Alcuin of York

by G. F. Browne

To us in England, and especially to those of us who are North-countrymen, nothing that Alcuin wrote has a higher interest than his poem in Latin hexameters on the Bishops and Saints of the Church of York. By the Church of York Alcuin evidently meant the Church of Northumbria, although his account of the prelates dwells chiefly on the archbishops of his time. Considering his long sojourn in France, it was fitting that the manuscript of this famous poem should be discovered at a monastery near Reims, the monastery of St. Theodoric, or Thierry according to the later spelling. A great part of the poem is in the main a versification of Bede’s prose history of the conversion of the North to Christianity, and an adaptation of Bede’s metrical life of St. Cuthbert. On this account the French transcriber from the original omitted about 1100 of the 1657 lines of which the poem consists, and only about 550 lines were originally printed by Mabillon in the Acta Sanctorum. When our own Gale was preparing to publish it, he got the missing verses both from the St. Theodoric MS. and also from a MS. at Reims itself. Both manuscripts disappeared long ago, probably in the devastations of the French Revolution[85].

The poem describes the importance of York in the time of the Roman occupation of Britain, the residence, as Alcuin tells us, of the dukes of Britain, and of sovereigns of Rome. York was, in fact, the imperial city; it shared with Trèves the honour of being the only imperial cities north of the Alps. He speaks eloquently of its beautiful surroundings, its flowery fields, its noble edifices, its fertility, its charm as a home. This part of the poem inclines the reader to settle in favour of York the uncertainty as to the place of Alcuin’s birth. One graphic touch, and the use of a special Latin name for the river Ouse which flows through the middle of the city, goes to the heart of those who in their youth have fished in that river—

Hanc piscosa suis undis interluit Usa.

He goes on to speak of the persistent inroads of the Picts after the withdrawal of the Roman troops. Inasmuch as the sixth legion was quartered at York, and all of the other three legions in Britain were withdrawn before the sixth, it may be claimed that York was the last place effectively occupied by the Roman troops. This indeed is in itself probable, since York was in the best position for checking the attempts of the Picts to reach the central and southern parts of Britain. He describes how the leaders of the Britons sent large bribes to a warlike race, to bring them over to protect the land, a race, he says, called from their hardness Saxi, as though Saxons meant stones.[86] The eventual conquest of the Britons by the Saxons evidently had Alcuin’s full sympathy. The Britons were lazy; worse than that, they were wicked; for their sins they were rightly driven out, and a better race entered into possession of their cities. We would give a great deal to have had from Alcuin a few words of tradition about some details of the occupation of York by the Angles, and of the fate of the British inhabitants. Alcuin’s words would suggest that their fate was a cruel one, but we do not know anything of it from any source whatsoever. One of his remarks strikes us as curious, considering that the Britons were Christians and their conquerors were pagan: the expulsion, he says, was the work of God, that a race might enter into possession who should keep the precepts of the Lord. Clearly Alcuin held a brief for his ancestors of some five generations before his birth. He writes also in a rather lordly way of the kingdom of Kent, as though Northumbria was the really important province in the time of King Edwin, as indeed it unquestionably was. Edwin was the most prominent personage in England, the Bretwalda, at the time of the conversion of Northumbria. All that Alcuin says of Edwin’s young wife Ethelburga, and of the kingdom of Kent whence she came, is this: “He took from the southern parts a faithful wife, of excellent disposition, of illustrious origin, endowed with all the virtues of the holy faith.” We shall have, at a later stage, to remark upon the silence with which Wessex also was treated by Alcuin.

It is quite true that the facts of the greater part of the poem are taken from Bede. But it is of much interest to note the selection which Alcuin made. Of the kings, he writes of Edwin, Oswald, Oswy, Ecgfrith, and Aldfrith, omitting mention of the sub-kings, several of whom were connected with constitutional difficulties. Of the bishops, he writes of Paulinus, Wilfrith, Cuthbert, Bosa, and John, mentioning Aidan only incidentally, but with the epithet “most holy”. He avoids all controversial topics in writing of Wilfrith. There is just one word of reference to Wilfrith’s many disturbances, in connexion with the only mention Alcuin makes here of Rome: Wilfrith, he says, was journeying to Rome, compulsus, being driven to go there. It is worthy of remark that of the hundred and sixty-eight lines which Alcuin gives to his account of Wilfrith, he devotes nine to Wilfrith’s vision, in which the name of the Blessed Virgin played so large a part. It was Wilfrith’s chaplain, Eddi, who recorded this, not Bede, who is very reticent about Wilfrith. Michael appeared to Wilfrith at a crisis in a serious illness, and announced that he was sent by the Almighty to inform him that he would recover. The message went on to explain that this was due to the merits and prayers of the holy mother Mary, who from the celestial throne had heard with open ears the groans, the tears (sic)[87], and the vows of the companions of Wilfrith, and had begged for him life and health. Stephen Eddi gives a highly characteristic ending to the message, which Alcuin omits. “Remember,” the archangel said, “that in honour of St. Peter and St. Andrew thou hast built churches; but to the holy Mary, ever Virgin, who intercedes for thee, thou hast reared none. This thou must amend, by dedicating a church to her honour.” The church which he had built for St. Peter was at Ripon, that for St. Andrew was at Hexham; we have still in each case the confessio, or crypt for relics, which he built under those churches. In obedience to the vision, Wilfrith now built a church of St. Mary by the side of the church of St. Andrew at Hexham. This present generation has seen a noble restoration and completion of the abbey church of Hexham.[88]

It is scarcely necessary to remark upon this grouping together of churches dedicated to various saints. At Malmesbury, under St. Aldhelm, there were six churches on the hill in one group, St. Andrew, St. Laurence, St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Peter and St. Paul, and the little Irish basilica of Maildulf.

Alcuin mentions also the missionary zeal of the Northumbrian church, beginning with the early Ecgbert, who on the expulsion of Wilfrith left Ripon, and lived for the rest of his life in Ireland as a trainer of missionaries. Besides him, Alcuin names as English missionaries Wibert, Wilbrord, the two Hewalds, Suidbert, and Wira.

So far Alcuin copied Bede and Eddi. In the last 442 lines of his poem he gives us information which we do not find elsewhere, dealing in some detail with Bishop Wilfrith II and Archbishops Ecgbert, Albert, and Eanbald, of York. Wilfrith II resigned the bishopric of York in the year of Alcuin’s birth, after holding it for fourteen years. A delightful account of him had been handed down to Alcuin’s time. He was to all acceptable, venerable, honourable, lovable. He took great pains in improving and beautifying the ornaments of his church, covering altar and crosses with silver plates, gilded. Other churches in the city he beautified in like manner. He was zealous in multiplying the congregations; following the precepts of the Lord; careful in doctrine; bright in example. Liberal with hand and mouth, he fed the minds of the studious and the bodies of the needy. In the end he retired and spent his latest years in contemplation.

Of Ecgbert, the succeeding bishop, Alcuin writes in terms of the highest praise. He was evidently more of a ruler than the second Wilfrith had been, and could be very severe with evil men. He had a love for beautiful things, and added much to the treasures of the church, special mention being made of silk hangings with foreign patterns woven in. It was to him that Bede wrote the striking letter which we have analysed above. He was of the royal house of Northumbria, and one of his brothers succeeded to the throne while Ecgbert was archbishop. The bishop had taken Bede’s advice, had sought and obtained from Rome the pallium, as the sign of metropolitical position. Curiously enough, Alcuin makes no reference to this, the most important ecclesiastical step of the time, another silence on his part which may have hid feelings he did not wish to express. He does mention the pall, but only as a matter of course, in comparing the two brothers, the prelate and the king; the one, he says, bore on his shoulder the palls sent by the Apostolic, the other on his head the diadems of his ancestors. He draws a charming picture of the two brothers working together for the country’s good, each in his own sphere,

The times were happy then for this our race,