Alcuin of York

by G. F. Browne

As we have seen, the biographer on the whole confines himself to those parts of Alcuin’s Life which were not of common knowledge. But there was one story of sufficient importance in his judgement to be related at length, although it was well known. We may well take the same view, and be grateful to our author for having departed from his self-imposed limitations.

“I ought not”, he writes, “to pass over in silence one fact which many know. The Keeper of the Sepulchre of St. Martin, who provided the wax and all the vestments which pertained to the basilica itself, entering with a lighted candle the sacristy where they were kept, fixed the candle on a spike, and when he left he forgot to take it with him. He locked the door and went away. The burning candle fell upon some wax and sent a great flame which set fire to the vestments hanging on the pegs; and the vestments sent the flame up to the roof.[52] When the warden saw this, he fled with the key to another monastery.[53] People rushed from all sides; they beat at the door, but all their efforts failed to burst it open. The clerks threw out of the windows any valuables they had in their abode. The Church of St. Martin was denuded of some vestments, and no one expected anything but the burning of the whole monastery. The roof was all stripped of lead. Albinus came; he was now blind. He asked what was being done. One of his disciples, his ‘little old fellow’, said, ‘Come away, father, or you will be killed by the lead they are throwing down or burned to death.’ When Albinus was willing to go, Vetulus said to him, ‘My lord father, go to the sepulchre of the lord Martin, and intercede for us.’ Albinus did as was suggested, and when he got to the place, he stretched himself on the ground in the form of a cross, and uttered groans heavenward. As soon as Albinus cast himself on the ground, in some wonderful and incredible way the whole fire was put out, as completely as if extinguished by a great river. When the clerks saw this, they rushed in joyous stupefaction to the spot where Albinus lay prostrate before the sepulchre of St. Martin, in the form of a cross, praying to God for them. They raised him from the ground, blessing God who through the prayers of Albinus had saved the whole monastery of Saint Martin from being consumed by fire. These be thy worthy examples, holy Martin, who once when thou wouldest escape the fire couldest not; turned to God in prayer thou hast extinguished this fire that threatened us. Lofty of a truth is the faith that by its ardour can extinguish globes of fire. Nor is it a matter of wonder that the elements leave their proper force at the prayers and commands of Albinus, since he rests in the heart of Him who loves them that love Him, and permits them not to be singed by the flame when they walk in fire. Thee in these we adore, Thee we glorify, Thee we laud, who, as Thou hast deigned to make promises to Thy servants who keep Thy commandments, hast shown them forth most clearly by Thy works in Thine own Albinus. Thou hast said, O Christ Jesus, whatsoever ye shall ask of Me in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

It will have been noticed that this passage from the Life attributes to St. Martin a failure to prevent the progress of a fire. The reference appears at first sight to be to the eleventh chapter of the Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius Severus[54], written some four hundred years before the fire here described, and published in the lifetime of St. Martin, whom Severus had visited at Tours for the special purpose of learning the facts of his life.

“In a certain town, Martin set fire to a very ancient and famous pagan shrine. A house was attached to the walls of the temple, and the wind blew the globes of fire on to this house. When Martin saw this, he climbed rapidly to the roof of the house, and faced the flames. Then you would see the flame turn back in a marvellous manner against the force of the wind, the two elements fighting the one against the other. Thus by the virtue of Martin the fire operated only where it was bidden.”

This is the only account in the Life of St. Martin to which the remark in the text could apply. But, as a matter of fact, the occasion referred to was quite different from this. The little story is an interesting example of the keenness of criticism in those very early times, and of the need of immediate corrections.

The contemporary readers of the Life were well aware of the fact that Martin himself was once half-burned. Knowing this, they fastened on the passage quoted, and spoke in a depreciatory way of Martin. They asked how could he be so great as to prevent houses being burned, if he was not great enough to prevent himself from being set on fire and nearly burned to death. These depreciatory remarks came to the ears of Sulpicius, and the very next day[55], he sat down and wrote a letter to the presbyter Eusebius, to tell the actual facts of the other story with which unfavourable comparison has been made. The facts were as follows:—

The saint was visiting his diocese in midwinter. A bed had been prepared for him in a vestry, which was warmed by a fire below the floor. The pavement was rough and dilapidated. They had made for the saint a specially soft and comfortable bed of straw, but his practice was to sleep on the bare ground. Not being able to endure the blandient comfort of the straw, he threw it away and slept on the ground. By midnight the fire below had got at the straw through the crevices in the pavement, and Martin awoke to find the vestry full of fire. Then came, as he told Sulpicius, the temptation of the devil. Martin tried to escape, instead of turning to prayer. He rushed to the door and struggled with the bolt, in vain. The flames caught his dress and set it on fire. He fell down, and then remembered to pray. The flames felt the change and spared him. The monks, who had heard the fire crackling and roaring, burst open the door and looked for his dead body; they found him safe and sound. He confessed to Sulpicius, not without groaning, that the devil had for the time overcome him. In these modern times, to lie down on the floor is a common precaution against being smothered by the smoke in a burning room.

This Life of St. Martin is very interesting reading. It is too tempting to give the substance of the chapter previous to the one given above. The saint was at his usual work of destroying a very ancient temple. When he had accomplished this, he set to work to fell a pine-tree which stood near. The chief priest and the pagan crowd drew the line at that, and would not allow it. Martin told them there was nothing worthy of worship in a piece of wood; it was dedicated to a demon and it must come down. Thereupon a crafty pagan, seeing his way to getting rid of this objectionable destroyer of temples, and regarding the sacred tree as well lost for such a gain, proposed a bargain. “If you have sufficient confidence in your God whom you say you serve, we will ourselves cut down the tree, and it shall fall upon you; if your Lord is with you, as you say, you will escape with your life.” The bargain was struck on both sides. The tree leaned in a certain direction, so that there was no doubt where it would fall. Martin was tied by the rustics in the right place, and they began to cut with their axes. The tree began to nod, leaned more and more to the precise spot they had selected. At last they had cut deep enough; the crash of the rending trunk was heard; the monks turned pale; the saint raised his hand and made the sign of the cross; at the moment a whirlwind came and blew the tree far to one side.

We must now return to the life of St. Martin’s faithful follower, Alcuin.