The Emperor corresponded with men of learning, on subjects of literature; they generally related to religion. In one of his letters, he requires of Alcuin an explanation of the words Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima, which denote the Sundays which immediately precede, and the word Quadragesima, which denotes the first Sunday which occurs in Lent. The denominations of those Sundays give rise to two difficulties; one, that they seem to imply that each week consists of ten, not of seven days; the other, that the words sound as if Septuagesima were the seventieth, when it is only the sixty-third day before Easter Sunday; Sexagesima, as if it were the sixtieth, when it is only the fifty-sixth; Quinquagesima, as if it were the fiftieth, when it is the forty-ninth; Quadragesima, as if it were the fortieth, when it is the forty-second. Alcuin's answer is more subtle than satisfactory.
At the meals of Charlemagne some person always read to him. His example was followed by many of his successors, particularly by Francis I. of France, who, in an happier era for learning, imitated with happier effects, the example of the Emperor.
[Sidenote: I. 2. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.]
Alcuin was general director of all the literary schemes of Charlemagne. He was an Englishman by birth; skilled both in the Greek and Latin language, and in many branches of philosophy. Having taught, with great reputation and success, in his own country, he travelled to Rome. In 780, Charlemagne attracted him to his court.
There, Alcuin gave lectures, and published several treatises. In these, he began with Orthography; then proceeded to Grammar; afterwards to Rhetoric, and Dialectic. He composed his treatises in the form of dialogues; and, as Charlemagne frequently attended them, Alcuin made him one of his interlocutors. Few scholars of Alcuin were more attentive than his imperial pupil; he had learned grammar from Peter of Pisa; he was instructed in rhetoric, dialectic, and astronomy by Alcuin. He also engaged in the study of divinity; and had the good sense to stop short of those subtleties, in which Justinian, Heraclius, and other princes, unfortunately both for themselves and their subjects, bewildered themselves. Letters from Giséla and Richtrudis, the daughters of Charlemagne, to Alcuin, shew that they partook of their father's literary zeal: his favourite study was astronomy.