Abstract
Alcuin, the subject of Douglas Dales’ biography, was an eighth century Anglo-Saxon cleric, best-known as one of Charlemagne’s most trusted advisors on theological matters. Dales’ book eschews a conventional birth-to-death narrative for the most part and instead focuses each chapter on a different theme, from Alcuin’s relationships with the papacy and Charlemagne to his involvements in politics and the resurgent monastic movement.
Alcuin was born around the year 740 ce, in York in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. His parents (land-owners and possibly minor nobility) died early and he was raised by the clergy of York Cathedral, where he distinguished himself early on as an exceptionally gifted scholar. Northumbria was at this time an island of stability in a chaotic and violent age. Dales suggests that Alcuin’s upbringing there was very influential in the development of his political theology, in particular his desire for a harmonious relationship between church and king. Sadly, Alcuin lived to see Northumbria’s peace shattered by bloody internal disputes as well as external threats such as Mercia, the rising power to the south; the Britons whom the Anglo-Saxons had displaced; and most traumatically, the growing threat of Viking raiders, such as the ones who sacked the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793, an event that shook Alcuin deeply.
Alcuin was no longer based in Britain at that time, having been personally recruited by Charlemagne to join his inner circle of advisers in 791. The empire that the Franks were building was seen as a bulwark for Christianity in the west, thanks to the alliance forged between Charlemagne and Pope Hadrian I. Alcuin was tireless in attempting to further Charlemagne’s aims, whether it was using his British connections on his behalf in diplomacy with Mercia and Northumbria or helping to choreograph Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor in 800. Strong trust and mutual respect seems to have existed between emperor and priest, and Alcuin seems to have been unafraid to speak his mind to Charlemagne. He strongly criticised Charlemagne’s policy of forcibly converting the pagan Saxons, for instance—Alcuin’s marked preference for peaceful discourse over violence being one of his most attractive traits to a modern reader.
At Charlemagne’s behest, Alcuin involved himself into some of the major theological disputes of his day, most notably the rise of Adoptionist beliefs in Spain and the dispute with the Byzantine church over the veneration of icons, as well as the Carolingian reforms of the Roman church. Charlemagne also made him abbot of St Martin’s in Tours in 796—a wealthy and hugely important abbey. At one stage, Alcuin harboured dreams of returning to Northumbria and taking up the monastic life. But this proved to be impossible, due to Northumbria’s ever-increasing instability and Alcuin’s own connections to the kingdom’s deposed monarchy. Instead, he died as abbot of Tours in 804.