Ebook: Two Alcuin Letter-Books

Edited by Colin Chase from the British Museum MS. Cotton Vespasian A XIV.

This edition comprises twenty-four letters which appear together in British Museum MS Cotton Vespasian A XIV, containing in its latter part material that was copied for archbishop Wulfstan’s library in the early eleventh century. Fifteen of these letters are ascribed in their salutations to Alcuin, either as Alcuinus or according to his favourite cognomen, Albinus. Seven are unascribed, although six of these refer to people or circumstances in Alcuin’s life in such a way as to make it fairly certain they are his; the seventh (I,8) could not be Alcuin’s, since it refers to him in the third person. Of the remaining two, one (I, 2) is ascribed to Alcuin’s close friend, Arn, archbishop of Salzburg, and the second (II, 7) to an otherwise unidentified anchorite called Alcherithus. On the basis of their contents and their appearance in the manuscript, the letters are presented here as two independent collections, each consistent in itself but differing one from the other.