Alcuin: A very distinctive deacon

By Dr Jonathan Halliwell, deacon

The return to Ordinary Time in the Church Year is marked today by the feast of Alcuin of York (c.735–804) deacon. He was later abbot of St Martin of Tours, where he died on 19 May 804. He enjoyed a long career as a teacher and scholar, first at the school at York now known as St. Peter’s School (founded in 627) and later as Charlemagne’s leading advisor on ecclesiastical and educational affairs.

The deacon as community educator

Alcuin lived through a golden age of learning in what was known as the Carolingian renaissance. Alcuin’s teacher Ælberht was the first cathedral master in the west and the York school was renowned as a centre of learning not only in religious matters but also in literature and science, known as the seven liberal arts. Alcuin became head of the York school after Aelbert became archbishop of York in 767. Around the same time Alcuin became a deacon. He was never ordained priest, and there is no real evidence that he became an actual monk, but he lived his life like one. His role as community educator evolved to that of an itinerant teacher, as he transmitted to the Franks knowledge of the Latin culture that had existed in England. I like to think of him as a ‘deacon-on-the-move’, moving between the Celtic Northern England and continental Europe. As advisor to Charlemagne, he was the most prominent figure in the Carolingian renaissance, enjoying wide influence far beyond that of a diocese. As a ‘go-between’ representing the Church in the court of Charlemagne, he served as an ambassador for Christ in the world. And in the recent Festival of Faith & Music at York, Archbishop Cottrell reminded us of the precious ministry of cathedral music in the mission of the church.

The deacon as liturgist

During the early Middle Ages, the deacon remained an important order in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but his duties were primarily liturgical. A deacon could be a stand-in for the bishop or archbishop at the time, so the deacon was in some respects more significant in ecclesiastical than pastoral affairs. Perhaps the bishop’s chaplain would be roughly equivalent today. Alcuin’s enthusiasm for liturgy is an important legacy. He compiled his own book of Masses while he was abbot at the Basilica of St Martin in Tours from 796, a book known as the ‘Missal of Alcuin’. This offers a contemporary but different perspective on how to ‘make liturgy better’. He seems to have been involved in compiling a new hymnal and his prayer, ‘Eternal Light, shine into our hearts’, has been versified by Christopher Idle as ‘Eternal light, shine in my heart’. Today, the liturgical role of the deacon is one of the keys to recovering this foundational order of ministry.

The love of wisdom

Alcuin died on 19 May 804, some ten years before Charlemagne. He was buried at the abbey church of Saint-Martin under an epitaph he wrote in Latin, which partly reads in English:

Dust, worms, and ashes now . . . Alcuin my name, wisdom I always loved, Pray, reader, for my soul.

One of the subjects which Alcuin revived in the York school was the teaching of logic. This served both to sharpen the minds of the young and to give them an ability to solve the kind of practical problems that life throws our way. One of his puzzles goes like this:

A traveller comes to a riverbank with a wolf, a goat, and a head of cabbage. To his delight he sees there a boat that he can use for crossing over to the other bank, but to his dismay, he notices that it can carry no more than two: the traveller himself, of course, and just one of the two animals or the cabbage. As the traveller knows, if left alone together, the goat will eat the cabbage and the wolf will eat the goat. The wolf does not eat cabbage. How does the traveller transport his animals and his cabbage to the other side intact in a minimum number of back-and-forth trips?

One of the qualities sought in deacons is wisdom, which is not the same as knowledge and is in part acquired through experience. The modern discipline of theological reflection involves developing a habitus, a way of thinking about God and the world that brings together our knowledge, experience, faith and skills. In other words, it is about growing in practical wisdom.

Alcuin’s prayer for wisdom:

Eternal Light, shine into our hearts;

Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil;

Eternal Power, be our support;

Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance;

Eternal Pity, have mercy on us—

So that with all our heart and mind and soul and strength we may seek your face,

And be brought by your infinite mercy into your holy presence through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Further reading: I am grateful to Dr Mary Garrison for correspondence on Alcuin and acknowledge use of the following sources in writing this article. 

https://york.academia.edu/MaryGarrison

Mary Garrison, Alcuin and Charlemagne: The Golden Age of York (York, 2001).

Emma Hornby, Alcuin of York – Dictionary of Hymnology (hymnsam.co.uk)

Marcel Dansei Alcuin’s River Crossing Puzzles and Common Sense

++ Stephen Cottrell’s keynote address at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Music 2024, Music: Mission of God, ‘Tuning Forks and Orchestras’

Solution to the puzzle provided by Alcuin:

I would take the goat and leave the wolf and the cabbage. Then I would return and take the wolf across. Having put the wolf on the other side I would take the goat back over. Having left that behind, I would take the cabbage across. I would then row across again, and having picked up the goat take it over once more. 

(Image: Alcuin receiving the Abbey of Tours from the Emperor Charlemagne (British Library, Royal MS 16 G VI, f. 153v))

Jonathan Halliwell, deacon in the Hague: community educator and education adviser to the steering group of CENDD (Church of England Network of Distinctive Deacons)