Angilbert, St.

, abbot of Centula, or St. Riquier, in the ninth century, was descended from a noble family of Neustria. He was educated at the court of Charlemagne, where he studied the languages with that prince and the other courtiers, under the learned Alcuinus, who afterwards considered him as his son. Charlemagne, having caused his son Ppin to be crowned king of Itaiy, made Angilbert that prince’s first minister: he then went with him into Italy, and returned some years after to France, when Charlemagne gave him his daughter Bertha in marriage; but some historians say that this marriage was rendered necessary by the lady’s being delivered previously of twins. Whatever truth may be in this, Angilbert, being now sonin-law to Charlemagne, was made duke or governor of the coast of France from the Scheldt to the Seine, and the kin? also made him his secretary and prime minister; but Alcuinus, abbot of Corbie, prevailed on him to become a monk in the monastery of Centula, or St. Riquier, with the consent both of his wife and the king. Notwithstanding his love of solitude, he was frequently obliged to leave the monastery, and attend to the affairs of the church and state, and was three times sent to the court of Rome; he also accompanied Charlemagne thither, in the year 800, when that prince was crowned in that city emperor of the West. He died on the 18th of February 814. Angilbert had such a taste for poetry, that Charlemagne called him his Homer. There are but few of his works remaining, except a history of his monastery, which Mabillon has inserted in his “Annales de l’ordre de St. Benoit.” As to the “Histoire de premieres expeditions de Charlemagne pendant sa jeunesse et avant son regne,” 1741, 8vo, with the title of Homer, given him by Charlemagne, either because he delighted in that poet, or because he was himself a poet; it is in fact a romance written by Dufresne de Francheville. ²