Alcuin transmitted to the Franks the knowledge of Latin culture, which had existed in Anglo-Saxon England. A number of his works still exist. Besides some graceful epistles in the style of Venantius Fortunatus, he wrote some long poems, and notably he is the author of a history (in verse) of the church at York, "Versus de patribus, regibus et sanctis Eboracensis ecclesiae". At the same time, he is noted for making one of the only explicit comments on Old English poetry surviving from the early Middle Ages, in a letter to one Speratus, the bishop of an unnamed English see (possibly Unwona of Leicester): ("Let God's words be read at the episcopal dinner-table. It is right that a reader should be heard, not a harpist, patristic discourse, not pagan song. What has Hinield to do with Christ?").