[Note: All Basque words are in Italics and Bold-faced Green]
ALCUIN IN ENGLAND *
(Contact)
THE
BENEDICTINES COME TO ENGLAND
In 597 A.D. the papal librarian Augustine and forty
Benedictine monks arrived in England, sent by Pope Gregory the Great, to begin the conversion
of the local people to orthodox Christianity. They brought enough books with
them to form the nucleus of the scriptorium library that they included in
their monastery built at Canterbury in Kent. In line with their teaching
duties they named their establishment Kanterburi, analyzed
from the Basque as .ka-an.-.te-er.-.bu-uri: .ka ika ikasi learned an. ana anaia brothers .te ate ateratu to take advantage of er. era erabide education .bu abu aburu eman to express (opinion, idea) uri uri urrikimendu repentance Take advantage of an education from the learned brothers and express repentance.
Once the buildings were finished,
the grammarians among them settled down to the demanding but creative task of
laying the foundation for the new language. Little is known about the amount
of progress achieved during the next decades until the year 635 A.D. In that
year King Oswald of
Northumbria offered
his help to establish a new monastery in the northeast of England on an
island near the mouth of the Humber river, called Holy Island. He asked the Gnostic St. Aidan,
who had built the Irish monastery on Iona, to send priests to build a new
monastery on the island in a location that was within sight of his fort at Bamburgh.
St. Aidan decided to lead the delegation himself and the monastery buildings
were started, as was the habit at the time, on the ruins of the sacred site
of the Ashera religion. The ruins visible there today are
those of the subsequent monastery built in 1,083 A.D. The island is about 2
km off shore and can be reached on foot at low tide. Some other early monasteries were built
after this in England such as Wearmouth in 674, Jarrow
in 681 and Rochester in about 780, to expand the language
conversion effort. The principal language center became York, not far from Holy Island,
where a scriptorium was attached to the Cathedral school. Around 1,100 A.D. a
large Benedictine monastery was also built there. Contact between these
centers of learning was regular and frequent, as remaining records show. It
was from Holy Island and Rochester that regular contact was maintained with
the Benedictine monastery of Egmond in Holland. The name Holy Island was
changed to Lindisfarne after the Viking raid of 793 A.D. With the VCV Formula the name breaks
down to: .li-in.-.di-is.-.fa-arne: .li ili ilintu to set fire in. inu inular sundown .di udi udikan get away! is. isi isilume bastard .fa ifa ifar northern arne arne arnegatu cursed Get away from here! At sundown the cursed bastards from the north have set fire!
ALCUIN, THE BENEDICTINES' TEACHER
If any person can be identified as
having had the greatest influence upon the formation of English and the other
Germanic languages, this person must be Alcuin. His absolute
dedication to the task, his organizing ability and his tireless work during a
long life had such an influence that he must be regarded as the greatest of
west European language teachers.
Alcuin never
was a monk or a priest but made it to deacon. Yet, he became one of the very
few to be remembered in history. He
was a great scholar in both England and Germany. He taught the priests how to
introduce the newly invented languages to the people. The name Alcuin was apparently given to him at the time that he became head of the Cathedral school in York and is composed of three words: al.-.ku-in.: al. ala alaiki happily .ku aku akuilatu to stimulate in. inu inurritu to inspire Happily stimulating and inspiring.
Alcuin was born around 732 A.D.,
in or near York. He grew up at the
Cathedral school of which Egbert
was the head master. Egbert was especially "concerned to
carry on the tradition of learning which he had known under his master Bede,
a tradition already founded by its former bishops Bosa, John of Beverley and Wilfrid the Second." Egbert
These bishops had been trained in
Irish Gnostic discipline of books under Abbess Hild of Streanaeshalch, the later
Whitby. Streanaeshalch is made up of five words: .st.-.re-ana-esha-alk: .st. ezta eztabaidazale fond of discussions .re are arrerazko hospitable ana ana anaiak brothers esha esa esalditu to talk (the "s" is pronounced as "sh") alk alk. alkarbatu to get together Fond of discussions, the hospitable brothers get together to talk.
Under Egbert, the York Cathedral
school became the most famous center of learning in England that attracted
young men not only from nearby Northumbria, but also from the rest of England
and the mainland. Although at first the school had concentrated on religion,
Egbert expanded the curriculum to include the liberal arts and secular
literature and science, such as Bede had written down at Yarrow. It was in
this energetic atmosphere that Alcuin grew up. Egbert loved all his boys but
he took a special interest in Alcuin, who would run errands for him in the
streets of York, learn about its history from the pages of Orosius and Bede
and roam the Roman ruins on the banks of the river Ouse. He learned how the Roman Emperor Severus had come to crush the northern Picts
and the Caledonian Scots. Emperor Constantius had come to see Britain under his
power and here he had died. Here his son Constantine had started his reign which had been of such importance
to Christianity. The city was already old at the time of the Romans, having
been a trading center and important harbour on the navigable Ouse, dating
back to long before Christ was born. The first Church had been built in 627
by Bishop Paulinus who had dedicated it to St. Peter. This little wooden
building was soon replaced by Paulinus' successor, King Oswald, who
completed a splendid structure of stone. As Alcuin grew up, another teacher
became even more important to him than Egbert had been. His name was Aelbert,
whose special interest was in books and teaching. Aelbert allowed Alcuin to
teach the younger students. Alcuin said later about Aelbert: "My master told me to
rise with all that was in me to the defense of the Catholic Faith if anywhere
I should hear of the springing up of strange sects, opposed to Apostolic
doctrines". Aelbert introduced more advanced studies such as Latin
grammar, language and prose, rhetoric, mathematics, arithmetic, geometry and
astronomy. Natural sciences were also taught
including eclipses of the sun and moon, tides, earthquakes and the laws that
govern the lives of men, beasts and birds as written by Pliny, Isidore and
Bede. Alcuin also encouraged these teachings and gave credit to pre-Christian
teaching, saying: "They were the wisest men who discerned these arts in
nature. It is a great disgrace to us to let them die out in our time".
Canon law was required by those who wished to enter the priesthood that also
required knowledge of music such as the Gregorian chant as composed by Pope
Gregory himself. Every minute Aelbert could spare was spent in his beloved
Cathedral library, which expanded rapidly under his devoted care. Alcuin then
assembled for him a list of all the books and documents in the library, the
first library catalogue in Britain. When time permitted Aelbert would
travel to the continental monasteries to borrow more books to be copied in
the scriptorium. On one of these trips he took Alcuin along with him to Rome
and Pavia and visited Frankish monasteries like Murbach on the way back. "Murbach" comes from: .mu-ur.-.ba-ak.:
All these travels and activities
resulted in more knowledge being accumulated and raised the profile of the
school and of its master to new heights and it generated a desire in Alcuin
to do the same if and when he became master of his own school. When Alcuin was 35 years old, he
was ordained a deacon, which was one step lower than a priest, as the
analysis of the word "deacon" shows: .de-ako-on. .de
ide ide
member
The title "priest" is
agglutinated from: .p.-.ri-ist.:
The task assigned to Alcuin was to
establish and run a college where monks and priests were taught the new
language. They learned how to teach this to the people. He became therefore
the educator of the clergy. It is likely that it was one of the local
grammarians who coined the word "Library", when he painted or
carved the word on a sign which he hung over the door giving access to the
study hall: "Library" from .li - ib. - .ra - ari
ALCUIN MEETS CHARLEMAGNE
Alcuin believed that the creation of
the new English language had started in earnest with Venerable Bede,
acknowledged the most learned man of the time and the foremost historian of
England. He was Alcuin's hero and role model and tried to pattern his life
after him. Shortly before his death in 735, Bede had written a severe
critique of monastic living in England: "within very many of these
'houses of God' monastic doors concealed homes of lust and luxury, free from
discipline, to which crowded all who gladly shook off for comfort and idleness
the burden of an honest life in the world". Alcuin always remembered
these words and warned his students never to give in to temptation. The name "Venerable Bede"
deserves to be translated because it is exactly in line with the other
Benedictine names. It analyses as: .be-ene-era-ab.-.le be-ede: .be obe obeagotu to improve ene ene ene come to me era era erabide education ab. abe abe cross .le ele eleiza church be be bedeinkagarri blessed One ede ede ederki brilliant To improve yourself, come to me for an education under the church' cross. The Blessed and brilliant one.
In 781 Aelbert sent Alcuin to
Frankland on a mission to king Charlemagne and, just before Easter on his way
to Parma, he had caught up with the king's party. It was the second time he
met the King of the Franks and King Charles had not forgotten the brilliant young
man, because by that time Alcuin's scholarship was known throughout western
Europe. Charles was looking for outstanding scholars to staff the Palatine
School he was developing in Aachen (Aken), attached to his Court. The
Frankish king had great plans for the education of his people and not the
least of his goals was the replacement of the indigenous "heathen"
language of the Germans with an acceptable Christian one, free from verbal
imagery associated with the still omnipresent Ashera religion. Alcuin refused
Charlemagne's offer to become head of the Palatine School at Aachen, a
refusal which the king did not accept. He was in urgent need of an
outstanding and strong-minded scholar with organizing ability and he knew he
had found his man. Associated with the school,
Charles planned to start an Academy to train missionaries, priests and
scholars, people badly needed if Christianity was the prevail. With Alcuin at
the head of this educational institute, Charles was sure that his dream would
become a reality. Alcuin's refusal caused the king to change his approach and
he then contacted co-workers of Alcuin such as Eanbald, Elfwald and Willehad,
who had no reservations about leaving York and willingly accepted. His
co-workers having taken the big step to Aachen, this caused Alcuin to
overcome his objections and he agreed to leave his comfortable life in
England, his many friends and his beloved library to join the monarch. He had
helped Aelbert build the best academy and library in Europe and the thought
of leaving all that behind for the uncertainties of Charles' court was
unnerving to him. He spent his last days in York writing his "Verses on
the Saints of the Church of York" a long poem honoring the history of
the great men in York's history in church and state. After that was done, he
declared himself ready to go. It was the year 782, Alcuin was 50 years old
and a completely new life lay ahead of him. |
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For further detail, please
refer to:
Nyland, Edo. 2001. Linguistic Archaeology: AnIntroduction. Trafford Publ., Victoria, B.C., Canada.
ISBN 1-55212-668-4. 541 p. [
see abstract & summary]
Nyland, Edo. 2002.
Odysseus and the Sea Peoples: A
Bronze Age History of Scotland Trafford Publ., Victoria,
B.C.,
Canada. 307 p. [see abstract
& summary].
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