Alcuin

On paper, they seemed like an odd match. King Charlemagne was worldly and aggressive. Cleric Alcuin (735-804) was gentle and scholarly. One of Alcuin’s contemporaries described him as “the most learned man anywhere to be found.” Charlemagne invited Alcuin to join his court as a scholar in residence in 781AD. Alcuin taught at the palace school, which included Charlemagne’s sons. Alcuin was a one-man liberal arts machine. His syllabus included Bible, classical Greek and Roman authors, rhetoric, grammar, music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. He became one of Charlemagne’s trusted advisors. Alcuin showed respect to the king yet also openly disagreed with him. While they shared mutual respect, there was room for dissent. Case in point: Alcuin successfully persuaded the overzealous king to stop executing persons who refused to be baptized. Charlemagne appointed Alcuin to lead the St. Martin’s Monastery (France) in 796 AD. Alcuin wrote in a letter to the king, “I, your Flaccus (Alcuin’s Latin name) am doing as you have urged and wished. To some who are beneath the roof of St. Martin, I am striving to dispense the honey of Holy Scripture; to others I am eager to intoxicate with the wine of apples of grammatical refinement; and there are some whom I long to adorn with the knowledge of astronomy.” Alcuin composed his own epitaph and described himself with the words, “Alcuin was my name, learning I loved.” He loved learning for its own sake, rather than what he could get out of it. Most germane to our prayer focus, he recognized a reciprocal relationship between Bible reading and prayer. When we pray, we talk to God. When we read, God speaks to us. Alcuin leads us to pray: