The Anglo-Saxon deacon Alcuin of York (730? - 804) became an adviser to Charlemagne and a key figure of the Carolingian Renaissance, and twenty years after his death, also the hero of a hagiographic text, the Life of the dearly-departed Alcuin, which saw him as a saint. The present monograph offers the first complete edition of this work of exceptional biblical texture. It provides an edition of the newly identified integral text preserved in the Reims manuscript, BM 1395 ( K784), and a first translation accompanied by an ample commentary. The Latin text and French translation are introduced by a rich, five-part thematic study articulated in the following sections: "Two manuscripts for one Life: the text in its manuscript context"; "A new approach to the Life of Alcuin"; "One Life, many stakes"; "Elaborating the saintly hero"; "The role of the hagiographer." The results establish for this little known Life of a well-known person its importance as a historical, cultural, literary, and spiritual witness. Readers interested in the Early Middle Ages will find in it fresh light and content.
EAMA 54: Paris, Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2017
ISBN: 978-2-85121-287-0
362 p., 165 x 250 mm
52€ TTC
