“The true cause of this tumult, as far as I have been able to understand, I am not ashamed to lay before your excellency, sparing no one, so that I may produce testimony to the truth.
“It appears to me that in the doing of this impious deed no one has offended more gravely than the guard of this wretch, from whose negligence so many evils came. If I may say so to those who hear this letter read, I think it would be more just that he by whose negligence the accused man escaped from his bonds should suffer the same bonds, than that the fugitive to the protection of Christ our God and of His saints, should be sent back from the church into the same bonds. I will not put this on my own opinion, I am supported by the word of God who bade[221] the prophet say to the king of Israel who had let go out of his hand the king of Syria, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go a man worthy of death, thy life shall be for his life.
“In the second place, I take it that the men were the cause of the tumult who came armed in larger number than was necessary from Orleans to Tours; especially because the report ran through the populace that they had come to carry off with violence a man who had fled to the protection of the Church of Christ and St. Martin. For all men everywhere take it ill that their holy ones are dishonoured. Perhaps, too, the miserable man had called upon the rustics who came to his dwelling in their cups to defend the church of St. Martin and not allow him to be snatched from it.
“There was a third cause of the tumult. Our holy father and pontiff [Archbishop Joseph] inopportunely, the people being present, entered the church along with the men who were supposed to have come to drag away the man. He may have done this in the simplicity of his heart, not imagining that any harm could come.[222] When the ignorant people, always doing thoughtlessly inconvenient things, saw this, they cried out, they took to their clubs; some energetic men ran out when they heard the bells sound. They were rung by unskilled hands; your own judges ascertained that, and our accusers themselves allowed that it was so, for in their presence the holy Gospel was brought; there was laid upon it the wood of the holy Cross; they made such of the brethren as they chose, swear by that. When the brethren heard the bells, they rushed out of the refectory to learn why they were being rung. As I am informed, they did what they could to allay the tumult; only some youths, who were found and sent to your presence, were the offenders in the concourse. From them it can be learned what they did; they have sworn that they acted on the prompting of no man, only on the impulse of their own folly. Not one of the servants of St. Martin was there, except a man called Amalgarius, who was with me at the moment. Him I sent at once with the other brethren to appease the tumult, and to extricate the men of the venerable bishop from the hands of the people, so that no harm should be done them. As soon as the tumult was appeased, they were brought into the monastery, where they were safe. These men were so burning with wrath against me that they turned a kindness I had ordered to be done to them into evil, saying that it was in insult that I had sent them some food.[223] This was absolutely false. They did not know that I was imbued with the Lord’s command, Do good unto them that hate you.
“Let your holy piety, most pious lord, consider these facts and recognize the truth. Be favourable to thy servants in the love of God omnipotent and in the honour of the holy Martin your intercessor, who always has been honoured in the kingdom and by the kings of the Franks.
“We are wont to say in confessing our sins, If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? And to thee we may say, forasmuch as we know thee to be a member of that same Head, if thou wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, who, lord, may abide it? Above all, because the special virtue, goodness, and praise of emperors has always been their clemency towards their subjects; in so much that the most noble emperor Titus said that no one should leave the presence of the emperor sad. Rejoice the minds of thy servants by the highest gift of thy mercy; let mercy rejoice against judgement. Men who have been guilty of the greatest crimes of perfidy against your authority you have been able to pardon with laudable piety; overlook our infelicity, in accordance with the most pious nobility of your most holy disposition, which I have always known to abound in a marvellous degree in the mind of your wisdom. We read how David, the ancestor of Christ, was praised in the greatness of his mercy and the justness of his judgements. In like manner we know that your blessedness is, by the gift of Christ, always worthy of all laudation and praise for these two great merits.
“May the omnipotent God the Father, by His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, illumine, fill, and rejoice the heart of your blessedness with all blessing and wisdom in the Spirit the Comforter, and deign to grant to your most noble offspring, for the welfare of a Christian people, perpetual prosperity, most dearly loved lord, best and most august father of the fatherland.”
We know no more than this. There appears to be no possibility of carrying the investigation further. Reading between the lines we seem to see signs of ecclesiastical tension between the archbishop, seated at his cathedral church of St. Gatian, and Abbat Alcuin of St. Martin’s. Until the time of Alcuin’s penultimate predecessor, the abbat of St. Martin’s had been the archbishop of Tours, and, as we have seen, there are curious references to a claim of St. Martin’s to have bishops of its own. This may have caused tension, beyond that which was not very improbable under the ordinary conditions.
Theodulf of Orleans was an old friend of Alcuin, and an admirer. He gives to Alcuin a large place in his description of the court of Charlemagne. Theodulf was a laudatory poet, and his poem was very properly meant to please those whom he described. Of the king himself he says—