The Medieval Church · c. 780–804
The Letters
Alcuin of York · c. 735 – 804
What it is
Some three hundred letters to kings, bishops, and former pupils. He tells Charlemagne that a people cannot be forced to faith and that tithes have destroyed the Saxon mission; he asks Lindisfarne after the Viking raid what safety there is if Cuthbert cannot defend his own church; and he asks a monastery what Ingeld has to do with Christ.
Why it lasted
The best single window into the Carolingian project from the man running its schools, and containing the earliest argued Christian case against forced conversion — made to the king doing the forcing.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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