Those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. Among his pupils were many of the dominant intellectuals of the Carolingian era. At the invitation of Charlemagne he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court where he remained a figure in the 780s and 790s.