On Having One’s Grammar Corrected by One’s Student
Alcuin had once been Charlemagne’s grammar teacher, and the emperor delighted in returning Alcuin’s letters to him with all of the grammatical mistakes circled, accompanied with a recommendation of a proofreader. One can almost feel the friendly sarcasm in Alcuin’s reply.
Flaccus [Alcuin], “wounded with the pen of love” (cf. Sgs 5:7–8), sends greetings to the most pious and excellent lord King David [that is, Charlemagne].
I am so thankful that, in your profound piety, you have had the booklet I sent you read aloud into your most wise ears. I am also thankful that you had the errors in it carefully noted and sent it back so that I could correct them. It would have been even better had you corrected them yourself, because mistakes are always more readily noted by another reader, rather than the author himself.
The deficiencies in the booklet, both in its grammar and punctuation, are simply the normal results of thinking too quickly, because my mind is moving faster than my hands can write. My bad headaches prevent me from proofreading the words once they are written, and if you do not want to be blamed for my negligence, you should not blame me for it….
I have taken the liberty of sending Your Excellency some written phrases, with examples and verses from the Church Fathers, and also some mathematical puzzles for your amusement, which I have written on the blank part of the paper you sent to me. It seemed best to me to send back clothed what you sent me naked, so to speak….
Careful observance of the detailed rules for punctuation does a great deal to enhance the beauty of sentences, but this is often completely lost due to the lack of sophistication of our scribes. It is my hope that the right usage of punctuation will be restored to scribes now that you have begun to renew learning and education throughout your kingdom. For my part, despite my failings, I continue the daily fight against unsophisticated writing here at Tours.
For your part, use your authority to teach the youth in your palace school to use the most elegant style possible to transcribe what you dictate, so that documents that circulate in the name of the king may emanate the nobility of royal wisdom.
Exercises in Math and Logic
Alcuin was known for developing clever mathematical and logic problems to stimulate the minds of young students. A collection of these, attributed to Alcuin, has come down to us under the title Problems to Sharpen the Young. Note how much of the background deals with everyday issues in medieval life: inheritance disputes, raising cattle, crossing rivers, and supporting clergy.
If two men, one after the other, marry each other’s sisters, then tell me, how will their sons be related to each other?
When the father of a family died, he left as an inheritance to his sons thirty glass flasks, of which ten were full of oil, ten only half full, and another ten empty. Divide, if you can, the oil and the flasks, so that each of the three sons receives an equal share, both of the wine and of the flasks.
Two men were leading oxen up the road, when one said to the other, “Give me two of your oxen. Then I will have as many as you have.” And the other replied, “Instead, you give me two of your oxen. Then I will have twice as many as you.” Tell me, if you will, how many oxen each man had.
There were three men who each had a sister, and they wished to cross a river, but there was only a small boat there, in which only two at a time could cross. But each of the men had his eye on the sisters of the others, and none of the men trusted his sister to be left alone with any of the others. Tell me, if you can, how they can all cross the river without jeopardizing the honor of any of the sisters.
A man wished to cross a river, having in his possession a wolf, a she-goat, and a sack of cabbages. But the boat would only carry two of these at a time, and he could not figure out how to get across without endangering any of his possessions. Tell me, if you can, how he could get across with his possessions intact.
There was a man and a woman, each of whom weighed about the same as a loaded cart, and two children who, taken together, weighed the same. But they had to cross a river in a boat that would only carry the weight of a single loaded cart. Tell me, if you are able, how they will able to cross on the boat.
Upon his death, the master of a house left his children and his pregnant wife 960 coins. He had ordered that, if a boy were born to his wife, he should receive three-fourths of the inheritance (that is, nine-twelfths), and the mother should receive a fourth (three-twelfths). However, if a daughter were born to his wife, she should receive seven-twelfths of the inheritance, and the mother five-twelfths. But it came to pass that she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Solve, if you can, so that the mother, the son and the daughter each receive their fair share.
A bishop ordered that twelve loaves of bread be divided among his clergy. He stipulated that each priest should receive two loaves, each deacon half a loaf, and each lector a fourth of a loaf. And it turned out that the total number of clergy equaled the number of loaves, that is, twelve. How many priests, deacons and lectors must there have been?
Charlemagne (742–814)
Though not considered a saint, Charlemagne was the kind of Christian statesman without whom Europe never would have emerged from the Dark Ages and become a center of medieval Christianity. The basic shape of Christian Europe—its odd intermingling of politics and religion, the central role of the papacy, its uneasy relationship with the Greek East, its eccentric combination of Gothic barbarism and Roman nobility, and its zeal for scholarship and learning—emerges under the guiding hand of Charles the Great.
Charles (Karolus) emerged as the unlikely heir of the first Catholic nation in Europe, the Kingdom of the Franks, an oasis of Catholic Christianity in an ocean of paganism, Islam, and heretical Arianism. His rise had occurred through a series of unexpected historical events: Clovis, an early Frankish chieftain, had converted to Christianity under the influence of his Catholic wife. Charles “the Hammer” Martel, Charles’ grandfather, had driven the Muslims out of France, and Charles’ father, Pepin the Short, had seized the royal throne from the “do-nothing” Merovingian dynasty. Pepin had asked the pope to crown and anoint himself and his sons in order to establish their rather dubious legitimacy to rule, and in return Pepin promised that he and his sons would forever be protectors of the Roman Church.
Emerging as King of the Franks in 768, Charles knew that he needed the pope as much as the pope needed him. He wanted a Christian kingdom, with all the benefits that came with it—Christian schools, Christian culture, and, above all, the protection of the Christian God—and he understood the bishop of Rome to be the spokesman for Christianity.
Meanwhile, in Rome, the pope had his own problems: constant threats to his rule from the unruly Roman population and the menacing Lombard tribes threatening invasion from the outside. Charles needed the spiritual aid of the papacy, and the papacy needed the military aid of the Franks. Thus an unlikely alliance was formed that would last for nearly a thousand years.
More than once Charles would come to the rescue of Rome, crushing the Lombard armies and delivering their territories up as a personal gift to the pope (the origin of the Papal States, and the modern Vatican City State), and traveling to Rome personally to ensure that the pope received a fair trial when false accusations were leveled against him.
Not only that, but Charles gave the papacy a central role in Church and monastic affairs throughout his kingdom: in some measure the spread of Gregorian chant, the Roman Rite of the Mass, and Benedictine monasticism across Europe are due to Charles’ attempts to be sure Christianity throughout his kingdom was patterned after Roman Christianity. The popes began to see Charles