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The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

ii

International Policy Exchange Series

Published in collaboration with the
Center for International Policy Exchanges
University of Maryland

Series Editors
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Chinese Social Policy in a Time of Transition
Edited by Douglas J. Besharov and Karen Baehler
Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction:
How Successful Are European Welfare States?
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University Adaptation in Difficult Economic Times
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Activation or Workfare? Governance and the Neo-​Liberal Convergence
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Child Welfare Systems and Migrant Children:
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Caring for a Living:
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Child Welfare Removals by the State:
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Improving Public Services:
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Welfare, Work, and Poverty:
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Youth Labor in Transition:
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Social Exclusion in Cross National Perspective:
Actors, Actions, and Impacts from Above and Below
Edited by Robert J. Chaskin, Bong Joo Lee, and Surinder Jaswal
The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia
Stuart Gietel-​Basten
iii

THE “POPULATION PROBLEM”

IN PACIFIC ASIA
STUART GIETEL-​B ASTEN

1
iv

1
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Gietel-​Basten, Stuart, author.
Title: The “population problem” in Pacific Asia /​Stuart Gietel-​Basten.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] |
Series: International policy exchange series |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018054872 (print) | LCCN 2018057721 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199361083 (updf) | ISBN 9780190051358 (epub) |
ISBN 9780199361076 (hbk : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Pacific Area—​Population. | Pacific Area—​Population policy. |
Population aging—​Pacific Area. | Demographic transition—​Pacific Area.
Classification: LCC HB3692.55.A3 (ebook) | LCC HB3692.55.A3 G54 2019 (print) |
DDC 363.9095—​dc23
LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2018054872

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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v

To Janet and Paul; Nerice and Celia; and Richard, David, and Wolfgang.
I could not have achieved any of this without you.
vi
vi

CON TEN TS

Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xiii

1
Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 1

2
Low Fertility, Population Decline, and Aging: Pacific Asia’s
“Population Problem” 16

3
Toward a Multidimensional Measurement of Fertility in Pacific Asia 36

4
Fertility Preferences in Low-​Fertility Pacific Asia 58

5
Why Does the Two-​Child Ideal Turn into a One-​Child Intention? 77

6
Childlessness and the Retreat from Marriage 95

vii
vi

viii Contents

7
The Two-​Child Policy: China’s “Silver Bullet”? 118

8
Toward a Holistic View of Childbearing in China 142

9
Conclusions 161

References 179
Index 215
ix

F OREWORD

T his is a book about the very low fertility rates we see in contemporary Pacific
Asia—about how they might have come about, what policies have been
implemented to try to increase them (and why those policies have largely had
little effect), and what the consequences of all of this might be.
The problem with writing a book about any contemporary issue is that “con-
temporary” at the time of writing, publishing, and reading can mean three dif-
ferent things. While I cannot predict the future, I can at least acknowledge what
has changed in the past year or so since the final draft went off to the publisher.
Fortunately, the new trends only make the central message of the book timelier.
In December 2018, it was announced that South Korea’s total fertility rate (TFR)
fell to 0.96, its lowest level ever and one of the very lowest national TFRs ever
recorded. China has ceased publishing the data required to adequately calculate
the TFR at the national level, perhaps reflecting a concern about extremely low
levels. However, we do know that in 2018 just 15 million children were born
in China. This figure—significantly lower than the 20 million forecasted by the
Chinese government—is further evidence that the two-child policy is not a
“silver bullet” to fix the population problem. The 2018 TFR in Singapore fell to
1.16, a 10-year low. In Japan, while the TFR appears to have stabilized at around
1.4, changes to the population structure mean that only around 925,000 births
were recorded in 2018, again the lowest number on record.
Taken together, the very latest data from Pacific Asia show us that fertility re-
mains stubbornly low, even at a time when the rhetoric surrounding both aging
and low fertility is increasing, and in the midst of ever more comprehensive

ix
x

x Foreword

policies designed to encourage (or at least support) childbearing. There is little

evidence across the region that any upswing in either period or cohort fertility
rates is in the cards in the near future (see Chapter 2 for definitions of these
measures). Indeed, the economic and demographic conditions in China—with
the likely significant increase in age at first birth—means that period TFR may
well decline before any rebound is seen.
Turning away from Pacific Asia, we see other developments in the immediate
past that have affected the message of this book. The rise of populism in Europe
and the link to conservative views of the family and to an antimigrant sentiment
have led some governments to develop pronatalist policies, often with very re-
strictive views of gender roles and resistance to newer forms of family forma-
tion (to put it politely). Hungary, for example, has allocated 0.3% of its GDP by
2020 to pay for new family policies. However, these policies are not grounded in
rights or fulfilling individual aspirations—nor are they even a holistic response
to greater challenges such as population aging. Rather, they are based on politics
and precisely the narrow unidimensional or two-dimensional thinking about
population policy that this book argues against.
Finally, we have seen changes in something that many demographers have
tended to take for granted, namely, the higher fertility rates seen in Northern
Europe. I, for one, will admit a kind of complacency when looking for policy
“formulas” for higher fertility. We have been able to consistently associate the
higher fertility rates in Scandinavia with a particular style of welfare state and ap-
proach to work, the family, and gender. Similarly, albeit for a different and rather
quixotic set of reasons, the fertility rates in the United Kingdom, North America,
and Australia were set out as an alternative framework of “higher” fertility. These
higher tracks were set apart from lower fertility rates in Southern, Eastern, and
Central Europe, with associated claims about the various contexts and regimes
in which we might see these different TFRs as an outcome.
In very recent history, this story has become far less clear-cut. In the Anglo-
Saxon world, period TFRs have consistently been declining from around the 2.0
mark down to around 1.8—still high, but not so far away from the historically
much lower TFRs in the German-speaking countries, which are now around
1.5. Perhaps more striking, though, is the collapse of period TFR in parts of
Scandinavia. In Finland, seven consecutive years of decline mean that, at 1.49 in
2018, the country reported its lowest TFR since the famine years of 1866 to 1868.
In Norway, the TFR fell to 1.62, another record low. All of this occurred despite
a suite of internationally recognized policies providing generous maternity and
paternity leave, subsidized daycare programs, financial support to all families
regardless of income level, and a range of other measures aimed promoting both
work-life balance and gender equity at home and the workplace.
Of course, we do not know whether these lower period TFRs will translate
into significant cohort declines (again see Chapter 2 for a discussion of what this
means). Similarly, because of the short-term nature of these changes, there is
xi

Foreword xi

little consensus around the key underlying drivers. But it does point us to two
things of relevance to this book. First, in terms of persistently higher fertility in
postindustrial and advanced economies, there is clearly no one magic formula
for countries to follow. This means we have to update our thinking. Even 10
years ago, for example, the idea that Germany would have the same period TFR
as Finland would have been risible.
The second major lesson is that low fertility has not “gone away” in Europe. As
I argue in this book, if we see low fertility—or at least the gap between aspirations
and outcomes—not as a problem in itself but rather as a symptom of other up-
stream institutional malfunctions, then we need to redouble our efforts to look
both at this new era of very low fertility in the European context and at linkages
and commonalities to the Asian context. In the post–Economic Crisis world,
what roles can be ascribed to dualization of the labor market? Or welfare state
retrenchment? Or the development of more conservative views linked to popu-
lism? Only through a holistic understanding of the nature and context of family
formation (and aging) in a comparative framework can we begin to develop
public policies to adequately engage with—and, arguably, properly specify—the
“population problem” in Pacific Asia, Europe, and beyond.
Finally, for the most up-to-date data, readers are directed to the following
Web resources:
World Population Prospects, United Nations: population.un.org/wpp/
World Development Indicators, World Bank: wdi.worldbank.org/
The Human Fertility Database, MPIDR & VID: humanfertility.org
xi
xi

ACKN OWLEDG MENTS

I have been extremely fortunate to have a strong network of scholars in Europe

and Asia whom I have been able to rely on to give me constructive feedback
and, in many cases, to correct me and help me rein in my ideas. Gu Baochang
has proved an indispensable guide to navigating both the politics and science
of Chinese demography. My collaboration with colleagues in Xi’an—especially
Jiang Quanbao, Li Shuzhuo, and Wei Yan—and in Taiwan—especially Yang
Wenshan, Peishan Yang, and Lillian Wang—has been immensely rewarding
both scientifically and socially. Ron Lesthaeghe, Jack Goldstone, Anna Rotkirch,
Wang Feng, Zheng Zhenzhen, Sergei Scherbov, Warren Sanderson, Gavin Jones,
Danny Dorling, Peter MacDonald, and Noriko Tsuya have been truly generous
with their time and support. Tomas Sobotka always brought me back down to
earth when I got carried away with my ideas.
The Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department and the Taiwan Ministry of
the Interior have been model agencies to work with. In particular, I am grateful
to Leslie Tang, Iris Law, and those working in the Social Statistics Division of
HKCSD in Hong Kong, and to Wanda Chang, Department of Household
Registration Affairs Director in the Taiwan Ministry of the Interior.
I have been truly blessed to have worked in a supporting environment in both
Oxford and Hong Kong. At the Department of Social Policy and Intervention
in Oxford, I owe much to my tremendous DPhil students—Yuxi Zhang, Xi
Liu, Rachel Woodlee, Timea Suli, Putu Natih, and Jenny Allsopp—as well as to
my great colleagues, many of whom have become friends for life. At Oxford, I
have been fortunate to experience college life in three different places and am

xiii
xvi

xiv Acknowledgments

grateful to Francesco Billari and Andrew Dilnot at Nuffield; Rosalind Harding

at St. John’s; and Denise Lievesley, Roland Rosner, Ingrid Lunt, the late Sir David
Watson, and other friends in the college staff at GTC.
Since 2017, I have been honored to call Hong Kong my home. At the Hong
Kong University of Science and Technology, I hope to be able to repay the con-
fidence placed in me by those who were instrumental in giving me this amazing
opportunity, namely Kellee Tsai, Cameron Campbell, Jack Goldstone, and Wei
Shyy. My faculty and administrative colleagues in the School of Humanities
and Social Science and in the Division of Public Policy have given me tremen-
dous support and have made my and my family’s transition to life and work here
much easier than I had feared. Also, my wonderful students in Social Science and
Public Policy have always kept me motivated and on my toes. I want to give spe-
cial mention to those in the offices on either side of mine who, through the pa-
per-thin walls, had to endure me either humming and whistling when the book
was going well or swearing and hitting the keyboard when it was not. Sorry.
Of course, the support of friends and family is always instrumental to
maintaining sanity, especially when writing a book. I can’t name everyone, but:
Jones, Rachael, Dominic, Lizzie, Jack, Mui, Ben, Anastasia, and Evelyn, we’ve
been through a lot over the past 20 years. And Jenny, Phil, Alice, Pete, Elaine,
Martin, Paul, Thees, and Fran: you really made our lives in Oxford a joy. Rhoda,
Patrick, Léandre, Iris, Rene, and the rest of my new, adopted family: thanks for
always being there. Huge thanks to Realyn for all of your hard work and support
since we arrived in Hong Kong. Also, of course, to Jelle. Despite the fact you have
made almost no measurable contribution to this volume, the fact that you named
me in your acknowledgment means I feel compelled to name you, too, or else
never hear the end of it.
Oxford University Press has been the model publisher in the opposite way to
how I have been the model author. I am amazed that Dana Bliss has not set up
a filter to my emails to send them directly to spam. (Perhaps he has now.) I re-
ally can’t believe how encouraging and supportive he has been throughout this
whole, somewhat tortuous process. I also have to send a huge amount of thanks
to the series editors and reviewers who were forced to endure the first draft of
this book, and then to come back for this version—their support and wisdom
have made this a publishable book. Finally, a huge thanks to the proofreaders,
copyeditors, designers, and other backroom staff at OUP USA and in India, who
have all worked quietly in the background to help produce this book.
1

1
ECONOMIC BOOM, DEMOGRAPHIC BOMB?

THE “POPULATION PROBLEM” IN PACIFIC ASIA

Anyone who studies the demography of Pacific Asia might be forgiven for
thinking that there is no good news at all. China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Singapore, and South Korea,1 once the places of so much economic hope, are
now more often than not presented as demographically decrepit. Sometimes it is
hard to tell which is the most favored subject for writers in newspapers or busi-
ness magazines: the apocalyptic forecasts of aging and decline, or the ever more
imaginative, maybe desperate, ways in which governments are trying to tackle
it. Think switching the lights off in government offices on a Wednesday night to
encourage baby-​making.
The way the “problem” is presented is very simple: Population aging and de-
cline are bad—​bad for the economy, bad for the maintenance of health and wel-
fare systems, bad for the existential future of the country, even bad for the race or
the culture. Low fertility is the culprit. As such: fix low fertility, fix the problem.
These attempts at “fixing” low fertility have taken the form of a suite of
policies across the region focused both on incentivizing childbearing in a mon-
etary sense and on trying to ameliorate the perceived boundaries to either mar-
riage or having children. These fixes either address concerns that people give to
survey-​takers about childbearing or otherwise try to cajole people into doing
something that, if you believe the prevailing narrative, they simply do not want
to do. Often wedded to nationalist discourses and a culture of blame, there is
generally a rather thin line between the “carrot and stick.” In China, meanwhile,
there is a simpler view: allowing people to have more children will make the pop-
ulation problem go away.
The only problem is that these policies don’t seem to be working especially
well. These territories still have some of the very lowest fertility rates in the world.

1
2

2 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

Just thinking in terms of a quasi-​natural experiment, for example, Singapore

and Hong Kong arguably have rather similar background causes of low fer-
tility. Singapore has probably the most comprehensive suite of family policies
to support marriage and childbearing in the world. Hong Kong, meanwhile, has
a modest tax break for parents of newborns. Indeed, the Hong Kong popula-
tion policy explicitly states that “we believe it is not appropriate for the [govern-
ment] to adopt policies to promote childbirth, a matter very much of individual
choices” (HKSAR Government 2003, 60). Yet, despite these major differences
in policies (which have been in place for many years now), Hong Kong and
Singapore have almost identical total fertility rates. In China, meanwhile, the
most recent set of relaxation of the family planning restrictions began in 2013,
when couples of whom at least one partner was an only child were allowed to
have two children, followed up in 2015 when the National Two-​Child Policy was
instituted in China. However, the “baby tsunami” that was expected to occur in
China after these policy changes does not appear to have transpired (Wee 2016).
Furthermore, it is not just that the population problem hasn’t been fixed. The
discourse, rather, has turned toxic, almost as if exasperation has set in. Old people
blame young people for being individualistic, narcissistic, and causing a “social
recession” by eschewing their generational responsibilities. In this prevailing
narrative, which is employed by journalists, politicians, and even scholars, a gen-
eration has given up on marriage and childbearing, choosing instead to focus on
their own self-​actualization. Young people, meanwhile, resent the older genera-
tion for making their lives intolerable through their management of politics and
the economy and for the irksome prospect of not having a pension or a lifetime
job security. Both generations seem to think that the other “never had it so good.”
Scholars in China are, supposedly with a straight face, genuinely advocating a
tax on the childless to transfer money into a fund designed to support couples
who want a second child (Gao 2018). Politicians in some territories, meanwhile,
appear to be genuinely worried about their citizens going the same way as the
Japanese sea lion and the Formosan clouded leopard—​namely, becoming extinct.
Meanwhile, the blame game is not just intergenerational. The tension between
the sexes is palpable. The rejection of childbearing is, so it is argued, just as much
a rejection of the “marriage package.” For women, so the narrative goes, men ei-
ther are only interested in subjugation and imposing gendered domestic norms
or will only become a drain on the women through their inability to get a job.
Men tend to be referred to as the villains of the piece, imposing their hierarchical,
old-​fashioned views on women, but also simultaneously are castigated for being
‘unmanly’ or, so the Japanese meme goes, soushoku danshi, or “grass-​eating boys”
or “herbivores” because of a perceived lack of interest in dating, sex, and cer-
tainly commitment (Harney 2009).
Then you get the tragedies: In February 2017, an unnamed civil servant in
South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare returned to work after giving birth
to her third child (Taipei Times 2017). You might think this is a success story
3

Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 3

given the hard and soft policies outlined previously. Three children! Back to
work! And all in the Ministry responsible for encouraging childbearing! Only, in
this case, this 34-​year-​old mother of three had a heart attack and died just a week
later. She was working seven-​day weeks to catch up on her workload and taking
primary responsibility for looking after her children (Straits Times 2016b).
Now, the world doesn’t need another book complaining about this state of
affairs; presenting miserable forecasts of a miserable future. We need to think
differently about this. Do it differently. Conceptually, even, some big questions
have not really been properly asked. Everyone says the fertility rate is too low, but
then that assumes that there is a “right” fertility rate. If that’s the case, what is it,
and why? A shrinking population is perceived as a mortal problem, as is aging.
But is this demographically deterministic view about the size of populations re-
ally so valid?

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM

Thinking Multidimensionally
What I want to argue in this book, then, is that we need to change our thinking
of the population problem in two ways. The current way to think about it is in a
linear, two-​dimensional direction. Aging and decline = bad; low fertility = cause;
therefore, fix low fertility. Rather, I think we need to think multidimensionally
about this. We need to be much clearer about what we mean by low fertility
and how this measure is composed. We then need to learn more about what
the preferences are for people and whether we are really in a no-​hope era of
individualism in which children are an expensive consumer good whose di-
rect and indirect opportunity costs are just too high. We need to find out more
about the context of these clearly changing choices regarding how marriage and
childbearing fit into the life cycle of men and women in low-​fertility Pacific Asia
(LFPA).2 In other words, if we can better identify the root of the issue, then we
can design better policies to support people.
So far, so normal: how to design more cunning ways to get people to have
more babies. But, my approach is different.
There is strong evidence that, despite what the narrative might suggest, people
do want to have children, and they do want to get married—​or at least get into
long-​term, stable unions. These low-​marriage and low-​fertility rates, I suggest,
are the outcome of a malfunction in society—​a consequence of institutions that
are not working to allow people to actualize their own aspirations. Few people in
the region report at a young age an aspiration to be single and childless for their
whole lives, but high percentages of people are. Of course, many women and
men are unable to become parents for biological reasons, with extended post-
ponement of childbearing only serving to increase the chances of not being able
4

4 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

to conceive. But, this does not account for the very high proportions we see in
places such as Hong Kong. So, what is going on? Are respondents lying systemat-
ically in surveys? Or, more likely, is it the case that things happening in their lives
simply don’t allow that desired situation to come about? I am not the first person
to make this argument. Australian demographer Peter McDonald puts it very
succinctly: “ideals go unrealized because of countervailing forces ensuing from
the nature of modern societies” (McDonald 2006, 26). In other words, “Low fer-
tility is an unintended rather than a deliberate outcome of changing social and
economic institutions” (McDonald 2006, 26).
This gets us to think differently about low fertility. Rather than being the
problem, it is the symptom of various institutional malfunctions. There have
(rightly) been strong criticisms of prevailing fertility policies for using women’s
bodies to meet some kind of target of fertility. I would argue that policies that
put aspirations of individuals first and that explore (and ultimately remove) the
barriers to achieving these aspirations are likely to be the policies that succeed.
But, these policies should also be multidimensional in terms of looking at these
barriers to achieving aspirations and how they might be removed.
Indeed, there is arguably a precedent when we look at the “other side of
the coin” with regard to population policies, namely, policies to bring fertility
rates down. There is an argument that family planning policies over the past
half century were so effective because they were aligned with the aspirations of
women. Women wanted fewer children, more education, more rights, and more
opportunities for themselves and their offspring. Beneath these aspirations,
however, were multiple barriers relating to institutions, family, gender, and so
on. Fertility was decreased, then, not just by one policy of flooding the popu-
lation with contraceptives. Rather, it was a comprehensive suite of policies that
addressed the gamut of barriers to lowering fertility: from health to education;
from access to family planning to acceptance of family planning; and by talking
to women and men. It wasn’t easy, but it was successful. It was successful be-
cause it was built on the premise that high fertility might have been considered a
problem but was fundamentally an outcome of other problems.
Now, turning to low-​ fertility countries, there is an argument—​ set out
previously—​that these policies to encourage childbearing are not working be-
cause they are not aligned with women’s aspirations. This is the narrative of
individualism, of egoism, of giving up. This view has been justified by a latent
intergenerational tension and, arguably, a misreading of demographic and social
theory. But, this idea that children have gone out of fashion doesn’t hold water.
Surveys say that there is still a relatively strong demand not only to have children
but also to have more than one (although there are some important regional
differences). Having said that, it is clear that there are a number of obstacles
to achieving this aspiration. At the time of writing, I am living in Hong Kong.
Housing is very expensive. The expectations for your children are sky-​high, and
so are the costs of giving them what is felt to be the best education. Working
5

Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 5

hours are incredibly long and not conducive to either dating or looking after
small families. Getting a stable, well-​paid job is increasingly an aspiration in it-
self, rather than an expectation. We see the same issues across the region. In this
vein, giving someone a few thousand dollars might help a bit, but it is hardly
going to be transformative. But, then, policies that directly address some of these
features (e.g., accessing child care) don’t seem to have much success either.
Of course, if you actually talk to people, you will quickly find that the barriers
to marriage and childbearing are quite multidimensional in nature, drawing
on almost all aspects of life. While surveys might give the top three reasons for
staying single, these life choices are the result of myriad social processes oper-
ating at the family, community, local, regional, and global levels. Only by re-
ally understanding these processes and how they operate as barriers to meeting
aspirations do we have any chance of overcoming them. In other words, we have
to think multidimensionally about fertility. The point I want to make in this book
is that apparently problematic demographic measures, then, are an outcome
or a symptom of other problems rather than a ‘problem to be fixed’ in and of
themselves.

Toward a Rights-​Based Approach

Although this might prove to be a more successful way of increasing fertility, we are
arguably still stuck in the same paradigm of a problem of low fertility that needs to
be fixed. Imagine for a moment that we don’t actually take the fertility rate as being
a problem at all. In fact, just completely take it out of the equation. Rather, focus
on the (stylized) fact that there is most often a gap between the number of children
that people say they want and the number of children they end up having. You
could consider this over space, or over time. Now, simply imagine that the ideal
family sizes were translated into the actual fertility rates. In many sub-​Saharan
countries, fertility rates are high. However, if one turns to the fertility ideals of ad-
olescent girls—​the next generation of mothers—​these are frequently much lower
(Dorling and Gietel-​Basten 2017). If these ideals were to be realized in sub-​Saharan
Africa, for example, fertility rates would often be lower, in some cases much lower.
Also, we might imagine that if these girls in sub-​Saharan Africa find themselves
able to meet these preferences, this may well be because they have better lives.
Better education, better health, better opportunities, better rights, better choices.
Absolutely rightly, these aspirations are the spur to improve the opportunities for
these women through a wide suite of policies, broadly considered as “develop-
ment.” In Figure 1.1, I show how the ideal family size and actual fertility rates have
altered over time. In the case of Taiwan, the lower ideal family size was an impor-
tant element in shaping the island’s highly successful family planning framework
(Freedman, Chang, and Sun 1994). I think you can argue, then, that in the same
way that the aspiration to have fewer children was a spur to action in the earlier
period, so, too, is the gap between ideals and reality today.
6

6 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

7.0

6.0
TFR/ideal family size

5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0
1960
1962
1964
1967
1969
1971
1973
1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
2013
2015
Mean ideal family size TFR

Figure 1.1. The gap between ideal and realized fertility, women aged 15 to 45 years, Taiwan.
TFR = total fertility rate.
Sources: Republic of China National Development Council 2016; various surveys.

In other words, we can change the narrative. Rather than talking about
“targets” set by the state, we can instead talk about “aspirations” set by people. In
doing this, we are much more aligned with the reproductive rights agenda that
was agreed on by (almost) all countries of the world back at the International
Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. In the dec-
laration that emanated from that conference, it was said that “Reproductive
health . . . implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and
that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and
how often to do so” (UNFPA 2004). This statement was largely designed to be ap-
propriate for countries where women felt cajoled into limiting their childbearing
for the sake of a target; I would argue that the same principle holds for people in
low-​fertility countries.
Objective 7.14 is, therefore, for signatories:

To help couples and individuals meet their reproductive goals in a frame-

work that promotes optimum health, responsibility and family well-​being,
and respects the dignity of all persons and their right to choose the number,
spacing and timing of the birth of their children. (UNFPA 2004, 65)

By adopting this rights-​based approach, with preferences at the center, we can

completely rethink our entire approach to fertility. We can move away from one
that blames and stigmatizes—​that uses the female body as a vessel to achieve
national targets. In short, we can move toward a system that allows personal,
7

Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 7

not national, reproductive goals to be met. Rather conveniently, the reproductive

goals of most people in LFPA actually align quite neatly with those of the state.
As such, it can be win-​win outcome.
If we can combine this rights-​based approach with a multidimensional view
of fertility, we can actually see the ways in which institutions—​including, but
certainly not limited to, the state—​can be reformed to enable people to achieve
their aspirations. I think that, if this were to be the case, the idea of low fertility
as a problem would pretty much go away. Furthermore, I think there is a good
chance that societies will be better.
Nico van Nimwegen, a Dutch demographer, once said, “States get the fertility
rates that they deserve.” I think there is certainly something in this. The evidence
seems to suggest that people know better than states about what’s best for them.
I don’t think that should come as a huge surprise. But, I think we need to be more
radical still.

Changing the Parameters

Low fertility is a problem because aging and population decline are a problem.
Yet, actually I don’t think this is true. Low fertility is just a “thing.” It is, in and
of itself, completely neutral. So is population aging, and so is population decline.
For that matter, so is population growth. It is only systems and institutions that
apply a value to these demographic measurements. Classical economic theory
tells us that growth is good (much as Gordon Gecko told us that “greed is good”).
But, increasingly, we are starting to question that paradigm, recognizing that the
population component of gross domestic product (GDP) growth can be driven by
changes in quality as well as by the quantity of the population. Similarly, in terms
of the environment, although some exceptions exist (e.g., Emmott 2013), there is
a general trend toward thinking that it is really about behavior, or the interaction
between humans and things (like driving cars, eating meat) and institutions (like
companies who pollute, or countries who refuse to sign up to climate change
targets), that causes the problem, not just the raw number of people. For a classic
example, Qatar and Nigeria produce roughly the same carbon dioxide emissions
(about 87 kilotons in 2015). The former has a population of 2.5 million; the latter
more than 188 million (World Bank 2016). Thinking about the future of popula-
tion growth in sub-​Saharan Africa through this lens looks rather different.
In the same way that we have rethought the population paradigm in rela-
tion to growth and the environment, so, too, we must rethink the paradigm for
aging and decline. Population aging is only a problem because the institutions
in place cannot cope—​or so we are told. This is surely the case for extant pen-
sion systems in both European and Pacific Asian territories. But aging is about
a lot more than pensions. Yet again, I think we are thinking in a unidirectional
way: ‘aging is bad, so let’s fix the causes’. I want to argue that we need to move
away from this two-​dimensional, demographically deterministic paradigm and
8

8 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

toward one that considers populations holistically. In other words, if we rethink

and reconceptualize the problem itself, re-​evaluate it in its own terms, we might
be able to become a little more relaxed about the so-​called ‘root’ causes. This also
means we need to reconceptualize what aging and even being old actually is. By
doing so, I think we might be able to concentrate more on making society better
and rather less on chasing targets that may, ultimately, be rather meaningless.
We need to begin by stating categorically that increasing fertility is an ineffi-
cient way of addressing the economic, political, and cultural issues related to pop-
ulation aging. This needs to come out of a recognition that demographic change
alone didn’t lead to economic growth and everything else that has happened over
the past 50 years, and neither will demographic change alone lead to economic
collapse. There’s plenty of other “tools in the shed.” By only thinking of demo-
graphic solutions to demographic problems, we are, I would suggest, completely
setting ourselves up for a fall.

A THEORETICAL VACUUM

Demography is, as Dudley Kirk (1996, 361) once remarked, “a science short
on theory.” Perhaps many readers will be familiar with demographic transition
theory (see Coale 1984 for an explanation), which describes the relationship be-
tween declining mortality, fertility and population growth. Yet, the predictive
power of demographic transition theory has been questioned by many authors
for various reasons, especially in terms of having omitted an in-​depth explora-
tion of causal roles played by institutions not adequately explored in the orig-
inal formulation (Teitelbaum 1975) (such as familial wealth flows; Barkow and
Burley 1980). This is especially the case in the fifth, or post-​transitional, epoch of
very low fertility and mortality rates that we are generally concerned with in this
book. As Kirk (1996, 387) notes, “In Western areas of low fertility we are moving
into a post-​transition era, where the old guidelines are no longer appropriate,
an era in which much more attention will have to be given to raising fertility,
rather than to lower it. . . . What happens after the transition is the most exciting
problem in modern demography, for which transition theory can provide some
guidance but few answers, as it is tied to a particular epoch of history.” This has
led Lutz (2007, 16) to suggest that “the Demographic Transition paradigm . . . es-
sentially has nothing to say about the future of fertility in Europe.” Clearly, the
same view can hold for Asia. In other words, as Lutz (2007, 16) continues, “the
social sciences as a whole have yet to come up with a useful theory to predict the
future fertility level of post-​Demographic Transition societies.”
Later in the book, I will refer to a few theories that are applied within
demography—​although whether a scientist in another field would call them
theories is open to question. These theories have each, in their own way, been ap-
plied to the LFPA context to try to understand current low fertility and, in some
9

Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 9

cases, predict the future. Each will be referred to throughout the book. The in-
complete gender revolution theory, for example, posits that while women’s public
sphere roles have changed beyond all recognition, in many settings expectations
of them in the private sphere, or their domestic roles, have largely stayed the
same (Goldscheider, Bernhardt, and Lappegård 2015; Esping-​Andersen 2009).
This mismatch is considered to be a key driver in shaping low fertility because
the tension between these two roles is acted out in terms of the postponement,
limiting, or eschewing of childbearing.
Two other theoretical threads within demography have been applied to the
kind of low fertility settings we are exploring in this book. Each describes a
set of societal circumstances that, in principle, not only characterize low fer-
tility societies but may also serve to sustain such low fertility. The second demo-
graphic transition theory (Lesthaeghe 2010, 2014) posits that through the process
of modernization, a former emphasis on basic material needs, such as income,
work conditions, housing, children and adult health, schooling, social security,
and an emphasis on solidarity, shifts toward a new emphasis on individual au-
tonomy, expressive work and socialization values, self-​actualization, grass-​roots
democracy, and recognition of the individual (Lesthaeghe 2014). This is linked,
through other related mechanisms, to structural sub-​replacement fertility.
Another theory, meanwhile, goes further. The low-​fertility trap hypothesis
posits that once a society has experienced a prolonged period of low fertility, a
series of self-​reinforcing mechanisms act to make any increase in fertility ever
harder to achieve (Lutz, Skirbekk, and Testa 2006). These mechanisms come
about through the economic and political effects of population aging, the dem-
ographic effect of fewer and fewer women of childbearing age, and, crucially for
our understanding in this book, a normalization of smaller family sizes (and a
societal adjustment toward that), as reflected in fertility preferences.
Bearing all of this in mind, I want to say a little something about the approach
that I will be taking in the book. I am a demographer. But, I have come to the
conclusion that an understanding of demography and demography theory (such
as there is much theory) can only take us so far in trying to understand what is
going on. As such, I have sought to employ some insights from other approaches
and other disciplines. It is a little unusual, for example, for demographers to de-
ploy qualitative data, but I will. It is also quite unusual for demographers to de-
ploy late modern social theory. I have always thought this rather odd because
theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, and Elizabeth Beck-​Gernsheim
have been quite preoccupied with the process of family formation and how this
fits into other aspects of modern life.
According to Beck and Beck-​Gernsheim, through the process of moderniza-
tion, the function of the family has changed from a primarily economic orien-
tation geared toward production. Within these processes, men and women have
been active agents in shaping and reshaping their own identities within both
the home and the wider world. Rather than living out the lives or biographies
10

10 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

that past institutions had designed for them, men and women have set out to
organize their own biographies, with the goal of creating a life of one’s own.
Women, for example, are theoretically cut free from their status fate (Beck and
Beck-​Gernsheim 2002, 202) as housewives. This new capacity to design one’s
own biography is termed individualization.
Beck and Beck-​Gernsheim also describe another ongoing transition in so-
ciety contemporaneous to the move into—​and out of—​modernity as relating
to risk (Beck 1992). Though this concept has been expanded and applied in a
variety of contexts (e.g., the environment), at its heart is an understanding of
the manner by which risk is pooled. Traditionally, risk is pooled at the familial
level. Through the course of modernity (and the development, in some places,
of the welfare state), risk is then pooled with the state and employers. Finally, in
late-​or post-​modernity, when both the extended family and the big state take
on a less active role in people’s lives, risk is transferred onto the shoulders of the
individual. Of course, this transition is often closely aligned to shifts in individ-
ualization as described previously. Furthermore, the amount of time that this
transition takes is critical to understanding how it can affect people. In many of
the settings we explore, the concept of “compressed modernity” can be—​and has
been—​applied (e.g., Chang 2010).
These two concepts of risk and individualization have already been applied
to the Pacific Asian context in a number of important studies (e.g., Chan 2009),
although the explicit application to demography has been rather scarce (see Hall
2002 for a notable exception).

A ROADMAP OF THE BOOK

In the first section of this chapter, I tried to set out a statement of principles about
how I want to try to tackle the “problem part” of the population problem and to
introduce a new way of thinking about it. Before I set about showing how I am
going to achieve this, I want to justify a pretty major cleavage in the book. I have
decided to consider China and the other low-​fertility settings separately because
the contexts of both fertility decline and possible responses now and in the future
are, at least at face value, somewhat different. This is not to say that Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea are all the same. Absolutely far from it.
But, the shared characteristics are such that the orthodox view in the literature is
to consider these territories separately from China.
In this introductory chapter, I have only presented the population problem
and the ensuing distribution of blame in a very superficial, maybe even glib way.
It clearly requires a more in-​depth exploration. In Chapter 2, therefore, I more
formally set out the parameters of the population problem by describing just
what it is that everyone is so worried about. I then describe the efforts that dif-
ferent governments have made to fix the supposed root of the problem, namely,
1

Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 11

very low fertility. Given the arguably modest success of these policies, I then talk
about who gets the blame for this: what are the presented reasons for this pro-
longed period of low fertility?
Having identified that low fertility—​very broadly defined—​is considered in
most extant literature to be at the root of the population problem, in Chapter 3
I explore the recent changes in birth rates in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore,
South Korea, and Japan in more depth. The point of this chapter is to move be-
yond the traditional two-​dimensional presentation of fertility through the total
fertility rate—​which elicits a one-​dimensional response, of simply trying to
increase it. Rather, by considering a multidimensional approach by exploring
how fertility transition actually occurred, through examining adjusted and co-
hort change as well as, critically, changes in the parity distribution of families,
we can have a much better idea of how family structures have changed. In
other words, to design a multidimensional population policy, we need to
have at least a multidimensional understanding of the “problem”. The chapter
concludes that the rise in zero/​one-​child families, coupled with the sharp de-
cline in families with three or more children, is at the heart of the low-​fertility
paradigm. Finally, readers are reminded that fertility rates are little more than
averages. What this means is that in societies where large families are rare, a
policy that supports couples with one child to have another will only ever have
a relatively modest effect on fertility if there is no net change in the number
of people having no children at all. This chapter is demographic in nature, but
completely nontechnical.
After Chapter 3 identifies what people have done and what people do, Chapter 4
sets out to explore what people would like to do. Earlier in this introduction
and in Chapter 2, I set out how men and women of childbearing age are being
blamed for the population problem and how this blame is depicted as selfish-
ness, eschewing of a generational responsibly, and giving up on marriage and
childbearing. Chapter 4, then, sets out to explore the extent to which this is or
is not the case. Rather quickly, the evidence seems to point to the facts that not
only are respondents to surveys keen on getting married and having children but
also there is a strong two-​child norm in the region. I argue that this gap has been
construed as a “space” in which pronatalist policies can operate. This has been
used as a justification for such policies that, arguably, are more geared toward
meeting reproductive targets than self-​actualization. However, if we think in a
rights-​based framework, it shows how people’s aspirations are being thwarted
by malfunctioning institutions. We can see this in the way that ideals turn into
intentions either because of prolonged periods of singledom or, in many cases,
after the birth of the first child. In this vein, people haven’t given up on the idea
of marriage and childbirth; it is just that circumstances got in the way. Rather
than the selfish eschewing of generational responsibilities, this is more a case of
thwarted dreams. Indeed, while the language of self-​actualization is often used in
the sense of lower fertility as a consequence of seeking alternative pleasures, we
12

12 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

can see how self-​actualization in the sense of a desirable marriage and children is
actually being desired and denied.
Chapter 5 focuses on marital fertility and explicitly asks why couples aren’t
meeting their ideals. After a brief exploration of demographic predictors of
moving to having a second child, I explore what surveys can tell us about these
reasons. These reasons are often presented in a very unidimensional way—​
childbearing is too expensive; it interferes with careers; it is too much of a phys-
ical burden; parents think of themselves as being too old. This, therefore, elicits
a unidimensional policy response—​of cash grants, investment in childcare, of-
fering in-​vitro fertilization, and so on. But, it appears to me that these unidimen-
sional reasons for eschewing further childbearing can be deconstructed to show
other, underlying reasons. The cost of childbearing, for example, has to be linked
to the stability of household incomes in an ever more fragile labor market, and
the cost of education has to be linked to the quality of public schools and the need
to pay for private education. Issues relating to children hurting one’s career have
as much to do with work culture and gender roles as they do with the capacity
to find and pay for a few hours of child care. Indeed, we know of many cases in
which family policy provision is not taken up because of a fear of harm to one’s
career. These ideas, then, represent a multidimensional way of looking at policy
and low fertility. To develop this into a multidimensional view of the reasons
for low fertility, I will present the findings of a qualitative project performed
by myself and colleagues in Taiwan, which shows how all of these elements are
interlinked—​along with intergenerational concerns regarding caring for parents.
Together, this provides a justification for starting to think about a multidimen-
sional view of population policy that will be returned to later. I end this chapter
with some further reflections on how all of this can fit into some of the core social
theory themes relating to risk and individualization.
As Chapter 3 showed the demographic importance of childlessness and
Chapter 4 showed that people do not seem to have fallen out of love with the
idea of getting married, in Chapter 6 I will use new surveys from across LFPA
to demonstrate the reasons that this is the case. I will show that, rather than a
unidimensional view of selfish millennials eschewing childbearing, for whom a
unidimensional policy response is to organize dating events and bribe with baby
bonuses, this retreat from marriage—​because marriage is intrinsically linked
to childbearing—​is actually being built on major structural issues within LFPA
societies. These issues relate to fragility in the labor market, inability to find
an adequate partner because of various mismatches in the marriage market—​
including expectations regarding gender roles—​and the impact that the mar-
riage package will have on the career aspirations of men and, especially, women.
I reflect on how these can be linked into the social theory issues I mention earlier,
namely risk and individualization. A multidimensional population policy, there-
fore, has to consider these underlying structural issues that are shaping decisions
toward childlessness and, ultimately, lower fertility.
13

Economic Boom, Demographic Bomb? 13

As indicated previously, it is traditional to consider China separately from

its LFPA neighbors as a consequence of its size, different policy framework,
and history of family planning law. However, it would be a shame not to prop-
erly consider China in this book given its centrality in the region and its shared
concerns over low fertility, aging, and population decline. In Chapter 7, then,
I turn to explore the demographic context of China’s recent history, with the
aim of suggesting that the shift toward the two-​child policy is the very defini-
tion of a unidimensional view of population policy: that the state controls eve-
rything. Rather, I will suggest that the role of the so-​called one-​child policy has
been exaggerated and that evidence from fertility preferences shows us that small
family sizes are now a voluntary choice in both urban and rural China. From a
unidimensional approach to fertility, China and its LFPA neighbors appear to
share the same population problem of low fertility. By examining measurements
in a two-​dimensional manner, however, we can see that it is a different context.
While LFPA fertility is very much shaped by high levels of childlessness and
nonmarriage, in China we see nearly universal marriage but high levels of only-​
child families being both aspired to and actualized.
In this vein, the reason for the high degree of one-​ child preference is
considered in Chapter 8. After presenting further evidence for this preference
from the limited impact of recent reforms, I will again explore the reasons for
preferring smaller families from various surveys. I will observe that, again, these
reasons are often represented in a somewhat unidimensional manner—​too ex-
pensive, impact on career and life aspirations, and so on. Here, I will therefore
introduce the recent policies proposed by the Chinese government that, again,
attempt to tackle the problem of low fertility in a unidimensional manner in a
two-​dimensional framework—​tax breaks, mortgage relief, help with education
costs. In a similar vein to Chapter 6, I present findings from a qualitative study
in Beijing, which again shows an interconnected variety of reasons for limiting
family size, operating across generations. This demonstrates in a multidimen-
sional approach that changing just one dimension is, indeed, likely to have only
a relatively modest impact.
Chapter 9 starts tying together the strands relating to policy in both LFPA
and China. It leads with the statement given by one of my colleagues, Nico
van Nimwegen, at a recent United Nations Expert Group meeting on low fer-
tility: “States get the fertility rates that they deserve.” This represents how low
fertility is not a problem in itself but rather a symptom of a variety of issues in the
economy, society, and culture. What is it, then, that makes childbearing incom-
patible with much of contemporary Asian society? When we reframe the ques-
tion like this, we need to think about alternative policy responses. First, I think
about the industrialized countries where fertility is higher: these are northern
European countries that are characterized by a whole array of different systems
and institutions but, of course, no explicitly pronatalist policy. However, it is easy
to only look in recent history. Of course, the roots of the Swedish welfare state
14

14 The “Population Problem” in Pacific Asia

were, in fact, largely grounded in building a society to support childbearing.

This chapter then provocatively suggests that it is all well and good for states,
employers, and men (and their mothers) to choose a particular model for so-
ciety, but could it be that the cost of this will be low fertility? If this low fertility is
seen as the problem, then the underlying factors have to be tackled. This means
examining work culture, gender roles, intergenerational obligations, cultures of
education, the role of the state, and the state of the labor market. In other words,
thinking in a multidimensional manner about the root causes of low fertility and
seeing it as a symptom rather than as a problem mean that the policy responses
have to be much more holistic. This requires policymakers, business, and citizens
to stop thinking about low fertility as a problem and to start thinking about what
kind of society they want, working on the assumption, again, that you get the
fertility rates you deserve.
As Chapter 8 explores a more explicitly multidimensional policy response
to low fertility, Chapter 9 builds on threads already highlighted throughout the
book to consider how low fertility is defined as a problem. Low fertility is bad
because it leads to rapid population aging and population decline; as the labor
force shrinks both in total and relative to the older population, competitiveness
decreases while the burden of caring for an ever-​growing dependent population
increases exponentially. This, then, is the classic population problem that I talk
about in the motivation for the book earlier in this chapter. Yet, this again is a very
two-​dimensional way of looking at the world by problematizing low fertility. This
requires us to rethink the extent to which aging is a problem, about whether de-
cline is a problem, and more urgently about how all of these are linked. Consider
the intergenerational contract—​ if children were better supported through
improved public education, if the labor market were reformed and work culture
changed, and if older people were better supported through more efficient care
systems, could this not only improve labor force efficiency and ameliorate the
challenges of the aging society, but given what we know of the causes of lower
fertility, actually cause fertility to increase? The classic example of this is the so-​
called sandwich generation, epitomized by the four–​two–​one families in China.
In other words, in the multidimensional population policy, population is every-
where and, simultaneously, nowhere. Substantively, then I present some of my
work on how aging can be reconceptualized and ideas for how, if we think about
population change in a multidimensional manner, some of the challenges of low
fertility might not be as great as they at first seem.
This book, basically, is not about policies to increase fertility or slow aging;
it is about policies which might make societies better for the people who live
in them.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
which Alcuin made. Of the kings, he writes of Edwin, Oswald, Oswy,
Ecgfrith, and Aldfrith, omitting mention of the sub-kings, several of
whom were connected with constitutional difficulties. Of the bishops,
he writes of Paulinus, Wilfrith, Cuthbert, Bosa, and John, mentioning
Aidan only incidentally, but with the epithet “most holy”. He avoids all
controversial topics in writing of Wilfrith. There is just one word of
reference to Wilfrith’s many disturbances, in connexion with the only
mention Alcuin makes here of Rome: Wilfrith, he says, was
journeying to Rome, compulsus, being driven to go there. It is worthy
of remark that of the hundred and sixty-eight lines which Alcuin gives
to his account of Wilfrith, he devotes nine to Wilfrith’s vision, in which
the name of the Blessed Virgin played so large a part. It was
Wilfrith’s chaplain, Eddi, who recorded this, not Bede, who is very
reticent about Wilfrith. Michael appeared to Wilfrith at a crisis in a
serious illness, and announced that he was sent by the Almighty to
inform him that he would recover. The message went on to explain
that this was due to the merits and prayers of the holy mother Mary,
who from the celestial throne had heard with open ears the groans,
the tears (sic)[87], and the vows of the companions of Wilfrith, and
had begged for him life and health. Stephen Eddi gives a highly
characteristic ending to the message, which Alcuin omits.
“Remember,” the archangel said, “that in honour of St. Peter and St.
Andrew thou hast built churches; but to the holy Mary, ever Virgin,
who intercedes for thee, thou hast reared none. This thou must
amend, by dedicating a church to her honour.” The church which he
had built for St. Peter was at Ripon, that for St. Andrew was at
Hexham; we have still in each case the confessio, or crypt for relics,
which he built under those churches. In obedience to the vision,
Wilfrith now built a church of St. Mary by the side of the church of St.
Andrew at Hexham. This present generation has seen a noble
restoration and completion of the abbey church of Hexham.[88]
It is scarcely necessary to remark upon this grouping together of
churches dedicated to various saints. At Malmesbury, under St.
Aldhelm, there were six churches on the hill in one group, St.
Andrew, St. Laurence, St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Peter and St. Paul,
and the little Irish basilica of Maildulf.
 Alcuin mentions also the missionary zeal of the Northumbrian
church, beginning with the early Ecgbert, who on the expulsion of
Wilfrith left Ripon, and lived for the rest of his life in Ireland as a
trainer of missionaries. Besides him, Alcuin names as English
missionaries Wibert, Wilbrord, the two Hewalds, Suidbert, and Wira.
So far Alcuin copied Bede and Eddi. In the last 442 lines of his
poem he gives us information which we do not find elsewhere,
dealing in some detail with Bishop Wilfrith II and Archbishops
Ecgbert, Albert, and Eanbald, of York. Wilfrith II resigned the
bishopric of York in the year of Alcuin’s birth, after holding it for
fourteen years. A delightful account of him had been handed down to
Alcuin’s time. He was to all acceptable, venerable, honourable,
lovable. He took great pains in improving and beautifying the
ornaments of his church, covering altar and crosses with silver
plates, gilded. Other churches in the city he beautified in like manner.
He was zealous in multiplying the congregations; following the
precepts of the Lord; careful in doctrine; bright in example. Liberal
with hand and mouth, he fed the minds of the studious and the
bodies of the needy. In the end he retired and spent his latest years
in contemplation.
Of Ecgbert, the succeeding bishop, Alcuin writes in terms of the
highest praise. He was evidently more of a ruler than the second
Wilfrith had been, and could be very severe with evil men. He had a
love for beautiful things, and added much to the treasures of the
church, special mention being made of silk hangings with foreign
patterns woven in. It was to him that Bede wrote the striking letter
which we have analysed above. He was of the royal house of
Northumbria, and one of his brothers succeeded to the throne while
Ecgbert was archbishop. The bishop had taken Bede’s advice, had
sought and obtained from Rome the pallium, as the sign of
metropolitical position. Curiously enough, Alcuin makes no reference
to this, the most important ecclesiastical step of the time, another
silence on his part which may have hid feelings he did not wish to
express. He does mention the pall, but only as a matter of course, in
comparing the two brothers, the prelate and the king; the one, he
says, bore on his shoulder the palls sent by the Apostolic, the other
on his head the diadems of his ancestors. He draws a charming
picture of the two brothers working together for the country’s good,
each in his own sphere,

The times were happy then for this our race,

When king and prelate in lawful concord wielded
The one the church’s laws, the other the nation’s affairs.

We have seen how slight a reference Alcuin makes to the fact of

the pall from Rome. He appears to have held a very moderate view
of its importance to the end of his life. His letter to the Pope, Leo III,
in the year 797, conveying a request that the pall might be granted to
the newly-consecrated Archbishop of York, Eanbald II, is an
important document. After referring to his letter of the previous year,
congratulating Leo on his accession, he proceeds as follows,
curiously enough not mentioning by name the archbishop or his city
or diocese. He is writing from his home in France.
“And now as regards these messengers—who Ep. 82.
have come from my own fatherland and my own
city, to solicit the dignity of the sacred pall, in canonical manner and
in accordance with the apostolic precept of the blessed Gregory who
brought us to Christ—I humbly pray your pious excellency that you
receive benignantly the requests of ecclesiastical necessity. For in
those parts the authority of the sacred pall is very necessary, to keep
down the perversity of wicked men and to preserve the authority of
holy church.”
That is a remarkably limited statement of the need for the pall,
when we remember the tremendous claims made for it in later times.
And it is the more remarkable because Alcuin is evidently making the
most persuasive appeal he could construct; he would certainly state
the case in its strongest terms when addressing the one man with
whom it finally rested to say yes or no. He seems to say clearly that
to have the pall was bonum et utile for the archbishop, for the
purposes which he names; he says nothing, because apparently he
knows nothing, of its affecting, one way or another, the archbishop’s
plenary right, in virtue of his election and consecration, to consecrate
bishops, ordain priests, and rule his province and his diocese.
Alcuin digresses from the series of archbishops to deal with the
saints of the Church of York, of times near to and coinciding with his
own. Of the former, he naturally takes Bede, and he takes no other.
To Bede he gives only thirty-one lines, but he does not stint his
praise. Six of the thirty-one lines are devoted to Bede’s abbat,
Ceolfrith, who took from Wearmouth as a present to the Pope the
famous Codex Amiatinus, now at Florence,[89] and died and was
buried at Langres. From Alcuin’s poem we learn that Ceolfrith’s body
was eventually brought back to Northumbria, and this enables us to
accept William of Malmesbury’s statement that King Edmund, on an
expedition to the north, obtained the relics of Ceolfrith among many
others, and had them safely buried at Glastonbury.
Of the saints who lived on to the time of Alcuin’s own manhood he
takes two, and we are rather surprised at his selection. The one is
Balther, the occupant of the Bass Rock, known later as Baldred of
the Bass; the other is the anchorite Eata. Both, indeed, were
anchorites, the one at Tyningham and on the Bass, the other at Cric,
which is said to be Crayke in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Baldred
died in 756, and Eata in 767. At Thornhill, in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, there is a sepulchral monument, one of three with
inscriptions in early Anglian runes, in memory of one Eata, who is
described as Inne, which some have guessed to mean a hermit.[90]
On the strength of this guess they have claimed that Thornhill was
the place of burial of Alcuin’s Eata. To Balther Alcuin gives more than
twice as many lines as to Bede; to us this seems a remarkably
disproportionate treatment. There is a considerable amount of
uncertainty about Balther, and Alcuin’s lines leave the uncertainty
without solution. The events which he connects with the anchorite
Balther, as one of the saints of the Northumbrian Church, are really
connected with an earlier Balther, of the time of St. Kentigern, a saint
of the ancient British Church of Cumbria. The death of this Balther is
placed in 608; and in any case he was before the first formation of
the Christian Church among the Northumbrian Angles. Simeon of
Durham puts the death of Balther in 756, and this fits in well with
Alcuin’s statements; but we may most probably suppose that there
was an earlier Balther and a later, and that the legendary events of
the life of the earlier have been transferred to the life of the later.
Alcuin certainly understood that his Balther was Balther of the Bass.
It is when Alcuin comes to Archbishop Albert that he really lets
himself go. Ecgbert had in fact established the eminence of the great
School of York, and had himself acted as its chief governor and its
religious teacher. But Alcuin does not even refer to that in his
account of Ecgbert. The praise of the school goes all to the credit of
Ecgbert’s cousin, his successor in the mastership and eventually in
the archbishopric, Albert. Eight lines of laudatory epithets Alcuin
bestows upon Albert, before proceeding to detail; his laudation fitly
culminates in what all ages have regarded as high praise, non ore
loquax sed strenuus actu—not a great talker, but a strenuous doer.
In 766 Albert became archbishop. Like his immediate
predecessors, he did much to beautify churches in the city. In this
work Alcuin was one of his two right-hand men; and yet each detail
which Alcuin gives is puzzling. He tells us that at the spot where the
great warrior Edwin the king received the water of baptism, the
prelate constructed a grand altar, which he covered with silver,
precious stones, and gold, and dedicated under the name of St.
Paul, the teacher of the world, whom the learned archbishop
specially loved. There is a difficulty here. While it is certain that the
church of stone of larger dimensions which Edwin and Paulinus
began, to include the wooden oratory of St. Peter the place of
Edwin’s baptism, was the church which Oswald completed and the
first Wilfrith restored, as the Cathedral Church of York, there was no
altar of St. Paul in the Cathedral Church in the middle ages. We
should naturally have supposed that an altar so splendid as that
which Albert constructed, at a spot so uniquely remarkable in the
Christian history of Northumbria, would have been sedulously
retained throughout all changes. The explanation may well be that
not the size only but the level of the surface of the site has been
greatly increased in the course of 1200 years. The herring-bone
work of the walls of the early Anglian Church of York was found deep
down below the surface when excavations were made after the fire
of 1829, and at a later period in connexion with the hydraulic
apparatus for the organ. Probably the altar of St. Paul, and the place
of baptism, were down at that level, and were buried in the ruins of
one fire after another, many feet below the present surface of the
Minster Yard. My old friend Canon Raine, who edited the three
volumes of the Historians of the Church of York, writing of the
present crypt in his introduction to the first volume,[91] says, “In
another peculiar place is the actual site, if I mistake not, of the font in
which Edwin became a Christian.” Canon Raine was secretive in
connexion with antiquarian discoveries, and from inquiries which I
have made it is to be feared that the secret of this site died with him.
All we can say is, that where that site was, there was this splendid
altar[92] of St. Paul, mundi doctoris.
A more doubtful point is raised by Alcuin’s description of the
building of a new and marvellous basilica, begun, completed, and
consecrated, by Albert. Two of his pupils, Eanbald and Alcuin, were
his ministers in the building, which was consecrated only ten days
before his death. It was very lofty, supported on solid columns, with
curved arches; the roofs and windows were fine; it was surrounded
by many porches, porticoes, which were in fact side chapels; it
contained many chambers under various roofs, in which were thirty
altars with sundry kinds of ornament. Alcuin describes this
immediately after describing the construction of the altar of St. Paul
in what must have been the old Cathedral Church; but he does not
say that the new church was on the old site, or that it replaced the
Cathedral Church. Still, a church of that magnitude can only have
been the chief church of the city. Simeon of Durham throws light
upon the point by stating as the reason for building this new basilica,
that the monasterium of York—that is, the Minster, as it has always
been called[93]—was burned[94] on Monday, May 23, 741; and the
Saxon Chronicle has the entry[95], “This year York was burned.” The
balance of argument on this disputed point is that Albert did really
build a new Cathedral Church in place of one that was burned while
Alcuin was a boy. The investigations which have taken place show
that in Anglo-Saxon times a basilica of really important dimensions
was in existence, much larger than Edwin’s little oratory or Oswald’s
stone building, and all points to its being the “marvellous basilica”
which Eanbald and Alcuin built by order of Albert.
Alcuin makes several statements about church-building in York. In
lines 195-198, he tells us that King Edwin caused a small building to
be hurriedly erected, in which he and his could receive the sacred
water of baptism. We should naturally suppose that it was by the
side of water. In lines 219-222 he tells us that Paulinus built ample
churches in his cities. Among them he names that of York, supported
on solid columns; it remains, he says, noble and beautiful, on the
spot where Edwin was laved in the sacred wave. In lines 1221-1228
he tells us first that Wilfrith II greatly adorned “the church”, evidently
meaning his cathedral church, and then that he adorned with great
gifts other churches in the city of York. In lines 1487-1505 he tells us
that Albert took great care in the ornamentation of churches, and
especially that at the spot of Edwin’s baptism he made a grand altar,
which he covered with silver and gems and gold, and dedicated it
under the name of Saint Paul whom he greatly loved. He made also,
still it would seem at the same spot, another altar, covered with pure
silver and precious stones, and dedicated it to the Martyrs and the
Cross. As we have seen, there was no altar dedicated to St. Paul in
the mediaeval Minster of York; but there was not an altar only but a
small church—which remained as a parish church till very recent
years—dedicated to Saint Crux. The parish of St. Crux is now
absorbed in All Saints. Lastly, in lines 1506-1519 he describes the
building of the great new basilica which Eanbald and himself built
under the orders of Archbishop Albert. The conclusion appears to be
that the new basilica—which probably became the cathedral church
—did not stand on the site of Paulinus’s church, but was erected
close by that specially sacred spot; and that both Paulinus’s stone
oratory, beautified by Wilfrith II, with its added altars to St. Paul and
St. Crux, and also the new and great basilica of Albert, are now
absorbed in the vast area of the Minster of York.
Eanbald succeeded Albert in the archbishopric, and Alcuin
succeeded Albert in the mastership of the School of York and in the
ownership of the great library which for three generations had been
got together at York. Alcuin tells us that it contained all Latin
literature, all that Greece had handed on to the Romans, all that the
Hebrew people had received from on high, all that Africa with clear-
flowing light had given. Passing from the general to the particular,
Alcuin names the authors whose works the library of York
possessed. What we would give for even five or six of those
priceless manuscripts! Of the Christian Fathers, he records a rather
mixed list. They had Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine,
Athanasius, Orosius, Gregory the Great, Pope Leo, Basil,
Fulgentius, Cassiodorus, and John Chrysostom. They had the works
of the learned men of the English Church, our own Aldhelm of
Malmesbury, and Bede; with them he names Victorinus and
Boethius, and the old historians, Pompeius and Pliny, the acute
Aristotle and the great rhetorician Tully. They had the poets, too,
Sedulius, Juvencus, Alcimus[96], Clemens, Prosper, Paulinus, Arator,
Fortunatus, Lactantius. They had also Virgil, Statius, and Lucan.
They were rich in grammarians: Probus, Focas, Donatus, Priscian,
Servius, Euticius, Pompeius, Comminianus. You will find, he says, in
the library very many more masters, famous in study, art, and
language, who have written very many volumes, but whose names it
would be too long to recite in a poem. It may perhaps be a fair guess
that he had used up all the names which he could conveniently get
into dactyls and spondees for hexameter verse.
Two years after handing over to Alcuin the possession of this great
library, and to Eanbald the archbishopric itself, Albert died. We may
here remind ourselves of outstanding facts and dates. Alcuin, born in
735, had as a young man held the office of teacher in the School of
York for some years. In 766 he had been promoted to a position
which so far as teaching was concerned was practically that of Head
Master. In 778 he became in the fullest sense the master of the
school. In 780 he inherited the great collection of books which had
been brought together by successive archbishops. In 782 he was
called away to become the teacher of the School of the Palace of
Karl, and director of the studies of the empire, still continuing to hold
the office of master in name. In 792 he left England for the last time,
and his official connexion with the school of York came to an end. He
gave twenty years of his older life to the service of the Franks, and
died in 804.
 CHAPTER V
The affairs of Mercia.—Tripartite division of England.—The creation of a third
archbishopric, at Lichfield.—Offa and Karl.—Alcuin’s letter to Athelhard of
Canterbury; to Beornwin of Mercia.—Karl’s letter to Offa, a commercial treaty.—
Alcuin’s letter to Offa.—Offa’s death.

Although Alcuin was a Northumbrian, and his interests were

naturally with that kingdom, he was at one time of his life more
intimately concerned with the affairs of Mercia. It seems, on the
whole, best to deal first with that part, as it can be to a certain extent
isolated from his correspondence with Northumbria, and from his life
and work among the Franks. The special events in Mercian history
with which he was concerned are in themselves of great interest.
They are—(1) the personal and official dealings between Karl and
the Mercian king, and (2) the creation and the extinction of a third
metropolitical province in England, the archbishopric of Lichfield.
We have to accustom ourselves to the fact that the Heptarchy, that
is, the division of England into seven independent kingdoms with
seven independent kings, no longer existed in Alcuin’s time. The
land was divided into three kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia, and
Wessex. The rivers Thames and Humber were, roughly speaking,
the lines dividing the whole land into three. Kent, to which we
probably attach too much importance by reason of its being the first
Christian kingdom, and of its having in its Archbishop the chief
ecclesiastic of the whole land, was a conquered kingdom, the
property at one time of Wessex, at another of Mercia. The South
Saxons, our Sussex, had kings and dukes fitfully, and the territory
was included in Wessex. The East Saxons, our Essex, had kings
nominally, but belonged usually to Mercia. East Anglia was in a
somewhat similar position, but held out for independence with much
pertinacity and success till long after Alcuin’s time. The year 828, a
quarter of a century after Alcuin’s death, saw the final defeat of
Mercia by Ecgbert of Wessex, who had spent fifteen years in exile at
the Court of Charlemagne in Alcuin’s time, from 787 to 802, when he
succeeded to the vacant throne of Wessex by a very remote claim,
as great-great-grand-nephew of the famous king Ina. No doubt he
learned in those strenuous years, under the tutelage of Karl, the
lessons of war which brought him into dominance here, another link
between Karl and England which passes almost entirely
unrecognized. The year 829 saw the peaceful submission of the
great men of Northumbria to Ecgbert, at Dore, in Derbyshire, and
their recognition of him as their overlord. The mistake of supposing
that Ecgbert thus became sole king of England as a single kingdom
is now exploded; but he was, roughly speaking, master of the whole,
and as time went on the petty kings and kinglets disappeared. The
time which this process occupied was not short. The thirty-first king
of Northumbria was reigning in Ecgbert’s time, when his thegns
made submission to Ecgbert; but fifteen more kings reigned in
Northumbria, till Eadred expelled the last of them in 954. In like
manner, we have the coins of some kings of East Anglia, and
mention of other kings, as late as 905.
That is a digression into times a hundred and a hundred and fifty
years after Alcuin. In his time, as has been said, the Heptarchy had
for practical purposes been consolidated into three main kingdoms,
Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria.
This tri-partite arrangement of the seven kingdoms led to one of
the most curious episodes of Alcuin’s time, and, indeed, of English
history.
Offa, the ambitious king of Mercia, who reigned from 757 to 796,
saw that there were two archbishoprics in England, one of which,
Canterbury, was centred in a conquered kingdom; while the other,
York, had only been created some twenty years before he began to
reign. Bede had advised that the bishopric of York should be raised
to an archbishopric, with Northumbria as its province, and on
application made to the Pope the thing had been done. Each of the
two archbishops, as Offa saw, received special recognition from the
Pope in the grant of the pallium; a costly luxury, no doubt, but a
luxury of honour and dignity, worth a good deal of money—which it
certainly cost. There was no Emperor of the West in those days,
some fourteen years before the elevation of Karl to an imperial
throne; and the Pope was, by the mystery of his ecclesiastical
position, and in the glamour of pagan Rome, the greatest personage
in the then chaotic world of Western Europe.
Quite apart from the possession of the pallium, the constitutional
position of an English archbishop was very great. In our days it is
sometimes asked about a wealthy man, how much is he worth. In
Anglo-Saxon times that question had a direct meaning and a direct
answer. Men of all the higher grades at least had their money value,
a very considerable value, which any one who put an end to any of
them must pay. While the luxury of killing a bishop was as costly as
killing an ealdorman, that is, an earl, an archbishop was as dear as a
prince of the blood. The bishop or earl was worth 8000 thrimsas, the
thrimsa being probably threepence, say five shillings of our money,
or £2000 in all; that was what had to be paid for the luxury of killing a
bishop; the archbishop or royal prince rose to 15000 thrimsas, nearly
twice as much, say £3750 of our money; it does not sound quite
enough to our modern ears. The king was put at £7500. For drawing
a weapon in the presence of a bishop or an ealdorman, the fine was
100 shillings, say £100 of our money; in the case of an archbishop it
was 150 shillings, half as much again. In the laws of Ina, for violence
done to the dwelling and seat of jurisdiction of a bishop, the fine was
80 shillings, in the case of an archbishop 120, the same as in the
case of the king. This was not the only point in which the archbishop
was on the same level as the king; his mere word, without oath, was
—as the king’s—incontrovertible. A bishop’s oath was equivalent to
the oaths of 240 ordinary tax payers. In the case of the archbishop of
Canterbury at the times of which we are speaking, there was added
the fact that the royal family of Kent had retired to Reculver and left
the archbishop supreme in the capital city, as the bishops of Rome
had been left in Rome by the departure of the emperors to
Constantinople. In Archbishop Jaenbert’s time the royal family of
Kent practically came to an end, as a regnant family, at the battle of
Otford, near Sevenoaks, in the year 774, when Mercia conquered
Kent. Archbishop Jaenbert of Canterbury is said to have proposed
that he should become the temporal sovereign of Kent, as well as its
ecclesiastical ruler, after the then recent fashion of the bishop of
Rome, and to have offered to do homage to Karl, king of the Franks,
for the kingdom. If that was so, we can well understand the
determination of the conquering and powerful Offa to abate the
archbishop’s position and his pride.
Kent was but an outside annex of the Mercian kingdom proper. It
had been subject to other kingdoms; it might be so subject again.
The Lichfield bishopric was the real ecclesiastical centre of Offa’s
kingdom, and he determined to have an archbishop of Lichfield, and
to have him duly recognized by the Pope. A visit of two legates of the
Pope, accompanied by a representative of the King of the Franks, in
the year 785, gave the opportunity.[97] Offa had already punished
Jaenbert by taking away all manors belonging to the See of
Canterbury in Mercian territories; and he now proposed that the
jurisdiction of Canterbury should be limited to Kent, Sussex, and
Wessex, and that all the land of England between the Thames and
the Humber should become a third metropolitical province, under the
archiepiscopal rule of the bishop of Lichfield. The synod at which this
proposal was made is described in the Saxon Chronicle as
geflitfullic, quarrelsome-like; but in the end, Offa’s proposal was
accepted. Pope Adrian gave his sanction and the pall. William of
Malmesbury, with his usual skill and his wide experience, gives the
explanation of this papal acquiescence in so violent a revolution in
ecclesiastical matters: Offa, he says, obtained the papal licence by
the gift of endless money, pecunia infinita, to the Apostolic See;
which See, he adds, never fails one who gives money. That was the
judgement of a historian after 250 years’ additional experience of the
secret of Roman sanction. The Pope of the time, it should be said,
was a man of much distinction, Adrian or Hadrian I, a friend of Offa
and of Karl. We shall have a good deal to say about the grants of
Karl, and of Pepin his father, to the papacy, in another lecture.
There is a letter extant[98] from Pope Adrian I to Karl, written
before the creation of the Mercian archbishopric, in which the Pope
says he has heard from Karl of a report that Offa had proposed to
persuade him to eject Adrian from the Papacy, and put in his place
some one of the Frankish race. The Pope professes to feel that this
is absolutely false; and yet he says so much about it that it is quite
clear he was anxious. Karl had told him that Offa had not made any
such proposal to him, and had not had any thought in his mind
except that he hoped Adrian would continue to govern the Church all
through his time. The Pope adds that neither had he until that time
heard of anything of the kind; and he does not believe that even a
pagan would think of such a thing. Having said all this, in Latin much
more cumbrous than Alcuin’s charmingly clear style, he enters upon
a long declaration of his personal courage and confidence whatever
happened. “If God be with us, who shall be against us.”
We must, I think, take it that there had been some hitch in
negotiations between Offa and Adrian, and that Offa, with the
outspoken vigour of a Mercian Angle, had in fact gone far beyond
Henry VIII’s greatest threats, and had declared to his counsellors
that if Adrian was not more pliable, he and Karl would make some
one Pope who would have first regard to the wishes of the Angles
and the Franks.
Now it was Alcuin who had brought together Karl Ep. 43. 787-796.
and Offa in the first instance, and had brought
about their alliance. And on a later occasion when they quarrelled he
made them friends again. We do not know what active part, if any,
Alcuin took in the matter decided at the quarrelsome-like synod. But
we have plenty of evidence that he highly approved of the reversal of
Hadrian’s act by his successor Leo III, with the assent, and indeed
on the request, of Offa’s successor Kenulf. He corresponded with
Offa in a very friendly manner, as indeed Offa’s general conduct well
deserved. Here is a letter from him, in response to a request from
the king that he would send him a teacher. “Always desirous faithfully
to do what you wish, I have sent to you this my best loved pupil, as
you have requested. I pray you have him in honour until if God will I
come to you. Do not let him wander about idle, do not let him take to
drink. Provide him with pupils, and let your preceptors see that he
teaches diligently. I know that he has learned well. I hope he will do
well, for the success of my pupils is my reward with God.
“I am greatly pleased that you are so intent upon encouraging
study, that the light of wisdom, in many places now extinct, may
shine in your kingdom. You are the glory of Britain, the trumpet of
defiance, the sword against hostile forces, the shield against the
enemies.”
It is only fair to Offa to say that this was not mere flattery. It is clear
that in the eyes of Karl and Alcuin, Offa was the one leading man in
the whole of England, the most powerful Englishman of his time, and
of all the kings and princes the most worthy.
To Athelhard, the archbishop of Canterbury,[99] who succeeded
Jaenbert, Lichfield still being the chief archbishopric, Alcuin wrote a
remarkable letter, considering the humiliation of the archbishopric:—
“Be a preacher; not a flatterer. It is better to fear Ep. 28. a.d. 793.
God than man, to please God than to fawn upon
men. What is a flatterer but a fawning enemy? He destroys both,—
himself and his hearer.
“You have received the pastoral rod and the staff of fraternal
consolation; the one to rule, the other to console; that those who
mourn may find in you consolation, those who resist may feel
correction. The judge’s power is to kill; thine, to make alive....
“Remember that the bishop[100] is the messenger of God most
high, and the holy law is to be sought at his mouth, as we read in the
prophet Malachi.[101] A watchman[102] is set at the highest place;
whence the name episcopus, he being the chief watchman,[103] who
ought by prudent counsel to foresee for the whole army of Christ
what must be avoided and what must be done. These, that is the
bishops[104], are the lights of the holy church of God, the leaders of
the flock of Christ. It is their duty actively to raise the standard of the
holy cross in the front rank, and to stand intrepid against every attack
of the hostile force. These are they who have received the talents,
our King the God Christ having gone with triumph of glory to His
Father’s abode; and when He comes again in the great day of
judgement they shall render an account....
“Admonish most diligently your fellow-bishops[105] to labour
instantly in the word of life, that they may appear before the judge
eternal, glorious with multifold gain. Be of one mind in piety, constant
in equity. Let no terror of human dignity separate you, no
blandishments of flattery divide you; but join together in unity in firm
ranks of the fortress of God. Thus will your concord strike terror into
those who seek to speak against the Truth; as Solomon says,[106]
‘When brother is helped by brother, the city is secure.’
“Ye are the light of all Britain, the salt of the earth, a city set on a
hill, a candle high on a candlestick....
“Our ancestors, though pagans, first as pagans possessed this
land by their valour in war, by the dispensation of God. How great,
then, is the reproach, if we, Christians, lose what they, pagans,
acquired. I say this on account of the blow which has lately fallen
upon a part of our island, a land which has for nearly 350 years been
inhabited by our forefathers. It is read in the book of Gildas[107], the
wisest of the Britons, that those same Britons, because of the rapine
and avarice of the princes, the iniquity and injustice of the judges,
the sloth and laxity of the bishops, and the wicked habits of the
people, lost their fatherland. Let us take care that those vices do not
become the custom with us in these times of ours.... Do you, who
along with the Apostles have received from Christ the key of the
kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing, open with
assiduous prayer the gates of heaven to the people of God. Be not
silent, lest the sins of the people be imputed to you: for of you will
God require the souls which you have received to rule. Let your
reward be multiplied by the salvation of those in your charge.
Comfort those who are cast down, strengthen the humble, bring
back to the way of truth those who wander, instruct the ignorant,
exhort the learned, and confirm all by the good examples of your
own life. Chastise with the pastoral rod those who are contumacious
and resist the truth; support the others with the staff of consolation.
And, if you are unanimous, who will be able to stand against you?”
Alcuin could be exceedingly outspoken in his Ep. 14. a.d. 790.
letters, as we have seen. But he could also be very
cautious, even—perhaps we should say especially—in a matter on
which he felt deeply. In a letter to the Irish teacher Colcu he remarks
that he did not know what he might have to do next. The reason was
that something of a dissension, diabolically inflamed, had arisen
between Karl and Offa, the Mercian king, and had gone so far that
each forbade entry to the other’s merchants. “Some tell me,” he
says, “that I am to be sent to those parts to make peace.”
The reason for the quarrel was a curious one. Karl had proposed
that his son Charles should marry one of Offa’s daughters. Offa had
made a supplementary proposal that his son Ecgfrith should marry
Karl’s daughter Bertha. This is said to have been considered
presumptuous by Karl, and he showed his annoyance by breaking
off the friendly relations which had existed between them.
It would appear that Alcuin’s attitude was suspected by the
Mercian king to be unfavourable to the English view of the quarrel,
and the presbyter Beornwin, to whom Alcuin had written a letter not
known to have survived, was set to write to him a fishing letter, in
which it would seem that he suggested unfriendliness on Alcuin’s
part. Alcuin’s reply is a non-committal document.
“I have received the sweet letters of your love... Ep. 15. a.d. 790.
“Would that I were worthy to preach peace, not to
sow discord; to carry the standard of Christ, not the arms of the devil.
I should never have written to you if I had been unwilling to be at
peace with you and to remain firm as we began in Christ.
“Of a truth I have never been unfaithful to King Offa, or to the
Anglian nation. As to the utmost of my power I shall faithfully keep
the friends whom God has given me in France, so I shall those
whom I have left in my own country....
“As time or opportunity affords, my very dear brother, urge ever
the will of God upon all persons: on the king, persuasively; on the
bishops, with due honour; on the chief men, with confidence; on all,
with truth. It is ours to sow; it is God’s to fructify.
“And let no suspicion of any dissension between us remain. Let us
not be of those of whom it is said: I am not come to send peace but a
sword. Let us be of those to whom it is said: My peace I give unto
you, My peace I leave with you.
 “I have written a very short letter, for a few words to a wise man
suffice.”
The dissension was rather one-sided, for it appears that Offa
continued to write friendly letters to Karl. In the end, Karl replied in a
more than friendly letter, which is on many accounts well worth
reproducing entire. It is the earliest extant commercial treaty with an
English kingdom. The date is 796, four years before he became
emperor.
“Charles, by the grace of God King of the Franks Ep. 57. a.d. 796.
and Lombards and Patricius of the Romans, to his
dearest brother the venerated Offa, King of the Mercians, wishes
present prosperity and eternal beatitude in Christ. To keep with
inmost affection of heart the concord of holy love and the laws of
friendship and peace federated in unity, among royal dignities and
the great personages of the world, is wont to be profitable to many.
And if we are bidden by our Lord’s precept to loose the tangles of
enmity, how much more ought we to be careful to bind the chains of
love. We therefore, my most loved brother, mindful of the ancient
pact between us, have addressed to your reverence these letters,
that our treaty, fixed firm in the root of faith, may flourish in the fruit of
love. We have read over the epistles of your brotherliness, which at
various times have been brought to us by the hands of your
messengers, and we desire to answer adequately the several
suggestions of your authority.” It is clear that there were a good
many of Offa’s letters unanswered.
“First, we give thanks to Almighty God for the sincerity of catholic
faith which we find laudably expressed in your pages; recognizing
that you are not only very strong in protection of your fatherland, but
also most devoted in defence of the holy faith.
“With regard to pilgrims, who for the love of God and the health of
their souls desire to visit the thresholds of the blessed Apostles, as
has been customary”—here again we see the reason of the
reputation of Rome—“we give leave for them to go on their way
peaceably without any disturbance, carrying with them such things
as are necessary. But we have ascertained that traders seeking
gain, not serving religion, have fraudulently joined themselves to
bands of pilgrims. If such are found among the pilgrims, they must
pay at the proper places the fixed toll; the rest will go in peace, free
from toll.
“You have written to us also about merchants. We will and
command that they have protection and patronage in our realm,
lawfully, according to the ancient custom of trading. And if in any
place they suffer from unjust oppression, they may appeal to us or
our judges, and we will see that pious justice is done. And so for our
merchants; if they suffer any injustice in your realm, let them appeal
to the judgement of your equity. Thus no disturbance can arise
among our merchants.”
Karl evidently felt that the next point was the most difficult of all to
handle successfully. He had given shelter and countenance to
Mercians who had fled from Offa, and sought protection at his court.
Ecgbert, who afterwards conquered Mercia, was among the exiles
from Wessex.
“With regard to the presbyter Odberht, who on his return from
Rome desires to live abroad for the love of God, not coming to us to
accuse you, we make known to your love that we have sent him to
Rome along with other exiles who in fear of death have fled to the
wings of our protection. We have done this in order that in the
presence of the lord apostolic and of your illustrious archbishop—in
accordance, as your notes make known to us, with their vow—their
cause may be heard and judged, so that equitable judgement may
effect what pious intercession could not do. What could be safer for
us than that the investigation of apostolic authority should
discriminate in a case where the opinion of others differs?”
This is a typical example of the use made of a pope when
monarchs disagreed.
“With regard to the black stones which your reverence earnestly
solicited to have sent to you, let a messenger come and point out
what kind they are that your mind desires. Wherever they may be
found, we will gladly order them to be given, and their conveyance to
be aided.” [108]
 Then comes in very skilfully a complaint that the Mercians have
been exporting to France cloaks of inadequate length.
“But, as you have intimated your desire as to the length of the
stones, our people make demand about the length of cloaks, that
you will order them to be made to the pattern of those which in
former times used to come to us.
“Further, we make known to your love that we have forwarded to
each of the episcopal sees in your kingdom, and that of king
Æthelred [of Northumbria, again no mention of Wessex], a gift from
our collection of dalmatics and palls, in alms for the lord apostolic
Adrian[109], our father, your loving friend, praying you to order
intercession for his soul, not in doubt that his blessed soul is at rest,
but to show faith and love towards a friend to us most dear. So the
blessed Augustine has taught that pious intercessions of the church
should be made for all, asserting that to intercede for a good man is
profitable to him that intercedes.” That is a remarkable way of putting
it.
“From the treasure of secular things which the Lord Jesus of
gratuitous pity has granted to us, we have sent something to each of
the metropolitan cities. To thy love, for joy and giving of thanks to
Almighty God, we have sent a Hunnish belt and sword and two silk
palls, that everywhere among a Christian people the divine clemency
may be preached, and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be for
ever glorified.”
The Hunnish belt and sword and silk robes were part of the great
spoil which Karl took in the year 795 when he conquered the Huns,
destroyed their army, and put their prince to flight. The spoil included
fifteen wagons loaded with gold and silver, and palls of white silk,
each wagon drawn by four oxen. Karl divided the plunder between
the churches and the poor.[110]
The gifts of Karl to the king and bishops of Northumbria were
withdrawn under sad conditions, to which we must return in the next
lecture. This is what Alcuin wrote to Offa, immediately after Karl’s
letter was written:—