Eanbald succeeded Albert in the archbishopric, and Alcuin succeeded Albert in the mastership of the School of York and in the ownership of the great library which for three generations had been got together at York. Alcuin tells us that it contained all Latin literature, all that Greece had handed on to the Romans, all that the Hebrew people had received from on high, all that Africa with clear-flowing light had given. Passing from the general to the particular, Alcuin names the authors whose works the library of York possessed. What we would give for even five or six of those priceless manuscripts! Of the Christian Fathers, he records a rather mixed list. They had Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Orosius, Gregory the Great, Pope Leo, Basil, Fulgentius, Cassiodorus, and John Chrysostom. They had the works of the learned men of the English Church, our own Aldhelm of Malmesbury, and Bede; with them he names Victorinus and Boethius, and the old historians, Pompeius and Pliny, the acute Aristotle and the great rhetorician Tully. They had the poets, too, Sedulius, Juvencus, Alcimus[96], Clemens, Prosper, Paulinus, Arator, Fortunatus, Lactantius. They had also Virgil, Statius, and Lucan. They were rich in grammarians: Probus, Focas, Donatus, Priscian, Servius, Euticius, Pompeius, Comminianus. You will find, he says, in the library very many more masters, famous in study, art, and language, who have written very many volumes, but whose names it would be too long to recite in a poem. It may perhaps be a fair guess that he had used up all the names which he could conveniently get into dactyls and spondees for hexameter verse. Two years after handing over to Alcuin the possession of this great library, and to Eanbald the archbishopric itself, Albert died. We may here remind ourselves of outstanding facts and dates. Alcuin, born in 735, had as a young man held the office of teacher in the School of York for some years. In 766 he had been promoted to a position which so far as teaching was concerned was practically that of Head Master. In 778 he became in the fullest sense the master of the school. In 780 he inherited the great collection of books which had been brought together by successive archbishops. In 782 he was called away to become the teacher of the School of the Palace of Karl, and director of the studies of the empire, still continuing to hold the office of master in name. In 792 he left England for the last time, and his official connexion with the school of York came to an end. He gave twenty years of his older life to the service of the Franks, and died in 804. CHAPTER V The affairs of Mercia.—Tripartite division of England.—The creation of a third archbishopric, at Lichfield.—Offa and Karl.—Alcuin’s letter to Athelhard of Canterbury; to Beornwin of Mercia.—Karl’s letter to Offa, a commercial treaty.—Alcuin’s letter to Offa.—Offa’s death.