzer, P., Kerner, M., & Oberschelp, W., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa /Charlemagne and his heritage: 1200 years of civilization and science in Europe (Turnhout, 1997) 97-124. 2. Notker cap 1; Einhard cap 21: in Thorpe, L., Two Lives of Charlemagne – Einhard & Notker the Stammerer (London, 1969) 93-4 & 76. 3. Schutz, H., The Carolingians in central Europe, their history, arts & architecture (Brill/ Leiden, 2004). 4. ALC 45.8 & 14. 5. Lapidge, M., The Adonic verses ‘ad Fidolium’ attributed to Columbanus Studi Medievali (1977/ii) 249-314. 6. ALC 17 – the second concluding poem. 7. ALC 11. 54; Credulus is mentioned in ALC 45. 233. 8. ALC 30; c.f. Lapidge, M., art. cit. 263 9. Now we sing to you, O Christ, joyful songs of praise, with our whole heart, and with a pure mind, in perpetual devotion.

Notes

251

10. Lapidge, M., art. cit. 273. 11. Berlin MS Diez B Sant 66; Lapidge, M., art. cit. 286f. Gorman speculates that Columbanus may have been based in Northern Italy, perhaps at the monastery of Nonantola: c.f. Gorman, M.M., Peter of Pisa and the ‘Quaestiunculae’ copied for Charlemagne in Brussels II 2572, RB, 110 (2000) 238-260, on page 250. 12. This may have been intended for the Irish bishop of Bourges, Cadac-Andreas: see Lapidge, M., art. cit. 297. 13. ALC 11. 62; c.f. art. cit. p. 306f. See also Boas, M., Alcuin & Cato (Leiden, 1937). 14. See Story, J., Cathwulf, Kingship & the royal abbey of St Denis, Speculum, 74 (1999) 3-21; see also Falkowski, W., ‘Barbaricum’ comme devoir et défi du souverain chrétien, AY 407-416. 15. Garrison, M., art. cit. 117. 16. See Garrison, M., The Franks as the New Israel? Education for an identity from Pippin to Charlemagne in Hen, Y., & Innes, M., (eds.) The uses of the past in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2000) 114-161. 17. Garrison, M., Letters to a king and biblical exegesis: the examples of Cathwulf and Clemens Peregrinus, EME, 7 (1998) 305-328; also Falkowski, W. art. cit. 18. For example, the Tassilo chalice now at Kremsmunster monastery in Austria, a good example of high quality Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship executed at this time on the continent. 19. Garrison, M., art. cit. 311; see also the wider discussion in Alberi, M., ‘Like the army of God’s camp’: political theology and apocalyptic warfare at Charlemagne’s court, Viator, 41[2] 2010, 1-20. 20. This tradition ran back a long way, beyond the pseudo-Cyprianic treatise De duodecim abusivis saeculi to the writings of Gildas, cited at the beginning of Bede’s History; and beyond that to the writings of late antique figures such as Salvian of Marseilles. 21. Garrison, M., art. cit. 327. 22. Meens, R., Politics, mirrors of princes and the Bible: sins, kings and the well-being of the realm, Early Medieval Europe, 7 (1998) 345-57. Cathwulf attributed this tradition to St Patrick. 23. ‘Read and understand this diligently.’ 24. ‘Hic Deus adiutor validus tibi semper adiutor, / impia qui tulit tibi semper bella per orbem, / obruit fortes, simul et humiles honoravit;’ But as in Bede’s History, how could a king be humble and survive? What were the implications of this Christian teaching for the effective exercise of rule? 25. For what follows, see Gorman, M.M., The encyclopaedic commentary on Genesis prepared for Charlemagne by Wigbod, Recherches Augustiniennes, 17 (1982) 173-201; Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and the ‘lectiones’ on the Hexateuch attributed to Bede in Paris MS Lat. 2342, RB, 105 (1995) 310-347;Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and biblical studies under Charlemagne, RB 107 (1997) p.40-76; Gorman, M.M., Wigbod, Charlemagne’s commentator – the ‘Quaestiunculae super evangelium’, RB 114 (2004) 5-74; Gorman, M.M., The epitome of Wigbod’s commentaries on Genesis and the gospels, RB, 118 (2008) 5-29. 26. MS Admont 174. 27. Augustine – De Genesi ad Litteram – translated by E. Hill & in J.E. Rotelle (ed.) St Augustine On Genesis (New York, 2002). 28. Fortunately this was transcribed in the early eighteenth century by the scholar Martène in 1719.

252

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

29. Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and biblical studies under Charlemagne, RB, 107 (1997) 48-9. 30. Art. cit. 50. 31. Art. cit. 73. 32. Ibid. 74. 33. See Gorman, M.M., The epitome of Wigbod’s commentaries on Genesis and the gospels, RB, 118 (2008) 5-29 for his possible authorship of the Explanatio sex dierum, attributed to Bede, and the epitome of his own commentaries, along with an earlier compilation of excerpts on Genesis and the early Recapitulatio de paradiso. His use of dialogue as a form paralleled and perhaps anticipated that of Alcuin, as both men were avid educators: all these attributed texts were primarily educational in purpose. 34. Einhard’s Life cap 25. 35. ALC 45. 172. 36. Discussed in Bullough, D.A., Reminiscence and reality: text, transmission and testimony of an Alcuin letter, JML, 5 (1995) 174-201. 37. Gorman, M.M., Peter of Pisa and the ‘Quaestiunculae’ copied for Charlemagne in Brussels II 2572, RB, 110 (2000)238-260. 38. Brussels II 2572. 39. Gorman, M.M., art. cit. 239 n.6. This is strikingly similar to the dedication to Wigbod’s commentary. 40. ALC 76; this was also Wigbod’s approach. 41. Law, V., The Insular Grammarians (Ipswich, 1982) 20. 42. Gorman, M.M., art. cit. 246-8. 43. Bischoff, B., Die Hofbibliothek Karls des Grossen in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Hachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 42-62; translated in Bischoff, B., [Gorman, M.M, tr.] Manuscripts & Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne (Cambridge, 1994) – chapter 3: The court library of Charlemagne, where the significance of this manuscript is discussed in some detail on page 68f. The balance of the arguments about the significance of this manuscript is also well discussed in McKitterick, R., Charlemagne – the formation of a European identity (Cambridge, 2008) 363-9. 44. See Gorman, M.M., Peter of Pisa and the ‘Quaestiunculae’ copied for Charlemagne in Brussels II 2572, RB, 110 (2000) 238-260, his conclusion in 250. 45. There is a useful list of its contents in Gorman, M. M., art.cit. appendix 2, p.260. It contained works by Lucan, Statius, Terence, Juvenal, Horace, Claudian, Martial, Cicero, Sallust and others. 46. See Chiesa, P., (ed.) Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2001); also Hen, Y., Paul the deacon and the Frankish liturgy in Chiesa, P., (ed.) Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2001); also Leonardi, C., Paolo Diacono: tradizione germanica e cristiana & La figura di Paolo Diacono in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004), 219-248. 47. ALC 11. 4. 48. Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 83-7; c.f. Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987). The original Latin texts of Paul’s letters, epitaphs and poems can found with related material in Neff, K., Kritische und erklarende Ausgabe der Gedichte des Paulus Diaconus in Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters (ed.) L. Traube (Munich, 1908) 59-62.

Notes

253

49. Godman, P., op .cit. [1985] 87-9; Neff op.cit.64-8. 50. Ibid. 83; Neff op. cit. 59-62. 51. Godman, P., op. cit [1987] 48-9. 52. Ibid. 49; c.f. Bishoff, B., op. cit. 152 – MS Paris lat 7530 [CLA 5.569]. See also L. Holtz, Le Parisinus Latinus 7530, synthèse cassinienne des arts liberaux, Studi medievali, 3rd series, 16 (1975) 109f. 53. Bischoff, B., op. cit. 58. 54. Bischoff, B., op. cit. 45; c.f. MS Assisi San Francesco 585 [CLA 3.279] dated as early as 787, ibid. 54. 55. MS Milan I.i.sup [CLA 3.348] 76-94 – see Bischoff, B., op. cit. 51 n.151. 56. Ibid. 63. 57. MS Escorial O.III.31 & Wolfenbuttel Aug.4.10.3; c.f. Bischoff, B., op. cit. 64-5, n.44. 58. MS Berlin Diez. B.66 [CLA 8.1044]; c.f. Bischoff, B., op. cit. 71. 59. MS Paris lat. 7530 [CLA 5.569] & MS Erfurt 2.10. f.44-5; c.f. Bischoff, B., op. cit. 100. 60. A convenient English edition remains Foulke, W.D., (tr.) Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards (ed.) E. Peters (Philadelphia, 2003). For what follows see also Goffart, W., The narrators of barbarian history – Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, 1988) chapter 5. 61. Herren, M., Theological aspects of the writings of Paul the Deacon in in Chiesa, P., (ed.) Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2001).

Chapter 4 – Controversy over Images 1. The full and correct title is Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum. The best introduction to the Libri Carolini is the chapter by T.F.X. Noble Tradition and learning in search of ideology: the Libri Carolini in Sullivan, R.E., (ed.) The Gentle Voices of Teachers – aspects of learning in the Carolingian age (Ohio 1995) 227-260. 2. It has been the life’s work of Ann Freeman to establish the precise provenance of the Libri Carolini and to edit the text in MGH Leges: 4, Concilia: Tomus II, Supplementum I, (Hannover, 1998). See Freeman, A., Theodulf of Orleans: Charlemagne’s spokesman against the second Council of Nicea (Ashgate/Variorum, 2003), which contains her important articles on this subject. See also Mitalaite, K., Philosophie et théologie de l’image dans les ‘Libri Carolini’ in Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Moyen Âge et Temps Modernes, 43 (Paris, 2007). 3. This is D. Whitelock’s translation in EHD 3 s.a. 792, p.272. 4. Grierson, P., The Carolingian empire in the eyes of Byzantium in Nascita dell’Europa ed Europa Carolingia: un’equazione da verificare (SSCI 27, 1981, vol. 2.) 885-916. 5. The most magisterial treatment of the place of the Libri Carolini within this wider perspective is Noble, T.F.X., Images, Iconoclasm and the Carolingians (PA, 2009). There is a good summary of his approach to Theodulf ’s work in his article: Noble, T.F.X., The vocabulary of vision and worship in Nie, G. de, et al (eds.) Seeing the invisible in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Turnhout, 2005) 213-238. 6. A good introduction to iconoclasm may be found in Chadwick, H., East & West - the making of a rift in the Church (Oxford, 2003); see also Brown, P., A Dark Age crisis – aspects of the iconoclastic controversy, EHR, 78 (1973) 1-34; & Brown, P., The Rise of Western Christendom (Oxford, 2nd edn. 2003) 383-406; see also Herrin, J.,

254

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

The formation of Christendom, (Oxford, 1987) part three, for a masterly overview of this whole subject. 7. Gero, S., The ‘Libri Carolini’ and the Image controversy, Greek Orthodox theological review, 18 (1973) 7-34; also Mango, C., La culture grecque et l’Occident au VIIIe siècle in I problemi dell’Occidente nel secolo VIII, SSCI, 20 (1973) 683-721. 8. See Auzepy, M-F., Francfort et Nicée II in FK 279-300, p.294; also more generally Cholij, R., Theodore the Stoudite: the ordering of holiness (Oxford, 2002) 10-15. 9. St Maria Antiqua played an important role in the papal assertion of control and influence in Rome in the early eighth century under Pope John VII: its complicated sequence of frescoes captures the vicissitudes of the Roman resistance to iconoclasm: see the comments by A. Augenti on p.50-1 of her article The Palatine hill from the fifth to the tenth century in Smith, J.H.M., (ed.) Early medieval Rome & the Christian West: essays in honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean, 28 (Leiden, 2000). 10. Connolly, S., (tr.) Bede – on the Temple (Liverpool, 1995) [II.19.10] 90-2; see also Meyvaert, P., Bede and church paintings, ASE, 8 (1979) 63-77. 11. Numbers 21. 9. 12. See Moorhead, J., Iconoclasm, the Cross and the imperial image, Byzantium, 55 (1985) 165-179; also Brubaker. L., Representation c 800: Arab, Byzantine, Carolingian, TRHS, 19 (2009) 37-55. 13. MS Vatican lat. 7207. 14. Noble, T.F.X., Images, Iconoclasm and the Carolingians (Pennsylvania University Press, 2009) 180. Three important articles corroborate his approach: Auzepy, M-F., Francfort et Nicée II in FK 279-300; Thummel, H.G., Die frankische Reaktion auf das 2 Nicaenum in den Libri Carolini FK 965-980; & McCormick, M., Textes, images et iconoclasme dans le cadre des relations entre Byzance et l’Occident Carolingie,n Testo e immagine, SSCI, 41 (1994) 95-162. 15. The subject of the Filioque is discussed more fully below; for an introduction see Siecienski, A.E., The Filioque – the history of a doctrinal controversy (Oxford, 2010); see also Heath, R.G., The western schism of the Franks and the Filioque, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 33 (1972) 97-113. 16. Auzepy, M.F., art. cit. 290: ‘Pour preserver la tranquillité de ses états, Charlemagne était donc force de refuser a Nicée II le titre de concile oecumenique, mais aussi de démonstrer par un plaidoyer théologiquement argumente que le culte des images imposé par Nicée II n’était pas justifié. Le concile de Francfort était inévitable et les ”Libri Carolini” indispensables.’ 17. Ibid. 298. 18. Ibid. 300: ‘Ainsi c’est moins l’iconoclasme de Constantine V que l’iconodule d’Irene qui a scelle la séparation entre Orient et Occident, en rendant pensable et possible le couronnement impérial de Charlemagne.’ Irene’s blinding of her own son Constantine sometime after the Synod of Frankfurt only strengthened Frankish concerns and pretensions. 19. John 4. 24. 20. Wallach however maintained his objections to Theodulf ’s sole authorship to the end: see Wallach, L., Diplomatic studies in Latin and Greek documents from the Carolingian age (Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1977) notably chapters 12 & 14. The evidence he adduced for Alcuin’s likely contributions, however, indicates the essentially collaborative nature of the final version. 21. Freeman, A., Opus Caroli Regis contra Synodum [Libri Carolini] (MGH – Hannover, 1998); also in Freeman, A., Theodulf of Orleans: Charlemagne’s spokesman against the

Notes

255

second Council of Nicea (London, 2003) chapter 1. 22. Book IV. 28. See Wallach, L., Alcuin & Charlemagne: studies in Carolingian history & literature, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 32 (NY, 1959/1968) 175-6; but note Freeman’s caveats in op. cit. 69. 23. MS Paris Arsenal 663: the Corbie copy survives in a single leaf. See Freeman op. cit. 17, notes 73 & 74 for the views of Ganz and Bischoff about these two manuscripts. See also Ganz, D., Corbie in the Carolingian renaissance, Beiheft der Francia, 20 (Sigmaringen 1990). At the Reformation the Libri Carolini was rediscovered again and printed as a Protestant tract in 1549; it was known to Calvin but condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as a forgery until early in the twentieth century. 24. MS Sinai Slavonicus 5. fol. 83v; see Freeman, A., op. cit. note 141 on page 30. 25. Ibid. 31 – confirming the power of liturgy and memorised Scripture in the formation of the early medieval educated mind. 26. The key principle being upheld is found in Libri Carolini book III.16: nos nihil in imaginibus spernamus praeter adorationem. 27. See Gorman, M.M., Theodulf of Orleans and the exegetical miscellany in Paris Lat. 15679, RB, 109 (1999) 278-320. 28. See Chazelle, C.M., Matter, spirit and image in the Libri Carolini, Recherches Augustiniennes, 21 (1986) 163-184; Chazelle, C.M., Images, Scripture, the Church & the ‘Libri Carolini’, PMR 16/17 (1992) 53-70; Chazelle, C.M., Memory, instruction, worship: Gregory’s influence on early medieval doctrines of the artistic image in Cavadini, J.C., (ed.) Gregory the Great: a symposium (Notre Dame, 1996) 181-215; there is a good summary of her approach in Chazelle, C.M., The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2001) 39-52. 29. Chazelle, C.M., Images, Scripture, the Church & the ‘Libri Carolini’, PMR 16/17 (1992) 62. 30. Diebold, W.J., The New Testament and the visual arts in the Carolingian era, with special reference to the ‘sapiens architectus’ (I Cor.3.10) in The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (eds.) C.M. Chazelle & B. Edwards (Turnhout, 2003) 141-153, on page 153. 31. I Corinthians 3.10 & I Peter 2.5. 32. Libri Carolini book 4.3: cited in Noble, T.F.X., The vocabulary of vision and worship in Nie, G. de, et al (eds.) Seeing the invisible in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Turnhout, 2005) 213-238, on page 228. 33. Ibid; see O’Connell, R.J., Art and the Christian intelligence in St Augustine (Oxford, 1978). 34. These entries concerning Frankish affairs may well have been derived from Alcuin himself. 35. See Bullough, D.A., Alcuin before Frankfort in GL3 571-586; also in FK 571-586. 36. Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946) appendix II.233-40. 37. Verum Deum unigenitum et verum Dei Filium non factum aut adoptivum sed genitum et unius cum Patre substantiae; see discussion in Freeman op. cit. chapter vii, 163-88 for other examples of corrections influenced by the challenge of Adoptionism. 38. See Freeman’s discussion of the distinctive nature of book IV.28 in op. cit. Introduction, 68-9. 39. Wallach found parallels with two of Alcuin’s letters for the substance of the argument but not for the wording: Wallach, L., Charlemagne and Alcuin: diplomatic studies in Carolingian epistolography, Traditio, 9 (1953) 127-154 & 175f.

256

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

40. DAB 404-5. 41. Freeman op. cit. chapter I, 85-91. 42. Ibid. 85. 43. ALC 45. 193; c.f. ALC 45. 10. 44. Its modern title is Paraphrasis Themistiana; see Freeman op. cit. chapter i, 87f; see also Demetracopoulos, J.A., Alcuin and the realm of application of Aristotle’s ‘Categories’ in Meirinhos, J.F., et al (eds.) Intellect and imagination in medieval philosophy (Turnhout – 3 vols, 2006) 1733-42. 45. ALC 11.73: it was often copied at the head of manuscripts of this work in the ninth century: Alcuin described the king as magnus sophiae sectator, amator. 46. See DAB 377. 47. See Marenbon, J., Alcuin, the council of Frankfort and the beginnings of medieval philosophy, FK, 603-616 for what follows. 48. Alcuin and Theodulf also collided badly when Alcuin was abbot of Tours and Theodulf was bishop of Orleans. Charlemagne himself had to intervene: see Meens, R., Sanctuary, penance and dispute settlement under Charlemagne: the conflict between Alcuin and Theodulf of Orleans over a sinful cleric, Speculum, 82:2 (2007) 277-300. 49. Marenbon, J., From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981) 30-1. 50. Lehmann, P., Cassiodorstudien VIII: Cassiodor-Isidor-Beda-Alchvine, Philologus, 74 new series 28 (1917) 357-383. 51. Marenbon, J., art. cit. 609: this emphasis explains Alcuin’s insistence on the significance of the Categoriae Decem. 52. ALC 11. 73. 53. ALC 28. 54. Marenbon, J., op. cit 8. 55. ALC 40. 56. Munich, clm 6407. 57. ALC Ps. 14: Marenbon, J., Alcuin, the council of Frankfort and the beginnings of medieval philosophy, FK, 603-616 – cited from the appendix p.613. See also Ineichen-Eder, C.E., The authenticity of the ‘Dicta Candidi’, ‘Dicta Albini’, and some related texts, in Insular Latin Studies: papers on Latin texts and manuscripts of the British Isles, 550-1066, ed. M.W. Herren, (Toronto, 1981) 179-193. 58. ALC 45. 135. Discussed in Noble, T.F.X., The vocabulary of vision and worship in Nie, G. de, et al (ed.) Seeing the invisible in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Turnhout, 2005) 213-238, notably 217f. 59. ALC 49 & 15 & 51. This approach was derived from Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram Libri duodecim 12.6: see Hill, E., (tr.) & Rotelle, J.E., (ed.) St Augustine On Genesis (New York, 2002) 470f; also from Augustine’s De Trinitate 8.4.7. 60. ALC 17: see discussion in DAB 246-7. 61. Noble, T.F.X., art. cit. 221. This approach was also true of Gregory the Great, who assumed that the illiterate had already been instructed in what the painted image would then recall visually to their memory. Such images were encountered for the most part within the liturgy, interacting with the words set to music and learnt by heart and association in a multivalent spiritual drama.

Notes

257

Part Two – The Adoptionist Crisis Chapter 5 – Spanish Adoptionism 1. Life of Alcuin, cap v: sis ut expugnator nefandissime haeresis, hominem Christum quae conabitur adoptivum adstruere. His role in the Adoptionist crisis is briefly described in cap vii. 2. See his dedicatory letter to his treatise Adversus Elipandus: ALC 5. 3. Adoptionism has been well examined from a number of angles: the best overall analysis is in Pelikan, J., The Christian tradition – a history of the development of doctrine: volume 3 – the growth of medieval theology [600-1300] (Chicago, 1978), 52f; Rabe, S.A., Faith, art and politics at Saint-Riquier: the symbolic vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia, 1995), chapter 2, rightly places it in the context of the iconoclast crisis and the looming issue of the Filioque; Chazelle, C.M., The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2001) 52f illuminates its importance for the Carolingian theology of the Cross. The seminal study of Adoptionism as a whole is Cavadini, J.C., The last Christology of the West – Adoptionism in Spain & Gaul, 785-820 (Philadelphia, 1993); while the fundamental studies of Alcuin’s role remain Heil, W., Der Adoptionismus: Alcuin und Spanien, in Karl der Grosse. Lebenswerk und Nachleben, vol 2 Das geistige Leben ed. B. Bischoff, (Dusseldorf, 1965) 95-155; & Heil, W., Alkuinstudien 1 – zur Chronologie und Bedeutung des Adoptianismusstreites (Dusseldorf, 1970). See also Schaferdiek, K., Der adoptionische Streit im Rahmen der spanische Kirchengeschichte I, Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, 80 (1969) 291-311 & II ibid. 81 (1970) 1-16; & Urvoy, D., Les conséquences christologiques de la confrontation islamo-chrétienne en Espagne au VIIIe siècle in FK 981-992. 4. See Heath, R.G., The western schism of the Franks and the Filioque, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 33 (1972) 97-113; also Chadwick, H., East & West - the making of a rift in the Church (Oxford, 2003), chapter 15. 5. ‘Pro amore et cautela orthodoxe fidei’ in the Life of Leo in the Liber Pontificalis: see Davis, R., (tr.) The Lives of the eighth century Popes (Liverpool, 1992/2007), 216. The singularity of these silver tablets without the Filioque was noted by Peter Damian and others centuries later. 6. ALC Ps 11: it appears to have been a tract for the times, but differing in style from Alcuin’s writing. 7. See Kelly, J.N.D., The Athanasian Creed (London, 1964) – translation on page 20. 8. Pelikan, J., op. cit. 54. 9. Perhaps the Quicunque Vult is better considered as a credal commentary. 10. ‘The law of prayer is the law of belief.’ See Kelly, J.N.D., op. cit. 42-3. 11. For the significance of Paulnius of Aquilea, see Fedalto, G., Il significato di Paolino, patriarca di Aquileia, e la sua posizione nella contoversia adozianista in FK 103-124; also Leonardi, C., Una scheda per Paolina di Aquileia in A. Lehner & W. Berschin (eds.) Lateinische Kultur im VIII Jahrhundert Eos Verlag Erzabtei St Ottilien (1989) 179187; Liccaro, V., Paolino d’Aquileia ed Alcuino d’York in G. Fornasari (ed.) Atti del convegno internazionale di studio su Paulino d’Aquileia nel XII centenario dell’episcopato (Udine, 1988) 179-85; Mattes, T., et. al. (tr.) Paolino patriarca di Aquileia Opere (Rome, 2007); Wilmart, A., L’ordre des parties dans le traité de Paulin d’Aquilée contre Felix d’Urgel, JTS, 39 (1938) 22-37. 12. See Grillmeier, A., Christ in Christian Tradition – from the apostolic age to Chalcedon (451) (2nd edn. London, 1975) 447-87.

258

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

13. Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. has established the precise nature of Adoptionism with consummate skill and what follows rests upon his analysis. 14. Philippians 2. 5-11, especially verses 7-8: sed semetipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens, in similitudinem hominum factus; 15. As demonstrated by Jesus most vividly in the feet-washing, recorded in John 13.1-10. 16. Dales, D.J., Light to the Isles – missionary theology in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Britain, (Cambridge, 1997) 152-4. 17. The key phrase was tres personae corporeas in divinitate. 18. The sect of Migetius lingered on into the ninth century. 19. Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946) – appendix xi, 314f gives the text of a letter of Alcuin to Beatus of Liebana, which is ALC 45.[312]. 20. See Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. 24f, for what follows: Elipandus remained vitriolic towards Beatus. 21. I John 3. 2. 22. See Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. 32. 23. Ibid 43. 24. Ibid. chapter three. 25. Ibid. 53: the note of faithfulness in the face of persecution is notable, reflecting perhaps the sense of embattlement against encroaching Islam. 26. Ibid. p.57, citing his own treatise Adversus Elipandus 1.60. 27. ALC45.[312] It survives in a solitary tenth century manuscript: Madrid Arch. Nat. Nac. 1279 (1007B) and is printed in Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946) in appendix xi, 318-23. 28. This is an important reference to a custom with which Alcuin was clearly familiar in England, probably at York, of singing the Creed in the Mass; this practice was probably imported from Ireland and it came originally from Spain. Alcuin’s references in this letter and elsewhere are to a form of the Nicene Creed found in the Stow Missal that antedates the Carolingian reforms. See Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967): Alcuin et l’histoire du symbole de la messe (vol 2) 211-221; also the text of the Creed in Warner, G., (ed.) The Stowe Missal, HBS, (1906).

Chapter 6 – The Frankish Reaction 1. Heil identified 20 letters of Alcuin relating to this matter Heil, W., Alkuinstudien 1 – zur Chronologie und Bedeutung des Adoptianismusstreites (Dusseldorf, 1970), with another 10 providing additional context: see appendix three to this chapter for a summary of them. 2. See Cavadini, J.C., The last Christology of the West – Adoptionism in Spain & Gaul, 785-820 (Philadelphia, 1993) 73f; the letter of Hadrian I is in the Codex Carolinus 96, addressed to Egila. 3. Pope Hadrian’s letter is in the Codex Carolinus 95. 4. See Cavadini, J.C., Elipandus and his critics at the council of Frankfort in GL3 787-808; also FK 787-808. 5. See ALC 45. [313] & [317]. 6. ALC 45.23. 7. ALC 64.

Notes

259

8. MS Paris BNF lat. 1572; see Bischoff, B., Aus Alkuins Erdentagen, Medievalia et Humanistica, 14 (1962) 31-37. 9. ALC 45.145. 10. ALC 45.160. 11. ALC 45.205. 12. ALC 45.148. 13. ALC 45.149. 14. ALC 6; see Close, F., L’itinéraire de Candidus Wizo: un élément de datation des oeuvres anti-adoptionistes d’Alcuin? Note sur les lettres 41 & 204 de la correspondence d’Alcuin, Revue d’Historie Écclesiastique, 103 (Louvain, 2008) 5-28. 15. ALC 45. 203. 16. ALC 45. 202. 17. ALC 45. 193, 194 & 295. 18. After his death, Leidrad’s successor as bishop, Agobard, discovered a tract by Felix still promoting Adoptionism: see Cabaniss, A., The heresiarch Felix, Catholic Historical Review, 39 (1953) 129-141. 19. ALC 5. 20. ALC 45.200 & 201. 21. ALC 45.166; c.f.ALC 45. 182 & 183 also which are letters by Elipandus that Alcuin placed at the head of his treatise against him, along with a Confessio Fidei of Felix which he had sent out to his clergy ALC 45.199. 22. De Incarnatione Christi et de duabus in eo naturis libelli duo necnon de veritate unius personae 23. See Noble, T.F.X., Kings, clergy and dogma: the settlement of doctrinal disputes in the Carolingian world in Baxter, S., Karkov, C., Nelson, J.L., & Pelteret, D., (eds.) Early medieval studies in memory of Patrick Wormald (London, 2009) 237-252. 24. Cabaniss, A., [tr.] Benedict of Aniane, the Emperor’s Monk, Kalamazoo, 1979/2008, cap 24.5, 86-7; see also its introduction 37-8. Their close friendship is also described in the Life of Alcuin cap 9. 25. See Cavadini, J.C., The last Christology of the West – Adoptionism in Spain & Gaul, 785-820 (Philadelphia, 1993), appendix ii, 128-30. 26. See Firey, A., Carolingian ecclesiology and heresy: a southern Gallic juridical tract against Adoptionism, Sacri Erudiri, 39 (2000) 253-316. 27. Agobard of Lyons made a similar accusation in his treatise against the teaching of Felix. 28. See Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. 31-8 for a minute examination of the terminology used in this statement and its patristic roots; his translations are used here in the interests of clarity. 29. Non factum aut adoptivum: Libri Carolini, p.336. 30. See Kelly, J.N.D., The Athanasian Creed (London, 1964) 41-4. Explicit reference to its use in England at this time appears in a profession of faith made in 798 by Denebert, Bishop of Worcester to Ethelhard, Archbishop of Canterbury in H&S iii 525-6: the part of the creed cited affirmed faith in the Trinity and in the Filioque, and fidelity to the six ecumenical councils. 31. Mitalaite, K., Le Credo dans la méthode théologique de la première période carolingienne, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Mediévales, 74 (2007) 377-421. This is the most acute analysis of the central role of the creeds in Carolingian theology: Ceci montre que le credo est alors un outil capital pour le développement de la théologie, p.381. 32. Ibid 382. 33. Ibid 398: Son efficacité se veut sacramentelle car elle provient de la pureté du Coeur sonde par Dieu.

260

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

34. Ibid 411. 35. At the end of ALC 45[313] and printed in appendix 4: see Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967): L’introduction du Symbole a la messe (vol 3) 60-81. Alcuin’s use of a form of the Nicene Creed like the one in the Stow Missal may be seen in this text as well as in his letter to Beatus of Liebana ALC 45.[312] and his Liber contra Felicis haeresim I.9. [ALC 64] 36. See appendix 4: MGH Concil.II.163 – natum, non factum; naturalem, non adoptivum. 37. Ibid. – a Patre et Filio procedentem. 38. Alcuin altered the phrase in the creed ‘qui propter nostram salutem descendit’ to ‘ad implendum humanae salutis dispensationem.’ See Mitalaite, K., art. cit. 389 n 43. 39. See the text of this credal statement in appendix 4 to this chapter – ALC 45.[313]. 40. Belief in the Filioque could claim the authority of Jesus himself in John 15. 26. 41. See Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967): Le pape Leon III et le ‘Filioque’ (vol 3) 35-46, which discusses a credal formula attributed to Pope Leo III that is attached to the end of Alcuin’s treatise on the Trinity [ALC 36] – PL101.56-8; see below. It also examines critically but fairly the response of the pope to the Frankish overtures. 42. See Chadwick, H., Priscillian of Avila (Oxford, 1976), 176-8. 43. The best introduction to the history of the Filioque remains Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Creeds (3rd edn. London, 1972) 358-67. 44. HE 4.17, p.387: et Spiritum Sanctum procedentem ex Patre et Filio inerrabiliter. 45. Or more precisely the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. 46. MGH Concl. II 180f. The writings of Paulinus of Aquilea and the decrees of the Synod of Friuli may also be found in PL 99. 47. See Kelly, J.N.D., op. cit. 348-57. 48. Ibid. 354. 49. Capelle, B., L’origine antiadoptioniste de notre texte du symbole de la messe Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Mediévale 1 (1929) 7-20; also Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967): Alcuin et l’histoire du symbole de la messe (vol 2) 211-221; Le pape Leon III et le ‘Filioque’ (vol 3) 35-46; L’introduction du Symbole a la messe (vol 3) 60-81. 50. Notably the phrases genitum non factum & homo factus est. 51. See for example the letter of Alcuin to Paulinus ALC 45. 139 applauding his revision of the creed and his accompanying commentary. 52. ALC 28; interestingly another much longer Confessio fidei was fathered upon Alcuin: ALC Ps 4; it was probably written by John de Fécamp in the eleventh century. 53. See Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967): Le pape Leon III et le ‘Filioque’ (vol 3) 35-46: Spiritus sanctus plenus Deus a Patre et Filio procedens.

Chapter 7 – Felix and Alcuin 1. This medieval practice is discussed in depth and in detail in Carruthers, M., The book of memory (Cambridge, 1990); & more particularly with reference to monasticism in Carruthers, M., The craft of thought: meditation, rhetoric and the making of images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998). Much that she describes and analyses may be discerned throughout Alcuin’s writings. 2. ALC 28 where a full list of manuscripts is listed. 3. Included twice in the Codex Carolinus: letters 95 & 96 – MGH Ep. III. 641f.

Notes

261

4. ALC 45.[313]. 5. The appeal to Paul as well as to Peter was a constant theme of the papacy in the early middle ages, especially in terms of solicitude for the worldwide church. 6. Citing explicitly Matthew 16. 16 & Romans 8. 32. 7. The imperfections and inconsistencies within the manuscripts cited are noted by Migne. 8. See the discussion of this letter in comparison with Hadrian’s second and later letter about Adoptionism to the Spanish bishops in response to a letter from Elipandus in Cavadini, J.C., The last Christology of the West – Adoptionism in Spain & Gaul, 785-820 (Philadelphia, 1993) 73f. 9. ALC 45.[313]. 10. Presumably in the letter of the Frankish bishops at the synod drafted by Alcuin: ALC 45.[317]. 11. Sequamur sanctorum Patrum venerabilia in charitate praecepta – this was a frequent leitmotiv in Alcuin’s writings. 12. Nec non et de Britanniae partibus aliquos ecclesiasticae disciplinae viros convocavimus. 13. See appendix 4. 14. ALC 45.[317] – the text is in PL 101. 1331-46; it is preceded by the letter of Elipandus and his fellow bishops. 15. PL 101.1321-1331: non genere sed adoptione . . . quia in forma servi, servus, ideo adoptivus. 16. I.e. ALC 45.[317]. 17. Porro adoptivus dici non potest nisi is qui alienus est ab eo a quo dicitur adoptatus. See the discussion of this crucial axiom and its divergence from the understanding of Elipandus in Cavadini, J.C., The last Christology of the West – Adoptionism in Spain & Gaul, 785-820 (Philadelphia, 1993) 188n.43: ‘Such a remark presumes that there would be no self-renunciation of rights due to equality of nature’ (in Christ). 18. Divina enim magis fide veneranda sunt, quam ratione investiganda. 19. Exinanivit autem se accipiens formam servi, non amittens vel minuens formam Dei. 20. Ut terminos sanctorum Patrum non transgrediamini. 21. Sed per viam regiam ad limpidissimum catholicae puritatis fontem festinate. 22. Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. chapter 4. 23. ALC 6. 24. ALC 45.23. 25. ALC 64. 26. ALC 5. 27. What follows owes much to the detailed discussion in Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. chapter 4. 28. ALC 45.166: this letter stands at the head of Alcuin’s Adversus Elipandus. 29. The critical edition of this text is edited by Blumenshine, G.B., Liber Alcuini contra haeresim Felicis: edition with an introduction, Studi e Testi, 285 (Rome, 1980). 30. See Bischoff, B., Aus Alkuins Erdentagen, Medievalia et Humanistica, 14 (1962) 31-37 & Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. 195 n.87. 31. Unum esse assumpsisse aliquid et adoptasse . . . et unum aestimant gratiam et adoptionem. 32. Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. 86. 33. Evans, E., St Augustine’s Enchiridion (London, 1953). 34. Blumenshine, G.B., Alcuin’s ‘Liber contra haeresim Felicis’ and the Frankish kingdom in Fruhmittelalterlische Studien 17 (1983) 222-233. 35. Ibid. 224.

262

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

36. Who was alluded to here, as elsewhere, by references to the OT kings David and Solomon. 37. Ibid. 227. 38. Ibid. 229. 39. Ibid. 230; note the discussion on p.231 of the significance of the Coronation Psalm 2, intimating the divine sonship of Christ as a messianic king, for Carolingian understanding of Christology & Christian kingship: ‘to underscore the theocratic imperialism of Charlemagne’s Frankish kingdom.’ 40. Ibid. 231: ‘The Lord said unto me, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.”’ 41. See Cavadini, J.C., op. cit. 88f. 42. Ingrediamur quoque aliorum sanctorum patrum aromaticas cellas. See Depreux, P., Ingrediamur sanctorum Patrum aromaticas cellas in J. Arnold et al. (ed.) Vater der Kirche, (Paderborn, 2004) 553-562. 43. Cavadini, J., A Carolingian Hilary in C. M. Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (Turnhout, 2003) 133-140, on p.133. 44. Ibid. p.137. 45. Wright, C.D., Alcuin’s Ambrose – polemics, patrology and textual criticism in GL3 143170, on p.146. 46. Ibid. 150 n.34. 47. This was Amann’s judgement: see his conclusion in Amann, E., L’Adoptionisme Espagnol du VIIe siecle, Revue des Sciences Réligieuses, 16 (1936) 281-317. 48. See Oliviera de Almeida, E.X., Alcuin, St Augustine et les adoptionistes espagnols: brèves considérations théologiques in J. Busquets & M. Martinelli (eds.) Fe I teologia en la historia (Barcelona, 1997) 319-324; also Oliviera de Almeida, E.X., Alcuin, St Cyrille d’Alexandrie et l’Adoptianisme Espagnol in ‘In Unum Congregatio’ - Festgabe fur Augustinus Kardinal Mayer OSB (Metten, 1991) 201-215. What follows rests upon his analysis in these monographs. 49. A similar process of exaggeration was evident in other forms of Augustinianism in the early middle ages, notably with regard to the doctrine of predestination, to which Pope Hadrian made reference in his first letter to the Spanish bishops. 50. Oliviera de Almeida, E.X., Alcuin, St Augustine et les adoptionistes espagnols: brèves considérations théologiques in J. Busquets & M. Martinelli (eds.) Fe I teologia en la historia (Barcelona, 1997) p.321. 51. Cited in ibid. p.323: praecessit nos gratia, ut essemus adoptivi. The key passages in Augustine’s Enchiridion are found in cap. x.34-35 & xi.I 36.

Chapter 8 – Alcuin’s Christology 1. ALC 45.23 – MS Wien, ONB 795 (a.799/800) f.179-83v 2. ALC 64 – MS Vaticano, Palat. Lat. 290 (a.825-860) f.1-34. 3. ALC 6 – MSS Paris, BNF lat. 2386 (ix) f.3-126 & 2848 (ix) f.1-176; both are prefaced by the letters ALC 45. 202 & 203, but in reverse order. 4 .ALC 5 – MSS Paris, BNF lat. 2388 (xii) f. 1-32v & 5577 (xi) f. 20-95v; Rheims, BM 385 (E 249) (ix) f.95-158; Vaticano, Reg. lat. 69 (ix) f.1-56v: all these have the correspondence relating to this book, between Alcuin and Elipandus, and from Alcuin to the other bishops involved. 5. I.e. Christ – c.f. Daniel 2.45; also Psalm 118.22 & its use in I Peter 2. 4-7; cf. Acts 4. 11 & Eph. 2. 20: note Alcuin’s eschatological references to the emergence of

Notes

263

this heresy. For him the final decade of his life seemed overhung with apocalyptic expectations. 6. I.e. the exchange of attributes in Christ between his divine and human natures. 7. C.f. St John 3.13 & I Corinthians 2.8 8. C.f. I John 1. 7 [the reference in Migne is wrong]. 9. Adversus Felicem lib. I. viii. 10. Hebrews 13. 8. 11. ALC 5; the letters are ALC 45.200 & 201. 12. ALC 45.166; see also the related correspondence of Elipandus: ALC 45.182, 183 & 199. 13. ALC 5. 14. II Peter 1. 16-18. 15. Sed tota veritas et divinae potestatis plenitudo, tota nostra salutis perfectio atque consummatio. 16. ALC 45. 204.

Chapter 9 – Alcuin’s De Fide 1. ALC 45. 258; c.f. Vita Alcuini cap 12. 24 – postulante imperatore Carolo. Note also ALC 45. 268 in which Alcuin gave an epitome of his teaching in De Fide in a letter to Arno of Salzburg. The synod of Aachen was held in 802 to deal with various matters affecting the Frankish church and the ongoing mission to the Saxons. 2. There is a critical edition now available: Knibbs, E., & Matter, E.A., (eds.) De Fide Sanctae Trinitate et de Incarnatio Christi. Quaestiones de Sanctae Trinitatis, CCCM, 249 (Turnhout, 2012); see also Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s theology, AGG, 91-106. 3. ALC 28: see Matter, E.A., A Carolingian schoolbook? The manuscript tradition of Alcuin’s ‘De Fide’ & related treatises in S.G. Nicholls & S. Wenzel (eds.) The Whole Book: cultural perspectives on the medieval miscellany (Ann Arbor MI, 1996) 148 for discussion of a ninth century manuscript at Munich [CLM 15813], identified by Bischoff as associated with Arno, in Bischoff, B., Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1960-80) vol 2: 61-5 & 152. 4. The first is found at the end of ALC 28, as are the hymn Adesto and the summary Credimus: in Migne PL 101, columns 54-64. De Anima is ALC 17, to which is appended in Migne the poem Qui mare [ibid. columns 639-47]. Qui mare is translated in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004) 38-40: it extols the nobility of the human mind in its knowledge of God. Migne followed Froben in associating De Fide with the anti-Adoptionist writings, which in fact survive in precariously few manuscripts. The De Fide clearly had a lasting relevance and importance in its own right, however, hence the size and range of its manuscript tradition, and its close association from the beginning with these other texts. See the discussion of the significance of this association in Matter, E.A., art. cit. 5. They are conveniently listed in ALC 28 and their early provenance is discussed and analysed by E.A. Matter, art. cit. Over one hundred manuscripts still remain of De Fide. 6. See Matter, E.A., art. cit. 150, where she describes the collection as ‘nothing short of the official Carolingian textbook of theology.’ 7. The history of the printed editions of Alcuin’s work is discussed in Howell, W.S., The rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne (Princeton, 1941) 8-22. Bullough’s judgement was

264

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

that ‘the De Fide was the most substantial and effective work of its kind for many centuries,’ in Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and the kingdom of heaven: liturgy, theology and the Carolingian age in U-R. Blumenthal, (ed.) Carolingian Essays (Washington, 1983). 8. ALC 45. 257. 9. Sub specie manualis libelli. Charlemagne, for example, kept a copy of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei at hand, esteeming his writings highly, according to Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne cap 24. 10. Non nisi categoriarum subtilitate explanare posse probavit. In this assertion Alcuin anticipated the method of the later scholastics: see Hadot, P., Marius Victorinus et Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 29 (1954) 5-19. 11. Il invite les théologiens a continuer l’oeuvre d’Augustin . . . d’élucider le dogme grace aux ressources de la logique aristotélicienne. Hadot, P., art. cit. 6. 12. Cavadini, J.C., Alcuin and St Augustine’s ‘De Trinitate’, Augustinian Studies, 12 (1981) 11-18 13. Mainly the first seven books of Augustine’s De Trinitate. The influence of Paulinus of Aquilea is evident in the parts that treat of the Nicene Creed, notably his Libellus de symboli explanatione. Alcuin also cited the decrees of the eleventh council of Toledo in his De Fide. 14. Cavadini, J. C., The sources and theology of Alcuin’s ‘De fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis’, Traditio, 46 (1991) 123 – 46, on p.138. 15. ‘Victorinus est compris par Alcuin beaucoup plus comme un théoricien de la nature divine que comme un théologien de la Trinité.’ Hadot, P., art. cit. 19. 16. See the detailed discussion in Hadot, P., Marius Victorinus et Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Litteraire du Moyen Age, 29 (1954) 5-19; & Hadot, P., Les hymnes de Victorinus et les hymnes ‘Adesto’ et ‘Miserere’ d’Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 35 (1960) 7-16. Alcuin had already used references to Victorinus in his Adversus Elipandus. 17. Lines 1545-8; no titles are given in the York poem however, so this is conjectural. 18. The references are in Cavadini, J.C., art. cit. 142-6. 19. Ibid. 132. 20. Ibid. 140: further evidence of the almost sacramental role of creeds in Christian formation. 21. In the critical edition of De Fide now available: see Knibbs, E., & Matter, E.A., (eds.) De Fide Sanctae Trinitate et de Incarnatio Christi. Quaestiones de Sanctae Trinitatis, CCCM, 249 (Turnhout, 2012); there is no English translation yet available of De Fide however. 22. Ibid. p.18. 23. I. 1; p.19 . 24. I.17; p.41. 25. II. 6; p.55. 26. Ibid. p.56. 27. I. 1; p.19 & 20 – Hebrews 11. 6 & Matthew 25. 21. 28. I. 2 & 3; p.21-2 - Romans 11. 36; Genesis 1. 26; Isaiah 6. 3 – ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ 29. I. 8; p.28 –John 1. 1. & 10. 30; c.f. the use of John 5. 26 & 14. 10 in I. 16; p.40. 30. I 14; p.35-6 – Matthew 3. 17 & Acts 2. 3-4. 31. In I. 17; p.43 for example. 32. II. 1; p.47 – John 17. 21-2.

Notes

265

33. II. 3; p.48. 34. II.5; p.52-5 –Matthew 6. 9; Psalm 121. 1; Isaiah 57. 15; Genesis 3. 19; I Corinthians 3. 17; John 1. 9; Matthew 24. 35; Wisdom 9. 15 & I Corinthians 13. 12. 35. Fides quaerens intellectum. 36. I. 2; p.20. 37. I. 6; p.25. 38. I. 7; p.26. 39. John 1. 1. 40. John 10. 30. 41. I. 8; p.27-9; cf. Hebrews 1. 3. 42. I. 12-13; p.33-5. 43. I. 15; p.37-9. 44. Sed tantummodo procedere de Patre et Filio, salva fide dicendus est. 45. I. 16; p.39-40. 46. II. 1; p.46-7: John 17. 22. 47. II. 2; p.48. 48. Exodus 3. 14. 49. Philippians 2. 6. 50. II. 3; p.49-50. 51. II. 4; p.51. 52. II. 5; p.54. 53. Here Alcuin anticipated the dictum of Aquinas that ‘grace perfects nature’. 54. II. 8; p.58-9. 55. II. 9; p.62. 56. This cardinal patristic axiom went back to the teaching of Athanasius. 57. II. 10; p.63-4. 58. II. 11; p.66. 59. c.f. John 3. 34. 60. C.f. John 5. 17. 61. II. 13; p.70-1: this is a clear citation from the Nicene Creed. 62. II. 14; p.73. 63. C.f. I Peter 1. 12. 64. II. 16; p.76-8. 65. ‘Paraclete’ means ‘Advocate’ and ‘Comforter’ – see John 14. 16 & 26. 66. John 3. 8. 67. Matthew 10. 20. 68. I John 4. 8. 69. II. 19-20; p.82-5. 70. This intuition, born of prayer and long experience, is also evident in Alcuin’s writing about the significance and spiritual nature of Christian friendship. 71. Ibid. p.89-9. 72. III. 1; p.91: c.f. John 1. 14. 73. III. 2; p.93: c.f. also Colossians 2. 9. 74. III. 4 & 5; p.96-8. 75. III. 6; p.99. 76. Migne notes an interesting textual variant here: PL 101 41D. 77. Philippians 2. 7 – the key Adoptionist text which Alcuin is scrutinizing. 78. Ibid. p.100.

266

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

79. III.7; p.101: Quantum autem ad excellentiam personae, longe aliud est quam ceteri homines, quia idem homo, una persona, cum Dei Verbo factus est. 80. III. 8; p.102: ad unitatem personae perpetualiter. 81. III. 9; p.103-5. 82. Beatae genetricis. 83. This analogy between the union within in the Trinity and the union of natures in Christ was probably derived from the Quicunque Vult, but here it has assumed ontological reality and significance. 84. This is a good example of Alcuin’s conviction that ‘adoption’ signified an inferior status. 85. III. 9; p.103-5. 86. III. 10; p.106. 87. III. 11; p.108. 88. III. 12; p.109: sin is thus regarded as a mortal infection within human nature, corporately as well as individually. 89. John 1. 14. 90. I.e. ‘God-bearer’ – the classic designation of the Virgin Mary sanctioned by the Council of Ephesus that condemned Nestorius in 431. 91. Theotocos sicut et christococos – the latter term used perhaps for the first time in Latin theology. 92. Luke 2.14 93. III.15; p.115: e.g. Matthew 8 & John 11. 94. III.16; p.116: c.f. the entirety of Psalm 22, which was on the lips of Christ on the Cross. Nor was the human person of Christ consumed by the divine glory that shone through him on the mountain of Transfiguration, any more than his mother’s integrity was overwhelmed by his incarnation. Alcuin’s sensitivity to the essential divine restraint evident in the mode of the Incarnation is acute. 95. Ibid. p.118: ipse etiam et opus et auctor operis. 96. II Corinthians 13.4 97. I Peter 3.18-20 98. Matthew 28. 19. 99. Galatians 5. 24. 100. Romans 6. 4. 101. III. 17; p.122: Colossians 3. 1-3. 102. Zechariah 12. 10: words cited in John 19. 37 & Revelation 1. 7. 103. III. 18; 126. 104. III. 20; p.129-30. 105. III. 22; p.137.

Part Three – Mission, Episcopacy and Monarchy Chapter 10 – Mission 1. There is a wealth of scholarship on the subject of Alcuin’s teaching about baptism and mission: notably Wilmart, A., Un florilège carolingien sur le symbolisme des cérémonies du baptême, avec un appendice sur la lettre de Jean Diacre, [Vatican MS Reg. Lat. 69 fol. 116-122] Studi e Testi, 59 (Rome, 1933) 153-166; Bouhot, J-P., Explications du rituel baptismal à l’époque carolingienne, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 24 (1978) 278301; Bouhot, J-P., Alcuin et le ‘De catechizandis rudibus’ de St Augustine, Recherches

Notes

267

Augustiniennes, 15 (1980)176-240; Bouhot, J-P., Un florilège sur le symbolisme du baptême de la seconde moitié du VIIIe siècle, Recherches Augustiniennes, 18 (1983) 151182; Ellard, G., Alcuin battling for Rome’s baptismal rites, The American Benedictine Review, 4 (1953/4) 331-345; Cramer, P., Baptism and change in the early Middle Ages, c. 200-c. 1150 (Cambridge, 1993); Keefe, S., Carolingian baptismal expositions: a hand-list of tracts & manuscripts in U.R. Blumenthal (ed.), Carolingian Essays (Washington DC, 1983) 169-237; Keefe, S., Water and the Word: baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire (2 vols. Notre Dame, 2002); Phelan, O.M., Textual transmission and authorship in Carolingian Europe: ‘Primo paganus’, baptism and Alcuin of York, RB, 118 (2008) 262-285; & Sullivan, R.E., Christian missionary activity in the early middle ages (Aldershot, Brookfield, 1994); also Phelan, O.M., Catechising the wild: the continuity & innovation of missionary catechesis under the Carolingians, JEH, 61 (2010) 455-474. 2. ALC 45. 110. 3. Matthew 28. 19. 4. ALC 45. 111; see also letters 149 & 211, in which Alcuin, writing to Charlemagne, lamented the recent death of their friend, Megenfrid. 5. ALC 45. 99. 6. ALC 45. 112: the letter to Charlemagne is ALC 45.110 discussed above. 7. ALC 45. 113. 8. Mark 2. 22. 9. In spirit this was very close to the penitential teaching of Theodore of Tarsus (who had been archbishop of Canterbury in the seventh century) which Alcuin may well have known. 10. ALC 45. 134 & 137: the first of these texts is found among the liturgical texts printed by Migne PL 101.611-4; the second is letter 90 in PL 100. It is also to be found in the later text De divinis officiis in PL 101. 1217-8 [ALC 27]. 11. Arno’s Ordo de catechizandis rudibus vel quid sint singular quae geruntur in sacramento baptismatis, which went much further than Alcuin’s brief outline for which it was certainly the catalyst. See Cramer, P., op. cit. 189-91. Its spirit was summed up in the lapidary sentence: ‘there is no greater invitation to God than His pure and true love.’ In this it was faithful to Augustine’s work De Catechizandis rudibus to which Alcuin had earlier drawn attention. 12. See Dahlhaus-Berg, E., Nova Antiquitas et Antiqua Novitas: Typologische Exegese und isidorianisches Geshichtsbild bei Theodulf von Orleans (Cologne/Vienna, 1975), 161-65 for interesting parallels with Theodulf of Orleans’ Liber de ordine baptismi. 13. ALC 45. 134. 14. ALC 45. 137; see also ALC 45.138 for a further letter to these monks about similar issues. 15. This letter was in fact genuine but unknown to Alcuin in the register of Gregory’s letters to which he could refer. See Cramer, P., op. cit. 187 note 37. Gregory had allowed it to mark off Catholic from Arian practice in the sixth century, whereas Alcuin in the eighth century saw the threefold immersion as reflecting correct belief in the Trinity. 16. Wilmart, A., art. cit. 1933. 17. Bouhot, J., art. cit. 1978, 1980 & 1983 18. This has been further established by the monumental textual researches of Keefe, S., op. cit; and more recently by Phelan, O.M., Textual transmission and authorship in Carolingian Europe: ‘Primo paganus’, baptism and Alcuin of York, RB, 118 (2008) 262-285, whose analysis is followed in this discussion.

268

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

19. He may have become Pope John 1 (523-6). 20. Phelan, O., art. cit. 268. 21. Ibid. 271 n. 29. 22. See Driscoll, M.S., Alcuin et la pénitence à l’époque Carolingienne, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 81 (Munster 1999). 23. Keefe, S., Water and the Word: baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire (2 vol. Notre Dame, 2002), vol. I.150. 24. Ibid. 153. 25. Phelan, O., art. cit. 279. 26. ALC 92. 27. See Wood, I., The missionary life: saints & the evangelisation of Europe 400-1050 (London, 2006), chapter 4; & Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946), 110. 28. ALC 45. 6. 29. ALC 45. 7 – translated in EHD 192. 30. ALC 45. 25: Alcuin’s letters to Riculf of Mainz are ALC 45. 4, 25-6, 35 & 212, with an associated poem ALC 7. [1], 5. His letters to Ricbod of Trier are ALC 45. 13, 49, 78, 191; a poem ALC 11. 31 & an inscription ALC 61. 87. He was also mentioned by Alcuin in ALC 45. 149. 31. ALC 45. 118 & 119; see also ALC 174, written in 799 to the king, which reveals Alcuin’s knowledge of Saxon affairs. 32. ALC 45. 98; see also ALC 45. 99 for the link between Eric, Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquilea. 33. ALC 45. 185; see also a letter to condolence to Charlemagne upon the death of Eric, written probably in 800 – ALC 45. 198. 34. ALC 45. 146. 35. See Dumont, B., Alcuin et les missions, AY, 417-430. 36. See the highly perceptive article by Veyrard-Cosme, C., Le paganisme dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin in L. Mary and M. Sot (eds.) Impiés et paiens entre Antiquité et Moyen Âge: Textes, images et monuments de l’Antiquité au haut Moyen Âge (Paris, 2002) 323-51. 37. Veyrard-Cosme, C., art. cit. 334 ‘Souverain et people se reflétent l’un dans l’autre et subissent le même sort: à roi mauvais, catastrophe; à peuple mauvais, chatîment.Et les paiens sont ce chatîment, comme le montrent Histoire ancienne et Écritures.’ See also more broadly the affinity of this thinking to the traditional Germanic traditions of tribal monarchy in England in Chaney, W. A., The cult of kingship in Anglo-Saxon England – the transition from paganism to Christianity (Manchester, 1970). 38. Veyrard-Cosme, C., art. cit. 342: Comme le rappelle la notion du souverain ‘terribilis’ pour les paiens, ennemis de Dieu, les paiens sont instruments de triomphe dans une perspective d’interprétation ministerielle donc eschatologique de la ‘potestas’. This view sprang directly from Romans 13. 1-7. 39. It is evident also in the orders of the Mass that Alcuin composed for the cults of St Cuthbert, St Oswald & St Boniface: see Orchard, N., The English and German masses in honour of St Oswald of Northumbria, AL, 37 (1995) 347-358; & Orchard, N., A note on the masses for St Cuthbert, RB, 105 (1995) 79-98; see also Willibrord’s own commemorations of Anglo-Saxon saints in Wilson, H.A., The Calendar of St Willibrord, HBS (1918). 40. ALC 45. 250; for a study of Alcuin’s debt to Boniface see Schmitz, G., Bonifatius und Alkuin: ein Beitrag zur Glaubensverkundigung in der Karolingerzeit, AGG, 73-90;

Notes

269

for possible ambivalence towards the memory of Boniface in Alcuin’s circle, including Hrabanus Maur, see Palmer, J.T., The Frankish cult of martyrs and the case of the two saints Boniface, RB, 114 (2004) 338-348. 41. ALC 61. 86. 42. Dales, D. J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Canterbury Press, Norwich, 2004) 91-2 43. ALC 46.[11].88.15 44. ALC 46.[14].89.2 45. ALC 61.89.6 46. ALC 61.106.3 47. ALC 61.110.12 48. ALC 61.110.15; note an accompanying inscription commemorating the Irish virgins Brigit and Ita: ALC 61.110.16

Chapter 11 – Hagiography 1. The study of Alcuin’s hagiography is best approached through Deug-Su, I., L’opera agiografica di Alcuino (Spoleto, 1983); & Deug-Su I., Cultura e ideologia nella prima eta Carolingia (Rome, 1984); also Veyrard-Cosme, C., L’oeuvre hagiographique en prose d’Alcuin: Vitae Willibrordi, Vedasti, Richarii. Édition, traduction, études narratologiques (Florence, 2003); and Veyrard-Cosme, C., Typologie et hagiographie en prose carolingienne: mode de pensée et reécriture. Étude de la ‘Vita Willibrordi’, de la ‘Vita Vedasti’, et de la ‘Vita Richarii’ d’Alcuin in D. Boutet & L. Harf-Lancer (eds.) Écriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Âge (viii–xv siècles) (Paris, 1993) 157-186; Veyrard-Cosme, C., Le thème de la lumière dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin, Bulletin e la Societé Nationale des Antiquaires de France, (1997) 170-5; Veyrard-Cosme, C., Alcuin et la reécriture hagiographique: d’un programme avoué d’’emendatio’ a son actualisation in Goulet, M., et al (eds) La reécriture hagiographique dans l’Occident mediéval: transformations formelles et idéologiques (Ostfilder, 2003) 71-86; Rambridge, K., Alcuin, Willibrord & the cultivation of faith, Haskins Society Journal, 14 (2003) 15-31; & Rambridge, K., Alcuin’s narratives of evangelism: the Life of St Willibrord and the Northumbian hagiographical tradition in M. Carver (ed.) The Cross goes North – processes of conversion in northern Europe AD 300-1300 (York, 2003 ) 371-382. 2. Rabe, S.A., Faith, art and politics at Saint-Riquier: the symbolic vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia, 1995). 3. See Orchard, N., An Anglo-Saxon Mass for St Willibrord and its later liturgical use, ASE, 24 (1995) 1-10; & Orchard, N., St Willibrord, St Richarius and the Anglo-Saxon symptoms in three massbooks from northern France, RB, 110 (2000) 261-283; also Hen, Y., The liturgy of St Willibrord, ASE, 26 (1997) 41-62. 4. See Rambridge, K., art. cit.; also Colgrave, B., (tr.) The earliest life of Gregory the Great (Cambridge, 1985); & Colgrave, B., Two lives of St Cuthbert (Cambridge, 1940/1985). 5. Discussed fully in Deug-Su, I., op. cit. 6. Veyrard-Cosme, C., has demonstrated in detail the rich biblical associations behind every detail of the Life of Willibrord in her articles cited above (1993) & (1997). 7. Veyrard-Cosme, C., Typologie et hagiographie en prose carolingienne: mode de pensée et reécriture. Étude de la ‘Vita Willibrordi’, de la ‘Vita Vedasti’, et de la ‘Vita Richarii’ d’Alcuin in D. Boutet & L. Harf-Lancer (eds.) Écriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Âge (viii –xv siècles)

270

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

(Paris, 1993) 157, on p.178: ‘l’histoire du salut est donc aux yeux d’Alcuin envisagée sous l’angle de la continuité.’ This had an important ecclesiological dimension as well. 8. Ibid. 182. 9. Ibid. 186. 10. This is best approached through Levison, op. cit., p.53-69; see also J. M. WallaceHadrill, The Frankish Church, Oxford, 1983, p.143-47; & Dales, D.J., Light to the Isles – mission & theology in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Britain, (Cambridge, 1997) 145-8. 11. HE V. 9-11. 12. Bertram Colgrave, (tr.) The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, (Cambridge, 1927) 53. 13. HE III. 13. 14. Ed. H.A. Wilson, The Calendar of St Willibrord, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1918. 15. Levison op. cit. 60 n.1; the subterranean earlier church of San Clemente in Rome has frescoes associated with the mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs. 16. Dales, D.J., op. cit. 146-7; see also R. Bruce-Mitford, The Durham-Echternach Calligrapher, & N. Netzer, Willibrord’s Scriptorium at Echternach and its relationship to Ireland and Lindisfarne, in G. Bonner, D. Rollason, C. Stancliffe (eds.) , St Cuthbert, his cult and his community to 1200, Boydell Press, Ipswich, 1989, 175-188 & 203-212. Also Brown, M., The Lindisfarne Gospels – society, spirituality and the scribe (The British Library, London, 2003). 17. ALC 92. 18. The monastery from which Augustine had come in Rome on the Celian hill was also dedicated to St Andrew, as was the cathedral in Rochester in Kent that was founded by him. 19. C.H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany, London, 1954, p.3. 20. The site of this monastery has almost certainly been eroded by the sea. 21. ALC 11 .8; 11. 16; 45. 49; 45. 88. 22. See Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982) lxxvf. 23. M. Lapidge, Bede’s Metrical Vita S. Cuthberti, in Anglo-Latin literature 600-899, London, 1996, p. 355. 24. HE. V. 9-11. 25. The classic and seminal study remains Delehaye, H., The legends of the saints (tr. D. Attwater; Dublin, 1998). 26. D.H. Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford, 1978, 407-8 – the entry for Willibrord. 27. Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946), 161. 28. For the impact of sermons in the Carolingian reform of the Church, see Amos, T.L., Preaching and the sermon in the Carolingian world in T.L. Amos, E.A Green & B.M. Kienzle (eds.) ‘De ore Domini’: preaching the word in the Middle Ages (Medieval Institute Publications, Kalamazoo, 1989) 41-53. 29. II Kings 19. 30. Deug-Su I., Cultura e ideologia nella prima eta Carolingia (Rome, 1983), 19: ‘la Chiesa ha la suprema e unica ‘auctoritas’ sul popolo di Dio.’ 31. Ibid. 22-3; c.f. Romans 14. 12. 32. Ibid. 25: Il modello ideale del rex cristiano che qui Alcuino presenta a Carolo e concepito come subordinato moralmente all’’auctoritas ecclesiastica’. 33. Deug-Su, I., L’opera agiografica di Alcuino (Spoleto, 1983), 165: ‘La funzione

Notes

271

ecclesiologica della ‘saecularis potestas’, che consiste appunto nella difesa della Chiesa contro gli ‘impii’, e gia evidente.’ 34. See Veyrard-Cosme, C., Le thème de la lumière dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin, Bulletin de la Societé Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1997) 170-5. 35. See Veyrard-Cosme, C., Typologie et hagiographie en prose carolingienne: mode de pensée et reécriture. Étude de la ‘Vita Willibrordi’, de la ‘Vita Vedasti’, et de la ‘Vita Richarii’ d’Alcuin in D. Boutet & L. Harf-Lancer (eds.) Écriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Âge (viii –xv siècles) (Paris, 1993) 157-186, especially 183-4.

Chapter 12 – Alcuin and the Bishops 1. See Buck, T.M., Admonitio und praedicatio: zur religios-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten 507-814 (Freiburger Beitrage zur mittelalterliche Geschichte: Studien und Texte 9 - Frankfurt am Main, 1997), 297-308. 2. ‘Chastisement’ and ‘correction’. 3. Veyrard-Cosme, C., Réflexion politique et pratique du pouvoir dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin in D. Boutet et al. (eds.) Pensée et pouvoir au Moyen Âge [viii – xv siècle]. Études offertes à Francoise Autrand (Paris, 1999) 401-25, on p.407: her analysis of Alcuin’s language describing the duties of bishops is very acute. 4. ALC 45. 39: sicut sacerdos Dei summi, sicut tuba coelestis, sicut praeco salutis. 5. Matthew 10. 28. 6. ALC 45. 40. 7. ALC 45. 161. 8. ALC 45. 267. 9. One of Alcuin’s favourite texts was Matthew 25. 21: ‘Come good and faithful servant: enter into the joy of your Lord.’ 10. ALC 45. 31. 11. ALC 45. 189. 12. ALC 45. 301. 13. ALC 45. 124 & 285. 14. ALC 45. 2. 15. Wulfstan Archbishop of York in the later tenth century valued highly some of the letters of Alcuin. 16. ALC 45. 128 & 129: the first letter is translated in EHD 203. 17. HE II. 6. 18. It exists now only in the English manuscripts of his letters. 19. ALC 45. 44 to Eanbald I; ALC 45. 114, 115, 116 & 232 to Eanbald II. 20. ALC 45. 115: note also letter 112 in which Alcuin told Arno of the change of archbishop at York in 796. 21. ALC 45. 114 – a letter later used by William of Malmesbury in his histories. 22. Note a similar insistence on fidelity to Roman practice in a letter written much later to Eanbald in 801: ALC 45. 226. In Alcuin’s mind, as in his poem about the city’s history, York was an outpost of Rome. 23. ALC 45. 115. 24. ALC 45. 116. 25. ALC 45. 232 – translated in EHD 207; Alcuin had written a letter of commendation for them to Charlemagne: ALC 45. 231 translated in EHD 206. 26. In a letter closely associated with this one – ALC 45. 233, translated in EHD 208, Alcuin was more explicit to his disciples about his fears that Eanbald had

272

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

accumulated too much land [like Wilfrid long before him] or else given succour to the king’s enemies, who had perhaps taken refuge with him. He considered that Eanbald had too many thegns with him, which were a burden to monasteries when they came to stay. ‘He has, I fear, far more than his predecessors’, including their former master, Archbishop Aelberht, whose strictness and simplicity of life was remembered by Alcuin and his friends as a model and a yardstick. 27. ALC 45. 226. 28. Both these texts can be conveniently consulted in translation in King, P.D., (ed.) Charlemagne – translated sources (Lancaster, 1987) 209f & 233. 29. ALC 45. 27 & 94. 30. Alcuin visited Rome several times and this is reflected in his knowledge of the realities and dangers of travel in Italy at that time, whereas Jerusalem remained a distant and idealised place. 31. ALC 45. 210: the other friends were the priests Onias, to whom Alcuin dedicated his commentary on Ecclesiastes [c.f. letters 276 & 277 & ALC 50]; and Martin [c.f. letter 25]; and his close friend, the archdeacon Fredegisus [c.f. letters 148 & 154]. 32. ALC 45. 111. 33. See Alberi, M., ‘The better paths of Wisdom’: Alcuin’s monastic ‘true philosophy’ and the worldly court, Speculum, 76 (2001/4) 896-910, especially 907-8. 34. Alcuin’s letters to these bishops are as follows in ALC 45: Arno of Salzburg 113, 186, 253, 254 & many others Paulinus of Aquilea 28, 139 Peter of Milan 83, 190 Riculf of Mainz 4, 26, 35, 212 Leidrad of Lyons 141 Remegius of Coire 76, 77, 310 Ricbod of Trier 13, 49, 78, 191 Theodulf of Orleans 192, 225 35. See the discussion of this vocabulary in Veyrard-Cosme, C., art. cit. 406f, where she draws parallels with Alcuin’s hagiography, which provided careful role models for bishops as well as kings, couched in similar language. 36. Aidan and Cuthbert were remembered fondly in Northumbria for doing just this.

Chapter 13 – King Dei Gratia 1. The bibliography relating to the developments sketched out in this paragraph is extensive, including: Alberi, M., The evolution of Alcuin’s concept of the ‘imperium christianum’ in J. Hill & M. Swan (eds.) The community, the family and the saint: patterns of power in early medieval Europe (Turnhout, 1998) p.3-17 ; Angenendt, A., Karl der Grosse als ‘rex et sacerdos’ in FK 255-278; Anton, H.H., Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit (Bonn, 1968); Bachrach, D., Religion & the conduct of war, c.300-1215 (Ipswich, 2003); Bullough, D.A., Empire and emperordom, EME, 12 (2003) 377-387; Chelini, J., Le vocabulaire politique et social dans la correspondence d’Alcuin Faculté des Lettres (Aix en Provence, 1959); Cristiani, M., Dall’”unanimitas” all’”universitas”. Da Alcuino a Giovanni Eriugena. Lineamenti ideologici e terminologia politica della cultura del secolo IX (Rome, 1978); Falkowski, W., ‘Barbaricum’ comme devoir et défi du souverain chrétien, AY, 407-416; Ganshof, F.L., The Carolingians & the Frankish monarchy (London, 1971); Garrison, M., The Franks as the New Israel? Education for an identity from Pippin to Charlemagne in Hen, Y., & Innes,

Notes

273

M., (eds.) The uses of the past in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2000) 114-161; Hiscox, N., The Aachen chapel: a model of salvation in Science and western and eastern civilisation in Carolingian times, in Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 115-126; Hocquard, G., Quelques réflexions sur les idées politico-réligieuses d’Alcuin, Bulletin des Facultés Catholiques de Lyon, 12 (1952) 13-30; Howell, W.S., The rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne (Princeton, 1941); McCormick, M., Eternal victory: triumphal rulership in late antiquity, Byzantium and the early medieval West (Cambridge, 1986); McCormick, M., The liturgy of war in the early middle ages: crisis, litanies & the Carolingian monarchy, Viator, 15 (1984) 1-23; Meens, R., Politics, mirrors of princes and the Bible: sins, kings and the well-being of the realm, Early Medieval Europe, 7 (1998) 345-57; Morrison, K.F., The two Kingdoms: ecclesiology in Carolingian political thought (Princeton, 1964); Ullmann, W., The Carolingian renaissance & the idea of kingship (London, 1969); Wallach, L., Charlemagne and Alcuin – Diplomatic studies in Carolingian epistolography, Traditio, 9 (1953) 127-154; Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., The Via Regia of the Carolingian age in B. Smalley (ed.) Trends in medieval political thought (Oxford, 1965) 22-41 [also in Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., Early medieval history (Oxford, 1975) 181-200]. 2. Chelini, J., art. cit. 11. 3. Ibid. 36. 4. Ibid. 100: Chelini’s conclusion lies behind the substance of this analysis. 5. ALC 45. 18: written to Ethelred of Northumbria. 6. ALC 45. 198: Alcuin’s letters to Charlemagne are discussed in Veyrard-Cosme, C., Réflexion politique et pratique du pouvoir dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin in D. Boutet et al. (eds.) Pensé et pouvoir au Moyen Âge [viii – xv siècle]. Études offertes à Francoise Autrand (Paris, 1999) 401-25. See also her more recent article: Veyrard-Cosme, C., L’image de Charlemagne dans la correspondence d’Alcuin in Cogitore, I., & Goyet, Fr., (eds) L’éloge du Prince. De l’Antiquité au temps des lumières (Grenoble, 2003) 145-50. 7. ALC 45. 121 – the key phrase is rationem reddere. 8. ALC 5: I. 16 – cited by Veyrard-Cosme, C., Littérature latine du haut Moyen Âge et idéologie politique: l’exemple d’Alcuin, Revue des Études Latines, 72 (1994) 192-207, on p.196. 9. ALC 39: discussed in Wallach, L., op.cit.29-36; see also Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., op. cit. 188-91; also discussed in Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s question-and-answer texts, Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4 (1990) 645-56; & Leonardi, C., Alcuino e la retorica in (ed. J. Fried) Dialektik und Rhetorik im fruheren und höhen Mittelalter (Munich, 1997) 171-4. The best text is in Howell, W. S., The rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne (Princeton, 1941/1965). It was often associated in the manuscripts with Alcuin’s other treatise De Dialectica [ALC 26] and was used for a long time in medieval education as part of the trivium. It survives in over thirty manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries. 10. ALC 37. 11. Wallach suggested that its composition may have been provoked by the dispute between Alcuin as Abbot of Tours and Theodulf of Orleans, in which Charlemagne had to intervene to his manifest displeasure. See the letters ALC 45. 245-7. 12. See Baynes, N.H., Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (British Academy, London, 1931/1972); also Alberi, M., Alcuin’s exegesis of the two swords in The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era C.M. Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) (Turnhout, 2003)117-132; Lauwers, M., Le glaive et la parole. Charlemagne, Alcuin et le modèle du

274

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

‘rex praedicator’: notes d’écclesiologie carolingienne, AY, 221-244; & Gorman, M.M., The Carolingian miscellany of exegetical texts in Albi 39 and Paris lat.2175, Scriptorium, 51 (1997) 336-355 in relation to the separate circulation of De Gladio. 13. ALC 45. 136. 14. See Ganz, D., An Anglo-Saxon fragment of Alcuin’s letters in the Newberry library, Chicago, ASE 22 (1993) 167-177: he places this manuscript within the context of tenth century English interest in the letters of Alcuin that was evident as early as the reign of Athelstan. 15. Luke 22. 36, 38 & 50; it is known that some of the disciples of Jesus were Zealots whose violent reaction prompted the religious authorities to come with armed guards to seize him. 16. In Ephesians 6. 17. 17. Psalms 64. 3 & 144. 10; Luke 2. 35; Matthew 10. 34; Romans 13. 4; Isaiah 34. 5; Deuteronomy 32. 41; see Bolton, W.F., Alcuin & Beowulf: an eighth century view (New Brunswick, 1978), 90-1 for discussion of this in the wider context of Alcuin’s style. 18. Matthew 26. 52. 19. Luke 22. 36. 20. See Hebrews 4. 12. 21. See Alberi, M., art. cit. 120. 22. This is the view of Lauwers in contradistinction to Alberi’s interpretation; both might be true however. 23. In Jerome’s letter 52 to the priest Nepotianus. 24. Lauwers, M., art. cit. 242-3. 25. This was the view of Ganshof in his David Murray lecture [16] in Glasgow in 1949, published as The imperial coronation of Charlemagne: theories & facts in Ganshof, F.L., The Carolingians & the Frankish monarchy (London, 1971), chapter iv, 41-54, in which he carefully examined the various interpretations of the events of 800 in Rome and advanced his own interpretation in some detail. Note the reservations expressed at the end of Bullough, D.A., Empire and emperordom, EME, 12 (2003) 377-87. 26. ALC 45. 136. 27. ALC 92: Alberi, M., The evolution of Alcuin’s concept of the ‘imperium christianum’ in J. Hill & M. Swan (eds.) The community, the family and the saint: patterns of power in early medieval Europe (Turnhout, 1998) p.3-17. 28. Alberi, M., art. cit. 4. 29. This was a trait evident also in Willibald’s Life of St Boniface. 30. See Fanning, S., Bede, Imperium and the Bretwaldas, Speculum, 66 (1991) 1-26. 31. Alberi, M., art. cit. 6. 32. Ibid. 15. 33. One of its roots probably lay in the concept of the Bretwalda described by Bede in his History. 34. See Mayr-Harting, H., Charlemagne, the Saxons & the imperial coronation of 800, EHR, 111 (1996) 1113-1133. 35. For example, Bodleian Add. MS A.173 fxvr, which dates from the first decade of the ninth century on the continent and contains some of Alcuin’s propers for the Mass, as well as a version of the Nicene Creed that has been tampered with in the light of the Adoptionist crisis: its prayers include - Oremus pro Christianissimo imperatore nostro illius ut Deus et Dominus noster subditas illi faciat omnes

Notes

275

barbaras nationes ad nostrum perpetuam pacem. & Omnipotens sempiternus Deus, in cuius manu sunt omnium potentates et omnia iura regnorum: respice ad Christianum francorum romanorumque benignus imperium. 36. He examines its development minutely in Ganshof, F.L., art. cit. 45-6 & accompanying footnotes. 37. Ganshof, F.L., art. cit. 47. 38. ALC 45. 136 – et cuncto Christianitatis imperio pernecessariam prosperitatem cognoscens; thought perhaps reflecting also Carolingian pretensions into the Easter Mediterranean in a challenge to Byzantium. 39. ALC 45. 148 – antequam latius spargatur per orbem Christiani imperii. 40. ALC 45. 177 – quatenus per vestram prosperitatem Christianum tueatur imperium. 41. ALC 45. 185. 42. ALC 45. 200 & 202; the letter to Leo III is 234. 43. ALC 45. 245. 44. ALC 45. 249. 45. She was believed to have caused the murder of her own son, the titular emperor. 46. ALC 45. 174.

Part Four – The Bible Chapter 14 – The Tours Scriptorium 1. Martin of Tours died in 397. 2. There is an interesting parallel here with the appointment of Dunstan to Glastonbury abbey sometime after 940 to turn another ancient royal ecclesiastical institution into a power-house of education, reformed monastic life and spiritual leadership. See Dales, D.J., Dunstan – saint & statesman (Cambridge, 1988) 29-40. (By a strange calendrical coincidence both Alcuin and Dunstan died on 19 May, in 804 and 988 respectively). 3. See Ganz, D., Mass production of early medieval manuscripts: the Carolingian Bibles from Tours in The early medieval Bible ed. R. Gameson, (Cambridge, 1994) 53-62. 4. See McKitterick, R., Carolingian book production: the Tours anomaly in Gameson, R., (ed.) The early medieval Bible: its production, decoration & use (Cambridge, 1994) 75-6. 5. Alcuin’s influence on the illustration of the Tours manuscripts is examined by Nees, L., Alcuin and manuscript illumination, AGG, 195-228, which contains a minute consideration of the Bible from Tours preserved as St Gallen Cod. 75, the earliest of the Bibles now remaining that was produced at Tours in Alcuin’s time: its magnificent canon tables seem to have been designed by Alcuin. 6. See Chazelle, C.M., & Edwards, B. van Name, (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era, Medieval Church Studies, 3 (Turnhout, 2003), which places the Carolingian study of the Bible at this time in its patristic context. 7. See Ganz, D., Corbie in the Carolingian renaissance, Beiheft der Francia, 20 (Sigmaringen 1990); also Kasten, B., Adalhard of Corbie; die Biographie eines karolingisches Politikers und Klostervorstehers Studia Humaniora (Dusseldorf, 1986); the earlier character of biblical studies under Charlemagne has been examined in Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and biblical studies under Charlemagne, RB, 107 (1997) 40-76; the wider context in terms of the manuscripts still remaining was outlined in Bischoff, B., (Gorman, M., tr.) Manuscripts & Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne (Cambridge, 1994), in chapter 2. 8. By Rand, E.K., A survey of the manuscripts of Tours (Cambridge, 1929); & Rand,

276

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

E.K., The earliest books of Tours (Cambridge, 1934); also Jones. L.W., The text of the Bible & the script & art of Tours, HTR, XXVIII (1935) 135-79; and earlier Wilmart, A., Manuscrits de Tours copiés et decorés vers le temps d’Alcuin, RB, 42 (1930) 41-54. The best general introduction is in Bischoff, B., (O Croinin, D., & Ganz, D., tr.) Latin palaeography – antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1990) 1128; but see also Thompson, E.M., An Introduction to Greek & Latin Palaeography (Oxford, 1912), chapter xviii. The wider political context for the development of Caroline minuscule, as well as the revival of classical Roman capital letters, for example in the epitaph for Hadrian I, is outlined in Morison, S., Politics & Script (Oxford, 1972) 138-45 & 171-3; see also Nees, L., art. cit. AGG 195-228. 9. MS. Paris Lat. 1572. 10. See Bischoff, B., Aus Alkuins Erdentagen, Medievalia et Humanistica, 14 (1962) 31-37, which contains a picture of one of the pages annotated by Alcuin. 11. I.e. the first eight books of the Old Testament. 12. See for example Alcuin’s letter to Charlemagne in 799, ALC 45. 172, in which he complained of the ‘rusticity’ of the Tours scribes and their reluctance to adopt his high standards of punctuation: punctuation was crucial to accurate grammar and correct pronunciation of Latin. 13. MS Tours Bible Munic. 22 [St Martin 247]. See also Wilmart, A., art. cit. 43 & 49. Sovereigns of France used to take their oath on this Bible when they became honorary canons of Tours cathedral. 14. ALC 45. 73: Alcuin described Dagulf as a scrinarius and his name is only preserved in the English collections of his letters. 15. See Rand, E.K., A preliminary study of Alcuin’s Bible, HTR, XXIV (1931) 323-96, especially 336f. For a more recent discussion and overview, see Lobrichon, G., Le texte des bibles alcuiniennes, AY, 209-220. 16. Jones, L.W., Two Salzburg manuscripts and the influence of Tours, Speculum, 10 (1935) 288-91: ‘It is a matter of historical fact that Alcuin sent a codex hurriedly prepared to bishop Arno of Salzburg, at the latter’s request, in 802.’ See also Wilmart, A., Dodaldus Clerc et Scribe de St Martin de Tours ,Speculum, 6 (1931) 573586; and Rand. E.K., A supplement on Dodaldus, Speculum, 6 (1931) 587-99 for further examples of the influence of the Tours scriptorium. 17. ALC 45. 261 & 262. 18. ALC 11. 65. 3 & 5: discussed in Fischer, B., Die Alkuin-Bibel in Lateinische Bibelhandschriften I (Freiburg, 1958) 241-4 & 277, who considered ALC 11. 65. 3 to be a footnote to Alcuin’s letter to the king. 19. Such pandects had precedents in those commissioned by Cassiodorus and later produced at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow under abbot Ceolfrith during Bede’s youth: see Bogaert, Dom P-M., La Bible latine des origins au Moyen Âge, Revue Théologique de Louvain, 19 (1988) 137-159 & 276-314. The creation of a pandect containing all the books of the Bible was a considerable technological feat as well as a massive outlay of material, most obviously vellum. 20. Iste liber, resonans verba superna Dei. 21. Translated in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 41. 22. MS Roma, Vallic. B.6 & London BL Add. 10546: see the introduction to this corpus of biblical poems in ALC 11. 65. These poems sometimes had a wider appeal and influence later: see for example Wallach, L., A manuscript of Tours with

Notes

277

an Alcuinian ‘incipit’, HTR, 51 (1958) 255-61. 23. ALC 11. 66. 1. See Rabe, S.A., Faith, art and politics at Saint-Riquier: the symbolic vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia, 1995). 24. ALC 11. 67; note the mention of ‘sister’ Ava in a letter of Alcuin to Gisela, abbess of Chelles: ALC 45. 84. 25. ALC 11. 68 & 69: see Meyvaert, P., Bede, Cassiodorus and the Codex Amiatinus, Speculum, 71 (1996) 870-880: the clue is a reference to Ezra in the Vienna manuscript of this poem. 26. Two other biblical poems remain that have been attributed by some to Alcuin: ALC 11. 70 [1-6] & 71. 1. 27. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 75: the best general introduction to this aspect of Alcuin’s work and influence is ALC 43 where there is an extensive bibliography. The most decisive study is by Fischer, B., op. cit; see also Ganshof, F.L., La revision de la Bible par Alcuin, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance (Paris, 1947) 7-20, translated in Ganshof, F.L., The Carolingians & the Frankish monarchy (London, 1971) 28-40. There remains much of value in Glunz, H.H., History of the Vulgate in England (Cambridge, 1933), chapter 2. 28. Monza, Bibliotheca Capitolare, g-1/1 – dated from the early years of Fredegisus as Abbot of Tours. The cathedral treasury at Monza provides a rich conspectus of the context for the Carolingian reform with its roots in Lombard tradition. 29. See Hartmann, W., Die karolingische Reform und die Bibel, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 18 (1986) 58-74. 30. ALC 45. 195. 31. See Jullien, M-H., Alcuin et l’Italie, AY, 393-406: ‘Alcuin et ses collaborateurs faisaient ensuite un véritable travail de critique textuelle, collationnant et comparant les différents manuscripts afin de déterminer les lécons qui leur semblaient les meilleurs.’ p.399. 32. See Marsden, R., The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1995) 18-29. He assesses the impact of the Alcuinian text in England. There is a good discussion also in Lobrichon, G., art. cit. 214f. 33. Marked by an ‘a’ with a line above, for example ‘ā’. 34. See the detailed examination of this phenomenon in Carruthers, M., The craft of thought: meditation, rhetoric and the making of images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998). 35. Marsden, R., op. cit. 24. 36. Ibid. 28: n.b. the Tours Bibles are referred to with the Greek letter ‘Phi’ by scholars of the Vulgate.

Chapter 15 – Alcuin and the Old Testament 1. Bede insinuated as much vis à vis the English in his History, disparaging and dismissing the native British Christians as apostate and reprobate, while defending the Irish against Northumbrian aggression. This attitude towards the British proved sadly to be a baneful legacy of Bede’s understanding of the origins of English history and national identity. 2. ALC 2: cap. 12. 24. 3. ALC 76; note also ALC 77 – a set of Quaestiunculae concerning Genesis attributed in two twelfth century manuscripts to a certain ‘Albinus’, perhaps Alcuin, or more likely someone claiming his authority as a teacher with a reputation in this area of biblical study. 4. The authenticity of this text has been confirmed by Meyer, H.-B., Eine verlorene

278

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Schrift Alkuins?, Zeitschrift fur Katholische Theologie, 81 (1959) 101-103. 5. This text has never been published: see Kelly, J.F., A catalogue of early medieval Hiberno-Latin biblical commentaries, Traditio, 44 (1988) 571-71 & 45 (1989/90) 393434, on p.560. Some extracts are translated in Kelly, J.F., The originality of Josephus Scottus’ ‘Commentary on Isaiah’, Manuscripta, 24 (1980) 176-80. 6. I.e. the first eight books of the Old Testament. 7. See for example Gorman, M.M., The encyclopaedic commentary on Genesis prepared for Charlemagne by Wigbod Recherches Augustiniennes 17 (1982) 173-201; Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and biblical studies under Charlemagne, RB, 107 (1997) p.40-76; Gorman, M.M., Peter of Pisa and the ‘Quaestiunculae’ copied for Charlemagne in Brussels II 2572, RB, 110 (2000) p.238-260. 8. ALC 62; it is connected with a commentary on Matthew’s gospel attributed to Alcuin. 9. Its authenticity is examined and confirmed by Szerwniack, O., Les ‘Interpretationes nominum Hebraicorum progenitorum Iesu Christi’ [ALC 62]: une oeuvre authentique d’Alcuin, AY, 289-300. 10. By O’Keeffe, K. O’Brien, The use of Bede’s writings on Genesis in Alcuin’s ‘Interrogationes’, Sacri Erudiri, 23 (1978-9) 465-483; Houghton, J.W., (Re)sounding brass: Alcuin’s new castings in the questions and answers on Genesis, PMR, 16/17 (1992/3) 149-161; & Fox, M., Alcuin the exegete: the evidence of the ‘Quaestiones in Genesim’ in C.M Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (Turnhout, 2003) 39-60. 11. ALC 36: it was often attached to the end of Alcuin’s De Fide; see Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s question-and-answer texts, Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4 (1990) 645-56. 12. Then, as now, the book Genesis evidently exerted a powerful influence on the minds of the enquiring young. Note Alcuin’s letter to a pupil at Tours, perhaps a monk from St Gallen, examining the symbolism of the number ten in the Old and New Testaments – ALC 45. 81. It was often bound up with Alcuin’s Questions on Genesis in some of the manuscripts. 13. Ut haberes unde tuam posses memoriam recreare, quae saepe perdidit quod servare debet, nisi in thesauro litterarum reconditum teneat . . . 14. See the detailed examination of this phenomenon in Carruthers, M., The book of memory (Cambridge, 1990); & more precisely in relation to this period in Carruthers, M., The craft of thought: meditation, rhetoric and the making of images, 4001200 (Cambridge, 1998). 15. Question 4. 16. Question 7. 17. Question 9. 18. Question 13. 19. Question 26. 20. Question 40 – Imago in aeternitate, similitudo in moribus. 21. Question 57. 22. Question 65. 23. Question 94. 24. See Lapidge, M., The school of Theodore & Hadrian in Lapidge, M., Anglo-Latin literature (London, 1996) 141-68; & also Lapidge, M., Archbishop Theodore (Cambridge, 1995). 25. Question 104.

Notes

279

26. Genesis 22. 1 & James 1. 13. 27. Question 201. 28. Question 230. 29. Question 249. 30. Question 281. 31. Sed prius historiae fundamenta ponenda sunt, ut aptius allegoriae culmen priori structurae superponatur. 32. ALC Ps 14 – Dicta Albini diaconi de imagine Dei, sometimes attributed in manuscripts to Augustine or to Ambrose. Its precise relationship to Alcuin is unclear. It was clearly derived from Augustine’s De Trinitate of whose teaching it was an epitome. It asserts the Filioque using the analogy of intellect generating will and from both the emergence of memory. There remains another short piece of Old Testament exegesis attributed to Alcuin: the De decem verbis legis sue brevis expositio Decalogi – ALC 25: see Mombello, G., A propos d’un ‘traité’ sur les commandments de Dieu attribué à Alcuin, Romania, 89 (1968) 54-95. 33. See Gorman, M.M., From Isidore to Claudius of Turin: the works of Ambrose on Genesis in the early middle ages, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 45 (1999) 121-138, p.127-8 where he cites Fox’s analysis of the sources that are further examined in the article by Fox, M., Alcuin the exegete: the evidence of the ‘Quaestiones in Genesim’ in C.M Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (Turnhout, 2003) 39-60, summarised on p.50. 34. This is examined in some detail by O’Keeffe, K. O’Brien, The use of Bede’s writings on Genesis in Alcuin’s ‘Interrogationes’, Sacri Erudiri, 23 (1978-9) 465-483. 35. Fox, M., art. cit. 42; see also more detailed examination of some examples of Alcuin’s independence of his sources in Houghton, J.W., (Re)sounding brass: Alcuin’s new castings in the questions and answers on Genesis, PMR, 16/17 (1992/3) 149-161: his conclusion is important – ‘all of the discourse is in Alcuin’s own single voice . . . Alcuin’s reworking of some of his patristic texts revalues all of them, appropriating all to his own discourse.’ (p.158) Alcuin’s is thus no mere compilation, unlike the earlier work of Wigbod, but is consistent with his deferential adaptation of patristic sources that is elsewhere in his theological writings. 36. Ibid. 49. 37. See also Crawford, S.J., The Old English Version of the Heptateuch: Aelfric’s treatise on the Old and New Testament and his preface to Genesis (EETS, 1922/1969 reprint). For the wider development and range of Anglo-Saxon biblical studies in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries in the vernacular and its rich artistic expression, see Withers, B.C., The illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Cotton Claudius B.iv – the frontier of seeing & reading in Anglo-Saxon England (London & Toronto, 2007). 38. In the Life of Alcuin, Sigwulf emerges as Alcuin’s deputy as principal teacher at Tours, sometimes overruling his master’s strictness, for example with regard to the reading of Virgil. 39. ALC 50: the most significant study of this work is by Savigni, R., Il commentario di Alcuino al libro dell’Ecclesiaste e il suo significato nella cultura carolingia in Letture cristiane de libri sapienziale Actes du XXe Colloque, Roma Augustinianum (Rome, 1992) 275-303. 40. Commenting on Ecclesiastes 7. 19. 41. Commenting on Ecclesiastes 1.9.

280

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

42. Or often the Canticle. 43. ALC 45. 121: the relevant part is translated in EHD 201. 44. ALC 15: the longer recension is in PL C 641-64 & the shorter recension is in PL 83 1119-32. The most recent detailed studies are by Gugielmetti, R., ‘Super Cantica canticorum’ – nota sulla tradizione dei commenti di Ruperto di Deutz, Bernardo di Clairvaux, Gugielmo di Saint-Thierry, Beda e Alcuino, Studi Medievali, 43 (2002) 277286; Gugielmetti, R.E., (ed.) Alcuino – Commentato dei Cantici: con I commenti anonimi ‘vox ecclesie’, ‘vox antique ecclesie’: edizione critica (Florence, 2004); Gugielmetti, R.E., Il commento al Cantico dei Cantici di Alcuino di York: appunti per un’edizione in (eds.) C. Leonardi & G. Orlandi, Biblical studies in the early middle ages (Florence, 2005) 143153. (An early printed edition of Alcuin’s commentary was published in London by Patricius Junius, the royal librarian, in 1638 from a manuscript associated with Gilbert Foliot, which contained his commentary on the Song of Songs). 45. ALC 45. 133: the verse discussed is Song of Songs 6. 7 and its numerological significance. 46. For a distinguished recent study of the Song of Songs, see Kingsmill, E., The Song of Songs and the Eros of God (Oxford, 2009); see also for a different line of interpretation King, J. C., Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture (Oxford, 2005). 47. Commentary on Song of Songs 2.15 48. Commentary on Song of Songs 5.10 49. Commentary on Song of Songs 5.16

Chapter 16 – Alcuin and the New Testament 1. ALC 45. 17. 2. ALC 45. 114. 3. ALC 45. 124. 4. ALC 45. 137: c.f. also ALC 45.138 to the same destination with 30 references. 5. ALC 45. 197 & 198; c.f. also ALC 45. 105, which is another letter of condolence. 6. ALC 45. 136: see Lauwers, M., Le glaive et la parole. Charlemagne, Alcuin et le modèle du ‘rex praedicator’: notes d’écclesiologie carolingienne, AY, 221-244; also Ganz, D., An Anglo-Saxon fragment of Alcuin’s letters in the Newberry library, Chicago, ASE 22 (1993) 167-177; & Gorman, M.M., The Carolingian miscellany of exegetical texts in Albi 39 and Paris lat. 2175, Scriptorium, 51 (1997) 336-355. 7. ALC 54 & 55. 8. Occulta quippe sunt judicia Dei; et temerarium est quasi de certo pronuntiare quod dubium est. 9. ALC 52: MS Cambridge, Pembroke College 308, 256f; see Fransen, I., Fragments épars du commentaire perdu d’Alcuin sur l’epître aux Ephésiens, RB, 81 (1971) 30-59. It may have been copied under the aegis of Hincmar who was archbishop of Rheims from 845 until 882. 10. Fransen, I., art. cit. 58-9, where there is a list. The manuscript came to Cambridge by the good offices of Lancelot Andrewes when he was Bishop of Ely in the early sixteenth century. 11. Extract IX – p.37. 12. Extract XVII – p.41. 13. Extract XXIII – p.45. 14. Extract XXIV – p.46.

Notes

281

15. Extract XLV – p.55. 16. ALC 14: Vienna ONB 795, f.148v-50v – containing passages discussing I Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus & Hebrews. 17. ALC 53. 18. See Fox, M., Alcuin’s ‘Expositio in epistola ad Hebraeos’, JML, 18/2 (2006) 326-341. Alcuin also used Mutianus’ translation in his works against Felix of Urguel. 19. This is one of the important conclusions of the masterly article by Savigni, R., Le commentaire d’Alcuin sur l’Epître aux Hebreux et le thème du sacrifice, AY, 245-268, which examines the theology of sacrifice in this commentary in great detail and depth. 20. Chapter 4. 10 – vidit totam per gyrum hanc clausuram quasi sanguine circumseptam. The author drew the obvious parallel with the famous vision of Benedict recorded in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great who saw the whole of creation encapsulated in a beam of divine light. 21. Qua idem homo a Verbo Dei susceptus unigenitus est Filius Dei. 22. Commenting on chapter 2. 10. 23. Commenting on chapter 4. 14. 24. Commenting on chapter 6. 19. 25. ALC. 45.307: see the masterly examination of this letter by Chazelle, C.M., To whom did Christ pay the price? The soteriology of Alcuin’s epistola 307, PMR, 14 (1989) 53-62. Its wider significance in relation to Alcuin’s commentary on Hebrews is discussed by her in Chazelle, C.M., The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2001), 72-4. 26. For the wider context of this approach see Gibson, M.T., Boethius in the Carolingian age, TRHS, 5th series, 32 (1982) 43-56. 27. There is a very interesting discussion of this theme in the light of Alcuin’s other writings in Chazelle, C.M., art. cit. 49, & n. 32. The parallel with the commentary on Hebrews is especially close. See also Bonner, G., The doctrine of sacrifice: Augustine and the Latin Patristic tradition, in Bonner, G., Church & faith in the patristic tradition (Variorum, 1996). 28. Luke 23. 46. 29. John 19. 34. 30. Idem itaque victor et victima, et ideo victor quia victima. Idem itaque sacerdos et sacrificium, et ideo sacerdos quia sacrificium. Alcuin cited the teaching of Cyprian in support of this divine paradox. 31. Alcuin cited here Hebrews 7. 25-6. 32. See the wider context for this discussion in Colish, M., Carolingian debates over ‘nihil’ & ‘tenebrae: a study in theological method, Speculum, 59 (1984) 757-95. 33. Ibid. 50; this is a different emphasis to that in Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo. 34. De Trinitate 4.12: note also the treatment of this theme by Augustine later in De Trinitate book 13. 10-20. 35. This is Chazelle’s conclusion: art. cit. 54. Her notes in this article are of the utmost value. 36. ALC 51. 37. The most recent masterly examination of this work is by Gorman, M.M., Rewriting Augustine: Alcuin’s commentary on the gospel of John, RB, 119 (2009) 3685; supported also by Andree, A, The ‘Glossa Ordinaria’ on the Gospel of John: a preliminary survey of the manuscripts with a presentation of the text with its sources, RB,

282

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

118 (2008) 109-34, who examined its long influence in the middle ages; see also Berarducci, S. Cantelli., La genesi redazionale del commentario di Alcuino di York al Vangelio di Giovanni el il codice Sankt Gallen Stiftsbiliothek, in Immagine del medioevo: saggi di cultura mediolatina (Spoleto, 1994) 23-79. 38. ALC 45. 195. 39. This letter ALC 45. 196 from Gisele and Rotrudis was placed as a preface to the commentary in many manuscripts along with ALC 45. 195, which was Alcuin’s initial response to their request. 40. ALC 45. 214. 41. ALC 45. 49. 42. See Gorman, M.M., art. cit. 42, where the passage is translated. 43. ALC 45. 216: see Bischoff, B., Die Kölner Nonnenhandschriften und das Skriptorium von Chelles in Bischoff, B, Mittelalterliche Studien 1-3 (Stuttgart, 1966) 1967 & 1981, vol 1, 27. 44. See appendix three in Gorman, M.M., art. cit. 83f. 45. Ibid. p.64; the point was originally made in Gorman, M.M., The oldest epitome of Augustine’s ‘Tractatus in evangelistam Ioannis’ and the commentaries on the gospel of St John in the early middle ages, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 43 (1997) 63-99 on p.75. 46. Andree, A., art. cit.; note also Gorman, M.M., From the classroom at Fulda under Hrabanus: the commentary on the gospel of John prepared by Ercanbertus for his ‘praeceptor’ Ruodulfus, Augustinianum, 44 (2004) 439-490; & the caveat of Tax, P.W., Der Kommentar des ‘Erkanbert’ zum Johannes evangelium: ein Beitrag zur Verfasserschaft, Quellenfrage und Textkritik, Sacris Erudiri, 48 (2009) 169-90, concerning its derivative character as an example of the influence of Alcuin’s earlier teaching and work. 47. Gorman, M.M., Rewriting Augustine: Alcuin’s commentary on the gospel of John, RB, 119 (2009) 36-85, p.41, n.18. There is a partial translation of this dedicatory epistle on p.44-5, which is used here. 48. Ibid. 37. 49. Ibid. 65-8. 50. Ibid. 69-83 51. The only text now remaining in which this story of Bede’s death was recorded was preserved on the continent in the eighth century. 52. Ibid. 43; see Meyvaert, P., Bede’s ‘Capitula lectionum’ for the Old and New Testaments, RB, 105 (1995) 348-80. 53. See Wright, C.D., Alcuin’s Ambrose – polemics, patrology and textual criticism GL 3 143-170. 54. Gorman, M.M., art. cit. 62 n. 43, which identifies these passages. 55. I Corinthians 4. 7. 56. ALC 48 – MS Munchen, BSB lat. 13581 f.3-31 discussed by MacKay, T.W., Apocalypse commentaries by Primasius, Bede and Alcuin: interrelationship, dependency and individuality, Studia Patristica, 36 (2001) 28-34. He argues for the authenticity of ALC 48 & 49. 57. ALC 49 – it was attributed to Alcuin by a much later hand. 58. PL C. 1088A-B: beginning Exsul ab humano dum pellitur orbe Joannes. 59. ALC Ps 13: see Matter, E.A., The pseudo-Alcuinian ‘De septem sigillis’: an early Latin Apocalypse exegesis, Traditio, 36 (1980) 111-37. 60. The context is best approached through Bonner, G., St Bede in the tradition of western apocalyptic commentary (Jarrow, 1966). Augustine endorsed much of

Notes

283

Tyconius’ approach in his De Doctrina Christiana and De Civitate Dei, both books that were well known to Alcuin. 61. See Garrison, M., The Bible and Alcuin’s interpretation of current events, Peritia, 16 (2002) 68-84. 62. Christus est stella matutina, qui nocte saeculi transacta lucem vitae sanctis promittit et pandit aeternam. – These words are now set above Bede’s tomb in the Galilee chapel of Durham cathedral.

Part Five – Prayer Chapter 17 – Cultivating Prayer 1. ALC 45. 143 & 144: these are calculated retrospectively from the date of Easter each year. 2. ALC 45. 143: ‘If I were to respond that this celebration [of Septuagesima] is the custom of the Church and a definite rite of religion on Roman authority, this would seem to be a lesser argument, simply by authority and custom, unless some reason could be added to authority: for as they say, nothing has been set in place by the teachers of the Church by way of ecclesiastical customs without good reason’ [my emphasis]. This was an important statement of principle, at the heart of Alcuin’s thinking as a practical and pastoral theologian. In this he was later followed by Amalarius of Metz, who hailed Alcuin as ‘the most learned master of our entire region.’ See Schneider, H.M., Roman liturgy and Frankish allegory in Smith, J.M.H., (ed.) Early medieval Rome & the Christian West: essays in honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean, 28 (Leiden, 2000) 341-379: a discussion of Amalarius’ allegorical commentary on the meaning of the Mass is on p. 345-7. See also Warner, G., (ed.) The Stowe Missal, HBS, (1906) for the Irish (and probably eastern) antecedents to this allegorical exposition of each stage of the Mass. 3. ALC 45. 145. 4. Hiscox, N., The Aachen chapel: a model of salvation in Science and western and eastern civilisation in Carolingian times, in Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 115-126. For Augustine, and therefore also for Alcuin, the number 8 signified, among other things, the ark of salvation. See also Bolton, W.F., Alcuin & Beowulf: an eighth century view (New Brunswick, 1978), 105-6 for consideration of the image of ‘Jerusalem’ in the repertoire of Alcuin’s writings; and p.71-6 for a judicious consideration of Alcuin’s symbolic understanding of numbers in the Bible and elsewhere. 5. Haussling, A.A., Alkuin und der Gottesdienst der Hofkapelle, DA, 25 (1969) 223-9; the reference is in ALC 45. 281, in a letter written to a former pupil, going to Italy; in capella nostra could however refer to the church in York. 6. Waldhoff, S., Alcuins Gebetbuch fur Karl den Grossen: seine Rekonstrucktion und seine Stellung in der frühmittelalterlichen Geschichte der ‘Libelli Precum’, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forsuchungen, Veroffentlichungen des Abt. Herwegen-Instutitus der Abtei Maria Laach, 89 (Munster, 2003). Its text is also in Wilmart, A., Precum libelli quattuor Aevi Karolini (Eph. Lit) 1940, 33-4: see ALC 45. 304; and it is discussed in Constantinescu, R., Alcuin et les ‘libelli precum’ de l’époque carolingienne, Revue de l’Histoire de la Spiritualité, 50 (1974) 17-56, on 19-20. 7. Oxford Bodleian Library, MS d’Orville 45 & Paris, BN, lat. 2731a; see Life of Alcuin cap 10. xviii. 8. Domine Jesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi, in nomine tuo levabo manus meas. Was this an echo of

284

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

‘the Jesus Prayer’ that was used at that time and subsequently in the monasteries of the Eastern Church? It anticipates also the spirituality of the Cistercians in the twelfth century, encapsulated in the hymn, Jesu dulcis memoria. 9. Invocatory prayers popularised by St Benedict following the teaching of Cassian, and preserved at the Reformation at the beginning of morning and evening prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. 10. See Ward, B., Bede & the Psalter (Jarrow, 1991). 11. ALC 30. 12. Oxford, Bodleian MS. d’Orville 45. 13. PL CI 524-6: this shadowed Irish practice in enumerating parts of the bodies and the sins for which cleansing was being sought. Similar prayers are to be found in the Book of Cerne and the Nunnaminster Codex, 90-5: the Lorica of Lodgen; see also appendix C. 14. ALC 33 & 44. 15. Therefore I love thy commandments above the finest gold. 16. This is a good example of the Irish element in Alcuin’s spiritual formation within the Northumbrian church. 17. De psalmorum usu is the main part of ALC 33 apart from Alcuin’s own introduction. 18. ALC Ps 22 – it appears thus in Migne PL CI 465f. The title says: Hoc opus, hoc carmen, quod cernis tramite lector, Alcuinus Domini fecit honore sui – words relating only to Alcuin’s introduction, however. 19. The critical study disentangling these two works from Alcuin’s genuine writing was by Wilmart, A., Le manuel de prières de saint Jean Gualbert RB 48 (1936) 259-299; see also Constantinescu, R., Alcuin et les ‘libelli precum de l’époque carolingienne Revue de l’Histoire de la Spiritualité 50 (1974) 17-56. The best introduction is in Black, J., Psalm uses in Carolingian prayer books: Alcuin and the preface to ‘De psalmorum usu’ Medieval Studies 64 (2002) 1-60. 20. This Christological interpretation of the psalms had deep roots and a long life: for example, the psalms in the Oxford Bodleian manuscript from Moissac, d’Orville 45, have titles alongside the Hebrew ones indicating connections with the life of Christ, the apostles or of the Church. 21. The whole text is translated in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 43-6. 22. ALC 45. 259: the penitential psalms are 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143, and the psalms of ascent are Psalms 120-134 [in the modern enumeration of the psalms]. 23. ALC 45. 131 - mentioned in his letter to Arno ALC 45. 258. A copy of this manualis libellus seems to have been made by the friend of Arno and Alcuin, Hildebald of Cologne: see Jones, L.W., Cologne MS.106: a book of Hildebald, Speculum, 4 (1929) 27-61. But note the reservations expressed by Driscoll in Driscoll, M.S., ‘Ad pueros sancti Martini’: a critical edition, English translation & study of the manuscript transmission Traditio 53 (1998) 37-59 on p.38.n.4. 24. ALC 44; the prefatory letter is ALC 45. 243. 25. See Meyer, H., Die allegorische Deutung der Zahlenkomposition des Psalters, Frühmittelalterlische Studien, 6 (1972) 211-231, on p.215; also Guidi, S., Il commentario ai Salmi Penitenziale, Graduali e al Salmo 118 di Alcuino di York (University thesis, Florence, 1998). This interest is probably reflected also in the acrostic poems that Alcuin and others created at this time. 26. See Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955,

Notes

285

1962, 1967) - Les collectes des dimanches entre Noel et Septuagesime (vol 1) 212-219. 27. See Bestul, T.H., Continental sources of Anglo-Saxon devotional writing in Szarmach, P., (ed.) Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Kalamazoo, 1986) 103-26, especially 1102 for evidence of the influence of Alcuin’s De Laude, compiled in York around 790, upon the Nunnaminster Codex. 28. Wilmart, A., Precum libelli quattuor Aevi Karolini (Eph. Lit) 1940. 29. ALC 37 – in MS Troyes 1742. 30. ALC Ps 22, which was attributed in one tenth century manuscript to Alcuin himself. 31. Frantzen, A.J., The literature of penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick, NJ), 115. 32. In Salmon, P., Libelli Precum du VIIIe siècle, Analecta Liturgica, 273 (Rome, 1974), further examination of nine manuscripts in the Vatican library revealed the next stage of this spiritual development with its roots in the initiative of Alcuin. See also Salmon, P., Livrets de prières de l’époque Carolingienne, RB, 86 (1976) 218234; also Bouhot, J-P., in N Beriou et.al., (eds.) Prière au Moyen Âge: pratiques et expériences (V-XV siècles) (Paris-Turnhout, 1991) 23-31, especially 26-9. 33. For a later example of this tradition, see Turner, D.H., The prayer-book of archbishop Arnulph II of Milan, RB, 70 (1960) 360-92. 34. See Frost, M., A prayer book from St Emmeran, JTS, 30 (1929) 32-45 for another example of this tradition, and also of the cross-fertilisation that occurred in the early ninth century between England and Francia, by which some of the material composed by Alcuin was transmitted. 35. To some extent this type of prayer may have arisen as an antidote to the widespread use of magical charms, criticised by Alcuin in some of his letters as well in various capitularies. 36. ALC Ps. 22. 37. ALC 16. & 11. 122; some of these are also found in the Libellus sacrarum precum – ALC 63. See Black, J., Psalm uses in Carolingian prayer-books: Alcuin’s ‘Confessio peccatorum pura’ and the seven penitential psalms, Medieval Studies, 65 (2003) 1-56. This form of confession found its way into the prayer-book of Charles the Bald; also of Jean Gualbert, the founder of Vallombrosa, and later of Anselm: see Wilmart, A., Le manuel de prières de saint Jean Gualbert, RB, 48 (1936) 259-299, especially 2635. The significance of Alcuin’s initial work is well summed up in Waldhoff, S., Alcuins Gebetbuch fur Karl den Grossen: seine Rekonstrucktion und seine Stellung in der frühmittelalterlichen Geschichte der ‘Libelli Precum’, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forsuchungen, Veroffentlichungen des Abt. Herwegen-Instutitus der Abtei Maria Laach, 89 (Munster, 2003), 284-9 & 323-9; & in his conclusion 331-8, where he rightly describes Alcuin’s prayer-book for Charlemagne not so much as an archetype but as a key-work or catalyst. 38. ALC 27: see Ryan, J. J., Pseudo-Alcuin’s ‘Liber de divinis officiis’ and the ‘Liber “Dominus Vobiscum”’ of St Peter Damiani, Medieval Studies, 14 (1952) 159-163. There is another link between Alcuin and this later renewal of monastic life in the connection between the Confessio Fidei attributed to him – ALC Ps. 4, and that of John of Fécamp: see Serralda, V., Étude comparé de la ‘Confessio Fidei’ attribuée à Alcuin et de la ‘Confessio Theologica’ de Jean de Fécamp, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 23 (1988) 17-27. Serralda challenged Wilmart’s reluctance to attribute this to Alcuin on the grounds of the affinity in theology and style with his known

286

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

works, notably his De Fide. Mabillon’s disquisition about the Confessio Fidei in PL CI 1003-22 remains of great value. The Confessio Fidei begins with a version of Alcuin’s hymn to the Trinity, Adesto. 39. Oxford, Bodleian MS. Hatton 93: the original treatise, of which this is a less than accurate copy, is printed in PLCXXXVIII. 1173Df: it is preserved in more than 14 manuscripts on the continent. See the observations and reservations about its dating in Wilmart, A., Un traité sur la messe copié en Angleterre vers l’an 800 Eph. Lit. 50 (1936) 133-9. The transmission of this text has important links once again with Nonantola and Fontavellana and the movement of monastic renewal in Italy associated with Peter Damian. Wilmart considered that this Worcester manuscript was probably copied from a Frankish exemplar, perhaps during the episcopate of Denebert at Worcester (798-822); and it is closely associated with another Hatton manuscript commissioned by Dunstan. Wilmart ruled out an earlier idea that it could have been generated by Alcuin himself; but it is certainly indicative of material with which he would have been familiar, and it may have come to England through his direct influence or that of his disciples early in the ninth century. Note also the commentary on the symbolic meaning of the Mass in Warner, G., (ed.) The Stowe Missal, HBS, (1906), appendix 40-2, which was anterior to the Worcester manuscript, but which accounts for its appeal in English and Irish circles in the eighth century. 40. ALC 28. 41. Hadot, P., Les hymnes de Victorinus et les hymnes ‘Adesto’ et ‘Miserere’ d’Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyan Âge, 35 (1960) 7-16 42. ALC 63. 43. Hadot, P., Marius Victorinus et Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 29 (1954) 5-19 44. ALC 17. 45. A full translation is in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 3-5; see also ALC 60 for its context among other hymn-like poems of Alcuin. 46. ALC 11. 6: see Meyer, H-B., ‘Crux, decus es mundi’ - Alkuins Kreuz und Osterfrommigkeit, in B. Fischer & J. Wagner (ed.) Paschatis sollemnia: Studien zu Osterfeier und Osterfrommigkeit, (Basel, 1959) 96-107. It was modelled on poetry for Constantine the Great by the late antique poet, Publius Optatianus Porphyrius: see Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987), 56-9; & it is translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 139-43. 47. Embedded in another powerful poem – ALC 11. 7, composed later in 790 by Alcuin saluting the king, was the title Flavius Anicius Carlus, hinting that Charlemagne was heir to Constantine and that he represented a revived Christian Romanitas. It survives in a single ninth-century manuscript at Bern, where it is associated with four acrostic poems by Alcuin’s friend and disciple, Joseph the Scot, along with Alcuin’s own Cross poem ALC 11.6. 48. Meyer, H-B., art. cit. 102f. 49. ALC 28 – his symbolum was modelled on the Nicene Creed. 50. John 12. 23-33; see the full discussion of the context in which Alcuin was composing his poetry about the Cross in Chazelle, C.M., The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2001), chapter 2, 14-37. 51. ALC 61. 116.

Notes

287

52. ALC 68: – in PL CI 462-3 they are appended, with other prayers of devotion to the Cross, at the end of the treatise Liber Sacramentorum; see also Wilmart, A., Precum libelli quattuor Aevi Karolini (Eph. Lit) 1940, 25-6. They are translated in Dales, D.J., op. cit 30-1. 53. Chazelle, C.M., op. cit. 86f., with illustrations. See also the seminal study by Deshusses, J., Le sacramentaire de Gellone dans son contexte historique Eph. Lit. 75 (1961) 193-210. Gellone is close to Aniane in southern France and the monastery was founded in the first decade of the ninth century during the monastic renewal led by Benedict of Aniane. 54. Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL 14 (1972) 1-41: the form of this mass De Sancta Cruce is on 18-9; it is found in all the early manuscripts that Deshusses examined in order to establish the criteria for discerning the authentic compositions of Alcuin.

Chapter 18 – Penitence 1. ALC 46. [2] 123 2. ALC 2 – Life of Alcuin, cap 9. Xvii. 3. Driscoll, M. S., Alcuin et la pénitence a l’époque Carolingienne, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 81 (Munster 1999), 179: ‘Le vrai valeur des écrites d’Alcuin réside dans le fait qu’ils jaillissent de son expérience spirituelle . . . Alcuin se présente comme quelqu’un qui a donné la place centrale a la pénitence dans sa spiritualité.’ Note his endorsement on p.327, n.11 of the poem ALC 11. 124 as epitomising the spirit of Alcuin’s teaching even if it is not certain that he wrote it: it is certainly an eloquent tribute to his memory and example. 4. ALC 37. 5. ALC 45. 131; the best text of this work is now in Driscoll, M.S., ‘Ad pueros sancti Martini’: a critical edition, English translation & study of the manuscript transmission, Traditio, 53 (1998) 37-59. 6. ALC 45. 138. 7. Driscoll, M.S., Alcuin et la pénitence a l’époque Carolingienne, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 81 (Munster 1999), annexe ii, 197-9. 8. MS., Paris B.N. Lat. 2847 – discussed by Driscoll in ‘Ad pueros sancti Martini’: a critical edition, English translation & study of the manuscript transmission, Traditio, 53 (1998), 42-3. He compares it with an earlier ninth-century manuscript with very similar contents, Montpellier, Faculté de Medecine 404. Its inclusion of writing by Ephraim the Syrian De compunctione cordis raises the question of Alcuin’s own familiarity with his writings, translated into Latin. See Sims-Williams, P., Ephraim the Syrian in Anglo-Saxon England in Lapidge, M., & H. Gneuss (eds.) Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1985). 9. This is Driscoll’s conclusion in art. cit. 47 with a stemma codicum accordingly. 10. Frantzen, A.J., The literature of penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick, NJ) 114-6. 11. ALC 17; the reference for the hymn is ALC 11. 85. 5; it is one of several poems. 12. It was often associated with Alcuin’s De Fide and his De Trinitate ad Fredegisum quaestiones xxviii, perhaps as a result of Alcuin’s own editing. 13. PLCI 497-8; 537 & 545-6; 1408-9; there is a full translation in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 18-9. 14. Hadot, P., Les hymnes de Victorinus et les hymnes ‘Adesto’ et ‘Miserere’ d’Alcuin, Archives

288

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 35 (1960) 7-16. 15. Wilmart, A., Precum libelli quattuor Aevi Karolini (Eph. Lit) 1940, 123-4. 16. Hadot, P., art. cit. 15, citing Augustine’s Soliloquies I. 1. 4. 17. According to its title in the prayer-book of Charles the Bald: Confessio quam Alchuinus composuit Carolo imperatore [PL CI 523 note a]. 18. ALC 16. 19. PL CI 524-6 & 1404-5; also Wilmart, A., op. cit., 21-4, 56, 73-5. An example of an Irish Lorica may be found in Birch, W de G., An ancient manuscript of the eighth or ninth century formerly belonging to St Mary’s abbey [The Nunnaminster Codex] (London/Winchester, 1889), 90-5. 20. ALC 45. 259; see also Wilmart, A., Le manuel de prières de saint Jean Gualbert, RB, 48 (1936) 259-299, on p.282. A version of it also found its way into prayers later attributed to Anselm. 21. ALC 37. 22. See Rochais, H., Le ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin. Note pour l’étude de ses sources, Revue Mabillon, 41 (1951) 77-86; Lees, C.A., The dissemination of Alcuin’s ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ in Old English: a preliminary survey, Leeds Studies in English, 16 (1985) 174-189; Newhauser, R.G., The treatise on vices and virtues in Latin and the vernacular (Turnhout, 1993); Newhauser, R.G., (ed.) In the Garden of Eden: the vices and culture in the Middle Ages (Toronto, 2005); Wallach, L., Alcuin on virtues and vices. A manual for a Carolingian soldier, HTR, 46 (1955) 175-195. 23. Chapters xii & xiii. 24. James 5. 16; Romans 10, 10; Proverbs 28. 13; I John 1. 9; Psalm 32. 5; II Cor.6. 2. 25. Matthew 3. 2; Luke 3. 18; Ecclesiasticus 5. 5 & 31. 1. 26. John 11.23. 27. I Timothy 2. 4; followed by Ezekiel 18.21. 28. ALC 45. 138; see comparable teaching in other letters - ALC 45. 19 & 25; the second letter, written in 799 is ALC 45. 187. 29. ALC 45. 205 – this is a crucial text for appreciating the impact of Adoptionism, and the issues at stake where the Frankish church and its monasteries confronted and were challenged by the rapid growth of the Spanish heresy, especially in the borderlands. 30. There is a very interesting comparison with the three fights of Beowulf in Bolton, W.F., Alcuin & Beowulf: an eighth century view (New Brunswick, 1978), 153. 31. ALC 45. 131: see Driscoll, M, S., art. cit & op. cit., passim. 32. ALC 45. 258 & 259. 33. Luke 15. 21. 34. Matthew 9. 13. 35. A ful extract is in Dales, D.J., op. cit. 14-5.

Chapter 19 – Liturgy 1. Cap I. 61. 2. Book I. 6. 3. Schneider, H., art. cit. 344. 4. Levy, K., Gregorian chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998) 7-9f; see also Bernard, P., Du chant romain au grégorien (Le Cerf, Paris, 1996). 5. HE iv. 18. 6. There was a treatise De musica later attributed [wrongly] to Alcuin and his circle:

Notes

289

ALC Ps 9. See Goudesenne, J-F., De Tours à Rome: le corpus musical martinien au temps d’Alcuin, AY, 371-386. The loss of this genuine treatise ascribed to Alcuin is a major gap in our knowledge of him. 7. ALC 12. 8. Morin, G., Une rédaction inedité de la preface au supplément du ‘Comes’ d’Alcuin, RB, 29 (1912) 341-348. The supplement was added to Alcuin’s original work. As a result the Comes now survives in two recensions: the original form in the Cambrai MS, BM 553 [511], & the enlarged version in Paris MS, BSB lat. 6424, both from the ninth century. 9. Its preservation at St Riquier probably reflects the liturgical zeal of Alcuin’s friend, Angilbert, who was abbot there from 793 until 814. 10. See the detailed discussion in Wilmart, A., Le lectionnaire d’Alcuin, Eph. Lit. 51 (1937) 136-97; & also Morin, G., Le plus ancien ‘Comes’ ou lectionnaire de l’église romaine, RB, 27 (1910) 41-74. 11. ALC 59: The most interesting suggestion was by Morin, G., L’homéliare d’Alcuin retrouvé, RB, 9 (1892) 491-7, who asserted that the Paris MS, BnF lat. 14302 was in fact a twelfth century copy of Alcuin’s lost homiliary. Morin’s arguments should be considered again, notably the fact that this homiliary has its roots in Gallican practices anterior to the Carolingian reforms, for example the keeping of the Assumption in January between the feasts of Epiphany and Presentation, with what may be the earliest evidence of use of the pseudo-Jerome letter about the mystery of the Assumption. See also the entry for 18 January in Wilson, H.A., The Calendar of St Willibrord, HBS (1918) for this date as further evidence of this practice, discussed on p.18-9 as probably reflecting distinct insular traditions from the period before Alcuin. The strong patristic character of this homiliary and various other passing features might indicate that if Alcuin were its compiler, it was even earlier than Alcuin’s revision of the lectionary, his Comes, discussed above. Mabillon suggested, however, that Alcuin corrected an earlier compilation by Paul the Deacon. There is a valuable appendix on the observance of the Marian feasts in Northumbria during Alcuin’s time in DAB 250-1. 12. This Supplement prefaced by the Hucusque was attributed wrongly to Alcuin by Bernold of Constance in the eleventh century in his Micrologus, initiating a catena of confusion. 13. The best overview, followed here, of a complicated scholarly odyssey is Vogel, C., Medieval liturgy: an introduction to the sources ed. & tr. N.K. Rasmussen & W.G. Story (Washington D.C., 1986), which supersedes Ellard, G., Master Alcuin, liturgist: a partner of our piety (Chicago, 1956). The full story of this particular crucial phase in Carolingian liturgical reform may be found in great detail in the following articles of which the account here is a summary of a rich and fascinating field:Abercrombie, N.J., Alcuin and the text of Gregorianum: notes on Cambrai MS 104, AL, III (1953) 99-103; Amiet, R., Le prologue ‘Hucusque’ et la table des ‘capitula’ du supplément d’Alcuin au sacramentaire Grégorien, Scriptorium, 7 (1953) 177-209; Amiet, R., Le plus ancien témoin du supplément d’Alcuin: le missel ‘Excarpus’ composé à Gellone vers 810, Eph. Lit. 72 (1958/1) 97-110; Bernard, P., Benoît d’Aniàne est-il l’auteur de l’avertissement ‘Hucusque’ et du Supplément au sacramentaire ‘Hadrianum’? Studi Medievali III 39 (1998) 1-120; Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and the kingdom of heaven: liturgy, theology and the Carolingian age in (ed.) U-R. Blumenthal Carolingian Essays (Washington, 1983); Cabrol, R.B.F., La messe de Flacius Illyricus, RB, 22

290

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

(1905) 151-164; Cabrol, R. B. F., Les écrits liturgiques d’Alcuin, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, XIX (1923) 507-521; Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967) - Les collectes des dimanches entre Noel et Septuagesime (vol 1) 212-219; Chavasse, A., Le Sacramentaire Gelasien (Paris, 1958); Combaluzier, F., Alcuin: le prologue ‘Hucusque’ et la table des ‘capitula’ en son supplément du sacramentaire grégorien, Eph. Lit. 68 (1954) 160-2; Deshusses, J., Le sacramentaire de Gellone dans son contexte historique, Eph. Lit. 75 (1961) 193-210; Deshusses, J., Le ‘supplément’ au sacramentaire Grégorien: Alcuin ou Saint Benoît d’Aniàne?, AL, 9 (1965) 48-71; Deshusses, J., & Barre, H., A la recherche du missel d’Alcuin, Eph. Lit. 82 (1968) 3-44; Deshusses, J., Le sacramentaire grégorien pre-hadrianique, RB, 80 (1970) 213-237; Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL 14 (1972) 1-41; Deshusses, J., Les anciens sacramentaries de Tours, RB, 89 (1979) 281-302; Deshusses, J., Le Sacramentaire Grégorien. Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits (Fribourg, 1979-1982) 3 volumes; Heiming, O., Aus der Werkstatt Alkuins, AL, 4/2 (1956) 341-347; Manser, A., Ambrosiuszitat in einer Votivmesse – eine kleine Alkuinstudie, Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft, 1 (1921) 87-96; Moreton, B., The eighth century Gelasian sacramentary: a study in tradition (Oxford, 1976); Sicard, D., La liturgie de la mort dans l’Église Latine des origins a la reforme carolingienne (Munster, 1978); Wilson, H.A., The Gelasian Sacramentary, HBS (1894); Wilson, H.A., The Gregorian Sacramentary, HBS, (1915). 14. The stational masses were designed for celebrations of the mass at a cycle of traditional venues throughout the city of Rome, to which the pope processed on designated occasions during Lent and at other times. See Atchley, E.G.C.F., Ordo Romanus Primus (London, 1905). 15. Ex authentico libro bibliothecae cubiculi scriptum. 16. It left its mark on the Gellone Sacramentary, for example. 17. The oldest witness to the existence of this Supplement is found in a missal ‘excarpsum’ compiled at Gellone in 810; Gellone was close to Aniane where Benedict was based at this time: Amiet, R., Le plus ancien témoin du supplément d’Alcuin: le missel ‘Excarpus’ composé à Gellone vers 810, Eph.Lit.72 (1958/1) 97-110. Its author used both the revised Hadrianum and also the Sacramentary of Gellone itself. 18. The attribution of authorship to Benedict of Aniane was challenged in Bernard, P., Benoît d’Aniàne est-il l’auteur de l’avertissement ‘Hucusque’ et du Supplément au sacramentaire ‘Hadrianum’?, Studi Medievali, III 39 (1998) 1-120, who questioned Deshusses’ assumptions about the preface Hucusque and the Supplement, comparing the preface to Charlemagne’s letter to Alcuin ALC 45. 144, and regarding both as typical productions by the court theologians, which might favour Alcuin’s involvement in its compilation. He drew a comparison also with the preface Hunc codicem that was attached to the Comes of Alcuin, which appears to be an abbreviation of Hucusque, as was Benedict’s prose preface to his Concordia regularum. This was also the view of Bishop, E., Liturgica Historica (Oxford, 1918/1962) in his article A letter of abbot Helischar, 333-348, who regarded Alcuin as the author of the Supplement in another article in the same volume, The earliest Roman mass-book, 54-5. Despite Bernard’s efforts, his arguments in favour of this conclusion seem weak compared with the judgements of Deshusses. There is no mention of any sacramentary being composed by Benedict of Aniane in his Life, however.

Notes

291

19. A translation of the text of Hucusque is in Vogel, C., op. cit. 87-8. See the judgement about the significance of Hucusque by R. Amiet, cited in Combaluzier, F., Alcuin: le prologue ‘Hucusque’ et la table des ‘capitula’ en son supplément du sacramentaire grégorien Eph. Lit. 68 (1954) 160-2, note 2. 20. Missalis gregorianus et gelasianus modernis temporibus ab Albino ordinatus. 21. ALC 45. 296 & 250; see Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL, 14 (1972) 1-41. 22. Vogel, C., op. cit. 101; Cabrol believed that he had identified another unknown mass by Alcuin in Cabrol, R.B.F., La messe de Flacius Illyricus, RB, 22 (1905) 151-164. For Arno and Salzburg, see Deshusses, J., Le sacramentaire grégorien pre-hadrianique, RB, 80 (1970) 213-237, p.228. Note also the mass that Alcuin composed in honour of St Willibrord: ALC 67; see Orchard, N., An Anglo-Saxon Mass for St Willibrord and its later liturgical use, ASE, 24 (1995) 1-10. 23. Deshusses, J., art. cit. 232; there is a valuable diagram of likely transmissions of Frankish missals anterior to the work of Alcuin and Benedict on p.237. 24. ALC 45. 226: this letter reveals Alcuin’s consistent attitude at Tours elsewhere, appending Gelasian and other material to a missal that was strictly Roman and he believed Gregorian in its origin. 25. Deshusses, J., art. cit. 230. 26. Ibid. 102. 27. Votive masses are intended to highlight a particular angle of Christian theology and devotion, for example to a particular saint, spiritual intention or season of the Christian year. 28. ALC 45. 296 & 250; according to the Life of Alcuin, 8. xiv, Alcuin wanted to retire to Fulda rather than to Tours in 796, but Charlemagne prevented it. 29. ALC 61. 89-90. 13. 30. Life of Alcuin 13. 26: Celebrabat omni die missarum solemnia, multa cum honestatis diligentia, habens singulis hebdomadae diebus missas deputatas proprias. There is a mention of this custom also in one of his letters: ALC 45. 281. It was a practice also enjoined by Bede. 31. ALC 91. 32. Deshusses, J., & Barre, H., A la recherche du missel d’Alcuin Eph. Lit. 82 (1968) 3-44. The texts are in Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL, 14 (1972) 1-41; also Deshusses, J., Les anciens sacramentaries de Tours, RB, 89 (1979) 281-302; and more definitively in Deshusses, J., Le Sacramentaire Grégorien. Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits (Fribourg, 1979-1982) 3 volumes: see references listed in ALC 68. They examined closely eleven manuscripts from the ninth century: one of the challenges was to disentangle Alcuin’s genuine work from a sequence of masses created in the ninth century but attributed to Augustine among which they appear in PL CI 445-66 - Migne’s Liber Sacramentorum. 33. See the tabular list in Barre & Deshusses, art. cit. 24; the enlarged list is in Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL, 14 (1972) 1-41, p.15. He set aside numbers 24 & 25, [marked here in italics] however, in his later edition Le Sacramentaire Gregorien. 34. An octave in Christian liturgy is the eight day period beginning with the saint’s day or a major feast like Easter. 35. Deshusses, J., & Barre, H., A la recherche du missel d’Alcuin, Eph. Lit., 82 (1968) 3-44, p.37. 36. Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL, 14 (1972) 1-41, p.11

292

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

37. For example in the rite of Milan: see Heiming, O., Die mailandischen sieben Votivmessen in Miscellanea liturgica in honorem L.C. Mohlberg II (Rome, 1949) 317340. 38. See the text of the order for the Holy Cross cited above at the end of chapter sixteen. 39. The text of these propers is in Deshusses, J., ibid. 16-9 & 25. 40. Note the inclusion of this prayer in the Book of Common Prayer for Trinity Sunday. 41. agiae sophiae – an interesting variation upon sapientia, reflecting a theme in Alcuin’s spiritual life that ran back to his time in York and the building of the church of Hagia Sophia there. His emphasis on the Holy Spirit is a very distinctive element of his theology. 42. This is the Anglican Collect for Purity at the beginning of the Eucharist in the Book of Common Prayer and the liturgies that have sprung from it in the Anglican Communion.

Part Six – Education Chapter 20 – The Teacher 1. See Hildebrandt, M.M., The external school in Carolingian society (Leiden, 1992) chapter three, for a careful review of Carolingian monastic and educational policy before, as well as during, the time of Charlemagne: ‘Charlemagne, in particular, identified the monastery as the crucial instrument for implementing many of his political, cultural and religious goals.’ p.54. 2. See Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 156-7, lines 131-140. 3. DAB 356f. The best introductions to Charlemagne’s initiatives in this area are in McKitterick, R., The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians (London, 1983), chapter six; and the individual relevant chapters in McKitterick, R., (ed.) Carolingian culture: emulation & innovation (Cambridge, 2004). 4. ALC 45. 170; the most illuminating study of the emergence of the ‘palace school’ around Charlemagne is in Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987) chapter two, entitled ‘New Athens and Renascent Rome.’ It does not deal with the educational dimension however. 5. ALC 45. 308. 6. ALC 45. 145, 171 & 172. 7. ALC 11. 26; see Brunholzl, F., Der Bildungsauftrag der Hofschule in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 28-41. This poem is translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 119-21. 8. Bezaleel was the builder of the Tabernacle in Exodus 31 and Einhard was an energetic builder. Others in the poem were also identified by nicknames: see Garrison, M., The social world of Alcuin: nicknames at York and at the Carolingian court in GL p.59-80. 9. This poem was closely associated with another more intimate one addressed by Alcuin to the king and his family: ALC 11. 27. See Steinen, W. von den, Karl und die Dichter in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 73-9. 10. ALC 45. 114. Brunholzl was of the view that Charlemagne invited Alcuin to

Notes

293

recreate for him what was already well established at York and that its programme was encapsulated in his Disputatio de vera philosophia: art. cit. 32-5. 11. Laistner, M., Thought & Letters in Western Europe (Ithaca, 1957), 203. 12. Leonardi, C., Alcuino e la scuola palatina: le ambizioni di una cultura unitaria, SSCI, 27 (1981) 459-96; also in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004), 191-218 cited here. This is the most percipient evaluation of Alcuin’s distinctive though not perhaps unique role, and what follows is an epitome of Leonardi’s analysis. 13. Alcuin created ‘uno spazio storico cristiano per il laico’ – Leornardi, C., art. cit. 216. 14. Leonardi regarded this as the restoration of a cristianita constantiana: its fragility would be demonstrated quite swiftly after Charlemagne’s death however. 15. ALC 45. 229. 16. The classic studies are by Bischoff in Bischoff, B., (Gorman, M., tr.) Manuscripts & Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne (Cambridge, 1994), especially the chapters ‘The court library of Charlemagne’ & ‘Libraries and schools in the Carolingian revival of learning’, cited here, which are translations of Bischoff, B., Die Hofbibliothek Karls des Grossen in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Hachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 42-62; & Die Bibliothek im Dienste der Schule in Bischoff, B, Mittelalterlische Studien 1-3 (Stuttgart, 1966, 1967 & 1981), vol 3 213 -33. 17. See Bullough, D.A., Charlemagne’s court library revisited, EME, 12 (2003), 340. 18. MS Diez B Sant. 66: see Bischoff, B., ‘The court library of Charlemagne’, op. cit. 68f: the text of the index is printed on p.71-2. But this view was challenged by C. Villa, Die Horazuberlieferung und die ‘Bibliothek des Karls des Grossen’: Zum Werkverzeichnis der Handschrift Berlin Diez B.66 in DA 51 (1995) 29-52, who attributed the list to the influence of Peter of Pisa after his return to Italy in the later 790’s, relating its provenance to the library at the cathedral of Verona. 19. ALC 45. 155 & 170. 20. ALC 45. 309. 21. ALC 11. 81: see Bischoff, B., ibid. p.60. 22. ALC 11. 73 & ALC 26; the earliest manuscript of this poem is found in a collection of dialectical material, probably derived from the court library, which was copied during the time of Leidrad, bishop of Lyons, who was a pupil of Alcuin’s: Bischoff, B., ibid.p.64. See also Demetracopoulos, J.A., Alcuin and the realm of application of Aristotle’s ‘Categories’ in Meirinhos, J. F., et al. (eds.) Intellect and imagination in medieval philosophy (3 vols, Turnhout, 2006) 1733-42. 23. ALC 40. 24. MS Cambridge UL, Kk.V.16. 25. Bullough, D.A., art. cit. 348; see also Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987), 56-9. 26. ALC 39. 27. In his letter ALC 45. 308: see Bullough, D.A., ibid. p.359, n.78. This is of interest also in relation to Alcuin’s known role in the building of Hagia Sophia in York. 28. Ibid. 362. Bullough considered that the Oxford Bodleian manuscript Hatton 93, Primum in ordine, already discussed, was an example of exactly that kind of text, even if it was copied in Mercia, perhaps as a result of Alcuin’s influence, possibly at Worcester at the end of the eighth century; likewise the St Gallen Stiftsbibliothek MS 268, which contains Alcuin’s De vera philosophia & De grammatica.

294

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

29. The most masterly review remains that of B. Bischoff in ‘Libraries and schools in the Carolingian revival of learning’, translated by M. Gorman op. cit. as chapter 5. 30. Ibid. 94. 31. Alcuin wrote ten letters and a poem to Adalhard of Corbie, and five letters and two poems to Ricbod. See Ganz, D., Corbie in the Carolingian renaissance Beiheft der Francia 20 (Sigmaringen 1990). 32. Lowe, E.A., An eighth century list of books in a Bodleian manuscript from Wurzburg and its probable relation to the Laudian ‘Acts’, Speculum, 3 (1928) 3-15 & 239-50 33. Bischoff, B., op. cit. 96. 34. Ibid. 97. 35. Ibid. 98-9; note the list of grammatical manuscripts from the age of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious appended on 113-4. 36. Ibid. 104. 37. Bischoff ’s conclusion: ibid. 113. 38. Life of Alcuin 12. xxiv. 39. This is demonstrated by Ganz, D., Handschriften der Werke Alkuins aus dem 9. Jarhrhundert, AGG, 185-194; & Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s theology, AGG, 91-106. 40. ALC 47: see O’Donnell, J.R., Alcuin’s Priscian in J.J.O’Meara et al. (eds.) Latin Script & Letters AD 400-900 (Leiden, Brill, 1976) 222-235; & Holtz, L., Priscien dans la pédagogie d’Alcuin in M. de Nonno et al., (eds.) Manuscripts & tradition of grammatical texts from antiquity to the renaissance (Universita degli Studi di Cassino, 2000) 289-326. 41. ALC 9: 16 manuscripts of this work now remain from the ninth century – see Ganz, D., art. cit. 190-1. See also Holtz, L., Le dialogue de Franco et de Saxo, AY, 133-146; & Fortgens, H-W., De paedagoog Alcuin en zijn ‘Ars grammatica’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 60 (1957) 57-65; note also the first discussion of this text in Frey, J., De Alcuini ‘Arte Grammatica’ commentatio (Munster, 1886). Holtz, L., L’oeuvre grammaticale d’Alcuin dans le contexte de son temps, AGG, 129-150. 42. ALC 40. 43. Holtz, L., Alcuin et la renaissance des arts liberaux in P.L. Butzer et al., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken: 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa (Turnhout, 1997-8) 45-60. 44. Courcelle, P., Les sources antiques du prologue d’Alcuin, Philologus, 110 (1966) 293305. 45. ALC 26. 46. ALC 11. 73. 47. Ganz, D., art. cit. 190. St Gallen was an important and vital centre of interest in dialectic. 48. ALC 39: see Howell, W.S., The rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne (Princeton, 1941/1965); & ALC 11. 80. 1: the poem seems to be a composite of three smaller poems, probably by Alcuin. 49. There are 20 ninth-century manuscripts of this work listed in Ganz, D., art. cit. 189. 50. ALC 37: 25 manuscripts of this work date from the ninth century; see Ganz, D., art. cit. 186-7. See also Dubreucq, A., Autour du ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin AY 269-288; & Rochais, H., Le ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin. Note pour l’étude de ses sources, Revue Mabillon, 41 (1951) 77-86. For its later history in the tenth century in England see also Szarmach, P., The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, cap xxvii-xxv, with special reference to Vercelli homily XX, Mediaevalia, 12 (1986) 13-41.

Notes

295

51. ALC 32: See Marsili, A., Alcuinus Orthographia (Pisa, 1952); superseded by Bruni, S., Alcuino ‘De orthographia’ (Florence, SISMEL, Galluzzo – Millennio Medievale, 2. Testi. 2., 1997). 52. ALC 17; it is found now in 52 manuscripts and was associated in many of them with a litany, sometimes described as a prayer to Christ, which had an independent circulation among some of the ninth century prayer-books associated with the Alcuinian tradition. It is found on its own in only three ninth-century manuscripts. 53. ALC 28 & 36. 54. Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 38 – this is only four stanzas from the whole translation there. 55. ALC 41; see Reuschel, H., Kenningar bei Alkuin: zur Disputatio Pippini cum Albino, Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 62 (1938) 143155; and more recently and generally Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s question-and-answer texts, Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4 (1990) 645-56. The most useful study is by Bayless, M., Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio Pippini’ and the early medieval riddle tradition in Halsall, G., (ed.) Humour, history and politics in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Cambridge, 2002) 157-175. 56. Tatwine was the Archbishop of Canterbury who died in 734. 57. ALC 45. 88. 58. Bayless, M., art. cit. 161-2. Alcuin composed several riddles as well: see ALC 7. For the roots of some of his material in Anglo-Saxon riddle traditions, see Reuschel, H., art. cit.; & Bitterli, D., Alkuin und die angelsächsische Rätseldichtung, AGG, 151-168, especially 163f. 59. Bayless, M., ibid. 168-9. 60. Ibid. 170. 61. ALC 61. 111: It survives in only one manuscript and Alcuin’s authorship is not entirely certain: see Jeudy, C., Le Carmen 111 d’Alcuin et l’anthologie de Martial du manuscript 522 [502] de la Bibliothèque municipale d’Angers in Scire litteras: Forschumgen zum mittelalterlichen Geistesleben (Munich, 1988) 221-2: Hic tu per stratum pergens subsiste, viator, Versiculos paucos studiosa perlege mente. In via, quam cernis, duplici ditatur honore: Haec ad cauponem ducit potare volentem; Ad sedem sophie ducit haec scire volentem. Elige, quod placeat tibi nunc iter, ecce viator, Aut potare mecum, sacros aut discere libros. Si potare velis, nummos praestare debebis; Discere si cupias, gratis, quod quaeris, habebis. 62. ALC 42; it is found in two manuscripts in Vienna that also contain the Dicta Albini diaconi de imagine Dei with which it shares material in common. See Bayless, M., art. cit. 63. ALC 45. 131. 64. ALC 75; c.f. ALC 45. 172, and also a reference in the Fulda monastic library catalogue to an arithmetical work by Alcuin. Its authorship by Alcuin is not completely certain, however. See Folkerts, M., Die alteste mathematische Aufgabensammlung in lateinischer Sprache: Die Alkuin zugeschriebenen ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’ Denkschrift der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaft

296

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Kl. 116.6 (Vienna, 1978) 15-78; & Folkerts, M., The ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’ ascribed to Alcuin in Folkerts, M., Essays on early medieval mathematics (London 2003) Chapter IV; also Borndorfer, R., Grotschel, M., Lobel, A., Alcuin’s transportation problems and integer programming in Butzer, P., Kerner, M., & Oberschelp,W., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken: 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa /Charlemagne and his heritage: 1200 years of civilization and science in Europe (Turnhout, 1997); also Singmaster, D., The history of some of Alcuin’s propositions in ibid. vol. 2 p.11-30; & Bitterli, D., Alkuin und die angelsächische Rätseldichtung, AGG, 151-168. 65. See Singmaster, D., art. cit. 11. 66. Many of these problems had a very practical bearing, however: see Englisch, B., Alkuin und das ‘Quadrivium’ in der Karolingerzeit, AY, 175-192. 67. See the discussion in Folkerts, M., art. cit. 4-5. 68. This is Folkerts’ conclusion: art. cit. 4. 69. See W.M. Stevens, Bede’s scientific achievement (Jarrow, 1985) for the background to Alcuin’s expertise in this area: the letters are ALC 45. 126, 143, 144, 145, 148, 149, 155, 170 & 171. See Lohrmann, D., Alcuins Korrespondenz mit Karl dem Grossen uber Kalendar und Astronomie in P.L. Butzer & D. Lohrmann (eds.) Science in Western & Eastern Civilisation in Carolingian times (Basel/Boston/Berlin, 1993); & Borst, A., & Lohrmann, D., Alkuin und die Enzyklopadie von 809 in P.L. Butzer and D. Lohrmann (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilisation in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 71-112; also Lejbowicz, M., Computus, Le nombre et le temps altimediévaux in B. Ribemont (ed.) Le Temps, sa mésure et sa perception au Moyen Âge (Caen, 1992) 151-96. 70. ALC 10; see Springsfeld, K., Alkuins Einfluss auf die Komputistik zur Zeit Karls des Grossen (Stuttgart, 2002); & Springsfeld, K., Karl der Grosse, Alkuin und die Zeitrechnung in Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 27 (Wiesbaden, 2004) 5366. See also Palmer, J.T., Calculating time and the end of time in the Carolingian world, EHR, 126 (2011) 1307-1331. 71. ALC 23 & 34; c.f. ALC 45. 145. There is still some debate over the precise authorship of these texts. De Bissexto may be connected to two letters of Alcuin: ALC 45. 171 & 148, written in 798; it is evidence of Irish sources available to Alcuin, either in England or on the continent. 72. ALC 78: c.f. ALC 45. 148 & 155. 73. See Von Euw, A., Alkuin als Lehrer de Komputistikik und Rhetorik Karls des Grossen im Spiegel der St. Galler Handschriften, AGG, 251-262. Aspects of one of these letters, ALC 45. 145, have been astutely analysed in Alberi, M., Jerome, Alcuin and Virgil’s ‘Old Entellus’, JMH, 17 (1991) 103-113. 74. ALC 18 & 21. 75. ALC 29. 76. ALC 31 – prompted perhaps by Alcuin’s knowledge of the earlier treatise by Boethius. 77. ALC 19 & 20. 78. These may be found listed in the Clavis Alcuinus Ps. p.512f. 79. Notably in Gorman, M. M., Alcuin before Migne, RB, 112 (2002) 101-130. 80. Ganz lists 20 manuscripts from the ninth century of Alcuin’s letters: art. cit. 194. 81. The manuscripts of St Gallen may now be consulted on-line: www.e-codices.ch; for what follows see Tremp, E., Alkuin und das Kloster St. Gallen, AGG, 229-250: it contains fine reproductions of some of the most important manuscripts.

Notes

297

82. The inventory of Alcuin manuscripts is listed by Tremp, E., art. cit. 236-8: on 233 there is a reproduction of the earliest catalogue of St Gallen, in which some of the works of Alcuin were recorded. 83. The likely historical context of this association is examined in some detail by Tremp, E., art. cit. 229f. He also examines possible connections between Alcuin and St Gallen during his lifetime on 245f.

Chapter 21 – Cultivating the Mind 1. See Law, V., The Insular Grammarians (Ipswich, 1982). 2. See Holtz, L., Le Parisinus Latinus 7530, synthèse cassinienne des artes liberaux, Studi Medievali, 3/16 (1975) 97-152, for the central role of Monte Cassino as a centre of learning to which Paul the Deacon retired and died. 3. Alcuin’s work in this area has been the subject of extensive scholarship, some of which has already been mentioned: the best introduction is in Irvine, M., The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ & literary theory 350-1100 (Cambridge, 1994), chapter 7; see also Alberi, M., Alcuin the Latin grammarian and the shaping of the standard language for Charlemagne’s empire in Acta selecta Octavi Conventus Academiae Latinitiati Fovendae (Rome, 1995) 225-37; Banniard, M., ‘Viva voce’ – communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en Occident latin, Collection des Études Augustiniennes (Paris, 1992), chapter vi; Bruni, S., Alcuino ‘De orthographia’ (Florence, SISMEL, Galluzzo – Millennio Medievale, 2. Testi. 2., 1997); Chase, C., Alcuin’s grammar verse: poetry & truth in Carolingian pedagogy in M.W. Herren (ed.) Insular Latin Studies (Toronto, 1981) 13552; Dionisotti, A.C., On Bede, grammars & Greek (RB 92) 1982 p.111-41; Edelstein, W., Eruditio et sapientia: Weltbild und Erziehung in der Karolingerzeit (Freiburg-in-Breisgau, 1965); Engels, L.J., Priscian in Alcuin’s ‘De Orthographia’ in GL3 113-142; Fortgens, H-W., De paedagoog Alcuin en zijn ‘Ars grammatica’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 60 (1957), 57-65; Frey, J., De Alcuini ‘Arte Grammatica’ commentatio (Munster, 1886); Holtz, L., Le Parisinus Latinus 7530, synthèse cassinienne des artes liberaux, Studi Medievali, 3/16 (1975) 97-152; Holtz, L., Alcuin et la renaissance des arts liberaux in P.L. Butzer et al., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa (Turnhout, 1997-8) 45-60; Holtz, L., Priscien dans la pédagogie d’Alcuin in M. de Nonno et al., (eds.) Manuscripts & the tradition of grammatical texts from antiquity to the renaissance (Universita degli Studi di Cassino, 2000) 289-326; Holtz, L., Le dialogue de Franco et de Saxo AY 133-146; Holtz, L., L’oeuvre grammaticale d’Alcuin dans le contexte de son temps, AGG, 129-150; Irvine, M., Bede the grammarian & the scope of grammatical studies in eighth century Northumbria, ASE, 15 (1986) 15-44; Kaster, R.A., Guardians of language: the grammarian and society in late antiquity (Berkeley L.A. and London, 1988); Law, V., The Insular Grammarians (Ipswich, 1982); Law, V., The transmission of early medieval elementary grammars: a case study in O. Pecere & M.D. Reeve (eds.) Formative stages of classical traditions: Latin texts from antiquity to the renaissance (Spoleto, 1995) 239-262; Law, V., Grammar and the grammarians in the early middle ages (London, 1997); Lehmann, P., Cassiodorstudien VIII: Cassiodor-Isidor-Beda-Alchvine, Philologus 74, new series 28 (1917) 357-383; Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s question-and-answer texts, Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4 (1990) 645-56; O’Donnell, J.R., Alcuin’s Priscian in J.J. O’Meara et al. (eds.) Latin Script & Letters AD400-900 (Leiden, Brill, 1976) 222-235; Schmitz, W., Alcuins ‘Ars Grammatica’: die lateinische Schulgrammatik der karolingischen Renaissance (Ratingen, 1908); Swiggers, P., Alcuin et les doctrines grammaticales, AY, 147-162; Vineis, E., Grammatica e filosofia del linguaggio in Alcuino, Studi e Saggi Linguistici, 28 (1988) 403-29.

298

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

4. ALC 9, 47, & 32. 5. Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982), 125, note on line 1550. 6. Ibid. lines 1556-7: Alcuin sent copies of works by Phocas and Priscian to his kinsman and friend, Beornrad abbot of Echternach, after one of his early visits to the continent, probably in 780-1: see ALC 11. 4 – the poem Cartula, perge cito, written to salute those whom he had met on one of his initial travels in Francia. 7. Aldhelm of Malmesbury knew Priscian’s Institutiones: see Holtz, L., Priscien dans la pédagogie d’Alcuin in M. de Nonno et al., (eds.) Manuscripts & tradition of grammatical texts from antiquity to the renaissance (Universita degli Studi di Cassino, 2000), 290. What is unclear is which of Priscian’s two grammatical works was more widely known in England; probably his shorter Institutio de nomine: see Law, V., Grammar and the grammarians in the early Middle Ages (London, 1997), 136. 8. ALC 45. 121: there is a very useful analysis of the divisions and structure of the Ars Grammatica as well as of his references to both Donatus and Priscian in Swiggers, P., art. cit. 158-60. 9. ALC 45. 280. 10. Irvine, M., The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ & literary theory 350-1100 (Cambridge, 1994) 216. 11. It was then subdivided into no less than 26 elements: see the useful diagram in Irvine, M., Bede the grammarian & the scope of grammatical studies in eighth century Northumbria, ASE 15 (1986), 29. 12. PL CI 849. 13. The Excerptiones remain unprinted but are found in three ninth century manuscripts from Valenciennes, the oldest of which (Valenciennes 393) attributed them to Alcuin. They were originally in the library of the monastery of St Amand and may therefore be associated with Arno who was abbot there before he went to become Bishop of Salzburg in 793. In which case, they would date from early in Alcuin’s time on the continent: see Holtz, L., art. cit. 297. 14. ALC 45. 162. 15. For example, the elision of all references to Greek usage: see O’Donnell, J.R., Alcuin’s Priscian in J.J. O’Meara et al. (eds.) Latin Script & Letters AD400-900 (Leiden, Brill, 1976), 223. 16. ALC 11. 118 is an interesting short poem attributed to Alcuin as magister, uniquely found in the manuscript Vatican, Reg. lat. 1587, setting out the length of verbs and syllables. It is followed by another poetic commentary – ALC 11. 119 - on Donatus’ Ars grammatica, which is not necessarily by Alcuin, however, but which was used by his pupil Hrabanus Maur. 17. Engels, L.J., art. cit. 116. 18. Irvine, M., The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ & literary theory 350-1100 (Cambridge, 1994), 321. 19. ALC 39: this was cast in the form of a dialogue between Charlemagne and Alcuin in which the king’s authority was invoked as the guarantor of high standards of grammar and literacy. Like the Ars grammatica, it comprised for many centuries afterwards an indispensable resource for teaching the Trivium. See Irvine, M., op. cit. 325f. 20. ALC 9: in ALC 45. 215 there is an interesting reference to letter-pieces - litterali tessera, used as a playful teaching aid. 21. PLCI 873: Priscianus Latinae eloquentiae decus.

Notes

299

22. Ibid. 882, 895, 896, & 900: see Swiggers, P., Alcuin et les doctrines grammaticales, AY, 154-5. 23. Irvine, M., op. cit. 314. 24. ALC 32. 25. They also invested heavily in the quality of vellum used in book production at this time, to make sure that books were durable for use and long-lasting, as so many of them have indeed proved to be over nearly 1200 years. 26. Italic script was closely modelled on Carolingian minuscule during the Renaissance. 27. The authoritative study and edition of the text is by Bruni, S., Alcuino ‘De orthographia’ (Florence, SISMEL, Galluzzo – Millennio Medievale, 2. Testi. 2., 1997); this rests upon Bruni, S., Il ‘De ortografia’ de Alcuino: il codex Vindobonensis 795 e l’edizione Forster SM 32 (1991) 83-127; see also Dionisotti, A.C., On Bede, grammars & Greek (RB 92) 1982 p.11141; & the earlier edition of the text by Marsili, A., Alcuinus Orthographia (Pisa, 1952). 28. See Engels, L.J., Priscian in Alcuin’s ‘De Orthographia’ in GL3 118f. So close was Alcuin’s reliance upon Bede that for a long time this work was attributed to him rather than to Alcuin, despite its being mentioned in the Life of Alcuin in the list of his written works. 29. Orthographiae Cassiodori Capri et Agroecii, et Excerpta orthographiae Bedae et Alcuini. 30. Vienna ONB lat. 795. 31. The second of these is found heading 35 manuscripts of Priscian’s Institutiones from the ninth century onwards: see Engels, L.J., art. cit. 122-3 n. 34: Me legat antiquas vult qui proferre loquelas, // me qui non sequitur, vult sine lege loqui. Note the emphasis on ‘law’ and ‘speaking’. 32. Roughly 10% was drawn from Priscian, making him the principal source after Cassiodorus and Bede. 33. Ibid. 137. 34. Ibid. 138; see also Wright, R., Late Latin & early Romance: Alcuin’s ‘De Orthographia’ and the Council of Tours 813 in F. Cairns (ed.) Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar (Liverpool, 1981) 323-42 for the wider cultural significance of De Orthographia in the early ninth century, in terms of establishing consistent pronunciation of Latin, and also its close association with Alcuin’s work in revising the text of the Bible at Tours. Much of Alcuin’s editing and elision of Bede’s work was to permit pronunciation to be guided and standardised by accurate spelling. 35. This preoccupation with accuracy of sense as well as expression, written or spoken, appears for example in a letter of Alcuin to Charlemagne ALC 45. 172, written in 799, enjoining care with punctuation lest inaccuracies and hasty reading corrupt texts. 36. There is a full discussion of this development, in which Alcuin appears to have played a pioneering role, in Wright, R., Late Latin & early Romance in Spain & Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982); and a detailed and interesting critique by various scholars of the scope of its linguistic implications in the early ninth century, in Wright, R. (ed.) Latin & the Romance languages in the early Middle Ages (London, 1991). For an example of Alcuin’s being affected by vernacular Latin usage on the continent, see Taylor, P., The construction ‘habere-with-infinitive’ in Alcuin as an expression of the future, The Romanic Review, 15 (1924) 123-127. 37. Wright, R., Late Latin & early Romance: Alcuin’s ‘De Orthographia’ and the Council of Tours 813 in F. Cairns (ed.) Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar (Liverpool, 1981), 345. This practice had its roots in Anglo-Saxon convention, where Latin was learnt through liturgy and books rather than having any vernacular root as it did on the continent.

300

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

38. This was evident in Alcuin’s poetry which dealt with this theme: see Chase, C., Alcuin’s grammar verse: poetry & truth in Carolingian pedagogy in M.W. Herren (ed.) Insular Latin Studies (Toronto, 1981) 135-52. 39. John 1. 14. 40. John 1. 9. 41. This has been examined in detail by Courcelle, P., Les sources antiques du prologue d’Alcuin, Philologus, 110 (1966) 293-305; & Courcelle, P., La ‘Consolation de Philosophie’ dans la tradition littéraire, antécedents et posterité de Boece (Paris, 1967); & Courcelle, P., La survie comparé des ‘Confessions’ Augustiniennes et de la ‘Consolation’ Boecienne in Classical Influences on European Culture 500 – 1500 R.R. Bolgar (ed.) vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1973) 131-42. Boethius’ legacy in the area of logic is best approached in Chadwick, H., Boethius, (Oxford, 1981), part III. 42. See Gibson, M.T., Boethius, his life, thought & influence (Oxford, 1981); and more precisely Gibson, M.T., Boethius in the Carolingian age, TRHS, 5th series 32 (1982) 43-56: ‘Boethius was to provide Carolingian scholars not merely with several new texts, but with a more exact method of study, and a clearer vision of the scope and purpose of learning.’p.45. 43. ALC 26 & 39. 44. These are printed in Migne’s edition: PL CI 945-50. 45. Philosophia est naturarum inquisitio, rerum humanarum divinarumque cognitio, quantum homini possibile est aestimare. Est quoque philosophia honestas vitae, studium bene vivendi, meditatio mortis, contemptio saeculi. 46. The most authoritative monograph on this whole subject is Marenbon, J., From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981). 47. See Lehmann, P., Cassiodorstudien VIII: Cassiodor-Isidor-Beda-Alchvine, Philologus, 74 new series 28 (1917) 357-383. See also Chadwick, H., op. cit. 135 & 141-55. 48. PL CI 973b: see Delp, M.D., Alcuin: master and practitioner of dialectic, PMR, 16/17 (1992-3) 91-103, on p.92. 49. Ibid. 96. 50. Marenbon is of the view that the composition of the Libri Carolini and its use of dialectic against the Greeks actually stimulated Alcuin’s interest in dialectic: see Marenbon, J., Alcuin, the council of Frankfort and the beginnings of medieval philosophy, FK, 603-616; see also Demetracopoulos, J.A., Alcuin and the realm of application of Aristotle’s ‘Categories’ in Meirinhos, J.F., et al. (eds) Intellect and imagination in medieval philosophy (3 vols, Turnhout, 2006) 1733-42. 51. ALC 11. 73: Continet iste decem naturae verba libellus, Quae iam verba tenent rerum ratione stupenda, omne quod in nostrum poterit decurrere sensum. 52. Law, V., Grammar and the grammarians in the early middle ages (London, 1997), 138f. The fullest account of this work is in Marenbon, J., op. cit. (1981) p.20f: it was essentially a paraphrase enriched with commentary, and it became one of three versions of Aristotle’s Categories that circulated in the early middle ages: see ibid. 16f. 53. Gibson, M., art. cit. 47-8 & 53; see also. d’Onofrio, G., Dialectic and theology: Boethius’ ‘Opuscula sacra’ and their early medieval readers, Studi Medievali, 27 (1986) 45-67. 54. Gibson, M., art. cit. 54. 55. Marenbon J., art. cit. 609: this was distinctly different from the necessary preoccupations of the Libri Carolini. 56. See Kneepkins, C.H., Some notes on Alcuin’s ‘De perihermeneias’ with an edition of the

Notes

301

text, GL, 3 81-112; but note Bullough’s reservations in DAB 404 n.230; also Marenbon, J., Alcuin, the council of Frankfort and the beginnings of medieval philosophy, FK, 603-616, especially 607-9. 57. It had been the firm intention of Boethius to translate as much of Aristotle’s work as possible into Latin: see Chadwick, H., op. cit. 133-56. But very little of what Aristotle actually wrote was available in Western Europe before the twelfth century. 58. See Vineis, E., Grammatica e filosofia del linguaggio in Alcuino, Studi e Saggi Linguistici, 28 (1988) 403-29. It is unlikely that Alcuin had direct access to Boethius’ commentary however. 59. Quantum distat dialectica subtilitas a grammatica simplicitate. 60. Kneepkins. C.H., art. cit. 89-90. 61. Ibid. 99: Kneepkins questions whether Alcuin ever read Boethius’ first commentary directly, but rather culled material from glosses to Isidore’s work. It was known to his pupil, Leidrad of Lyons, who incorporated it in the earliest collection of dialectical works for his church at Lyons around the year 814: MS Roma Bibliotheca Padri Maristi A II 1. See Marenbon, J., From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981), 52. 62. ALC 28. 63. Non nisi categoriarum subtilitate explanari posse probavit. 64. Marenbon, J., art. cit. 610. 65. ALC Ps 14. 66. It is also found as chapter 2 of the Disputatio puerorum that was ascribed to Alcuin: ALC 42. 67. See Ineichen-Eder, C.E., The authenticity of the ‘Dicta Candidi’, ‘Dicta Albini’, and some related texts, in Insular Latin Studies: papers on Latin texts and manuscripts of the British Isles, 550-1066, ed. M.W. Herren (Toronto, 1981) 179-193; Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and the kingdom of heaven: liturgy, theology and the Carolingian age in (ed.) U-R. Blumenthal Carolingian Essays (Washington, 1983) 22-31; Lebech, M., et al. (eds.) ‘De dignitate conditionis humanae’: translation, commentary & reception history of the ‘Dicta Albini’ & the ‘Dicta Candidi’, Viator, 40[2] (2009) 1-34; Marenbon, J., From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981); Marenbon, J., Alcuin, the council of Frankfort and the beginnings of medieval philosophy, FK, 603-616 with his appendix on 613-5 in which he corrected his view of this text’s provenance expressed in his earlier book. 68. Munich, clm 6407. 69. The Dicta Albini is examined in detail in Marenbon, J., From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981) 33f, and the text is printed 158-61. 70. It uses the term Filioque precisely. 71. It is discussed in Marenbon, J., op. cit. 38f and printed in 161-3. Its character has been examined and delineated in detail in Ineichen-Eder, C.E., The authenticity of the ‘Dicta Candidi’, ‘Dicta Albini’, and some related texts, in Insular Latin Studies: papers on Latin texts and manuscripts of the British Isles, 550-1066, ed. M.W. Herren, (Toronto, 1981) 179-193; & more recently by Lebech, M., et al. (eds.) ‘De dignitate conditionis humanae’: translation, commentary & reception history of the ‘Dicta Albini’ & the ‘Dicta Candidi’, Viator, 40[2] (2009) 1-34. 72. These are found in the passages in the Munich manuscript that are discussed in detail and printed with other relevant texts associated with Alcuin’s circle by

302

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Marenbon, J., op. cit., appendix 1. 73. Marenbon, J., op. cit. 40. 74. Ibid. 62f. Fredegisus also found himself at loggerheads many years later with Agobard of Lyons over the pre-existence of the human soul. See Colish, M., Carolingian debates over ‘nihil’ & ‘tenebrae’: a study in theological method, Speculum, 59 (1984) 757-95. 75. See Shimizu, T., Alcuin’s theory of signification and system of philosophy, Didascalia, 2 (1996) 1-18. 76. ALC 36 & 76. 77. See Howlett, D., Fredegisus ‘De substantia nihili et tenebrarum, Bulletin du Cange, 64 (2006) 123-143, where the text is also printed and translated. 78. Wisdom 11. 21 – a key text in this period: see Carruthers, M., The book of memory (Cambridge, 1990) 126, where the importance of this text for Alcuin’s appreciation of the Psalms is discussed. 79. See Luscombe, D.E., Dialectic and change in the ninth and twelfth centuries: continuity and change in (ed. J. Fried) Dialektik und Rhetorik im fruheren und höhen Mittelalter (Munich, 1997), 1-20. 80. ALC 40. 81. See Alberi, M., The ‘Mystery of the Incarnation’ and Wisdom’s house (Prov.9.1) in Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio de Vera Philosophia’, JTS, NS 48/2 (1997) 505-516; & Courcelle, P., Les sources antiques du prologue d’Alcuin, Philologus, 110 (1966) 293-305. 82. Courcelle, P., art. cit. 304: the figure of Christ as the Wisdom of God, drawn by St Dunstan in the Oxford manuscript, Bodley MS Auct. F.4. 32. f1r, called St Dunstan’s Classbook expresses the same vision and belief. For a judicious appraisal of the essentially Christian nature of all of Boethius’ writings, see Chadwick, H., op. cit. 247-53. 83. Alberi, M., art. cit. 509. 84. John 3. 21. 85. Alcuin cites the Song of Songs 1. 3-4. 86. ALC 45. 148. 87. ALC 17: it was often associated with his De Fide and his De Trinitate ad Fredegisum Quaestiones XXVIII, a deliberate combination that may have been made by Alcuin himself. Its manuscripts transmission, with and without the poems and prayers associated with it, was considerable. 88. Godden, M.R., Anglo-Saxons on the mind in Lapidge, M., & H. Gneuss (eds.) Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1985) 271-295, on p.272. 89. This was also the axiom expressed at the beginning of his De Fide. 90. Godden, M.R., art. cit. 273; in this Alcuin differed once again from Augustine profoundly. 91. Carruthers, M., The craft of thought: meditation, rhetoric and the making of images, 4001200 (Cambridge, 1998), 118-22. 92. In PL CI 645, Alcuin makes an interesting reference to reading long ago in a book in England an exchange between Augustine and Jerome about the origin of the soul: ‘If that book is available to you, read it.’ He then referred to four other books on the subject that he did not have but which might be in the library at court – in armario imperiali. See DAB 283-4. 93. PL CI 646: See Cristiani. M., Le vocabulaire de l’enseignement dans la correspondence d’Alcuin in Weijers, O., (ed.) Vocabulaire des écoles et des méthodes d’enseignement au moyen âge (Turnhout, 1992) 13-32. C’est dans cette perspective qu’Alcuin peut souligner le

Notes

303

bonheur profound de toute forme de connaissance, des choses divines et naturelles . . . parce que la rationalité de l’univers s’identifie avec la rationalité des arts, crées directement par Dieu dans la nature.’ 30-1. See also Cristiani, M., “Ars artium” La psicologia di Gregorio Magno in M. Mazza & C. Giuffrida (eds.) Le transformazioni della cultura nella tarda Antichita (Vol 1, Rome, 1985) 309-331 for Alcuin’s fidelity to the pastoral principles set forth in St Gregory’s Pastoral Rule and their bearing upon his understanding of education. 94. Ecclesiasticus 1. 1. 95. PL CI 647 – Alcuin’s conclusion. 96. Cristiani. M., Le vocabulaire de l’enseignement dans la correspondence d’Alcuin in Weijers, O., (ed.) Vocabulaire des écoles et des méthodes d’enseignement au moyen âge (Turnhout, 1992), 32. 97. PL CI 648: This is the second [adonic] poem for Eulalia appended to De Animae Rationis by Alcuin: translated in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004) 7.

Chapter 22 – Theology for the Laity 1. ALC 37: See Szarmach, P., A preliminary handlist of manuscripts containing Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, Manuscripta, 25 (1981) 131-40; & also Szarmach, P., The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, cap xxvii-xxv, with special reference to Vercelli homily XX, Mediaevalia, 12 (1986) 13-41 for a definitive list of manuscripts for the ninth and tenth centuries. See also Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and lay virtue in Gaffuri, L., & Quinto, R., (eds.) Preaching and society in the Middle Ages: ethics, values and social behaviour (Padua, 2002) 71-91; Dubreucq, A., Autour du ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin, AY, 269-288; McCune, J.C., The sermons on the virtues and vices for lay potentates in the Carolingian sermonary of Salzburg, Journal of Medieval Latin, 19 (2009) 250f; Rivas Pereto, R.A,. La ley natural en al alto medioevo: el casa de Alcuino, Annuaria filosofico de la Universidad de Navarre, 41/91 (Pamplona, 2008) 55-67; Rochais, H., Le ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin. Note pour l’étude de ses sources, Revue Mabillon, 41 (1951) 77-86; Szarmach, P.E., Cotton Tiberius A. iii, Arts. 26 & 27 in Korhammer, M., (ed.) Words, texts & manuscripts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1992) 29-42; Torkar, R., Eine altenglische Ubersetzung von Alkuins ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ kap.21 (Munich, 1977); Wallach, L., Alcuin on virtues and vices. A manual for a Carolingian soldier, HTR, 46 (1955) 175-195. 2. ALC 39: around forty manuscripts now remain of this work. The critical edition is in Howell, W.S., The rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne. Latin text, translation & notes (Princeton, 1941/1965); see Kempshall, M.S., The virtues of rhetoric: Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus’, ASE, 35 (2006) 7-30; also Leonardi, C., Alcuino e la retorica in (ed. J. Fried) Dialektik und Rhetorik im fruheren und hohen Mittelalter (Munich, 1997) 171-4; & Luscombe, D.E., Dialectic and rhetoric in the ninth and twelth centuries: continuity and change also in (ed. J. Fried) Dialektik und Rhetorik im fruheren und höhen Mittelalter (Munich, 1997), 1-20. 3. See Cristiani. M., Le vocabulaire de l’enseignement dans la correspondence d’Alcuin in Weijers, O., (ed.) Vocabulaire des écoles et des méthods d’enseignement au moyen âge (Turnhout, 1992) 13-32; also Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and lay virtue in Gaffuri, L., & Quinto, R., (eds.) Preaching and society in the Middle Ages: ethics, values and social behaviour (Padua, 2002) 73-4 for consideration of the relevant letters to members of the laity. 4. The analysis by Kempshall, M.S., in The virtues of rhetoric: Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus’, ASE, 35 (2006) 7-30 is very acute and is followed here. In many manuscripts this text was closely associated with Alcuin’s De Dialectica and comprised

304

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

with his Ars Grammatica the essential foundation for teaching the medieval trivium. 5. ‘civiles mores’. 6. Qui, rogo, civiles cupiat cognoscere mores / haec praecepta legat quae liber iste tenet. 7. Smardi, D.M., Alcuino di York nella tradizione degli ‘Specula Principis’ (Milan, 1999) 8. Kempshall, M.S., art. cit. 9: this principle applies throughout Alcuin’s writings. 9. Ibid. 11. 10. Ibid. 18. 11. Ibid. 23. 12. Ibid. 29: this is a very perceptive judgement, and of wide relevance to understanding Alcuin’s work and its abiding importance in the Carolingian ninth century and beyond. 13. Ibid. 30: Horace’s Ars poetica may have influenced Alcuin also in regarding the foundation of poetry to be sapientia – wisdom, hence its life-giving quality, now enshrined in Christian caritas. 14. ALC 37: note the extensive bibliography. 15. The closing letter to this treatise is marked in Migne (PL CI 638) as chapter 36: this translation is in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 96. 16. Wallach, L., Alcuin on virtues and vices. A manual for a Carolingian soldier, HTR, 46 (1955) 175-195 remains the best introduction to this text, challenging the views of Rochais, H., Le ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin. Note pour l’étude de ses sources, Revue Mabillon, 41 (1951) 77-86 as to its likely sources. Wallach demonstrated Alcuin’s knowledge and use of the Sentences of Isidore of Seville – see p.182, criticising Rochais. 17. McCune, J.C., The sermons on the virtues and vices for lay potentates in the Carolingian sermonary of Salzburg, Journal of Medieval Latin, 19 (2009) 250f: these were intended as model sermons for less well educated priests to use. 18. See Dubreucq, A., Autour du ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin, AY, 269-288. 19. Wallach, L., art. cit. 188. 20. See ALC 59 for detailed consideration of the lost homiliary of Alcuin mentioned in the Life of Alcuin and possibly recorded in the ninth century catalogue of the library of Fulda. 21. ALC 37. cap. 11 – this part of the text is not derived from Augustine: a full translation of this chapter is in Dales, D.J., op. cit. 17-8. 22. For what follows see specifically Lees, C.A., The dissemination of Alcuin’s ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ in Old English: a preliminary survey, Leeds Studies in English, 16 (1985) 174189; also Szarmach, P., A preliminary handlist of manuscripts containing Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, Manuscripta, 25 (1981) 131-40; & also Szarmach, P., The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, cap xxvii-xxv, with special reference to Vercelli homily XX, Mediaevalia, 12 (1986) 13-41; Szarmach, P.E., Cotton Tiberius A. iii, Arts. 26 & 27 in Korhammer, M., (ed.) Words, texts & manuscripts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1992) 29-42; Torkar, R., Eine altenglische Ubersetzung von Alkuins ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ kap.21 (Munich, 1977). 23. Lees, C.A., art. cit. 175: London BL Cotton Vespasian MS D vi; & much later and from another tradition, Avranches, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 81. The full picture of ninth and tenth century manuscripts remaining of De virtutibus et vitiis is given in Szarmach, P., The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, cap xxvii-xxv, with special reference to Vercelli homily XX, Mediaevalia, 12 (1986) 13-41, indicating alternative

Notes

305

and preferred readings to the later manuscripts used in the printed Latin texts. 24. There was an Old Icelandic homily possibly modelled on this: see Lees, C.A., art. cit. 177. 25. In a Lenten homily for Sunday, a sermon for the commemoration of saints, and a pastoral letter: see detailed discussion in Lees, C.A., art. cit. 178-83. 26. In a sermon De Christianitate translated into English: see Bethurum, D., The homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957), 328-9, noting common divergences in Aelfric and Wulfstan from Alcuin’s original version of De virtutibus et vitiis. Note the other references in this edition of Wulfstan’s homilies to Alcuin as a source, passim. 27. Lees, C.A., art. cit. 183. 28. For example, in the MS Cambridge, Pembroke College 25, arts. 93-5: see Szarmach, P.E., Cotton Tiberius A. iii, Arts. 26 & 27 in Korhammer, M., (ed.) Words, texts & manuscripts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1992) 29-42; & also Torkar, R., Eine altenglische Ubersetzung von Alkuins ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ kap.21 (Munich, 1977) for the emergence of the vernacular tradition of this material derived from Alcuin’s work. Note also Cross, J.E., Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25: a Carolingian sermonary used by AngloSaxon preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies, 1 (1987). 29. See Bullough, D.A., The educational tradition in England from Alfred to Aelfric: teaching ‘utriusque linguae’ (SSCI 19, 1972) for the context of Aelfric’s and Wulfstan’s teaching work.

Part Seven – Poetry Chapter 23 – The Poet and his Friends 1. Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 156-7: nostrorum gloria vatum. See also Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987) chapter 2; & the most recent overview by Stella, F., Alkuins Dichtung, AGG, 107128. Steinen, W. von den, Karl und die Dichter in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 63-94 remains the fundamental modern study of the emergence of this court poetry. 2 .These are summarised in the masterly introductions in the Clavis to ALC 11, 60 & 61. 3. The inscriptions constitute the largest component of his poetry. 4. The seminal studies of this development are by Schaller, D., Die karolingischen Figurengedichte des Cod. Berenensis 212 in Medium Aevum Vivum: Festschrift fur Walther Bulst (Heidelberg, 1960) 20-47; Schaller, D., Vortrags- und Zirkulardichtung am Hof Karls des Grossen, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 6 (1969) 14-36; Schaller, D., Poetic rivalries in the court of Charlemagne in R.R. Bolgar ed. Classical influences on European culture 500-1500 (Vol.1 - Cambridge, 1973) 151-7; Schaller, D., Das Aachener Epos fur Karl den Kaiser, Fruhmittelalterliche Studien, 10 (1976) 134-68. 5. See Grabois, A., Un mythe fundamental de l’histoire de France au moyen âge: le ‘roi David’, précurseur du ‘roi très chrétien’, Revue Historique, 581 (1992) 11-31. 6. See Godman, P., op. cit. chapter 1. 7. ALC 46. [4]. 99. 17: see Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982), introduction p.lxx for discussion of Alcuin’s debt to this poet. 8. See Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987), 40-2.

306

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

9. ALC 11. 4: Cartula, perge cito. See also Simisi, L., La ‘Cartula’ di Alcuino, viaggio virtuale attraverso la Frisia e l’Austrasia in Gottschalk, D., (ed) Testi cosmografici, geografici ed odeoporici del medioevo germanico (Louvain, 2005) 239-59. 10. Godman, P. op. cit. 45. Alcuin regarded some of the Northumbrian kings as measuring up in this regard, following the lead in Bede’s History. 11. Orchard, A., Wish you were here: Alcuin’s courtly poetry & the boys back home, in Courts & regions in medieval Europe, S. Rees-Jones et al. (ed.) (York, 2000) 37 n.70, where numerous references in his poems to his insistence sis memor are listed. 12. A convenient translation of some of their work may be found in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 82-112. 13. See Perrin, M. J-L., La poésie de cour carolingienne, les contacts entre Alcuin et Hraban Maur et les indices de l’influence d’Alcuin sur l’ ‘In honorem sanctae crucis’, AY, 333-352. Alcuin and his disciples Joseph the Scot and Hrabanus Maur were not inhibited by Bede’s strictures about the pagan nature of such poetry in his De arte metrica, cited by Perrin on 334. 14. Godman, P. Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987) 56-9. 15. Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 150-63. 16. Ibid. 112-9. 17. Garrison, M., The social world of Alcuin: nicknames at York and at the Carolingian court in GL p.59-80. There is a useful table of the use of nicknames in this circle on p.61. 18. I.e. ‘Eagle’. 19. Bezaleel was the designer of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. 20. This was the name of one of St Benedict’s monks, meaning ‘dark-skinned’, or in the case of Hrabanus Maur ‘dark-haired’, This can be seen in the illustration of Alcuin presenting his pupil Hrabanus Maur to their patron St Martin of Tours in MS Rome BAV Reg. lat. 124 - fol-2v.. 21. I.e. ‘Dove’. 22. I.e. ‘Cuckoo’. 23. I.e. ‘Calf ’. 24. Garrison, M., art. cit. 64: in a letter ALC 45. 241 to Gundrada, written in 801, Alcuin defended the addition of nicknames on biblical lines, following the example of Christ himself who gave nicknames to his disciples, for example Simon Peter: ‘close association is often wont to make a change in names.’ Deepening Christian familiaritas was Alcuin’s clear motivation here. 25. ALC 11. 7 – Magna quidem pavido: printed in Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987) 57. 26. ALC 11. 13 – Ad nos quippe 27. For example, ALC 11. 12 & 14. 28. ALC 11. 26 – Venerunt apices: it is printed and translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 118-21. 29. Menalcas was Audulf the steward and Thyrsis was Megenfrid the chamberlain. 30. Bezaleel was Einhard, Zacchaeus was Ercambald, head of the chancery, Jesse (father of King David) was the bishop of Amiens of that name, and Sulpicius (biographer of St Martin of Tours) was a lector in the royal chapel; Nehemiah was Eberhard the royal cup-bearer. The absent Angilbert was alluded to as Homer while Alcuin described himself as Flaccus. 31. ALC 11. 42 – Splendida dum rutilat: see Scott, P. D., Alcuin as poet: rhetoric & belief

Notes

307

in his Latin verse, University of Toronto Quarterly, 33 (1964) 233-257, on p.248. See also ALC 45. 149. 32. ALC 45. 145: see Alberi, M., Jerome, Alcuin and Virgil’s ‘Old Entellus’, JMH, 17 (1991) 103-113. 33. Alberi, M., art. cit. 111. 34. ALC 11. 45; c.f. also the contemporary letter ALC 45. 177. 35. These were Alcuin’s York poem; his opus geminatum in honour of Willibrord for the community at Echternach which retained close links with the Northumbrian church; and his lament for the sacking of Lindisfarne in 793. 36. ALC 11. 16. 37. ALC 11. 8: Beornrad actually commissioned Alcuin’s opus geminatum commemorating Willibrord for the monastery of Echternach when he was abbot there and before he became a bishop. 38. ALC 11. 37a & b. 39. E.g. Lux, via, vita, salus cunctorum Christus ametur, // sit nobis Christus lux, via, vita, salus. 40. ALC 11. 60. 41. ALC 11. 23: see Godman, P., Alcuin’s poetic style & the authenticity of ‘O mea cella’, Studi Medievali, iii. 20 (1979) 555-583, who argues that this poem was written for Angilbert. 42. ALC 11. 11: its first six lines were purloined by Alcuin’s pupil, Hrabanus Maur for one of his own poems; for another example of this see Garrison, M., Alcuin, ‘Carmen IX’ and Hrabanus, ‘Ad Bosonum’: a teacher and his pupil write consolation in Marenbon, J., (ed.) Poetry and philosophy in the middle ages (Leiden, 2001) 63-78. 43. ALC 11. 17; the end of this poem reads more like an epitaph and is followed in the sole manuscript in Vienna by ALC 11. 19. 44. O lux Ausoniae, patriae decus, inclytus auctor, justitiae cultor, sacrae pietatis amator. 45. ALC 11. 18. 46. ALC 11. 20. 47. Tuque Maria, Dei Genitrix, sanctissima Virgo – a traditional devotional appellation of significance in rebutting Adoptionism. 48. See also the short epigram that may have concluded a letter to Paulinus: ALC 11. 30. 1. 49. ALC 11. 18. 50. ALC 11. 48: Godman, P., art. cit. 580-1 draws the comparison with the language of the poem O mea cella. 51. For example ALC 11. 29. 1. 52. Or perhaps he was both? See ALC 11. 21. 53. ALC 11. 31: to whom Alcuin also wrote several letters. 54. ALC 11. 31 & 11. 56. 3. 55. ALC 11. 55: MS. München lat. 19410; one of these, the first poem, is also found in the Vienna manuscript ONB 808. With these may be compared various other poems by Alcuin for friends unknown. 56. One of them reveals Alcuin’s knowledge of Roman epitaphs: see Sims-Williams, P., Milred of Worcester’s collection of Latin epigrams and its continental counterparts, ASE, 10 (1982) 21-38. See also Treffort, C., La place d’Alcuin dans la rédaction épigraphique carolingienne, AY, 353-370. 57. ALC 11. 41: Tu mihi dulcis amor semper soror inclyta salve, // in precibus fratris sis memor ipsa tui.

308

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

58. ALC 11. 22; c.f. several letters of Alcuin in a similar tone: ALC 45. 58, 65, 294 & 295. 59. ALC 11. 32: translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 122-3 and discussed in the introduction on page 18. See also Scott, P.D., Alcuin’s ‘Versus de Cuculo’: the vision of pastoral friendship, Studies in Philology, 62 (1965) 510-530 for its place in the wider context of Alcuin’s pastoral poetry and the influence of Virgil upon it. 60. The last quip seems to have been drawn from the poetry of another contemporary at court, Moduin, whose nickname was Naso, emulating Ovid. Corydon was probably his pupil Dodo, sometimes nicknamed Cuculus, whom he had to reprimand in a letter for his decadent ways in ALC 45. 65 and about whom Arno may have had to write as well in ALC 45. 66. 61. ALC 11. 44. See ALC 69 for texts describing Christian Rome in the seventh century that were included among the letters of Alcuin in the Salzburg manuscript: Wien ONB 795. 62. Little of the Theodosian basilica that Alcuin and Candidus would have visited now remains apart from the triumphal arch with its majestic mosaic of Christ, called after Galla Placidia and dating from the time of Leo I that was refashioned in or shortly after Alcuin’s time but much restored after the disastrous fire in 1823. 63. The pattern of the major Roman shrines, replete with the kind of relics from them that Alcuin describes, was replicated for liturgical and devotional purposes in several northern monasteries and cathedral complexes at this time: see Carragain, E.O., The City of Rome & the World of Bede (Jarrow, 1994). 64. ALC 11. 46. 65. ALC 11. 47: c.f. ALC 45. 38. 66. ALC 11. 51. 2: c.f. ALC 45. 142 where Hrabanus Maur is described, as in this poem, as a child of St Benedict. See Garrison, M., art. cit.; & Perrin, M.J-L., La poésie de cour carolingienne, les contacts entre Alcuin et Hraban Maur et les indices de l’influence d’Alcuin sur l’ ‘In honorem sanctae crucis’, AY, 333-35. 67. ALC 11. 54: c.f. ALC 45. 233; see also Lapidge, M., The authorship of the Adonic verses ‘ad Fidolium’ attributed to Columbanus, Studi Medievali, (1977/2) 249-314 for their place in the wider use of adonic poems at this time in Carolingian circles. There is a striking example of adonic verse in the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius: I.,7 – Nubibus atris, which may well have influenced Alcuin’s attraction to this mode of expression. 68. See Ogilvy, J.D.A., Alcuin’s use of alliteration, Modern Language Notes, 46 (1931) 444-5.

Chapter 24 – The Poet at Work 1. The context and significance of these poems is discussed in Chadwick, H. Boethius (Oxford, 1981) chapter 5. 2. There is an extensive body of research relating to Alcuin’s Latin poetry: notable among these are: Alberi, M., The patristic and Anglo-Latin origins of Alcuin’s concept of urbanity, JML, (1993) 95-112; Banniard, M., Théorie et practique de la langue et du style chez Alcuin: rusticité feinte e rusticité masque, Francia, 13 (1985) 579-601; Banniard, M., ‘Viva voce’ – communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en Occident latin, Collection des Études Augustiniennes (Paris, 1992); Chase, C., Alcuin’s grammar verse: poetry & truth in Carolingian pedagogy in M.W. Herren (ed.) Insular Latin Studies (Toronto, 1981) 135-5; Dolbeau, F., La tradition textuelle du poème d’Alcuin sur York, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 17 (1982) 26-30; del Fattore, J., Alcuin as poet, The Classical

Notes

309

Bulletin, 53 (1976-7) 46-8; Garrison, M., The emergence of Carolingian Latin literature and the court of Charlemagne (780-814) in R. McKitterick (ed) Carolingian culture: emulation & innovation (Cambridge, 1994) 111-140; Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982); Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985); Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987); Godman, P., Alcuin’s poetic style & the authenticity of ‘O mea cella’, Studi Medievali, iii. 20 (1979) 555-583; Godman, P., The Anglo-Latin ‘opus geminatum’ from Aldhelm to Alcuin, Medium Aevum, 50.2 (1981) 215-29; Holtz, L., Alcuin et la réception de Virgile au temps de Charlemagne in Einhard: Studien zu Leben und Werk (ed.) H Scheffers (Darmstadt, 1997) 67-80; Lanlletta, M., Alcuino, il cuculo e l’amicizia: lettura e interpetazione del carmine 57 di Alcuino di York, Vichiana, 9 (2007) 68-89; Lapidge, M., Knowledge of the poems [of Venantius Fortunatus] in the earlier [Anglo-Saxon] period – appendix to R.W. Hunt, Manuscript evidence for knowledge of the poems of Venantius Fortunatus in late Anglo-Saxon England, ASE, 8 (1979) 287-295; Lapidge, Bede the Poet (Jarrow, 1993); Lendinara, P., Mixed attitudes to Ovid: the Carolingian poets and the glossographers in GL3 171-214; Leornardi, C., I commenti altomedievali ai classici pagani: da Severino Boezio a Remigio d’Auxerre in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004), 155-190; Marenbon, J., (ed.) Poetry and philosophy in the middle ages (Leiden, 2001); Martin, R., Au confluent des traditions Antique, Germanique et Chrétienne: Le ‘Conflictus Veris et Hiemis’ d’Alcuin, Revue des Études Latines, 72 (1994) 177-191; McEnerney, J.I., Alcuini Carmen 23, Res Publica Litterarum, 58 (1985) 179-85; McEnerney, J.I., Alcuini Carmen 59, Res Publica Litterarum, 59 (1987) 215-9; Nees, L., A tainted mantle: Hercules and the classical tradition at the Carolingian court (Philadelphia, 1991); Newlands, C., Alcuin’s poem of exile ‘O mea cella’, Mediaevalia, II (1985) 19-45; Orchard, A., After Aldhelm: the teaching and transmission of the Anglo-Latin hexameter, Journal of Medieval Latin, 2 (1992) 96-133; Orchard, A., Wish you were here: Alcuin’s courtly poetry & the boys back home, in Courts & regions in medieval Europe, S. Rees-Jones et al. (ed.) (York, 2000) 21-44; Palmer, R.B., Bede as textbook writer: a study of his ‘De arte metrica’, Speculum, 34 (1959) 129-40; Pucci, J., Alcuin’s cell poem: a Virgilian reappraisal, Latomus, 49 (1990) 839-49; Raby, F.J.E., A history of secular Latin poetry in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1934); Raby, F.J.E., A history of Christian Latin poetry from the beginning to the close of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1953); Roccaro, C., Rinnegamento e divieto della ‘lectio’ virgiliana nella ‘Vita Alcuini’ in Studi di filogia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco 4 (Palermo,1991) 1519-33; Sanford, E.M., Alcuin & the classics, The Classical Journal, XX (1924-5) 526-33; Scott, P.D., Alcuin as poet: rhetoric & belief in his Latin verse, University of Toronto Quarterly, 33 (1964) 233-257; Scott, P.D., Alcuin’s ‘Versus de Cuculo’: the vision of pastoral friendship, Studies in Philology, 62 (1965) 510-530; Sims-Williams, P., Milred of Worcester’s collection of Latin epigrams and its continental counterparts, ASE, 10 (1982) 21-38; Stella, F., La Poesia Carolingia Latina a Tema Biblica, Biblioteca di Medioevo Latino, 9 (Spoleto, 1993) 43-4; Stella, F., Alkuins Dichtung, AGG, 107-128; Thoss, D., Studien zum ‘locus amoenus’ im Mittelalter, Wiener Romanistische Arbeiten, X (Vienna/Stuttgart, 1972); Steinen, W. von den, Karl und die Dichter in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 63-94; Treffort, C., La place d’Alcuin dans la rédaction épigraphique carolingienne, AY, 353-370; Uhlfelder, M.L., Classicism and Christianity: a poetic synthesis, Latomus, 34 (1975) 224-31; Viarre, S., Les Carmina d’Alcuin et la réception de la tradition chrétienne dans les formes antiques in Lateinische Kultur im VIII Jahrhundert (ed. A. Lehner & W. Berschin (St Ottilien, 1989) 217-41; Waddell, H., (tr.) Medieval Latin Lyrics (London, 1929); Wieland, G., Alcuin’s ambiguous attitude towards the Classics, JML,

310

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

2 (1992) 84-95; Wright, R., Late Latin & early Romance in Spain & Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982); Wright, R. (ed.) Latin & the Romance languages in the early Middle Ages (London, 1991); Ziolkowski, J.M., & Putnam, M.C.J., The Virgilian Tradition – the first 1500 years (Yale, 2008). 3. Life of Alcuin cap 1. v: note the pun on ‘vigil’ and ‘Virgil’. There is a parallel in the story of Jerome when he was accused in a vision of being a Ciceronian rather than a Christian, as described in his letter xxii to Eustochium. 4. Ibid. cap 10. xix: see Roccaro, C., Rinnegamento e divieto della ‘lectio’ virgiliana nella ‘Vita Alcuini’ in Studi di fiologia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco 4 (Palermo, 1991) 1519-33. 5. Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982), 152-3; see also Wieland, G., Alcuin’s ambiguous attitude towards the Classics, JML, 2 (1992) 84-95. 6. ALC 45. 13: Holtz points out that it was at Lorsch while Ricbod was abbot there that fine copies of Virgil were copied bearing his handwriting: see Alcuin et la réception de Virgile au temps de Charlemagne in Einhard: Studien zu Leben und Werk (ed.) H Scheffers (Darmstadt, 1997) 77-8. 7. ALC 11. 78 prefacing ALC 15. 8. ‘mendacia’. 9. ALC 45. 162 & 309. 10. For example: ALC 11. 32, 39, 59, & 78. 11. In this Alcuin followed the reservations of Augustine in his Confessions and in the City of God. 12. See Roccaro, C., art. cit. 1524-5. 13. Wieland, G., art. cit. 88. 14. See Holtz, L., art. cit. 72-4. 15. Ibid. 74-5, citing the description of that relationship in the biography of Horace written by Suetonius. 16. From an early period, some of Virgil’s more cryptic poetry was seen as prophetic of Christ. 17. ALC 11. 45: erige subiectos et iam depone superbos; words Alcuin cited elsewhere in his letters. 18. See Holtz, L., art. cit. 79-80. 19. ALC 11. 23: it is translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 124-7; and its authenticity was established by him in Godman, P., Alcuin’s poetic style & the authenticity of ‘O mea cella’, Studi Medievali, iii. 20 (1979) 555-583. See also Newlands, C., Alcuin’s poem of exile ‘O mea cella’, Mediaevalia, II (1985) 19-45. 20. Nos miseri, cur te fugitivum mundus, amamus? 21. Semper amor teneat pectora nostra Dei. 22. HE ii. 13. 23. See Uhlfelder, M.L., Classicism and Christianity: a poetic synthesis, Latomus, 34 (1975) 224-31; & Pucci, J., Alcuin’s cell poem: a Virgilian reappraisal, Latomus, 49 (1990) 839-49; also Thoss, D., Studien zum ‘locus amoenus’ im Mittelalter, Wiener Romanistische Arbeiten, X (Vienna/Stuttgart, 1972). 24. Pucci, J., art. cit. 840. 25. Ibid. 843. 26. Ibid. 845. 27. Mark 9. 24. 28. Pucci, J., art. cit. 849. 29. ALC 11. 58 – Conveniunt subito cuncti: partly translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry

Notes

311

of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 144-9: see Martin, R., Au confluent des traditions Antique, Germanique et Chrétienne: Le ‘Conflictus Veris et Hiemis’ d’Alcuin, Révue des Études Latines, 72 (1994) 177-191. 30. Aesop’s fable 346, printed in French in Martin, R., art. cit. 179. 31. Daphnis was a nickname for one of Alcuin’s pupils now unknown, while Palaemon was one of the sobriquets for Charlemagne himself; another pupil called Dodo was nicknamed Cuculus - the ‘cuckoo’. 32. For another example of Alcuin adapting a classical fable, see ALC 11. 49, which retells the story of how a cock eluded a fox by flattery; Theodulf of Orleans composed a similar poem. 33. These are indicated in Godman’s translation of this poem, which comments on possible allusions to Ovid and Horace as well. 34. Martin, R., art. cit. 188. 35. pastorum et turba piorum is a key phrase in the last part of this poem. 36. Pastorum dulcis amicus, tu iam dulcis amor, & dulce decus are highly significant and evocative phrases, anticipating the Christocentric devotion of the Cistercians in the twelfth century expressed in the hymn Jesu dulcis memoria. 37. Martin’s conclusion is very significant: art. cit. 191 – ‘Nous sommes donc en présence d’un maître-texte, dont la densité est exceptionelle, et qui, en réalisant comme dans un creuset la synthèse de traditions et de cultures étonnement diverses, exprime la pensée d’Alcuin dans ce qu’elle a de plus profond.’ 38. ALC 11. 57 – Plangamus cuculum, Dafnin dulcissime: Menalcus was a nickname for Audulf, the seneschal at court, though it may also stand for Alcuin himself. It is closely paralleled in its intention by a letter of Alcuin to Dodo, rebuking him for lapsing into vice: ALC 45. 65; see also the letter of Arno of Salzburg to him along similar lines of concern: ALC 45.66. 39. See Scott, P.D., Alcuin’s ‘Versus de Cuculo’: the vision of pastoral friendship, Studies in Philology, 62 (1965) 510-530. This most perceptive discussion is followed closely here. 40. Tres olim fuimus, iunxit quos spiritus unus. Note the hint that Christian friendship emulates the communion within the Holy Trinity. 41. Scott, P.D., art. cit. 517: his notes to this poem detail the range of Virgilian allusions. 42. Scott suggests that in fact the personae of the dialogue are Alcuin and Arno of Salzburg. 43. Ibid. 519. 44. Scott notes on page 521 that ‘after the period of the Fathers, the task of the exegete was not to be original, but to retell more coherently what had been written already.’ At this task, Bede and Alcuin both excelled; and their poetry was as much its expression as their biblical commentaries. Carolingian theologians in the ninth century became as a result the learned exegetes of patristic exegesis. 45. Ibid. 522. 46. Ibid. 527 – this is a highly significant conclusion indeed. 47. See the poem ALC 11. 78 prefacing Alcuin’s commentary on the Song of Songs: ALC 15; and also his letter ALC 45. 121 in which he made the connection in language drawn from this biblical poem between his home in York and his new residence at Tours. 48. Scott, P.D., Alcuin as poet: rhetoric & belief in his Latin verse, University of Toronto Quarterly, 33 (1964) 233-257, on p.242. This was also true of Alcuin’s appropriation of patristic theology.

312

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

49. ALC 45. 157: the use of language drawn from the Song of Songs transforms apparently erotic language into something transcendent within Christian friendship – an ‘ordained affection.’ 50. Scott, P.D., Alcuin’s ‘Versus de Cuculo’: the vision of pastoral friendship, Studies in Philology, 62 (1965) 528. 51. ALC 11. 59 – Nunc cuculus ramis : it probably has close associations with his letter written in 794 to the community at York: ALC 45. 42. 52. Ille cibus, potus, carmen, laus, gloria, vobis sit. 53. Notably ALC 45. 131 to the boys of St Martin’s at Tours before he became their abbot and master; and also ALC 37: De virtutibus et vitiis. 54. Tu quoque, tu patri nimium dilecta juventus, tu soboles vitae, patriae laus et decus omne. 55. ALC 11. 61: translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985), 144-5. See Scott, P.D., Alcuin as poet: rhetoric & belief in his Latin verse, University of Toronto Quarterly, 33 (1964) 233-257, on p.243f. 56. Scott, P.D., art. cit. note 21 on p.256 lists these allusions in detail. 57. Song of Songs 1. 5. 58. Spreta colore tamen fueras non spreta canendo. 59. Augustine’s Confessions x. 27; book iv of the Confessions is the back-drop to much of Alcuin’s perception of beauty and also of friendship. In this, as in theology, Augustine was the single most important influence on Alcuin’s thinking and spiritual formation, and he was his faithful, discerning and eloquent disciple. See O’Connell, R.J., Art and the Christian intelligence in St Augustine (Oxford, 1978). 60. See Chadwick, H., Boethius (Oxford, 1981) 78-101. 61. The most interesting and suggestive studies are Bolton, W.F., Alcuin & Beowulf: an eighth century view (New Brunswick, 1978); & Bolton, W.F., Alcuin and Old English poetry, Yearbook of English Studies, 7 (1977) 10-22. See also Bitterli, D., Alkuin und die angelsächsische Rätseldichtung AGG 151-168; Brown, C.F., Cynewulf and Alcuin, Modern Language Association of America, 18 (1903) 308-334; Bullough, D.A., What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?, ASE, 22 (1993) 93-125; Garrison, M., ‘Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?’ in O’Keefe, K. O’Brien & A. Orchard (eds.) Latin learning and English lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Toronto, 2000) 237-259; Lapidge, M., Knowledge of the poems [of Venantius Fortunatus] in the earlier [Anglo-Saxon] period – appendix to R.W. Hunt, Manuscript evidence for knowledge of the poems of Venantius Fortunatus in late Anglo-Saxon England, ASE, 8 (1979) 287-295; Lapidge, M., Aldhelm’s Latin poetry and Old English verse, Comparative Literature, 31 (1979) 209-31 Lapidge, Bede the Poet (Jarrow, 1993); Lapidge, M., Anglo-Latin literature (London, 1996) contains these last two articles; Levine, R., Ingeld and Christ: a medieval problem, Viator, 2 (1971) 105-128; Thornbury, E.V., Aldhelm’s rejection of the Muses and the mechanics of poetic inspiration in early Anglo-Saxon England, ASE, 36 (2007) 71-92; Tiefenbach, H., Altsächisches und Althochdeutsches im Latein Alkuins, Sprachwissenschaft, 5 (1980) 320-338; Tolkien, J.R.R., Beowulf – the monsters and the critics (British Academy, London, 1936); Wormald, P., Bede, Beowulf & the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy in R.T Farrell, (Ed.) Bede and Anglo-Saxon England (British Archaeological Reports 46, Oxford, BAR, 1978) 32-95. 62. The rhythmic parallels between Alcuin’s adonic verse and Anglo-Saxon poetry was noted by Ogilvy, J.D.A., Alcuin’s use of alliteration, Modern Language Notes, 46 (1931) 444-5.

Notes

313

63. For Dunstan’s early love and knowledge of ‘pagan’ poetry, testified to in his first Life, see Dales, D.J., Dunstan – saint & statesman (Cambridge, 1988) 19. 64. ALC 11. 6: it is translated in Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) 138-41 where its acrostic form is also replicated on 142-3. Its significance is discussed in Meyer, H.-B., ‘Crux, decus es mundi’ - Alkuins Kreuz- und Osterfrommigkeit, in B. Fischer & J. Wagner (ed.) Paschatis sollemnia: Studien zu Osterfeier und Osterfrommigkeit, (Basel, 1959) 96-107. See also ALC 11. 94 & 109 for other examples of poetry about the Cross by Alcuin as altar inscriptions for the churches at Tours and Salzburg. 65. Dickens, B., & Ross, A.S.C., (eds.) The Dream of the Rood (London, 1964) 66. Gradon, P.O.E., (ed.) Cynewulf ’s ‘Elene’ (London, 1958) 67. Bolton, W.F., Alcuin and Old English poetry, Yearbook of English Studies, 7 (1977) 10-22. 68. Ibid. 20-1. 69. Ibid. 11; note Bolton’s important conclusion as well on p.22: ‘Alcuin is a figure in whom literary tradition and dogmatic orthodoxy were singularly convergent. In his writings, modern scholarship can find abundant material for the explication of Old English poetry, and for illustration of the relationship between the vernacular and the Latin literature of Anglo-Saxon England.’ 70. ALC 51: III. 21. 71. Brown, C.F., Cynewulf and Alcuin, Modern Language Association of America, 18 (1903) 308-334. 72. HE III. 19. 73. Blake, N.F., (ed.) The Phoenix (Manchester, 1964) 74. ALC 45. 124: its destination was clarified in Bullough, D.A., What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?, ASE, 22 (1993) 93-125. 75. Jerome’s letter 22 to Eustochium; c.f. II Corinthians 6. 14-16: ‘What agreement has the temple of God with idols?’ 76. See Garrison, M., ‘Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?’ in O’Keefe, K. O’Brien & A. Orchard (eds.) Latin learning and English lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Toronto, 2000) 237-259; also Levine, R., Ingeld and Christ: a medieval problem, Viator, 2 (1971) 105-128. 77. Whitelock, D., The audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951), 49 & 99-103; also Tolkien, J.R.R., Beowulf – the monsters and the critics (British Academy, London, 1936). See Wrenn, C.L., (ed.) Beowulf (revised by W. F. Bolton, London, 1973); & the fine modern translation by Heaney, S., (tr.) Beowulf (London, 1999); the facsimile of the sole surviving manuscript of Beowulf is Zupitza, J., (ed.) Beowulf – a facsimile of British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A.xv (EETS, 1959). 78. Bolton, W.F., Alcuin & Beowulf: an eighth century view (New Brunswick, 1978). 79. Whitelock, D., op. cit. 48-9. 80. Bolton, W.F., op. cit. 178; his conclusion: this would also be true of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica. 81. Alcuin often used this device to spur the king and shame the bishops into action. 82. ALC 9. 83. ALC 32. 84. Note the contrast with the parallel claims of the Byzantines at this time about the spiritual role of icons. Alcuin and Theodulf of Orleans were united in their insistence on the paramount importance of language to convey divine truth revealed in the Bible and celebrated in the liturgy.

314

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

85. The matter is fully examined in Banniard, M., Théorie et practique de la langue et du style chez Alcuin: rusticité feinte e rusticité masque, Francia, 13 (1985) 579-601; Banniard, M., ‘Viva voce’ – communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en Occident latin, Collection des Études Augustiniennes (Paris, 1992). See also Meyers, J., Le Latin carolingien: mort ou renaissance d’une langue?, Le Moyen Âge, 96 (1990) 385-410. 86. Tiefenbach, H., Altsächisches und Althochdeutsches im Latein Alkuins, Sprachwissenschaft, 5 (1980) 320-338. 87. See Alberi, M., The patristic and Anglo-Latin origins of Alcuin’s concept of urbanity, JML, (1993) 95-112; & Alberi, M., Alcuin the Latin grammarian and the shaping of the standard language for Charlemagne’s empire in Acta selecta Octavi Conventus Academiae Latinitiati Fovendae (Rome, 1995) 225-37. 88. See an example discussed in Taylor, P., The construction ‘habere-with-infinitive’ in Alcuin as an expression of the future, The Romanic Review, 15 (1924) 123-127. 89. ALC 59: they are mentioned among his works in the Life of Alcuin. See Fontaine, J., De la pluralité a l’unité dans le ‘latin carolingien’, SSCI, 27 (1981) 765-818. 90. Jullien, M-H., Les hymnes dans le milieu Alcuinien in Holtz, L., & Freduillie, J-C., (eds.,) De Tertullien aux Mozarabes (Paris, 1992) II. 171-82. 91. ALC 60. [2]121: the full translation is in Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004), 34-5. 92. ALC 61: see Largeault, A., Inscriptions métriques composées par Alcuin à la fin du VIIIe siècle pour les monastères de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers et de Nouaille, Mémoires de la Societé des Antiquaires de l’Ouest, ii série, VII (1884) 217-283. 93. ALC 61. 88. 2. 94. ALC 61. 88. 8: in the Roman church the deacons administered the social welfare programme of the papacy for many centuries at the various diaconiae around the ancient city. 95. ALC 61. 104. 2. 96. ALC 61. 105. 1. 97. ALC 61. 104.3.

Chapter 25 – Alcuin’s Theology of Friendship 1. The best overview of their correspondence is in Diesenberger, M., & Wolfram, H., Arn und Alkuin 790 bis 804: zwei Freunde und ihre Schriften in NiederbkornBruck, M & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbischof Arn von Salzburg, Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40 (Vienna & Munich, 2004) 81-106; the wider context for Alcuin’s expectations of friendship is considered in Goetz, H-W., ‘Beatus homo qui invenit amicum’: the concept of friendship in early medieval letters of the Anglo-Saxon tradition on the continent [Boniface, Alcuin] in Haseldine, J., (ed.) Friendship in medieval Europe (Stroud, 1999) 124-136; there is also a judicious discussion in the introduction to the earlier collection of Alcuin’s letters commissioned by Arno [the Vienna manuscript 795] in Unterkirchen, F., (ed.) Alkuin Briefe und andere tractate im Auftrage des Salzburger Erzbischofs Arn um 799 zu einem Sammelband vereinigt [Codex Vindobonensis 795 – Österreichischen National Bibliothek Faksimileausgab] (Graz, 1969), 9-13. 2. ALC 45. 10. 3. ALC 45. 107, [110], 112, 113 & 165. 4. ALC 45. 146, 193, 207, 208, 268.

Notes

315

5. ALC 45. 146, 156, 157, 159, 179, 184, 186, 218, 227. 6. ALC 45. 185: this also lamented the death of Gerold, count of Bavaria. 7. ALC 45. 158, 193, 194. 8. ALC 45. 65 & 66. 9. ALC 45. 248. 10. ALC 45. 242. 11. ALC 45. 168. 12. ALC 45. 173. 13. ALC 45. 258 (c.f. ALC 45. 131). 14. ALC 45. 259. 15. ALC 45. 254. 16. ALC 45. 239, 252, 253, 260, 264, 265. 17. ALC 45. 268. 18. ALC 11. 18 which was also intended for their common friend and ally, Paulinus of Aquilea; see also ALC 11. 48 which is a lengthy encomium of Arno himself. 19. Romans 16. 3 & Acts 18. 2. See Garrison, M., ‘Praesagum nomen tibi’ – the significance of Name-wordplay in Alcuin’s letters to Arn in Niederbkorn-Bruck, M & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbischof Arn von Salzburg, Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40 (Vienna & Munich, 2004) 107-127. Her perceptive analysis is followed here. 20. Ibid. 107. 21. Ibid. 111. 22. ALC 45. 193: O si mihi translatio Abacuc esset concessa ad te! - c.f. Daniel 14. 33-9 in the Vulgate Apocrypha; Alcuin used it elsewhere as a metaphor in a letter to Charlemagne ALC 45. 229, and also indirectly in a letter to archbishop Peter of Milan ALC 45. 83. Jerome used it originally in his letter to Rufinus [ep.3]. It was an appropriate expression of frustration at the difficulties of travel and communication at that time across the barrier of the Alps. 23. For example, see the cover of this book. 24. See ALC 45. 113. 25. Garrison, M., art. cit. 120-1 where it is noted that Alcuin cites Jerome’s third letter nine times in connection with his expectations of friendship; Jerome’s mode of expression, while rhetorically effusive, was not considered improper otherwise it would never have become a commonplace. ‘It is evident that an erotic intention could not have been the primary meaning to contemporary readers.’ [p.121] Bullough was surely therefore wide of the mark in deducing an erotic physical significance in these expressions, let alone the likelihood that Alcuin was tormented by homosexual longings or acts, which he would certainly, on his own admission and teaching, have regarded as profoundly sinful, and against which he warned his pupils: see DAB 110-7. See more generally Godden, M.R., The trouble with Sodom: literary responses to biblical sexuality, Bulletin of the John Rylands library, 77 (1995) 97-119. 26. ALC 45.66: Arno may in fact have written this letter on behalf of Alcuin. 27. Garrison, M., art. cit. 127: – this is her acute conclusion. 28. In the early medieval Church, this phrase, drawn from the Apostles’ Creed, referred equally to the Eucharist, to saints and their relics, and to the communion between Christians in the Holy Spirit: it meant ‘communion of holy things’ as well as ‘of holy people’.

316

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

29. Epistola in Latin was derived Alcuin believed, from the Greek expression for something placed ‘under the stole’, as he pointed out elsewhere. This is a good example of the hazy knowledge of Greek in any depth at this time, as the word comes from the Greek verb ‘to send out.’ 30. The most outstanding and sympathetic analysis of this phenomenon in Alcuin’s letters and poems is still Fiske, A., Alcuin & mystical friendship, Studi Medievali, 3/2 (Spoleto 1961/2) 551-577; and what follows owes much to her magisterial and sensitive discussion of it, including the relevant references cited here to Alcuin’s letters. 31. Ibid. 552. 32. Ibid. 554. 33. See Brown, G.H., Ciceronianism in Bede and Alcuin in Blanton, V., et al. (eds.) Intertexts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture for P.E Szarmach (Arizona, 2008) 319-30. 34. Ibid. 560. 35. Ibid. 562. 36. ALC 45. 156. 37. Fiske, A., art. cit. 563. 38. Ibid. 564. 39. ALC 45. 193: Sed in Christo sit unitas, sine quo nulla perfecta est caritas. 40. ALC 45. 284. 41. ALC 45. 209 & 277: Fiske, A., art. cit. 571 n.169 who notes the anticipation of the Cistercians. 42. Perhaps best summed up in the twelfth century hymn - Jesu dulcis memoria. 43. ALC 45. 83. 44. ALC 45. 186: Ubi una est caritas, ibi diversa non est voluntas. 45. ALC 45. 65: Do tibi me totum; sed tu, Dodo, mihi te da. 46. ALC 45. 60 – a letter written to Paulinus of Aquilea celebrating their common friendship. 47. Fiske, A., art. cit. 571-3 – Caritate vulnerata ego sum. c.f. Song of Songs 5.8; also ALC 45. 59 to Arno. 48. ALC 45. 78. 49. Fiske, A., art. cit. 569. 50. John 16. 32. 51. Fiske, A., ibid: citing a passage from ALC 45. 218. This intuition had clear relevance to the truth and appropriateness of the Filioque in the Creed. 52. Ibid. 570. 53. Ibid. 571-2: citing ALC 45 .13 - Quid est ignis Dei, nisi caritas? 54. Ibid.572: citing ALC 45. 9. 55. Ibid. 572. 56. Ibid. 574: ALC 11. 29. 1 to an unknown bishop: Tu mihi dulcis amor, cordis tu carmen in ore, tu memor esto mei, tu sine fine vale! 57. Fiske’s conclusion, art. cit. 575.

Appendices Appendix 1 Authors and likely titles in the library of York Compiled from M. Lapidge – The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006) p. 228-33. Titles in Bold are cited in De Laude Dei. Authors marked * also appear in P. Godman’s references to the York poem – Alcuin, the bishops, kings and saints of York (Oxford, 1982) p.142-54. Jerome Hilary Ambrose Augustine* Athanasius Orosius Gregory the Great Leo the Great Basil Fulgentius Cassiodorus John Chrysostom Aldhelm Bede* Victorinus Boethius Pompeius Pliny Aristotle Cicero Sedulius* Juvencus* Avitus* Prudentius Prosper of Aquitaine* coniugis ad uxorem Paulinus of Nola* Arator* Venantius Fortunatus*

Confessiones/De Trinitate/Soliloquia Life of St Antony translated by Evagrius Historia adversum paganos Hom. in Hiezechielem/Pastoral Rule Epistulae/sermones Hexaemeron/Rule/ascetic writings De Thrasamundum? Expositio psalmorum/De anima?/Institutiones? Hom. in Matthaeum in Latin translation Carmen de Virginitate Historia Ecclesiastica/De Psalmis xli & cxii De definitionibus? Logical works rather than De Consolatio? Historiae Philippicae (via Juvencus); Comm. in artem Donati Naturalis historia Categoriae/De interpretatione in Latin translation De inventione/De oratore? Carmen Paschalis Evangelia Carmina de spiritalis historiae gestis? Epigrammata ex sententiis S. Augustini/Poema Carmina Historia apostolica/epist. ad Vigilium Carmina

318

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Lactantius Virgil* Statius Lucanus* Probus Phocas Donatus Priscian Servius Eutyches Comminianus Dracontius* Eusebius of Caesarea Isidore of Seville*

De aue Phoenice Thebais Bellum civile Catholica/Instituta artium? Ars de nomine et verbo Ars maior Institutiones grammaticae/Institutio de nomine? Ars de verbo Laudes Dei Historia ecclesiastica translated by Rufinus Synonyma

Appendix 2 The Chronology of Adoptionism 789/90 791 792 793

794

796/7

798 799

800 804

Adoptionism spread from Spain into the marches of Septimania. Charlemagne received the decrees of Nicea II – Libri Carolini begun Felix of Urguel appealed to Charlemagne: he was summoned to court. Synod of Regensburg: Paulinus of Aquilea examined Felix and he was condemned and sent with Angilbert to Rome along with the capitula of the Libri Carolini. A copy of the Nicene acts was sent to England with Alcuin. Felix fled to Elipandus of Toledo and reasserted Adoptionism: letters of the Spanish bishops sent to Charlemagne and the Frankish bishops. Charlemagne recalled Alcuin from England to address the crisis. The papal response to the LC arrived and work on the Libri Carolini was halted. Synod of Frankfurt: Adoptionism condemned in the two letters drafted by Alcuin, the Libellus sacrosyllabus of Paulinus of Aquilea and the Italian bishops and the Epistola synodica of the Frankish bishops along with the second letter of Pope Hadrian I. Paulinus of Aquilea summoned the synod of Friuli and promoted use of the Nicene Creed in the mass, supported by Alcuin who placed it after the gospel, as in English usage. Alcuin wrote to Elipandus & Felix and began compilation of a patristic florilegium against Adoptionism – his Liber contra Felicem. Felix sent a further tract against Alcuin to Charlemagne. Alcuin wrote his Adversus Felicem and Paulinus wrote his Contra Felicem. Charlemagne commanded responses also from Pope Leo III, Theodulf and Ricbod of Trier. Synod of Aachen – Alcuin debated with Felix in the presence of Charlemagne: Felix was condemned and entrusted to the custody of Leidrad until his death in 818. Alcuin completed his Adversus Elipandum. Pope Leo III fled to Paderborn, and returned to Rome with Arno of Salzburg. Death of Queen Liudgard at Tours in June; and the crowning of Charlemagne in Rome by Pope Leo III at Christmas 800. Death of Alcuin at Tours and of Elipandus of Toledo.

Appendices

319

Appendix 3 Alcuin’s Adoptionist letters References in bold are to ALC 45; those in brackets are contextual in relevance. M refers to Migne’s PL edition and D to Dummler’s edition in MGH. [317] – letter to the Frankish bishops from the Synod of Frankfurt – 794. [313] – letter of Charlemagne to Elipandus at the same time – 794. 23 – First letter to Felix in early 797 . 64 – Liber contra Felicem – 797/8 - M87-120 – see 145 to Charlemagne for one copy; 160 another to Theodulf of Orleans; 205 mentions a third in a letter written after the synod of Aachen in 799 to the monks of Septimania: the copy had been sent to them via Benedict of Aniane. 166 – Letter at the head of Adversus Elipandum – 797/8 = ALC 5 = M.231-300 the third dogmatic treatise: accompanied by two letters: 200 & 201 to Leidrad of Lyons, Nefridus of Narbonne & Benedict of Aniane in 799; (it is a two part treatise) the first replies to Elipandus ; the second is a distinct tract of the theology of the incarnation, using the Contra Felicem of Paulinus of Aquilea – 200 – dedication; 201 links it with letters 166 to Elipandus, [182] – Elipandus’ reply, [183] Elipandus to Felix and [199] containing Felix’ Confessio Fidei as documents the history of the controversy – not in Migne. 145 – March 798 = M82 – to Charlemagne seeking approval for the Liber contra Felicem. 160 – April/June 798 = D268-9 to Theodulf of Orleans accompanying his Liber contra Felicem and referring to Felix’s reply to his letter 23. 148 – July 798 = M83 – to Charlemagne – refers to recently received copy of Felix’s treatise in a post-script, urging the king to support his rebuttal of heresy. 149 – 23/7/798 = M84 – to Charlemagne – he proposes to sends copies of Felix’ treatise to Pope Leo III, Paulinus of Aquilea, Ricbod of Trier, & Theodulf of Orleans to enlist their support. 150 – 26/7/798 = M66 to Arno of Salzburg on his return from Rome. [157 – September 798 in reply to a letter of Arno’s = M68 – no reference to Adoptionism directly.] 193 – mid-September to All Saints 798 = M 91 – to Arno – he refers to his planned disputation with Felix at Aachen the following May. [156 – Oct/Nov 798 to Arno in response to his earlier letter – no reference to Adoptionism.] [167 – February 799 = M102 – to Arno – no reference to Adoptionism.] 194 – March 799[800?] = M92] to Arno referring to the forthcoming debate at Aachen with Felix in conjunction with Leidrad of Lyons and his hopes for the presence of Paulinus of Aquilea. [169 – March/April 799 = M94 to Arno referring to his travel plans.] [170 in March/April 799 to Charlemagne = M86 in reply to the king.] 171 in April 799 = M100 to Charlemagne after his reply to letter 170 seeking his approval for his Adversus Felicem. 172 in April 799 = M101 to Charlemagne thanking him for returning the Adversus Felicem, corrected but without annotations, and referring to a request to Leidrad for a copy of a dialogue between Felix and a ‘Saracen’.

320

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

202/3 letters Charlemagne accompanying Adversus Felicem = ALC6 = M119-230: approved in June 799 and sent to Leidrad, Nefridus & Benedict of Aniane. 204 = M299-304 to Gundrada [?] sister of Adalhard of corbie confirming that Candidus has taken the Adversus Felicem to Charlemagne and summarising the main points of the controversy for her use in rebutting it. 295 = M110 – letter to the monks of Septimania after the council of Aachen: he refers to his sending of the Liber contra Felicem via Benedict of Aniane and tells them of his magnum opus – the Adversus Felicem. 207 in June 799 to Arno = M117 relating his discussion with Felix at Aachen in the presence of the king and the mission of Leidrad, Nefridus & Benedict to combat the heresy using his writings, notably the Liber contra Felicem. [182 & 183 – letters of Elipandus received in later 799 by Alcuin and linked by him – see 166 - to his Adversus Elipandum.] 200 & 201 = M231-5 - letters commendatory of the Adversus Elipandum, to Leidrad, Nefridus and Benedict of Aniane. [164 = M128 to Gisela in 800.] 165 = M103 early 800 to Arno of Salzburg in which Alcuin mentions the work of Leidrad in Spain and his illness preventing his continued mission. [211 = M133 to Charlemagne.] [216 = M138 to Gisele & Rotrudis.] [229 = M129 to Charlemagne.]

Appendix 4 The Carolingian credal statement sent to the Spanish bishops in 794 AD in ALC 45 [313]. Passages pertinent to the Adoptionist controversy are highlighted in italics along with those affirming the Filioque. Credimus in unum Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Factorem coeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. Credimus in unum Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Filium et unigenitum, natum ex Patre ante omnia saecula, et ante omnia tempora. Lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero; Natum, non factum; naturalem, non adoptivum: Per quem omnia condita sunt, coelestia et terrestria; Unius essentiae et unius substantiae cum Patre. Credimus et in Spiritum Sanctum, Deum verum, Vivificatorem omnium, a Patre et Filio procedentem, Cum Patre et Filio coadorandum et conglorificandum. Credimus eamdem Sanctam Trinitatem, Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, Unius potentiae et unius essentiae, tres personas; Et singulam quamque in Trinitate personam plenum Deum, Et totas tres personas unum Deum omnipotentem: Patrem ingenitum, Filium genitum, Spiritum Sanctum procedentem ex Patre et Filio:

Appendices

321

Nec Patrem aliquando coepisse, sed sicut semper est Deus, ita semper et Pater est, Quia semper habuit Filium: Aeternus Pater, aeternus Filius, aeternus et Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre Filioque procedens: Unus Deus omnipotens, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, Ubique praesens, ubique totus, Deus aeternus, ineffabilis at incomprehensibilis. In qua Sancta Trinitate nulla est persona vel tempore posterior, vel gradu inferior, vel potestate minor: Sed per omnia aequalis Patri Filius, aequalis Patri et Filio Spiritus Sanctus Divinitate, voluntate, operatione et gloria. Alius tantummodo in persona Pater, alius in persona Filius, alius in persona Spiritus Sanctus. Non aliud, sed unum natura, potentia et essentia Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. Credimus ex hac Sancta Trinitate Filii tantummodo personam, Pro salute humani generis de Spirito Sancto et Maria Virgine incarnatum; Ut qui erat de divinitate Dei Patris Filius esset, et in humanitate hominis matris filius: Perfectus in humanitate homo. Deus ante omnia saecula, homo in fine saeculi: Verus in utraque substantia Dei Filius, Non putativus sed verus, non adoptione sed proprietate: Una persona Deus et homo, unus mediator Dei et hominum. In forma Dei aequalis Patri, in forma servi minor Patre; In forma Dei creator, in forma servi redemptor. Unus in utroque Dei Filius, proprius et perfectus Ad implendam humanae salutis dispensationem: Passus est vera carnis passione, mortuus vera corporis sui morte. Surrexit vera carnis suae resurrectione, et vera animae resumptione: Et eodem corpore, quo passus est et resurrexit, ascendit in coelos, sedens in dextera Dei Patris: Et in eadem forma qua ascendit, venturus judicare vivos ac mortuous; cuius regni non erit finis. Praedicamus unam sanctam Dei Ecclesiam toto orbe diffusam, Locis separatam, fide et charitate conjunctam; Et veram remissionem peccatorum in eadem Ecclesia, Sive per baptismum, sive per poenitentiam, Divina donante gratia et bona voluntate hominis cooperante. Credimus et omnes homines resurrecturos esse, Et singulos secundum sua opera judicari: Impios aeternis suppliciis damnandos cum diabolo et angelis eius; Sanctos vero aeterna gloria coronandos, Cum Christo et sanctis angelis eius in saecula sempiterna. Amen.

Bibliography Editions of Alcuin’s writings All references to Alcuin’s works are referenced as ALC – numerated according to Jullien, M-H., & Perelman, F., (ed.) Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi – Auctores Galliae 735-987: tomus II – ALCUINUS (Turnhout, 1999). Those designated in the Clavis in italics are letters by other people who are closely associated with Alcuin’s letters. Vita Alcuini Arndt, W., (ed.) Vita Alcuini MGH Script.XV.1 (Hanover, 1887) 182-97 PLC 89-106 to which reference is made by chapter and section in this book Opera Alcuini Duchesne, A., (ed.) B. Flacci Albini, sive Alchuuini . . . opera (Paris, 1617) Froben, F., (ed.) B. Flacci Albini se Alcuini abbatis . . . opera omnia (Tomes I & II, Regensburg, 1777) Migne, (ed.) PL C & CI (Paris, 1851 & 1863) Dümmler, E., (ed.) Carmina MGH Poetae lat. 1. (Berlin, 1880) 160-351 Epistola Alcuini Dümmler, E., (ed.) Alcuini sive Albini Epistolae MGH Ep. iv (Berlin, 1895) 1-493, 614-6; & v (1899) 643-5 Jaffe, W., (ed.) Monumenta Alcuina (Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum vi, Berlin, 1873) ed. E. Dümmler & W. Wattenbach

Editions & translations Allott, S., (tr) Alcuin of York: his life and letters (York, 1974) Blumenshine, G. B., Liber Alcuini contra haeresim Felicis: edition with an introduction (Studi e Testi 285, Rome, 1980) Bruni, S., Alcuino ‘De orthographia’ (Florence, Millennio Medievale 2, 1997) Chase, C., (tr.) Two Alcuin letter-books (Toronto, 1975) Driscoll, M. S., ‘Ad pueros sancti Martini’: a critical edition, English translation & study of the manuscript transmission, Traditio, 53 (1998) 37-59 Folkerts, M., Die alteste mathematische Aufgabensammlung in lateinischer Sprache: Die Alkuin zugeschriebenen ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’, Denkschrift der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, Kl.116.6 (Vienna, 1978) 15-78 Folkerts, M., & Gericke, H., Die Alcuin zugeschriebenen ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’: Lateinischer Text und deutsche Ubersetzung in Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science

Bibliography

323

in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 273-362 Folkerts, M., The ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’ ascribed to Alcuin in Folkerts, M., Essays on early medieval mathematics (London, 2003) Chapter IV Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982) Gugielmetti, R. E., (ed.) Alcuino – Commentato dei Cantici: con I commenti anonimi ‘vox ecclesie’, ‘vox antique ecclesie’: edizione criticà (Florence, Millenio Medievale 53, 2004) Knibbs, E., & Matter, E.A., (eds.) De Fide Sanctae Trinitate et de Incarnatio Christi. Quaestiones de Sanctae Trinitatis, CCCM, 249 (Turnhout, 2012) D’Imperio, F.S., (ed.) Explanatio super Ecclesiasten: un epitome carolingie del commentario all’Ecclesiaste di Alcuino di York (Florence, 2008) Talbot, C.H., (tr.) Life of St Willibrord in The Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany (London, 1954) 3-22

Websites www.pase.ac.uk The prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England www.e-codices.ch Swiss monastic libraries on-line (for St Gallen)

Secondary literature Abercrombie, N.J., Alcuin and the text of Gregorianum: notes on Cambrai MS 104, AL, III (1953) 99-103 Alberi, M., Jerome, Alcuin and Virgil’s ‘Old Entellus’, JMH, 17 (1991) 103-113 Alberi, M., The patristic and Anglo-Latin origins of Alcuin’s concept of urbanity, JML, (1993) 95-112 Alberi, M., Alcuin the Latin grammarian and the shaping of the standard language for Charlemagne’s empire in Acta selecta Octavi Conventus Academiae Latinitiati Fovendae (Rome, 1995) 225-37 Alberi, M., The ‘Mystery of the Incarnation’ and Wisdom’s house (Prov.9.1) in Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio de Vera Philosophia’, JTS, NS 48/2 (1997) 505-516 Alberi, M., The evolution of Alcuin’s concept of the ‘imperium christianum’ in J. Hill & M. Swan (eds.) The community, the family and the saint: patterns of power in early medieval Europe (Turnhout, 1998) 3-17 Alberi, M., ‘The better paths of Wisdom’: Alcuin’s monastic ‘true philosophy’ and the worldly court, Speculum, 76 (2001) 896-910 Alberi, M., Alcuin’s exegesis of the two swords in The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era C.M Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) (Turnhout, 2003) 117-132 Alberi, M., ‘Like the army of God’s camp’: political theology and apocalyptic warfare at Charlemagne’s court, Viator, 41[2] 2010, 1-20 Alcamesi, F., Aelfric’s ‘Quaestiones Sigwulfi in Genesin’: an educational dialogue in Practice in Learning: the transfer of encyclopaedic knowledge in the early Middle Ages, ed. Bremmer, R.H., et al., (Paris & Louvain, 2010) 175-202 Allott, S., (tr.) Alcuin of York (York, 1974) Amann, E., L’Adoptionisme Espagnol du VIIe siècle, Revue des Sciences Réligieuses, 16 (1936) 281-317 Amiet, R., Le prologue ‘Hucusque’ et la table des ‘capitula’ du supplément d’Alcuin au sacramentaire Grégorien, Scriptorium, 7 (1953) 177-209 Amiet, R., Le plus ancien témoin du supplément d’Alcuin: le missel ‘Excarpus’ composé à Gellone vers 810, EL, 72 (1958/1) 97-110 Amos, T.L., Preaching and the sermon in the Carolingian world in T.L.Amos, E.A Green &

324

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

B.M. Kienzle (eds.) ‘De ore Domini’: preaching the word in the Middle Ages (Medieval Institute Publications, Kalamazoo, 1989) 41-53 Andree, A, The ‘Glossa Ordinaria’ on the Gospel of John: a preliminary survey of the manuscripts with a presentation of the text with its sources, RB, 118 (2008) 109-34 Angenendt, A., Karl der Grosse als ‘rex et sacerdos’ in FK 255-278 Anton, H.H., Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit (Bonn, 1968) Armstrong, A.H., (ed.) The Cambridge History of Later Greek & Early Medieval Philosophy, (Cambridge, 1970) Armstrong, G., & Wood, I.N., (eds.) Christianizing peoples and converting individuals (Turnhout, 2000) Atchley, E.G.C.F., Ordo Romanus Primus (London, 1905) Augenti, A., The Palatine hill from the fifth to the tenth century in Smith, J.H.M., (ed.) Early medieval Rome & the Christian West: essays in honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean, 28 (Leiden, 2000) Auzepy, M-F., Francfort et Nicée II in FK 279-300 Bachrach, D., Religion & the conduct of war, c.300-1215 (Ipswich, 2003) Banniard, M., Théorie et practique de la langue et du style chez Alcuin: rusticité feinte e rusticité masqué, Francia, 13 (1985) 579-601 Banniard, M., ‘Viva voce’ – communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en Occident latin, Collection des Études Augustiniennes (Paris, 1992) Barre, H. et al., A la recherche du Missel d’Alcuin, EL, 82 (1968) 3-44 Bayless, M., Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio Pippini’ and the early medieval riddle tradition in Halsall, G., (ed.) Humour, history and politics in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Cambridge, 2002) 157-175 Berarducci, S. Cantelli., La genesi redazionale del commentario di Alcuino di York al Vangelio di Giovanni el il codice Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek, in Immagine del medioevo: saggi di cultura mediolatina (Spoleto, 1994) 23-79 Beriou, N., Berlioz, J., & Longere, J., (eds.) Prière au Moyen Âge – pratiques et expériences [Ve-XVe siècles] (Turnhout/Paris, 1991) Bernard, P., Du chant romain au grégorien (Le Cerf, Paris, 1996) Bernard, P., Benoît d’Aniàne: est-il l’auteur de l’avertissement ‘Hucusque’ et du Supplément au sacramentaire ‘Hadrianum’?, Studi Medievali, III 39 (1998) 1-120 Berndt, R., (ed.) Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794: Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur (2 vol. – Mainz, 1997) Berschin, W., Greek letters and the Latin Middle Ages (Washington DC., 1988) Bestul, T.H., Continental sources of Anglo-Saxon devotional writing in Szarmach, P., (ed.) Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Kalamazoo, 1986) 103-26 Bethurum, D., The homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957) Biggs, F., Bede’s use of Augustine; echoes from some sermons, RB, 108 (1998) 201-213 Birch, W de G., An ancient manuscript of the eighth or ninth century formerly belonging to St Mary’s abbey [The Nunnaminster Codex] (London/Winchester, 1889) Bischoff, B., Libri Sancti Kyliani: die Wurzburger Schreibschule und die Dombibliothek im VIII und IX Jahrhundert (Wurzburg, 1952) Bischoff, B., Aus Alkuins Erdentagen, Medievalia et Humanistica, 14 (1962) 31-37 Bischoff, B., Die Kölner Nonnenhandschriften und das Skriptorium von Chelles in Bischoff, B, Mittelalterliche Studien 1-3 (Stuttgart, 1966) 1967 & 1981, vol 1 Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966)

Bibliography

325

Bischoff, B., Die Hofbibliothek Karls des Grossen in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 42-62 Bischoff, B, Mittelalterlische Studien 1-3 (Stuttgart, 1966, 1967 & 1981) Bischoff, B., Die Bibliothek im Dienste der Schule in Bischoff, B, Mittelalterliche Studien 1-3 (Stuttgart, 1966, 1967 & 1981) vol 3, 213 -33 Bischoff, B., Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1960-80) Bischoff, B., (O Croinin, D., & Ganz, D., tr.) Latin palaeography – antiquity and the middle ages (Cambridge, 1990) Bischoff, B., (Gorman, M., tr.) Manuscripts & Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne (Cambridge, 1994) Bishop, E., Liturgica Historica (Oxford, 1918/1962) Bisogno, A., Il metodo Carolingio: identità culturale e dibattito teologicà nel secolo nono (Turnhout, 2008) Bitterli, D., Alkuin und die angelsächsische Rätseldichtung, AGG, 151-168 [also in Anglia 128 (2010) 4-20] Black, J., Psalm uses in Carolingian prayerbooks: Alcuin and the preface to ‘De psalmorum usu’, Medieval Studies, 64 (2002) 1-60 Black, J., Psalm uses in Carolingian prayerbooks: Alcuin’s ‘Confessio peccatorum pura’ and the seven penitential psalms, Medieval Studies, 65 (2003) 1-56 Black, J., The Divine Office and private devotion in the Latin West in Heffernan, T., & E.A. Matter (eds.) The liturgy of the medieval church (2nd edn., Kalamazoo, 2005) 41-64 Blair, P.H., From Bede to Alcuin, in G. Bonner (ed.), Famulus Christi (London, 1976) 239-260 Blake, N.F., (ed.) The Phoenix (Manchester, 1964) Blumenkranz, B., Raban Maur et Saint Augustin – compilation ou adaptation?, Revue du Moyen Âge Latin, 7 (1951) 97-110 Blumenkranz, B., Les auteurs chrétiens latins du moyen âge sur les juifs et le judaisme (Paris, 2007) Blumenshine, G.B., Liber Alcuini contra haeresim Felicis: edition with an introduction, Studi e Testi, 285 (Rome, 1980) Blumenshine, G.B., Alcuin’s ‘Liber contra haeresim Felicis’ and the Frankish kingdom, Fruhmittelalterlische Studien, 17 (1983) 222-233 Boas, M., Alcuin & Cato (Leiden, 1937) Bogaert, Dom P-M., La Bible latine des origins au moyen âge, Revue Théologique de Louvain, 19 (1988) 137-159 & 276-314 Bolton, W.F., A history of Anglo-Latin literature 597-740 (Princeton, 1967) Bolton, W.F., Alcuin and Old English poetry, Yearbook of English Studies, 7 (1977) 10-22 Bolton, W.F., Alcuin & Beowulf: an eighth century view (New Brunswick, 1978) Bonner, G., St Bede in the tradition of western apocalyptic commentary (Jarrow, 1966) Bonner, G., Famulus Christi (London, 1976) Bonner, G., The doctrine of sacrifice: Augustine & the Latin Patristic tradition, in Bonner, G., Church & faith in the patristic tradition (Aldershot, 1996) 101-117 Bonner, G., Rollason, D., Stancliffe, C., (eds.) St Cuthbert, his cult and his community to 1200 (Ipswich, 1989) Borndorfer, R., Grotschel, M., Lobel, A., Alcuin’s transportation problems and integer programming in Butzer, P., Kerner, M., & Oberschelp, W., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa /Charlemagne and his heritage: 1200 years of civilization and science in Europe (Turnhout, 1997) Borst, A., & Lohrmann, D., Alkuin und die Enzyklopädie von 809 in P.L. Butzer and D.

326

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Lohrmann (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilisation in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 71-112 Boshof, E., Erzbischof Agobard von Lyon (Cologne, 1969) Bouhot, J-P., Explications du rituel baptismal a l’époque carolingienne, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 24 (1978) 278-301 Bouhot, J-P., Alcuin et le ‘De catechizandis rudibus’ de St Augustine, Recherches Augustiniennes, 15 (1980) 176-240 Bouhot, J-P., Un florilège sur le symbolisme du baptême de la seconde moitié du VIIIé siècle, Recherches Augustiniennes, 18 (1983) 151-182 Bouhot, J-P., in N Beriou et al. (eds.) Prière au Moyen Age: pratiques et expériences (V-XVe siècles) (Paris/Turnhout, 1991) 23-31 Brandes, W., ‘Tempora periculosa sunt.’ Eschatologisches im Vorfeld der Kaiserkronung Karls des Grossen in Berndt, R., (ed.) Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794: Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur (2 vol. – Mainz, 1997), vol I. 49-79. Braunfels. W., et al. (eds.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachlegen (4 vols, Dusseldorf, 1965) Brooks, N., Bede and the English (Jarrow, 1999) Brooks, N., English identity from Bede to the Millennium, Haskins Society Journal, 14 (2003) 33-51 Brou, L., The Psalter Collects (London, 1949) Brown, C.F., Cynewulf and Alcuin, Publication of the Modern Language Association of America, 18 (1903) 308-334 Brown, G.H., The preservation and transmission of Northumbrian culture on the continent: Alcuin’s debt to Bede in Szarmach, P.E., & Rosenthal, J.T., (eds) The preservation and transmission of Anglo-Saxon culture, Studies in Medieval Culture, 40 (Kalamazoo, 1997) 159-75 Brown, G.H., Bede the educator (Jarrow, 2006) Brown, G.H., Ciceronianism in Bede and Alcuin in Blanton, V., et al. (eds.) Intertexts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture for P. E Szarmach (Arizona, 2008) 319-30 Brown, M., The Book of Cerne: prayer, patronage and power in ninth-century England, British Library Studies in Medieval Culture (London-Toronto, 1996) Brown, M., The Lindisfarne Gospels – society, spirituality & the scribe (British Library, London, 2003) Brown, P.A., St Augustine’s attitude to religious coercion, Journal of Roman Studies, 54 (1964) 107-116 Brown, P.A., A Dark Age crisis – aspects of the iconoclastic controversy, EHR, 78 (1973) 1-34 Brown, P.A., The Rise of Western Christendom (2nd edn. Blackwell/Oxford, 2003) Brubaker, L., Representation c 800: Arab, Byzantine, Carolingian, TRHS, 19 (2009) 37-55 Brunholzl, F., Der Bildungsauftrag der Hofschule in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 28-41 Bruni, S., Il ‘De Ortografia’ de Alcuino: il codex Vindobonensis 795 e l’edizione Forster SM 32 (1991) 83-127 Bruni, S., Alcuino ‘De orthographia’ Millennio Medievale 2 (Florence, 1997) Buck, T.M., Admonitio und praedicatio: zur religios-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten 507-814 (Freiburger Beitrage zur mittelalterliche Geschichte: Studien und Texte, 9, Frankfurt am Main, 1997) Bullough, D.A., The educational tradition in England from Alfred to Aelfric: teaching ‘utriusque linguae’ (SSCI 19, 1972)

Bibliography

327

Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and the kingdom of heaven: liturgy, theology and the Carolingian age in U-R. Blumenthal (ed.) Carolingian Essays (Washington, 1983) 22-31 Bullough. D.A., Carolingian renewal: sources & heritage (Manchester, 1991) Bullough, D.A., What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?, ASE, 22 (1993) 93-125 Bullough, D.A., Reminiscence and reality: text, transmission and testimony of an Alcuin letter, JML, 5 (1995) 174-201 Bullough, D.A., A neglected early-ninth-century manuscript of the Lindisfarne ‘Vita S. Cuthberti’, ASE, 27 (1998) 105-37 Bullough, D.A., Alcuin before Frankfort in GL3 571-586; [also in FK 571-586.] Bullough, D.A., The Carolingian Liturgical Experience in R.N. Swanson (ed.) Continuity and change in Christian worship (Ecclesiastical History Society, London, 1999) 29-55 Bullough, D.A., Alcuin and lay virtue in Gaffuri, L., & Quinto, R., (eds.) Preaching and society in the Middle Ages: ethics, values and social behaviour (Padua, 2002) 71-91 Bullough, D.A., Empire and emperordom, EME, 12 (2003) 377-387 Bullough, D.A., York, Bede’s calendar and a pre-Bedan English martyrology, Analecta Bollandiana, 121/2003 p.329-353 Bullough, D.A., Charlemagne’s court library revisited, EME, 12 (2003) 339-363 Bullough, D.A., Alcuin, Arn and the Creed in the Mass in Niederkorn-Bruck, M., & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbishof Arn von Salzburg (Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40, Vienna & Munich, 2004) 128-136 Bullough, D.A., Alcuin – achievement & reputation (Brill-Leiden & Boston, 2004) Bulst, Alchuines ‘Ecloga de Cuculo’, Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum, lxxxvi (1955) 193-6 Burn, A.E., Facsimiles of the Creeds: from early manuscripts, HBS, 36 (1909) Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) Butzer, P., Kerner, M., & Oberschelp, W., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa /Charlemagne and his heritage: 1200 years of civilization and science in Europe (Turnhout, 1997) Cabaniss, A., Agobard of Lyons, churchman and critic (Syracuse, 1953) Cabaniss, A., The heresiarch Felix, Catholic Historical Review, 39 (1953) 129-141 Cabaniss, A., Amalarius of Metz (Amsterdam, 1954) Cabaniss, A., [tr.] Benedict of Aniane, the Emperor’s Monk, Kalamazoo, 1979/2008 Cabrol, R.B.F., Le Book of Cerne – les liturgies celtiques et gallicanes et la liturgie romaine, Revue des Questions Historiques, 76 (1904) 210-222 Cabrol, R.B.F., La messe de Flacius Illyricus, RB, 22 (1905) 151-164 Cabrol, R.B.F., Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie (Paris, 1907) col. 1072-1092 Cabrol, R.B.F., Les écrits liturgiques d’Alcuin, Revue d’Histoire Écclesiastique, XIX (1923) 507-521 Camille, M., Word, text and image in the early Church fathers in the Egino Codex, Testo e Immagine nell’alto Medioevo (Spoleto, 1994) 65-94 Campbell, A., (tr.) Aethelwulf ’s ‘De Abbatibus’ (Oxford, 1967) Capelle, B., L’origine antiadoptioniste de notre texte du symbole de la messe, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Mediévale, 1 (1929) 7-20 Capelle, B., Travaux liturgiques de doctrine et d’histoire (3 vol., Louvain. 1955, 1962, 1967): Capelle, B., Les collectes des dimanches entre Noel et Septuagesime (vol 1) 212-219 Capelle, B., Alcuin et l’histoire du symbole de la messe (vol 2) 211-221 Capelle, B., Le pape Leon III et le ‘Filioque’ (vol 3) 35-46

328

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Capelle, B., L’introduction du Symbole à la messe (vol 3) 60-81 Carragain, E.O., The City of Rome & the World of Bede (Jarrow, 1994) Carella, B., Reconstructing a lost Latin homily on Ecclesiasticus 5.8, RB, 117 (2007) 261-86 Carruthers, M., The book of memory (Cambridge, 1990) Carruthers, M., The craft of thought: meditation, rhetoric and the making of images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998) Cavadini, J.C., Alcuin and St Augustine’s ‘De Trinitate’, Augustinian Studies, 12 (1981) 11-18 Cavadini, J.C., The sources and theology of Alcuin’s ‘De fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis’, Traditio, 46 (1991) 123 - 46 Cavadini, J.C., The last Christology of the West – Adoptionism in Spain & Gaul, 785-820 (Philadelphia, 1993) Cavadini, J.C., (ed.) Gregory the Great: a symposium (Notre Dame, 1996) Cavadini, J.C., Elipandus and his critics at the council of Frankfort in GL3 787-808 Cavadini, J., A Carolingian Hilary in C.M. Chazelle & B.Edwards (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (Turnhout, 2003) 133-140 Cavallo, G., Testo e immagine: una frontierà ambigua in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo (Spoleto, 1994) 31-64 Chadwick, H., Priscillian of Avila (Oxford, 1976) Chadwick, H., Boethius, (Oxford, 1981) Chadwick, H., East & West - the making of a rift in the Church (Oxford, 2003) Chandler, C.J., Heresy & empire: the role of the Adoptionist controversy in Charlemagne’s conquest of the Spanish March The International History Review 24 (2002) 505-27 Chase, C., (ed.) Two Alcuin letter-books (Toronto, 1975) Chase, C., Alcuin’s grammar verse: poetry & truth in Carolingian pedagogy in M. W. Herren (ed.) Insular Latin Studies (Toronto, 1981) 135-52 Chavasse, A., Le Sacramentaire Gélasien (Paris, 1958) Chazelle, C.M., Matter, spirit and image in the Libri Carolini, Recherches Augustiniennes, 21 (1986) 163-184 Chazelle, C.M., To whom did Christ pay the price? The soteriology of Alcuin’s epistola 307, PMR, 14 (1989) 53-62 Chazelle, C.M., Literacy, politics & artistic innovation in the early medieval West, (Lanham, New York & London, 1992) Chazelle, C.M., Images, Scripture, the Church & the ‘Libri Carolini’, PMR, 16/17 (1992) 53-70 Chazelle, C.M., Memory, instruction, worship: Gregory’s influence on early medieval doctrines of the artistic image in Cavadini, J.C., (ed.) Gregory the Great: a symposium (Notre Dame, 1996) 181-215 Chazelle, C.M., The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2001) Chazelle, C.M., & Edwards, B. van Name, (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era, Medieval Church Studies, 3 (Turnhout, 2003) Chelini, J., Le vocabulaire politique et social dans la correspondence d’Alcuin Faculté des lettres (Aix en Provence, 1959) Chiesa, P., (ed.) Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobardà e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2001) Chiesa, P. (ed.) Paolina d’Aquileia e il contributo italiano all’Europà carolingia (Udine, 2003) Chiesa, P., & Castaldi, L., La trasmissione dei testi latini del medioevo/Medieval Latin texts and their transmission (Florence, 2004)

Bibliography

329

Clemoes, P., The cult of St Oswald on the continent (Jarrow, 1983) Cholij, R., Theodore the Stoudite: the ordering of holiness (Oxford, 2002) Close, F., L’itinéraire de Candidus Wizo: un élément de datation des oeuvres anti-adoptionistes d’Alcuin? Note sur les lettres 41 & 204 de la correspondence d’Alcuin, Revue d’Histoire Écclesiastique, 103 (Louvain, 2008) 5-28 Colgrave, B. & Mynors, R.A.B., (tr.) Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English people (Oxford, 1969) Colish, M., Carolingian debates over ‘nihil’ & ‘tenebrae’: a study in theological method, Speculum, 59 (1984) 757-95 Colish, M.L., Medieval foundations of the Western intellectual tradition: 400-1400 (New Haven, 1997) Coletti, M., La retoricà a Roma (Jouvence, 2004) Coltier, J.F., (ed.) Prière en Latin de l’Antiquité au VXIé siècle: formes, évolutions, significations (Turnhout, 2006) Combaluzier, F., Alcuin: le prologue ‘Hucusque’ et la table des ‘capitula’ en son supplément du sacramentaire grégorien, EL, 68 (1954) 160-2 Connolly, S., (tr.) Bede – on the Temple (Liverpool, 1995) Connolly, S., (tr.) Bede on Tobit & the canticle of Habbakuk (Dublin, 1997) Constable, G., The commemoration of the dead in the early Middle Ages, in Smith, J.M.H., (ed.) Early medieval Rome & the Christian West: essays in honour of Donald A. Bullough (The Medieval Mediterranean 28, Leiden, 2000) 169-196 Constantinescu, R., Alcuin et les ‘libelli precum’ de l’époque carolingienne, Revue de l’Histoire de la Spiritualité, 50 (1974) 17-56 Contreni, J.J., Carolingian learning, masters & manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992) Copeland, R., Ancient sophistic and medieval rhetoric in C.D. Lanham (ed.) C.D. Lanham Latin Grammar and Rhetoric – from classical theory to medieval practice (London, 2002) 258-283 Corradini, R., et al. (eds.) Texts and identities in the early Middle Ages (Vienna, 2006) Costambleys, M., Innes, M., & MacLean, S., The Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2011) Courcelle, P., Les sources antiques du prologue d’Alcuin, Philologus, 110 (1966) 293-305 Courcelle, P., La ‘Consolation de Philosophie’ dans la tradition littéraire, antécédents et posterité de Boece (Paris, 1967) Courcelle, P., La survie comparé des ‘Confessions’ Augustiniennes et de la ‘Consolation’ Boécienne in Classical Influences on European Culture 500 – 1500 R.R. Bolgar (ed.) Vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1973) 131-42 Cubitt, C., Anglo-Saxon church councils, c.650-850 (Leicester, 1995) Cramer, P., Baptism and change in the early Middle Ages, c.200-c.1150 (Cambridge, 1993) Crawford, S.J., The Old English Version of the Heptateuch: Aelfric’s treatise on the Old and New Testament and his preface to Genesis (EETS, 1922/1969 reprint) Crick, J., An Anglo-Saxon fragment of Justinus’s ‘Epitome’, ASE, 16 (1987) 181-196 Cristiani, M., Dall’”unanimitas” all’”universitas”. Da Alcuino a Giovanni Eriugena. Lineamenti ideologici e terminologià politica della culturà del secolo IX (Rome, 1978) Cristiani, M., “Ars artium” La psicologia di Gregorio Magno in M. Mazza & C. Giuffrida (eds.) Le transformazioni della culturà nella tarda Antichità (Vol 1, Rome, 1985) 309331 Cristiani. M., Le vocabulaire de l’enseignement dans la correspondence d’Alcuin in Weijers, O., (ed.) Vocabulaire des écoles et des méthods d’enseignement au moyen âge (Turnhout, 1992) 13-32 Cross, J.E., Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25: a Carolingian sermonary used by AngloSaxon preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies, 1 (1987).

330

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Dahlhaus-Berg, E., Nova Antiquitas et Antiqua Novitas: Typologische Exegese und isidorianisches Geschichtsbild bei Theodulf von Orleans (Cologne/Vienna, 1975) Dales, D.J., Dunstan – saint & statesman (Cambridge, 1988) Dales, D.J., Light to the Isles – mission & theology in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Britain, (Cambridge, 1997) Dales, D.J., A mind intent on God – an Alcuin anthology (Norwich, 2004) Davis, L.D., Hincmar of Rheims as a theologian of the Trinity, Traditio, 27 (1971) 455-468 Davis, R., (tr.) The Lives of the eighth century Popes (Liverpool, 1992/2007) De Bruyne, E., Un document de la controversie adoptianiste en Espagne vers l’an 800, Revue d’Histoire Écclesiastique, 27 (1931) 307-312 Delehaye, H., The legends of the saints, D. Attwater (tr.) (Dublin, 1998) Delp, M.D., Alcuin: master and practitioner of dialectic, PMR, 16/17 (1992-3) 91-103 Demetracopoulos, J.A., Alcuin and the realm of application of Aristotle’s ‘Categories’ in Meirinhos, J.F., et al. (eds.) Intellect and imagination in medieval philosophy (3 vols, Turnhout, 2006) 1733-42 Depreux, P., Ingrediamur sanctorum Patrum aromaticas cellas in J. Arnold et al. (ed.) Vater der Kirche (Paderborn, 2004) 553-562 Depreux, P. & Judic, B., (eds.) Alcuin de York à Tours: écriture, pouvoir et réseaux dans l’Europe du haut moyen âge (Rennes, 2005) Depreux, P., La tradition manuscripte des ‘Formules de Tours’ at la diffusion des modèles d’actes aux VIIIe et IXe siècles, AY, 73-90 Deshusses, J., Le sacramentaire de Gellone dans son contexte historique, EL, 75 (1961) 193-210 Deshusses, J., Le ‘supplément’ au sacramentaire Grégorien: Alcuin où Saint Benoît d’Aniàne?, AL, 9 (1965) 48-71 Deshusses, J., & Barre, H., A la recherche du missel d’Alcuin, EL, 82 (1968) 3-44 Deshusses, J., Le sacramentaire grégorien pré-hadrianique, RB, 80 (1970) 213-237 Deshusses, J., Les Messes d’Alcuin, AL, 14 (1972) 1-41 Deshusses, J., Les anciens sacramentaires de Tours, RB, 89 (1979) 281-302 Deshusses, J., Le Sacramentaire Grégorien. Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits (Fribourg, 1979-1982) 3 volumes Deug-Su, I., L’opera agiografica di Alcuino (Spoleto, 1983) Deug-Su I., Culturà e ideologià nella prima età Carolingia (Rome, 1983) Dickens, B., & Ross, A.S.C., (eds.) The Dream of the Rood (London, 1964) Diebold, W.J., The New Testament and the visual arts in the Carolingian era, with special reference to the ‘sapiens architectus’ (I Cor.3.10) in C.M. Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (Turnhout, 2003) 141-153 Diem, A., The emergence of the monastic schools: the role of Alcuin in GL3 27-44 Dionisotti, A.C., On Bede, grammars & Greek (RB 92) 1982 p.111-41 Diesenberger, M., & Wolfram, H., Arn und Alkuin 790 bis 804: zwei Freunde und ihre Schriften in Niederbkorn-Bruck, M. & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbischof Arn von Salzburg, Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40 (Vienna & Munich, 2004) 81-106 Ditschied, H., Alkuins Leben und Bedeutung fur der religiosen Unterricht (Koblenz, 1902/3) Dix, G., The Shape of the Liturgy (London, 1945) Dolbeau, F., La tradition textuelle du poème d’Alcuin sur York, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 17 (1982) 26-30 Dolbeau, F., Bede, lecteur des sermons d’Augustin, Filologia Mediolatina, 3 (1996) 105-133 Dolbeau, F., Prière avec les mots des saints dans l’Occident mediéval in Coltier, J. F., (ed.)

Bibliography

331

Prière en Latin de l’Antiquité au VXIe siècle: formes, évolutions, significations (Turnhout, 2006) 419-40 Drager, P., St Willibrord als ambulanters Wunderheiler in Trier: Alkuin und Theofrid – Vitae Sancti Willibrordi, Kurtierisches Jahrbuch, 48 (Trier, 2008) 65-99 Drager, P., (tr.) Alkuins ‘Vita S. Willibrordi’ – das Leben des heiliges Willibrord (Trier, 2008) Dreyer, M., Alkuin und Hrabanus Maur: wozu wissen? in Felten, F.J., & Nichtweiss, B., (eds.) Hrabanus Maur: Gelehrter, Abt. von Fulda und Erzbischof von Mainz (Mainz, 2006) 35-49 Driscoll, M.S., ‘Ad pueros sancti Martini’: a critical edition, English translation & study of the manuscript transmission, Traditio, 53 (1998) 37-59 Driscoll, M.S., Alcuin et la pénitence à l’époque Carolingienne, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 81 (Munster, 1999) Dubreucq, A., Autour du ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin, AY, 269-288 Dumont, B., Alcuin et les missions, AY, 417-430 Edelstein, W., Eruditio et sapientia: Weltbild und Erziehung in der Karolingerzeit (Freiburgin-Breisgau, 1965) Ellard, G., Alcuin battling for Rome’s baptismal rites, The American Benedictine Review, 4 (1953/4) 331-345 Ellard, G., Master Alcuin, liturgist: a partner of our piety (Chicago, 1956) Engels, L.J., Priscian in Alcuin’s ‘De Orthographia’ in GL3 113-142 Englisch, B., Alkuin und das ‘Quadrivium’ in der Karolingerzeit, AY, 175-192 Evans, E., St Augustine’s Enchiridion (London, 1953) Falkowski, W., ‘Barbaricum’ comme devoir et défi du souverain chrétien, AY, 407-416 Fanning, S., Bede, Imperium and the Bretwaldas, Speculum, 66 (1991) 1-26 Farmer, D.H., The Age of Bede (London, 1983) del Fattore, J., Alcuin as poet, The Classical Bulletin, 53 (1976-7) 46-8 Fedalto, G., Il significato di Paolino, patriarca di Aquileia, e la sua posizione nella contoversià adozianista in FK 103-124 Felten, F.J., & Nichtweiss, B., (eds.) Hrabanus Maur: Gelehrter, Abt. von Fulda und Erzbischoff von Mainz (Mainz, 2006) Ferrari, M.C., Schroeder, J., Trauffler, H., & Krier, J., (eds.) Die Abtei Echternach: 6981998 (Luxembourg, 1999) Ferrari, M.C., Alcuin und Hraban: Freundschaft und auctoritas im 9 Jahrhundert (Melanges Duchting, Heidelberg, 2001) Ferreres, L., Las citas agustinianas en el corpus de Elipando, Augustinus, 39 (1994) 165-78 Firchow, E.S. (tr.) Einhard – Vita Karoli Magni (Stuttgart, 1981) Firey, A., Carolingian ecclesiology and heresy: a southern Gallic juridical tract against Adoptionism, Sacri Erudiri, 39 (2000) 253-316 Fischer, B., Die Alkuin-Bibel in Lateinische Bibelhandschriften I (Freiburg, 1958) Fischer, B., Bibel text und Bibel reform unter Karl der Grosse in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 156-216 Fiske, A., Alcuin & mystical friendship, Studi Medievali, 3/2 (Spoleto 1961/2) 551-577 Fleckenstein, J., Alcuin im Kreis der Hofgelerhten Karls des Grossen in Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 3-22 Fletcher, R., The Conversion of Europe (London, 1997) Floryszcak, S., Die ‘Regula Pastoralis’ Gregors des Grossen: Studien zu Text, Kirchenpolitischer

332

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Bedeutung und Rezeption in der Karolingerzeit (Tubingen, 2005) Folkerts, M., Die alteste mathematische Aufgabensammlung in lateinischer Sprache: Die Alkuin zugeschriebenen ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’, Denkschrift der osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, Kl.116.6 (Vienna, 1978) 15-78 Folkerts, M., & Gericke, H., Die Alcuin zugeschriebenen ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’: Lateinischer Text und deutsche Ubersetzung in Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 273-362 Folkerts, M., The ‘Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes’ ascribed to Alcuin in Folkerts, M., Essays on early medieval mathematics (London, 2003) Chapter IV Fontaine, J., De la pluralité à l’unité dans le ‘latin carolingien’, SSCI, 27 (1981) 765-818 Fortgens, H-W., De paedagoog Alcuin en zijn ‘Ars grammatica’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 60 (1957) 57-65 Foulke, W.D., (tr.) Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards (Philadelphia, 2003) Fox, M., Alcuin the exegete: the evidence of the ‘Quaestiones in Genesim’ in C.M Chazelle & B. Edwards (eds.) The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era (Turnhout, 2003) 39-60 Fox, M., Alcuin as exile and educator: ‘vir undecumque doctissimus’ in O’Keefe, K. O’Brien & A. Orchard (eds.) Latin learning and English lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Toronto, 2005) 215-236 Fox, M., Alcuin’s ‘Expositio in epistola ad Hebraeos’, JML, 18/2 (2006) 326-341 Fransen, I., Fragments épars du commentaire perdu d’Alcuin sur l’épître aux Ephésiens, RB, 81 (1971) 30-59 Frantzen, A.J., The literature of penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick, 1983) Freeman, A., Opus Caroli Regis contra Synodum [Libri Carolini] (Hannover, 1998) Freeman, A., Theodulf of Orleans: Charlemagne’s spokesman against the second Council of Nicea (London/Aldershot, 2003) Frey, J., De Alcuini ‘Arte Grammatica’ commentatio (Munster, 1886) Friesen, B., The ‘Opus Geminatum’ in Anglo-Saxon literature, Neophilologus, 95 (2011) 123-44 Frost, M., A prayer book from St Emmeran, JTS, 30 (1929) 32-45 Gameson, R., (ed.) The early medieval Bible: its production, decoration & use (Cambridge, 1994) Gameson, R., & Leyser, H., (eds.) Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2001) Ganshof, F.L., La révision de la Bible par Alcuin, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance (Paris, 1947) 7-20 Ganshof, F.L., The Carolingians & the Frankish monarchy (London, 1971) Ganz, D., The Preconditions for Caroline Miniscule, Viator, 18 (1987) 23-43 Ganz, D., Corbie in the Carolingian renaissance, Beiheft der Francia, 20 (Sigmaringen 1990) Ganz, D., Mass production of early medieval manuscripts: the Carolingian Bibles from Tours in The early medieval Bible, ed. R. Gameson (Cambridge, 1994) 53-62 Ganz, D., Le ‘De laude Dei’ d’Alcuin, AY, 387-392 Ganz, D., Handschriften der Werke Alkuins aus dem 9. Jarhrhundert, AGG, 185-194 Garrison, M., The emergence of Carolingian Latin literature and the court of Charlemagne (780-814) in R. McKitterick (ed) Carolingian culture: emulation & innovation (Cambridge, 1994) 111-140 Garrison, M., Alcuin’s world through his letters and verse (Cambridge, PhD thesis, 1995) Garrison, M., The English and the Irish and the court of Charlemagne in Butzer, P., Kerner, M., & Oberschelp, W., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa /Charlemagne and his heritage: 1200 years of civilization and science in Europe (Turnhout, 1997) 97-124

Bibliography

333

Garrison, M., Letters to a king and biblical exegesis: the examples of Cathulf and Clemens Peregrinus, EME, 7 (1998) 305-328 Garrison, M., The social world of Alcuin: nicknames at York and at the Carolingian court in GL p.59-80 Garrison, M., The Franks as the New Israel? Education for an identity from Pippin to Charlemagne in Hen, Y., & Innes, M., (eds.) The uses of the past in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2000) 114-161 Garrison, M., ‘Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?’ in O’Keefe, K. O’Brien & A. Orchard (eds.) Latin learning and English lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Toronto, 2000) 237-259 Garrison, M., Alcuin, ‘Carmen IX’ and Hrabanus, ‘Ad Bosonum’: a teacher and his pupil write consolation in Marenbon, J., (ed.) Poetry and philosophy in the middle ages (Leiden, 2001) 63-78 Garrison, M., The Bible and Alcuin’s interpretation of current events, Peritia, 16 (2002) 68-84 Garrison, M., ‘Praesagum nomen tibi’ – the significance of Name-wordplay in Alcuin’s letters to Arn in Niederbkorn-Bruck, M & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbischof Arn von Salzburg, Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40 (Vienna & Munich, 2004) 107-127 Garrison, M., Les corréspondants d’Alcuin, AY, 319-332 Garrison, M., The library of Alcuin’s York in Gameson, R., (ed.) The Book in Britain, c.400-1100 (Cambridge, 2012) 633-664 Gennaro, C., Fridugiso di Tours et il ‘De substantia nihili et tenebrarum’ (Padua, 1963) George, J., Venantius Fortunatus: personal & political poems (Liverpool, 1995) Gero, S., The ‘Libri Carolini’ and the Image controversy, Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 18 (1973) 7-34 Gibson, M.T., Boethius, his life, thought & influence (Oxford, 1981) Gibson, M.T., Boethius in the Carolingian age, TRHS, 5th series, 32 (1982) 43-56 Gibson, M.T., Milestones in the study of Priscian, c800-1200, Viator, 23 (1992) 17-33 Gilson, E., Reason & Revelation in the Middle Ages (New York, 1939) Gilson, E., History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (London, 1955) Glunz, H.H., History of the Vulgate in England (Cambridge, 1933) Godden, M.R., Anglo-Saxons on the mind in Lapidge, M., & H. Gneuss (eds.) Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1985) 271-295 Godden, M.R., The trouble with Sodom: literary responses to biblical sexuality, Bulletin of the John Rylands library, 77 (1995) 97-119 Godman, P., Alcuin’s poetic style & the authenticity of ‘O mea cella’, Studi Medievali, iii 20 (1979) 555-583 Godman, P., The Anglo-Latin ‘opus geminatum’ from Aldhelm to Alcuin, Medium Aevum, 50/2 (1981) 215-29 Godman, P., Alcuin – the bishops, kings & saints of York (Oxford, 1982) Godman, P., (tr.) Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) Godman, P., Poets & Emperors (Oxford, 1987) Goetz, H-W., ‘Beatus homo qui invenit amicum’: the concept of friendship in early medieval letters of the Anglo-Saxon tradition on the Continent [Boniface, Alcuin] in Haseldine, J., (ed.) Friendship in medieval Europe (Stroud, 1999) 124-136 Goffart, W., The narrators of barbarian history – Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, 1988) Goody, J., The logic of writing & the organisation of society (Cambridge, 1986)

334

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Gorman, M.M., The encyclopaedic commentary on Genesis prepared for Charlemagne by Wigbod, Recherches Augustiniennes, 17 (1982) 173-201 Gorman, M.M., The diffusion of the manuscripts of St Augustine’s ‘De Doctrina Christiana’ in the early Middle Ages, RB, 95 (1985) 11-24 Gorman, M.M., (tr.) B. Bischoff, Manuscripts & libraries in the age of Charlemagne (Cambridge, 1994) Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and the ‘lectiones’ on the Hexateuch attributed to Bede in Paris MS Lat. 2342, RB, 105 (1995) 310-347 Gorman, M.M., Wigbod and biblical studies under Charlemagne, RB, 107 (1997) 40-76 Gorman, M.M., The Carolingian miscellany of exegetical texts in Albi 39 and Paris lat. 2175, Scriptorium, 51 (1997) 336-355 Gorman, M.M., The oldest epitome of Augustine’s ‘Tractatus in evangelistam Ioannis’ and the commentaries on the gospel of St John in the early middle ages, Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes, 43 (1997) 63-99 Gorman, M.M., The ‘Argumenta’ & ‘Explanationes’ in the psalms attributed to Bede, RB, 108 (1998) p.214-239 Gorman, M.M., From Isidore to Claudius of Turin: the works of Ambrose on Genesis in the early middle ages, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 45 (1999) 121-138 Gorman, M.M., Theodulf of Orleans and the exegetical miscellany in Paris Lat. 15679, RB, 109 (1999) 278-320 Gorman, M.M., The myth of Hiberno-Latin exegesis, RB, 110 (2000) 101-130 Gorman, M.M., Peter of Pisa and the ‘Quaestiunculae’ copied for Charlemagne in Brussels II 2572, RB, 110 (2000) 238-260 Gorman, M.M., Biblical commentaries from the early Middle Ages, Millennio Medievale 32, reprints 4 (Florence, 2002) Gorman, M.M., Alcuin before Migne, RB, 112 (2002) 101-130 Gorman, M.M., Wigbod, Charlemagne’s commentator – the ‘Quaestiunculae super evangelium’, RB, 114 (2004) 5-74 Gorman, M.M., From the classroom at Fulda under Hrabanus: the commentary on the gospel of John prepared by Ercanbertus for his ‘praeceptor’ Ruodulfus, Augustinianum, 44 (2004) 439-490 Gorman, M.M., The epitome of Wigbod’s commentaries on Genesis and the gospels, RB, 118 (2008) 5-29 Gorman, M.M., Rewriting Augustine: Alcuin’s commentary on the gospel of John, RB, 119 (2009) 36-85 Goudesenne, J-F., De Tours a Rome: le corpus musical martinien au temps d’Alcuin, AY, 371-386 Goulet, M., et al (eds.) La reécriture hagiographique dans l’Occident mediéval: transformations formelles et ideologiques (Ostfilder, 2003) Grabois, A., Un mythe fundamental de l’histoire de France au moyen âge: le ‘roi David’, précurseur du ‘roi très chretien’, Revue Historique, 581 (1992) 11-31 Gradon, P.O.E., (ed.) Cynewulf ’s ‘Elene’ (London, 1958) Gregorio, S. de, The Venerable Bede on prayer and contemplation, Traditio, 54 (1999) 1-39 Grierson, P., The Carolingian empire in the eyes of Byzantium in Nascita dell’Europa ed Europa Carolingia: un’equazione da verificare, SSCI, 27 vol. 2 (1981) 885-916 Grillmeier, A., Christ in Christian Tradition – from the apostolic age to Chalcedon (451) 2nd edn. (London, 1975) Grosjean, P., Le ‘De Excidio’ chez Bede et chez Alcuin, Analecta Bollandia, 75 (1957) 222-6 Grotans, A. A., Reading in Medieval St Gall (Cambridge, 2006) Gugielmetti, R., ‘Super Cantica canticorum’ – nota sulla tradizione dei commenti di Ruperto

Bibliography

335

di Deutz, Bernardo di Clairvaux, Gugielmo di Saint-Thierry, Beda e Alcuino, Studi Medievali, 43 (2002) 277-286 Gugielmetti, R.E., (ed.) Alcuino – Commentato dei Cantici: con I commenti anonimi ‘vox ecclesie’, ‘vox antique ecclesie’: edizione critica, Millennio Medievale, 53 (Florence, 2004) Gugielmetti, R.E., Il commento al Cantico dei Cantici di Alcuino di York: appunti per un’edizione in (eds.) C. Leonardi & G. Orlandi, Biblical studies in the early middle ages (Florence, 2005) 143-153 Guidi, S., Il commentario ai Salmi Penitenziale, Graduali e al Salmo 118 di Alcuino di York (Thesis, University of Florence, 1998) Guilmard, J-M., Origine de l’office grégorien, Ecclesia Orans, 23 (Rome) 37-80 Gwara, S., Three acrostic poems of Abbo of Fleury, JML, (1992) 203-25 Haddan, A., & Stubbs, W., (ed.) Councils & Ecclesiastical Documents (Oxford, 1869) Hadot, P., Marius Victorinus et Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Litteraire du Moyen Âge, 29 (1954) 5-19 Hadot, P., Les hymnes de Victorinus et les hymnes ‘Adesto’ et ‘Miserere’ d’Alcuin, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 35 (1960) 7-16 Haimerl, F.X., Mitterlalterliche Frömmigkeit im Spiegel der Gebetsbuch-literatur Süddeutschlands (Munich, 1952) Hainthaler, T., Von Toledo nach Frankfurt. Dogmengeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur adoptianistischen Kontoroversie in FK 809-60 Halporn, J.W., (tr.) Cassiodorus: Institutions of divine & secular learning; on the Soul (Liverpool, 2004) Hartmann, W., Die karolingische Reform und die Bibel, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 18 (1986) 58-74 Haseldine, J., (ed.) Friendship in medieval Europe (Stroud, 1999) Haugh, R., Photius and the Carolingians (Belmont, MA) 1975 Haussling, A. A., Alkuin und der Gottesdienst der Hofkapelle, DA, 25 (1969) 223-9 Heaney, S., (tr.) Beowulf (London, 1999) Heath, R.G., The western schism of the Franks and the Filioque, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 33 (1972) 97-113 Heffernan, T., & E.A. Matter (eds.) The liturgy of the medieval church, 2nd edn. (Kalamazoo MI, 2005) Heil, W., Der Adoptionismus: Alcuin und Spanien, in Karl der Grosse. Lebenswerk und Nachleben, vol 2 Das geistige Leben ed. B. Bischoff, (Dusseldorf, 1965) 95-155 Heil, W., Alkuinstudien 1 – zur Chronologie und Bedeutung des Adoptianismusstreites (Dusseldorf, 1970) Heil, W., Alkuin in Theologische Realenzyklopädie II (Berlin, 1978) Heiming, O., Die mailandischen sieben Votivmessen in Miscellanea liturgica in honorem L.C. Mohlberg II (Rome, 1949) 317-340 Heiming, O., Aus der Werkstatt Alkuins, AL, 4/2 (1956) 341-347 Hein, W., Die Mathematik im Mitterlalter: von Abakus bis Zahlenspiel (Darmstadt, 2010) Hen, Y., The liturgy of St Willibrord, ASE, 26 (1997) 41-62 Hen, Y., & Innes, M., (eds.) The uses of the past in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2000) Hen, Y., The royal patronage of liturgy in Frankish Gaul – to the death of Charles the Bald (877), HBS, (2001) Hen, Y., Paul the deacon and the Frankish liturgy in Chiesa, P., (ed.) Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2001) Hen, Y., Rome, Anglo-Saxon England the formation of the Frankish liturgy RB 112 (2002)

336

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

301-322 Henel, H., (ed.) Aelfric’s De Temporibus Anni, EETS (1942/1970) Herren, M. (ed.) Insular Latin Studies (Toronto, 1981) Herren M., A ninth century poem for St Gall’s feast day and the ‘Ad Sethum’ of Columbanus, Studi Medievali (1983) 508-9 Herren, M., (ed.) The sacred nectar of the Greeks: the study of Greek in the West in the early Middle Ages (London, 1988) Herren, M., Theological aspects of the writings of Paul the Deacon in Chiesa, P., (ed.) Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2001) Herrin, J., The formation of Christendom, (Oxford, 1987) Hildebrandt, M.M., The external school in Carolingian society (Leiden, 1992) Hill, E., (tr.) & J.E. Rotelle (ed.) St Augustine ‘On Genesis’ (New York, 2002) Hiscox, N., The Aachen chapel: a model of salvation in Science and western and eastern civilisation in Carolingian times, in Butzer, P., & D. Lohrmann, (eds.) Science in Western and Eastern civilization in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 115-126 Hocquard, G., Quelques réflexions sur les idées politico-réligieuses d’Alcuin, Bulletin des Facultés Catholiques de Lyon, 12 (1952) 13-30 Holder, A.G., (tr.) Bede – on the Tabernacle (Liverpool, 1994) Holtz, L., Le Parisinus Latinus 7530, synthèse cassinienne des artes liberaux, Studi Medievali, 3/16 (1975) 97-152 Holtz, L., Alcuin et la réception de Virgile au temps de Charlemagne in Einhard: Studien zu Leben und Werk (ed.) H. Scheffers (Darmstadt, 1997) 67-80 Holtz, L., Alcuin et la renaissance des arts liberaux in P.L. Butzer et al., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa (Turnhout, 1997-8) 45-60 Holtz, L., Priscien dans la pédagogie d’Alcuin in M. de Nonno et al., (eds.) Manuscripts & tradition of grammatical texts from antiquity to the renaissance (Universita degli Studi di Cassino, 2000) 289-326 Holtz, L., Le dialogue de Franco et de Saxo, AY, 133-146 Holtz, L., L’oeuvre grammaticale d’Alcuin dans le contexte de son temps, AGG, 129-150 Houghton, J.W., (Re)sounding brass: Alcuin’s new castings in the questions and answers on Genesis, PMR, 16/17 (1992/3) 149-161 Houwen L. & Mac Donald, A., (eds.) Alcuin of York: scholar at the Carolingian court Proceedings of the Third Germania Latina Conference held at the University of Groningen, Germania Latina, 3 (Groningen, 1998) Howell, W.S., The rhetoric of Alcuin & Charlemagne. Latin text, translation & notes (Princeton, 1941/1965) Howlett, D., Fredegisus ‘De substantia nihili et tenebrarum, Bulletin du Cange, 64 (2006) 123-143 Hurst, D., (tr.) Bede the Venerable – Commentary on the seven Catholic Epistles (Kalamazoo MI, 1985) Imhoff, M., & Stasch, G.F., (eds.) Bonifatius: vom angelsächsischen Missionar zum Apostel der Deutschen (Petersberg, 2004) d’Imperio, F.S., (ed.) Explanatio super Ecclesiasten: un epitome carolingie del commentario all’Ecclesiaste di Alcuino di York (Florence, 2008) Ineichen-Eder C.E., Theologisches und philosophisches Lehrmaterial aus dem Alkuin-Kreis, DA, 34 (1978) 192-201 Ineichen-Eder, C.E., The authenticity of the ‘Dicta Candidi’, ‘Dicta Albini’, and some related texts, in Insular Latin Studies: papers on Latin texts and manuscripts of the British Isles, 550-1066, ed. M. W. Herren, (Toronto, 1981) 179-193

Bibliography

337

Irvine, M., Bede the grammarian & the scope of grammatical studies in eighth century Northumbria, ASE, 15 (1986) 15-44 Irvine, M., The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ & literary theory 350-1100 (Cambridge, 1994) Jaeger, C.S., Ennobling love: in search of a lost sensibility (Philadelphia, 1999) James, E., Alcuin and York in the eighth century in P.L. Butzer & D. Lohrmann (eds.) Science in western and eastern civilisation in Carolingian times (Basel, 1993) 23-39 Jeudy, C., Le Carmen 111 d’Alcuin et l’anthologie de Martial du manuscript 522 [502] de la Bibliothèque municipale d’Angers in Scire littera : Forschungen zum mittelalterlichen Geistesleben (Munich, 1988) 221-2 Jones, C.A., A lost work of Amalarius of Metz, HBS – Subsidia, II (2001) Jones, C.A., The sermons attributed to Candidus Wizo in O’Keefe, K. O’Brien & A. Orchard (eds.) Latin learning and English lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Toronto, 2005) 260-279 Jones, L.W., Cologne MS.106: a book of Hildebald, Speculum, 4 (1929) 27-61 Jones. L.W., The text of the Bible & the script & art of Tours, HTR, XXVIII (1935) 135-79 Jones, L.W., Two Salzburg manuscripts and the influence of Tours, Speculum, 10 (1935) 288-91 Jong, M. de., (ed.) The power of the word: the influence of the Bible on early medieval politics, EME, 7 (1998) Jong, M. de., The Empire as ‘Ecclesia’: Hrabanus Maurus and biblical ‘historia’ for rulers in Hen, Y., & Innes, M., (eds.) The uses of the past in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2000) 191-226 Jong, M. de., From ‘scolastici’ to ‘scioli’: Alcuin and the formation of an intellectual elite in GL3 45-58 Judic, B., Grégoire le Grand, Alcuin et l’idéologie carolingienne in Falkowski, W., & Sassier, Y., Le monde carolingien : bilan, perspectives, champs de recherches (Turnhout, 2010) Jullien, M-H., Les hymnes dans le milieu Alcuinien in Holtz, L., & Freduillie, J-C., (eds.,) De Tertullien aux Mozarabes (Paris, 1992) II. 171-82 Jullien, M-H., Alcuin et l’Italie, AY, 393-406 Jullien, M-H., & Perelman, F., (ed.) Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi – Auctores Galliae 735-987: tomus II – ALCUINUS (Turnhout, 1999) Kamesar, A., Jerome, Greek scholarship & the Hebrew Bible: a study of the ‘Quaestiones in Genesim (Oxford, 1993) Kamphausen, H.J., Traum und Vision in der lateinischen Poesie den Karolingerzeit , Lateinische Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters, 4 (Frankfurt, 1975) 85f Kantorowicz, E.H., The King’s two bodies: a study in medieval political theory (Princeton, 1957) Kasten, B., Adalhard von Corbie; die Biographie eines karolingisches Politikers und Klostervorstehers, Studia Humaniora (Dusseldorf, 1986) Kaster, R.A., Guardians of language: the grammarian and society in late antiquity (Berkeley L.A. and London, 1988) Keefe, S., Carolingian baptismal expositions: a hand-list of tracts & manuscripts in U.R. Blumenthal (ed.), Carolingian Essays (Washington DC, 1983) 169-237 Keefe, S., Water and the Word: baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire (2 vol. Notre Dame, 2002) Kelly, J.F., The originality of Josephus Scottus’ ‘Commentary on Isaiah’, Manuscripta, 24 (1980) 176-80

338

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Kelly, J.F., A catalogue of early medieval Hiberno-Latin biblical commentaries, Traditio, 44 (1988) 571-71 & Traditio, 45 (1989/90) 393-434 Kelly, J.N.D., The Athanasian Creed (London, 1964) Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Creeds, 3rd edn. (London, 1972) Kelly, J.N.D., The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford, 1986) Kempshall, M.S., The virtues of rhetoric: Alcuin’s ‘Disputatio de rhetorica et de virtutibus’, ASE, 35 (2006) 7-30 Kendall, C.B., (tr.) Bede on Genesis (Liverpool, 2008) Ker, N.R., (ed.) Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books, 2nd edn. (London, 1964) Kieling, M., “Terrena non amare sed coelestia”: Theologie der Welt in Alkuins ‘Commentaria super Ecclesiasten’ (Dissertation, Frankfurt, 2001) King, J.C., Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture (Oxford, 2005) Kingsmill, E., The Song of Songs and the Eros of God (Oxford, 2009) Kirby, D.P., Bede’s ‘Historia ecclesiastica’: its contemporary setting (Jarrow, 1992) Klauser, T., A short history of the Western liturgy (Oxford, 1979) Klaussen, M., The reform of the Frankish church: Chrodegang of Metz & the Regula Canonicorum (Cambridge, 2004) Kleinclausz, A., Alcuin, Annales de l’Université de Lyons, III/15 (Paris, 1948) Kneepkins, C.H., Some notes on Alcuin’s ‘De perihermeniis’ with an edition of the text, GL 3 81-112 Knibbs, E., & Matter, E.A., (eds.) De Fide Sanctae Trinitate et de Incarnatio Christi. Quaestiones de Sanctae Trinitatis, CCCM, 249 (Turnhout, 2012) Kobusch, T., Contemplation intérieure: vers la métaphysique contemplative d’Origène au XIIe siècle in Trottman, C., (ed.) Vie active et contemplative (Rome, 2009) 91-109 Korhammer, M., (ed.) Words, texts & manuscripts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1992) Kottje, R., Hrabanus Maurus: ‘Praeceptor Germaniae’?, DA, 31 (1975) 534-545 Kuypers, A.B., The prayer book of Aedeluald the bishop commonly called the book of Cerne (Cambridge, 1902) Laistner, M., The intellectual heritage of the early Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1957) Laistner, M., Thought & Letters in Western Europe (Ithaca, 1957) Lampe, G.W.H., (ed.) The Cambridge History of the Bible, (vol 2, Cambridge, 1969) Lanlletta, M., Alcuino, il cuculo e l’amicizià: lettura e interpetazione del carmine 57 di Alcuino di York, Vichiana, 9 (2007) 68-89 Lapidge, M., The authorship of the Adonic verses ‘ad Fidolium’ attributed to Columbanus, Studi Medievali (1977/2) 249-314 Lapidge, M., & Herren, M., Aldhelm – the prose works (Ipswich, 1979) Lapidge, M., Knowledge of the poems [of Venantius Fortunatus] in the earlier [Anglo-Saxon] period – appendix to R.W. Hunt, Manuscript evidence for knowledge of the poems of Venantius Fortunatus in late Anglo-Saxon England, ASE, 8 (1979) 287-295 Lapidge, M., Aldhelm’s Latin poetry and Old English verse, Comparative Literature, 31 (1979) 209-31 Lapidge, M., St Dunstan’s Latin poetry, Anglia, xcviii (1980) 101-6 Lapidge, M., The present state of Anglo-Latin studies in M.W. Herren (ed.) Insular Latin Studies (Toronto, 1981) 45-82 Lapidge, M., A tenth century metrical calendar from Ramsey, RB, 94 (1984) 326-69 Lapidge, M., & H. Gneuss (eds.) Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1985)

Bibliography

339

Lapidge, Bede the Poet (Jarrow, 1993) Lapidge, M., Archbishop Theodore (Cambridge, 1995) Lapidge, M., The school of Theodore & Hadrian in Lapidge, M., Anglo-Latin literature (London, 1996) 141-68 Lapidge, M., Anglo-Latin literature (London, 1996) Lapidge, M., Bede’s metrical Vita S. Cuthberti, in Anglo-Latin literature 600-899 (London, 1996) 339-356 Lapidge, M,. Aedilwulf & the school of York in Anglo-Latin literature 600-899 (London, 1996) 381-98 Lapidge, M., The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006) Largeault, A., Inscriptions métriques composées par Alcuin à la fin du VIIIe siècle pour les monastères de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers et de Nouaille, Mémoires de la Societé des Antiquaires de l’Ouest, ii série, VII (1884) 217-283 Lauwers, M., Le glaive et la parole. Charlemagne, Alcuin et le modèle du ‘rex praedicator’: notes d’écclesiologie cCarolingienne, AY, 221-244 Law, V., The Insular Grammarians (Ipswich, 1982) Law, V., The transmission of early medieval elementary grammars: a case study in O. Pecere & M.D. Reeve (eds.) Formative stages of classical traditions: Latin texts from antiquity to the renaissance (Spoleto, 1995) 239-262 Law, V., Grammar and the grammarians in the early middle ages (London, 1997) Lebech, M., et al. (eds.) ‘De dignitate conditionis humanae’: translation, commentary & reception history of the ‘Dicta Albini’ & the ‘Dicta Candidi’, Viator, 40 [2] (2009) 1-34 Leclerq, J., Vandenbroucke, D., & Bouyer, L., A history of Christianity: volume II – the spirituality of the Middle Ages (London, 1968) Leclercq, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: a study of monastic culture (London, 1978) Lees, C.A., The dissemination of Alcuin’s ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ in Old English: a preliminary survey, Leeds Studies in English, 16 (1985) 174-189 Lehmann, P., Cassiodorstudien VIII: Cassiodor-Isidor-Beda-Alchvine, Philologus 74, new series 28 (1917) 357-383 Lejbowicz, M., Computus, Le nombre et le temps altimediévaux in B. Ribemont (ed.) Le Temps, sa mésure et sa perception au Moyen Âge (Caen, 1992) 151-96 Lendinara, P., Mixed attitudes to Ovid: the Carolingian poets and the glossographers in GL 3 171-214 Leonardi, C., Il venerabile Beda el la culturà del secolo VIII in I problemi dell’Occidente nel secolo VIII, SSCI, 20 (1973) 603-658; also in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la culturà dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004), 115-154 Leonardi, C., Alcuino e la scuola palatina: le ambizioni di una cultura unitaria, SSCI, 27 (1981) 459-96; also in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004), 191-218 Leonardi, C., Una schedà per Paolina di Aquileia in A. Lehner & W. Berschin (eds.) Lateinische Kultur im VIII Jahrhundert, Eos Verlag Erzabtei St Ottilien (1989) 179-187 Leonardi, C., Alcuino e la retoricà in (ed. J. Fried) Dialektik und Rhetorik im fruheren und hohen Mittelalter (Munich, 1997) 171-4 Leonardi, C., I racconti di Eginardo in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004) 249-274 Leornardi, C., I commenti altomedievali ai classici pagani: da Severino Boezio a Remigio d’Auxerre in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004) 155-190

340

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004) Leonardi, C., Paolo Diacono: tradizione germanica e cristiana in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004) 219-236 Leonardi, C., La figurà di Paolo Diacono in Leonardi, C., Medioevo Latino – la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana (Florence, 2004) 237-248 Levine, R., Ingeld and Christ: a medieval problem, Viator, 2 (1971) 105-128 Levison, W., An eighth century poem on St Ninian, Antiquity, 14 (1940) 280-91 Levison, W., England & the Continent in the eighth century (Oxford, 1946) Levy, K., Gregorian chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998) Liccaro, V., Paolino d’Aquileia ed Alcuino d’York in G. Fornasari (ed.) Atti del convegno internazionale di studio su Paulino d’Aquilea nel XII centenario dell’episcopato (Udine, 1988) 179-85 Lobrichon, G., Le texte des bibles alcuiniennes, AY, 209-220 Lohrmann, D., Alcuins Korrespondenz mit Karl dem Grossen uber Kalendar und Astronomie in P.L. Butzer & D. Lohrmann (eds.) Science in Western & Eastern Civilisation in Carolingian times (Basel/Boston/Berlin, 1993) Long, O.F., The attitude of Alcuin towards Virgil in Studies in honour of B.L. Gildersleeve, (Baltimore, 1902), 377-86 Louth, A., Greek East and Latin West – the Church AD 681-1071 (New York, 2007) Lowe, E. A., An eighth century list of books in a Bodleian manuscript from Wurzburg and its probable relation to the Laudian ‘Act’s, Speculum, 3 (1928) 3-15 & 239-50 Lowe, E.A., Palaeographical Papers: 1907-1965 ed. L. Bieler (Oxford, 1972) Lowe, H., Pirmin, Willibrord und Bonifatius: Ihre Bedeutung fur die Missiongeschichte ihrer Zeit, SSCI, 14 (1967) Lubke, H., (ed.) Charlemagne – oeuvre, rayonnement et survivances (Aachen, 1965) Luscombe, D.E., Dialectic and rhetoric in the ninth and twelth centuries: continuity and change in (ed. J. Fried) Dialektik und Rhetorik im fruheren und höhen Mittelalter (Munich, 1997), 1-20 Macdonald, A.J., Authority & reason in the early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1933) MacKay, T.W., Apocalypse commentaries by Primasius, Bede and Alcuin: interrelationship, dependency and individuality, Studia Patristica, 36 (2001) 28-34 Mango, C., La culture grecque et l’Occident au VIIIe siècle in I problemi dell’Occidente nel secolo VIII, SSCI, 20 (1973) 683-721 Manser, A., Ambrosiuszitat in einer Votivmesse – eine kleine Alkuinstudie, Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft, 1 (1921) 87-96 Marenbon, J., From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981) Marenbon, J., Early Medieval Philosophy [480-1151] - an Introduction (London, 1983) Marenbon, J., Alcuin, the council of Frankfort and the beginnings of medieval philosophy FK 603-616 Marenbon, J., (ed.) Poetry and philosophy in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2001) Marenbon, J., (ed.) The Cambridge companion to Boethius (Cambridge, 2009) Markus, R.A., Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge, 1970) Markus, R.A., Bede & the tradition of ecclesiastical historiography (Jarrow, 1975) Markus, R.A., Gregory the Great & his world (Cambridge, 1997) Marsden, R., The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1995) Marsili, A., Alcuinus Orthographia (Pisa, 1952) Martin, R., Au confluent des traditions Antique, Germanique et Chrétienne: Le ‘Conflictus Veris et Hiemis’ d’Alcuin, Revue des Études Latines, 72 (1994) 177-191 Mason, A.J., The relation of Confirmation to Baptism (London, 1891)

Bibliography

341

Matter, E.A., The pseudo-Alcuinian ‘De septem sigillis’: an early Latin Apocalypse exegesis, Traditio, 36 (1980) 111-37 Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s question-and-answer texts, Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4 (1990) 645-56 Matter, E.A., A Carolingian schoolbook? The manuscript tradition of Alcuin’s ‘De Fide’ & related treatises in S.G. Nicholls & S. Wenzel (eds.) The Whole Book: cultural perspectives on the medieval miscellany (Ann Arbor MI, 1996) 145-52 Matter, E.A., Alcuin’s theology, AGG, 91-106 Mattes, T., et.al. (tr.) Paolino patriarca di Aquilea Opere (Rome, 2007) Mayr-Harting, H., The coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn. (London, 1991) Mazal, O., Geschichte der abendlandischen Wissenschaft des Mittelalters (Graz, 2006) McCormick, M., The liturgy of war in the early middle ages: crises, litanies & the Carolingian monarchy, Viator, 15 (1984) 1-23 McCormick, M., Eternal victory: triumphal rulership in late antiquity, Byzantium and the early medieval West (Cambridge, 1986) McCormick, M., Textes, images et iconoclasme dans le cadre des rélations entre Byzance et l’Occident Carolingien, Testo e immagine, SSCI, 41 1 (1994) 95-162 McCune, J.C., The sermons on the virtues and vices for lay potentates in the Carolingian sermonary of Salzburg, Journal of Medieval Latin, 19 (2009) 250f McEnerney, J.I., Alcuini Carmen 23, Res Publica Litterarum, 58 (1985) 179-85 McEnerney, J.I., Alcuini Carmen 59, Res Publica Litterarum, 59 (1987) 215-9 McGuire, B. P., Friendship & Community: the monastic experience 350-1250 (Kalamazoo MI, 1988) McKeon, R., Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, Speculum, XVII (1942) 13f McKitterick, R., The Frankish Church & the Carolingian reforms (London,1977) McKitterick, R., The Carolingians and the written word (Cambridge, 1989) McKitterick, R., The uses of literacy in early medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1990) McKitterick, R., Books, scribes & learning in the Frankish kingdoms (Aldershot, 1994) McKitterick, R., Carolingian book production: the Tours anomaly in Gameson, R., (ed.) The early medieval Bible: its production, decoration & use (Cambridge, 1994) McKitterick, R., (ed.) The New Cambridge Medieval History, c.700-c.900 (Cambridge, 1995) McKitterick, R., History & Memory in the Carolingian world (Cambridge, 2004) McKitterick, R., (ed.) Carolingian culture: emulation & innovation (Cambridge, 2004) McKitterick, R., Perceptions of the past in the early middle ages (Notre Dame, 2006) McKitterick, R., Charlemagne – the formation of a European identity (Cambridge, 2008) Meens, R., Politics, mirrors of princes and the Bible: sins, kings and the well-being of the realm, EME, 7 (1998) 345-57 Meens, R., Sanctuary, penance and dispute settlement under Charlemagne: the conflict between Alcuin and Theodulf of Orleans over a sinful cleric, Speculum, 82, 2 (2007) 277-300 Meirinhos, J.F., et al (eds.) Intellect and imagination in medieval philosophy (Turnhout, 2006) Meyer, H.-B., Alkuin zwischen Antike und Mittelalter, Zeitschrift fur Katholische Theologie, 81 (1959) 405-60 Meyer, H.-B., Eine verlorene Schrift Alkuins?, Zeitschrift fur Katholische Theologie, 81 (1959) 101-103 Meyer, H.-B., ‘Crux, decus es mundi’ - Alkuins Kreuz- und Osterfrommigkeit, in B. Fischer & J. Wagner (ed.) Paschatis sollemnia: Studien zu Osterfeier und Osterfrommigkeit (Basel, 1959) 96-107 Meyer, H., Die allegorische Deutung der Zahlenkomposition des Psalters, Fruhmittelalterlische

342

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Studien, 6 (1972) 211-231 Meyer, H., Die Zahlenallegorese im Mittelalter (Munich, 1975) Meyers, J., Le Latin carolingien: mort ou renaissance d’une langue?, Le Moyen Âge, 96 (1990) 385-410 Meyvaert, P., Bede & Gregory the Great (Jarrow, 1964) Meyvaert, P., Bede and church paintings, ASE, 8 (1979) 63-77 Meyvaert, P., Bede’s ‘Capitula lectionum’ for the Old and New Testaments, RB, 105 (1995) 348-80 Meyvaert, P., Bede, Cassiodorus and the Codex Amiatinus, Speculum, 71 (1996) 870-880 Meyvaert, P., Discovering the calendar (Annalis Libellus) attached to Bede’s own copy of ‘De Tempore Ratione’, Analecta Bollandiana, 120 (2002) 5-45 Meyvaert, P., Medieval notions of publication: the “unpublished” ‘Opus Caroli Regis contra synodum’ and the council of Frankfort (794), JML, 12 (2002) 78-89 Micaelli, C., Pascasio Radberto e Boezio: filosofia e teologia in età tardo-carolingia, Orpheus, 28 (2007) 162-85 Milanese, G., Alcuino, i grammatici e la trasmissione del repertorio gregoriano, Polifonie, I (Arezzo, 2001) 219-26 Mitalaite, K., Le Credo dans la méthode théologique de la première période carolingienne, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Mediévales, 74 (2007) 377-421 Mitalaite, K., Philosophie et théologie de l’image dans les ‘Libri Carolini’ in Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Moyen Âge et Temps Modernes, 43 (Paris, 2007) Moltedo, F., Brevi cenni su Alcuino di York e sul suo contributo alla politica in materia religiosa di Carlo Magno, Rivue Cistercense, 20 (2003) 85-96 Mombello, G., À propos d’un ‘traité’ sur les commandments de Dieu attribué à Alcuin, Romania, 89 (1968) 54-95 Monnier, F., Alcuin et Charlemagne: avec des fragments d’un commentaire inédit d’Alcuin sur Saint Matthieu, et d’autres pièces publiées pour la première fois, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1863) Moorhead, J., Iconoclasm, the Cross and the imperial image, Byzantium, 55 (1985) 165-179 Moreton, B., The eighth century Gelasian sacramentary: a study in tradition (Oxford, 1976) Morin, G., L’homéliare d’Alcuin retrouvé, RB, 9 (1892) 491-7 Morin, G., Le plus ancien ‘Comes’ ou lectionnaire de l’église romaine, RB, 27 (1910) 41-74 Morin, G., Une rédaction inedité de la preface au supplément du ‘Comes’ d’Alcuin, RB, 29 (1912) 341-348 Morrison, K.F., The two Kingdoms: ecclesiology in Carolingian political thought (Princeton, 1964) Morison, S., Politics & Script (Oxford, 1972) Nagel, H., Karl der Grosse und die theologischen Herausforderungen seiner Zeit. Zur Wechselwirkung zwishcen Theologie und Politik im Zeitalter des grossen Frankenherrschers (Frankfurt, 1998) Nees, L., A tainted mantle: Hercules and the classical tradition at the Carolingian court (Philadelphia, 1991) Nees, L., Alcuin and manuscript illumination, AGG, 195-228 Neff, K., Kritische und erklarende Ausgabe der Gedichte des Paulus Diaconus in L. Traube (ed.) Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters (Munich, 1908) Netzer, N., Willibrord’s scriptorium at Echternach & its relationship to Ireland & Lindisfarne, in G., Bonner et al., (ed.) St Cuthbert, his cult and his community to 1200 (Ipswich, 1989) 203-212 Newhauser, R.G., The treatise on vices and virtues in Latin and the vernacular (Turnhout, 1993) Newhauser, R.G., (ed.) In the Garden of Eden: the vices and culture in the Middle Ages

Bibliography

343

(Toronto, 2005) Newlands, C., Alcuin’s poem of exile ‘O mea cella’, Mediaevalia, II (1985) 19-45 Nie, G. de, et al (ed.) Seeing the invisible in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Turnhout, 2005) Niederbkorn-Bruck, M & Scharer, A., (eds.) Erzbischof Arn von Salzburg, Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 40 (Vienna & Munich, 2004) Noble, T.F.X., Tradition and learning in search of ideology: the Libri Carolini in Sullivan, R.E., (ed.) The Gentle Voices of Teachers – aspects of learning in the Carolingian age (Ohio 1995) 227-260 Noble, T.F.X., The vocabulary of vision and worship in Nie, G. de, et al (ed.) Seeing the invisible in late antiquity and the early middle ages (Turnhout, 2005) 213-238 Noble, T.F.X., Images, Iconoclasm and the Carolingians (Pennsylvania University Press, 2009) Noble, T.F.X., Kings, clergy and dogma: the settlement of doctrinal disputes in the Carolingian world in Baxter, S., Karkov, C., Nelson, J.L., & Pelteret, D., (eds.) Early medieval studies in memory of Patrick Wormald (London, 2009) 237-252 Norberg, D., (ed.) Paulinus of Aquileia – ‘Contra Felicem libri tres’ (Turnhout, 1954) O’Connell, R.J., Art and the Christian intelligence in St Augustine (Oxford, 1978) O Croinin, D., Bischoff ’s Wendepunkt 50 years on, RB, 110 (2000) 204-237 O’Donnell, J.R., Alcuin’s Priscian in J.J. O’Meara et al. (eds.) Latin Script & Letters AD 400-900 (Leiden, Brill, 1976) 222-235 Ogilvy, J.D.A., Alcuin’s use of alliteration, Modern Language Notes, 46 (1931) 444-5 Ogilvy, J.D.A., Books known to the English, 597-1066 (Cambridge MA, 1967) O’Keeffe, K. O’Brien, The use of Bede’s writings on Genesis in Alcuin’s ‘Interrogationes’, Sacri Erudiri, 23 (1978-9) 465-483 O’Keefe, K. O’Brien & A. Orchard (eds.) Latin learning and English lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge (Toronto, 2005) Oliviera de Almeida, E.X., Alcuin, St Cyrille d’Alexandrie et l’Adoptianisme Espagnol in ‘In Unum Congregatio’ - Festgabe fur Augustinus Kardinal Mayer OSB (Metten, 1991) 201-215 Oliviera de Almeida, E.X., Alcuin, St Augustine et les adoptionistes éspagnols: brèves considérations théologiques in J. Busquets & M. Martinelli (eds.) Fe I teologia en la historia (Barcelona, 1997) 319-324 Onofrio, G. d’, Dialectic and theology: Boethius’ ‘Opuscula sacra’ and their early medieval readers, Studi Medievali, 27 (1986) 45-67 Orchard, A., After Aldhelm: the teaching and transmission of the Anglo-Latin hexameter, Journal of Medieval Latin, 2 (1992) 96-133 Orchard, A., Wish you were here: Alcuin’s courtly poetry & the boys back home, in Courts & regions in medieval Europe, S. Rees-Jones et al. (ed.) (York, 2000) 21-44 Orchard, N., An Anglo-Saxon Mass for St Willibrord and its later liturgical use, ASE, 24 (1995) 1-10 Orchard, N., The English and German masses in honour of St Oswald of Northumbria, AL, 37 (1995) 347-358 Orchard, N., A note on the masses for St Cuthbert, RB, 105 (1995) 79-98 Orchard, N., St Willibrord, St Richarius and the Anglo-Saxon symptoms in three massbooks from northern France, RB, 110 (2000) 261-283 Palmer, J.T., The Frankish cult of martyrs and the case of the two saints Boniface, RB, 114 (2004) 338-348 Palmer, J.T., Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish world: 690-900 (Turnhout, 2009) Palmer, J.T., Calculating time and the end of time in the Carolingian world, EHR, 126 (2011)

344

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

1307-1331 Palmer, R.B., Bede as textbook writer: a study of his ‘De arte metrica’, Speculum, 34 (1959) 129-40 Panofsky, E., Renaissance and renascences in Western art (London, 1965) Parkes, M.B., Scribes, scripts and readers (London, 1991) Parkes, M.B., Pause & effect; an introduction to the history of punctuation in the West (Aldershot, 1992) Parmentier, M., The ‘Sayings of Bishop Leo’ [Dicta Leonis Episcopi] as an anti-Adoptionist creed, EL, 111 (1997) 37-48 Pasi, S., Il commentario inedito ai Vangeli attribuito a ‘Wigbodus’, Studi Medievali, 3/43 (2002) 59-156 Pecere, O., & Reeve, M.D. (eds.) Formative stages of classical traditions: Latin texts from antiquity to the Renaissance (Spoleto, 1996) Pelikan, J., The Christian tradition – a history of the development of doctrine: volume 3 – the growth of medieval theology [600-1300] (Chicago, 1978) Perrin, M.J-L., La poésie de cour carolingienne, les contacts entre Alcuin et Hraban Maur et les indices de l’influence d’Alcuin sur l’ ‘In honorem sanctae crucis’, AY, 333-352 Perrin, M.J-L., Bede le vénérable: une source invisible de l’ ‘In honorem sanctae crucis’ de Raban Maur in Lebecq, S., Perrin, M., Szerwiniack, O., (eds.) Bede le vénérable entre tradition et posterité Villeneuve d’Ascq: Université Charles de Gaulle (Paris, 2005) 231f Peters, E., ‘Vir inconstans’: moral theology as palaeopsychology in Newhauser, R.G., (ed.) In the Garden of Eden: the vices and culture in the Middle Ages (Toronto, 2005) 59-73 Phelan, O.M., Textual transmission and authorship in Carolingian Europe: ‘Primo paganus’, baptism and Alcuin of York, RB, 118 (2008) 262-285 Phelan, O.M., Catechising the wild: the continuity & innovation of missionary catechesis under the Carolingians, JEH, 61 (2010) 455-474 Phelan, O.M., The importance of reading and the nature of the soul: Zurich Zentralbibliothek C.64 & Christian formation in Carolingian Europe, Viator, 42[1] (2011) 1-24 Plummer, C., Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896) Pucci, J., Alcuin’s cell poem: a Virgilian reappraisal, Latomus, 49 (1990) 839-49 Putnam, M.C. J., Virgil’s pastoral art: studies in the Ecologues (Princeton, 1970) Quentin, H., Mémoire sur l’établissement du texte de la Vulgate I, Collectanea Biblica, VI (Rome/Paris, 1922) Rabe, S.A., Faith, art and politics at Saint-Riquier: the symbolic vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia, 1995) Raby, F.J.E., A history of secular Latin poetry in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1934) Raby, F.J.E., A history of Christian Latin poetry from the beginning to the close of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1953) Rambridge, K., Alcuin, Willibrord & the cultivation of faith, Haskins Society Journal, 14 (2003) 15-31 Rambridge, K., Alcuin’s narratives of evangelism: the Life of St Willibrord and the Northumbian hagiographical tradition in M. Carver (ed.) The Cross goes North – processes of conversion in northern Europe AD 300-1300 (York, 2003 ) 371-382 Rand, E.K., Dom Quentin’s memoire on the text of the Vulgate, HTR, 17 (1924) 197-264 Rand, E.K., A survey of the manuscripts of Tours (Cambridge, 1929) Rand. E.K., A supplement on Dodaldus, Speculum, 6 (1931) 587-99

Bibliography

345

Rand, E.K., A preliminary study of Alcuin’s Bible, HTR, XXIV (1931) 323-96 Rand, E.K., The earliest books of Tours (Cambridge, 1934) Rankin, S., Carolingian music in R. McKitterick, (ed.) Carolingian culture: emulation & innovation (Cambridge, 2004) 276f Raw, B.C., Trinity and Incarnation in Anglo-Saxon art & thought (Cambridge, 1997) Ray, R., Bede, rhetoric and the creation of Christian Latin culture (Jarrow, 1997) Reuschel, H., Kenningar bei Alkuin: zur Disputatio Pippini cum Albino, Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 62 (1938) 143-155 Reynolds, L.D., (ed.) Text & Transmission: a survey of the Latin classics (Oxford, 1983) Reynolds, R.E., The Visigothic liturgy in the realm of Charlemagne in FK 919-946 Ricciardi, A., Maladie et fléau, absence at oubli. Thèmes de la souffrance dans les lettres d’Alcuin de York, in Les écritures de la douleur, ed., Laurence, P., & Guillaumont, F., (Tours, 2010) 47-67 Ricciardi, A., Dal ‘palatium’ di Aquisgrana al cenobio di Saint Martin. Le nozione di ‘ordo’ e ‘correctio’ in Alcuino di York tra l’esperienza della ‘renovatio’ carolingia e i primi anni del soggiorno a Tours, Bulletin dell’Istituto storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 100 (Rome, 2008) 3-55 Riche, P., Education & culture in the barbarian west, sixth through eighth centuries (tr.) J.J. Contreni (Columbia, South Carolina, 1976) Riche, P., Écoles et enseignement dans le haut Moyen Âge (Paris, 1989) Rivas Pereto, R. A,. La ley natural en al alto medioevo: el casa de Alcuino, Annuaria filosofico de la Universidad de Navarre, 41/91 (Pamplona, 2008) 55-67 Rivas Pereto, R.A., La personà en Pedro Lombardo y sui antecedentes en Alcuino, Scripta mediaevalia, 2 (Mendoza, 2009) 107-30 Roccaro, C., Rinnegamento e divieto della ‘lectio’ virgiliana nella ‘Vita Alcuini’ in Studi di filogia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco 4 (Palermo, 1991) 1519-33 Rochais, H., Le ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’ d’Alcuin. Note pour l’étude de ses sources, Revue Mabillon, 41 (1951) 77-86 Romero-Pose, E., La Bibbia de Alcuino y el perdudo commentario al Apocalipsin de Ticonio, Rivista Espanola de Teologia, 55 (1995) 39-57 Rollason, D., Bede & Germany (Jarrow, 2001) Rose, E., Ritual memory – the apocryphal Acts and liturgical commemoration in the early medieval West in Mittellateinische Studien und Texte (ed. P.G. Schmidt) 40 (Leiden, 2009) Runciman, S., The Eastern Schism (Oxford, 1963) Ryan, J. J., Pseudo-Alcuin’s ‘Liber de divinis officiis’ and the ‘Liber “Dominus Vobiscum”’ of St Peter Damiani, Medieval Studies, 14 (1952) 159-163 Salmon, P., Libelli Precum du VIIIe siècle, Analecta Liturgica, 273 (Rome, 1974) Salmon, P., Livrets de prières de l’époque Carolingienne, RB, 86 (1976) 218-234 Sanford, E.M., Alcuin & the classics, The Classical Journal, XX (1924-5) 526-33 Savigni, R., Il commentario di Alcuino al libro dell’Ecclesiaste e il suo significato nella cultura carolingia in Letture cristiane de libri sapienziale, Actes du XXe Colloque, Roma, Studia ephemeridis Augustinianum, 37 (Rome, 1992) 275-303 Savigni, R., Le commentaire d’Alcuin sur l’Epître aux Hebreux et le thème du sacrifice, AY, 245-268 Schaferdiek, K., Der adoptionische Streit im Rahmen der spanische Kirchengeschichte I, Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, 80 (1969) 291-311 & II ibid. 81 (1970) 1-16 Schaller, D., Die karolingischen Figurengedichte des Cod. Berenensis 212 in Medium Aevum Vivum: Festschrift fur Walther Bulst (Heidelberg, 1960) 20-47

346

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Schaller, D., Vortrags und Zirkulardichtung am Hof Karls des Grossen, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 6 (1969) 14-36 Schaller, D., Poetic rivalries in the court of Charlemagne in R.R. Bolgar ed. Classical influences on European culture 500-1500 (Vol.1 - Cambridge, 1973) 151-7 Schmitz, G., Bonifatius und Alkuin: ein Beitrag zur Glaubensverkundigung in der Karolingerzeit, AGG, 73-90 Schmitz, W., Alcuins ‘Ars Grammatica’: die lateinische Schulgrammatik der karolingischen Renaissance (Ratingen, 1908) Schmucki, K., Fruhzeitliche Editionen von Texten Alkuins aus Handschriften der Klosterbibliothek St Gallen, AGG, 263-87 Schneider, H.M., Roman liturgy and Frankish allegory in Smith, J.M.H., (ed.) Early medieval Rome & the Christian West: essays in honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean, 28 (Leiden, 2000) 341-379 Schutz, H., The Carolingians in central Europe, their history, arts & architecture (Brill/ Leiden, 2004) Scott, P.D., Alcuin as poet: rhetoric & belief in his Latin verse, University of Toronto Quarterly, 33 (1964) 233-257 Scott, P.D., Alcuin’s ‘Versus de Cuculo’: the vision of pastoral friendship, Studies in Philology, 62 (1965) 510-530 Semmler, J., Zur Entschiedung aufgerufen: ‘Vita religiosa’ um 800 in FK 395-416 Serralda, V., Étude comparé de la ‘Confessio Fidei’ attribuée à Alcuin et de la ‘Confessio Theologica’ de Jean de Fécamp, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 23 (1988) 17-27 Shimizu, T., Alcuin’s theory of signification and system of philosophy, Didascalia, 2 (1996) 1-18 Sicard, D., La liturgie de la mort dans l’Église Latine des origins a la réforme carolingienne (Munster, 1978) Siecienski, A.E., The Filioque – the history of a doctrinal controversy (Oxford, 2010) Simisi, L., La ‘Cartula’ di Alcuino, viaggio virtuale attraverso la Frisia e l’Austrasia in Gottschalk, D., (ed) Testi cosmografici, geografici ed odeoporici del medioevo germanico (Louvain, 2005) 239-59 Sims-Williams, P., Ephraim the Syrian in Anglo-Saxon England in Lapidge, M., & H. Gneuss (eds.) Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1985) Sims-Williams, P., Religion & literature in western England, 600-800, Cambridge studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (Cambridge, 1990) Singmaster, D., The history of some of Alcuin’s propositions in Butzer, P., Kerner, M., & Oberschelp, W., (eds.) Karl der Grosse und sein Nachwirken, 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa /Charlemagne and his heritage: 1200 years of civilization and science in Europe (Turnhout, 1997) vol. 2, 11-30 Sisam, K., The structure of Beowulf (Oxford, 1965) Smalley, B., The study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1952) Smalley, B., L’Exegèse Biblique dans la litérature Latine SSCI X “La Bibbià dell’alto medioevo” (1963) Smardi, D.M., Alcuino di York nella tradizione degli ‘Specula Principis’ (Milan, 1999) Sot, M., et al., Histoire et écriture de l’histoire dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin, AY, 175-192 Springsfeld, K., Alkuins Einfluss auf die Komputistik zur Zeit Karls des Grossen (Stuttgart, 2002) Springsfeld, K., Karl der Grosse, Alkuin und die Zeitrechnung in Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 27 (Wiesbaden, 2004) 53-66

Bibliography

347

Stallbaumer, V.R., The York cathedral school, American Benedictine Review, 22 (1971) 286-97 Stapleton, P.J., ‘Kontrastimitation’ and typology in Alcuin’s York poem, Viator, 43[1] (2012) 67-78 Staubach, N., ‘Cultus Divinus’, Fruhmittelalterlischen Studien, 18 (1984) 546-581 Steinen, W. von den, Karl und die Dichter in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 63-94 Stella, F., La Poesià Carolingia Latina a Tema Biblica, Biblioteca di Medioevo Latino, 9 (Spoleto, 1993) 43-4 Stella, F., Alkuins Dichtung, AGG, 107-128 Stewart, H.F., et al (eds.,) Boethius – The theological tractates & the Consolation of Philosophy (Loeb/Harvard, 1973) Stevens, W.M., Bede’s scientific achievement (Jarrow, 1985) Story, J., Cathwulf, Kingship & the royal abbey of St Denis, Speculum, 74 (1999) 3-21 Story, J., Carolingian connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c.750-870 (London, 2003) Sullivan, R.E., Christian missionary activity in the early middle ages (Aldershot, Brookfield, 1994) Sullivan, R.E., (ed.) The Gentle Voices of Teachers – aspects of learning in the Carolingian age (Ohio, 1995) Swiggers, P., Alcuin et les doctrines grammaticales, AY, 147-162 Szarmach, P., A preliminary handlist of manuscripts containing Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, Manuscripta, 25 (1981) 131-40 Szarmach, P., (ed.) Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Kalamazoo, 1986) Szarmach, P., The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s ‘Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, cap xxvii-xxv, with special reference to Vercelli homily XX, Mediaevalia, 12 (1986) 13-41 Szarmach, P., Cotton Tiberius A. iii, Arts. 26 & 27 in Korhammer, M., (ed.) Words, texts & manuscripts: studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1992) 29-42 Szerwniack, O., Les ‘Interpretationes nominum Hebraicorum progenitorum Iesu Christi’ [ALC 62]: une oeuvre authentique d’Alcuin, AY, 289-300 Talbot, C.H., The Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany (London, 1954) Tax, P.W., Der Kommentar des ‘Erkanbert’ zum Johannes evangelium: ein Beitrag zur Verfasserschaft, Quellenfrage und Textkritik, Sacris Erudiri, 48 (2009) 169-90 Taylor, P., The construction ‘habere-with-infinitive’ in Alcuin as an expression of the future, The Romanic Review, 15 (1924) 123-127 Thacker, A., Bede & Augustine of Hippo: history and figure in sacred text (Jarrow, 2005) Thompson, A.H. (ed.) Bede: his life, times and writings (Oxford, 1935) Thompson, E.M., An introduction to Greek & Latin Palaeography (Oxford, 1912) Thornbury, E.V., Aldhelm’s rejection of the Muses and the mechanics of poetic inspiration in early Anglo-Saxon England, ASE, 36 (2007) 71-92 Thorpe, L., Two Lives of Charlemagne – Einhard & Notker the Stammerer (London, 1969) Thoss, D., Studien zum ‘locus amoenus’ im Mittelalter, Wiener Romanistische Arbeiten, X (Vienna/Stuttgart, 1972) Thummel, H.G., Die frankische Reaktion auf das 2 Nicaenum in den Libri Carolini, FK, 965-980 Tiefenbach, H., Altsächisches und Althochdeutsches im Latein Alkuins, Sprachwissenschaft, 5 (1980) 320-338 Torkar, R., Eine altenglische Ubersetzung von Alkuins ‘De virtutibus et vitiis’ kap.21 (Munich, 1977) Tolkien, J.R.R., Beowulf – the monsters and the critics (London, 1936)

348

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Treffort, C., La place d’Alcuin dans la rédaction épigraphique carolingienne, AY, 353-370 Tremp, E., & Schmuki, K., (eds.) Alkuin von York und die geistige Grundlegung Europas (St Gallen, 2010) Tremp, E., Alkuin und das Kloster St. Gallen, AGG, 229-250 Troncarelli, F., Tradizione Perdute: la ‘Consolatio Philosophiae’ nell’Alto Medioevo (Padua, 1980) 107f Turner, D.H., The prayer-book of archbishop Arnulph II of Milan, RB, 70 (1960) 360-92 Uhlfelder, M.L., Classicism and Christianity: a poetic synthesis, Latomus, 34 (1975) 224-31 Ullmann, W., The Carolingian renaissance & the idea of kingship (London, 1969) Unterkirchen, F., (ed.) Alkuin Briefe und andere tractate im Auftrage des Salzburger Erzbischofs Arn um 799 zu einem Sammelband vereinigt [Codex Vindobonensis 795 – Österreichischen National Bibliothek Faksimileausgab] (Graz, 1969) Urvoy, D., Les conséquences christologiques de la confrontation islamo-chrétienne en Espagne au VIIIe siècle, FK, 981-992 Van de Lisdonk, M.L. Van Poll, Alcuins de Sanctis Euboricensis Ecclesiae – vers 1-605: de Bronnen van een Carolingisch Epos (Rotterdam, 1981) Veyrard-Cosme, C., Typologie et hagiographie en prose carolingienne: mode de pensée et reécriture. Étude de la ‘Vita Willibrordi’, de la ‘Vita Vedasti’, et de la ‘Vita Richarii’ d’Alcuin in D. Boutet & L. Harf-Lancer (eds.) Écriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Âge (viii–xv siècles) (Paris, 1993) 157-186 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Littérature latine du haut Moyen Âge et idéologie politique: l’exemple d’Alcuin, Revue des Études Latines, 72 (1994) 192-207 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Le thème de la lumière dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin, Bulletin de la Societé Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1997) 170-5 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Réflexion politique et pratique du pouvoir dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin in D. Boutet et al. (eds.) Pensée et pouvoir au Moyen Âge [viii–xv siècle]. Études offertes à Francoise Autrand (Paris, 1999) 401-25 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Le paganisme dans l’oeuvre d’Alcuin in L. Mary et M. Sot (eds.) Impiés et paiens entre Antiquité et Moyen Âge: Textes, images et monuments de l’Antiquité au haut Moyen Âge (Paris, 2002) 323-51 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Saint Jerome dans les lettres d’Alcuin, Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 49 (2003) 323-351 Veyrard-Cosme, C., L’oeuvre hagiographique en prose d’Alcuin: Vitae Willibrordi, Vedasti, Richarii. Édition, traduction, études narratologiques (Florence, 2003) Veyrard-Cosme, C., Alcuin et la reécriture hagiographique: d’un programme avoué d’’emendatio’ à son actualisation in Goulet, M., et al (eds) La reécriture hagiographique dans l’Occident mediéval: transformations formelles et idéologiques (Ostfilder, 2003) 71-86 Veyrard-Cosme, C., L’image de Charlemagne dans la correspondance d’Alcuin in Cogitore, I., & Goyet, Fr., (eds) L’éloge du Prince: de l’Antiquité au temps des lumières (Grenoble, 2003) 145-50 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Les motifs épistolaires dans la correspondance d’Alcuin, AY, 193-208 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Bede dans les ‘lettres’ d’Alcuin: de la source à l’exemplum in Lebecq, S., Perrin, M., Szerwiniack, O., (eds.) Bede le vénérable entre tradition et posterité (Paris, 2005) 223-30 Veyrard-Cosme, C., Épistolographie: lettres et écriture mémorielle à l’époque carolingienne in Casanova, H., et al. (eds.) Écritures latines de la mémoire (Paris, 2010) 131-59 Viarre, S., Les Carmina d’Alcuin et la réception de la tradition chrétienne dans les formes

Bibliography

349

antiques in Lateinische Kultur im VIII Jahrhundert (ed. A. Lehner & W. Berschin (St Ottilien, 1989) 217-41 Viarre, S., Enjeux épistolaires et présence de la correspondance d’Alcuin, Epistulae Antiquae, IV (Louvain, 2006) 285-98 Vielberg, M., Der Monchsbischof von Tours in ‘Martinellus’: zur Form des hagiographischen Dossier und seines spätantiken Leitbilds (Berlin/New York, 2006 Villa, C., Die Horazuberlieferung und die ‘Bibliothek des Karls des Grossen’. Zum Werkverzeichnis der Handschrift Berlin Diez B.66, DA, 51 (1995) 29-52 Vineis, E., Grammatica e filosofia del linguaggio in Alcuino, Studi e Saggi Linguistici, 28 (1988) 403-29 Vogel, C., La réforme liturgique sous Charlemagne in Bischoff, B., (ed.) Karl der Grosse – Lebenswerk und Nachleben: vol II – Das Geistige Leben (Dusseldorf, 1966) 217-232 Vogel, C., Medieval liturgy: an introduction to the sources ed. & tr. N.K. Rasmussen & W.G. Story (Washington D.C., 1986) Von Euw, A., Alkuin als Lehrer de Komputistikik und Rhetorik Karls des Grossen im Spiegel der St. Galler Handschriften, AGG, 251-262 Waddell, H., (tr.) Medieval Latin Lyrics (London, 1929) Waldhoff, S., Alcuins Gebetbuch fur Karl den Grossen: seine Rekonstrucktion und seine Stellung in der fruhmittelalterlichen Geschichte der ‘Libelli Precum’, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forsuchungen, Veroffentlichungen des Abt. Herwegen-Instutitus der Abtei Maria Laach, 89 (Munster, 2003) Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., The Via Regia of the Carolingian age in B. Smalley (ed.) Trends in medieval political thought (Oxford, 1965) 22-41 [in Early medieval history (Oxford, 1975)181-200] Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., Early Germanic kingship in England & on the Continent (Oxford, 1971) Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., Early medieval history (Oxford, 1975) Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983) Wallach, L., Alcuin on virtues and vices. A manual for a Carolingian soldier, HTR, 46 (1955) 175-195 Wallach, L., Alcuin on sophistry, Classical Philology, 59 (1955) 259-261 Wallach, L., A manuscript of Tours with an Alcuinian ‘incipit’, HTR, 51 (1958) 255-61 Wallach, L., Alcuin & Charlemagne: studies in Carolingian history & literature, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 32 (Ithaca, 1959/1968) Wallach, L., Diplomatic studies in Latin and Greek documents from the Carolingian age (Ithaca & London, 1977) Wallis, F., Bede – the reckoning of time (Liverpool, 1999) Ward, B., The Venerable Bede (London, 1990) Ward, B., Bede & the Psalter (Jarrow, 1991) Warner, G., (ed.) The Stowe Missal, HBS, (1906) Whitelock, D., The audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951) Whitelock, D., After Bede (Jarrow, 1960) Whitelock, D., (ed.) English Historical Documents, vol. 1, 2nd edn. (London, 1979) Whitelock, D., et al., (ed.) Councils & Synods AD 871-1204, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1981) Wieland, G., Alcuin’s ambiguous attitude towards the Classics, JML, 2 (1992) 84-95 Wieland, G., Gestalt und Struktur der Karolinger Reform in Vergleich zur Renaissance des 12 Jahrhundert, Archa Verbi, 4 (Munster, 2007) 90-102

350

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Willis, G.G., Essays in early Roman liturgy, Alcuin Club Collections, 46 (London, 1964) Willis, G.G., Further essays in early Roman liturgy, Alcuin Club Collections, 50 (London, 1968) Wilmart, A., Manuscrits de Tours copiés et decorés vers le temps d’Alcuin, RB, 42 (1930) 41-54 Wilmart, A., Dodaldus Clerc et Scribe de St Martin de Tours, Speculum, 6 (1931) 573-586 Wilmart, A., & E. Bishop, La réforme liturgique de Charlemagne, EL, 45 (1931) 186-207 Wilmart, A., Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du Moyen Âge Latin: études d’histoire littéraire, Études Augustiniennes (Paris, 1932/1971) Wilmart, A., Un florilège carolingien sur le symbolisme des cérémonies du baptême, avec un appendice sur la lettre de Jean Diacre, [Vatican MS Reg. Lat. 69 fol. 116-122] Studi e Testi, 59 (Rome, 1933) 153-166 Wilmart, A., Un témoin Anglo-Saxon du calendrier métrique d’York, RB, 46 (1934) 41-69 Wilmart, A., Un traité sur la messe copié en Angleterre vers l’an 800, EL, 50 (1936) 133-9 Wilmart, A., Le manuel de prières de saint Jean Gualbert, RB, 48 (1936) 259-299 Wilmart, A., Le lectionnaire d’Alcuin, EL, 51 (1937) 136-97 Wilmart, A., L’ordre des parties dans le traité de Paulin d’Aquilée contre Felix d’Urgel, JTS, 39 (1938) 22-37 Wilmart, A., Precum libelli quattuor Aevi Karolini (EL, 1940) Wilson, D.M., (ed.) The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1981) Wilson, H.A., The Gelasian Sacramentary, HBS (1894) Wilson, H.A., The Gregorian Sacramentary, HBS (1915) Wilson, H.A., The Calendar of St Willibrord, HBS (1918) Withers, B.C., The illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Cotton Claudius B.iv – the frontier of seeing & reading in Anglo-Saxon England (London & Toronto, 2007) Wood, I., Missionary hagiography in the eighth and ninth centuries in Brunner, K. & Merta. B., (eds) Ethnogenese und Uberlieferung: Angewandte Methoden der Fruhmittelalterforschung (Vienna, 1994) 189-99 Wood, I., The missionary life: saints & the evangelisation of Europe 400-1050 (London, 2006) Wormald, P., Bede, Beowulf & the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy in R.T Farrell, (Ed.) Bede and Anglo-Saxon England (British Archaeological Reports 46, Oxford, BAR, 1978) 32-95 Wormald P., & Nelson, J.L., (eds.) Lay intellectuals in the Carolingian world (Cambridge, 2007) Wrenn, C.L., (ed.) Beowulf (revised by W.F. Bolton, London, 1973) Wright, C.D., Alcuin’s Ambrose – polemics, patrology and textual criticism, GL 3 143-170 Wright, F.A., Jerome – select letters (Loeb/Harvard, 1933) Wright, R., Late Latin & early Romance: Alcuin’s ‘De Orthographia’ and the Council of Tours 813 in F. Cairns (ed.) Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar (Liverpool, 1981) 323-42 Wright, R., Late Latin & early Romance in Spain & Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982) Wright, R. (ed.) Latin & the Romance languages in the early Middle Ages (London, 1991) Ziolkowski, J.M., & Putnam, M.C.J., The Virgilian Tradition – the first 1500 years (Yale, 2008) Zupitza, J., (ed.) Beowulf – a facsimile of British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A.xv (EETS, 1959)

356

Alcuin – Theology and Thought

Index of Alcuin’s Principal Writings

Excluding the poems, inscriptions and letters Correlated with the Clavis numeration

ALC 5 Adversus Elipandum 68, 80, 8590 ALC 6 Adversus Felicem 68, 80, 82-3, 85-9 ALC 9 Ars grammatica 23-4, 199, 203, 204-5, 207, 208, 210, 212, 237 ALC 10 Calculatio Albini 25, 37, 202 ALC 12 Comes ab Albinus emendatus 187 ALC 15 Compendium in Canticum Canticorum 25, 58, 159-60, 229 ALC 17 De Animae ratione 58, 94, 181, 198, 199-200, 203, 213-5 ALC 26 De Dialectica 24, 57, 196, 199, 208-10, 211 ALC 28 De Fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis 58, 76, 84, 94-111, 177-8, 200, 203, 210, 216 ALC 30 De Laude Dei 32, 33-4, 172 ALC 32 De Orthographia 24, 204, 206-7, 237 ALC 33 De Psalmorum usu 173-5, 181, 199 ALC 34 De Saltu lunae 25, 202 ALC 36 De Trinitate ad Fredegisum Quaestiones xxviii 94, 200, 203, 211 ALC 37 De Virtutibus et vitiis 26, 143, 180-3, 199, 203, 216-9 ALC 38 Disputatio de Rhetorica et de

virtutibus 57, 143, 197, 199, 205, 208-9, 216, 218 ALC 40 Disputatio de vera Philosophia 58, 197, 199, 203, 212-3 ALC 41 Disputatio Pippini cum Albino 200-1 ALC 44 Enchiridion in psalmos 173-5 ALC 49 Explanatio Apocalypsis 2 5 , 58, 169-70 ALC 50 Expositio in Ecclesiasten 158, 240 ALC 51 Expositio in Iohannis evangelium 25, 58, 166-9, 203 ALC 64 Liber contra Felicis haeresim 6 7 , 80-2, 85-90 ALC 75 Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes 202 ALC 76 Quaestiones in Genesism ad litteram 25, 154-8, 169, 211 ALC 78 Ratio de luna XV et de cursu lunae 202 ALC 87 Versus de patribus regibus et sanctis Euboricensis ecclesiae 23, 2738, 123-6, 129, 204, 220-1, 229 ALC 89 Vita sancti Martini 122, 237 ALC 90 Vita sancti Richarii 1, 22, 129-31 ALC 91 Vita sancti Vedasti 122, 129-31, 189 ALC 92 Vita sancti Willibrordi 26, 119, 122, 125-9, 146, 220, 237