Download ALCUIN LETTER TO CHARLEMAGNE (796 A.D.)1

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ALCUIN LETTER TO CHARLEMAGNE (796 A.D.)1
Alcuin (735–804) studied and taught the school of York in the north of England, one of
Europe’s greatest centers of learning at the time, until he was forty-six. Returning from a
journey to Rome in 781, Alcuin met Charlemagne in Parma in northern Italy who persuaded
him to become an instructor at the Palace School in Aachen. There he established a
curriculum of liberal arts and tutored Charlemagne, his sons, and other highborn students. He
was the most important figure of the Carolingian Renaissance of learning, the arts, and
scholarship. He also apparently persuaded Charlemagne to cease executing those who refused
to convert to Christianity. In 796, Alcuin became Abbot of St Martin’s at Tours, where letter
presented below was written.
For the text online, click here.
Alcuin to Charlemagne
But I, your Flaccus,2 am doing as you have urged and wished. To some who are beneath the
roof of St. Martin I am striving to dispense the honey of Holy Scripture; others I am eager to
intoxicate with the of wine of apples of grammatical refinement; and there are some whom
I long to adorn with the knowledge of astronomy, as a stately house is adorned with a
painted roof. I am made all things to all men that I may instruct many to the profit of God’s
Holy Church and to the lustre of you imperial reign. So shall the grace of Almighty God
toward me be not in vain and the largess of your bounty be of no avail. But I your servant
lack in part the rarer books of scholastic labor of my master and a little also to my own toil.
This I tell your excellency on the chance that in your boundless and beloved wisdom you
may be pleased to have me send some of our youths to take thence what we need, and
return to France with the flowers of Britain; that the garden may not be confined to York
only but may bear fruit in Tours, and that the south wind blowing over the gardens of the
Loire may be charged with perfume. Then shall it be once more as is said in Solomon’s
Song3 from which I quote: “Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant
fruits.” And he shall say to his young men: “Eat, O friends; drink, yea drink abundantly, O
beloved. I sleep, but my heart waketh.” Or that sentence of the prophet Isaiah which
encourages us to learn wisdom: “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye, buy and eat; yea,
come, but wine and milk without money without price.”
This is a matter which has not escaped your most noble notice, how through all the
pages of Holy Scripture we are urged to learn wisdom. In toiling toward the happy life
nothing is more lofty, nothing more pleasant, nothing bolder against vices, nothing more
praiseworthy in every place of dignity; and moreover, according to the words of
philosophers, nothing is more essential to government, nothing more helpful in leading a
Charles W. Colby (ed.), Selections from the Sources of English History (London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,
1899), 17–19.
2 The members of the literary circle of Charlemagne and Alcuin took Hebrew, Greek, or Latin names.
Charlemagne was David; Alcuin, Horatius Flaccus.
3 The Song of Songs or the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
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moral life, than the beauty of wisdom, the praise of learning and the advantages of
scholarship. Whence also wisest Solomon exclaims in its praise. “For wisdom is better than
all things of price and no object of desire is to be compared with her. She exalts the meek,
she brings honours to the great. Kings reign by her aid, and lawgivers decree justice. Happy
are they who keep her ways, and happy are they who watch at her gates daily.” O Lord
King, exhort the youths who are in your excellency’s palace to learn wisdom with all their
might, and the gain it by daily toil while they are yet in the flush of youth, so that they may
be deemed worthy to grow grey in honour, and by the help of wisdom may reach
everlasting happiness. But I, according to the measure of my little talent, shall not be
slothful to sow the seed of wisdom among your servants in this region. Mindful of the
saying, ‘In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold not thy hand: for thou
knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike
good.”
In the morning I sowed in Britain studies which have flourished for a generation.
Now as it were towards even I do not cease with blood grown cold to sow in Francia. And in
both places I hope that by the Grace of God the seed may spring. The solace of my broken
strength is this saying of St Jerome4 who in his letter to Nepotian5 has it: “Almost all the
strength of an old man’s body is changed and wisdom alone grows as the rest dwindles.”
And a little later: “The old age of those who have trained their youth in honest arts and
have meditated in the law of the Lord day and night, becomes more learned with age, more
polished by use, wiser by the lapse of time, and reaps the sweetest fruits of studies long
grown old.” In which letter whoever whishes may read much in praise of wisdom and the
studied of the ancients, and may learn how the ancients sought to flourish in the beauty of
wisdom. Ever advance towards this wisdom, beloved of God and praiseworthy on earth,
and delight to recognize zeal; and adorn a nobility of worldly lineage with the greater
nobility of the mind. In which may our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the virtue and wisdom of
God, guard thee, exalt thee, and make thee enter the glory of his blessed and everlasting
vision.
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St Jerome (c. 347–420) was an important Latin Church Father who translated the Bible into Latin.
The letter was written in 394 to Nepotian, a religious leader.