Alcuin’s work on the Continent began in 782, when, resigning his place as master of the cathedral school in York, he took charge of the imperial or palace school at Tours. His work in the palace school included not only the organisation of classes for the younger students, but the personal charge of a class which comprised the Emperor himself, his wife Luitgard, and other members of the royal or imperial family. Whether for the younger or for the older students, however, the instruction given had to be of a very elementary character. The distinctive value of the work was, it is to be borne in mind, not in the extent of the instruction given to the immediate pupils, but in making clear to the Emperor and to his sons who were to succeed him, the importance of securing a certain uniformity of script and of educational work throughout the Empire. It is very probable that not a few of the earlier copyists who completed in the _scriptoria_ the tasks set for them by the instructors trained in Tours and in Aachen, transcribed texts the purport of which they had not mastered. It was through their work, however, that the texts themselves were preserved and were made available for later scribes and students who were competent to comprehend the spirit as well as the letter of their contents. Mabillon is in accord with later authorities such as Compayré and West, as to the deplorable condition of learning at this time throughout the Empire ruled by Charles. Says West: “The plight of learning in Frankland at this time was deplorable. Whatever traditions had found their way from the early Gallic schools into the education of the Franks had long since been scattered and obliterated in the wild disorders which characterised the times of the Merovingian kings.... The copying of books had almost ceased, and all that can be found that pretends to the name of literature in this time is the dull chronicle or ignorantly conceived legend.”[151]