Alcuin of York

by G. F. Browne

This is not the occasion for discussing the debated question whether the Pope acted on an impulse of gratitude, or was guided by a desire to interpose the most powerful personage in the West between Rome and the Emperor of the East; or the equally debated question whether Karl was an active and understanding receiver of the new burden of honour and responsibility; or the question what sort of right the Pope had to take such a step. To my mind the most pointed question is whether the Pope skilfully forestalled Charles by suddenly crowning him, in order to prevent his making himself emperor and crowning himself. But we cannot pass by without a word of comment the remarkable fact that the Pope performed the barbaric, Byzantine, humiliating, ceremony of prostration before the emperor and kissing his feet in adoration, as earlier Popes had had to do to earlier emperors. It is this same barbaric custom of what is technically called adoration, that the Popes, who used to perform it to their imperial superiors, have now for some centuries expected others to perform to them—the kissing of the Pope’s toe as it is called by some, of the Pope’s foot by others. The state of the foot of the great bronze figure of St. Peter in his church at Rome certainly renders the former the more accurate phrase.

It is clear that Karl had for many months been carefully considering the question of assuming the imperial crown in asserted succession to the Emperors of the West, who had come to an end three centuries and a half before.

Ep. 114.

This is the letter which Alcuin wrote to Karl at this most critical point in the history of Europe, a letter which has been described as the most important of all which Alcuin is known to have written. His remark that Karl’s position was higher and his power for good greater than that of the Emperor of the East and that of the Pope, has been understood to mean that Karl would do well to restore in his own person the Empire of the West, so as to be supreme in title as well as in fact. The date is May 799.

“To the peace-making Lord David the king, Flaccus Albinus greeting.

“We give thanks to thy goodness, most clement, most sweet David, that thou hast deigned to have in mind our littleness, and to note down for us that which thy faithful servant hath told us by word of mouth. And not for this only do we give continual thanks to thy piety, but for all the boons which thou hast conferred upon me from the day on which my littleness became known to thee. Thou didst begin with the very best for me, thou hast gone on to better still. Wherefore with continual prayers I pray the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that having granted thee all that is best in earthly felicity, He may deign to grant to thee eternally the far realms of everlasting beatitude.

“If I were present with thee I would urge very many things on thy venerable dignity, if opportunity were afforded for thee to hear and for me to speak. For the pen of love is often wont to stir the deep things of my heart, to treat of the prosperity of thy excellency, the stability of the kingdom to thee by God given, and the profit of the holy Church of Christ. The Church is perturbed by the multiform wickedness of evil men, and stained by the nefarious attempts of the vilest, not of ignoble persons only, but of some also among the greatest and highest. This is matter for deep fear.

“Up to this time, there have been three loftiest persons in the world. One, the apostolical sublimity, which is wont to rule by vicarial office the see of the blessed Peter, chief of the Apostles. What has been done against him who has been the ruler of that see, thy venerated goodness has taken care to make known to me. Another, the imperial dignity and secular power of the second Rome. How impiously the governor of that empire has been deposed, not by those of another race, but by his own people and fellow citizens, is becoming known everywhere. [This was Constantine VI, Emperor of the East, who had been affianced to Karl’s daughter Rotrudis some eighteen years before, but had been forced by his mother Irene to break the contract. In 797, two years before Alcuin’s letter, Irene had deposed him and put out his eyes; she was now reigning alone.] The third is the royal dignity, in which the dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ has placed thee, more excelling in power than the other dignities named, more clear in wisdom, more sublime in dignity of reign. Lo, on thee alone the whole safety of the churches of Christ has fallen and rests. Thou art the punisher of crimes, thou the guide of the erring, thou the consoler of them that mourn, thou the exalter of good men.

“Is it not the case that in the see of Rome, where the greatest piety of religion once shone clear, the very worst examples of impiety have burst forth into view? They themselves, blinded in their own hearts, have blinded their own Head. There is not seen there fear of God, or wisdom, or love: what good thing can be there if nothing of these three is found there? If there had been fear of God they would not have dared, if there had been wisdom they would never have wished, if there had been love they would by no means have done, what they have done. These are the perilous times, foretold of old by the very Truth, because the love of many grows cold.

“The care of the head must never be neglected; it is a less evil that the feet suffer than the head.