The Alcuin Club is an Anglican organization seeking to preserve or restore church ceremony, arrangement, ornament, and practice in an orthodox manner.
42-621: The organization was founded in 1897 and named after Alcuin of York . It was a reorganization of an earlier group, the Society of St. Osmund, which was formed in 1889. The Alcuin Club's first publication, English Altars by W. H. St. John Hope , appeared in 1899. The club was especially dedicated to the Book of Common Prayer and conformity to its exact rubric . The club sought to provide academic and dispassionate vetting for proposed revisions to this Book. The club
84-411: A deacon in the church. He was never ordained a priest. Though no real evidence shows that he took monastic vows, he lived as if he had. In 781, King Elfwald sent Alcuin to Rome to petition the pope for official confirmation of York's status as an archbishopric and to confirm the election of the new archbishop, Eanbald I . On his way home, he met Charlemagne (whom he had met once before), this time in
126-561: A paterfamilias , had founded an oratory and church at the mouth of the Humber , which had fallen into Alcuin's possession by inheritance. Because in early Anglo-Latin writing paterfamilias ("head of a family, householder") usually referred to a ceorl ("churl"), Donald A. Bullough suggests that Alcuin's family was of cierlisc ("churlish") status: i.e., free but subordinate to a noble lord, and that Alcuin and other members of his family rose to prominence through beneficial connections with
168-540: A history (in verse) of the church at York, Versus de patribus, regibus et sanctis Eboracensis ecclesiae . At the same time, he is noted for making one of the only explicit comments on Old English poetry surviving from the early Middle Ages, in a letter to one Speratus, the bishop of an unnamed English see (possibly Unwona of Leicester): "verba Dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio: ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam; sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium. Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?" ("Let God's words be read at
210-405: A largely free society, and one in which their fealty was principally to their king . Their low status is shown by their werġild ("man-price"), which, over a large part of England, was fixed at 200 shillings (one-sixth that of a theġn ). Agriculture was largely community-based and communal in open-field systems. This freedom was eventually eroded by the increase in power of feudal lords and
252-526: A somewhat rough and common man and is no longer in use as a synonym for a common soldier ( die langen Kerls of King Frederick William I of Prussia ). Rígsþula , a poem in the Poetic Edda , explains the social classes as originating from the three sons of Ríg: Thrall , Karl and Earl ( Þræl , Karl and Jarl ). This story has been interpreted in the context of the proposed trifunctional hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European society . Cognates to
294-656: Is believed to have had contacts with Beatus of Liébana , from the Kingdom of Asturias , who fought against Adoptionism. At the Council of Frankfurt in 794, Alcuin upheld the orthodox doctrine against the views expressed by Felix of Urgel , an heresiarch according to the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Having failed during his stay in Northumbria to influence King Æthelred in the conduct of his reign, Alcuin never returned home. He
336-681: Is considered among the most important intellectual architects of the Carolingian Renaissance . Among his pupils were many of the dominant intellectuals of the Carolingian era. Alcuin wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and a number of poems. In 796, he was made abbot of Marmoutier Abbey , in Tours , where he worked on perfecting the Carolingian minuscule script. He remained there until his death. Alcuin
378-537: Is preserved in Dutch and Afrikaans boer and German Bauer , although the latter has its own pejorative connotations such as those prompting its use as the name for the chess piece known in English as a pawn ; also the word villain —derived from Anglo-French and Old French , originally meaning "farmhand" —has gone through a similar process to reach its present meaning). The ċeorles of early medieval England lived in
420-520: The Book of Common Prayer . Today, the Alcuin Club selects works on liturgy, ceremony, and hagiography for awards. This Anglicanism -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Alcuin of York Alcuin of York ( / ˈ æ l k w ɪ n / ; Latin : Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus ; c. 735 – 19 May 804) – also called Ealhwine , Alhwin , or Alchoin –
462-532: The Encyclopædia Britannica , "He loved Charlemagne and enjoyed the king's esteem, but his letters reveal that his fear of him was as great as his love." After the death of Pope Adrian I , Alcuin was commissioned by Charlemagne to compose an epitaph for Adrian. The epitaph was inscribed on black stone quarried at Aachen and carried to Rome where it was set over Adrian's tomb in the south transept of St Peter's basilica just before Charlemagne's coronation in
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#1732852104328504-516: The Frankish court. He revived the school with the trivium and quadrivium disciplines, writing a codex on the trivium, while his student Hraban wrote one on the quadrivium. Alcuin graduated to become a teacher during the 750s. His ascendancy to the headship of the York school, the ancestor of St Peter's School , began after Aelbert became Archbishop of York in 767. Around the same time, Alcuin became
546-560: The Palace School of Charlemagne in Aachen ( Urbs Regale ) in 782. It had been founded by the king's ancestors as a place for the education of the royal children (mostly in manners and the ways of the court). However, Charlemagne wanted to include the liberal arts , and most importantly, the study of religion. From 782 to 790, Alcuin taught Charlemagne himself, his sons Pepin and Louis , as well as young men sent to be educated at court, and
588-479: The Vita Alcuini , a hagiography written for him at Ferrières in the 820s, possibly based in part on the memories of Sigwulf, one of Alcuin's pupils. The collection of mathematical and logical word problems entitled Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes ("Problems to Sharpen Youths") is sometimes attributed to Alcuin. In a 799 letter to Charlemagne, the scholar claimed to have sent "certain figures of arithmetic for
630-460: The manorial system . Some scholars argue, however, that anterior to the encroachment of the manorial system the ċeorles owed various services and rents to local lords and powers. In the North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages , the word Karl has the same root as churl and meant originally a "free man". As " housecarl ", it came back to England. In German , Kerl is used to describe
672-626: The 1950s and it is now dedicated to studying ceremony of all Christian churches. The club has members in the United Kingdom and many in the United States. From the beginnings, the club promoted bibliophile reprints. Its second publication, for instance, was Exposition de la messe from La legende dorée of Jean de Vignay , including illuminations reproduced from holdings in the Fitzwilliam Museum ; these had little immediate connection to
714-558: The Bible. Alcuin is credited with inventing the first known question mark , though it did not resemble the modern symbol. Alcuin transmitted to the Franks the knowledge of Latin culture, which had existed in Anglo-Saxon England. A number of his works still exist. Besides some graceful epistles in the style of Venantius Fortunatus , he wrote some long poems, and notably he is the author of
756-1005: The British Isles and Ireland. The Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist publishes a liturgical calendar that is widely used in that region, and this calendar includes a feast for St Alcuin. Alcuin College , one of the colleges of the University of York , is named after him. In January 2020, Alcuin was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time . For a complete census of Alcuin's works, see Marie-Hélène Jullien and Françoise Perelman, eds., Clavis scriptorum latinorum medii aevi: Auctores Galliae 735–987. Tomus II: Alcuinus. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. Of Alcuin's letters, over 310 have survived. Churl A churl ( Old High German karal ), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning,
798-400: The Carolingian minuscule based on round and legible uncial letters. He wrote many letters to his English friends, to Arno, bishop of Salzburg and above all to Charlemagne. These letters (of which 311 are extant) are filled mainly with pious meditations, but they form an important source of information as to the literary and social conditions of the time and are the most reliable authority for
840-474: The English are dominant; in the third (from 804), the influence of Theodulf the Visigoth is preponderant. Alcuin also developed manuals used in his educational work – a grammar and works on rhetoric and dialectics . These are written in the form of a dialogue , and in two of them the interlocutors are Charlemagne and Alcuin. He wrote several theological treatises: a De fide Trinitatis , and commentaries on
882-595: The Italian city of Parma . Alcuin's intellectual curiosity allowed him to be reluctantly persuaded to join Charlemagne's court. He joined an illustrious group of scholars whom Charlemagne had gathered around him, the mainsprings of the Carolingian Renaissance : Peter of Pisa , Paulinus of Aquileia , Rado, and Abbot Fulrad . Alcuin would later write, "the Lord was calling me to the service of King Charles". Alcuin became master of
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#1732852104328924-528: The Viking attack, he wrote: "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain. Behold the church of St Cuthbert , splattered with the blood of God's priests, robbed of its ornaments." In 796, Alcuin was in his 60s. He hoped to be free from court duties and upon the death of Abbot Itherius of Saint Martin at Tours, Charlemagne put Marmoutier Abbey into Alcuin's care, with the understanding that he should be available if
966-539: The aristocracy. If so, Alcuin's origins may lie in the southern part of what was formerly known as Deira . The young Alcuin came to the cathedral church of York during the golden age of Archbishop Ecgbert and his brother, the Northumbrian King Eadberht . Ecgbert had been a disciple of the Venerable Bede , who urged him to raise York to an archbishopric . King Eadberht and Archbishop Ecgbert oversaw
1008-683: The basilica on Christmas Day 800. In 790, Alcuin returned from the court of Charlemagne to England, to which he had remained attached. He dwelt there for some time, but Charlemagne then invited him back to help in the fight against the Adoptionist heresy, which was at that time making great progress in Toledo , the old capital of the Visigoths and still a major city for the Christians under Islamic rule in Spain . He
1050-437: The broad line of demarcation between the classes of society. This meaning held through the 15th century, but by then the word had taken on negative overtones, meaning "a country person" and then "a low fellow". By the 19th century, a new and pejorative meaning arose, "one inclined to uncivil or loutish behaviour"—hence "churlish" (cf. the pejorative sense of the term boor , whose original meaning of "country person" or "farmer"
1092-720: The creation of the script. Carolingian minuscule was already in use before Alcuin arrived in Francia. Most likely he was responsible for copying and preserving the script while at the same time restoring the purity of the form. Alcuin died on 19 May 804, some 10 years before the emperor, and was buried at St. Martin's Church under an epitaph that partly read: Dust, worms, and ashes now ... Alcuin my name, wisdom I always loved, Pray, reader, for my soul. The majority of details on Alcuin's life come from his letters and poems. Also, autobiographical sections are in Alcuin's poem on York and in
1134-464: The emperor's policy of forcing pagans to be baptised on pain of death, arguing, "Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be baptised, but you cannot force them to believe." His arguments seem to have prevailed – Charlemagne abolished the death penalty for paganism in 797. Charlemagne gathered the best men of every land in his court, and became far more than just
1176-524: The episcopal dinner-table. It is right that a reader should be heard, not a harpist, patristic discourse, not pagan song. What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"). Alcuin is honoured in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 20 May the first available day after the day of his death (as Dunstan is celebrated on 19 May). Alcuin is also venerated as a Saint by Eastern Orthodox Christians in
1218-464: The fame of Charlemagne , to which was added that of later illustrious kings and emperors of the same name. The Polish word for "king", Król , is also derived from the same origin. In her tragedy Ethwald (Part II), Joanna Baillie uses the spelling cairl , and in Act 2, Scene II, the characters, First Cairl, Second Cairl and Third Cairl are found searching amongst the dead upon a battle field. This play
1260-461: The history of humanism during the Carolingian age. Alcuin trained the numerous monks of the abbey in piety, and in the midst of these pursuits, he died. Alcuin is the most prominent figure of the Carolingian Renaissance , in which three main periods have been distinguished: in the first of these, up to the arrival of Alcuin at the court, the Italians occupy a central place; in the second, Alcuin and
1302-463: The joy of cleverness", which some scholars have identified with the Propositiones. The text contains about 53 mathematical word problems (with solutions), in no particular pedagogical order. Among the most famous of these problems are: four that involve river crossings , including the problem of three anxious brothers , each of whom has an unmarried sister whom he cannot leave alone with either of
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1344-565: The king at the centre. It seems that he made many of these men his closest friends and counsellors. They referred to him as 'David', a reference to the Biblical king David . Alcuin soon found himself on intimate terms with Charlemagne and the other men at court, where pupils and masters were known by affectionate and jesting nicknames. Alcuin himself was known as 'Albinus' or 'Flaccus'. While at Aachen , Alcuin bestowed pet names upon his pupils – derived mainly from Virgil 's Eclogues . According to
1386-402: The king ever needed his counsel. There, he encouraged the work of the monks on the beautiful Carolingian minuscule script, ancestor of modern Roman typefaces using a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters. Latin paleography in the eighth century leaves little room for a single origin of the script, and sources contradict his importance as no proof has been found of his direct involvement in
1428-466: The other men lest she be defiled (Problem 17); the problem of the wolf, goat, and cabbage (Problem 18); and the problem of "the two adults and two children where the children weigh half as much as the adults" (Problem 19). Alcuin's sequence is the solution to one of the problems of that book. Alcuin made the abbey school into a model of excellence and many students flocked to it. He had many manuscripts copied using outstandingly beautiful calligraphy ,
1470-471: The re-energising and reorganisation of the English church , with an emphasis on reforming the clergy and on the tradition of learning that Bede had begun. Ecgbert was devoted to Alcuin, who thrived under his tutelage. The York school was renowned as a centre of learning in the liberal arts, literature, and science, as well as in religious matters. From here, Alcuin drew inspiration for the school he would lead at
1512-776: The word ceorle are frequently found in place names, throughout the Anglophone world, in towns such as Carlton and Charlton , meaning "the farmstead of the churls". Names such as Carl and Charles are derived from cognates of churl or ċeorle . While the word churl went down in the social scale, the first name derived from the same etymological source ("Karl" in German, "Charles" in French and English, " Carlos " in Spanish, Karel in Dutch, etc.) remained prestigious enough to be used frequently by many European royal families - owing originally to
1554-494: The young clerics attached to the palace chapel . Bringing with him from York his assistants Pyttel, Sigewulf, and Joseph, Alcuin revolutionised the educational standards of the Palace School, introducing Charlemagne to the liberal arts and creating a personalised atmosphere of scholarship and learning, to the extent that the institution came to be known as the 'school of Master Albinus'. In this role as adviser, he took issue with
1596-532: Was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York , Northumbria . He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invitation of Charlemagne , he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court , where he remained a figure in the 780s and 790s. Before that, he was also a court chancellor in Aachen. "The most learned man anywhere to be found", according to Einhard 's Life of Charlemagne ( c. 817 –833), he
1638-541: Was active in the debate over the rewriting of the Book of Common Prayer in the 1920s. The club's publications were read by ecclesiastical scholars, not a popular audience. In order to reach a broader audience, the Anglican priest Percy Dearmer and later faculty member of King’s College for sacred art, worked to spread the club's message. He sought to win artists and craftsmen with high aesthetic standards for liturgical work in churches and chapels. Its influence faded after
1680-540: Was back at Charlemagne's court by at least mid-792, writing a series of letters to Æthelred, to Hygbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne , and to Æthelhard , Archbishop of Canterbury in the succeeding months, dealing with the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in July 793. These letters and Alcuin's poem on the subject, "De clade Lindisfarnensis monasterii" , provide the only significant contemporary account of these events. In his description of
1722-671: Was born in Northumbria , presumably sometime in the 730s. Virtually nothing is known of his parents, family background, or origin. In common hagiographical fashion, the Vita Alcuini asserts that Alcuin was "of noble English stock", and this statement has usually been accepted by scholars. Alcuin's own work only mentions such collateral kinsmen as Wilgils, father of the missionary saint Willibrord ; and Beornrad (also spelled Beornred), abbot of Echternach and bishop of Sens. Willibrord, Alcuin and Beornrad were all related by blood. In his Life of St Willibrord, Alcuin writes that Wilgils, called
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1764-488: Was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant ", still spelled ċeorl(e) , and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , it later came to mean the opposite of nobility and royalty , "a common person ". Says Chadwick : we find that the distinction between thegn and ceorl is from the time of Aethelstan
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