Charles' Books

The Opus Caroli regis contra synodum ("The work of King Charles against the Synod"), also known as Libri Carolini ("Charles' Books"), was a series commissioned by Charlemagne to counter the work of the Second Council of Nicaea. It was specifically written to argue against the Council's decrees about icons.

Held in 787, this Council reversed Emperor Leo III's decree decades earlier that religious images were forbidden. The Council decided that religious images were not only allowed, but the reverence and prayers aimed at them actually transferred to the saint or member of the Trinity which they represented. In fact, every altar should have in it a saint's relic.

Charlemagne, a devout Christian, had a different approach to the subject of religious icons, and decided it should be made known. In the 790s (prior to him being named Holy Roman Emperor in 800), he ordered an elaborate statement on the subject. 

The opening statement is rather strong:

In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ beginneth the work of the most illustrious and glorious man Charles, by the will of God, king of the Franks, Gauls, Germany, Italy, neighboring provinces, with the assistance of the king, against the Synod which in Greek parts firmly and proudly decreed in favour of adoring images recklessly and arrogantly, ...

The argument was a compromise between Leo III's strict iconoclasm and the Council's "reckless and arrogant" acceptance of honoring images. Charlemagne believed in religious images, but not treating them as anything more than images: do not burn incense before them, or votive candles. Do not pray to them, but to the figure they represent.

Was this document necessary? What was Charles' reason for arguing against the Council? The iconoclasm debate was considered a Byzantine issue; Nicaea was deep into the "Greek parts," as far from Gaul as one could get. It is possible that Charlemagne was partially motivated by the desire to oppose what he considered decisions coming out of the Eastern Empire, since it had offended him over the rejection of his daughter's marriage to its emperor and its decision to support his rival in Lombardy.

Charles did not have this statement sent to the pope after all; it is assumed that he decided not to antagonize the Church by arguing that Nicaea was wrong in its conclusions. The document did not disappear, however, and was found and published centuries later, in 1549. Calvin and the Protestant reformation found in it support for their beliefs. Christian churches these days almost all contain some images.

So who was the author? To whom did Charlemagne turn for this important work? Some assume Alcuin had a hand in it, but there is a better candidate. Some of the Latin language matches the style of Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, one of Charlemagne's "puzzle masters." Clearly, he was good at more than acrostics, and we'll talk about him next time.

York Minster

York was founded in 71 CE as Eboracum, a Roman fortress overseeing the north of Britain. We know that York had a Christian community by 314, because a "bishop of York" was part of the Council of Arles that year. York's Christian history is not well-documented in the early centuries, however. The first church we have records of was built on the spur of the moment in 627 to baptize King Edwin of Northumbria; it was wooden, and didn't last, but Saint Wilfrid rebuilt it in stone, and by the 8th century the school and library were thriving.

That church was destroyed in a fire in 741. Bishop Egbert started the rebuilding, resulting in what Alcuin in his letters described as:

very tall, and held by solid columns which support curved arches; beautiful panels and numerous windows make it shine with brilliance. Its magnificence is increased by its gantries, terraces and thirty altars, decorated with a rare variety.

It was damaged by William the Conqueror in 1069, but then his Norman Archbishop Thomas of Bayeaux in 1070 started rebuilding. It was damaged again in 1075 by Danes, but in 1080 the repairs started. This new large (364 feet long) building was damaged by fire in 1137. The pattern of damage (by fire or attack) and repair has continued, right up to a fire in 1984 when 110 firefighters deliberately dumped enough water on the south transept to crash the roof completely, smothering the blaze and preserving the rest of the minster. Despite these events, York still has some of the oldest stained glass in England.

In 1215, a Gothic church was started, to replace the Norman architecture. Archbishop Walter de Gray also wanted its magnificence to rival Canterbury, since the Archbishops of York resented that the Archbishops of Canterbury were considered to have authority over all England's churches.

The term "minster" is from the Anglo-Saxon period, and denotes a church for teaching missionaries. That is no longer the purpose of York, but the honorific has stuck.

Despite the stone construction of many churches, they could still contain flammable material: carvings, roof beams, furniture, tapestries, etc. Churches in the Middle Ages could also contain flammable material that we never see or think of these days. Tomorrow I want to talk about the medieval event called "rushbearing."

York Library

York was an early center of Christianity in Britain, and had its own bishop from at least the 4th century. In 735, Ecgbert of York became its bishop; he is credited with beginning the school and library at the York Minster.

The collection of works there is estimated to be about 100 items—a remarkable number for the time. A poem by Alcuin mentions 40 different titles, including not only works by Bede and the Church Fathers but also by such classical authors as Aristotle, Cicero, and Pliny.

Alcuin's extant letters tell us that he made trips to procure books for the library, and that he brought some with him when he left York to take up his position at Charlemagne's court at Aachen. Despite his new patron's desire to promote learning, however, Alcuin makes clear that he never created a better library than the one in York.

Some of the books were given to Liudger the Frisian, called the "Apostle of Saxony," when he left studying at York to preach on the continent. Liudger founded a monastery at Werden. The monastery is gone, and some buildings are being used by a school, but it is possible that some fragments of York books still exist in southern Germany.

The Alcuin-era library is no more. Danes sacked the area in 866, and it suffered further at the Harrowing of the North by William the Conqueror.

The York Minster library was formally re-founded when John Neuton (c.1350 - 1414), a canon at York, left a bequest of about 70 books to the Minster. (The illustration above is an initial page of a law text that had been part of his collection.) Few of those original books survive, but York Minster has had a library for over 600 years, thanks to Neuton.

Next I'd like to talk about the Minster itself, and why it's called that instead of Cathedral. Stay tuned.

Letters of Alcuin

Alcuin of York (c.735 - 804, seen here receiving the Abbey of Tours from Emperor Charlemagne) was a monk, scholar, lover of puzzles, teacher, poet, and correspondent.

He was so respected—Einhard's Life of Charlemagne calls him "The most learned man anywhere to be found"—that his letters were collected and bound in the early 9th century, not long after his death. The writing is in a script called Carolingian minuscule, designed to make the Bible easy to read.

Alcuin started teaching at York. When he was 46, he journeyed to Rome. On the way back, he met Charlemagne in Parma. Charlemagne invited him to teach at his palace school at Aachen. He became the teacher of Charlemagne, his children, and other nobles. He persuaded Charlemagne to stop executing those who refused to convert to Christianity. In 796, Charlemagne appointed him Abbot of Marmoutier/St. Martin of Tours. While there, he wrote to Charlemagne to describe his work as a teacher and the serious need for books, and his plan to acquire some:

But I ... 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.

What made York an important source of books? That would be the school and cathedral at York, where Alcuin got his start. We haven't talked enough about York, but I'll fix that next time.

Richbod the Monk

Charlemagne prized learning as much as he prized expanding his realm. He brought scholars and artists together and created a Carolingian Renascence. One of the best known scholar-clerics in Charlemagne's court was Alcuin of York, through whose surviving letters we know a lot more about many of the people of the time than we would through public records.

One of Alcuin's correspondents and friends was a monk named Richbod. We first know of him as a document clerk in the Lorsch monastery, whose Annals cover the years 703 to 803 (and were mentioned here). Something about him brought him to the attention of Alcuin, who brought him to Charlemagne's court, where he became an advisor to the king and was awarded the position of Abbot of Lorsch by 784 and Archbishop of Trier by 792.

Monasteries where documents were painstakingly copied and re-copied did not always confine themselves to religious texts. Richbod would have been exposed to many different pieces of literature. According to one of Alcuin's letters, Richbod was a huge fan of Vergil's Aeneid. Alcuin even teased him about preferring it to the Gospels. Alcuin wrote to him, lamenting that Richbod did not return an earlier letter:

Lo, a whole year has passed, and I have had no letter from you. Ah, if only my name were Vergil, then wouldst thou never forget me, but have my face ever before thee; ... would that the four Gospels rather than the twelve Aeneids filled your heart.

Modern scholars have looked for reasons to make Richbod the author of the Lorsch Annals. Points in favor of this theory are that the Annals show knowledge of the inner workings of the Carolingian court, and that they end the year before Richbod's death. We do not know when Richbod was born, but if his death were from old age, then it is plausible that the Annals end because he can no longer work on them or direct them. An argument against Richbod's authorship is that the Annals contain flaws in Latin, which seem unlikely if actually authored by Richbod. He may, however, have delegated their writing to a scribe whose command of Latin was less than perfect.

Richbod died in October 804, and was buried in Trier. Curiously, a year later, Charlemagne had a son by the concubine Ethelind, whom he name Richbod. This Richbod became the Abbot of Saint-Riquier. The name is virtually unique in historical records. The Dictionary of Medieval Names defines it as from Old High German "ruler" + "messenger."

As mentioned, what we know of him comes largely from the letters written by Alcuin and preserved by chance. I want to talk more about them next time.

The Daughters of Charlemagne

Charlemagne believed strongly in education for all his children; his daughters learned to read and write as well as his sons. He was also close to his children, and kept them close to him, bringing the family with him on travels both military and diplomatic. None of them married, although he did try to arrange a marriage or two. Some did have children, however, after finding relationships of their own.

Some did not live long, however. His first daughter by Hildegarde was Adalhaid, born in 774 while the family was on campaign in Italy. She was sent back home, but died along the way. A final child, named for her mother, was born in 782 but lived only a few months.

Rotrude was born in 775. She was tutored by Alcuin, who called her Columba ("dove") in letters. Marriage to Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI was arranged when she was six and he was ten, but his mother Irene eventually ended the engagement when she decided the Empire should side with the Lombards, whom Charlemagne had conquered. Rotrude had an affair with Charlemagne's retainer Rorgo of Rennes, Count of Maine and of Rennes (who himself was married several times). She had a son by him, Louis (800 - 867) who became Abbot of Saint-Denis and archchancellor under his namesake and uncle, Louis the Pious, emperor after Charlemagne. Rotrude became a nun at Chelles, where she passed away in 810.

Another daughter of Hildegarde was Bertha (c.779 - 826). Offa of Mercia wanted to marry his son Ecgfrith to her, an offer which Charlemagne felt was an insult. As a result, he broke off diplomatic relations with Mercia and forbade English ships from his ports. Bertha had a long-term relationship with a secretary named Angilbert. They had three children, one of whom was Nithard.

The third daughter of Charlemagne and Hildegarde who survived to adulthood was Gisela (c.781 - c.808). We know she was baptized at the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio by the Archbishop of Milan while the family was in Italy. Her tutor Alcuin, who in his writings remarked that she had an interest in astronomy, nicknamed her "Delia." She never married, and some sources say she died in 808, while others say she was sent to a convent when her brother Louis came to power. The latter may just be an assumption based on Louis sending away as many potential sources of claimants to the throne as possible.

Next we will look at the children from Charlemagne's other wives.

Queen Cynethryth

If Eadburh, wife of Beorhtric of Wessex, was as vindictive as history reports—exiling and executing enemies—what was the catalyst for that behavior? Did she learn from growing up and watching her mother, Cynethryth?

It is true that the queens of Mercia seem to have a notable amount of authority compared to other royal women—in fact, Cynethryth of Mercia, wife of King Offa, even had her own coinage with her image on it!—but was she actually as terrible and bloodthirsty as we are told?

We don't know anything about her or her parentage until 770, when her name appears as a witness on a charter. The similarity of her name to that of the wife and daughters of King Penda (c.606 - 655) of Mercia (Cynewise, Cyneburh, Cyneswith) suggests she was of that line, which would make her a distant relative of Offa.

The Vitae duorum Offarum ("The lives of the two Offas") relates and compares the stories of the 4th or 5th century Offa of Angel and the Offa of Mercia who reigned in the second half of the 8th century and was married to Cynethryth. Originally thought to be composed by Matthew Paris, it is now thought to be an earlier work. Of Cynethryth, the Vitae calls her "Drida," and that she was Frankish and condemned for some crime to be set adrift at sea. She drifts to the Welsh shore where she is found and brought before Offa. She claims to be a member of Carolingian royalty, and Offa puts her in the care of his mother, Marcellina. Offa eventually falls in love and marries her, after which she changes her name from Drida to Quindrida (from Thryth to Cynethryth).

The minting of coins in her likeness tells us a lot about how much authority Offa gave her. In one of his letter, Alcuin refers to Cynethryth as "controller of the Royal household." The marriage seemed to be a steady one. Alcuin, writing to their son Ecgfrith, advised him to follow the example of his parents, and comments on her piety.

What the crime was that originally caused her to be set adrift, we'll never know. Æthelberht II, King of East Anglia and Alfred the Great's older brother (died 20 May 794) is said to have been assassinated by Offa. Later chroniclers suggest that Cynethryth was more involved. This may be simply because of the earlier tale of her coming into the picture as an exiled criminal. There are no specifics or evidence that she was inciting executions or assassinations.

It is not unknown, however, that early kings would kill off even relatives in order to make succession clear and avoid attempts at usurpation of civil war. When Offa's and Cynethryth's only son, Ecgfrith, reigned a mere 141 days, the only heir to the throne of Mercia was a very distant relive, Coenwulf, because nearer relatives had been eliminated by Offa. Alcuin himself acknowledged this, writing:

That most noble young man has not died for his sins, but the vengeance for the blood shed by the father has reached the son. For you know how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom upon his son. ... This was not a strengthening of the kingdom, but its ruin.

The last reference we have to Cynethryth was in 798, when she was present at the Synod of Clovesho in a dispute regarding the monastery at Cookham. I'll explain her connection to that dispute, and talk about the Synods, next time.

Abbot Angilbert

Abbot Angilbert (c.760 - 18 February 814)was mentioned as Charlemagne's envoy to Pope Leo III here, but there is much more to his story.

St. Riquier

Born into a noble family, he was raised at Aachen and was first a pupil and then a friend of Alcuin. His learning and ability to write verse earned him the nickname "Homer." He was apparently extremely close to the royal family: Charlemagne had his children educated along with others. This intimacy would surface later in a surprising way.

He assisted the court in secular administration, but by 790 had been named Abbot of St. Riquier in northern France as well as the governor of Ponthieu. Angilbert spent a great deal of money improving the abbey. He was also a frequent ambassador to the papacy. The first time was to Pope Adrian I, when he delivered Charlemagne's views on the iconoclasm controversy. Later he delivered gifts and assurances of support to Pope Leo III.

Despite his religious status, and there being no record of an official wedding, he had a relationship with the daughter of Charlemagne, Bertha, with whom he had two children. There may have been no wedding, and Bertha and Angilbert escaped the charge of adultery by virtue of their relationship to Charlemagne. A biographer in the 12th century claimed that, prior to his death, Angilbert did great penance for the impropriety of his "marriage." This allowed him to be made a saint, despite the questionable actions of his life.

A fragment of an epic poem about court life, which also details the meeting between Charlemagne and Pope Leo III when the pope fled to Paderborn to escape his enemies in Rome, is sometimes ascribed to Angilbert. Angilbert would have been in a position to witness all that the poem discusses, and he apparently possessed the literary gifts that would have enabled him to produce the poem. Authorship cannot be proven, however.

He died a few weeks after Charlemagne. Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's son and successor, mindful of the potential for family members to challenge his rule, exiled his sisters to various convents. One of Bertha and Angilbert's sons, however, remained active as a Cariolingian historian.

The Liberal Alcuin of York

Tiffany window of Charlemagne and Alcuin
at LaFayette College (1898)

Alcuin of York has been mentioned before, primarily in his relationship to intellectual puzzles. This does a disservice to a man who was revered as a scholar and saint, and is one of the primary movers behind the Carolingian Renascence.

We know little about the early life of Alcuin (c.735-804). He came to the cathedral school of York under Archbishop Ecgbert (died 766), who took a great interest in Alcuin's schooling. It was here that Alcuin blossomed into a scholar of liberal studies, helping to develop the curriculum of the York cathedral school to embrace the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic) and Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy). Alcuin himself wrote a textbook on the former, leaving the latter to his student, our old friend Hrabanus Maurus (previously mentioned here).

Sometime after Ecgbert died, Alcuin became the head of the school.* In 781, on his way home from a trip to Rome to see the pope (his mission was to petition the pope to confirm York as an archbishopric, the second in England after Canterbury), he met, for the second time, Charlemagne, who convinced him to stay and help promote learning in Charlemagne's kingdom.

Alcuin settled in the palace school at Aachen in 782, working alongside several of the intellectual lights of the 8th century, such as Peter of Pisa, a grammarian brought there to teach Latin, and Paulinus of Aquileia, a theologian and grammarian who became a good friend of Alcuin's, maintaining a relationship through letters even after Paulinus left the court to take up the position of Patriarch of Aquileia.

The other way that Alcuin was "liberal" is in his attitude toward pagans. Charlemagne followed the not-uncommon Christian royal practice of outlawing paganism, offering conquered pagan peoples the choice of conversion or death. Alcuin objected to this, and made his reasons clear to Charlemagne:

"Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be baptized, but you cannot force them to believe."

Charlemagne eventually abolished the death penalty for paganism.

Alcuin died on the 19th of May 804.

*This school still exists today as St. Peter's.

A Mother's Advice

Online version of this translation

Dhuoda's Liber manualis (Manual/Handbook) is a unique work by a female author from the 9th century. Fragments of a Carolingian era manuscript exist in a library in Nîmes, and a single 17th century copy of the original exists in the Biliothèque Nationale in Paris.

The Manual teases some biographical detail, such as in the Prologue when she asserts:

I, Dhuoda, though frail in sex, living unworthily among worthy women, am nonetheless your mother, my son William. To you the words of my handbook are directed now. For, just as playing at dice seems for a time most comely and apt to the young, amid other worldly accomplishments, or again, as some women are wont to gaze in mirrors, to remove their blemishes and reveal their glowing skin, concerned to please their husbands hear and now—in the same way I want you, when you're weighed down by hosts of worldly and temporal activities, to read this little book I have sent you, often, in memory of me: don't neglect it—use it as if it were a matter of mirrors or of games of dice.*

We know (she mentions this herself) that she is in Uzés near Nîmes, and it is not uncommon for men to leave their wives in charge of their estates, but this passage suggests—even while she shows familiarity with material concerns—that she resides in an abbey or convent. Still, wherever she lives and with whatever company, she is apparently managing estates (though with some difficulty):

To help my lord and master, Bernard—so that my service in his cause, in the Marches and in many places, should not be flawed, and that he should not sever himself from you or from me, as some men are wont to do—I realize I have burdened myself with great debts. To meet his needs, I have often had to borrow large sums, not only from Christians but also from Jews. I have repaid them as far as I could, ...

She asks William that, after her death, he determine her debtors and repay anything still owed. Her husband seems to be exonerated for any "exile" she has suffered when she says (italics are mine):

But when I had resided a long time in that city, lacking your presence, at my lord's command, happy at his exploits and missing you both, ...

She also shows herself to be well educated: she quotes from or alludes to the Bible throughout, and even quotes the great scholar Alcuin when counseling William against the temptations of the flesh:

O, how short, short indeed is that moment of fornication by which future life is lost! And how great is the strength and the enduring splendor of chastity, which makes a mortal man like a fellow citizen of the angels. (Liber de virtutibus et vitiis [Book of Virtues and Vices])

It is a very personal attempt by a mother to guide her son in the ways of the world as well as a good Christian life:

Even if, more and more, you acquire books, many volumes, may it still please you to read frequently this little work of mine—may you have the strength to grasp it profitably, with the help of almighty God. [...] So it is altogether necessary for you, my son William, to show yourself, in both ventures, as one who can be of service to the world and at the same time can always, through every action, give delight to God.

How he will be able to achieve this balance—to keep his mind on God while oppressed with worldly cares—is the purpose of the Manual, and it is a better Manual than other instruction because it comes from her:

My son, you will have teachers who will give you more lessons, and more valuable ones—yet not in the same way, with the heart burning within, as I with mine, my first-born one... .

Emphasis on her special role as his mother in teaching him is mentioned throughout the work. She also asks that he pass the book along to his younger brother, recently born and taken into his father's care almost immediately. It is an amazing work, written by a woman who devoted herself to duty to her husband and to her sons, even though she spent most of her life without their presence.

*Some quotations from Women Writers of the Middle Ages by Peter Dronke.

Medieval Re-Births

Far from being a complete intellectual vacuum in the years between the decline of Rome and the Renaissance, Europe experienced three distinct periods when the slow slog of culture enjoyed a short sprint forward. Two of them were connected specifically with royal patronage and the attempt on the part of a ruler to create something academically impressive and politically lasting. Scholars dispute the accuracy of calling them "renaissances" because their impact was not as lasting as the shifts in the 14th century that sparked an uninterrupted (so far) progression in all human endeavors. Erwin Panofsky, a 20th century German art historian, produced a slim tome in 1944 called Renaissance and Renascences in which he used the latter term to distinguish those other periods in history. Let's do that.

Charlemagne

The first Renascence took place during the reigns of Charlemagne (c.742-814) and his son, Louis the Pious (778-840). Charlemagne was not only King of the Franks. He managed to unite much of western and central Europe, and once he conquered Italy, he was in a position to be named Holy Roman Emperor.

Empires require a great deal of bureaucracy, however, and the dearth of literate men to serve as court scribes and secretaries was problematic. Literacy was also a problem because many parish priests could not read the Bible. In fact, the lack of widespread formal training in Latin meant that its common use—what now is referred to as vulgar Latin—was developing into regional dialects. Some of these dialects would evolve into what we call the Romance languages.

Sample of Carolingian Minuscule

With the chance to re-create the glory that was the Roman Empire, Charlemagne gathered scholars to promote the proper use of Latin. While establishing schools to accomplish this and—and along the way developing a new script called "Carolingian minuscule" that was more legible than what came before—he promoted learning, art, law, architecture, and Christianity. In order to do this, he brought together many top scholars of the day, such as:

• Peter of Pisa, who taught Charlemagne Latin
• Paulinus of Aquileia
• Paulus Diaconus
• Alcuin of York
• Joseph Scottus

These men and others helped to create a "bright spot" in a time so often called "dark." There were still dark times to come in western Europe, but thanks to the Carolingian Renascence, Western Civilization survived—in the words of Sir Kenneth Clark in his epic Civilization: "by the skin of its teeth."

Mirrors for Princes

Machiavelli's Il Principe (c.1513) was far from innovative. Writers since classical times had produced works that explained the proper behavior—or improper behavior—of rulers. The genre was called specula principum, or "mirrors for princes." These took the form of instruction books, often aimed at a young ruler who was just coming into power, or could be biographies of rulers who should (or should not) be emulated.

The reign of Charlemagne seems to have motivated the desire to "raise the bar" for rulers and inspired many writers to produce mirrors for their local rulers in the 9th century. Charlemagne's life was, of course, the example to be followed as far as Einhard's Vita Karolini (Life of Charles) was concerned. No one wanted to see the Carolingian empire suffer after Charlemagne's demise, and so his descendants had no lack of advice. His son Louis the Pious was the target of one speculum by Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel; Louis' son Pepin I of Aquitaine was the target of one by Jonas of Orléans; Louis' grandson Lothair II of Lotharingia was addressed by Sedulius Scottus in a work called "On Christian Rulers."

Alcuin of York, a prolific writer and famous teacher, wrote De virtutibus et vitiis (On virtues and vices, c.799) for Count Wido of Brittany. A friend of Alcuin's, whom he met at Charlemagne's school in Aachen, was Paulinus of Aquileia who wrote the Liber exhortationis (Book of exhortations, 795), for Count Heiric (Eric) of Friuli. Paulinus (c.730-802) had been born in the Friuli region of northeast Italy and he and Heiric were friends, so he felt entitled to tell Heiric a thing or two, including advising him to free his slaves. (Having slaves was common.) Paulinus also wrote an elegy when Heiric was killed in 799.

Mirrors for princes were popular right through the Renaissance by scholars who felt qualified to give advice to powerful men. We know of ones that were written for the future Henry VIII (by John Skelton; a copy exists in the British Museum), for King Charles V of Spain (1516, by Erasmus), for King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway (1597, by Johann Damgaard), and King James I of England wrote one for his eldest son, Henry, who died of typhoid at 18; maybe Charles I read it when he ascended the throne.

Medieval Acrostics

The simplest form of acrostic is a poem or other writing in which the first letter of each line spells out a word (presumably on that is related thematically to the writing). They are frequently used in education today because they are fun, but 2000 years ago they were considered valuable learning tools because of their embedded layers of meaning, especially the type of acrostic called carmina figurata ("shape poem"); it could either be a poem with words constrained to a shape such as a chalice or dragon, or it was designed so that various letters could be highlighted to make shapes or focus the reader on certain words or names.

This practice had been elevated to a high art by Roman poets. The sample on this page is from Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius, who was writing to please the Emperor Constantine in order that Optatianus might be recalled from exile. Optatianus is credited with inventing this type of carmina figurata, where the shapes to be found are internal to the poem, which is written out as a block (or other symmetrical shape) of text to aid in finding the lines. You can see not only the chi-ro symbol, but the name "iesus" spelled around the outside of the square. An interesting scholarly examination of Optatianus' figure poems can be found here.

But away from the 4th and back to the 8th century: as part of Alcuin's academic push, he gave various assignments to the men working with him at Charlemagne's palace school at Aachen. One of the men working with him was Joseph Scottus.

We know almost nothing about Scottus outside of his connection with Alcuin. He was Irish, and probably studied at the monastery in Clommacnoise. It is assumed that at one point he studied under Alcuin at York, and that connection drew him to the Frankish court when Alcuin took over. Despite his background and anti-Irish sentiment at the time, he was on very friendly terms with Charlemagne, and Scottus took over for Alcuin in 790 when Alcuin had business back home.

Very little writing by Joseph has survived, most of which is acrostics. Alcuin apparently tried to revive the form, and a manuscript of acrostics exists in Switzerland that clearly came from Charlemagne's school: the majority of acrostics are by Joseph Scottus, with others by Alcuin himself and Bishop Theodulf of Orléans. (Alas, I can find no pictures of the manuscript to share!)

Alcuin, Puzzle-master

Is there anyone who hasn't heard the puzzle of the fox, the goose, and the bag of corn? A man has to transport these three things across a river in a boat which can hold him and one other item. His constraints are that he cannot leave the fox and goose together, or the goose and corn together. This is one of several river-crossing puzzles that exist in different cultures. The earliest version we know of in print is in a late 9th century Latin manuscript of the work Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes (Problems to Sharpen the Young), attributed to Alcuin of York (c.735-804).*

"Alcuinus abba"=Father Alcuin

Educated in the cathedral school of York, Alcuin became a monk and teacher. On his way back to England from a trip to Rome in 781 he met Charlemagne, King of the Franks, who recognized Alcuin's erudition and invited him to stay and help promote learning to a level unknown since Rome.

Alcuin became head of the palace school at Aachen, where he established a great library, revised the liturgy, wrote treatises and poetry and works on grammar. It is his influence on learning that is said to have vaulted Latin into the position of being the academic language.

Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes is attributed to Alcuin, because of its date and because it is the kind of work he would have created for the pupils at Aachen. The 50+ puzzles in it are very mathematical, with three river-crossing problems—although in his early example the items are a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. Solutions are provided for all the problems.

Or almost all. There is one that has no solution offered, and it goes like this:

A certain man has 300 pigs. He ordered all of them slaughtered in 3 days, but with an uneven number killed each day. What number were to be killed each day? (Problem 43)

There can be no solution to this puzzle, for obvious reasons. (Feel free to post the reason why in the comments to explain it to your fellow readers.) The assumption is that it was given to difficult students to frustrate them.

*Alcuin also recorded the destruction of Lindisfarne.

Lindisfarne

In 635 CE, St. Aidan (c.?-651) was sent from the monastery on the island of Iona by King Oswald to re-Christianize England. He chose to found a monastery on an island off the northeast coast of England. Although it is mentioned in the 9th century Historia Brittonum (History of Britons) by the Welsh name of Medcaut (Healing), perhaps because of a reputation for medicinal herbs, it is more commonly known as Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne is a tidal island, meaning it is accessible by a causeway only when the tide is out. St. Aidan thought that this would provide security for the peaceful community of monks.

Aidan was given a horse by Oswald, so that he could ride to the nearby communities to preach. Legend says he gave the horse to a beggar and walked from village to village, speaking quietly and simply to the inhabitants, spreading the message of Christianity that had once been brought to England by Romans, but had been replaced after the fall of Rome by Anglo-Saxon paganism.

The night St. Aidan died, a teenager had a vision that inspired him to become a monk. He was made prior of Lindisfarne in 665 and bishop in 684. When he died in 687, St. Cuthbert (c.634-687) was made the patron saint of northern England.

A Viking raid on northeast England in June of 793 was bad news for Lindisfarne. The Vikings had no respect for the peaceful monks, and did great damage to the Priory. Alcuin of York, a highly respected scholar in the court of Charlemagne at the time, wrote:

Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.

More raids in 875 led to the abandonment of the island by the monks, who carried away as much as they could, including the remnants of St. Cuthbert.

Now it has a population of fewer than 200. It is largely a nature reserve and a destination for tourists who visit the ruins of the priory and a small Tudor fort turned into a castle.