Alcuin II: Theology and Thought

Description

'Alcuin: Theology and Thought' is a thorough and wide-ranging consideration of Alcuin's spiritual and intellectual life as a teacher in York, and later on the Continent as a protagonist in the Adoptionist crisis, as a theologian of mission, and as a fearless and prophetic moral authority. Douglas Dales demonstrates that Alcuin accomplished the pastoral and evangelistic approach set out by his forebears, the Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great, and was instrumental in the reform of the liturgy and proliferation of the Bible. The author examines Alcuin's surviving works to reveal a depth of human love and spiritual experience that gives resonance to his liturgical writing and prayers, and his sensitivity to the path of penitence, to loyalty to others, to moral rectitude and the desire for holiness. There is no other study in the English language that deals with Alcuin's theology in depth. Here the author grapples with Alcuin's doctrinal idiom and theological impetus with sympathy, lucidity, and insight. Douglas Dales was Chaplain of Marlborough College, Wiltshire, from 1984 to 2012 and is now a parish priest in the diocese of Oxford. He is the author of several studies in Anglo-Saxon church history and other areas of theology, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of 'Alcuin: his Life and Legacy'; 'Dunstan: Saint and Statesman'; 'Living Through Dying: The Spiritual Experience of Saint Paul'; and 'Light to the Isles: Mission and Theology in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Britain'. " 'Alcuin: Theology and Thought' complements the forerunner to the volume, Alcuin: His Life and Legacy, also displaying the author's academic rigour and dexterity. This book will be of immense value to anyone teaching, or learning about, early medieval history as well as theology in universities. Alcuin deserves to be recognised - far more than has often been the case - as a key figure in the evolution of the mediaeval mind; and no one reading this book could fail to see him in this light. This is a fine and welcome tribute to one of the greatest gifts the British Church gave to the wider Catholic fellowship in the early Middle Ages." From the Foreword by Rowan Williams.