Difference between revisions of "Alcuin of York"
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*[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/alcuin-willbrord.html Alcuin's <i>Life of Willibrord</i> at the Medieval Sourcebook] | *[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/alcuin-willbrord.html Alcuin's <i>Life of Willibrord</i> at the Medieval Sourcebook] | ||
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Revision as of 14:40, May 4, 2009
Alcuin of York (Lat.: Alcuinus; Anglo-Saxon: Ealhwine; also called Albinus, Flaccus) was an important early medieval teacher and scholar, born around 735, d. 19 May 804.
Life
Alcuin was raised in Northumbria, and attended the cathedral school of Archbishop Egbert at York. In 767, following Egbert's death, Alcuin, already a prominent English intellectual, became the school's director.
He met Charlemagne while returning from Rome in March of 781, and Charlemagne recruited Alcuin to head the Frankish palace school. Aside from two return trips to England, in 786 and 790, Alcuin remained on the Continent for the rest of his life as a reformer, educator, and close advisor to the Frankish king.
In 796, he became abbot of St. Martin's at Tours, where he retired to write.
Works
As a theologian, Alcuin's most prominent work consisted in his condemnation of Spanish Adoptionism, as advanced by the bishop Elipandus of Toledo and the bishop Felix of Urgell.
Alcuin oversaw many of the intellectual and educational reforms of the Carolingian Renaissance, and his students at the palace school went on to become some of the most important figures of the Carolingian era.
Almost all of Alcuin's work writings date from the period of his retirement between 796 and 804, and include a number of important exegetical and didactic commentaries. He also left behind an important series of letters, collected after his death.
