Alan (died 9 March 769) was an Aquitanian scholar, hermit and homilist who served as the sixth Abbot of Farfa in central Italy from 761.[1] Before taking over at Farfa, Alan composed the Homiliarium Alani, "one of the most successful homiliaries of the late eighth and early ninth centuries", traces of which may be found in the liturgical formulae scattered throughout Farfa's eighth-century charters.[2]
- ^ Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in the Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics, and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 14–15.
- ^ For an analysis of the use of liturgy and scripture in the arengae of Farfa's charters, cf. Costambeys (2007), 45–48, and Costambeys, Piety, Property and Power in Eighth-century Central Italy, PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1998. The prologue to Alan's homiliary has been published in R. Étaix, "Le prologue du sermonaire d'Alain de Farfa", Scriptorium 18 (1964) 3–10, and the manuscript of it has been analysed by R. Grégoire, Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: Analyse des manuscrits, Biblioteca degli Studi Medievali 22 (Spoleto: 1980), 127–220. For a brief outline of the homiliary's contents, cf. F. Brunhölzl, Histoire de la littérature latine du moyen âge (Louvain: 1990), 253–54.