The way to heaven

In about 800, Alcuin, abbot of St Martin of Tours, sent a moral treatise to Guy (Wido), count of the Breton march, entitled De virtutibus et vitiis. In his introduction, Alcuin said that he was writing since: ‘you entreated me with all your might to write some brief exhortation for your occupation, which we know that you have in military matters’. Alcuin’s response discussed the virtues and vices, focusing less on doctrine or devotional practices than on how laymen ought to behave. His aim was that ‘you might have a booklet every day in your sight, like a manual, in which you might be able to consider yourself, and what you ought to avoid or do’. This image of self-contemplation, also used in other moral texts, leads to the description of the genre of the ‘lay mirror’. Alcuin added: ‘Do not let either the condition [habitus] of a layman or the quality of a secular way of life [conversatio] frighten you, as if in this condition you were not able to enter the doors of the heavenly life.’

The two men were both significant figures in the Carolingian kingdom. Guy was almost certainly part of the influential ‘Widonid’ family, who dominated Neustrian politics in the early ninth century; another branch became dukes of Spoleto in Italy. He played important roles both militarily and politically, receiving the surrender of the Bretons in 799 and acting as a missus dominicus in 802.