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LEARNING AND EDUCATION 517
tribution made by English scholars and scribes to the revival
of learning in Europe. The labours of English mission'
aries like SS. Willibrord, Boniface, and Willibald, greatly in^
creased intellectual intercourse between western Europe and
their homeland. Great as was the achievement and influence
ofBede, the scholarly activities ofeightlvcentury England were
by no means confined to the monasteries. The northern cpisov
pate notably fostered the cause of education. Bishop Acca
(d. 740), founder ofa fine library at Hexham, was taught in the
household of Bosa (d. c. 705), bishop of York. There were
schoolboys in the household of Bosa's successor, St. John of
Beverley (d. 721). Under Archbishop Ecgberht (d. 766) this
practice was further developed, and the school of York took
shape with ^Ethelberht (d. 780) and, after his accession as
archbishop, his pupil Alcuin (d. 804).
Alcuin has left a memorable poem descriptive of the school
and the library of York, a school where instruction in the
seven liberal arts led on to study ofthe Scriptures. Such a school
was more than a grammar school. It aimed at the education of
a well^equipped clergy. A single teacher was essaying to cover
a curriculum which five hundred years later would have been
appropriate to a university.
It was a school of this sort that
Alcuin wished might be re/established at Canterbury, when
in 797 he wrote from abroad urging the clergy and nobles of
Kent to obtain 'doctors and masters of holy scripture, lest the
1
word of God be lacking among you'.
While Alcuin was writing these words, ruin threatened
Christian civilization in England. In 793 Lindisfarne was
plundered by Viking war-bands : in the following year Jarrow.
A hundred years
later King Alfred was moved to lament that
such was the decay oflearning on account ofthe ravages ofthe
Danes that very few clergy south of the Humber, none in
Wessex, not many beyond the Humber knew enough Latin to
understand the meaning of their service-books or to translate a
letter from Latin into their mother/tongue. In setting himself
the task of reviving educational standards he aimed at ensuring
1 Councils and EccL Docts., &c. (ed, Haddan and Stubbs), iii, p. 797.