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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Portraits

The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Portraits: Episode 16: Alcuin, the Scholar

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Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Episode 16

Episode 16: Alcuin, the Scholar

Alcuin, the Scholar

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Mary Garrison discusses the scholar Alcuin, regarded as 'the most learned man anywhere'.

Mary Garrison of York University tells the story of one of York's most influential sons, Alcuin, considered one of the most learned and influential men of the early Middle Ages.

The Anglo Saxons are somewhat out of fashion, yet the half millennium between the creation of the English nation in around 550 and the Norman Conquest in 1066 was a formative one.

This major series rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty key individuals. 

16. Alcuin. Mary Garrison from York University tells the story of one of York's most influential sons, Alcuin. In the eighth century, Alcuin was one of the most learned and influential men of the early Middle Ages and was remembered by contemporaries as 'the most learned man anywhere to be found'. 

Mary paints a vivid portrait of this scholar whose legacy survives today in the liturgy and the style of manuscript lettering. His love of books created one of most important libraries of the middle age and he was one of the finest teachers of the eighth century. 'The light of understanding is natural to human minds', he said, 'just as flint has a spark within it by nature, but the understanding remains dormant like the spark in the flint without the frequent attention of the teacher.'

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Portraits of ground-breaking Anglo-Saxon men and women from the era between 550 and 1066AD

Series of portraits of ground-breaking Anglo-Saxon men and women from the era between 550 and 1066AD

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Episode 16: Alcuin, the Scholar

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