Angilbert, Count of Ponthieu was a noble Frankish poet who was educated under Alcuin and served Charlemagne as a secretary, diplomat, and son-in-law.
11 Facts About Angilbert
1.
2.
Angilbert seems to have been brought up at the court of Charlemagne at the palace school in Aquae Granni.
3.
Angilbert was educated there as the pupil and then-friend of the great English scholar Alcuin.
4.
When Charlemagne sent his young son Pepin to Italy as King of the Lombards, Angilbert went along as primicerius palatii, a high administrator of the satellite court.
5.
Angilbert delivered the document on Iconoclasm from the Frankish Synod of Frankfurt to Pope Adrian I, and was later sent on three important embassies to the pope, in 792,794, and 796.
6.
Angilbert accompanied Charlemagne to Rome in 800 and was one of the witnesses to his will in 811.
7.
Bertha and Angilbert are an example of how resistance to the idea of a sacramental marriage could coincide with holding church offices.
8.
In 790, Angilbert retired to the abbey of Centulum, the "Monastery of St Richarius" at present-day Saint-Riquier in Picardy.
9.
In keeping with Carolingian policies, Angilbert established a school at Saint-Riquier to educate the local boys.
10.
Angilbert was nicknamed "Homer" because he wrote poetry, and was the probable author of an epic, of which the fragment which has been preserved describes the life at the palace and the meeting between Charlemagne and Leo III.
11.
Angilbert's poems were published by Ernst Dummler in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.