This passage is taken from a letter written in 796 by Alcuin to Megenfrid, one of Charlemagne's officers in the campaigns he led, from 791, against populations settled east of the Frankish territory. In this letter, Alcuin urges Megenfrid that he should represent to Charlemagne (dominum messis, id est David meum dilectum) the importance of supporting a missionary pastorate in his expanding empire. In a number of the letters written by Alcuin during the 790s and early 800s, there recur similar expressions of concern related to the moral and practical dimensions of evangelism in the Carolingian empire. These concerns are articulated with a consistency and a force eloquent of Alcuin's commitment to the continuing mission of the Church – a commitment essentially characteristic of the Northumbrian monastic and ecclesiastical tradition in which he had been educated. Alcuin, like Gregory and Bede before him, knew that he and his contemporaries lived in an age of conversion. He also shared with his forerunners the conviction that participation in this age conferred great responsibilities upon those who guided and governed the Church. In his letter to Megenfrid, Alcuin calls upon Charlemagne to recognise his sacral secular role in this age: the emperor, as a new David, must understand and fulfil his responsibility towards the Church and its community. In voicing his concerns, and in presenting Charlemagne with an agenda for the fulfilment of his role in an age of conversion, Alcuin aspires through his eloquence to contribute as a writer to the mission of the Church.