He was not satisfied with command of his native language merely, but gave attention to the study of foreign ones, and in particular was a master of Latin that he could speak it as well as his native tongue; but he could understand Greek better than he could speak it. He was so eloquent . . . The King spent much time and labour with him studying rhetoric, dialectics, and especially astronomy; he learned to reckon, and used to investigate the motions of the heavenly bodies most curiously.

This passage exemplifies Charlemagne's enthusiasm for