Sr, secretary and prime minister of Charlemagne, was the most distinguished poet of his age. After filling the highest offices under that monarch with ability and distinction, and receiving the hand of his daughter Bertha in marriage, he retired in 790 to the monastery of Saint Riquier, of which in 794 he was made abbot. He left this retreat from time to time when the king required his services, and in 800 assisted at Rome at his coronation. He died in 814.

Angilbert was called by Charlemagne the Homer of his time, but with what justice we cannot say. A poem of his in 68 elegiac verses, addressed to Pepin king of Italy on his victory over the Huns, exists in the collection of Duchesne; another in 30 verses devoted to the praises of St Eloi and St Riquier is to be found with the poems of Alcuin, of whom Angilbert was a pupil and correspondent.