Includes bibliographical references and index.

Publisher's Note. xi -- Donald Bullough Memoir. xiii -- by Giles Contable -- Preface. xvii -- Chronology. xxiii -- List of Abbreviations. xxv -- PART ONE -- In Defence of the Biographical Approach. The Sources. 3 -- Theme and Variations. 3 -- The Modern Reputation and the Contemporary Period. 12 -- Posthumous Reputation. 17 -- Alcuin Revealed?. 24 -- The Evidence of the Letters. 35 -- Transmission of the Letters: the Beginnings. 43 -- Salzburg Copies of the Letters. 51 -- The 'Basic Tours Collection' of the Letters. 57 -- Omissions from the 'Basic Tours Collections'. 66 -- Manuscripts of the T Collection in England. 68 -- An Anomalous Collection. 71 -- A 'Personal' Collection of Letters?. 75 -- The English Collections of the Letters. 81 -- The Development of the Letter-Collections: the Evidence -- summarised. 101 -- Author, Notaries and Copyists. 103 -- Amicitia, and Sexual Orientation. 110 -- The Possibility and Limitations of 'Biography'. 117 -- Additional Note I. 120 -- Additional Note II. 122 -- Additional Note III. 123 -- PART TWO -- Chapter One Northumbrian Alcuin: Patria, Pueritia and -- Adoliscentia. 127 -- The Eight-Century Regnum northanhumbrorum. 129 -- Northumbrian Society. 135 -- Patres familias. 146 -- York, a City Emerging. 153 -- York and a Wider North. 160 -- The York Infans. 164 -- York Cathedral Community. 165 -- The Liturgy as Schooling. 176 -- "De Laude Dei" and the York Liturgy. 193 -- Hymns. 200 -- Mass-books. 204 -- New Liturgical Commemorations. 215 -- Calendar and Computers. 217 -- 'Grammatica': The Practice of Writing and Reading. 220 -- Biblical Study. 224 -- 'Vita quidem qualis fuit magistri?': Bede and Egbert. 227 -- Master and School. 236 -- A New Regime and a Wider World. 238 -- From York to Rome. 242 -- York Consecrations, 767. 247 -- Chapter Two Northumbrian Alcuin: 'Discit ut doceat'. 252 -- York books?. 255 -- 'Veterum vestigìa patrum'. 260 -- From the Other Island?. 274 -- Christian and Pre-Christian Poets. 277 -- Grammarians and pre-Christian Prose Writers. 282 -- Mastering 'Computus'. 287 -- The Beginnings of Letter-Writing. 293 -- Alcuin and the Vernacular. 301 -- Teacher and Perpetual Deacon. 304 -- 'Without the City Walls'. 309 -- A 'Public' Figure?. 314 -- The Cathedral Community. 326 -- Chapter Three Between Two Courts. 331 -- To Rome for the Pallium. 333 -- The Move to Francia. 336 -- 786: the Synodal Decrees. 346 -- At the Frankish Court: Beginnings. 356 -- Renovatio, Imitatio, Correctio. 371 -- 'The English Connection'. 391 -- Northumbria: Promise Unfulfilled. 395 -- Royal Counsellor. 401 -- Return to Francia. The Sack of Lindisfarne. 410 -- The Adviser at Frankfurt. Defender of Orthodoxy. 419 -- Chapter Four Unsettled at Aachen. 432 -- A Court Remembered in Verse. 437 -- England. 442 -- Court and Popes. 445 -- At the Aachen Court. Last months. 461 -- Index.

In this major intellectual biography of Alcuin (d. 804), the most prominent Anglo-Saxon scholar at the court of Charlemagne, Donald Bullough deploys a lifetime's expertise in the study of early medieval manuscripts. Concentrating on Alcuin's early years in Northumbria and then his time at the Carolingian court, Bullough reassesses the chronology of Alcuin's career and writings, assesses his use of patristic and insular writings, and explores the contemporary significance of his large output. At the core of this book lies a fundamental reassessment of the dating of Alcuin's letters: in so doing, it reveals the patterns of intellectual exchange and textual community that characterised the first phase of the Carolingian Renaissance. It thus offers a uniquely detailed and nuanced exploration of the life and ideas of the most influential early medieval scholar.

Description based on print version record.