Arnaud-Amanieu’s son, Charles I (d. 1415), grew up at the French court as a
“companion” to the dauphin (Charles VI) and was named constable of France in 1403. As
partial payment for his royal pension, he received the county of Dreux in 1407.
Considered a member of the Armagnac party, he was replaced as constable in 1411 but
regained the post in 1413 and was killed at Agincourt. His son Charles II (d. 1471) sired
Alain le Grand (d. 1522), whose son Jean married the queen of Navarre in 1484.
Richard C.Famiglietti
[See also: ARMAGNAC; ARMAGNACS; CHARLES V THE WISE; CHARLES VI;
HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR]
Dubois, Jean. “Inventaire des titres de la maison d’Albret.” Recueil des travaux de la Société
d’Agriculture, Sciences et Arts d’Agen 2nd ser. 16(1913):1–212.
Luchaire, Achille. “Notice sur les origines de la maison d’Albret (977–1270).” Bulletin de la
Société des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Pau 2nd ser. 2(1872–73):24–40, 99–124.
Marquette, Jean-Bernard. “Les Albret.” Cahiers du Bazadais 30 (1975):5–52; 31(1975):55–107;
34(1976):117–203; 38 (1977):211–374; 41(1978):377–536; 45/46(1979):539–886.
——. Le trésor des chartes d’Albret. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1973, Vol. 1.
ALCUIN
(Albinus Alcuinus; ca. 735–804). Born in Northumbria, Alcuin became the primary
teacher of Charlemagne’s palace school. Alcuin was educated under Bishop Egbert of
York and saw himself in the intellectual tradition of the Venerable Bede. He met
Charlemagne in Italy in 771 and represented him on a mission to Offa of Mercia in 790
and at the councils of Frankfurt (794) and Aachen (799). Ordained deacon but never
priest, Alcuin was abbot of several French monasteries and made the abbey of Saint-
Martin of Tours an important center of Carolingian learning. His writings include biblical
commentaries (on Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, some New
Testament epistles, and the Gospel of John), liturgical treatises, hagiography, poems,
many letters, tractates against the Spanish Adoptionists, a treatise on the phases of the
moon, and school texts. These last, covering the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and
dialectic), are in the form of dialogues between Alcuin and his pupils, including “a
Saxon,” “a Frank,” and Charlemagne. At court, Alcuin was called “Flaccus” after the
Roman poet Horace. His greatest legacy to medieval France was a tradition of school
learning continued by his students Louis the Pious and Rabanus Maurus. He died at the
monastery of Saint-Martin.
E.Ann Matter
[See also: ANTICHRIST; CHARLEMAGNE; LOUIS I THE PIOUS;
PHILOSOPHY; RABANUS MAURUS]
Alcuin. Opera. PL 100–01; MGH PLAC II, pp. 160–351; MGH Ep. IV.
Cavadini, John. The Last Christology in the West: Adoptionism in Spain and Gaul 785–820.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
Duckett, Eleanor Shipley. Alcuin, Friend of Charlemagne: His World and His Work. New York:
Macmillan, 1951.
The Encyclopedia 43