upon him, and so get the better of him. But they came furnished with Divine, not with magic virtue, bearing a silver cross for their banner, and the image of our Lord and Saviour painted on a board; and singing the litany, they offered up their prayers to the Lord for the eternal salvation both of themselves and of those to whom they were come. When he had sat down pursuant to the king's commands, and preached to him and his attendants there present the word of life, the king answered thus: "Your words and promises are very fair, but as they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot approve of them so far as to forsake that which I have so long followed with the whole English nation. But because you are come from far into my kingdom, and as I conceive are desirous to impart to us those things which you believe to be true, and most beneficial, we will not molest you, but give you favourable entertainment, and take care to supply you with your necessary sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion.' Accordingly he permitted them to reside in the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of all his dominions, and, pursuant to his promise, besides allowing them sustenance, did not refuse them liberty to preach. It is reported that as they drew near to the city, after their manner, with the holy cross and the image of our sovereign Lord and King, Jesus Christ, they in concert sung this litany "We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy anger and wrath be turned away from this city, and from Thy holy house because we have sinned. Hallelujah." : 7. ALCUIN TO CHARLEMAGNE (796). Alcuin was born in the year of Bede's death, 735, and continued Bede's scholarly tradition. His name is connected, first, with the school of York (where he studied and taught till he was forty-six), and, secondly, with the court of Charlemagne. During the seventh and eighth centuries northern England was a centre of enlightenment, not only for the island but for Europe, and Alcuin more than any one else extended the influence of its learning. The Frankish race was then at its prime, and its king, Charlemagne-soon afterwards crowned emperor was the most powerful man alive. Alcuin returning from a journey to Rome in 781, met him at Parma, and was persuaded to help him in shaping an educational system. We can best go to a modern French historian, Henri Martin, for an estimate of what the arrangement between Alcuin and Charlemagne meant. "It is on the day when these two illustrious barbarians sealed their league against barbarism that one can fix the point where the long decadence which commenced with the German invasions was arrested. This moral alliance of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons marks the most brilliant moment of the Germanic race." Towards his end Alcuin became Abbot of St. Martin's at Tours, where this letter was written. Three significant matters in it are his desire to get books from England, his praise of wisdom and his frequent quotations from the Bible. SOURCE.-Alcuini Epistolæ. (735-804). Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne. Vol. c., p. 208. Trans. C. W. Colby. But I, your Flaccus,1 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 old wine of ancient learning; others again I am beginning to feed with the 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 your 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 lore which in my native land I had, thanks to the unsparing labour 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 Song from which I quote: "Let my beloved come 1 The members of that literary circle which formed itself about Charlemagne and Alcuin assumed among themselves Hebrew or Greek or Latin names. Charlemagne himself was David; Alcuin, Horatius Flaccus; Angilbert, Homer; Eginhard, Calliopeus, etc. B 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: 66 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and 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 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. By her princes rule and the powerful 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 to 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 happiBut I, according to the measure of my little talent, shall not be slothful to sow the seeds 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 ". ness. 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. Jerome who in his letter to Nepotian 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 wishes may read much in praise of wisdom and the studies 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 recognise 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. 8. ALFRED'S LOVE OF LEARNING (circ. 890). Asser's Life of Alfred lies under a certain amount of suspicion, having been attacked as a forgery like the Epistles of Phalaris or Ingulph's History of Croyland. It is, nevertheless, accepted in the main by Pauli, the most eminent of Alfred's modern biographers. Asser was Bishop of Sherborne and a familiar friend of the king. Alfred's love of culture connects him with Charlemagne, but his resources were smaller. Times had changed since Alcuin left England to teach the Franks. The Danish raids were now serious, and caused a growing ignorance which Alfred found it hard to check. He set an example to his nobles and people by reading good literature himself, and translating from Latin into English. A famous passage in the preface to his English version of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care shows how learning had latterly decayed. He laments that whereas foreign lands had once sought scholars in England, England must at present seek them abroad. And then he makes the emphatic statement that when his reign began there were very few priests on this side of Humber who could understand their missals in English, or translate a letter from the Latin; and probably not many beyond Humber. "So few were there that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne." Alfred's wars with the Danes and his wretched health were such a drain upon his energies that we must feel surprise at the extent of his own reading. SOURCE.-De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi Magni. J. A. Giles. London, 1885. P. 68. Asser (d. 909?). Trans. Ethelwerd, the youngest [of Alfred's children], by the divine counsels and the admirable prudence of the king, was consigned to the schools of learning, where, with the children of almost all the nobility of the country, and many also who were not noble, he prospered under the diligent care of his teachers. Books in both languages, namely Latin and Saxon, were read in the school. They also learned to write, so that before they were of an age to practice manly arts, namely, hunting and such pursuits as befit noblemen, they became studious and clever in the liberal arts. Edward and Ethelswitha were bred up in the king's court and received great attention from their attendants and nurses; nay, they continue to this day, with the love of all about them, and showing affability, and even gentleness, towards all, both natives and foreigners, and in complete subjection to their father; nor, among their other studies which appertain to this life and are fit for noble youths, are they suffered to pass their time idly and unprofitably without learning the liberal arts; for they have carefully learned the Psalms and Saxon books, especially the Saxon poems, and are continually in the habit of making use of books. In the meantime the king, during the frequent wars and other trammels of this present life, the invasions of the pagans, and his own daily infirmities of body, continued to carry on the government, and to exercise hunting in all its branches; to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers and dog-keepers; to build houses, majestic and good, beyond all the precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical inventions; to recite the Saxon books, and especially to learn by heart the Saxon poems, and to make others learn them; and he alone never desisted from studying most diligently to the best of his ability; he attended the mass and other daily services of religion; he was frequent in psalm-singing and prayer, at the hours both of the day and of the night. He also went to the churches, as we have already said, in the night-time to pray, secretly and unknown to his courtiers; he bestowed alms and largesses on both natives and foreigners of all countries; he was affable and pleasant to all, and curiously eager to investigate things unknown. Many Franks, Frisons, Gauls, pagans, Britons, Scots and Armoricans,1 1 By Armorica at this time is understood the region southward from the mouth of the Seine to Brittany. |