Charles the king, always a lover and most desirous of wisdom : who, when he had called them with all haste into his presence, enquired if, as he understood by report, they verily had wisdom with them. Yea, said they, we have it and are ready to impart to any that rightly seek it in the name of the Lord. When therefore he had enquired what they would have in return for it, they answered, Only proper places and noble souls, and such things as we cannot travel without, food and wherewith to clothe ourselves. Hearing this he was filled with great joy, and first for a short space entertained them both in his house hold : afterwards when he was constrained to warlike enterprises, he enjoined the one, by name Clement, to abide in Gaul ; to whom he entrusted boys of the most noble, middle, and lowest ranks, in goodly number, and ordained that victual should be provided them according as they had need, with fitting houses to dwell in. The other[1] he dispatched into Italy and appointed him the monastery of Saint Austin beside the Ticinian city, that there such as were willing to learn might gather together unto him.
Now, adds the biographer, a certain Albinus, the name is an accepted classical adaptation of Alcuin, by race an Englishman, when he heard that the most religious emperor Charles was glad to welcome learned men, he too entered into a ship and came to him. Here we are no doubt still wider of historical accuracy : it was not in this manner that Alcuin made acquaintance with the Frankish king, nor is it probable that the arrival of the Irish scholars was
- ↑ Alterum vero nomine : two manuscripts add the name Albinum ; the rest of those collated by Pertz leave a blank space after nomine, while the copies from which Jaffe prints, Bibliotheca Rerum Germ. 4. 632, 1867, omit nomine as well. Possibly Albinum stood in the original text, and was excluded because the sequel showed that the person intended could not be the same with the well-known Alcuin, while no contemporary scholar of the name was known. It may be observed that the Albinum does not appear in the quotation of the passage given by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, xxiii. 173, Nuremberg 1483 folio. I notice this because M. Haureau, De la Philosophic scolastique, 1. 14, 1850 (the passage seems to have been omitted in the new edition of his book, the Histoire), states the contrary. The legend therefore says nothing of the English Alcuin, certainly nothing of John Scotus, ornaments added by later writers, which even M. Haureau, in his earlier work, confounded with the original story.
