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Catechising the Wild: The Continuity and Innovation of Missionary Catechesis under the Carolingians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2010

OWEN M. PHELAN
OWEN M. PHELAN
Affiliation:
Department of History, Mount Saint Mary's University and Seminary, 16300 Old Emmitsburg Road, Emmitsburg, MD 21727, USA; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

At the end of the eighth century Alcuin of York adapted an Augustinian catechetical programme for missionary use among the Avars of central Europe. This article explores how and why Alcuin went about adapting Augustine's plan, focusing on the place of his effort in the early medieval tradition. Special emphasis is placed on the idea of ‘innovative deference’ whereby Alcuin distinguished his work from that of his predecessors while consciously preserving a Christian tradition. The article also considers the importance of adaptation to the Carolingian world, including the influence of Alcuin's programme upon other Carolingian thinkers.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 455 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 For further summary and context see Roger Collins, Charlemagne, Toronto 1998, 43–57, 89–101. See also Hen, Yitzhak, ‘Charlemagne's jihad’, Viator xxxvii (2006), 33–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Timothy Reuter, ‘Charlemagne and the world beyond the Rhine’, in Joanna Story (ed.), Charlemagne: empire and society, Manchester 2005, 183–94; Richard Fletcher, The barbarian conversion: from paganism to Christianity, New York 1998, 193–227; and Charles Bowlus, Franks, Moravians, and Magyars: the struggle for the middle Danube, 788–907, Philadephia 1995, 46–60. Helpful too are the survey and bibliography in Julia M. H. Smith, ‘Fines imperii: the marches’, and Paul Fouracre, ‘Frankish Gaul to 814’, in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The new Cambridge medieval history, II: c. 700–c. 900, Cambridge 1995, 85–109. For a more detailed treatment of the Avars, their history and culture see Walter Pohl, Die Awaren: ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa, 567–822 n. Chr., Munich 1988.

2 Alcuin's centrality to Carolingian intellectual life is well-established, including his influence on Christian missionary activity under the Carolingians. Recently, Alcuin's life has been analysed through the prism of his correspondence in Donald Bullough, Alcuin: achievement and reputation, Boston 2004. Earlier influential biographies of Alcuin are Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Alcuin, friend of Charlemagne: his world and his work, New York 1951; Arthur Jean Kleinclausz, Alcuin, Paris 1948; and C. J. B. Gaskoin, Alcuin: his life and work, New York 1904. The liturgical and theological themes touched upon in this paper are further drawn out in Donald Bullough, ‘Alcuin and the kingdom of heaven: liturgy, theology, and the Carolingian age’, in Uta-Renate Blumenthal (ed.), Carolingian essays: Andrew W. Mellon lectures in early Christian studies, Washington, DC 1983, 1–69, and Gerald Ellard, Master Alcuin, liturgist, Chicago 1956.

3 John Cavadini has done pioneering work on Alcuin's understanding of walking in vestigia patrum: ‘A Carolingian Hilary’, in Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (eds), The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era, Turnhout 2003, 133–40; ‘The sources and theology of Alcuin's “De fide sanctae et individuae trinitatis”’, Traditio xlvi (1991), 123–46; and ‘Alcuin and Augustine: De Trinitate’, Augustinian Studies xii (1981), 11–18. John Marenbon, citing Alcuin's didactic instincts, has come to a similar conclusion about Alcuin's re-working of his material: From the circle of Alcuin to the school of Auxerre: logic, theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages, Cambridge 1981, 31.

4 ‘Petisti me, frater Deogratias, ut aliquid ad te de catechizandis rudibus, quod tibi usui esset, scriberem’: Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, ed. I. B. Bauer, CCSL xlvi.121. See also Angelo Di Bernardino, Patrology, IV: The golden age of Latin patristic literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, Westminster, Ma 1986, 373. For a discussion of the catechumenate under Augustine, as seen through De catechizandis rudibus, see William Harmless, Augustine and the catechumenate, Collegeville, Mn. 1995, 107–54. See also Raymond Canning's introduction to his edition of Augustine of Hippo, Instructing beginners in faith, Hyde Park, NY 2006, 9–38.

5 ‘Narratio plena est, cum quisque primo catechizantur ab eo quod scriptum est: In principio fecit deus caelum et terram [Genesis i.1], usque ad praesentia tempora ecclesiae’: Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, 124. Translations largely follow Canning in Augustine, Instructing beginners.

6 ‘Quae autem maior causa est aduentus domini, nisi ut ostenderet deus dilectionem suam in nobis, commendans eam uehementer’: ibid. 126.

7 ‘Narratione finite spes resurrectionis intimanda est, et pro capacitate ac uiribus audientis, proque ipsius temporis modulo, aduersus uanas irrisiones infidelium de corporis resurrectione tractandum et futuri ultimi iudicii bonitate in bonos, seueritate in malos, ueritate in omnes’: ibid. 131.

8 On early medieval missionary activity, consult the careful study and meticulous bibliography of Lutz E. von Padberg: Mission und Christianisierung: Formen und Folgen bei Angelsachsen und Franken im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1995. More recently Ian Wood has authored an impressive study identifying how political context shapes both the content and the organisation of early medieval missionary hagiography, introducing strict limitations for their value as mission sources: The missionary Life: saints and the evangelization of Europe, 400–1050, New York 2001. Palmer, Jameshas furthermore argued that Carolingian depictions of pagans often have more to do with defining Christianity than with describing missionary efforts: ‘Defining paganism in the Carolingian world’, Early Medieval Europe xv (2007), 402–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A number of earlier works are still useful: Alain Dierkens, ‘Pour une Typologie des missions carolingiennes’, in Jacques Marx (ed.), Propagande et contre-propagande religieuses, Brussels 1987, 77–93; Sullivan, Richard E., ‘Carolingian missionary theories’, Catholic Historical Review xlii/xliii (1956), 273–95Google Scholar, and ‘The Carolingian missionary and the pagan’, Speculum xxviii (1953), 705–40; and the magisterial Wilhelm Levison, England and the continent in the eighth century, Oxford 1946.

9 Martin of Braga, Martini episcopi Bracarensis opera omnia, ed. C. W. Barlow, New Haven 1950. See the discussions in Maria João Violante Branco, ‘St Martin of Braga, the Sueves and Gallaecia’, in Alberto Ferreiro (ed.), The Visigoths: studies in culture and society, Leiden 1999, 63–97, and Alberto Ferreiro, ‘St Martin of Braga's policy toward heretics and pagan, practices’, American Benedictine Review xxxiv/4 (1983), 372–95.

10 Boniface, ep. xxiii ed. Michael Tangl, in S. Bonifatii et Lulli Epistolae, MGH, Epistolae selectae in usum scholarum i.38–41. On the Bonifatian mission see Peter Brown, The rise of western Christendom: triumph and diversity, 200–1000 AD, Malden, Ma 2003, 418–25; Wood, The missionary life, 57–78; Timothy Reuter (ed.), The greatest Englishman: essays on St Boniface and the Church at Crediton, Exeter 1980; Theodor Schieffer, Winfrid-Bonifatius und die christliche Grundlegung Europas, Freiburg 1954; and Levison, England and the continent, 70–93.

11 A critical edition and commentary is found in Gall Jecker, Die Heimat des hl. Pirmin des Apostels der Alamannen, Münster-in-Westfalen 1927. Additional commentary, with a translation into German, is found in Ursmar Engelmann, Der heilige Pirmin und sein Pastoralbüchlein, Sigmaringen 1976. Questions about both the critical edition and about the identity of Pirmin have been raised in numerous articles, but the eighth-century date of the text appears firm, even if the author's identity is not: Eckhard Hauswald, ‘Die handschriftliche Überlieferung des Scarapsus (Dicta Pirminii)’, in Próinséas Ni Chatháin and Michael Richter (eds), Ireland and Europe in the early Middle Ages: texts and transmission, Dublin 2002, 103–22; Meens, Rob, ‘Fragmente der Capitula episcoporum Ruotgers von Trier und des Scarapsus Pirminii’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters xlviii/1 (1992), 167–77Google Scholar; Arnold Angenendt, Monachi peregrini: studien zu Pirmin und den monastischen Vorstellungen des frühen Mittelalters, Munich 1972, and ‘Pirmin und Bonifatius: ihr Verhältnis zu Mönchtum, Bischofsamt und Adel’, in Arno Borst (ed.), Mönchtum, Episkopat und Adel zur Gründungszeit des Klosters Reichenau, Sigmaringen 1974, 251–304; and Lehmann, Paul, ‘Dicta Pirminii’, Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner- und Zisterzienserorden xlvii (1929), 45–51Google Scholar. Further, it is clear that the Scarapsus stands in the Augustinian tradition handed on by Martin of Braga. For a discussion of the Scarapsus' dependence on De correctione rusticorum see Yitzhak Hen, ‘Martin of Braga's De correctione rusticorum and its uses in Frankish Gaul’, in Esther Cohen and Mayke B. De Jong (eds), Medieval transformations: texts, power, and gifts in context, Leiden 2001, 35–49.

12 Padberg, Mission und Christianisierung, 136–9; Sullivan, ‘Carolingian missionary theories’, 276.

13 ‘Cum vero initium habere deos utpote alios ab aliis generatos coacti didicerint, item interrogandi, utrum initium habere hunc mundum an sine initio semper exstitisse arbitrentur?’: Boniface, ep. xxiii. For the translation see The letters of Saint Boniface, ed. Ephraim Emerton, New York 1940, 39.

14 ‘et ne quasi de legitimo semper a principio super ipsas gentes deorum iactitent imperio, intimandum eis cunctum prius mundum idolorum deditum culturae, donec Christi gratia veri omnipotentis conditoris rectoris uniusque Dei notitia inluminatus vivificatus reconciliatusque Deo est’: Boniface, ep. xxiii, p. 41.

15 The similarities between the texts have long been acknowledged: J.-Bouhot, P., ‘Alcuin et le “De catechizandis rudibus” de saint Augustine’, Recherches augustiniennes xv (1980), 176–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar at pp. 180–4; Angenendt, Monachi peregrini, 62; A Etchegaray Cruz, ‘Le Rôle du De catechizandis rudibus de Saint Augustin dans la catéchèse missionnaire dès 710 jusqu’à 847', Studia patristica, xi, Berlin 1972, 316–21 at pp. 316–19; Jecker, Die Heimat, 74, 90.

16 ‘Cum fecisset deus in principio caelum et terra [cf. Genesis i.1], et in illa caelesti habitatione fecit spiritales creaturas, id est angelus, ex quibus unus, qui primus omnium archangelus fuerat factus, videns se in tanta gloria praefulgentem, non dedit honorem deo creatori suo, sed similem se illi dixit, et pro hac superbia cum aliis pluribus angelis qui illi consenserunt, de illa caelesti sede in aere isto, qui est sub caelo, deiectus est, et, perdita luce gloriae suae factus est diabulus’: Jecker, Die Heimat, 35.

17 ‘et repleti sunt omnes spiritu sancto, et ceperunt loqui aliis linguis, prout spiritus sanctus dabat eloqui illis; et conposuerunt simbolum. Petrus: Credo in deum patrem omnipotentem creatorem caeli et terrae. Joannes: Et in Jesu Christo, filium eius unicum dominum nostrum. Iacobus dixit: qui conceptus est de spiritu sancto, natus ex Maria virgine. Andreas ait: Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuos et sepultos. Philippus dixit: Discendit ad inferna. Thomas ait: Tertia die surrexit a mortuis, Bartolomeus ait: Ascendit ad caelos, sedit ad dextera dei patris omnipotentis. Matheus ait: Inde venturos iudicare vivos et mortuos. Iacobus Alfei dixit: Credo in spiritu sancto. Simon Zelotis ait: Sanctam aecclesia catholica. Iudas Iacobi dixit: Sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum. Item Thomas ait: Carnis resurrectione, vitam aeternam’: ibid. 41. For a helpful study of traditions concerning the Apostles and the articles of the creed see Henri De Lubac, The Christian faith: an essay on the structure of the Apostles Creed, San Francisco 1986, 19–55. For a general introduction to the history of the creeds see Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo: historical and theological guide to creeds and confessions of faith in the Christian tradition, New Haven 2003. See also the older J. N. D Kelly, Early Christian creeds, New York 1972.

18 ‘Post ista abrenuntiatione diabuli et omnibus operibus eius, et interrogatus es a sacerdote: Credis in deum patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terrae? Et respondisti: Credo. Et iterum: Credis et in Iesu Christum, filium eius unicum, dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de spiritu sancto, natus ex Maria virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuos et sepultos, discendit ad inferna, tertia die surrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad caelos, sedit ad dexteram dei patris omnipotentis, inde venturus iudicare vivos et mortuus? Et respondisti: Credo. Et tertio interrogauit sacerdos: Credis in spiritu sancto, sancta aecclesia catholica, sanctorum communione, remissione peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam? Respondisti aut tu, aut patrinus pro te: Credo’: Jecker, Die Heimat, 43–4.

19 ‘Nemo periurit, quia dominus dixit: Non periurabis, reddis autem domino iuramenta tua. Et apostolus: Nolite iurare, neque per caelum, neque per terram, neque aliut quodcumque iuramento’: ibid. 51.

20 ‘Qui fuit tristis pro temporalibus damnis, vel saecularibus curis, sit hilaris et gaudens pro aeternis bonis et repromissionibus, quia in evangelio dominus ait: Beati eritis, cum vos oderint homines, et cum separaverint vos, et exprobraverint, et eiecerint nomen vestrum tanquam malum propter filium hominis, gaudete in illa die et exultate; ecce enim merces vestra multa est in caelo’: ibid. 62.

21 Discussion of the soul, especially in relation to death, was popular throughout early medieval Europe in general and in Anglo-Saxon England in particular. For Europe generally see Patrick J Geary, Living with the dead in the Middle Ages, Ithaca 1994, 77–92. For a brief overview of the Anglo-Saxons see M. R. Godden, ‘Anglo-Saxons on the mind’, in Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (eds), Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England: studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Cambridge 1985, 271–98.

22 More than ten surviving letters from the last years of the eighth century testify to Alcuin's keen interest in Christian missionary activity among the Avars, many of which emphasise Carolingian failures among the Saxons. See, for example, Alcuin, ep. cx, in Epistolae, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH, Epp., iv. 157–9.

23 Augustine describes typical late antique audiences and some of the challenges they pose to the preacher: De catechizandis rudibus, 132–5.

24 Hen's argument for dating the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae to the 790s accents the importance of Alcuin's interest in the conversion of the Avars: ‘Charlemagne's jihad’, 33–51.

25 ‘Igitur ille ordo in docendo virum aetate perfectum, diligenter, ut arbitror, servandus est, quem beatus Augustinus ordinavit in libro, cui de catecizandis rudibus titulum praenotavit’: Alcuin, ep. cx, Epistolae, iv.158. See Sullivan, ‘Carolingian missionary theories’, 281–2.

26 ‘Primo instruendus est homo de animae inmortalitate et de vita futura et de retributione bonorum malorumque et de aeternitate utriusque sortis’: Alcuin, ep. cx, Epistolae, iv. 158–9.

27 In his biography of the emperor, Einhard famously notes Charlemagne's favourite book as Augustine's On the city of God: Vita Karoli Magni, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH, SS rer. Germ., xxv. 29.

28 Alcuin, epp. cxi, cxiii, Epistolae, iv.159–62, 163–6. These two letters along with the one to Charlemagne – both individually and as a group – have been seen as important windows into Carolingian approaches toward the Avars: Wood, Missionary life, 85–6; Fletcher, Barbarian conversion, 220–2; Pohl, Die Awaren, 320; Bullough, ‘Alcuin and the kingdom’, 42–3; Sullivan, ‘Carolingian missionary theories’, 281–2.

29 For information on the Life of Willibrord see Kate Rambridge, ‘Alcuin's narrative of evangelism: the Life of St. Willibrord and the Northumbrian hagiographical tradition’, in Martin Carver (ed.), The cross goes north: processes of conversion in northern Europe, AD 300–1300, York 2003, 371–81; Wood, Missionary life, 81–5; Istvan Bejczy, ‘Ein Zeugnis Alkuins: die Vita Willibrordi’, Nederlands Archif voor Kerkgeschiedenis/Dutch Review of Church History lxx/2 (1990), 121–39; and Sullivan, ‘The Carolingian missionary and the pagan’, 705–40. For a study of Willibrord himself consult Arnold Angendt, ‘Willibrord im Dienste der Karolinger’, Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein: inbesondere das alte Erzbistum Köln clxxv (1973), 63–113, and Harald Dickerhof, Ernst Reiter and Stefan Weinfurter (eds), Der hl. Willibald – Klosterbischof oder Bistumsgründer?, Regensburg 1990.

30 ‘Non est Deus, quem colis, sed diabolus, qui te pessimo errore, o rex, deceptum habet, ut animam tuam aeternis tradat flammis. Non est enim Deus nisi unus, qui creavit caelum et terram, mare et omnia, quae in eis sunt: Quem qui vera fide colit, vitam habebit sempiternam’: Alcuin, ‘Vita Willibrordi’, in Hans-Joachim Reischmann (ed.), Willibrord – Apostel der Friesen, Sigmaringendorf 1989, 62. Translations are drawn from Alcuin, ‘The Life of Saint Willibrord’, in Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head (eds), Soldiers of Christ: Saints and saints' Lives from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, University Park 1995, 189–211.

31 ‘et vitae fonte baptizatus, abluas omnia peccata tua et, proiecta omni iniquitate et iniustitia, deinceps novus homo vivas in omni sobrietate, iustitia et sanctitate. Hoc faciens cum Deo et sanctis eius gloriam possidebis sempiternam. Si vero me contemnis viam salutis tibi ostendentem, scito certissime, quod aeterna supplicia et infernales flammas tu cum diabolo, cui obtemperas, sustinebis!’: Alcuin, ‘Vita Willibrordi’, 62.

32 Bejczy notices that by placing a sermon in Willibrord's mouth Alcuin emphasises his preference for conversion by persuasion instead of force: ‘Ein Zeugnis Alkuins’, 134. Sullivan observes that sermons in the vitae of early medieval missionaries are rare, and for that reason are especially important: ‘The Carolingian missionary and the pagan’, 715.

33 While the speech won Radbod's respect, it did not win his conversion: ‘Etsi noluisset veritatis praedicatori credere, tamen ad Pippinum ducem Francorum cum honore remisit eum’: Alcuin, ‘Vita Willibrordi’, 64. The hesitancy depicted in Radbod need not be viewed as a lack of confidence in the missionary programme itself, but rather an important condition for legitimising Charlemagne's numerous and violent military interventions in the area. For further information on the Carolingians in this region see n. 1 above.

34 James J. M. Curry, ‘Alcuin, De ratione animae: a text with introduction, critical apparatus, and translation’, unpubl. PhD diss. Cornell 1966 (all references to De ratione are to this edition); Paul E. Szarmach, ‘A preface, mainly textual, to Alcuin's De ratione animae’, in Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők (eds), The man of many devices, who wandered full many ways: Festschrift in honor of János M. Bak, Budapest 1999, 397–408.

35 The early manuscript tradition of the work also raises the possibility of it having foundational significance for Alcuin's approach to catechesis. It often appears bound with Alcuin's work on the Trinity and his questions to Fredegisus, which is well-suited for basic instruction: Cavadini, ‘The sources and theology of Alcuin's De fide’, 128–9, and Ann E. Matter, ‘A Carolingian schoolbook? The manuscript tradition of Alcuin's De fide and related treatises’, in Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (eds), The whole book: cultural perspectives on the medieval miscellany, Ann Arbor 1996, 145–52.

36 ‘Nec aliquid magis homini in hac mortalitate vivente necessarium est nosse quam Deum et animam’: Alcuin, De ratione, 39–40. Here is a microscopic example of the larger phenomenon evidenced in this paper. Alcuin's words echo Augustine's from another context entirely. In his Soliloquies, Augustine argues, ‘Nunc autem nihil aliud amo quam deum et animam’ (‘Now however I love nothing other than God and the soul’), PL xxxii.873.

37 ‘Amor vero huius boni non nisi in anima esse poterit’: Alcuin, De ratione, 40.

38 ‘Et hoc animae excellens bonum est, illud amare bonum in quo solo et a quo et per quem quicquid boni est in ulla creatura bonum est’: ibid.

39 ‘Decet eam [anima] dominam esse et quasi de sede regalis culminis imperare quid, per quae, vel quando, vel ubi, vel quomodo faciat membra et considerare diligenter quid cui membro imperet faciendum, quid cuique consentiat in desidero suae naturae’: ibid. 41.

40 It is not unlikely that Alcuin was able to consult the complete text of Augustine's De catechizandis rudibus as copies of the text were widely available in the Carolingian world. There were, for example, ninth-century copies in important Carolingian libraries as evidenced by a surviving manuscript from Corbie (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms Lat. 13362) and fragment from Lorsch (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, ms Pal. Lat. 218): Wilmart, Andre, ‘Manuscrits du De catechizandis rudibus’, Revue Bénédictine xlii (1930), 263–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A copy (Laon ms 131) has also been identified as from the region around Paris, dating from the beginning of the ninth century, and belonging to the court library of Louis the Pious: Bernhard Bischoff, Manuscripts and libraries in the age of Charlemagne, ed. Michael Gorman, Cambridge 1994, 112.

41 ‘Qui autem propter beatitudinem sempiternam et perpetuam requiem quae post hanc uitam sanctis futura promittitur, uult fieri Christianus, ut non eat in ignem aeternum cum diabolo, sed in regnum aeternum intret cum Christo, uere ipse Christianus est’: Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, 152.

42 ‘Vere, frater, illa magna et uera beatitudo est, quae in futuro saeculo sanctis promittitur. Omnia uero uisibilia transeunt, et omnis huius saeculi pompa et deliciae et curiositas interibunt’: ibid. 174.

43 On Alcuin's debt to Bede see Alcuin, The bishops, kings, and saints of York, ed. Peter Godman, Oxford 1982, pp. lxxv–lxxviii. Alcuin mentions the importance of Bede at pp. 56–63, 102–5, 108–17. See also G. H. Brown, ‘The preservation and transmission of Northumbrian culture on the continent: Alcuin's debt to Bede’, in P. E. Szarmach and J. T. Rosenthal (eds), The preservation and transmission of Anglo-Saxon culture: selected papers from the 1991 meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, Kalamazoo 1997, 159–75. For a more general assessment see J. E. Cross, ‘Bede's influence at home and abroad: an introduction’, in L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald (eds), Beda Venerabilis: historian, monk & Northumbrian, Groningen 1996, 17–29.

44 This is the famous Moore Bede (Cambridge University Library, ms Kk.V16): E. A. Lowe, Codices latini antiquiores: a palaeographical guide to Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth century, Oxford 1935–71, ii. 39; Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen), Wiesbaden 1998, i. 186, and Manuscripts and libraries, 67–8.

45 ‘si deinceps uoluntati eius, quam per me tibi praedicat, obsecundare uolueris, etiam a perpetuis malorum tormentis te liberans, aeterni secum regni in caelis faciet esse participem’: Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum, ed. C. Plummer, Oxford 1896. 111. The translation is from Bede, The ecclesiastical history of the English people, ed. Judith McClure and Roger Collins, Oxford 1994.

46 ‘Talis … mihi uidetur, rex, uita hominum praesens in terris, ad conparationem eius, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te residente ad caenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali, accenso quidem foco in medio, et calido effecto caenaculo, furentibus autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluuiarum uel niuium, adueniens unus passerum domum citissime peruolauerit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore, quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tanguitur, sed tamen paruissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec uita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidue praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec noua doctrina certius aliquid attulit, merito esse sequenda uidetur’: ibid. 112.

47 Susan A Keefe, Water and the word: baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire, Notre Dame, In 2002, ii. 50; Bernhard Bischoff, Die Südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, Wiesbaden 1960, ii. 241; Joseph M Heer, Ein karolingischer Missions-Katechismus, Freiburg-im-Breisgau 1911.

48 Keefe, Water and the word, 50; Heer, Katechismus, 7.

49 The most recent edition is Johannes Gymnicus from Cologne in 1535 where he attributes the work to Bede: Heer, Katechismus, 55–9. For more on the problem of Ps.-Bede and this collection in particular see Gorman, Michael, ‘The canon of Bede's works and the world of Ps. Bede’, Revue Bénédictine cxi (2001), 399–445CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Iohannis Machielsen (ed.), Clavis patristica pseudepigraphorum medii aevi, Turnhout 1990, 570–607.

50 The sermons have not been edited: Heer, Katechismus, 60–2.

51 Concilium Baiuwaricum, ed. A. Werminghoff, MGH, Leges iii.ii.i. 51–3; Heer, Katechismus, 63–74.

52 The texts are printed in Heer, Katechismus, 77–88. Most (pp. 8–49) of Heer's study analyses this text. See also Sullivan, ‘Carolingian missionary theories’, 284–5.

53 The passage is largely a redaction of John Cassian's fifth conference, the Conlatio abbatis sarapionis de octo vitiis principalibus: Collationes XXIIII, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL xiii, Wien 2004, 119–51; Heer, Katechismus, 7; Keefe, Water and the word, 50.

54 Heer edits this text: Katechismus, 91–5. It is Keefe's text 18: Water and the word, 94–9. For more on the variety and forms of Charlemagne's questionnaire and contemporary responses see Glenn C. J. Byer, Charlemagne and baptism: a study of the responses to the circular letter of 811/812, San Francisco 1999.

55 Heer prints the definitions as seen in the manuscript: Katechismus, 96; Isidore, Etymologiarum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Oxford 1911.

56 Heer edits the response: Katechismus, 97–100. Keefe also offers an edition as text 14: Water and the word, 77–80.

57 ‘per omnia est diligentissimae scrutandus, et modis omnibus instruendis de immortalitate animae suae’: Heer, Katechismus, 78.

58 ‘Et quia ut animalia cetera cum anima et corpore interire non valet, sed quod animam habet inmortalem in corpore suo, quae post hanc uitam futura est praemio operum suorum, qualia hic egit in corpore’: ibid.

59 ‘Et si non in hac uita, certa hac uita fraudatus, et requiem amplius non meretur, sed cum diabolo partier, cui seruiuit, aeterna supplicia possidebit, unde numquam amplius poterit euadere’: ibid. 79.

60 ‘Et verbis domini acommodare fidem, domini sui praeceptis inherere atque oboedire, ut mereatur etiam cum illo pariter et cum omnibus sanctis angelis et electis eius in aeterna gloria et laeticia permanere’: ibid. 79–80.

61 ‘Quaeritis enim, quid de Cenocephalis credere debeatis, videlicet utrum de Adae sint styrpe progeniti an bestiarum habent animas’: Ratramnus, ep. xii, in Epistolae, ed. E. Perels, MGH, Epp. vi. 155. Ratramnus' letter is placed in the broader context of his literary output by Jean-Paul Bouhot, Ratramne de Corbie: histoire littéraire et controverses doctrinales, Paris 1976, 29. Ian Wood notes the significance of this text in how it witnesses to the seriousness with which Carolingian thinkers addressed the idea of mission: Missionary life, 252.

62 Adalhard, abbot of Corbie at the end of the eighth century, was a close friend of Alcuin's and a frequent recipient of correspondence. The monastery received copies of Alcuin's works soon after they were written: David Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian renaissance, Sigmaringen 1990, 24. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms Lat. 13373, copied at Corbie during the first quarter of the ninth century, contains a letter of Alcuin outlining his thinking on baptism: Ganz, Corbie, 137. Paschasius Radbertus, abbot of Corbie in the mid-ninth century, also clearly read Alcuin's writings in the monastery library: Bullough, Alcuin, 76–7.

63 ‘hoc de genere hominum fuisse cognoscitur, cuius vita atque martyrium claris admodum virtutibus commendatur’: Ratramnus, Epistolae, 156.

64 ‘Nam et baptismi sacramentum divinitus illum consecutum fuisse, nubis mysterio eum perfundente, sicut libellus ipse testatur, creditur’: ibid.

65 ‘Proinde tamen neque vitulum, neque serpentum illum, humanam animam vel rationalem habuisse consenserim’: ibid. 156–7.

66 Aethicus Ister, Cosmographia, ed. O. Prinz, MGH, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, xiv. 114–15.

67 Isidore's influence on the Carolingians is well-established. See, for example, the work of Pierre Riché: Education and culture in the barbarian west, the sixth through the eighth century, ed. John Contreni, Columbia 1976, and Écoles et enseignement dans le haut moyen âge, Paris 1989.

68 ‘Isidorus quoque cum de portentorum ex humano genere defluxorum varietate loqueretur in libris aethimologiarum, inter reliqua sic ait: “Sicut autem in singulis gentibus quaedam sunt monstra hominum, ita in universo genere humano quaedam monstra sunt gentium, ut Gygantes, Cenocepali, Ciclopes, et cetera”’: Ratramnus, Epistolae, 156. See Isidore, Etymologiarum xii.iii.12–13. Isidore continues (xii.iii.15–17) ‘Cynocephali appellantur eo quod canina capita habeant, quosque ipse latratus magis bestias quam homines confietur.’