“Man thinks, God directs. [Lat., Homo cogitat, Deu indicat.]”
“Here halt, I pray you, make a little stay. O wayfarer, to read what I have writ, And know by my fate what thy fate shall be. What thou art now, so shall thou be. The world’s delight I followed with a heart Unsatisfied: ashes am I, and dust.”
“In the morning, at the height of my powers, I sowed the seed in Britain; now in the evening when my blood is growing cold, I am still sowing in France, hoping both will grow, by the grace of God, giving some the honey of the holy scriptures, making others drunk on the old wine of ancient learning…”
Saint Alcuin (pronounced ælkwin) was an English scholar, Deacon, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invitation of Charlemagne, he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he remained a figure in the 780’s and 790’s. According to Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, Alcuin was “The most learned man anywhere to be found.” Saint Alcuin is considered among the most important intellectual architects of the Carolingian Renaissance and revived classical education in Medieval Europe through the opening of dozens of schools open to religious and lay students. He revived classical education by reintroducing the trivium and quadrivium disciplines of the seven Liberal Arts—writing a codex on the trivium, while his student Hraban wrote one on the quadrivium. In a time of intellectual and moral decline in modern education, the patronage of Saint Alcuin points to light of Faith and classical wisdom to restore Catholic culture in our homes, our nation, and our world.