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Updated: May 22, 2025
There were, however, libraries even in the West, formed by Charlemagne and by others after him. We are told that Alcuin, in writing to the great monarch, spoke with longing of the relative wealth of England in these precious estates. Mr. Edwards, whom I have already quoted, mentions Charles the Fifth of France, in 1365, as a collector of manuscripts.
The English scholar Alcuin, master of the Cloister School at York, became his chief adviser and tutor. He would have every child in his empire to know at least his paternoster, and every abbot on election was required to endow the monastery with some books. The choice of authors was not a wide one: the Old and New Testaments; the writings of the Fathers, especially St.
In each Benedictine monastery a chamber was set apart for this sacred purpose, and Charlemagne assigned to Alcuin, a member of their order, the important office of preparing a perfect copy of the Scriptures.
One of the most important monasteries of early times, on the Continent, was that conducted by Alcuin, under the protection of Charlemagne. When the appointed time for writing came round, the monks filed into the scriptorium, taking their places at their desks.
And what inspiration and cheer does every book-lover find in the letter which that grand old bibliomaniac, Alcuin, addressed to Charlemagne: "I, your Flaccus, according to your admonitions and good will, administer to some in the house of St. Martin the sweets of the Holy Scriptures; others I inebriate with the study of ancient wisdom; and others I fill with the fruits of grammatical lore.
Bede, Alcuin, Hincmar, Raban, and a number of inferior names, become real giants of learning in their uncritical panegyrics. But one might justly say, that ignorance is the smallest defect of the writers of these dark ages. Several of these were tolerably acquainted with books; but that wherein they are uniformly deficient is original argument or expression.
In Magaster, a city which according to Marco Polo, was governed by "four old men," they sold "vast quantities of elephants' teeth." Rabanus, a follower of Alcuin, born in 776, was the author of an interesting encyclopædia, rejoicing in the comprehensive title, "On the Universe."
So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun their ravages in the land.
Alcuin himself would pass about among them, making suggestions and correcting errors, a beautiful example of true consecration, the great scholar spending his time thus in supervising the transcription of the Word of God, from a desire to have it spread far and wide.
Felix, Bishop of Urgel, a chief champion in the eighth century of the Adoptianist heresy, is constantly 'Infelix' in the writings of his adversary Alcuin. The Spanish peasantry during the Peninsular War would not hear of Bonaparte, but changed the name to 'Malaparte, as designating far better the perfidious kidnapper of their king and enemy of their independence.
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