Alcuin

Alcuin or Albinus , 735?-804, English churchman and educator. He was educated at the cathedral school of York by a disciple of Bede; he became principal in 766. Charlemagne invited him (781?) to court at Aachen to set up a school. For 15 years Alcuin was the moving spirit of the Carolingian renaissance. He combated illiteracy with a system of elementary education. On a higher level he established the study of the seven liberal arts, the trivium and quadrivium, which became the curriculum for medieval Western Europe. He encouraged the study and preservation of ancient texts. His dialogue textbook of rhetoric, called Compendia, was widely used. He wrote verse, and his letters were preserved. Alcuin's treatise against Felix of Urgel did much to defeat the heresy of adoptionism . He died as head of the abbey of St. Martin of Tours, where he had one of his most famous schools.

Bibliography: See studies by E. J. B. Gaskoin (1904), E. Duckett (1951, repr. 1965), and G. Ellard (1956).

Alcuin (c.735–804) English scholar and the ologian. In 782 was employed by Emperor CHARLEMAGNE as head of his palace school at Aachen, where his pupils included many of the outstanding figures in the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’. Alcuin played a central role in fostering this cultural revival. In 796 he became abbot of St Martin at Tours, where he continued his work until his death.