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PDFWm. H. Carpenter.
ON THE SAINTS OF THE CHURCH AT YORK
There
the Eboric scholars felt the rule
Of
Master Aelbert, teaching in the school.
Their
thirsty hearts to gladden well he knew
With
doctrine’s stream and learning’s heavenly
dew.
To
some he made the grammar understood,
And
poured on others rhetoric’s copious flood.
The
rules of jurisprudence these rehearse,
While
those recite in high Eonian verse,
Or
play Castalia’s flutes in cadence sweet
And
mount Parnassus on swift lyric feet.
Anon
the master turns their gaze on high
To
view the travailing sun and moon, the sky
In
order turning with its planets seven,
And
starry hosts that keep the law of heaven.
The
storms at sea, the earthquake’s shock, the race
Of
men and beasts and flying fowl they trace;
Or
to the laws of numbers bend their mind,
And
search till Easter’s annual day they find.
Then,
last and best, he opened up to view
The
depths of Holy Scripture, Old and New.
Was
any youth in studies well approved,
Then
him the master cherished, taught, and loved;
And
thus the double knowledge he conferred
Of
liberal studies and the Holy Word.
From West’s ‘Alcuin, and the Rise of the Christian Schools’: by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.
DISPUTATION BETWEEN PEPIN, THE MOST
NOBLE AND ROYAL
YOUTH, AND ALBINUS THE SCHOLASTIC
Pepin—What is writing?
Albinus—The treasury of history.
Pepin—What is language?
Albinus—The herald of the soul.
Pepin—What generates language?
Albinus—The tongue.
Pepin—What is the tongue?
Albinus—A whip of the air.
Pepin—What is the air?
Albinus—A maintainer of life.
Pepin—What is life?
Albinus—The joy of the happy; the torment of the suffering; a waiting for death.
Pepin—What is death?
Albinus—An inevitable ending; a journey into uncertainty; a source of tears for the living; the probation of wills; a waylayer of men.
Pepin—What is man?
Albinus—A booty of death; a passing traveler; a stranger on earth.
Pepin—What is man like?
Albinus—The fruit of a tree.
Pepin—What are the heavens?
Albinus—A rolling ball; an immeasurable vault.
Pepin—What is light?
Albinus—The sight of all things.
Pepin—What is day?
