A decree of the Council held at Cloveshoe in 747, pointing out the want of instruction among the religious, and ordering all bishops, abbots, and abbesses to promote and encourage learning, whether it means that monkish education was on the wane or that it was not making such quick progress as was desired, at any rate does not mean that England was in a bad way in this respect, or that she lagged behind the Continent. On the contrary, England and Ireland were renowned homes of learning in Western Europe. Perhaps a few centres on the mainland could show libraries as good as those here; but certainly no country had such scholars. England’s pre-eminence was recognized by Charles the Great when he invited Alcuin to his court (781).
Alcuin was brought up at York from childhood. In company with Albert, who taught the arts and grammar at this northern school, Alcuin visited Gaul and Rome to scrape together a few more books. On returning later he was entrusted with the care of the library: a task for which he was well fitted, if enthusiasm, breaking into rime, be a qualification:—
“Small is the space which contains the gifts of heavenly Wisdom
Which you, reader, rejoice piously here to receive;
Better than richest gifts of the Kings, this treasure of Wisdom,
Light, for the seeker of this, shines on the road to the Day.”[75]
York could not retain Alcuin long. Fortunately, just when dissensions among the English kings, and the Danish raids began to harass England, and to threaten the coming decline of her learning, he was invited to take charge of a school established by Charles the Great. Charles had undertaken the task of reviving literary study, well-nigh extinguished through the neglect of his ancestors; and he bade all his subjects to cultivate the arts. As far as he could he accomplished the task, principally owing to the aid of the English scholar and of willing helpers from Ireland.
Alcuin was soon at the head of St. Martin’s of Tours where he was responsible for the great activity of the scribes in his day. He persuaded Charles to send a number of copyists to York. “I, your Flavius,” he writes, “according to your exhortation and wise desire, have been busy under the roof of St. Martin, in dispensing to some the honey of the Holy Scriptures. Others I strive to inebriate with the old wine of ancient studies; these I nourish with the fruit of grammatical knowledge; in the eyes of these again I seek to make bright the courses of the stars.... But I have need of the most excellent books of scholastic learning, which I had procured in my own country, either by the devoted care of my master, or by my own labours. I therefore beseech your majesty ... to permit me to send certain of our household to bring over into France the flowers of Britain, that the garden of Paradise may not be confined to York, but may send some of its scions to Tours.” What the “flowers of Britain” were at this time Alcuin has told us in Latin verse. At York, “where he sowed the seeds of knowledge in the morning of his life,” thou shall find, he rimes:—
“The volumes that contain
All the ancient fathers who remain;
There all the Latin writers make their home
With those that glorious Greece transferred to Rome,—
The Hebrews draw from their celestial stream,
And Africa is bright with learning’s beam.”
Then, after including in his metrical catalogue the names of forty writers, he proceeds:—
“There shalt thou find, O reader, many more
Famed for their style, the masters of old lore,
Whose many volumes singly to rehearse
Were far too tedious for our present verse.”[76]
A goodly store indeed in such an age.