throughout the Church. Nay, subsequent popes themselves admitted and applauded the despotic superintendence of matters spiritual which he was wont to exercise, and which led some one to give him playfully a title that had once been applied to the Pope himself, "Episcopus episcoporum."

Acting and speaking thus when merely king, it may be thought that Charles needed no further title to justify his power. The inference is in truth rather the converse of this. Upon what he had done already the imperial title must necessarily follow; the attitude of protection and control which he held toward the Church and the Holy See belonged, according to the ideas of the time, especially and only to an emperor. Therefore his coronation was the fitting completion and legitimation of his authority, sanctifying rather than increasing it. We have, however, one remarkable witness to the importance that was attached to the imperial name, and the enhancement which he conceived his office to have received from it. In a great assembly held at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), A. D. 802, the Emperor revised the laws of all the races that obeyed him, endeavoring to harmonize and correct them, and issued a capitulary singular in subject and tone. All persons within his dominions, as well ecclesiastical as civil, who have already sworn allegiance to him as king, are thereby commanded to swear to him afresh as Cæsar; and all who have never yet sworn, down to the age of twelve, shall now take the same oath. "At the same time it shall be publicly explained to all what is the force and meaning of this oath, and how much more it includes than a mere promise of fidelity to the monarch's person. Firstly, it binds those who swear it to live, each and every one of them, according to his strength and knowledge, in the holy service of God, since the lord Emperor cannot extend over all his care and discipline. Secondly, it binds them neither by force nor fraud to seize or molest any of the goods or servants of his crown. Thirdly, to do no violence nor treason toward the holy Church, or to widows, or orphans, or strangers, seeing that the lord Emperor has been appointed, after the Lord and his saints, the protector and defender of all such." Then in similar fashion purity of life is prescribed to the monks; homicide, the neglect of hospi

tality, and other offences are denounced, the notions of sin and crime being intermingled and almost identified in a way to which no parallel can be found, unless it be in the Mosaic code. There God, the invisible object of worship, is also, though almost incidentally, the judge and political ruler of Israel; here the whole cycle of social and moral duty is deduced from the obligation of obedience to the visible autocratic head of the Christian state.

In most of Charles' words and deeds may be discerned the working of the same theocratic ideas. Among his intimate friends he chose to be called by the name of David, exercising in reality all the powers of the Jewish king; presiding over this kingdom of God upon earth rather as a second Constantine or Theodosius than in the spirit and traditions of the Julii or the Flavii. Among his measures there are two which in particular recall the first Christian Emperor. As Constantine founds, so Charles erects on a firmer basis, the connection of Church and State. Bishops and abbots are as essential a part of rising feudalism as counts and dukes. Their benefices are held under the same conditions of fealty and the service in war of their vassal tenants, not of the spiritual person himself; they have similar rights of jurisdiction, and are subject alike to the imperial missi. The monarch tries often to restrict the clergy, as persons, to spiritual duties; quells the insubordination of the monasteries; endeavors to bring the seculars into a monastic life by instituting and regulating chapters. Again, it was by him first that the payment of tithes, for which the priesthood had long been pleading, was made compulsory in Western Europe, and the support of the ministers of religion intrusted to the laws of the State.-J. BRYCE.

LCUIN, whose full Latin name was Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus, was one of those learned and modest ecclesiastics whose great influence on the events of their time is concealed behind the person of the sovereign they serve. It was the good fortune of Charlemagne to detect and appreciate the ability and merit of the English monk, and to secure his services in the great work of education which he saw to be necessary for the welfare of his subjects.

Alcuin was born in York, England, in 735, and was educated there under Archbishop Egbert, for whom he ever retained the warmest affection and gratitude. In his works he refers with admiration to the "Venerable Bede," who had at Jarrow conducted another famous school, and set an example of untiring literary industry, truly astonishing in those unsettled times; but Alcuin was not a pupil of Bede, as some have affirmed. His intellectual ability caused him to be early made director of the seminary, and keeper of the Cathedral library, though it is said he was never advanced beyond deacon's orders. This library was one of the most famous in Christendom, and in his poem on the "Saints of the Church of York," Alcuin has left a metrical catalogue of its treasures.

There are records of three visits of Alcuin to the Continent before he took up his abode there. In 781 Alcuin was sent by Archbishop Eanbald to Rome to procure the pallium, and on his return met Charlemagne at Parma. The king

had already been aware of Alcuin's reputation, and now em

braced the opportunity of persuading him to join his court and become his preceptor. For this purpose he went to Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle in 782, with three assistants. The subjects of study comprised rhetoric, logic, mathematics and divinity, in which he taught the King, his family, and his attendant clergy. Alcuin was also employed in diplomatic errands, especially to his native England. But his greatest work was the establishment of institutions of learning in various parts of France. In 787 Charles issued a capitulary, addressed to the heads of the monasteries, enjoining upon them attention to the study of literature. A second capitulary followed in 789, enforcing the directions already given, Zealous prelates carried out these instructions. Though the revival of letters thus effected with the powerful aid of the Emperor was not more permanent than his kingdom, yet such learning as was found in the following century was due to the fostering care of Charles and the example of Alcuin.

Alcuin was also active in resisting heresies that threatened the peace of Christendom. He wrote treatises against the view of some Spanish bishops that Christ in his human nature was the Son of God by adoption, and procured the condemnation of this Adoptionism by the Council of Frankfort in 794. But he never asked the King to employ the civil power to suppress this heresy.

At the age of sixty-one, after having lived in the closest intimacy with the great Emperor for ten years, Alcuin was promoted to the direction of the famous and well-endowed Abbey of St. Martin at Tours. Here the venerable Abbot devoted himself partly to the restoration of discipline, which had been relaxed, partly to his work of instruction, partly to authorship, yet still kept up correspondence with his patron, whom he encouraged and assisted in his many projects for the advancement of his subjects.

When Charles was preparing to go to Rome on that memorable journey in which he was crowned Emperor, Alcuin was invited to accompany him, but declined on account of the infirmities of age then creeping upon him. When the Emperor returned, Alcuin sent him by a special messenger a superbly-written copy of the Gospels, made in

the monastery of Tours, as his most appropriate acknowledgment of "the splendor of the imperial power." Alcuin had long desired to revisit his native land, and hoped to be buried there; but his desire was not to be gratified. He died at Tours on the 19th of May, 804. His works comprise treatises on the Scriptures, on church doctrine and discipline, historical narratives, and even poems. He greatly excelled the other writers of his time in elegance and classical style.

THE ABBOT OF TOURS.

The year 794 may be looked upon as marking the time when Alcuin's reputation was at its highest. His fame was "in all the Churches;" and few could have been found to call in question his signal services to both religion and learning or his just claim to distinguished reward. As yet, however, no adequate recompense had been vouchsafed him. His own avowal, indeed, is that no hope of worldly advantage, but a simple sense of duty to the Church, had originally brought him to Frankland and detained him there. On the other hand, it is almost certain that, in resigning his office as scholasticus at York, he had sacrificed his succession to the archbishopric. It is not improbable, therefore, that Charles had already intimated that on the next vacancy in the abbacy of St. Martin of Tours the post would be offered to Alcuin. The latter, writing to the brethren of that venerable society in 795, openly confesses that he would gladly be of their number; and the opportunity arrived sooner perhaps than he anticipated, for in the following year the Abbot Itherius died, and Alcuin was forthwith nominated his successor.

The transfer of Alcuin from the Palace School to the abbacy at Tours was attended by results of no slight importance. On the one hand, it enabled him to give full and practical expression to his theory of monastic discipline and education; on the other, it opened up the way for the introduction of other teachers at the royal court, some of whom held doctrines little in harmony with those of their prede

cessor.

Of his real sense of relief and satisfaction with his new