Chapter XVIII: Letter 206: , which commences “Albinus greets Nathanael”, and after

addressing him as though he were the real Nathanael who was seen under the fig-tree by Jesus, proceeds thus:—

[Sidenote: Ep. 206.]

“Salute Lucia my sister and Columba our daughter.[231] Pray them to be mindful of my old age in sacred prayers and of their own salvation in good works. And hide not from them the beauty of your wisdom, but irrigate the flower-beds of good will in them. What is more beautiful than the flowers of wisdom, which never fade? What is richer than the wealth of knowledge, which is never exhausted? To this exhort them. Let them live day and night in meditation on the law of God, that they may find Him of whom Moses in the law wrote, and the prophets. Bid them hold Him and not let Him go till they are led into the chambers of the Kings glory to be supported by flowers of eternal blessedness, the Bridegroom’s left hand of present prosperity under their head, and the right hand of eternal bliss embracing them.[232]

“Convey the letter of my littleness, with the most holy gift of divine Scripture and peaceful words of salutation, to my lord David. To him we owe as many thanks and praises for all his goodness to me and to my sons as this Book has syllables; to him may God give as many blessings as in this Book there are letters.”

The natural supposition is that Alcuin brought—or had sent—from York accurate copies of the Scriptures, from which he corrected the faulty manuscripts of France and Germany, to use modern names. Errors were due, probably, at least as much to mispronunciation on the part of the person who dictated to the writers, or to mis-hearing on their part, as to carelessness in transcribing. We have to remember that the practice was for one monk to read out word by word the sentence which the writers in the scriptorium were to take down, so that in this way twenty or thirty—it is said as many as two hundred—copies of a poem or a book could be written at the same time. This practice gave many opportunities for error.

We have at the British Museum a magnificent Bible, one of the largest manuscripts in existence, called Alcuin’s Bible. It contains 449 sheets of very fine parchment, 20 by 14½ inches. It was purchased for the Museum in 1836 for £750, the price asked at first being £12,000, reduced to £6,500 as “an immense sacrifice”. The story of its acquisition, and the question of its date and its connexion with Alcuin, were stated and discussed by Sir F. Madden in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1836, pages 358 to 363, 468 to 477, 580 to 587. That able archaeologist believed it to be of Alcuin’s own time, and, indeed, to be the very copy which Alcuin presented to Charlemagne in 801, on the completion of the recension which Karl had entrusted to him. The evidence in favour of this view is found on the last page of the MS., in some elegiac verses composed by Alcuin. The verses begin with an appeal from the book itself to its readers that it may be called a Pandect, and not a Bibliotheca,[233] and after eight more verses, in which it is called a Codex, they end as follows:—

Mercedes habeat, Christo donante, per aevum
Is Carolus qui iam scribere iussit eum.
Haec dator aeternus cunctorum, Christe, bonorum
Munera de donis accipe sancta tuis,
Quae Pater Albinus, devoto pectore supplex,
Nominis ad laudes obtulit ecce tui;
Quem tua perpetuis conservet dextra diebus,
Ut felix tecum vivat in arce poli.
Pro me quisque legas versus orare memento,
Alchuine dicor ego. Tu sine fine vale.

“May Charles, who bade this book be written, receive eternal rewards. May the giver of all good accept this offering of His own gifts, which Father Albinus has made, whom may Thy hand preserve to live with Thee. Thou who readest these verses, remember to pray for me; my name is Alchuine; mayest thou for ever fare well.”

That these verses were written in the great Pandect of Alcuin’s recension, which Alcuin presented to Charlemagne, we may take to be certain. But we may also take it as certain that they would be written also in copies made from that special Pandect; and it has been decided by the most competent modern critics that the Bible in the Museum was not written till a generation had passed away after Alcuin’s death.

That the verses were entered in other copies also is certain. The Fathers of the Oratory della Vallicella at Rome had a copy of this recension, which was believed to be written by Alcuin’s own hand and presented to Charlemagne. In it there is a long copy of verses, including those in the Museum Bible, but with curious alterations and additions, which make it probable that the Vallicella Bible was written for Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles le Chauve. _Quae Pater Albinus devoto pectore supplex_ is altered into _Quae tibi devoto Carolus rex pectore supplex_, and verses are added, stating that the Bible was written for a new church which Charles had just built. The alteration cuts out the personal note of Alcuin, and the addition cuts out Charlemagne and points to another Charles. This is far from being the only case in which confusion is caused by the fact that Charlemagne was himself for many years Charles the king; that his oldest son was Charles the king; that his grandson was Charles the king; as also two great grandsons, a great great grandson, and even two generations further still.

Others besides Alcuin and the royal family were interested in the various versions of Scripture. For example, his contemporary Theodulf, the learned bishop of Orleans, sent to his own daughter Gisla a psalter, radiant with silver and gold, with both the earlier and the later versions of Jerome.

Our use of the word _Graduale_ for the book containing the words and the music sung by the choir at the service of the Mass is an evidence of the large part played by the Gallican Church in the arrangement and improvement of the early mediaeval service books. Rome spoke of the Antiphonale Missarum and Antiphonale Horarum, while Gaul spoke of the Graduale for Mass Music and Antiphonale for the Music of the Hours. Under Alcuin’s guiding hand, the influence of Charlemagne and his times upon the services was wide and deep. In the document described as Ep. 31, A.D. 794, Karl has a good deal to say about the success of his own efforts to put down irregular methods of singing the services, and to bring all into general accord with the Roman method.[234] Alcuin’s work re-acted upon the Roman use itself, and is understood to have been the operating cause of the mark left upon it.

[Sidenote: Ep. 72. A.D. 796.]

Alcuin had strong opinions as to the best manner of singing the services. In a letter to Eanbald II, he writes thus, for the benefit of the Church of York:—“Let the clergy chant with moderated voice, striving to please God rather than men. An immoderate exaltation of voice is a sign of boastfulness. And let them not be above learning the Roman Orders of Service, that they may have eternal benediction from the blessed Peter, chief of the Apostles, whom Our Lord Jesus Christ made the head of His elect flock.”

Alcuin was versed in secular music also. We learn from Ep. 100 that Karl had asked him to write peaceful and soothing songs, both words and music, for soldiers to sing when engaged in the horrors of war, and that he complied with the request.

We have some very interesting evidences of the borrowing of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for use in France, and of the influence of Anglo-Saxon forms on French services. There are two Anglo-Saxon forms for the coronation of a king. One of these is found in the Pontifical of Ecgbert, the Bishop and later the Archbishop of York, to which a date of about 745 may be given. It is merely the supplement to the Mass on the occasion of a coronation, and accordingly it does not give the details of the ceremony. The other is a later form, and it gives at length the details of the ceremony, one of the longest prayers describing the king as raised to the royal throne of the Angles and Saxons. But, curiously enough, we learn the most interesting parts of the ceremony of crowning an Anglo-Saxon king, not from this manuscript, but from three manuscripts of the form for the coronation of a king of the French. The first of these to be mentioned is a manuscript form of an Abbat of Corbie. In it we find the prayer for “This thy servant whom with suppliant devotion we elect equally to the kingdom of the whole of Albion, that is to say, of the Franks ... That he may nourish and teach the Church of the whole of Albion, with the peoples committed to his charge”. Here it would appear that a marginal note had been added to the Anglo-Saxon form at the first mention of “Albion”, “that is to say, of the Franks,” and has afterwards been incorporated in one place and not in the other. The “elect equally” indicates that the form was used for an Anglo-Saxon king who claimed to be king of the whole land, while yet the old division into three main nations was fresh in mind.[235] It is a further evidence in favour of this being an Anglo-Saxon form, that the only saint mentioned besides the Blessed Virgin and St. Peter is “Holy Gregory, Apostolic of the Angles”. In the preparation of the Sens Order, to be mentioned later, this flaw had been discovered, and St. Denys and St. Remy put in the place of St. Gregory.

In a manuscript in the National Library of Paris, we have a second Order for the Coronation of a King of the Franks, which is indubitably an Anglo-Saxon Order. The following phrases occur: “This thy servant whom with suppliant devotion we elect equally ... That the sceptre desert not the royal throne, that is to say, of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians (Nordanchimbrorum) ... That supported by the due subjection of both of these peoples...”

In a third Order for the Coronation of French Kings, from the Pontifical of the illustrious Church of Sens, we find the prayer “that the sceptre desert not the royal throne, that is to say, of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians (Nordan Cymbrorum)”, and “that the king, supported by the due subjection of both these peoples....”

It may be added that the French Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, now at Rouen, has the form “Angles and Saxons”. So late as 1364 Charles V of France was crowned with a form which named the throne as that of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northchimbrians; while at the same time the peers of Guienne swore to protect him against the king of England, his people, and allies.[236]