Alcuin. Education and society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Achievement and reputation, 2002, 528 p., rel. -

In this major intellectual biography of Alcuin (d. 804), the most prominent Anglo-Saxon scholar at the court of Charlemagne, Donald Bullough deploys a lifetime's expertise in the study of early medieval manuscripts. Concentrating on Alcuin's early years in Northumbria and then his time at the Carolingian court, Bullough reassesses the chronology of Alcuin's career and writings, assesses his use of patristic and insular writings, and explores the contemporary significance of his large output. At the core of this book lies a fundamental reassessment of the dating of Alcuin's letters: in so doing, it reveals the patterns of intellectual exchange and textual community that characterised the first phase of the Carolingian Renaissance. It thus offers a uniquely detailed and nuanced exploration of the life and ideas of the most influential early medieval scholar.