"The most learned man anywhere to be found", according to Einhard's Life of Charlemagne[2] (c. 817–833), he is considered among the most important intellectual architects of the Carolingian Renaissance.

[3] In common hagiographical fashion, the Vita Alcuini asserts that Alcuin was of "noble English stock", and this statement has usually been accepted by scholars.

Alcuin's own work only mentions such collateral kinsmen as Wilgils of Ripon, father of the missionary saint Willibrord; and Beornrad (also spelled Beornred), abbot of Echternach and bishop of Sens.

[7] The young Alcuin came to the cathedral church of York during the golden age of Archbishop Ecgbert and his brother, the Northumbrian King Eadberht.

King Eadberht and Archbishop Ecgbert oversaw the re-energising and reorganisation of the English church, with an emphasis on reforming the clergy and on the tradition of learning that Bede had begun.

[8] The York school was renowned as a centre of learning in the liberal arts, literature, and science, as well as in religious matters.

He joined an illustrious group of scholars whom Charlemagne had gathered around him, the mainsprings of the Carolingian Renaissance: Peter of Pisa, Paulinus II of Aquileia, Rado, and Abbot Saint Fulrad.

Bringing with him from York his assistants Pyttel, Sigewulf, and Joseph, Alcuin revolutionised the educational standards of the Palace School, introducing Charlemagne to the liberal arts and creating a personalised atmosphere of scholarship and learning, to the extent that the institution came to be known as the "school of Master Albinus".

Alcuin soon found himself on intimate terms with Charlemagne and the other men at court, where pupils and masters were known by affectionate and jesting nicknames.

While at Aachen, Alcuin bestowed pet names upon his pupils – derived mainly from Virgil's Eclogues.

At the Council of Frankfurt in 794, Alcuin upheld the orthodox doctrine against the views expressed by Felix of Urgel, an heresiarch according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

[10] Having failed during his stay in Northumbria to influence King Æthelred I in the conduct of his reign, Alcuin never returned home.

These letters and Alcuin's poem on the subject, "De clade Lindisfarnensis monasterii", provide the only significant contemporary account of these events.

He hoped to be free from court duties and upon the death of Abbot Itherius of Saint Martin at Tours, Charlemagne put Marmoutier Abbey into Alcuin's care, with the understanding that he should be available if the king ever needed his counsel.

There, he encouraged the work of the monks on the beautiful Carolingian minuscule script, ancestor of modern Roman typefaces using a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters.

He had many manuscripts copied using outstandingly beautiful calligraphy, the Carolingian minuscule based on round and legible uncial letters.

These letters (of which 311 are extant) are filled mainly with pious meditations, but they form an important source of information as to the literary and social conditions of the time and are the most reliable authority for the history of humanism during the Carolingian age.

Besides some graceful epistles in the style of Venantius Fortunatus, he wrote some long poems, and notably he is the author of a history (in verse) of the church at York, Versus de patribus, regibus et sanctis Eboracensis ecclesiae.

At the same time, he is noted for making one of the only explicit comments on Old English poetry surviving from the early Middle Ages, in a letter to one Speratus, the bishop of an unnamed English see (possibly Unwona of Leicester): "verba Dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio: ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam; sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium.

[36] For a complete census of Alcuin's works, see Marie-Hélène Jullien and Françoise Perelman, eds., Clavis scriptorum latinorum medii aevi: Auctores Galliae 735–987, Tomus II – Alcuinus, Turnhout, Brepols, 1999.