Alcuin of York

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The large bulk of Alcuin's letters and other writings.? The main dates of his life. ? Bede's advice to Ecgbert.? Careless lives of bishops.?No parochial system.?Inadequacy of the bishops' oversight.?Great monasteries to be used as sees for new bishoprics, and evil monasteries to be...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The large bulk of Alcuin's letters and other writings.? The main dates of his life. ? Bede's advice to Ecgbert.? Careless lives of bishops.?No parochial system.?Inadequacy of the bishops' oversight.?Great monasteries to be used as sees for new bishoprics, and evil monasteries to be suppressed.?Election of abbats and hereditary descent.?Evils of pilgrimages.?Daily Eucharists. We in the diocese of Bristol have a special right to study and to make much of the letters of Alcuin. Our own great historian, William of Malmesbury, had in the library of Malmesbury from the year 1100 and onwards an important collection of these letters, from which he quotes frequently in support of the historical statements which he makes. More than that, we know of some of the letters of Alcuin only from the quotations from them thus made by William in this diocese some 800 years ago. This is specially stated by Abbat Froben, of Ratisbon, who edited the letters of Alcuin 140 years ago. The letters of Alcuin are addressed to an emperor, to kings, queens, popes, patriarchs, archbishops, dukes, and others; so that of Alcuin's political importance there can be no question. As to his learning, William of Malmesbury pays him the great compliment of naming him along with our own Aldhelm and with Bede. Of all the Angles, he says,1 of whom I have read, Alcuinwas, next to the holy Aldhelm and Bede, certainly the most learned. ' Qesta Begum, i. 3. Alcuin was born in Northumbria in or about the year 735. He left England to live in France in 782, returned for a time in 792, and left finally in 793. He died in 804. We can thus see how he stands in regard of date to those with whom we have dealt in former lectures. Aldhelm and Wilfrith died in 709, only about a quarter of a century before ...