66 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

e h a r. circumstance, which did honour to Offa ; as distantI. princes at that time had usually little communi-cation with each other. That emperor being agreat lover of learning and learned men, in anage very barren of that ornament, Offa, at hisdesire, sent him over Alcuin, a clergyman muchcelebrated for his knowledge, who received greathonours from Charlemagne, and even became hispreceptor in the sciences. The chief reason,why he had at first desired the company of Alcuin,was that he might oppose his learning to theheresy of Felix, bishop of Urgel in Catalonia;who maintained, that Jesus Christ, considered inhis human nature, could, more properly, bedenominated the adoptive than the natural son ofGod ^ his heresy was condemned in the

council of Francfort, held in 794, and consistingof 300 bishops. Such were the questions whichwere agitated in that age, and which employedthe attention, not only of cloystered scholars,but of the wisest and greatest princes

Egfrith succeeded to hisfather, Offa, but sur-vived him only five months ; when he madeway for Ivenulph , a descendant of the royal family.This prince waged wat against Kent; and takingEgbert, the king, prisoner, he cut off his hands,

Dupin,cent. 8.chap, 4.

Io# Offa, in order to protect his country from "Wales,drew a rampart or ditch of a hundred miles in length fromBafingwerke in Flintshire to the South sea near v Briltol, SeeSpeed's Description of Waks.

11 * Ingulph. p. 6.