[Scriptoris] Blessed Alcuin of York's Day - May 19th

[Hillary Greenslade]

Greetings Scribes, 
I received the following missive from the Medieval Saints list, that posts the daily saint
festivals.   Alcuin is a personal favorite of mine, as he is the designer/developer of the
Carolingian scripts at Charlemaine's request, and it quickly became the dominant script of the
west.  Enjoy his story below.   
Hillary
Ansteorran Scribal Historian
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Blessed Alcuin of York's Day, May 19

Blessed Alcuin of York, Abbot
Also known as Alhwin, Alchoin, Alrinus, Albinus, Flaccus 
Died 804 at Tours, France of natural causes 
His cult is unconfirmed, commemorated May 19

Under Alcuin's direction the school at Aachen became one of the 
greatest centers of learning in Europe. He was the moving force and 
spirit of Carolingian renaissance and made the Frankish court the 
center of European culture and scholarship. 

Alcuin of York
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Alcuin.html

Alcuin of York was born into a high ranking family who lived near the 
East Coast of England. He was sent to York where he became a pupil at 
York cathedral school, Archbishop Ecgberht's School. 

After being a pupil at Archbishop Ecgberht's School, Alcuin remained 
there as a teacher, becoming headmaster of the school in 778. During 
his time as a teacher at this school in York Alcuin built up a fine 
library, one of the best in Europe, and made the school one of the 
most important centres of learning in Europe. He wrote a long poem 
describing the men associated with York's history before he left for 
the continent. 

In 781 Alcuin accepted an invitation from Charlemagne to go to Aachen 
to a meeting of the leading scholars of the time. Following this 
meeting, he was appointed head of Charlemagne's Palace School at 
Aachen and there he developed the Carolingian minuscule, a clear 
script which has become the basis of the way the letters of the 
present Roman alphabet are written. Before leaving Aachen, Alcuin was 
responsible for the most precious of Carolingian codices, now called 
the Golden Gospels. These were a series of illuminated masterpieces 
written largely in gold, often on purple coloured vellum. 

The development of Carolingian minuscule had, although somewhat 
indirectly, a large impact on the history of mathematics. It was a 
script which was much more readable than the old unspaced capital 
script which was in use before this and, as a consequence, most of 
the mathematical works were freshly copied into this new script in 
the 9th century. Most of the works of the ancient Greek 
mathematicians which have survived do so because of this copying 
process and it is the 'latest' version written in minuscule script 
which has survived. 

Not only was Alcuin headmaster of Charlemagne's Palace School at 
Aachen but he also was a personal friend to Charlemagne and became 
the teacher of his two sons. In fact Alcuin lived in Aachen for two 
periods, during the years 782 to 790 and then again from 793 to 796. 

In 796 Alcuin retired from Charlemagne's Palace School at Aachen and 
became abbot of the Abbey of St Martin at Tours, where he had his 
monks continue to work with the Carolingian minuscule script. While 
in Tours Alcuin arranged for some of his pupils to go to York to 
bring some of the rarer works that he had collected there back to 
Tours. He wrote:- 

"I say this that you may agree to send some of our boys to get 
everything we need from there and bring the flowers of Britain back 
to France that as well as the walled garden in York there may be off-
shoots of paradise bearing fruit in Tours." 

Alcuin wrote elementary texts on arithmetic, geometry and astronomy 
at a time when there was just beginning a renaissance in learning in 
Europe, a renaissance mainly led by Alcuin himself. His lesson books 
were written in a question - and - answer format. However his work in 
this area, unlike the inspired calligraphy he developed, shows little 
originality. 

Late in his life Alcuin summed up his own career with a rather 
beautiful description:- 

"In the morning, at the height of my powers, I sowed the seed in 
Britain, now in the evening when my blood is growing cold I am still 
sowing in France, hoping both will grow, by the grace of God, giving 
some the honey of the holy scriptures, making others drunk on the old 
wine of ancient learning..." 

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More on Alcuin at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01276a.htm
http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0519.htm#alcu





	
		
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