Alcuin of York

by G. F. Browne

We should here bear in mind that Ethelred had fourteen years before this been expelled for cruel murders, and that he was now in the first year of his restored reign and had already sent away his first wife and taken another, a scandal so great in those days—bad as they were—that the Saxon Chronicle with remarkable particularity gives the month and the day of the gross offence, September 29. He afterwards murdered the two surviving members of the royal house.

Alcuin’s letter to the king proceeds:—

“It is now nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have dwelt in this most fair land, and never before has such a horror appeared in Britain as we now have suffered at the hands of pagans. And it was not supposed that such an attack from the sea was possible.[133] Behold, the church of the holy Cuthbert is deluged with the blood of the priests of God, is spoiled of all its ornaments; the place more venerable than any other in Britain is given as a prey to pagan races. From the spot where, after the departure of the holy Paulinus from York, the Christian religion took its beginning amongst us, from that spot misery and calamity have begun. Who does not fear? Who does not mourn this as if his fatherland itself was captured?”

We should note Alcuin’s recognition of the fact that the restoration of Christianity in Northumbria was due not to persons of the Anglo-Saxon race and Church, but to Aidan and his monks of the Irish race and Church.

“My brethren, give your most attentive consideration, your most diligent investigation, to this question,—is this most unaccustomed, most unheard-of evil, brought upon us by some unheard-of evil custom? I do not say that there was not among the people of old the sin of fornication. But since the days of King Alfwold[134] fornications, adulteries, incests, have inundated the land to such an extent that these sins are unblushingly perpetrated even among the handmaids dedicated to God. What shall I say of avarice, rapine, and judicial violence, when it is clearer than the light how these crimes have increased, and a despoiled people are the evidence of it. He who reads the Holy Scriptures, and revolves ancient history, and considers the working of the world, will find that for sins of this nature kings lose kingdoms, and peoples lose their father-land. He will find that when men in power have unjustly seized the property of others, they have justly lost their own....

“Consider the manner of dress, the manner of wearing the hair, the luxurious habits of princes and of people. Look at the way in which the pagan manner of trimming the beard and cutting the hair is imitated. Do you not fear those whom you thus copy? Look at the immoderate use of clothes, beyond any necessity of human nature. This superfluity of the princes is the poverty of the people. Some are loaded with garments, while others perish with cold. Some flow over with luxuries and feasts like the rich man in purple, while Lazarus at the gate dies of hunger. Where is brotherly love? Where is that pity which we are bidden have for the wretched? The satiety of the rich man is the hunger of the poor. That Scripture saying is to be dreaded, ‘He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed no mercy’[135]; and we have the words of the blessed Peter the Apostle[136], ‘The time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God.’ Judgement has begun, and with terrible force, at the house of God where rest so many lights of the whole of Britain. What is to be expected for other places, if the divine judgement has not spared this most holy place? It is not for the sins of only those who dwelled there that this has been sent.

“Would that the penalty that has come upon them could bring others to amend their lives. Would that the many would fear what the few have suffered, and each would say in his heart, groaning and trembling, ‘if such men, if fathers so holy, did not save their own habitation, the place of their own repose, who shall save mine?’ Save your country by assiduous prayers to God, by works of justice and of mercy. Be moderate in dress and in food. There is no better defence of a country than the equity and piety of princes, and the prayers of the servants of God.”

This is the letter which Alcuin wrote to the Bishop and monks of Lindisfarne:—

Ep. 24. A.D. 793.

“To the best sons in Christ of the most blessed father the holy bishop Cuthbert, Higbald the bishop and the whole body of the Church of Lindisfarne, the deacon Alchuine sends greeting with heavenly benediction in Christ.