ALCUIN (AZCxvINB), ecclesiastic and man of learning in the 8th century, who liked to be called by the Latin name of ALBINUS, and at the Academy of the palace of Charlemagn€ took the surname of FLACCUS, was born at Eboracum (York) in 735. Alcuin is important in the European history of his time, because he carried the learning of the British Isles to the court of Charlemagne and so to western Europe. He was educated at the cathedral school of York, under Aelbert, with whom he went to Rome in search of manuscripts. When Aelbert was appointed archbishop of York in 766, Alcuin succeeded him as head of the episcopal school. He again went to Rome in 78o, to fetch the gallium for Archbishop Eanbald, and at Parma met Charlemagne, who persuaded him to come to his court, and gave him the great abbeys of Ferrieres and of Saint-Loup at Troyes. The king desired his help in the revival of learning among the Franks. From 781 to 790 Alcuin was Charlemagne's right hand in this enterprise. He had as pupils the king of the Franks, the members of his family and the young clerics attached to the palace chapel; he was the life and soul of the academy of the palace, and we have still, in the Dialogue of Pepin (son of Charlemagne) and Alcuin, a sample of the intellectual exercises in which they in dulged. It was under his inspiration that Charles wrote his famous letter de litteris colendis (Boretius, Capitularia, i. p. 78), and he founded the palace library. In 790 Alcuin returned to his own country, but Charlemagne needed him to combat the Adoptionist heresy, which was making headway in the marches of Spain. At the Council of Frankfort in 794 Alcuin upheld the orthodox doctrine, and obtained the condemnation of the heresiarch, Felix of Urgel. After this victory he returned to his own land, but only for a brief period. Charlemagne gave him the great abbey of St. Martin at Tours, and there he' passed his last years. Many students flocked to the abbey school; he had numerous manu scripts copied, the calligraphy of which is of extraordinary beauty (v. Leopold Delisle in the Memoires de l'Academie des In scriptions, vol. xxxii., part, 1885). The script used was the Carolingian minuscule from which our own roman type derives. He wrote numerous letters to his friends in England, to Arno, bishop of Salzburg, and above all to Charlemagne. These letters, of which 311 are extant, are filled chiefly with pious meditations, but they form a mine of information as to the literary and social conditions of the time, and are the most reliable authority for the history of humanism in the Carolingian age. Others deal with astronomy, a favourite subject with the emperor. Alcuin died on May 19, 804.
Alcuin is the most prominent figure of the Carolingian Renais sance, in which have been distinguished three main periods : in the first of these, up to the arrival of Alcuin-at the court, the Italians occupy the chief place ; in the second, Alcuin and the Anglo-Saxons are dominant ; in the third, which begins in 804, the influence of the Goth Theodulf is preponderant. Besides some graceful epistles in the style of Fortunatus, Alcuin wrote some long poems, and notably a whole history in verse of the church at York: Versus de patribus, regibus et sanctis Eboracensis ec clesiae. He wrote also manuals used in his educational work; a grammar and works on rhetoric and dialectics, written in the form of dialogues. He composed homilies, a treatise de Fide Trinitatis, etc., and is said to have revised the text of the Latin Bible.
The complete works of Alcuin have been edited by Froben: Alcuini opera (Regensburg, 1777). This edition is reproduced in Migne's Patrolog. lat. vols. c. and ci. The letters have been pub lished by Jaffe and Dummler in Jaffe's Bibliotheca rerum gerrrani carum, vol. vi., p. 132-897 (1873). E. Dummler also published an authoritative edition, Epistolae aevi Carolini, vol. ii., p. 1-481, in the Monumenta Germaniae, and edited the poems in the same collection: Poetae latini aevi Carolini, vol. i., p. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Monnier, Alcuin et Charlemagne (1863) ; K. Bibliography.-Monnier, Alcuin et Charlemagne (1863) ; K. Werner, Alkuin and sein Jahrliundert (Paderborn, 18/6) ; J. Bass Mullinger, The Schools of Charles the Great and the Restoration of Education in the gth Century (1877) ; Aug. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de France, vol. i., p. 191 ; G. Monod, Etudes critiques sur les sources de l'histoire Carolingienne, part i. (1898) ; C. J. B. Gaskoin, Alcuin: His Life and his Work (19o4). See further W. Ueberweg, Grundriss d. Gesch. Phil. des Mittelalters (1915 ed.) ; M. J. Rhodes, "Learning and Literature till Pope Sylvester II." in Cambridge Medi aeval History, vol. (1922) .