, abbot of Centula, or St. Riquier, in the ninth century, was descended
, 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,
”