Scholar and adviser to the emperor Charlemagne, born in York, North Yorkshire, N England, UK. He studied at the cloister school, of which he became master in 778. In 781, he met Charlemagne at Parma, and joined the court at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). Here he devoted himself first to the education of the royal family, but through his influence the court became a school of culture for the Frankish empire, inspiring the Carolingian Renaissance. His works comprise poems; works on grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics; theological and ethical treatises; lives of several saints; and over 200 letters.
This article is about the scholar Alcuin of York. For the University of York college, see Alcuin College.Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus or Ealhwine (c.735–May 19, 804) was a scholar and teacher from York, England. He was a noble, related to Saint Willibrord whose father founded the monastery of St. Andrew which Alcuin would later inherit.
Biography
Alcuin of York had a long career as a teacher and scholar, first at the school at York now known as St Peter's School, York (founded AD 627) and later as Charlemagne's leading advisor on ecclesiastical and educational affairs.
Alcuin came to the cathedral school of York in the golden age of Egbert and Eadbert. Alcuin thrived under Egbert’s tutelage who loved him especially. It was in York that he formed his love of classical poetry, though he was sometimes troubled by the fact that it was written by non-Christians.
The York school was renowned as a center of learning not only in religious matters but also in the liberal arts, literature and science named the seven liberal arts. It was from here that Alcuin drew inspiration for the school he would lead at the Frankish court.
Alcuin graduated from student to teacher sometime in the 750s. His ascendancy to the headship of the York school began after Aelbert became Archbishop of York in 767. Around the same time Alcuin became a deacon in the church.
In 781, King Elfwald sent Alcuin to Rome to petition the Pope for official confirmation of York’s status as an archbishopric and to confirm the election of a new archbishop, Eanbald I. It was then, on his way home, that Alcuin met Charles, king of the Franks.
Alcuin was reluctantly persuaded to join Charles's court.
Alcuin was welcomed at the Palace School of Charlemagne. From 782 to 790, Alcuin had as pupils the Charlemagne himself, his sons Pepin and Louis, the young men sent for their education to the court, and the young clerics attached to the palace chapel. Bringing with him from York his assistants Pyttel, Sigewulf and Joseph, Alcuin revolutionized the educational standards of the Palace School, introducing Charlemagne to the liberal arts and creating a personalized atmosphere of scholarship and learning to the extent that the institution came to be known as the "school of Master Albinus".
Charlemagne was master at gathering the best men of every nation in his court. Alcuin soon found himself on intimate terms with the king and with the other men at court to whom he gave nicknames to be used for work and play. Alcuin himself was known as "Albinus" or "Flaccus". Like many of his learned contemporaries, Alcuin was an astrologer. David Berlinski, author of The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction (ISBN 0-15-100527-3) writes: "The ninth-century philosopher Alcuin, his voyages to the Middle East now abrogated, was an astrological adept, and it is widely claimed that he taught Charlemagne the principles of classical astrology" (pg.
Alcuin’s friendships also extended to the ladies of the court, especially the queen mother and the daughters of the king.
In 790 Alcuin went back to England, to which he had always been greatly attached. At the Council of Frankfurt in 794, Alcuin upheld the orthodox doctrine, and obtained the condemnation of the heresiarch Felix of Urgel. Having failed during his stay in England to influence King Aethelraed of Northumbria in the conduct of his reign, Alcuin never returned to live in England. Alcuin was back at Charlemagne's court by at least mid 792, writing a series of letters to Aethelraed of Northumbria, to Hygbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and Aethelheard, Archbishop of Canterbury in the succeeding months, which deal with the attack on Lindisfarne by Viking raiders in July 792. These letters, and Alcuin's poem on the subject De clade Lindisfarnensis monasterii provide the only significant contemporary account of these events.
In 796 Alcuin was in his sixties. King Charles gave the abbey into Alcuin's care with the understanding that he should be available if the king ever needed his counsel.
As Carolingian Renaissance figure
He made the abbey school into a model of excellence, and many students flocked to it;
Alcuin is the most prominent figure of the Carolingian Renaissance, in which three main periods have been distinguished: in the first of these, up to the arrival of Alcuin at the court, the Italians occupy the central place; in the second, Alcuin and the Anglo-Saxons are dominant;
We owe to him, too, some manuals used in his educational work; They are written in the form of dialogues, and in the two last the interlocutors are Charlemagne and Alcuin.
Alcuin transmitted to the Franks the knowledge of Latin culture which had existed in England. Besides some graceful epistles in the style of Fortunatus, he wrote some long poems, and notably a whole history in verse of the church at York: Versus de patribus, regibus et sanctis Eboracensis ecclesiae.
Alcuin died on May 19, 804, some ten years before the emperor. He was buried at St. Martin’s Church under an epitaph that partly read:
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Dust, worms, and ashes now... Alcuin my name, wisdom I always loved, Pray, reader, for my soul. |
Alcuin College, part of the University of York, is named after him.
Among the most interesting extant writing of Alcuin is his poetry. Recent scholarship suggests that Alcuin may have been homosexually inclined if not in actions then certainly emotionally. (See Boswell below in further reading.)
A tradition reemerged at this time that celebrated male bonds of love.
Thomas Stehling wrote that, "to receive an education and to learn to read and write in the middle ages meant entering the church and living in a community of men who had forsaken the idea of marriage, though not necessarily all sexual activity."
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