XXIV. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.--A.D. 1534 TO 1580 (part 2 of 4)

XXIV. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.--A.D. 1534 TO 1580 (part 2 of 4)

Hucbald was famous as a poet, musician, and philosopher; but his colleague, Remigius, was great in grammar, and wrote comments on Priscian, Donatus, and Marcian Capella. He taught humane letters and theology, and was extraordinarily learned in Scripture and the Fathers. After the death of Fulk he proceeded to Paris, and opened the first public school which we know with any certainty to have been established in that city. This, according to the Paris historians, was the real germ of the university; at any rate it was the first of those celebrated schools out of which the university subsequently developed. Nevertheless, half a century earlier, in the midst of the great siege of Paris, there had been both schools and scholars, for Abbo of St. Germain apologises for the incomplete state of his poem before mentioned, “on account of the multitude of his pupils.” Whence we gather that even famine and massacre had never entirely extinguished the Parisian thirst for letters.

Remigius continued to teach at Paris for several years, pupils coming to him from all parts of France. Among them was one whose story deserves to be told a little more at length, inasmuch as it exhibits, in a striking manner, the utter ruin which had fallen on the monastic institute in the French provinces, and at the same time shows us that in the tenth century laymen were to be found who were possessed of a respectable education, and were capable of collecting libraries. There lived at that time, in the province of Maine, a certain noble named Abbo, who had been fortunate enough in his youth to find some school where he not only learnt how to sign his name, but acquired a great taste for reading. His reading, too, was of a solid kind, for his favourite studies were the histories of the ancients, and the “Novellæ” of Justinian, the latter of which he knew by heart, using his legal erudition when called on to dispense justice to his feudal subjects, and to act as umpire in the disputes which arose among his neighbours. The Gospels were always read aloud at his table, and on the Vigils of solemn feasts he and his family spent the night in prayer and watching. Nor are we to draw the hasty conclusion that Abbo’s household, and his way of life, was at all an extraordinary exception from the common rule. He had friends as learned and as holy as himself, such as Duke William of Aquitaine, whose religious habits earned him the surname of “the Pious,” while his love of letters gained him that of “the Grammarian.” This good prince had a number of books in his castle, and during the long winter evenings he amused himself by reading them, never leaving his studies till fairly overcome by sleep. Abbo had one son named Odo, born in 879, and whilst yet an infant, his father going to see him in his cradle, by a devout impulse took him in his arms and offered him to St. Martin. As he grew up he was given in charge to a priest to be taught his letters, but it does not appear that there was any idea of bringing him up to the ecclesiastical state: on the contrary, his father placed him in the household of Duke William, that he might acquire the martial exercises becoming a knight. Odo, however, had no taste for these pursuits, and the chase and the tilt-yard were insupportably wearisome to him. Praying to Our Lady that he might be guided in the choice of a state of life, he was for three years attacked by inveterate headaches, which obliged him to return home, and which obstinately resisted every remedy. His father at last became persuaded that it was not the will of God that his son should pursue a secular calling. Remembering his former promise to St. Martin, and finding that Odo’s own wishes pointed in the same direction, he took him to Tours, and placed him, in his nineteenth year, among the canons of that city. There was a very solemn reception of the noble postulant, and among those who assisted at the ceremony was the brave Count Fulk of Anjou, the same who has before been mentioned as himself holding a canon’s stall, and scandalising king Louis by his proficiency in music.

No sooner did Odo find himself in quiet possession of his new retreat than he applied himself to his books with an ardour that quite astounded his brother canons. They perpetually asked him what he meant by all this reading, and where could possibly be the good of it. Odo let them talk as they would, and made no change in his habits. He often spent the whole day in study, and the whole night in prayer. He finished his course of grammar, and was about to commence Virgil, when he was deterred by a vision, in which he seemed to see a beautiful vessel filled with serpents, which he understood to indicate the poison to be found in the charms of profane literature. Putting it aside, therefore, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the Scriptures, and to obtain the more freedom from interruption, he shut himself up in a little cell which Count Fulk had given him, and distributing all his money to the poor, lived on the moderate daily allowance of half a pound of bread and a handful of beans. However, he soon became desirous of better teaching than he had as yet been able to procure, so he set out for Paris, and entered at the school of Remigius of Auxerre. That master made him go through a course of the liberal arts, and gave him to study the treatises of Marcian Capella, and the “Dialectics” of St. Augustine.[130]

On his return to Tours he applied himself to the study of St. Gregory’s “Morals,” in which he took such delight that he wrote an abridgment of it, which is still preserved. His love of letters may be gathered from the fact that he gradually procured himself a library of a hundred volumes--a very large collection in those days for any private individual. Among them were some “Lives of the Holy Fathers,” and the “Rule” of St. Benedict, the constant study of which filled Odo with an intense desire to embrace the monastic state. In this he was encouraged by the intimate friendship he formed about this time with a knight named Adegrim, one of the household of the good Count Fulk. At last Adegrim threw up his military employments and came to live with the young canon at Tours. The talk of the two friends was ever of monks and of monasteries, and they made many journeys into different parts of France to seek out the sites of those once famous abbeys of which they had read, and to discover if perchance one yet survived in its ancient state of discipline. But these expeditions invariably ended in disappointment. For more than sixty years the monastic institute in France had been utterly ruined. Most of the houses so renowned in the last century were now nothing but heaps of blackened ruins. The monks had either been slain or driven out as wanderers. Sometimes they were to be met with in the guise of poor vagrants; sometimes in places far from public resort you might come upon a miserable hut, where the remnants of what had once been a flourishing community were gathered together in the wilderness, striving to keep their Rule as best they might. This is not a fancy picture. It was about this very time that William Longsword, duke of Normandy, was induced to restore the abbey of Jumièges, having when hunting in the forest come upon two poor monks who were trying to construct a cell for themselves out of the ruins of the abbey. All the refreshments they could offer him were some barley bread and some water; and the spectacle of their poverty, together with the remembrance that the desolation he witnessed had been the work of his own Norman forefathers, induced the duke to undertake the work of restoration. Abbo and Adegrim, however, were not to be discouraged in their plan. Finding no house in France where they could embrace the life to which they longed to devote themselves, they resolved to carry on their search in Italy, and Adegrim accordingly set out, intending to make the pilgrimage to Rome. But as he passed through Burgundy he accidentally found his way to La Baume, a small monastery which had been recently founded by the abbot Berno, and in which the Rule of St. Benedict was strictly observed, together with the reformed Constitutions of St. Benedict d’Anian. Adegrim at once wrote to his friend, bidding him come without delay, and bring all his books with him; and Odo lost no time in obeying the summons. In the year 909 he began his noviciate, being then exactly thirty years of age. Adegrim, after three years of penitential exercises, begged leave to retire to a little cave about two miles distant from the monastery, where he spent the rest of his life as a hermit. But a very different course awaited his friend Odo. His books pointed him out to be the right sort of man for a schoolmaster, and he was therefore charged with the education of the children brought up in the monastery, and the younger monks. He had much to suffer from the jealousy of some of his brethren; but Berno, rightly appreciating both his talents and his humility, sent him to Turpion, Bishop of Limoges, to be ordained priest.

The reformed monastery of La Baume soon became the mother-house of other foundations. Those who deplored the decay of learning and religion were eager to provide for the restoration of both, by erecting houses in which the Rule and spirit of St. Benedict might be revived in their ancient vigour. Abbo’s old friend, Duke William of Aquitaine, was of the number of those who desired to take part in the good work, and he invited Berno to choose a site for a new foundation in any part of his dominions. Berno selected a beautiful solitude, about four miles from Macon, on the confines of Burgundy, where the river Grosne, after passing the village of Bonnay, winds down to the Seine from the mountains of Beaujolais, through a valley girt in by high hills covered with forests. It was exactly suited for the purposes of a religious retreat, but the duke hesitated when Berno named it, for it was his favourite hunting ground, and was at that time occupied by his kennel of dogs. “Well, sir,” said Berno, when the duke had explained his difficulty, “it is only to turn out the dogs, and to turn in the monks.” This recommendation was accordingly followed, and in course of time there arose among those wooded hills the stately abbey of Cluny, the church of which was inferior in size to none save St. Peter’s of Rome.

On the death of Berno in 927, the bishops of the province obliged St. Odo to accept the government of Cluny and two of the other five houses which had sprung under the reformed Rule. Not content with this, they likewise forced upon him the most odious and difficult of all imaginable enterprises; that, namely, of restoring monastic discipline in a vast number of other houses both in France and Italy, which had fallen into the hands of a dissolute set of men, who sometimes opposed the entrance of the abbot, sword in hand. Odo entered on this work in obedience, and accomplished it in the spirit of meekness. There is no courage like that of gentle souls, and the history of this great reformer exhibits him to us forsaken by his terrified attendants, and riding up on his ass to the gates of Fleury, where a band of armed men were awaiting his coming, having sworn to kill him if he dared set foot among them. But Odo’s meekness gained the day, and among the seventeen abbeys which accepted the Cluniac reform, that of Fleury became one of the most flourishing.

In fact, the character of St. Odo had nothing of that stern austerity which we commonly associate with the notion of a reformer. Its force was its amiability. He used to tell his monks that cripples and beggars were the door-keepers of heaven, and would not endure that they should be spoken to with harshness. If he heard the porter giving a gruff answer to the crowds of poor who thronged his gate, he would go out to them and say, “My friends, when that brother comes to the gates of Paradise, answer him as he has just answered you, and see whether he will like it.” On his journeys, if he met any children, he always stopped, and desired them to sing or repeat something to him, and he did this, says his biographer, that he might have an excuse for giving them something. And if he met an old woman or a cripple, nothing would prevent his getting off his beast and mounting them in his place, when he would desire his servants to hold them securely in the saddle, while he himself led them on their way. This excess of goodness made him so dear to his monks, that they would often steal behind him and indulge their affection and respect by secretly pressing to their lips the hem of his garment.

St. Odo died in 942, and in 965 Maieul or Majolus, a former canon of Macon, was elected abbot. His life, like that of his predecessor, affords an illustration of the two features in the century which I am most solicitous to bring before the reader’s notice; the disordered state of society, consequent on the barbaric invasions, and the fact that in spite of such disorders, men were not wholly indifferent to letters, though they were often sadly at a loss to find the means of acquiring them. Maieul made his studies at Lyons, which his biographer, Odilo, declares was then regarded as the nurse and mother of philosophy, under a rather celebrated teacher named Anthony de l’Isle Barbe. He learnt both kinds of literature, says the monk Syrus, who also wrote his life, the divine and human, and attained to whatever was most sublime in the one, and most difficult in the other. The approach of the Saracens obliged him to leave Avignon, his native city, and retire to Macon, where he was chosen first canon and then archdeacon. But as he found that the clergy and people had it in their mind to procure his further promotion to the bishopric of Besançon, he fled to Cluny, where he was received with great affection, and in process of time was appointed schoolmaster, librarian, and syndic of the house. In this combination of the intellectual and the temporal government he managed to make himself greatly beloved, and in 948, with the consent of the whole community, Aimard, the successor of Odo, whom Syrus styles a son of innocence and simplicity, surrendered the government of the abbey and all its dependencies into his hands. Both as scholasticus and coadjutor to the abbot, Maieul superintended the studies of his monks, and it is remarkable that he had to use the bridle rather than the spur. He was obliged to exert his authority to discourage their excessive study of the profane poets, especially Virgil; not that he disapproved of a moderate use of humane literature; on the contrary, he advocated the principle that we should get all the good out of it that we can; but he would have preferred to see his monks learned in the Scriptures, the reading of which formed his own delight. Whether he walked or rode, the Sacred volume was never out of his hands, and when he travelled into distant countries he always took with him a portable library. These journeys were very frequent, for Maieul extended the Cluniac reform into a great number of abbeys, and made many pilgrimages to Rome. Returning from that city in 973, he was attacked, whilst crossing the Alps, by the Saracens of Frassinet, and carried off, together with all his retinue. His captors chained him hand and foot, and confined him in a cave among the mountains, plundering him of all his baggage, and among other things of his books. The saint recommended himself to God in the spirit of martyrdom, and then lay down on the floor of the cavern to take what rest he might. On awakening he was surprised to find lying on his breast one of his lost books, which appeared to have been overlooked by the plunderers. He opened it, and found it was a treatise on the Assumption of Our Lady, and counting the days, he found that there remained exactly twenty-four to the Feast of the Assumption; so he began to pray that through the intercession of the Queen of Heaven, he might perhaps be permitted to keep that Feast among Christians. After a while the Saracens began to treat him more kindly. They allowed him to write a letter to his brethren directing them to send the money for his ransom, and seeing that he did not eat the meat which they set before him, one man took a shield, and baring his arms, he proceeded to knead some meal in this strange dish, and produced a cake which the prisoner gratefully accepted. Another time a Saracen, wishing to clean his lance, set his foot on the great Bible which formed part of the abbot’s library. Pained at the irreverence, the saint gently remonstrated with him, but without effect, and a few days afterwards the man quarrelling with his companions, they cut off the very foot that had been set on the Sacred Volume. At last the ransom arrived, and the prisoners were liberated, and Maieul spent the Feast of the Assumption among Christians, as he had prayed. Not long afterwards the Saracens were driven from Frassinet by Duke William of Arles, and the books of St. Maieul being found among their baggage, were sent back to him at Cluny to his very great joy.

The information conveyed in stories of this kind will be taken for what it is worth. It does not certainly represent the monks of the Iron Age as prodigies of erudition, but it shows that they did a little more than learn their Psalter. In some cases they certainly set themselves to overcome the difficulties which then beset the path of learning with a perseverance and success that merit all praise; and one example of this sort occurs among the monks of that very abbey of Fleury, the reformation of which was effected by St. Odo in the teeth of an armed rabble. Abbo of Fleury, as he is commonly called, a contemporary of St. Maieul, did not enter the monastery until some years after it had begun to flourish under the Cluniac rule, and the good discipline of Abbot Wulfhad. He was a native of Orleans, and a boy of such a sweet disposition and such a happy memory, that he forgot nothing of his master’s lessons, and studied much in private, not merely for the sake of knowledge, says his biographer, but also because he counted application to study to be a means of subjecting the flesh to the spirit. The Fleury teachers at this time were not first-rate; however, far from being disgusted with “the haggard and emaciated skeleton of barbarous elements,” the more Abbo learnt the more he desired to learn. He was appointed in time scholasticus to his convent, but he felt by no means satisfied as yet with his own attainments. He was tolerably well versed in grammar, logic, and arithmetic, but he had found no one at Fleury who could teach him the other liberal arts. With the permission of his abbot, therefore, he resigned his office, and went first to Paris, and then to Rheims. In these schools he acquired a knowledge of philosophy and astronomy, but not so much of the last science as he desired. So he next proceeded to Orleans, and there not only perfected himself in other branches of learning, but, by dint of expending a good sum of money, managed to get some excellent lessons in music. This, however, could only be done secretly, by reason of the opposition of envious minds. He had now studied five out of the seven liberal arts, and he could not rest till he had acquired the other two. But not being able to find any good master either in rhetoric or geometry, he endeavoured to supply the first by a careful study of Victorinus, the master of St. Jerome, and also by his own exertions gained some knowledge of mathematics. We have seen in the last chapter how he was summoned to England by St. Oswald of York, and established sacred and scientific studies in the monastery of Ramsay. So greatly was he esteemed by both St. Oswald and St. Dunstan, that an amicable quarrel arose between the two prelates as to which should keep possession of so great a treasure. The question was settled by the abbot of Fleury recalling Abbo to his own convent after a two years’ absence.

His English friends took leave of him with no small regret, and loaded him with parting presents. St. Dunstan gave him a number of exquisitely-wrought silver ornaments of his own workmanship, which he requested him to present as his offerings to St. Benedict, a portion of whose body was preserved at Fleury. St. Oswald ordained him priest, and gave him a chalice, some vestments, and everything else requisite for saying mass. In 988 he became abbot, in which office he continually recommended his monks to cultivate study as the most useful exercise next to fasting and prayer. For himself he ceased not all his life to read, write, or dictate. His favourite studies, next to the Holy Scriptures, were dialectics and astronomy, and among his works were some treatises on both those subjects. Renowned for his learning throughout Europe, he was killed at last in 1004 in an affray between his servants and some Gascon monks of the monastery of Reole, whither he had been sent to effect a reform.

In fact, if the age exhibited much decay and many scandals, it found men ready to spend their lives in the weary work of restoration and reformation. And it is remarkable that the greatest prelates of the time invariably regarded the revival of monachism as the only means of restoring good discipline and learning. Such were the views of St. Dunstan and his fellow-labourers, and such was also the conviction of the excellent Adalberon, who in 933 became Bishop of Metz. He was brother to the reigning duke of Lorraine, and his talents and zeal equalled the nobility of his birth. In order to provide his diocese with a seminary of devoted and learned men, he resolved on restoring the great monastery of Gorze, which had been founded by St. Chrodegang of Metz, but which had been ruined under the combined attacks of the Normans and the Hungarians. He completed the rebuilding of the abbey, but was still uncertain whence he should procure his colony of monks, when he was informed that a little society of ecclesiastics, which had been formed in the neighbouring diocese of Toul, was about to pass into Italy, seeking some spot where they might unmolested lead a more perfect life. The way in which this society had been organised was altogether remarkable. At their head was John of Vandières, the native of a village in the diocese of Nancy, who, having been born when his father was advanced in years, had suffered from some of the disadvantages of being a spoiled child. The fond parent, however, was at last persuaded to send the boy to school, first at Metz, and then at the monastery of St. Michael’s, where Master Hildebold, a pupil of Remigius, gave lessons in grammar. John, however, profited very little by his teaching, and on his father’s death, his mother, marrying a second time, recalled him home, and gave him the charge of all the temporal affairs of the house. John showed considerable ability in the management of lands and revenues, and absorbed in these cares, soon forgot the little he had learnt at school. However, as time went on, he became disgusted with his secular way of life, and embracing the ecclesiastical state, received two benefices in the diocese of Toul. There he became acquainted with the learned deacon Berners, who, by no means approving of illiterate clerks, persuaded John to begin his studies over again. Divine grace quickening his powers, he did his best to make up for lost time. But he was never much of a grammarian. He contented himself with what his biographer calls a sprinkling of Donatus, just so much as enabled him to read and understand the Scriptures, to the study of which he then exclusively devoted himself, and in which he obtained very extraordinary light. The church which he served was dependent on a convent of nuns at Metz, where his duties called him from time to time to say mass. He became acquainted with the community, and the example of their holy and mortified life inspired him with new ardour. He began a course of reading with these good religious, which speaks in favour of his diligence and their patience, and in which, says his biographer, he persevered “with all his might.”

First, then, having read through with them the whole of the Old and New Testaments, he committed both to memory, “and that so accurately that no man could do it better,” also “all the lessons appointed to be read in church,” which are contained in the book called Comes; then the rules for the computing of Easter and the canonical laws, that is, the decrees of councils, the judgments of penitents, the mode of ecclesiastical proceedings, and the secular laws, all of which he treasured up word for word. Of homilies, sermons, and treatises on the Epistles and Gospels, I will only say that he was able to repeat an alarming catalogue of them in the vernacular, “straightforward from beginning to end, as if he were reading from the book.” At the same time he laboured hard to acquire a knowledge of church music, not caring for the derision of some who considered it an unsuitable enterprise for one of his age to engage in. However, his perseverance was rewarded with very fair success, and it was thus that he employed his intervals of leisure time, together with the handmaids of God.

It must be confessed that John’s choice of reading, considering the gentler sex of his fellow-students, was somewhat of the driest. Nor do I at all cite him as a model of erudition, though, considering the deficiencies of his early education, his achievements in that line might have saved him from the contempt of Brucker, who notices him only to string him up among other barbarous dunces. His studies probably took their direction from the very few books which he had at his command, and it is at least clear that he made a tolerable use of those he possessed.

His intercourse with the nuns inspired him with a great desire to embrace a religious life, but, like St. Odo, he sought in vain for any religious house in his own part of the country where religious discipline still flourished. So first he joined the company of a recluse of Verdun, named Humbert, and then he passed some time with a hermit in the forest of Argonne, and at last, in company with Bernacer of Metz, who was a tolerable scholar, he set out on pilgrimage to Rome. However, even in Italy he found nothing that exactly suited him, and returning to Verdun, resumed his former exercises of prayer and study, under the direction of Humbert.

About the same time Einold, Archdeacon of Toul, had been touched with similar desires after a perfect life; and distributing all his goods to the poor, he shut himself up in a little cell adjoining the cloisters of his cathedral, together with his books and his priestly vestments, living only on what the Bishop Gauzelin sent him as an alms. The times were, indeed, dreary enough, when, one after another, these good men were to be found seeking, and seeking in vain, for some spot untouched by the spoiler’s hand. As Einold prayed for guidance, what seemed a little schoolboy’s voice in the street outside chanted the words, “I will give you the heritage of your father Jacob;” and half disposed to take the words as a sign of divine encouragement, he was still pondering over their meaning, when Humbert of Verdun came to ask his counsel. To be brief, the four friends, Einold, Humbert, John, and Bernacer, determined on migrating to Italy, and establishing themselves either among the solitaries of Mount Vesuvius, or in the neighbourhood of Monte Cassino. And it was this little knot of holy men, who had been drawn together by the ties of Christian sympathy, whom Adalberon proposed to detain in France for the purpose of entrusting them with the restoration of monastic life in the abbey of Gorze. They accepted his offer; a very few of the old monks who yet survived were brought back, and willingly accepted the strict reform which Adalberon desired to establish; Einold was chosen abbot, and the house soon became a model of good discipline. Sacred studies were at once instituted in the school, and after his religious profession, John of Gorze, as he was henceforth called, entered on rather a wider range of reading than he had hitherto been able to follow. We find him applying himself to St. Augustine, and working with characteristic energy at certain logical studies, which were, however, cut short by the prohibition of Einold, who desired him to leave logic for secular students, and to confine himself to more spiritual subjects, an injunction which he humbly and promptly obeyed. He became abbot of Gorze about the year 960.

Adalberon’s zeal was not satisfied with the restoration of Gorze; he invited a learned body of monks over from Ireland, under a superior named Cradoc, and established them in another deserted monastery, that of St. Clement’s at Metz. When Gerard, Bishop of Toul, the successor of Gauzelin, heard of the arrival of the Irishmen, he never rested till he had procured some of them for his own diocese. He had already procured a community of exiled Greek monks, among whom, in the following century, Cardinal Humbert acquired his Greek learning. A sort of holy emulation sprang up between the two prelates, which should outstrip the other in their labours at reform and revival; and Gerard was not content with setting others to work; he worked himself as hard as the humblest scholasticus. He took into his own hands the instruction of his clergy in all that appertained to ecclesiastical discipline and the ministry of preaching; and acting on the principle that he who instructs others should never cease to be a learner, he never considered that his time of study was ended; and his historian declares that even when he was in bed he appointed some of his clerks to read to him until he fell asleep.

From all that has been said, it may be seen that there was no want of solicitude on the part of the pastors of the Church to amend the disorders of the time. In fact, we might appeal to the acts of those very councils which show what the abuses of the times were, as affording proof of the strenuous exertions made to correct them.

In Spain we are told the incursions of the Saracens had left everything in ruins. The school of Palencia, established in the sixth century for the education of the clergy, had fallen into decay; the monastic institute had all but disappeared; and the sites of many monasteries, like the famous one founded near Vierzo by St. Fructuosus, had become wildernesses, overgrown with thorns and brushwood. But here, as in France and Germany, bishops were to be found stemming the strong tide of barbarism. Gennadius of Astorga restored a great number of abbeys destroyed by the Saracens, and placed them under the Benedictine Rule. And as the libraries that formerly enriched them could not be at once replaced, he introduced a custom by which the books belonging to one house were lent to a number of others in regular succession, always returning to their original owners. Among the books so lent appear the works of St. Gregory, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine.

Even the education of the poor was not wholly uncared for in the Iron Age. Witness the constitutions of Ado of Vercelli, Dado of Verden, and Heraclius of Liege, in which the establishment of “little,” or parochial, schools, is ordained, wherein poor children of both sexes, about the age of seven, are to be received and taught gratis, the girls and boys being always separated from one another. The regulations, simple as they are, have a very modern sound; and so also have those other constitutions of Riculf of Soissons, who, for the improvement of his parish priests, hit on a scheme of clerical conferences, in order to afford them means of mutual edification, on a plan precisely similar to that adopted in later times.

But we have dwelt long enough on the aspect which the tenth century presented in France. Something remains to be said of the state of schools and monasteries during the same period on the other side of the Rhine, where the achievements of the German prelates were crowned with a much larger share of success, and well deserve a chapter to themselves.

CHAPTER X.

THE AGE OF THE OTHOS.

A.D. 911 TO 1024.

Louis the Fourth, surnamed the Child, the last of the race of Charlemagne who bore rule in Germany, died in 911, leaving the empire torn to pieces with feudal wars and the devastations of Hungarians, Sclaves and Normans. As the right of choosing his successor belonged to the nobles, they offered the crown to Otho, duke of Saxony, who with singular disinterestedness refused it, and recommended as most worthy of the royal dignity, his own feudal rival, Conrad of Franconia, who accordingly received the crown. Not to be outdone in generosity, Conrad, at his death, named the son of Otho as his successor, and thus Henry the Fowler became the first German sovereign of the house of Saxony. His victory over the Hungarians at Marsberg, in 933, gave them their first decisive check, and in 936, his son Otho the Great completed the discomfiture of the barbarians at the great battle of Leck, after which they never again showed their face in Germany. In 952, Otho was crowned king of Italy, having been called into that country to oppose the usurper Beranger. Eight years later he was invited to Rome by Pope John XII. and crowned emperor, no prince having borne that title in the West for the space of forty years. Though on some occasions he failed not to evince that tendency to despotism in Church matters which was the hereditary vice of the German emperors, yet his reign was truly glorious, and is spoken of by ancient writers as a kind of golden age. His mother Matilda, and his two wives, Editha and Adelaide, the first of whom was an English princess, together with his brother Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, were all canonised saints. He showed himself the friend of religion and learning, and caused his son, Otho II., to receive a learned education. His grandson, Otho III., who succeeded to the crown in 983, was also a scholar, and a pupil of Gerbert’s, and surnamed the Wonder of the World. At his death the crown passed to his cousin, St. Henry of Bavaria, whose brother-in-law, St. Stephen of Hungary, converted his people to Christianity, and changed those wild barbarians, so long the scourge of Europe, into a civilised and Christian nation.

Thus, for the space of a century, Germany was blessed with a succession of great Christian rulers, who, if they had some defects, were yet on the whole protectors of religion, and encouragers of learned men. Italy, indeed, is represented by most historians as presenting during the same period a scene of lamentable decay; and Tiraboschi gives the names of only two bishops as possessing any pretensions to learning, namely, Atto of Vercelli, and Ratherius of Verona. But allowance must be made for the exaggerations of party-writers, and there are facts which cannot be altogether reconciled with their sweeping statements. Studies were certainly carried on in the monasteries that escaped the rage of the Saracens, and Muratori cites a long catalogue of books, all either copied or collected at Bobbio during the tenth century. Baronius, whose strictures on the state of Italy are exceedingly severe, quotes the acts of a council held at Rheims in 992, wherein it is declared that there was scarcely one person to be found at that time in Rome who knew the first elements of learning. Considering the unhappy and scandalous factions which then held sway in the Roman capital, no picture of social disorder would seem too black for us to credit; yet bad as things were, one is staggered at the notion that no one in the city of the Popes and the Cæsars should know even how to read. A few years previously to the date assigned, Rome, as we shall see, not only possessed good masters herself, but supplied them to the German seminaries; nor is there any reason for supposing that her political disasters necessarily closed her schools. If, from the acts of a remote council, we turn to the writings of one thoroughly conversant with the state of Italy, the man of his age best qualified to judge of any matter connected with learning--I mean the famous Ratherius of Verona--we shall find a very different description of the state of things which he had witnessed with his own eyes. His testimony is the more remarkable from the fact that he was the great censor of his age, sparing neither clergy nor bishops in his caustic attacks. Yet he assures us that in his time, and he died in 974, there was no place where a man could get better instructed in sacred letters than in Rome. “What is taught elsewhere on ecclesiastical dogma,” he says, “that is unknown there? It is there that we find the sovereign doctors of the whole world; it is there that the most illustrious princes of the Church have flourished. There the decrees of the pontiffs are to be found; there the canons are examined; there some are approved and others rejected; what is condemned there is nowhere else approved, nor do men elsewhere approve of what is there condemned. Where, then, could I be more sure to find wisdom than at Rome, which is its fountain-head?”[131] About the same time Gerbert, the literary wonder of his age, arrived in Rome, where his scientific acquirements were so thoroughly appreciated by Pope John XIII. as to induce that pontiff to prevent his return into Spain; and he accordingly wrote to the emperor, advising him to secure the services of a man who was thoroughly well-versed in mathematics, and able to teach them to others. But how preposterous it seems to suppose that the mathematics of Gerbert should be thus highly valued in a city where hardly a man was to be found acquainted with the first elements of letters! Again, we find from Gerbert’s own correspondence that it was from Italy that he chiefly obtained his books. There is no city in that country, he says, where good writers and copyists are not to be found; a fact which conclusively proves that somebody was also to be found to buy what was written, for the book trade could not have been kept up without a fair supply of readers. And in the year 1000 only eight years after the above-named council had furnished Baronius with its dismal authority for proving Italy to be sunk in the grossest ignorance, we find a German noble named Wippo exhorting the emperor Henry II. to send the sons of the German nobles to be educated “after the manner of the Italians.” Not that it at all concerns us to whitewash the history of Italy in the tenth century, confessedly the very nadir of her ecclesiastical annals; but there is no reason for unfairly blackening even a damaged reputation, and the united testimonies given above may at least be taken as evidence that the words of the council must not be too literally understood.

In the present chapter, however, I propose to speak only of the state of letters in Germany, where the tenth century was certainly very far from deserving to be stigmatised as an age of iron or lead. All the monastic chroniclers bear witness to the rapid extension of letters, which was encouraged by the Saxon emperors, to the extraordinary multiplication of schools, and the harvest of great men whom they produced, so that even Meiners is forced to acknowledge that at no period did Germany possess so many virtuous and learned ecclesiastics. Much of this happy state of things is to be attributed to the labours and example of St. Bruno, the younger brother of Otho the Great, and, like him, a pupil of Heraclius of Liege. His education began at Utrecht, where he was sent at the mature age of four, to commence his studies under the good abbot Baldric. Utrecht had never entirely lost its scholastic reputation since the days of St. Gregory. Only a few years before the birth of Bruno the see had been filled by St. Radbod, a great-grandson of that other Radbod, duke of Friesland, who had so fiercely opposed the preaching of St. Boniface. Radbod the bishop, however, was a very different man from his savage ancestor; he was not only a pious ecclesiastic, but an elegant scholar, for he had been educated in the Palatine school of Charles the Bald, under the learned Mannon, whose heart he won by his facility in writing verses; and the cares of the episcopate never induced him altogether to neglect the Muses. Besides a great number of poems which he wrote during his residence at Utrecht, we have a Latin epigram, which he improvised at the moment of receiving the Holy Viaticum, and which is perhaps as worthy of being preserved as the dying epigram of the Emperor Hadrian.[132]

In consequence of the encouragement given to learning by so many of its bishops, Utrecht became the fashionable place of education, and it had grown a sort of custom with the German sovereigns to send their sons thither at an early age. Little Bruno made rapid progress both in Greek and Latin literature; he particularly relished the works of Prudentius, which he learnt by heart; never let himself be disturbed by his noisy companions, and took great care of his books. Indeed, the only thing that ever moved him to anger was the sight of any one negligently handling a book. His reading included something of all sorts; historians, orators, poets and philosophers--nothing came amiss. He had native Greeks to instruct him in their language, and became so proficient in it as afterwards to act as interpreter for his brother to the Greek ambassadors who frequented the German court. With all this he did not neglect the sacred sciences, and a certain Isaac, a Scotch, or rather Irish professor, who taught at Utrecht, spoke of him as not merely a scholar, but a saint. The monk Ditmar, one of his schoolfellows, himself afterwards celebrated in the literary world by his chronicle of the royal house of Saxony, bears witness to the habits of piety which adorned the very childhood of the young prince. “Every morning,” he says, “before he left his room to go to the school, he would be at his prayers, while the rest of us were at play.” A certain tone of exaggeration is not unfrequently indulged in by early writers when extolling the subjects of their biographies as prodigies of every literary excellence, but the descriptions left us of Bruno’s intellectual achievements do not admit of being understood as mere figures of speech. His love of reading was almost a passion. He read everything, “even comedies,” says his biographer, who seems a little scandalised at the fact, but explains that he attended only to the style, and neglected the matter. To complete the picture of Bruno’s school-days, it must be added that he was an excellent manager of his time, and always made the most of his morning hours, a good habit he retained through life. I will say nothing of his early career as the reformer of Lauresheim Abbey; he was still young when his brother Otho succeeded to the throne, and at once summoned Bruno to court, charging him with the task of erecting there a Palatine academy, after the model of that of Charlemagne. Nothing was better suited to Bruno’s wishes and capacity, and he began at once to teach the entire curriculum of the liberal arts to a crowd of noble pupils. Whatever was most beautiful in the historians and poets of Greece or Rome, he made known to his disciples, and not content with the labour entailed on him by his own lectures, he did not allow the professors whom he chose to assist him to commence theirs till he had previously conferred with them on the subjects they were about to explain.

One of Bruno’s chief assistants was that same Ratherius who has been already named. Originally a monk of Lobes, he had accompanied his patron Hilduin of Liege into Italy, and there became bishop of Verona. He was a man of great learning, and zeal too little tempered with discretion, and his life was a series of episcopal ejectments. Thrice was he turned out of the see of Verona, and once out of that of Liege, to which Bruno had procured his nomination after the death of Hilduin. His writings are of considerable value as monuments of the doctrine and discipline of the times, but I mention him here rather in the character of a benefactor to youth. For after being the second time obliged to fly from Verona, he retired, says Folcuin, in his history of the abbots of Lobes, “to that part of Burgundy which is called Provençe, where he taught the son of a certain rich man named Rostang; and for his benefit composed a little book on the grammatical art, which he called by the pleasant name of Spara-dorsum, or Spare-the-back, to the end that young children making use of the same in schools might be preserved from scourges.”

In 953, Bruno, in spite of his youth, was demanded by the clergy and people of Cologne for their archbishop, and being consecrated, he at once entered on a career of gigantic labours, everywhere re-establishing ecclesiastical discipline and social order throughout a province long wasted by war and barbaric invasions. His political position, moreover, imposed on him yet more extensive cares; for Otho, who called him his second soul, when summoned into Italy, created his brother duke of Lorraine and imperial lieutenant in Germany. The dukedom of Lorraine at that time included all the country from the Alps to the Moselle, which now, therefore, acknowledged Bruno as its actual sovereign. But these multiplied dignities, and the accumulation of business which they entailed, did not quench Bruno’s love of study. Whenever he travelled, whether in the visitation of his diocese, or when accompanying his brother’s court, he always carried his library with him, “as if it had been the ark of the Lord,” says the monk Rotger, who, moreover, remarks that this library was stored both with sacred and profane authors, for, like a good householder, he knew how to bring out of his treasury things new and old. Nothing ever prevented his finding time for reading, and he excited every one about him to cultivate similar tastes, specially his nephew Otho, who was for some time his pupil. Indeed, Rotger goes so far as to say that the archbishop felt a certain want of confidence in those who had no attraction to study; meaning probably to those unlettered clerks who cared not to acquire the learning proper to their sacred calling. Of these there was no lack in Lorraine; but Bruno effected a great change in the condition of that afflicted province, by appointing good bishops, healing feuds, reforming monasteries, and making men love one another in spite of themselves. In all these good works he was assisted by the learning and martial valour of Ansfrid, count of Lorraine, who was well read both in law and Scripture, and who used his sword exclusively to repress pillage and defend the helpless. This feudal noble of the Iron Age spent all his leisure hours in study, and when at last he embraced the ecclesiastical state, and at the entreaties of the emperor accepted a bishopric, he was able to lay his sword on the altar and render witness that it had never been drawn in an unjust cause.

Bruno’s example made a great stir in Germany, and moved many bishops to exert themselves in the work of reform. Poppo, Bishop of Wurtzburg, sent to Rome for a celebrated master named Stephen, and with his help the episcopal seminary was restored, and soon boasted of a “crowd of students, and a great store of books.” Among other pupils educated under Master Stephen were two friends, named Wolfgang and Henry. Wolfgang was a student of Bruno’s type, possessing an avidity for all sorts of learning; and though he began his school-life at seven, he is said in a few years not only to have acquired an extensive acquaintance with the letter of the Scriptures, but to have penetrated into the pith and marrow of their mystical sense. His father had thought it sufficient to place him under a certain priest, to receive a very scanty elementary education, but Wolfgang entreated that he might be sent to Reichnau, which then enjoyed a high reputation; and here he first met with his friend Henry. Henry was the younger brother of Bishop Poppo, and easily persuaded Wolfgang to migrate with him to Wurtzburg, for the sake of studying under the famous Master Stephen. It soon appeared, however, that the disciple was more learned than the master, and when the Wurtzburg students found Master Stephen’s lectures very dull, or very obscure, they were in the habit of applying to Wolfgang, who possessed that peculiar gift of perspicacity which marked him from his boyhood as called to the functions of teaching. Moreover, he was so kind and so willing to impart his knowledge, that his companions declared he made daylight out of the darkest matters; when Stephen’s prosy abstruseness had fairly mystified them, five words from Wolfgang seemed like the “Fiat lux,” and these observations reaching the ears of Stephen, had the proverbial fate of all comparisons. At last, one day when Wolfgang was surrounded by a knot of his schoolfellows, who entreated him to expound a passage in Marcian Capella, Master Stephen, moved to jealous anger, forbade Wolfgang any longer to attend the lectures. This ungenerous command obliged him to continue his studies alone, but he seems to have lost little by being deprived of the benefit of an instructor whom he had already far outstripped in learning.

Henry and Poppo were both of them relatives of Otho, who in 956 caused the former to be raised to the archbishopric of Treves. Henry insisted on carrying his friend with him into his new diocese, and wished to load him with benefices and honours, all of which, however, Wolfgang refused. He would accept of no other employment than that of teaching youth, for which he knew his aptitude, and which he heartily loved; and, in the true spirit of a Christian teacher, he chose to discharge this office gratuitously, not as a means of private gain, but as a work for souls, even supporting many of his scholars out of his own purse. He cared as much for their spiritual as their intellectual progress, and set them the example of a holy and mortified life. The archbishop, in despair at not being able to promote him as he desired, at last got him to accept the office of dean to a certain college of canons. Wolfgang did not allow the dignity to be a nominal one, but obliged his canons to embrace community life, and to commence a course of sacred studies, assuring them that the sustenance of the inner man is as necessary as that of the body. Archbishop Henry dying in 964, Wolfgang, who had only remained at Treves out of affection to him, prepared to return into Swabia, which was his native country. But Bruno had his eye on him, and inviting him to Cologne, offered him every dignity, even the episcopate itself, if he would only remain in his duchy. Wolfgang, though he persisted in refusing to accept any promotion, felt himself obliged to pass some time at the prince-bishop’s court, and testified afterwards to the fact of his great sanctity. Finding that he could not move the resolution of his friend, Bruno at last reluctantly allowed him to return to Swabia, where he remained only just long enough formally to renounce his hereditary possessions, after which he withdrew to Einsidlen, and took the monastic habit under the English abbot Gregory.

At Einsidlen, as at Treves, he devoted himself to the office of teaching, and with the same success. It was as hopeless for him to attempt to conceal his talent, as to hide a light under a bushel. The world soon resounded with the fame of his school, and bishops travelled to Einsidlen to bargain for his possession. This time the friendly persecution was revived by St. Udalric of Augsburgh, who was himself sufficiently learned to understand the merits of the poor monk, who asked nothing of the world but a quiet hiding-place, and was never suffered to enjoy it for any length of time. Udalric was a scholar of St. Gall’s, and had given marks of sanctity even during his school days. A minute account of his manner of life when archbishop is given in the beautiful life written by his friend Gerard. Let it suffice to say, that besides singing the Divine Office in the cathedral with his canons, and daily celebrating two or three masses (a privilege then permitted to priests, as we learn from Walafrid Strabo), he every day recited the entire Psalter, the Office of Our Lady, together with that of the Holy Cross, and of All Saints; that he entertained a number of poor persons at his table, exercised hospitality on a right royal scale, administered strict justice to his people, and courageously defended them against the oppression of their feudal lords; finally, that he took particular care of the education of his clergy, and directed the studies of his cathedral school in person, none being better fitted to do so than himself. When he made the visitation of his diocese, he travelled in a wagon drawn by oxen, which he preferred to riding on horseback as it enabled him to recite the Psalms with his chaplains with less interruption. In this arrangement he certainly displayed a sound discretion, for in the ancient chronicles of these times, more than one story is preserved of the disasters which befell travelling monks and bishops, owing to their habit of reading on horseback.[133] His cathedral city of Augsburgh was repeatedly attacked by the Huns; and during one of their sieges, the holy bishop, sending the able-bodied men to the walls collected a number of infants in arms, and laying them on the floor of the cathedral, before the altar, prostrated himself in prayer, hoping that their tender cries might ascend as prayer before the Throne of God. His prayers were heard, and Augsburgh was delivered. Such was the prelate who at last succeeded in drawing Wolfgang out of his retirement, and compelling him to receive priestly ordination. And in 972 the emperor Otho II., at the united entreaties of his bishops, appointed him Bishop of Ratisbon, which see he governed for twenty-two years, never, however, laying aside his monastic habit. Henry, duke of Bavaria, thoroughly understood his merits, and knowing his love of the office of teaching, entreated him to take charge of his four children, St. Henry, afterwards emperor of Germany, St. Bruno, who succeeded Udalric in the diocese of Augsburgh, and the two princesses, Gisela and Brigit, who both died in the odour of sanctity. The singular blessing which attended his labours with these and other noble children committed to his care, gave rise to a proverb which deserves remembrance: “Find saints for masters, and we shall have saints for emperors.”

The emperors of the tenth century were certainly fortunate in this respect, and as I have just named Otho II., it will not be amiss to say a few words about him, and about the tutor to whom was committed the education of his son and successor. Otho II. had been brought up among the canons of Hildesheim, and had acquired from them a taste for letters, which was still further increased by his marriage with the Greek princess Theophania. At this time the court of Constantinople was the centre of all that survived of the old imperial civilisation and literature. Theophania was a woman of beauty and talent, and remarkable for her wit and eloquence, she soon infused into the Germans a rage for Greek literature, and gave such a brilliant character to the literary coteries of the imperial court, that Gerbert, who was then residing there, speaks in one of his letters of the “Socratic conversation” which he found among the learned men who thronged the company of the empress, which, he says, sufficed to console him amid all his troubles. In more peaceful times it is probable that a sovereign of Otho’s character would have effected a great restoration of letters, but the ten years of his reign were occupied with continual wars, which affixed to his name the appellation of “the Sanguinary,” and gave no scope for the exercise of his really great abilities. Before his death, which took place in 983, he obtained the election of his infant son, Otho III. as emperor, and left him to the guardianship of Theophania, who, during the minority of her son, governed the empire as regent.

The empress showed herself fully qualified for both offices. She had it greatly at heart to provide the young emperor with a learned education, and not unmindful of the proverb we have quoted above, was equally solicitous to secure for his tutor one who should merit the title of a saint. The priest whom she chose was a noble Saxon named Bernward; he was nephew to Folcmar, Bishop of Utrecht, who sent him when a child of seven years old to be educated in the episcopal school of Hildesheim, by the grave and holy master Tangmar. This good old man, who afterwards wrote his life, received him kindly, and to test his capacities, set him to learn by heart some of the select passages from Holy Scripture which were usually given to beginners. Little Bernward set himself to learn and meditate on them with wonderful ardour, and associating himself to the most studious of his companions, tried with their help thoroughly to master, not only the words, but the hidden sense of his lessons. As he was not yet judged old enough to join any of the classes, he sat apart by himself, but listened attentively to the lectures of the master, and the explanations which he gave, and was afterwards found reproducing the same in a grave and sententious manner for the edification of his younger schoolfellows. Surprised and delighted at these marks of precocious genius, Tangmar spared no pains in the cultivation of so promising a scholar, and had him constantly by his side. “Whenever I went abroad on the business of the monastery,” he says, “I used to take him with me, and I was always more and more struck by his excellent qualities. We often studied the whole day as we rode along on horseback, only more briefly than we were used to do in school; at one time exercising ourselves in poetry, and amusing ourselves by making verses, at another, arguing on philosophic questions. He excelled no less in the mechanical than in the liberal arts. He wrote a beautiful hand, was a good painter, and an equally good sculptor and worker in metals, and had a peculiar aptitude for all things appertaining to household and domestic affairs.” Under the care of so devoted a master, the boy Bernward, as the old man always called him, grew up to be a wise and learned man. He had that singular ardour for acquiring knowledge which seems one of the gifts poured out over ages in which its pursuit is hedged about with difficulties that must necessarily discourage a more ordinary amount of zeal. Bernward always read during meal times, and when unable to read himself, he got some one to read to him. His reputation determined Theophania to choose him as tutor to her son, who made great progress under his care, and was then sent to finish his education in the school of the famous Gerbert. Bernward meanwhile was appointed Bishop of Hildesheim, and in the midst of his episcopal functions, continued to cultivate literature and the fine arts. He made time by employing the day in business and the night in prayer. He founded scriptoria in many monasteries, and collected a valuable library of sacred and profane authors. He tried to bring to greater perfection the arts of painting, mosaic work, and metal work, and made a valuable collection of all those curiosities of fine art which were brought to Otho’s court as presents from foreign princes. This collection Bernward used as a studio, for the benefit of a number of youths whom he brought up and instructed in these pursuits. It is not to be said what he did for his own cathedral, supplying it with jewelled missals, thuribles, and chalices, a huge golden corona which hung from the centre of the roof, and other like ornaments. The walls he painted with his own hands. The visitor to Hildesheim may still admire the rich bronze gates, sixteen feet in height, placed in the cathedral by its artist-bishop, the crucifix adorned with filagree-work and jewels, made by his own hands, and the old rose-tree growing on the cloister, which tradition affirms him to have planted.

His manner of life is minutely described by his old tutor Tangmar. After high mass every morning he gave audience to any who desired to speak to him, heard causes, and administered justice with great readiness and promptitude. Then his almoner waited on him, and accompanied him to the distribution of his daily alms, for every day a hundred poor persons were fed and relieved at his palace. After this he went the round of his workshops, overlooking each one’s work and directing its progress. At the hour of nine he dined with his clerks. There was no worldly pomp observable at his table, but a religious silence, all being required to listen to the reading, which was made aloud. The barbarians gave him plenty of trouble, for they had seized possession of both shores of the Elbe, and were therefore able to enter Saxony whenever they liked, and often appeared at the gates of Hildesheim. But Bernward raised troops for the defence of his diocese, and repeatedly forced them to retire; and at last built and garrisoned two strong fortresses which kept the pirates in check.

Bernward had many illustrious disciples, and among them was one destined to be known in history as the Apostle of the Sclaves. The title may puzzle those readers who have met with other and earlier narratives of the conversion of these people, but the fact is that the Sclaves absorbed almost as much Apostolic labour as China has done in later times. Twice converted they had twice apostatised, and were finally brought within the fold of the Church by the labours of Bennon, Bishop of Misnia. This remarkable man belonged to the family of the counts of Saxony, and was placed under the care of St. Bernward at the age of five years. The restored monastery of Hildesheim, dedicated to St. Michael, of course possessed its school, which was presided over by Wigger, a very skilful master, under whose careful tuition Bennon thrived apace. “Now as the age was learned,” writes the good canon, Jerome Enser--who little thought in what light that same age would come to be regarded--“as the age was learned, and cultivated humane letters, as may be seen by the lives and writings of so many eminent men, Wigger would not allow the child committed to his care to neglect polite letters;” so he set him to work at once to learn to write, being careful to transcribe his copies himself. And how well Bennon profited from these early lessons might yet be seen by any who chose to examine the fine specimens which were preserved in the Church of Misnia when Jerome Enser wrote his biography. After this Wigger exercised his pupil in the art of reading and that of composing verses, taking care to remove from his way everything offensive to piety or modesty. Bennon had a natural gift of versification, and soon learnt to write little hymns and poems by way of amusement. His progress and his boyish verses endeared him to his masters, and indeed, adds Jerome, “he was beloved by God and man.” None showed him more affection than St. Bernward, who was now overwhelmed with the infirmities of old age, though his mind was as bright and active as ever. During the last five years of his life he was entirely confined to his bed, and all this time little Bennon proved his chief solace. Sometimes he read aloud to his beloved father. Sometimes he made verses, or held disputations to entertain him; never would he leave his side, discharging for him all the offices of which his youth was capable. When at last death drew near, Bernward called the child to him together with his master Wigger, and addressed to him a touching exhortation. “If by reason of thy tender age,” he said, “thou canst not thyself be wise, promise me never to depart from the side of thy preceptor that he may be wise for thee, and that so thou mayest be preserved from the corruptions of the world whilst thy heart is yet soft and tender. Yea, if thou lovest me, love and obey him in all things, as holding the place of thy father.” Then he kissed the child’s little hand, and placed it in that of Wigger, and soon after departed this life, rich in good works, and secure of a heavenly reward.

The sorrow of Bennon was too great for words. He wept without ceasing, and pined away in his grief, till at last Wigger had to mingle his consolations with timely reprehension. His words in some degree restored his pupil to peace, but so deep an impression had been made on his heart of the nothingness of a world which sooner or later deprives us of all we most love, that he resolved to have nothing more to do with it, and to devote his life to God in the monastery. He never forgot his good father Bernward, and the first composition which he wrote after the death of the bishop was a poetical epitaph which his biographer inserts, and which is not a favourable specimen of his genius. Jerome probably felt that it was open to criticism, which he judiciously forestalls. “The verses,” he says, “show that if not ignorant of the metrical art, he did not affect a flowery style, but was content with plain and simple language. But if some, having delicate ears, should be disposed to turn up their noses at the line,”

“Quem Deus Emmanuel diligat, et Michael.”

“I would remind them of the singular devotion which the Blessed Bernward bore to St. Michael whence it will appear that this line did not escape our Bennon unwarily. They who are moved by the Spirit of God care not much for the outside shell of words, and prefer a good life to a good style of writing.” He adds, “the scholastic discipline of Hildesheim was at this time extremely severe. It was reckoned a great fault not merely to be absent from choir or refectory, but even to come late. The scholars each day had to bring their Scripture to the dean, and rehearse their Psalms. And the rod was freely used.” Bennon being kept under this strict discipline, passed safely through the slippery time of youth, and in his after-life proved himself not unworthy the extraordinary care bestowed on his education.

Many other great prelates of this period might be enumerated, distinguished either as the founders or the masters of schools. Of Notger of Liege we have already spoken. The school of Verdun was founded by one of his disciples, and boasted of possessing that wonder of the eleventh century, Master Herminfrid, who spoke and wrote with equal facility Latin, Greek, French, German, and Italian. Then there was St. Meinwerc, who like Bennon was a pupil of Hildesheim, where he studied along with his cousin St. Henry of Bavaria, and the prince, even after he became Emperor, remembered their schoolboy days together, and was fond of putting him in mind of them by sundry tricks that savoured of the grown-up schoolboy. Meinwerc was not much of a scholar himself, but when he became Bishop of Paderborn, he showed a laudable zeal in promoting good scholarship among his clergy. In fact, he was the founder of those famous schools of Paderborn which are described as flourishing in divine and human science, and which were perfected by his nephew and successor, Imadeus. The boys were all under strict cloistral discipline; there were professors of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and music; both the trivium and quadrivium were there taught, together with mathematics, physics, and astronomy. Horace, Virgil, and Statius were read by the students, whose ordinary recreation it was to make verses, while great attention was paid to the arts of writing and painting. Brucker treats this account as apocryphal, on the ground that Meinwerc was an ignoramus himself, and sometimes made blunders in reading Latin. The story of Bishop Meinwerc and his mules, the only one, be it remembered, on which this charge of ignorance is founded, together with the explanation of the same so amusingly given by Mr. Maitland in his “Dark Ages,” need not here be repeated. When emperors take to playing tricks, even the wisest of bishops may be snared into a blunder. But granting the fact that Meinwerc himself possessed no more scholarship than our own Wykeham, there seems no reason for supposing it therefore impossible that he should desire to rear a race of students more learned than himself. We know that he was a strict disciplinarian in all that regarded the right discharge of the sacred offices, and that he was wont to examine and burn all incorrect copies of books used at the altar, administering very sharp correction, in the shape of stripes, to careless and negligent priests.

However, the object of the present chapter being chiefly to show something of the interior of schools in the Dark Ages, we will pass over a great many names of founders and learned bishops, and take our way to Magdeburg, where Otho I. had erected a cathedral, and Archbishop Adalbert had founded a school. Here, in 973, the yet more famous St. Adalbert of Prague was sent by his parents for education. They were of the Bohemian nation, and had vowed to offer their son to God should he recover of a dangerous sickness. Before he left his father’s house he had learnt the Psalter, and under Otheric, the famous master then presiding over the school of Magdeburg, he made as much progress in sanctity as in learning. He had a habit of stealing away from the schoolroom in the midst of his studies to refresh his soul with a brief prayer in the church, after which he hastened back and was safe in his place again before the coming of the master. To conceal his acts of charity from the eyes of others, he chose the night hours for visiting the poor and dispensing his abundant alms. It often happened that when Otheric was out of the school, the boys would divert themselves with games more or less mischievous to relieve the weary hours of study. Adalbert seldom took part in these pastimes, neither would he share in those stealthy little feasts which they sometimes held in obscure corners, where they contrived to hide from Otheric’s quick eye the sweets and other dainties furnished them, as we must suppose, by some medieval tart-woman.[134] However, if Adalbert was proof against this last-named temptation, it appears he was not altogether superior to the love of play, and that when his master’s back was turned, he did occasionally throw aside his books and indulge in a game of ball. When such delinquencies came to the ears of Otheric, he did not spare the rod, and on these occasions, observes his biographer with cruel pleasantry, Adalbert was often known to speak in three languages. For it was a strict rule that the boys were always to talk Latin in the schoolroom, and never allow the ears of their master to catch the sound of a more barbarous dialect. When the rod was produced, therefore, Adalbert would begin by entreating indulgence in classic phraseology, but so soon as it was applied, he would call out for mercy in German, and finally in Sclavonic. After nine years’ study at Magdeburg, Adalbert returned to Bohemia, with the reputation of being specially well read in philosophy, and taking with him a useful library of books, which he had collected during his college career. After his consecration as Bishop of Prague, at the early age of twenty-seven, he is said never again to have been seen to smile. Twice the hard-heartedness of his people compelled him to abandon his diocese, and after his departure the second time, he travelled as missioner into the then heathen and barbarous provinces of Prussia, where he met with his martyrdom in the year 997. A Sclavonic hymn to the Blessed Virgin, formerly wont to be sung by the Poles when going to battle, is attributed to this saint.

Hitherto we have spoken only of the episcopal seminaries of Germany; those attached to the monasteries were, if possible, more celebrated. The great school of St. Gall’s attained its highest degree of splendour in this century. Something has already been said of the general character of the studies pursued there, but its succession of great masters deserves a more particular notice. Originally founded by Irish monks, the monastery owed no little of its renown to the teaching of Irish professors. In the year 840, Marx, an Irish bishop, travelling home from Rome in company with his nephew Moengall, stopped at St. Gall’s, and after a few days’ visit, both of them entreated the abbot to admit them into his community. Permission being granted, they dismissed their servants and horses, threw their money out of the window, and, keeping only their books and sacred vessels, vowed to spend the rest of their lives in the seclusion of the cloister. Moengall, to whom the monks gave the less barbarous name of Marcellus, was soon after appointed master of the interior or cloistral school, the exterior one being governed by the famous master, Iso. This last-named personage, whom Ekkehard styles a doctor magnificus, enjoyed such a reputation that all the monasteries of Gaul and Burgundy were eager to obtain his disciples, and it was commonly said that he possessed ways of his own for sharpening the dullest wits. At the precise time of which we speak, he had among his pupils Solomon, afterwards Bishop of Constance, and the three friends, Notker Balbulus, or the stammerer, Ratpert, and Tutilo, all of whom afterwards chose the monastic state, and passed, therefore, to the interior school, presided over by Marcellus.

The Irish scholar greatly improved the system of studies; he extended, if he did not first introduce, the study of Greek, and it is evident that his influence, and that of many of his countrymen, who filled subordinate professorships, may be traced in the character which distinguished the education of St. Gall’s from that of most of its contemporaries. It was larger and freer, and made more of the arts and sciences; indeed, so far as regards its studies, it had a better claim to the title of a university than any single institution which can be named as existing before the time of Philip Augustus. Marcellus was fortunate in his pupils, but the character of the three who were most prominent among them must be given in the words of Ekkehard. Though united in one heart, he says, they were of very different dispositions. Notker was weak, not in mind but in body; in speech, but not in spirit, a stammerer. Firm in spiritual things, patient in adversity, mild to all, yet a strict disciplinarian, and timorous at any sudden alarm, except of demons, whom he combated valiantly. He was very assiduous in reading, writing and composing, and was, in short, a vessel of the Holy Ghost. Very different was Tutilo; he was a good and useful man; as to his arms and all his limbs, such as Fabius teaches us to choose for a wrestler. He was eloquent, with a fine voice, skilful in carving, and an excellent painter. He was a musician, too, like his companions, and excelled everybody in all kinds of stringed and wind instruments, and taught their use to the sons of the nobility educated in the exterior school. He was, moreover, a very wise builder, powerful in reading and singing, cheerful whether in jest or earnest, and what is more, ever diligent in choir; in secret, given to devout tears, and skilful in the composition of songs and melodies. Ratpert was something between the two: from his youth he had been schoolmaster of the external school, where he succeeded Master Iso, and a kind, straightforward teacher he was, very strict in discipline, and so seldom given to go abroad that, he made one pair of shoes last a twelvemonth. He was very famous as a poet, and so fond of the ancients that he was known, even in chapter, to quote a verse from Virgil. He died some years before either of his friends; and forty of his former pupils, all of them priests or canons, stood around his deathbed, and promised each one to say thirty masses for the repose of his soul, a thing which gave him infinite joy and satisfaction.

Tutilo was a good classical scholar, and could preach both in Greek and Latin; but he was chiefly esteemed as an artist and a musician. He sang his own melodies to the harp, an instrument which the Irish monks had rendered very popular at St. Gall’s. His magnificent statuary in bronze and stone continued to decorate the abbey church till the time of its pillage by the soi-disant reformers, and all the French and German prelates were eager to obtain his works. With the permission of his abbot, therefore, he travelled far and wide, executing devout carvings and paintings, much to the dissatisfaction of Ratpert, who was wont to say that this gadding about the world was the destruction of a monk. It did not, however, prove so with Tutilo, who, to all his brilliant genius and gigantic muscular strength, united in a singular degree the grace of humility. Whenever he found that his artistic skill drew on him any notable amount of admiration, he generally found some excuse for departing from the place where he was at work, and his long journeys never lessened his devotion, or deprived him of his gift of holy tears. It was his custom to adorn his sculptures and pictures with pious verses, in order to draw the thoughts of those who beheld them from the work of the artist to the divine mystery which it represented. One of his most celebrated pieces of sculpture was an image of the Blessed Virgin, which he carved for the cathedral at Metz. Whilst engaged on this masterpiece, two pilgrims came up and begged an alms of him, and having received it, asked of a clerk who was standing by, who that beautiful lady was whom they saw at his side, holding his compasses, and directing him in his work. The clerk looked, and saw the same wondrous vision, and believed it to be Our Lady herself who had come in person to assist her client. But when the rumour of the thing spread abroad, Tutilo fled away, nor could he ever be persuaded to return to the city. His verses were highly esteemed, and some of his elegies are still preserved. Besides all this, he was great in mathematics and astronomy, and constructed an astrolabe which showed the course of the stars. For it must be remembered that scientific studies were highly prized at St. Gall’s, and that even geographers were to be found among the monks, such as Abbot Hartmot, who constructed a large map of the world, in those days a very rare and valuable curiosity.

Among these three famous scholars, we may select Notker as the most perfect specimen of the monastic type. Like his two friends, he was a poet and musician, and his brethren considered him a second Horace for the beauty of his songs and sequences. It was the reputation of learning enjoyed by St. Gall’s which had first attracted him thither, for indeed, says Ekkehard, “he was devoured with a love of grammar.” Like a true poet, he was keenly susceptible to the sights and sounds of nature, and loved to “study her beautifulness” in that enchanted region of lakes and mountains. The gentle melancholy inseparable from exalted genius, which in him was increased by his exceeding delicacy of organisation, found its expression in the wild and mystic melodies which he composed. The monotonous sound of a mill-wheel near the abbey suggested to him the music of the “Media Vita,” the words being written whilst looking into a deep gulf over which some labourers were constructing a bridge. This antiphon became very popular in Germany, and was every year sung at St. Gall’s during the Rogation Processions. But it was not as a poet or man of science that the Blessed Notker was best known to posterity; profoundly learned in human literature, he yet, says Ekkehard, applied more to the Psalter than to any other book. Even in his own lifetime he was revered as a saint. He was master of the interior and claustral school at the same time as Ratpert governed the exterior school, and kept up the same strict discipline, “stripes only excepted.” The gentleness of his disposition peeps out in the fact that one of the faults he was hardest on in his pupils was the habit of bird’s-nesting. He was always accessible; no hour of day or night was ever deemed unseasonable for a visit from any who brought a book in their hands. For the sake of maintaining regular observance, he once forbade his disciples to whisper to him in time of silence, but the abbot enjoined him under obedience to let them speak to him whenever they would. Ratpert relates a story of him, which shows the opinion of learning and sanctity in which he was held. The emperor Charles, having on one occasion come to the monastery on a visit, he brought in his suite a certain chaplain, whose pride appears to have taken offence at the consideration with which his master treated the Blessed Notker. When they were about to depart, therefore, seeing the man of God sitting, as was his custom, with his Psalter in his hand, and recognising him to be the same man who, on the previous day, had solved many hard questions proposed to him by Charles, he said to his companions, “There is he who is said to be the most learned man in the whole empire; but if you like, I will make this most excellent wiseacre a laughing-stock for you, for I will ask him a question which, with all his learning, he will not be able to answer.” Curious to see what he would do, and how Notker would deal with him, they agreed to his proposal, and all went together to salute the master, who courteously rose, and asked them what they desired. Then said the unhappy man of whom we spoke, “O most learned master, we are very well aware that there is nothing you do not know. We therefore desire you to tell us, if you can, what God is now doing in heaven?” “Yes,” replied Notker, “I can answer that question very well. He is doing what He always has done, and what He is shortly about to do to thee, He is exalting the humble, and humbling the proud.” The scoffer moved away, while the laugh was turned against him. Nevertheless, he made light of Notker’s words and the prediction of evil which they seemed to contain regarding himself. Presently the bell rang for the king’s departure, and the chaplain, mounting his horse, rode off with a great air in front of his master. But before he came to the gate of the city the steed fell, and the rider being thrown on his face, broke his leg. Abbot Hartmot hearing of this accident, desired Notker to visit the sick man, and pardon him, giving him his blessing. But the foolish chaplain protested that the misfortune had nothing to do with Notker’s prediction, and continued to speak of him with the greatest contempt. His leg, however, remained in a miserable state, until one night his friends besought Notker to come to him and aid him with his prayers. He complied willingly enough, and touching the leg, it was immediately restored; and by this lesson the chaplain learned to be more humble for the future.

Notker was the author of various works, amongst others of a German translation of the Psalter, which Vadianus speaks of in his treatise on the “Ancient Colleges of Germany,” and which he says is scarcely intelligible by reason of the excessive harshness of the old Tudesque dialect. He gives a translation of the “Creed,” and the “Our Father,” from Notker’s version, in which it is not difficult to trace the German idiom.[135] Notker’s German studies were yet more extensively carried on by his namesake, Notker Labeo, or the Thick-Lipped, who wrote many learned works in the vernacular, and was also a great classical scholar. He translated into German the works of Aristotle, Boëthius, and Marcian Capella, and some musical treatises, all which are still preserved. His translation of St. Gregory’s “Morals” is lost. He is commemorated in the chronicles of his House as “the kind and learned master,” and whilst he presided over the claustral school, he educated a great many profound scholars, among whom was Ekkehard junior, the author of the chronicle “De Casibus S. Galli,” and of the celebrated “Liber Benedictionum.” This Ekkehard, at the request of the empress, transcribed Notker’s “Paraphrase of the Psalms” for her use with his own hand, and corrected a certain poem which his predecessor Ekkehard I. had written when a schoolboy, and which was full of Tudesque barbarisms, such as the delicate ear of Ekkehard junior might not abide. He held that the barbarous idioms could not be translated into Latin without a great deal of painstaking. “Think in German,” he would say to his scholars, “and then be careful to render your thought into correct Latin.” There was yet a third Ekkehard whose memory is preserved in the annals of St. Gall under the surname of Palatinus. He was nephew to Ekkehard I., and presided over both the exterior and interior schools, and that with great success. He made no distinction between noble and plebeian scholars, but employed those who had less talent for learning in writing, painting, and other like arts. He was able to take down in shorthand the substance of anything he heard, and two discourses are still preserved thus noted by his hand. He was afterwards most unwillingly summoned to the Court of Otho I., who appointed him his chaplain and secretary, and tutor to his son Otho II. So venerated was this great man throughout Germany, that when he attended the council of Mentz in 976, six bishops rose up to salute their old master, all of them having been educated in the school of St. Gall. To this list of masters I must add the name of another Notker, who, from his strict observance of discipline, received the surname of “Piperis-granum,” or the Peppercorn, though his pungency of temper did not prevent his brethren from commemorating him in their obituary as the “Doctor benignissimus.” He was renowned as a physician, a painter, and a poet, and was also well skilled in music. Most of these great men find a place in a narrative which I will give here for the sake of its connection with the classical studies of St. Gall, and which is related by Ekkehard junior in his chronicle of the abbey.

Hedwiga, daughter to Duke Henry of Bavaria, was at that time the reigning Duchess of Swabia, having been left a widow by the death of her husband Duke Burkhard. She was a woman of wonderful beauty, but of so severe and imperious a temper as to be held in terror through all the surrounding provinces. In her youth she had been promised in marriage to the Greek prince, Constantine, who sent a cunning artist to take the portrait of his future bride, and at the same time to instruct her in Greek literature. But Hedwiga, not admiring the Greek alliance, made such terrible contortions of her fair nose and eyebrows whenever the painter applied himself to his task, that his efforts at a likeness proved fruitless, and the marriage was broken off in consequence. From the Greek painter, however, Hedwiga had acquired a very fair proportion of Greek scholarship, and on her marriage with Burkhard, she likewise applied herself to the study of Latin. She was a frequent visitor to the abbey of St. Gall, where her nephew, Burkhard, was then abbot, and in return for her splendid gifts, insisted on nothing less than that the abbot should make over to her, as tutor, the hapless Ekkehard Palatinus, who then filled the office of porter, and was known to be an excellent scholar in both languages. The abbot very unwillingly consented to her demand, and poor Ekkehard had to pay frequent visits to the castle of Dwellia, where, in spite of the beauty and talents of his fair disciple, her sharp temper and exasperating ways often made his office a hard one. Once, when out of humility he had begged that a certain canopy erected over his bed might be taken down, the wrathful duchess ordered the servant who had executed the order to be flogged, and would have cut off his head had it not been for the entreaties of the master. However, she had an open hand, though a somewhat heavy one, and bestowed liberal gifts on the monks of St. Gall, in the shape of embroidered copes and chasubles. But even in her bounty she showed the same wilful disposition, for having once given them a very rich dalmatic, cunningly worked in fine gold, and representing the espousals of Mercury and Philology, she took it away again in dudgeon at the refusal of Abbot Immo to let her have the antiphonary on which she had set her heart.

The favours which St. Gall’s received at her hands, however, and the frequent visits exchanged between the abbey and Dwellia roused the jealousy of Ruodman, abbot of the neighbouring monastery of Reichnau. He was a prying, gossiping sort of a personage, and set afloat so many mischievous and ill-natured tales as greatly to distress the monks. But this was not the worst. Not content with whispering his calumnies, Ruodman conceived the plan of stealing into the convent in the absence of Abbot Burkhard, to see if he could not spy out some matter which he might turn to the disadvantage of the inmates. On a certain day, therefore, mounting his horse he set out for St. Gall, and arriving at the monastery about nightfall, stole into the cloister and cautiously crept about spying this way and that to see what he could discover. Having satisfied his curiosity by an inspection of the cloister, he proceeded on tiptoe upstairs to the dormitory, but not so softly but that the watchful ear of Dean Ekkehard, the senior, caught the sound. Quietly providing himself with the abbot’s lantern, he followed the footsteps, and presently discovered the intruder. Ere long the whole community was down upon him, and I leave the reader to guess what were their sentiments when the abbot’s lantern displayed the features of the trembling Ruodman. The younger part of the monks were earnest in their entreaties that he might be chastised as his impertinence merited, and some of them ran forwith to provide themselves with rods. The unhappy Ruodman, in great anguish of soul, implored their mercy: “Spare me, good youths!” he exclaimed; “I am in your hands, deal with me gently, or at least wait to hear the judgment of your dean:” for at that moment Ekkehard senior was consulting with the elder fathers what was to be done in so strange an emergency. Meanwhile Notker, the Peppercorn, appeared on the scene, and his voice was for summary measures. “O wicked man!” he exclaimed, “dost thou go about as a lion, seeking whom thou mayest devour, and like another Satan, desiring to accuse thy brethren?” But he, cunningly taking advantage of the known mildness of the good dean, threw himself entirely on his mercy. “Most prudent father,” he exclaimed, “I have indeed done very wickedly; but lo! I repent, I ask pardon of everybody, and from henceforward I will utterly abstain from molesting any of you.” The kind-hearted monks were touched by his speedy repentance; some indeed regretted that he should be let off without receiving a severe lesson, but the voices of the seniors prevailed, and Ruodman was conducted by Ekkehard himself to the spot where his horse awaited him, and dismissed in peace and forgiveness.

My readers will probably be of opinion that he got off very easily. So was Abbot Burkhard when he heard of the affair, though he was far from being of a pugnacious temper; and so too was the mighty duchess. The next time that Ekkehard Palatinus appeared to give his lesson, she vented her wrath in very strong language; to be candid, she swore, “by the life of Hedwiga,” to have her revenge. But her anger for that day, at least, was dissipated by a pleasant incident which sets her character in a more amiable light. Ekkehard had brought with him one of his junior scholars, whose infantine beauty attracted the admiration of the duchess. “Wherefore have you brought this child?” she inquired of her tutor; who replied with his customary courtesy, “For the sake of the Greek, gracious lady, which I hope he will gather from your lips.” Then the boy, who was well trained in the versifying habits of the St. Gall’s scholars, spoke for himself in an extempore line of Latin:--

“Esse velim Græcus, cum sim vix, Dom’na, Latinus.”[136]

Charmed with his ready wit, she drew him to her, and kissing him kindly on the forehead made him sit on the footstool at her feet, requiring him to make her some more verses immediately. The child, confused with these unwonted caresses, looked first at one and then at the other of his teachers, and then stammered out,

“Non possum prorsus dignos componere versus, Nam nimis expavi Duce me libante suavi.”[137]

The severe heart of the duchess was fairly conquered, and making the little poet stand up before her, she then and there taught him to sing the antiphon, Maria et flumina, which she had herself translated out of Latin into Greek, and frequently afterwards had him at her castle and taught him how to make Greek verses. Moreover, she treated him with a tenderness that went nigh to spoiling, and gave him a Horace, and some other books which one wishes Ekkehard junior had named, and which were long preserved in the library. I will not pursue the story of Ruodman, which has been chiefly introduced for the sake of this graceful ending. He had great difficulty in making his peace with the abbot and the duchess, though he tried the mollifying gift to the former of a very handsome horse, which threw its rider the very first time he mounted it, so that in spite of all the skill displayed by Notker Piperis-granum, poor Abbot Burkhard went for some time after on crutches.

The school anecdotes of these times attest the familiar and paternal relations which existed between the scholars and their masters. The sports and enjoyments of the boys were amply provided for, and we find mention of running, wrestling, swimming, country walks, and fishing parties. Sometimes, as at Eton or Harrow, a visit from royalty procured an extra play-day, and on certain high festival days it is recorded that they were regaled with wine and a choicer fare at dinner. Hartmann, one of the learned disciples of Marcellus, retained such a liking for the school that even when he became abbot he spent half his time among the boys. And Solomon, the schoolfellow of Ratpert and Tutilo, who from abbot became Bishop of Constance, in like manner never forgot his old pupils, for he, too, had in his day held the ferule, being assistant to Iso in the external school. On one occasion, paying a visit to the abbey during the Christmas festival, on the day after Holy Innocents, before going away he peeped into the school, and finding the master absent walked into the midst of the boys to bid them all good-bye. They were about him in a minute; and the knowing ones among them lost no time in demanding their rights. There was a custom of long standing in the school that when any stranger entered the schoolroom, he might be captured as a prisoner, and not released till he had ransomed himself by a gift or favour. Undismayed by the rank of their present visitor, they surrounded him with daring familiarity, and declared him their captive. Good-naturedly entering into their sport, he suffered them to do what they liked with him; whereupon they led him to the master’s chair, and made him understand that he should not come out thence till he had promised them something handsome. “Very well,” he said, “as you have put me in the master’s chair, I shall exercise the master’s authority; prepare all of you to be flogged.” This was turning the tables on them with a vengeance, but the boys were quick enough to find a way of escape. “Be it so,” they replied, “only we claim to be suffered to redeem ourselves as we do with our master.” “And pray, how is that?” said the bishop. “By making verses, to be sure,” they replied; and he agreeing to their terms, they proceeded to spout little metrical compositions of their own, improvised for the occasion, two of which are even yet preserved. Charmed with their readiness, the bishop rose and kissed them all, one after the other. “Yea, as I live,” he said, “I will surely ransom myself nobly.” And so he did; for, calling the masters, he commanded that from that day forward and for ever, the boys should every year have three whole play-days after the Feast of Holy Innocents, and that on each of these days they should have meat dishes for dinner from the abbot’s kitchen, which custom continued uninterruptedly till the troubles occasioned by the Hungarian invasions.

This Abbot Solomon was a learned as well as a kind-hearted man. He kept up a literary correspondence with two brother bishops, Dado, of Verdun, and Waldram, of Strasburg, and most of the letters that passed between them were in verse. He was, moreover, well skilled in the arts, and no one succeeded so well as he in designing the capitals for illuminated manuscripts; nay, even after he became bishop, he did not think this occupation unworthy his episcopal hand. He always kept up the same affectionate intercourse with St. Gall’s and its scholars, and loved to encourage their studies and amuse himself with their innocent freedoms. Nor was it only by ecclesiastics drawn from the ranks of the community that these marks of favour and interest were bestowed. All the great German sovereigns understood the value of St. Gall’s, and frequently visited it in person. Otho the Great was accustomed to say that he would willingly break his imperial crown into fragments to preserve regular observance in that abbey. His sagacious mind discerned the vast benefits which must flow to his empire from the preservation in the midst of it of such a centre of civilisation. So very solicitous was he for the well-being of the monastery, that reports having reached him in 968 of a rumoured decay of discipline, he used his imperial authority after the fashion of Charlemagne, and appointed a commission of abbots and bishops to investigate the case. They gave a good report of the state of the monastery; but the emperor, not yet satisfied, dispatched Kebon, abbot of Lauresheim, and some others, to enforce the observance of the Rule to the very letter. The only irregularity which the commissioners could discover was, that the Sunday chant was in too high a key, and that the Friday fast was too rigorous. Otho did not fail to do justice to the monks, and paid them a visit in person to console them for the trouble he had given them by his royal commissioners. It is said that assisting with them in choir, he let his stick fall as if by accident, and was edified to see that not one head was turned to observe the cause of the disturbance.

Ekkehard relates another royal visit from King Conrad I., which took place in 912. The king being at Constance on Christmas-day, the bishop happened after dinner to speak of the processions which were celebrated at that season at St. Gall’s. “Why should we not go there to-morrow?” said the king; and his courtiers eagerly assenting, the next day very early they set out in boats across the lake, and so reached the abbey, where they spent three days. They specially admired the procession of the children; and to test their discipline, the king threw an apple among them, which none of them so much as looked at, whereat he greatly wondered. He dined with them in the refectory, and took pleasure in hearing the boys read in succession. As they came down from the desk, he sent some gold to be put into their mouths, which one of them spitting out again, Conrad declared he would make an excellent monk. His visit ended pleasantly to the children, for after causing himself to be enrolled as a conscript brother, he granted the scholars three extra play-days, and discharged the expenses of a great feast, furnishing the pepper, as he said, to season their beans. When Conrad II. and his empress paid a similar visit in 1033, they contrived to coax Abbot Dietbald to give them the German Psalter and the book of Job, which had been written out by Notker Labeo, a treasure worth more to the community than many such instalments of royal pepper.

I have lingered so long on the history of St. Gall’s as to leave little space for noticing the other monastic schools of the period. Most of those in Germany were remarkable for their cultivation of the arts, in which they far outstripped their Italian contemporaries. Godeschard, the successor of St. Bernward of Hildesheim, thoroughly shared his tastes, and carried on his designs. He even founded a school of painting in his episcopal palace which propagated the art through all the German dioceses. The subjects chosen were mostly scenes from the Old and New Testaments, being professedly intended for the instruction of the unlearned. Rio fixes the latter part of the tenth century as the date of the invention of glass painting, and the first fabrication of carpets and hangings. These new branches of industry were at once taken up by the monks, and at St. Florent de Saumur, in 985, a manufactory was established for weaving tapestries adorned with flowers and figures of animals. Sometimes the love of nature, so inherent in the monkish soul, induced them to decorate their cloisters with woodland scenes, in which the figures of men, dogs, horses, and deer, appear taking part in the chase. This was, of course, a departure from the principles on which the art of religious painting rested; and in the twelfth century these artistic caprices drew down severe reproofs from St. Bernard, who particularly disliked the representation of monsters, such as centaurs, and quadrupeds with a fish’s tail. He thought that they savoured of heathenism, and were unsuitable to the gravity of a religious house. Hugo, of St. Victor, objected even to the natural designs of sheep and oxen; “It may be well,” he said, “that monasteries should have paintings for the edification of those who are not delighted with Scriptural subtleties, but for monks themselves a horse or an ox is more useful in the fields than in a picture.” These landscape subjects were, however, exceptional; far more frequently the monastic paintings were of a character described in their annals as “solemn pictures.” They were pathetic representations of the Sacred Passion, accompanied with pious verses, not without a reference to the part of the convent where they were fixed. Thus, in the lavatory, the monks were bid not to wash their hands only, but their hearts also; in the refectory, to remember the gall and vinegar which Our Lord received on the Cross; and in the cloister, to think how the fashion of this world flees past us with noiseless step. The great abbey of St. Denis, in France, was covered all over with carvings and paintings, its very doors being sculptured with the mysteries of the Passion and Resurrection; while within the cloister was a whole series of paintings, historical and mystical, some of the latter exceedingly quaint, such as that which represented St. Paul turning a mill, and all the prophets of the Old Testament bringing a sack of corn to be ground in it; figuring thereby his gift in the interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Law.

One thing cannot be overlooked whilst studying the annals of these early monastic schools; it is the peculiar charm attaching to the character of the masters. Everywhere we see the same features of cheerful labour, and a certain tranquil activity. Turn to the newly converted land of Normandy, and hear how Oderic Vitalis describes the abbots and masters of his own monastery of St. Evroult. In one page he paints the good abbot Theodoric, a very skilful scribe, who managed to collect a fine library, partly by the diligent exercise of his own pen and the labours of his youths, and partly by “gentle solicitations.” Then there was Osbern, eloquent in speech, with a lively genius for sculpture, architecture, and painting. How we seem to behold him with “his stately stature, and his head, profusely covered with black hair sprinkled with grey!” He was always urging the novices to make progress in reading, singing, and writing; and loved with his own hands to make the writing implements and waxen tablets for the use of the boys. Or shall he tell us of that most promising scholar, William, who was placed in the abbey when nine years old, and was so diligent at his books, that the monks called him Gregory the Second? Not only did he make an excellent reader and chanter, and an exceedingly skilful copyist, but he was so devoted a student of the Scriptures, that he committed to his tenacious memory the Epistles of St. Paul, the Proverbs of Solomon, and many other books of either Testament.

Of another youth, who began his education at five, and who afterwards became schoolmaster, the same historian remarks, that his special gift lay in his powers of conversation. He had a knack of making everything interesting, and told the commonest things in a way that was quite delightful; and the monks were never weary of hearing him recite the narratives of Scripture, or the histories of learned men. It is not merely as men of learning that the character of these monastic students claims our admiration. It is the union of strength with tenderness, of scholarship with humility, which renders them so dear and venerable in our eyes. How seldom in these records are we disgusted with any of those traits of pedantry and self-seeking, the offsprings of a pride which had been pruned away by the knife of religious discipline? The monks were not mere scholars, and the tendency to literary conceit was effectually corrected by the daily exercises of community life. In the best days of monasticism, labour was cultivated hand in hand with letters. The same man who at one hour was engaged in writing a commentary on the Scriptures, producing Christian imitations of Horace or Virgil, or elaborating some of the exquisite master-pieces of cloistral art, found himself at another, employed on the meanest and humblest offices for the service of his brethren. The finest glass-painter of one medieval convent had to leave his paintings to take their chance in the furnace, while he was sent on the quest; and the Pope’s messengers who brought a cardinal’s hat to another learned friar, found him busy in the kitchen. This was the invariable régime which existed wherever the monastic institute preserved its discipline uncorrupted. Thus Odericus says of Roger de Warrene, son of the famous earl of Surrey, that entering the abbey of St. Evroult at the age of forty-six, he never plumed himself on his noble birth or varied accomplishments, but chose rather base employments, “cleaning the shoes of the brethren, washing their stockings, and cheerfully doing other services which appear mean to stupid or conceited persons.” Yet he was a very skilful artist; and when he had finished with the shoes and stockings, he gave the rest of his time to the labours of the scriptorium, where he ornamented a book of the Gospels with gold, silver, and precious stones. And the historian knows not how to say enough of his pleasant and musical voice, his constant attendance in choir, and his courteous manner with the other monks, “always abstemious towards himself, always generous to others, always alive for vigils, and incredibly modest.”[138] What a fragrant sweetness hangs about such notices as these, coming as they do in the midst of records of bloodshed and violence! Truly, we may say of the monastic schools, that they were “as beds of flowers by the dens of lions encompassed!” Huns and Saracens raged around them, but these gentle scholars fled to the mountains and the wilderness, and building their nests amid the rocks, while the world was flooded by new forms of barbarism, they wrote, they studied, they taught, and they prayed, and perpetuated that beautiful character which even Michelet has owned to have been in all ages the appanage of monks; sweetness, goodness of heart, and innocence. It remained wholly unaffected by the stormy turbulence of the world around them. They had a world of their own apart from and above it. All Europe might be in arms, whilst at St. Gall’s Tutilo was constructing his wonderful table, which showed all the courses of the stars, or Notker was composing those hymns and sequences which for centuries afterwards were to be incorporated into the Office of the Church. Whilst the barbarians were laying all things in ruins, they, heedless alike of fame or profit, were patiently laying the foundations of European civilisation. They were forming the languages of Schiller, of Bacon, and of Bossuet; they were creating arts which modern skill in vain endeavours to imitate; they were preserving the codices of ancient learning, and embalming the world, “lying in wickedness,” with the sweet odour of their manifold virtues. Surely, it was of such as these that the Wise Man spoke when he described that wisdom which God has given to His chosen ones. For they had received “the true knowledge of the things that are: the revolutions of the year, and the dispositions of the stars; the natures of living creatures, the reasonings of men, the diversities of plants, and the virtues of roots,”--and in them was “the spirit of understanding, holy, one, manifold, eloquent, active, undefiled, sweet, loving that which is good, beneficent, gentle, and kind.”[139]

But before closing our sketch of the tenth century, we have yet to speak of its greatest scholastic glory: one whose attainments have elicited not only the admiration of his contemporaries, but the respectful notice even of those writers least disposed to believe that anything good can come out of the Dark Ages. The scholars of whom we have hitherto spoken, if regarded as great men by their contemporaries, are spoken of by later critics with very general contempt. They do not even allow them to have been useful in their own poor way, as transcribers of volumes that they scarce knew how to read, for Mr. Berington considers that even as copyists, the monks were sadly idle. Two names, however, escape the otherwise universal oblivion to which such writers would willingly consign the scholars of the Dark Ages, they are Erigena Scotus and Gerbert. There is, I hope, no malice in supposing that the intellectual superiority of these men does not form their only claim to exemption from the obloquy so plentifully heaped on their fellow-students. The independent views of Erigena were well fitted to win him favour with all disciples of the Rationalistic school; whilst the supposed circumstance of Gerbert having acquired his knowledge of science in an Arabic, and not in a Christian, academy, to say nothing of his having been at one time involved in a dispute with the Holy See, may have had some share in procuring him a larger meed of indulgence. To admit his merit did not entail the necessity of giving any credit to the Christian teachers, for if Gerbert ended his days on the chair of St. Peter, it is at least a comforting reflection to our historians, that he began life in the Moorish schools of Granada.

This consolation, alas! they enjoy no longer. Modern researches, which have upset so many time-honoured traditions, have proved beyond the possibility of dispute that Gerbert owed nothing either to Moors or Pagans, that his education was exclusively Christian, and that whatever be his value as a man of science, the Christian schools of the Iron century must bear the credit of it. It is hard to dissipate fables so romantic as those which represent the young scholar Gerbert enabled, through the favour of a fair Moorish damsel, to gain possession of her wizard father’s conjuring-book, the mystic Abacus--and return to Europe with the unholy treasure, which was to infuse a gleam of Saracenic light into the dull intellects of Christendom. But the recent discovery of an authentic memoir of this famous monk, whose name casts so broad a splendour over his age, written by his own disciple, Richer, of Rheims, has cleared away every obscurity which hitherto hung over his history.[140]

Few particulars of his early life are known, save that he was the son of poor parents, that he was a native of Aurillac in Auvergne, and entered the monastery of that town when still a youth, about the end of the ninth century. He had already commenced his studies in grammar, when Borrel, count of Barcelona, came to the monastery on pilgrimage. The abbot, hearing from him of the excellent schools which then flourished in Spain, begged him to take back with him some of their young monks, and Gerbert accordingly accompanied the count into Spain, and was placed under Hatto, then Bishop of Vich, in Catalonia, where he formed an intimate friendship with Warin, abbot of Cusan, one of the most learned men of his time. From this account, the authenticity of which is beyond question, it appears that the popular notion which represents Gerbert as acquiring his learning among the Arabs is incorrect, and all the romantic stories connected with his acquisition of the mysterious Abacus vanish into thin air. Doubtless, the Christian schools of Spain profited not a little from their proximity to the Arabic universities, and the sciences of mathematics and astronomy were naturally those which were most successfully cultivated. Gerbert made extraordinary progress in both; and when he accompanied Borrel and Hatto on their next pilgrimage to Rome, Pope John XIII. was not long in discovering his talents. The liberty of the subject seems not to have been much understood in the tenth century, for when it became known that the young monk was an adept both in music and mathematics, neither of which sciences were then taught in Italy, the Pope lost no time in communicating the fact to the emperor Otho I., who conjured him not to permit his return to Spain. Gerbert was accordingly most affectionately kidnapped and sent without delay to Otho’s court, where being interrogated as to the extent of his knowledge, he replied that he was tolerably acquainted with mathematics, but was ignorant of logic, which science he greatly desired to study. It happened that at that time Gerard, archdeacon of Rheims, an excellent logician, had been sent as ambassador to Otho from Lothaire, king of France, and Gerbert at last won the emperor’s consent to his returning home with him, that he might teach mathematics and study logic in the schools of that city. Adalberon was then archbishop of Rheims, and he forthwith committed the studies of his cathedral school to the direction of the young professor. Richer gives a very precise account of the method he followed. He began with the “Dialectics of Aristotle,” going through and thoroughly explaining the propositions of each book. He particularly explained the Introduction of Porphyry; and passed on to the “Categories” and the “Topics” of the same author, as translated out of Greek into Latin by Cicero, and commented on in six books by the Consul Manlius. In the same way he lectured on the four books of Topical differences, two of Categorical syllogisms, one book of Divisions, and one of Definitions. And here the reader will not fail to observe that these logical lectures must have been the fruit of studies pursued not in Spain, but in France, for previous to Gerbert’s coming to Rheims, we have his own acknowledgment that he knew nothing of that science. After he had taken his scholars through this course, says Richer, he proceeded to initiate them into the art of rhetoric; and he set out on the principle, that in this branch of study a knowledge of the classical poets was essential. He therefore read and explained Virgil, Statius, and Terence; then the satirists, Juvenal, Persius, and Horace, and last of all, Lucan. After this, his pupils were exercised in disputation, which he taught with such art, that the art was never apparent; a thing, observes his biographer, which is held to be the perfection of oratory. Then he popularised the science of music;[141] and as to arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, he made these difficult studies easy and delightful. Richer devotes several pages to the description of the various instruments which he constructed, and by which he contrived to render the science of astronomy, as it were, sensible to the eyes of his scholars. A round wooden ball, with its poles oblique to the horizon, figured the world, the various astronomical and geographical phenomena being represented by other circles. In fact, from the minute description of the writer, we are obliged to conclude that Gerbert exhibited at his lectures two very passable specimens of the terrestrial and celestial globes. But the great boon, which he is commonly represented as bestowing on the European schools, was the introduction of that wonderful table, “in which nine ciphers represented all the numbers, and produced in their infinite combinations all multiplications and divisions.” This was the mystic Abacus, the foundation, no doubt, of our present system of numeration. It consisted of a tablet, on which three columns were marked out, sometimes in fixed lines, sometimes in sand sprinkled over its surface; and in these columns figures were arranged in units, tens and hundreds. The method in use for working out calculations, even with the assistance of this decimal system, as explained by Gerbert in several treatises, was, however, extremely intricate, though it was probably a vast improvement on the clumsy contrivances which had been resorted to by former scholars. How far, however, the Abacus is to be regarded as a new invention, appears more than doubtful. Its history has been made the subject of interesting modern researches, and the result seems to be that the system of numeration used and explained by Gerbert, contained nothing in it which had been unknown to Boëthius.[142] Nevertheless, he certainly seems to have elucidated and popularised the science of arithmetic, which from this epoch began to be more seriously studied.

It is not easy to convey any notion of the enthusiasm excited by Gerbert’s lectures, or the tide of scholars that flocked to him not only from every part of France, but from Germany, Italy, and the British Islands. Brucker is careful to repeat the old calumny, which represents the dull heads of his contemporaries as attributing his superior science to the effect of magic. “The knowledge of nature which Gerbert possessed,” he says, “so far surpassed that of his contemporaries, that they thought him possessed of magical powers; and Benno, a cardinal who owed him a grudge for his opposition to the See of Rome, invented a tale of his holding converse with the devil.” Alas for the accurate historian! this round assertion must go to keep company with that other from the same pen touching the trial of Polydore Vergil before the Inquisition. It was, doubtless, a temptation to represent the person who charged a man of genius with being a magician as one of the dull orthodox, moved to the malicious act by his zeal on behalf of the See of Rome, but the facts are exactly the contrary. Benno, the zealous cardinal who owed Gerbert a grudge for his opposition to the Pope, happened himself to be a schismatic and a partisan of the anti-pope; and instead of being a contemporary of Gerbert’s, he lived a century later, in the time of St. Gregory VII., and introduced this precious story in a writing, the express purpose of which was to defame the character of the Roman pontiffs.[143] In justice to Gerbert it must be added, that not only was he innocent of sorcery, but that he was altogether above all petty jealousy and self-seeking, and desired nothing so ardently as to communicate his discoveries to as many as wished to receive them. Not content with instructing his own scholars, he corresponded with the scholastics of Tours, Sens, Fleury, and Aurillac, and spared no pains or expense in the collection of his library. In this work he was generously assisted by his friends, scattered over the length and breadth of Europe. It is in his “Epistles” that we catch a glimpse of that prodigious activity of mind which took cognisance of all subjects, and never rested till it had sounded all to the depth. In one letter, we find him begging the loan of a Cæsar from his archbishop, and offering in exchange eight volumes of Boëthius and some excellent geometrical figures. In another, he solicits the monks of Aurillac to furnish him with a Spanish treatise on the arts of multiplication and division, and directs them in the work of correcting a manuscript of Pliny. Then, again, we find him writing on the medical science, to which he and his disciples directed a good deal of attention, and in which they followed the Greek masters. In fact, it was the diversified character of his acquirements that made Gerbert the wonder of the world in the eyes of his contemporaries. He knew all things, they said, and all things equally well. If this were an exaggeration, it is certain that he possessed the rare power of being able to direct his attention to a very wide range of studies, though natural philosophy was certainly his special attraction.

Whilst still presiding over his school, Gerbert produced several treatises on astronomy, mathematics, and geometry; on the formation of the astrolabe, the quadrant, and the sphere, as well as on rhetoric and logic. The monk Ditmar tells us that when at Magdeburg with his old pupil, Otho III., he made a clock, regulating it according to the movement of the polar star, which he observed through a kind of tube. Another writer speaks of certain hydraulic organs which he constructed, in which the wind and necessary movements were introduced by means of boiling water: and these obscure notices seem to indicate that wheeled clocks, the telescope, and the power of steam, were known by Gerbert fully three centuries before what has been considered their earliest discovery by our own Roger Bacon. Gerbert did not teach at Rheims alone. Crossing the Alps, he passed through most of the towns of Northern Italy, then subject to his great patron, Otho I. In 970 he also visited Rome in company with the bishop Adalberon, and at Pavia met the emperor, together with the celebrated Saxon, Otheric, whom we have seen filling the office of scholasticus in the episcopal school of Magdeburg. Otheric had up to that time enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest scholar of his age, and perhaps regarded himself somewhat in the light of a literary dictator. In the course of the previous year he had felt no little uneasiness at the daily increasing renown of the French professor, and had despatched one of his own Saxon pupils to Rheims to bring him an exact account of Gerbert’s method of dividing the sciences. The Saxon made an unsatisfactory report. It was Gerbert’s custom to represent physics and mathematics as equal and independent sciences. But Otheric’s disciple, whose head was none of the clearest, made him teach that physics were subordinate to mathematics, as the species to the genus. On this, Otheric decided that he knew nothing of philosophy, and proceeding to the court of the emperor, Otho I., he spoke to that effect before an assembly of learned men. Otho, who was himself passionately fond of these studies, was not satisfied, and resolved to sift the matter to the bottom. He therefore seized the occasion of Gerbert’s presence at Pavia to inaugurate a grand scientific tournament, and invited all the savants of his empire to witness the dispute between the first scholar of France and the first scholar of Germany. He himself presided at the conference, and opened it with a brief allocution of his own, in which he very clearly explained the question in dispute. Then Otheric began his attack, first in words, and then in writing. The conference lasted the whole day, and Gerbert, who cited the authorities of Plato, Porphyry, and Boëthius, was still speaking in reply when the emperor gave the signal for the conclusion of the debate. Gerbert’s fame never appeared more illustrious, and he returned to France loaded with magnificent presents.

His after career was full of troubles; but in 990 the influence of his imperial pupil, Otho III., obtained his election to the see of Ravenna, and nine years later to the Apostolic chair. It was a great day in the annals of learning when the philosopher Gerbert became Pope Sylvester II., and one which brought no small satisfaction to the hearts of his pupils. Half the prelates and princes of Europe gloried in having called him master, and most of them did him credit. Among them were our own St. Ethelwold; Fulbert of Chartres, the oracle of his own time; and Robert, king of France, the son of Hugh Capet, and the most religious and learned sovereign of the age. King Robert was well skilled in all the humane sciences; but the love of music, which he had imbibed from his master, amounted to a passion. Even after his accession to the throne, he devoted no small part of his time to composing anthems, and motetts, to the indignation of his queen, Constance, who asked him once, if he must compose, to compose something upon her. Robert sat down and produced the hymn O Constantia martyrum! and the queen, who fortunately understood nothing of Latin, was quite satisfied, imagining that her own perfections formed the subject of the poem. He often assisted in the choir of St. Denis, dressed in his royal robes, singing with the monks and directing the chant. Robert is said by his biographer always to have had a book in his hand, and to have carried the Psalter in his bosom. He once visited Rome, and during the Pope’s mass laid on the altar, as his offering, a folded packet, which from its great size and weight the attendants concluded to be gold. On opening it, however, they found it to be only a fair copy of his antiphon, Cornelius Centurio. Admiring the writing and the musical notes, as well as the genius and piety of the author, the Pope desired that thenceforward this antiphon should always be sung on the festival of St. Peter, of whose Office it still continues to form a part.

Not less learned was Gerbert’s other royal pupil, Otho of Germany, surnamed “the Wonder of the World,” whose early death prevented his making as much use of his advantages of education as was confidently expected by all who knew the singular excellence to which he had attained. Besides these illustrious disciples, Gerbert had others of every rank and calling. The great St. Ethelwold is said by many writers to have studied under him for a time, and the rapid development in England and elsewhere of mathematical studies at this period must certainly be assigned to the impulse given them by the teaching of the master of Rheims. His genius was emphatically scientific, and this is the character which we find impressed on the learning of most of his followers. Thus Richer, the monk from whose history most of the above particulars have been taken, was more particularly skilled in the science of medicine. As an instance of the solicitude which monks of the tenth century displayed in the pursuit of knowledge, I may refer to the very curious account which he gives us of the perilous journey he once undertook, for the purpose of perusing a single book on his favourite science. “It was in the year 951,” says Richer, “when my mind, being much and deeply engaged in the study of literature, I had long entertained an ardent desire of having the opportunity of learning the logic of Hippocrates of Cos. One day I chanced to meet in the city of Rheims a horseman coming from Chartres. Asking him who he was, and wherefore he had come hither, he replied that he was a messenger from Heribrand, a clerk of Chartres, and that he wished to speak to one Richer, a monk of St. Rémi. As soon as I heard my friend’s name, and the subject of his message, I told the stranger that I was the person he was in quest of; whereupon, having embraced one another, he gave me a letter, which I found was an invitation to come to Chartres and peruse the ‘Aphorisms.’ I was much rejoiced at this; wherefore, taking a servant with me, I determined on accompanying the horseman back to Chartres. The only assistance I received from my abbot was a loan of one of the draft horses. Without money, or even a change of clothes, and destitute of every necessary for the journey, I set out and reached Orbais, where I was not only delighted with the conversation of the abbot, but greatly assisted by his noble gifts, so that next day I was able to get on as far as Meaux. On entering the woods, however, with my two companions, we were involved in several disasters; for, deceived by its wild and broken openings, on coming to a place where two ways met, we took the wrong turning, and were led six leagues out of our road.

“By the time we passed Château Thierry my cart-horse, which had at first seemed a sort of Bucephalus, began to lag on the road as lazily as if he had been a donkey. The sun had been sinking for some time, and the rain was falling fast. At this moment the horse, worn out with fatigue, sank under the lad who was riding him, and the poor beast expired, as though struck by lightning. This happened when we were about six miles from the city of Meaux. My agitation and anxiety at this disaster may be well conceived; the boy, quite inexperienced in such emergencies, lay helpless on the road, by the side of the dead horse. There lay the luggage also, with no one to carry it; the rain was pouring down from a dark and cloudy sky, and the sun was just on the horizon. By God’s goodness a prudent thought, however, suggested itself to my mind. I left the boy on the road with the baggage, telling him what he ought to say if questioned by travellers, urging him not to yield to any inclination to sleep. Then, accompanied by the horseman from Chartres, I set out for Meaux. There was scarcely light to see the bridge; and on examining it, a new misfortune presented itself. It was so broken, and had such enormous holes in it, that even by day it could hardly have been crossed in safety. The Chartres horseman, however, here showed himself a ready man. After vainly searching for a boat, he returned to the bridge, and, with the help of God, succeeded in getting the horses over it. In some places he covered the huge holes with his shield, so as to support the feet of the animals; in others he put the separated planks close together, and what with stooping, and what with holding himself erect, and now keeping the beasts together, and now separating from them, he contrived to get over in safety. It was a dreadful night, and all around was buried in darkness when I reached the church of St. Faro, where I was hospitably received by the monks, and refreshed with kind words and abundance of food. The horseman was at once sent back with other steeds, again passed the dangerous bridge, and proceeded to search for the poor boy, whom we had left on the road. It was the second watch of the night when he came up with him. He at once brought him to the city, but fearful of attempting a third time to cross the bridge they determined on passing the night in a poor cabin, and at break of day appeared at the gates of the monastery, half dead with hunger. Food was immediately given them, and corn and straw supplied to the horses.

“Leaving the dismounted boy with Abbot Augustin (of St. Faro), I hastened on to Chartres with the horseman, whence I sent back horses, who brought the lad back from Meaux. When he was come, and my mind was thus set at rest, I sat down at once to the earnest study of the ‘Aphorisms’ of Hippocrates, together with Master Heribrand, a man as much distinguished for his politeness as for his great learning. But as in these ‘Aphorisms’ I only learnt the premonitory symptoms of diseases, and as this knowledge did not satisfy me, I desired also to study another book showing the concordance between Hippocrates, Galen, and Suranus. This also I obtained from Heribrand, who was perfectly well skilled in the science to which he devoted his time. Indeed, there was nothing in medicine, pharmacy, botany, or surgery unknown to him.” Richer’s appreciation of his friend’s learning may possibly have been exaggerated; but who can fail to admire his perseverance in overcoming such difficulties as a journey then presented, with the simple view of increasing his stock of scientific knowledge by the perusal of one precious book?

Allusion has been made to the improvements introduced by Gerbert in the study of music. A little later a more important addition was made to the same science by Guy, a monk of Pomposa, commonly called Guy of Arezzo, from the city which gave him birth. He had been educated from the age of eight years in the monastery of Pomposa; and being well skilled in music, was employed in teaching the ecclesiastical chant to the children brought up in the house. But the immense difficulties of his task induced him to consider whether some method of facilitating the notation of music might not be devised. As yet, the sounds of the musical scale were only represented by the first seven letters of the alphabet, or by notes, as was the custom in the abbeys of Corby and St. Gall, which showed indeed the relative length and value of each tone, but did not render their succession sensible to the eye. After seeking for a long time for some easy and precise system, Guy one day recognised in the chant to which the hymn of St. John Baptist was ordinarily sung, an ascending diatonic scale, in which the first syllable of each line occupied one note: Ut queant laxis--Resonare fibris--Mira gestorum--Famuli tuorum,--Solve polluti--Labii reatum,--Sancte Ioannes. He applied himself to teach this chant to his pupils, and to render them familiar with the diatonic succession of the syllables, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la. Next, he arranged the notes on lines and intervals, and thus produced the musical staff with its proper clefs. By means of these improvements he found himself able, in a few months, to teach a child as much as a man, under the ancient system, would have had difficulty in learning in the course of many years. However, such a storm of jealousy arose against him on the score of his discovery, that he found himself obliged to leave the monastery; and accordingly, in 1024, he travelled to Rome, where Pope John XIX. warmly received both him and his newly-invented gamut.

“The Pope,” he says, “having received me kindly, conversed with me for a long time, asking many questions, and turning over the leaves of my antiphonarium, seemed to think it a sort of prodigy. He conned its rules, and would not rise from his seat till he had tried to learn a verse which he had never yet heard sung, and to his great astonishment found himself able to do it.” Guy was not allowed to leave Rome till he had promised to return the next winter, and give a regular course of musical instructions to the Pope and his clergy. The sunshine of Papal favour soon dissipated the storm, but the humble religious was no way puffed up by his triumph. He only rejoiced at being able to spread the knowledge of a discovery which would be useful to others. “The designs of Providence,” he writes, “are obscure, and falsehood is sometimes suffered to oppress the truth; God so ordering it lest, puffed up with self-confidence, we should suffer loss. For then only is what we do good and useful when we refer all we do to Him who made us. God inspiring me with the knowledge, I have made it known to as many as I could, to the end that if I, and those who have gone before me, have learnt the Cantus with extreme difficulty, those who come after me, doing so with greater facility, may pray for me and my fellow-labourers, that we may obtain eternal life and the remission of our sins.”

At the very time when Gerbert was astonishing the world by the marvels of his genius, a simple nun of Gandersheim had attained a degree of literary excellence, which is the more remarkable as it was exclusively acquired within the enclosure of her own convent. The foundation of this convent had taken place at the same time with that of New Corby, and its object had been specially to provide for the education of the Saxon ladies. Peculiar attention was therefore directed to maintaining its school in a due state of efficiency, and learned traditions were always kept up among the nuns. Having fallen into decay in the ninth century, it was restored by Count Lindolph, whose daughter, Hathmuda, became abbess in 856. Her life has been left, written by her brother Agius, or Egbert. Hathmuda was a great lover of letters. “From a child,” says her brother, “she cared nothing at all for fine clothes, head-dresses, ribbons, combs, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, handkerchiefs, girdles, and scents, the possession and wearing of which stirs up the ambition of so many women.” She preferred to pray and to study, and “the lessons to which others had to be forced by stripes she willingly applied herself to, giving herself up to them with indefatigable ardour.” When she became abbess she was most desirous to keep up those sacred studies for which the monastery had ever been so famous. “She insisted on the study of the Scriptures, and those who applied themselves to reading she greatly loved, but did not admit to equal familiarity such as herein showed themselves to be slothful.” Her cares were amply rewarded, and the school of Gandersheim produced a succession of excellent teachers, among whom was Hroswitha, the fourth abbess, who died in 906, and was the authoress of a treatise on logic, much esteemed among the learned of her own time.[144]

It is of a namesake of this fair logician that we are now about to speak, Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, as she is called. She was born in the year 940, and was brought up in the convent school, where she studied Greek and Latin, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the other liberal arts. We are often told that expressions like these, however magnificent they look on paper, would dwindle into insignificance could we test their value by the real amount of learning which they represent. With regard to Hroswitha, however, the true nature of her erudition is not left to conjecture. She has left behind her writings which have attracted the favourable notice even of modern critics, who agree in declaring that the Latin poems of this obscure nun of the tenth century are marvels of classical taste and poetic genius. Besides a panegyric on the three Othos, she wrote eight poems on various religious subjects, some of them being taken from the life of our Lord, and some from the legends of the saints; and seven prose dramas in the style of Terence, being tales of holy women, and having for their subject the praise of chastity. While praising the delicacy of the sentiments and the correctness of the style, her critics observe that these dramas afford incidental evidence of her perfect familiarity with the sciences of music, astronomy, and dialectics, as then taught in the schools. In one of them she introduces a sort of apology for her own learning, which has a certain feminine grace about it, more charming than all her logic. It occurs in the drama of “Paphnutius,” where, after a philosophic discussion on the art of music, one of the disciples of the saint is made to ask him:

“Whence do you derive all this knowledge?” and he replies, “It is but a little drop that I have gathered from the ever-flowing sources of science; and now I desire to share it with you.”

Dis. “Thanks to your goodness; nevertheless that admonition of the apostle terrifies me: ‘God hath chosen the foolish of this world to confound the wise.’”

Paph. “Foolish and wise will alike be confounded before God, if they do what is evil.”

Dis. “That cannot be denied.”

Paph. “How, I pray you, can the arts and sciences be better employed than in the praise of Him who has created all things that we can know, and who furnishes us at once both with the matter and the instruments of our knowledge?”

Dis. “Certainly, that is the best way to use science.”

Paph. “It is; for the more we know of the admirable laws by which God regulates the weight, number, and proportion of all things, the more our hearts will burn with love of Him.”

Where shall we find more admirable teaching than this on the vexed question of the danger of intellectual pursuits? Dangerous only, as Hroswitha justly argues, when we cease to refer them to Him, who, as she so beautifully expresses it, “furnishes us at once with the matter and the instruments of our knowledge;” but good, holy, and greatly to be desired, when, by supplying us with a more perfect knowledge of Him, they fill our hearts with His love. That this was her own case, we may gather from the modest preface which heads her first collection of poems.

“Here,” she says, “is a little book, simple in style, though it has cost the writer no small trouble and application. I offer it to the criticism of those kind judges who are disposed rather to put an author right than to find fault with him. For I willingly acknowledge that it contains many errors as well against the rules of composition as those of prosody; but methinks one who frankly confesses her defects, merits to meet with a ready pardon and a friendly correction. If it be thought amiss that I have taken some of my subjects from books, considered by some to be apocryphal, I must explain that this is not the result of presumption but of ignorance, for when I began my work I was not aware that they were held as of doubtful authority. As soon as I learned that this was the case, I ceased to use them. For the rest I claim indulgence, in proportion as I feel a want of confidence in myself. Deprived of most resources of study, and still young, I have been forced to work in my rustic solitude far from the help of the learned. It has been alone and unaided that I have produced my little work, by dint of repeated compositions and corrections. The main substance I have gathered from the Holy Scriptures, which were taught me in this convent of Gandersheim, first by the wise and blessed mistress, Richardis, and the religious who succeeded her in her office: and then by the excellent Gerberga, of royal birth, under whose government I am now living. Younger than me in years, but older in knowledge, she deigned to form my mind by the reading of good authors, in which she had also been instructed by learned mistresses. Although the art of making verses is difficult, specially for a woman, I have ventured, trusting in the Divine aid, to treat the subjects of this book in heroic verse. My only object in this labour has been to prevent the feeble talent committed to my keeping from growing rusty. And I desired by the hammer of devotion to compel it to give forth some sweet sounds to the praise of God. Wherefore, dear reader, if thou thinkest according to God, thou wilt know how to supply what is wanting in this book; and if thou findest anything good in it, refer it to God only, and attribute nothing to me but the faults; without, however, reproaching me for them too severely, but excusing them with that indulgence which a frank avowal deserves.”

Hroswitha’s humility had to stand the test of flattery from the literary world, and it stood it well. There are phrases scattered through her writings which evince how accurately she had gauged the shallowness of intellectual vanity, and how little hold it had upon her heart. “Often enough when curiosity is satisfied,” she writes, “we find nothing but sadness.” In the epistle prefixed to her prose dramas, she acknowledges the approbation which she has received from the learned with an unaffected simplicity. “I cannot sufficiently wonder,” she says, “that you who are so well versed in philosophy should judge the humble work of a simple woman worthy of your commendation. But when in your charity you congratulate me, it is the Dispenser of that grace which works in me that you praise, believing as you do that the little knowledge I possess is superior to the weakness of my sex. Hitherto, I have hardly ventured to show my rustic little productions to any one, but reassured by your opinion, I shall now feel more confidence in writing, if God give me the power. Yet I feel myself drawn by the two opposite sentiments of joy and fear. I rejoice from my heart to see God and His grace praised in me, but I fear lest men should think me greater than I am. I do not mean to deny that, aided by Divine grace, I have attained to a certain knowledge of the arts, for I am a creature capable of instruction as others are; but I confess that left to my own strength I should know nothing.”

These extracts require no comment. They prove something more than the solid nature of the studies pursued in the convent school of Gandersheim. How skilfully had the teachers of Hroswitha contrived, whilst directing her intellectual labours, to preserve her womanly modesty, her almost childish naïveté, and her deep religious humility! Better things were included in their scheme of education than a mere knowledge of the liberal arts; the wisdom “whose beginning is the desire of discipline,” and into which “no defiled thing cometh.” Under their training the genius of the young poetess was guarded by the cloak of humility from the cunning moth of pride; and whilst we are amazed at her learned attainments, her modesty and candour at the same time conquer our hearts.

And with this agreeable picture we will close our present chapter, trusting that the nun of Gandersheim may be allowed to have shed something of beauty and fragrance over the rugged annals of the Iron Age.[145]

CHAPTER XI.

THE SCHOOLS OF BEC.

A.D. 1000 TO 1135.

With the close of the tenth century we may be said to have taken our last farewell of the Dark Ages. Already on the horizon we have seen the dawn of a period of greater intellectual light, which ere long is to usher in the blaze of a splendid era. And yet it must be owned, it is with something of regret that we take our leave of those remote centuries, and with the wish of the poet in our hearts that “their good darkness were our light.” The approaching sunrise puts out the quiet stars; and in the bustle of intellectual life into which we are about to enter, our heart misgives us lest something of the charm which has hitherto hung round the history of the Christian Schools may perchance be lost. Already a new element has appeared in our studies, more easily felt than described. The career of Gerbert, however brilliant, does not leave on the mind the same impression as that of Bede; we feel a predominance of the scholastic, over the religious character; and we think of him less as a monk than as a mathematician. This element will now be far more frequently met with, and what is worse, it will in many cases be found accompanied by the ugly shapes of pride, love of novelty, and self-interest, too often finding their final result in heresy and open unbelief. The design of these pages is not to paint a series of fancy pictures, but to study past ages so as to establish in our mind a true standard of Christian Scholarship; to distinguish the precious from the vile, the false lights of the intellect from those kindled at the altar fire; and it will therefore be necessary to put forth some of these unhappy examples in a broad and honest daylight, that we may better see what those principles are, the forgetfulness of which renders intellectual culture dangerous to faith.

Hitherto we have heard but little of the perils of the intellect. Learning, in the eyes of the old monastics, was the twin sister of prayer. They would almost as soon have thought of apprehending danger in their Psalter as in their grammar, and indeed the end for which they used them both was substantially the same. Among the characters named in the foregoing pages, how few appear disfigured with the stains of vanity or self-interest! Scotus Erigena indeed, is a notable example of the self-sufficient rationalist, and Otheric of Magdeburg is said to have died of disappointment at not obtaining a bishopric; but such instances are rare exceptions; and though others doubtless existed, they do not appear on the surface of history, and give no character to the scholastic profession. As a class, the pedagogues of the Dark Ages were the most disinterested of men. Poverty was recognised, not as the accident of a student’s life, but as one of its most honourable features, and it was reckoned as something monstrous and disgraceful for a man to sell his learning for gold. This, of course, arose from the religious light in which learned pursuits were regarded; they were spiritual wares, the sale of which was held almost as simoniacal as the sale of a benefice. If instances occasionally occur of any such sordid practices, they are named by historians with a kind of horror; and Launoy quotes the reproof addressed by the abbot Baldric to a certain scholar of Angers, who had gone over to England to teach grammar for the sake of “cursed gold,” and whose sudden death was believed by his acquaintances to have been sent in just punishment of his sin. This tradition survived, in theory at least, for many centuries, and in 1362 the Professors of Paris University are found pleading their inability to pay the expenses of a lawsuit then pending, “it being their profession as scholars to have no wealth.” In Spain there was a proverb which described a scholar as rich in letters, and ragged in everything else, and Chaucer only produced the current type of a student when he represented his Clerk of Oxenford as “full hollow and threadbare.”

Now, however, a change passes over the picture; scholasticism is about to appear less as a vocation than as a profession, and a profession sought with the view of earning for him who embraces it, honour at least, and perhaps also the more solid advantages of worldly fortune and rich preferment. Some writers have supposed that the promotion of Gerbert to the Papal dignity was one cause of this change, leading others to hope that a brilliant scholastic career might chance to prove the high road to wealth and dignities. Rohrbacher recognises in the rising spirit of the age distinct traces of an infernal agency. “Hitherto,” he says, “heresy had made no great progress in the West. But in the eleventh century the Spirit of Darkness, seeing its empire confirmed in the East by the great apostacy of Mahomet and the formal schism of the Greeks, seems to have transferred the war from the East to the West. From that epoch down to our own time, the great revolt against God and His Church has never ceased to appear in one form or another. Its two principal sources have been Pride and Luxury, the corruption of the intellect, and the corruption of the heart. Hence, in princes, the attempt to usurp authority over the Church: hence, among men of learning, the mania for innovation, together with that superficial vanity which urged Berengarius to his fall; which Luther and Calvin erected into a principle under the name of Reform, and to which Voltaire and Rousseau put the key-stone under the title of Philosophy.”[146] Fleury also supports this view, and speaking of the swarm of heresies that sprang up suddenly in the eleventh century, sees in the fact a fulfilment of the prophecy in the Apocalypse that Satan should be loosed after being bound for a thousand years. The whole of Christendom was possessed at the time with a vague foreboding that an era had opened big with melancholy change, and this presentiment of evil naturally enough took the shape among the vulgar, of the belief that the world was about to come to an end.

It is at this precise epoch that we first begin to meet with teachers who were neither monks nor clerics. Free from the restraints of cloisteral discipline, these new scholastics were professors of grammar and rhetoric, and they were nothing more. The saintly rule of a Benedict or a Columbanus had not moulded them to habits of humility and obedience; they taught, and they made profit by their teaching; and he who taught the most attractive novelty drew most pupils, and made his teaching answer the best. It was a question in which worldly lucre, rather than the interests of souls, was at stake, and to be successful it became necessary for the teacher to adapt himself to the tastes and humours of his audience. Hence arose a race of pedants who had nothing in common with the elder scholastics, and who bore a peculiar stamp of self-sufficiency and arrogance, which impresses them all with a sort of family likeness, and carries back one’s thoughts to the sophists of the pagan schools.

The first notice which we find of a scholastic who was neither monk nor canon, occurs about the year 1024, when Rodolphus Glaber, a monk of Cluny, mentions in his chronicle a certain Witgard, a grammarian by profession, who was so bewitched by the study of the Latin poets, that he fancied he beheld in a vision Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal, who thanked him for the affection he bore them, and promised him immortality. The poor man’s head was so turned with this idea, that he immediately began to teach that whatever was contained in the poets, was to be believed de fide, and strange to say, not a few were found to listen to him. He was cited before the archbishop of Ravenna, and put to silence, after creating a good deal of disturbance. I merely name him here as an indication of the new class of men into whose hands the work of teaching was beginning to fall; a far more important illustration of the subject is to be found in the history of Berengarius. Before speaking of him, however, something must be said of his master, Fulbert, the pupil of Gerbert, and the restorer of the cathedral school of Chartres. Though reckoned among French worthies, he seems to have been a Roman by birth, and received his early education in a very humble school. However, he afterwards studied under Gerbert, and under his direction the school of Chartres rose to such an eminence, that it rivalled that of Rheims, and Fulbert may be said to have become preceptor to almost every man of letters who distinguished himself in France during the eleventh century.

We gather from the catalogue of the Chartres library, that Fulbert had inherited no inconsiderable portion of his master Gerbert’s scientific tastes. We find in it treatises on the properties of the sphere and the globe, on the astrolabe, on the measurement of superficies, and on land measurement, together with a Greek and Arabic alphabet. Fulbert himself had the rare accomplishment of Hebrew learning, as may be seen by his “Treatise against the Jews.” His disciples went forth from his school to restore sacred studies all over France, and the honour of being a pupil of him whom they lovingly termed “Father Fulbert,” was claimed by a long list of excellent masters, every one of whom might be described in the terms with which Adelman has sketched the character of Rainald of Tours; as “ready with the tongue, fluent with the pen, and mighty in grammar.” “As to thee, Father Fulbert,” he exclaims, “when I attempt to speak of thee, my words fail, my heart melts, my eyes break forth into weeping.”[147] Fulbert was, in fact, worthy of any praise that could be bestowed on him, and so thoroughly convinced of the sacredness of the office of teaching, that even after he became Bishop of Chartres in 1016, he continued to direct the studies of his episcopal school. He was regarded as the prelate of his time most thoroughly versed in ecclesiastical discipline, which he caused to be exactly practised. As a writer, he is best known by his letters, which display a wonderful delicacy of thought. He was knit in bonds of close friendship with St. Odilon of Cluny, to whom he confided his fears, lest he might not have been truly called to fill an office, the solemn responsibilities of which almost overwhelmed him. “Yet,” he adds, “remembering my own nothingness, and that without birth or fortune I have been raised to this chair like a beggar from the dunghill, I am forced to believe it is the will of God.”

A teacher of this temper was sure to have it at heart to impress on the souls of his disciples a love of humility. It was the favourite virtue of this truly great man, who was perfectly aware that the elevation of Gerbert to the pontifical dignity had given rise to a sentiment of ambition among men of letters, from which he boded evil. He was therefore earnest in warning his pupils to avoid novelties and to walk in the old footpaths; and his keen sagacious eye rested with uneasiness on one young face among the scholars who were accustomed to gather round him in his little garden and listen to his affectionate exhortations, as children hang on the words of a venerated parent. Berengarius, for it was he, had begun his studies in the school of St. Martin of Tours, whence he passed to Chartres, in company with his friend Adelman. He had a brilliant rather than a solid genius, a ready tongue which made the most of what he knew, but withal a certain affectation in speech and manner which betrayed a fund of secret vanity. Fulbert knew him well, and often spoke to him even with tears, conjuring him never to forsake the beaten track, but to hold fast to the traditions of the fathers. In 1028 the good bishop, then lying on his death-bed, called all his disciples around him to bid them farewell, but seeing Berengarius among the rest, he motioned for him to withdraw, for, he said, “I see a dragon by his side.”

His prognostics were too soon fulfilled. Berengarius returned to Tours, where his reputation for scholarship induced the canons to commit their school to his management; and even after he was appointed archdeacon of Angers, he continued to lecture at Tours, earning the reputation of immense learning, eloquence, and skill in grammar and philosophy. All, however, were not equally pleased with the character of his teaching, and some hesitated not bluntly to avow their belief that the brilliant archdeacon was somewhat shallow, and that his philosophy verged on sophistry. He had a way of mystifying the simplest subjects by a display of learned words; affected new and startling definitions, and had some tricks for practising on the minds of his audience, which gave offence to many. He chose that his chair should be raised higher than the others, had a pompous way of walking, spoke in a slow and particularly plaintive tone of voice, and would sit with his head wrapped up in his mantle, like an ancient philosopher, absorbed, as it seemed, in some very profound meditation. In short, he was one of those who aim at what Bacon calls “being wise by signs;” did trifles in a solemn way, and so imposed on the simpler sort who thought him a prodigy; a sentiment in which, it is needless to say, he himself fully concurred.

Let us leave this pompous personage for a while to enjoy the admiration of his numerous disciples, whilst we cast our eyes on the schools of law which were just then springing up at Bologna, where a young student of Pavia, Lanfranc by name, was distinguishing himself by his skill as a writer and an advocate. On leaving Bologna, he is thought to have taught jurisprudence for some time in his native city, and then crossing the Alps, he came into France, bringing with him no other riches than his learned reputation. Arriving at Tours, his name reached the ears of Berengarius, who at once sought him out and challenged him to a public disputation. The end aimed at was evidently the glorification of the archdeacon, who counted on an easy victory over the young stranger, which might help to swell his reputation. Never were expectations more completely disappointed. Berengarius was worsted in his arguments, and obliged to retire with ruffled feathers; far from increasing his renown, he had suffered a severe defeat, and in the eyes of wounded vanity, defeat is the bitterest of mortifications. His followers were astonished to find their master was not infallible, and began to transfer their admiration to his successful rival. Lanfranc, meanwhile, proceeded to Avranches, where he opened a school which was soon thronged by deserters from that of Berengarius. It was a crisis in his life, for his character was one which was as likely as not to have yielded to the perils that surrounded him. If free from the vanity which devoured his rival, his proud and impetuous temper was at that time quite as little under the restraint of religious principle; his devotion to science was perhaps more thoroughly the genuine enthusiasm of a scholar who loved learning for its own sake, rather than for the meed of human applause, but it was as yet wholly unsanctified by a higher and diviner intention. Nevertheless, there was a candour and uprightness of soul about him which the other did not possess, and when the call of grace sounded in his ear, he responded to it with noble generosity.

One day as he was journeying from Avranches to Rouen, he had to pass through a forest, where he was attacked by robbers, who having stripped him of all he possessed, tied him to a tree, wrapped his hood about his head so as to muffle his cries for help, and then abandoned him. Left thus during the entire night exposed to danger of death from the wolves, or the more lingering tortures of starvation, Lanfranc in his extremity bethought him of his prayers, but the learned advocate and philosopher found himself unable to call to his remembrance the simplest form of devotion. That one fact spoke volumes to his conscience; during the long hours of that terrible night he had time bitterly to mourn over the years lost in pursuits, the vanity of which he had never known till now; and ere morning dawned he solemnly vowed, if God should deliver him from his danger, to dedicate the remainder of his life to the task of reparation.

At break of day some passing travellers discovered and unbound him, and Lanfranc’s first request was to be led to the nearest monastery. There was by this time no want of religious houses in the duchy of Normandy. The century that had elapsed since the conversion of Duke Rollo, had witnessed a very general restoration of the monastic institute in that province, and many of the great abbeys, such as Jumièges, St. Wandrille, Fécamp, and Bernai, had risen from their ashes, with even greater splendour than they had exhibited before their destruction. But it was to none of these that the good Providence of God guided the steps of Lanfranc. In the year 1039 the little house of Bec had been founded by a pious Norman knight named Herluin, who himself became the first abbot. Nothing could be ruder or simpler than the commencements of this famous abbey. Herluin was poor and unlettered, he and his monks had to live hardly by the labour of their hands, their ordinary food was bread made with bran, and vegetables, with muddy water brought from a well two miles off. At the very moment when Lanfranc presented himself, the abbot was superintending the construction of an oven, and was kneading the bread with somewhat dirty hands, for he had come fresh from the labour of the field. At another time the sight would have disgusted the refined and fastidious Lombard, but at that moment his heart felt an appetite for abasement, and he promptly offered himself, and was received as one of the little community.

He was subjected to a severe noviciate. For three years, it is said, he kept a rigorous silence, and was tested by every kind of humiliation. Once, when reading aloud in the refectory, the prior corrected his Latin accent, and desired him to pronounce the e in docere short. This was probably a hard trial to the humility of the Bolognese professor, who must have regarded his Norman companions as little better than barbarians; but Lanfranc complied without hesitation, judging, says his biographer, that an act of disobedience was a greater evil than a false quantity in Latin. After he had passed through his probation, the abbot, who had learnt to value both his learning and his sincere humility, finding him unfit for manual labour, desired him to begin to teach, and thus were founded the famous schools of Bec. Their renown soon eclipsed that of every other existing academy. “Before that time,” says Odericus, “in the reigns of six dukes of Normandy, scarce any Norman applied himself to regular studies, nor had any doctor arisen among them till, by the Providence of God, Lanfranc appeared in their province.” But now a new era was inaugurated. Priests and monks came to Bec in multitudes, in order to place themselves under a master who was pronounced the best Latinist, the best theologian, and the best dialectician of his time; there were never fewer than a hundred pupils; the Norman nobles, and even the Dukes themselves, sent their sons thither for education, and made enormous grants of land to the favoured abbey.

It is not to be supposed that the fame of this new academy was long in reaching the ears of Berengarius, whose chagrin at finding his own renown eclipsed by his former rival was hard to endure. Up to that time he had addicted himself exclusively to dialectics, and had given very little study to the Scriptures, a circumstance sufficiently illustrative of the wide chasm which separated the rising school of teachers from that which immediately preceded them. But now, to support his failing credit, Berengarius began to lecture on a subject he had never studied, and to explain the Scriptures, not according to the traditions of the Fathers, but after the whims of his own imagination. His first errors were on questions connected with marriage and infant baptism, but it was not long before he broached his grand heresy, and attacked the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist, reviving all the arguments and sophistries of Scotus Erigena. The scandal spread from Tours through France and Germany. His old friend Adelman, at that time scholasticus of Liège, heard the news and wrote to him in moving terms, conjuring him to retract his fatal errors. “I have been wont to call you my foster brother,” he says, “calling to mind the happy days we passed together at the school of Chartres (though you were younger than I), under that venerable Socrates, Fulbert. Remember the conversation he used to hold with us in his garden near the chapel, how tenderly he used to speak to us, his voice sometimes choked with tears, conjuring us not to depart from the old paths, but to keep firm to the traditions of the Fathers. And now they tell me that you have separated from the unity of the Church, teaching that what we daily offer on the altar is not the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, but only a figure! God help you, my brother! let me implore you by the mercy of God, and the memory of the Blessed Fulbert, not thus to trouble the peace of our Holy Mother the Church, for whose faith so many millions of doctors and martyrs have constantly contended.”

Adelman’s entreaties produced no effect on him to whom they were addressed, and a controversy began in which Lanfranc took a distinguished part, assisting at the councils of Rheims, Rome and Vercelli. In all these Berengarius was successively condemned, and required to abjure his errors. But he obeyed with the lips only. As he continued to propagate his heresies in spite of repeated abjurations, Pope Victor II., in 1054, summoned two other Councils, at Florence and Tours, at the last of which Berengarius signed a solemn retractation with his own hand. But so soon as he left the presence of the assembled fathers, he set himself secretly to disseminate his former doctrines. At a second Council held at Tours, attended by 113 bishops, he again appeared, signed a profession of Catholic doctrine, and threw all his own writings into the fire, and the same farce was repeated at three other Councils, followed by the same result. It was not until 1079 that Lanfranc, then Archbishop of Canterbury, published his famous treatise “On the Body of Our Lord,” and about the same time his scholar Guitmond, afterwards Bishop of Aversa, wrote an equally celebrated treatise, bearing the same title, in which he traces the errors of Berengarius to the fatal root of vanity. “Even when a youth at school,” he says, “according to the account of those who then knew him, he made little account of the teaching of his master, held as nothing the opinions of his companions, and despised the books on liberal arts. He could not himself attain to the profounder parts of philosophy, for he was not of a very penetrating mind, and therefore tried to gain a learned reputation by new and unheard-of verbal definitions.” There is something mournfully significant in this account, and the grievous termination of a career, the very dawn of which was marked by such prognostics, makes the character and history of Berengarius one which scholars of all ages would do well to set before them as a warning beacon. The writings of Lanfranc and Guitmond seem at last to have opened his eyes to the truth; at any rate from that time he kept silence, and is said to have spent the remaining eight years of his life in retirement and sincere penitence. William of Malmsbury says that his dying words betrayed his consciousness of the irreparable evils he had inflicted on the Church, and the terror with which he was filled at the thought of the souls whom he might have ruined. “This day will my Lord Jesus Christ appear to call me, either to glory, by His mercy, on my repentance, or, as I fear, on account of the loss of other souls, to my punishment.” Yet his followers were neither numerous nor of any weight or character. We find in the letter written by Gozechinus of Liège to a brother scholastic, that every one of the great masters of the time, such as those who presided over the schools of Rheims, Paris, Spires, and Bamberg joined heart and soul with Lanfranc in condemning his doctrines.[148] Malmsbury says he had in all but three hundred disciples, while on the other hand the united voice of Christendom, and especially of the monastic order, was raised against him, and never was any heresy more universally condemned.

Meanwhile the schools of Bec grew and prospered, and the convent was soon found too small to contain its scholars. There were gathered together students of all ranks and conditions, “profound sophists,” as Oderic Vitalis calls them, and a long list of ecclesiastics destined to become the shining lights of the Church. Among these were Ivo of Chartres, Fulk of Beauvais, Gundulph, afterwards bishop of Rochester, Anselm de Bagio, afterwards Pope Alexander II., and a great number of the Anglo-Norman abbots. Alexander II., in after years, gave a memorable sign of the respect with which he regarded his old preceptor. When Lanfranc visited Rome as Archbishop of Canterbury, and was introduced into the presence of the Pontiff, the latter, contrary to the usual custom, rose, and advanced to meet him. “I show this mark of respect,” he said, turning to the surrounding prelates, “not to the archbishop, but to the man at whose feet I sat as a disciple in the schools of Bec.” Besides these there was Guitmond, already named, the courageous monk, who, entreated by the Conqueror to accept high ecclesiastical promotion in England, not only refused the offer, but accompanied his refusal with a letter of reproof which probably spoke plainer truths to William of Normandy than he had ever before had an opportunity of hearing. Oderic calls him devout and deeply learned, and in his book on the Sacrament of the Altar, the good monk recalls with affection the teaching he had received at Bec, which he styles “that great and famous school of literature.” But by far the greatest disciple of this school was a countryman of Lanfranc’s, destined to surpass him in renown both as a saint and a doctor. Anselm, a native of Aosta, in Lombardy, abandoning his native land, had after three years of study in Burgundy, established himself at Avranches, where he seems to have taught for some time in the school formerly directed by Lanfranc. But in 1059, being then but twenty-five years of age, he found his way to Bec, and soon distinguished himself as the first of all the noble crowd of scholars. For a while he continued there, studying and teaching by turns, but erelong the desire of religious perfection mastered that of intellectual progress. He resolved to take the monastic habit, but was unable to determine whether it should be at Cluny or at Bec. At Cluny indeed his vast acquirements would be of small profit; at Bec the superiority of Lanfranc would, he believed, almost equally eclipse him. But what of that? it was eclipse and nothingness that he was in search of, rather than fame and distinction. He opened his heart to his master, who, reluctant to decide a point in which his own feelings would naturally colour his advice, referred him to Maurillus, Archbishop of Rouen, and the result was that Anselm remained at Bec. His profession took place in 1060, and three years later Lanfranc, being appointed by Duke William abbot of his newly-founded monastery of St. Stephen at Caen, Anselm succeeded him in the office of prior. Some of the monks murmured at this appointment, but he overcame their ill-will by the sweetness of his charity. One young monk, named Osbern, who had shown the greatest opposition to the new prior, became at last his favourite disciple, won over by the patient long-suffering of a master who showed him a mother’s tenderness, mingled with a father’s care. At first he gained his good-will by encouraging his talents, overlooking his childish sallies of temper, and granting him many favours; but when his confidence was secured he accustomed him to severer discipline, and showed his satisfaction at his pupil’s progress by requiring him to accept very humiliating penances. He trusted to have found in this youth one destined to achieve great things for God, but Osbern was carried off by a sudden sickness, and left none to replace him in the affections of the prior.

Anselm’s life at Bec was one of continual labour. Whilst directing the studies of his pupils he did not neglect his own. His deeply philosophic mind was one of those which is incapable of desisting from a course of reasoning on any subject which it has once grasped, till the final solution is reached. His genius possessed a certain metaphysical subtlety, which engaged him in speculative questions, to resolve which he gave up, not merely whole days, but whole nights also. His studies were accompanied with rigorous austerities, which were, however, very far from diminishing that sweetness of disposition which rendered him dear to God and man. To his other labours were added those entailed on him as librarian to the monastery. Lanfranc had commenced the formation of the library, and his work was carried on by his successor with unwearied zeal. The Bec library was afterwards enlarged by the donations of Philip of Harcourt, Bishop of Bayeux, and besides a rich collection of the Fathers and the Latin classics, contained the Institutes of Quinctilian and the Hortensius of Cicero, of which latter work no copy is now known to exist. The great destruction of books which had taken place during the barbaric invasions rendered them now both rare and costly. Superiors of the different religious houses were therefore glad to establish friendly relations one with another, and to make agreements by which each supplied what they possessed, and what was wanting to the others. “We are ready to give you a pledge of our affection,” writes Durandus, abbot of La Chaise Dieu, to St. Anselm, “and in return we will ask one of you. Choose what you will that we possess; as to us, our choice is the Epistles of St. Paul.” Anselm was not content with collecting books; he spared no pains to correct them, and spent a good part of his nights in this employment. The multifarious duties which fell on him devoured so large a portion of his day that he could only supply the requisite time for his literary labours by defrauding himself of sleep; and he would have resigned his office in order more exclusively to give himself up to meditation and study had he not been withheld by the prohibition of Maurillus.

The subject which most frequently engaged his thoughts was the Being and Attributes of God. The first work which he wrote was his Monologion, in which he endeavoured to state the metaphysical arguments by which the existence of God might be proved even according to mere natural reason. The work was written at the request of some of the monks, but before publishing it he sent it to Lanfranc, desiring him to correct, and even to suppress, whatever he judged proper. After producing some other philosophical treatises, the thought occurred to him to try and discover whether it were possible, by following any single course of reasoning, to prove that which in his Monologion he had supported by a variety of arguments. The idea took possession of his mind: sometimes he thought he had found what he was seeking for, and then again it escaped him. So utterly was he absorbed by the subject that he lost sleep and appetite, and even his attention at the Divine Office became distracted. Dreading lest it should be some dark temptation, he tried to banish the whole matter from his mind, but it was in vain; the more he fled from his own thoughts the more constantly did they pursue him. At last one night every link in the chain being complete, he seized some waxen tablets and wrote the argument as it stood clear and distinct in his mind. A copy was made on parchment by his monks, and this new work formed his Proslogion, which, at the desire of the legate Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, was published with his name attached. The argument of this celebrated book is thus analysed by M. Rémusat, in his life of the saint. “He who believes in God believes that there is Something so great that a greater cannot be conceived. Does such a nature really exist? The infidel who denies it nevertheless understands what is meant by the idea, and this idea exists in his understanding, if it exist nowhere else. The mere idea of an object does not necessarily imply the belief in its existence. A painter has an idea of a picture which he knows does not as yet exist. But this Something which is better and greater than anything of which we can conceive cannot exist merely in our minds; for if it did exist only in our minds, we should be able to imagine it as existing in reality, that is to say, we should be able to conceive of it as being yet greater, a thing which according to our original supposition was not to be allowed as possible. Therefore, that which is so great that nothing can be greater must exist, not only in the mind, but in fact. Were the Being which is supposed to be above all that can be imagined, to be regarded as having no real existence, He would no longer be greater than we could conceive. To make Him so, He must have existence. The contradiction is evident. There is then really and truly a Being above Whom nothing can be conceived, and Who therefore cannot be thought of as though it were possible that He should not exist. And this Being, it is Thou, O my God! Et hoc es tu, Domine Deus noster!”[149] Many were found both in his own and later times who took alarm at reasoning so bold and original, but Anselm defended his arguments in an Apology, which established his fame as the greatest metaphysician who had appeared in the Latin Church since the days of St. Augustine.[150]

As we are here engaged rather with the history of schools than with that of literature, this passing glance at St. Anselm’s studies will suffice to indicate the new direction which the awakening intellect of Europe was about to follow. Hitherto ecclesiastical writers had for the most part been content to gather up and reproduce the traditionary wisdom of the Fathers; but now, when those traditions had become firmly established, a scientific superstructure was to be raised on that broad foundation, and the theology of the Church was to be built up into a compact and well-ordered system. This was the work of the scholastic theologians, of whom St. Anselm may be considered as the first.

It is pleasant to trace in the system of education followed by so profound a thinker, the same paternal sweetness which characterised the older monastic teachers. Intellectual depth is often enough deficient in tenderness, and it would scarcely have been matter of surprise had we found the metaphysical mind of Anselm incapable of adapting itself to the simplicity and waywardness of childhood. But the problems, which intellect alone is powerless to resolve, are quickly unlocked by the key of charity. Anselm would have been no saint had not his heart been far larger than his intellect; and his heart it was that communicated to him those three graces which one of our own poets has so beautifully described as bearing up the little world of education--Love, Hope, and Patience.[151] One day he was visited by the abbot of a neighbouring monastery, who came to consult him on the proper manner of bringing up the children committed to his care. Those whom he had hitherto trained were, he said, most perverse and incorrigible. “We do our best to correct them,” he added; “we beat them from morning till night, but I own I can see no improvement.” “And how do they grow up?” inquired Anselm. “Just as dull and stupid as so many beasts,” was the reply. “A famous system of education truly,” observed the abbot of Bec, “which changes men into beasts. Now tell me, what would be the result, if, after having planted a tree in your garden you were to compress it so tightly that it should have no room to extend its branches? These poor children were given to you that you might help them to grow, and be fruitful in good thoughts; but if you allow them no liberty their minds will grow crooked. Finding no kindness on your part, they will give you no confidence, and never having been brought up to know the meaning of love and charity, they will see everything around them in a distorted aspect. You beat them, you tell me? But is a beautiful statue of gold or silver formed only by blows? The weak must be treated with gentleness, and won with love; you must invite a soul to virtue with cheerfulness, and charitably bear with its defects.” He then explained his own method of education, till at last the other cast himself at his feet, owning his imprudence, and promising in future to abandon his excessive severity.

The names of Lanfranc and St. Anselm have, of course, a special interest to English readers, although it is rather as abbots of Bec than as Archbishops of Canterbury that they find a place in these pages. The Norman Conquest, which placed Lanfranc on the episcopal throne of St. Augustine, must, however, be regarded as an important era in the scholastic history of England, from the total revolution which it effected in the ecclesiastical administration of that country. Whatever may be thought of the manner in which the change was carried out, there can be little doubt that the substitution of an Anglo-Norman for an Anglo-Saxon hierarchy was on the whole beneficial to the cause both of religion and learning. Most of the ecclesiastics promoted by William were men of high character, and this was indeed one of the few consolatory thoughts which presented themselves to his mind when he lay upon his bed of death. His choice of Lanfranc for the primacy filled that prelate with dismay, nor was it until Cardinal Hubert laid on him the commands of the Apostolic See, that he could be induced to accept a charge so begirt with difficulty. His letter to his old pupil Pope Alexander II., shortly after his arrival in England, expresses the distress of his mind, at the hard heartedness, cupidity, and corruption which everywhere met his eye, and which, together with the barbarism, as he deemed it, of the inhabitants, and his total ignorance of their language, moved him to implore that he might resign the onerous dignity. As, however, this could not be permitted, he applied himself to the reform of the church of Canterbury, and the restoration in it of the monastic rule, which, since the martyrdom of St. Elphege, had fallen into utter decay. In spite of the pressing difficulties of the times, he contrived also to do something for the encouragement of letters, though far less than he would have effected under more favourable circumstances.

The schools of Peterborough and Evesham are likewise noticed as famous during the reign of the Confessor, who was himself a lover of learning, and, among his other laws, decreed that the person of a schoolmaster should be regarded as equally inviolable with that of a clerk. Winchcombe, always devoted to letters, whose scholars had been famous since the days of St. Kenelm, was still known as a place of study, and kept up its reputation so late as the fifteenth century. Old Ramsey, too, retained its celebrity, and scholars still wandered under the trees planted by St. Ethelwold, and kept up the arts which he had introduced into its scriptorium. In 1047 a certain monk of St. Edmundsbury became abbot there, whose skill in all gold and silver work was a sort of marvel. One of his monks, named Oswald, refused a bishopric on the simple ground that he could not tear himself from his books. “He chose rather,” says the chronicler, “to cherish the placid cultivation of letters in the bosom of his mother, the church of Ramsey. We have still in our archives a certain versified book of his, bearing evidence of his multifarious knowledge and perspicacious wit.” Nor must we forget the holy Wulstan, the last of our Anglo-Saxon saints. He had been educated in the minster school of Peterborough by the monk Ervene, who coaxed him to learn his letters by choosing for his lesson-book a fine Psalter, illuminated by his own hands. After he became prior and scholasticus of Worcester, Wulstan devoted himself to study with such ardour as often to spend two or three days in reading without so much as breaking his fast. His long night-watches seriously injured his health, and in the morning he was often found in the church fast asleep, with his worn-out head resting on the book he had been studying.

It will be seen, therefore, that the love of letters was not quite extinct in the cloisters of Saxon England; and the coming of Lanfranc blew the embers into a flame. He set himself to restore a great number of cathedral and monastic schools that had fallen into decay, and during his leisure hours liked to hear some poor scholars hold disputations in his presence on learned subjects, rewarding them with liberal gifts.

But besides his encouragement of learned men, Lanfranc did good service to the cause of letters in other ways. He often interposed his kind offices to save the ancient English foundations from the vengeance of the Conqueror. Thus, having succeeded in averting the threatened destruction of St. Alban’s Abbey, which William had doomed in consequence of the brave resistance he had met with from its abbot, Frithric, Lanfranc conferred it on a relative and pupil of his own named Paulinus, who has fallen under the lash of Matthew Paris, but who nevertheless proved an excellent abbot. He introduced the “Constitutions,” published by Lanfranc for the government of the English Benedictines, reformed a host of irregularities, and, with the help of subsidies liberally granted by the archbishop, built several useful offices, and established the first scriptorium attached to the abbey.

I know not what my readers will say when they hear that the mill, the bakehouse, and the scriptorium erected by Paulinus were all built out of the tiles and stones of the ancient Verulam, collected by his Saxon predecessors Ealdred and Eadmer, who had made some very curious excavations among the ruins of the Roman city, and had laid open a palace with its baths and its atrium. Moreover, they had dug up a number of books in good preservation, one of which was in a tongue unknown to all, and proved at last to be a British history of the “Acts of St. Alban.” The other books were in Latin, and, relating to heathen worship, were committed to the flames. This sounds barbarous to antiquarian ears, but there is worse to tell. Eadmer ordered that all the altars, urns, coins, and glass vessels discovered by the workmen should be destroyed. The day had not yet come when relics of paganism were deemed safe or fit objects for good Christians to collect in their museums, and the Vatican collection itself would probably have fared but badly in the hands of Alcuin or St. Boniface. However, the monks of St. Alban’s, though destroyers of the Verulam antiquities, were very active in setting up their scriptorium. Paulinus furnished it with twenty-eight “notable volumes,” and many others were presented by Lanfranc. There is, moreover, a distinct notice of the existence of the abbey school. Abbot Richard, who succeeded Paulinus (after the Red King had contrived to keep the abbacy vacant for five years), showed a great interest in the success of this school, and invited over from Maine a certain master named Geoffrey de Gorham, to take on him its direction. Gorham however, was rather dilatory, and by the time he arrived in England the office had been given to another. So he removed to Dunstable, and there read lectures for some time, and whilst so occupied, invented a miracle-play, said to be the first that is noticed in history, the subject being the martyrdom of St. Katherine. These sacred dramas were used as means of popular instruction, and often contained a fine vein of poetry. As time went on, and they fell out of the hands of the ecclesiastics into those of a class of writers and actors whose object it was to please, rather than to instruct the multitude, they became debased by the introduction of coarse jests and buffoonery, which abound in the specimens best known to English readers, but of which there is not the slightest trace in the earlier religious dramas. The dress and getting up of the pieces, in which there was a wonderful amount of ingenuity displayed, and even of stage trickery,[152] of course enhanced their success; and Gorham borrowed from the sacristan of St. Alban’s the choral copes of the abbey, to be used in the first representation of his play. Unfortunately, the very next night his house caught fire, and the borrowed copes, together with his own books, were all destroyed. It was a great disaster; and in atonement for his carelessness he assumed the monastic habit at St. Alban’s; and this was the reason, says Matthew Paris, that when he became abbot he was so careful to provide the choir with new rich copes.

In the midst of his many cares and anxieties, Lanfranc found time to devote to literary toils. They were useful ones, well worthy of a monk and a bishop. He corrected the text of the entire Bible, and of several of the Fathers. He never forgot Bec, and sent several youths, and among others his own nephew and namesake, there for education; and much of his correspondence with St. Anselm turns on the progress of these young men in their studies. Anselm, on his part, frankly confesses that he gets very weary of continually teaching the younger boys their declensions; and lets us know that he required his pupils to compose often in Latin, and rather in prose than in verse; that he recommended them to read Virgil and the other classics, and to be diligent in copying manuscripts. At other times his letters, treating of literary subjects, and accompanying presents of precious books to the Canterbury scriptorium, introduce allusions to the health of his scholars, evincing that paternal tenderness which was so remarkable a feature in his character.

Anselm, who had been elected abbot of Bec on the death of Herluin, during his visits to England became personally known to the Conqueror, whose furious passions were restrained in presence of the gentle saint, who won both his love and his reverence. It was whilst at Canterbury, on a visit to his friend Lanfranc, that the abbot of Bec made his first acquaintance with his future biographer, the young Saxon Eadmer. This was the time when he so sweetly defended the memory of the Anglo-Saxon saints from the contempt with which Lanfranc was disposed to regard them; and possibly this circumstance may have had some share in securing him the confidence and affection of Eadmer, who then held the office of precentor in the cathedral of Canterbury.

Lanfranc died in 1089, having survived the great Conqueror nearly two years. The events which, four years later, placed St. Anselm on the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury, and his heroic struggles against the usurpations of the temporal power in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I., scarcely fall within our present subject, though they form not the least important chapter in our national Church history. But the succession to the primacy of another great scholar was an event which made itself felt in the world of letters, and kindled extraordinary ardour for learned pursuits among the English clergy. This spirit was certainly encouraged by the Norman kings, who, ferocious tyrants as they were, all more or less exhibited a taste for letters. The Conqueror took special care of the education of his children. Henry Beauclerk was educated at Abingdon Abbey, under the care of Faricius, an Italian monk of Malmsbury. The proficiency of the young prince as displayed by his version of Æsop’s fables, is commonly said to have earned him his learned sobriquet; but Mr. Wright, in his “Biographia Britannica,” calls his authorship in question. Both his sisters, and his two queens, Matilda of Scotland and Adeliza of Louvaine, were patrons of letters. Some epistles from Matilda to St. Anselm are preserved, which display no mean degree of scholarship, if they were really the production of her own pen. The encouragement of these two princesses quickened the imagination of a host of versifiers, who began to neglect the composition of hexameters in limping Latin, and to substitute in their room songs and romances in Norman-French. The Anglo-Saxon tongue was, of course, never heard at court; and some writers, like William of Malmsbury, went so far as to omit the Saxon names of men and places, through an over-delicate fear of distressing refined organs by such barbarous sounds. A new literature meanwhile sprang up, bearing the impress of an age of knight-errantry. Alexander, Arthur, and Charlemagne found themselves transformed from historic personages into heroes of quaint and extravagant fictions, full of hippogrifs, dragons, and enchanted castles, where distressed damsels were held captive by wicked magicians, in order to be delivered by the prowess of doughty knights--a style of composition to which we give a name borrowed from the language used by the narrators, that, namely, of the Romance dialect of France. Among the accumulation of rubbish written in this dialect, which was about this time poured forth into the world, one book of a higher character appears, the production of Prior Guichard of Beaulieu. It is a sermon in verse on the vices of the age, and appears to have been written to be actually recited, for he begins by telling his hearers that he is going to talk to them, not in Latin, but in the vernacular, that every one may understand what he says. De la Rue, who notices this curious poem, observes that the mention of a sermon in verse need not cause surprise, as at that epoch it was a common thing for the Anglo-Norman clergy to read to the people on Sundays and holy-days the lives of the saints in French verse. Nine such versified lives are still preserved, the production of Boson, nephew to Pope Alexander II. The mediæval preachers had sometimes recourse to strange expedients in order to rouse the slumbering attention of their hearers. Vincent of Beauvais tells us that in his time it was a common thing to lighten a dull subject by introducing one of Æsop’s fables, a practice which he does not absolutely condemn, but recommends to be used sparingly.

Besides the disciples reared in our native schools, a large number of English scholars were to be found, who mingled with the graver pursuits of learning something of that spirit of knight-errantry and wild adventure which characterised the times. Arabic Spain was just then regarded as the fountain-head of science. The Moorish sovereigns of Cordova had collected an immense library in their capital, and are reported to have had seventy others in different parts of their dominions. Thither, then, wandered many an English student, attracted rather than repelled by the tales of glamour associated with a Moslem land. One of these scholar adventurers was Athelhard of Bath, the greatest man of science who appeared in England before the time of Roger Bacon. In the reign of the Red King he had left his own country to study at Tours and Laon, in which latter place he opened a school. Thence he proceeded to Salerno, Greece, Asia Minor, and Spain, increasing his stock of learning, and returned at last, after a long absence, in the reign of Henry I. After this he opened a school in Normandy, where he taught the Arabic sciences, in spite of the prejudices which many felt against learning acquired from so suspicious a source. Among those who so objected was Athelhard’s own nephew; and in defence of his favourite studies the English master wrote a book, in which he reminds his nephew of an agreement formerly made between them, that one should gather all the learning taught by the Arabs, while the other should, in like manner, study the wisdom of the Franks. This book is written in the form of a colloquy, in which the nephew is made to appear as the champion of the old system of education, and the uncle of the new.

I do not know whether we should conclude that Athelhard gained very much from his Arabic masters; for if he studied at Cordova the causes of earthquakes, eclipses, and tides, we find from his Quæstiones that he had also devoted a considerable portion of his time to investigating the reason why plants cannot be produced in fire, why the nose is made to hang over the mouth, why the human forehead is not furnished with horns, whether the stars are animals, whether on that hypothesis they have any appetite, with other equally singular and puerile questions. In spite of these eccentricities, however, Athelhard was a really learned man. He translated Euclid and other mathematical works out of the Arabic, and is styled by Vincent of Beauvais, “the Philosopher of England.” A few years later we find another Englishman, named Robert de Retines, studying at Evora in company with a certain Hermann of Dalmatia, who is called a most acute and erudite scholar. Robert had travelled in search of learning through France, Italy, Dalmatia, Greece, and Asia Minor, and finally made his way into Spain, where Peter of Cluny found the two friends studying astrology at Evora. Peter’s journey into Spain was undertaken with the view of obtaining more exact information as to the Mohammedan doctrines and writings, and he induced the two scholars to give up their unprofitable pursuits, and employ their knowledge of Arabic in translating the Koran. This they did in 1143. Robert afterwards became archdeacon of Pampeluna; he did not, however, entirely forsake his own country, but returning thither, wrote a translation of the Saxon Chronicle, which is preserved in the Bodleian library, and which is dedicated to Peter of Cluny. His friend Hermann, who is styled “a most acute and profound scholastic,” produced a translation of Ptolemy’s “Planisphere,” which he addressed to his old Spanish preceptor Theodoricus, and from the preface to this book we find that the school at which they studied was not Arabic, but Christian, a fact of some importance, as it is very generally stated that the Spanish academies resorted to at this time by European students were those of the Arabic masters, who are represented as alone possessing any knowledge of the mathematical sciences. It is clear however that now, as in the time of Gerbert, there existed Christian schools in Spain, no less efficient than those of the Moors, and that it was to these that many of the French and English scholars resorted for the purposes of study.

To the names of these learned Englishmen I must add that of Odericus Vitalis, the course of whose education is best given in his own words in that short summary of his life with which he concludes his history. “I was baptized,” he says, “at Attingham, a village in England, which stands on the bank of the great river Severn. There, by the ministry of Odericus the priest, Thou didst regenerate me with water and the Holy Ghost. When I was five years old I was sent to school at Shrewsbury, and offered Thee my services in the lowest order of the clergy in the Church of SS. Peter and Paul. While there, Siward, a priest of great eminence, instructed me for five years in the letters of Carmenta Nicostrata,[153] and taught me psalms and hymns, with other necessary learning. I was ten years old when I crossed the British sea, and arrived in Normandy, an exile, unknown to all, and knowing no one. But supported by Thy goodness, I found the utmost kindness and attention from these foreigners. I was professed a monk in the monastery of St. Evroult, by the venerable abbot Mainier, in the eleventh year of my age, and he gave me the name of Vitalis, in place of that which I received in England, and which seemed barbarous to the ears of the Normans. In this monastery, through Thy goodness, I have lived fifty-six years, loved and honoured by my brethren far more than I have deserved. Bearing the heat and burden of the day in a strange land, I have laboured among Thy servants, and as Thou art faithful, I fear not but I shall receive the penny which Thou hast promised.”

He elsewhere tells us that his master in this abbey was John of Rheims, a disciple of the famous school of that city, who was an author of no mean fame, and composed a great number of works both in prose and verse. It does not appear that he ever studied in any other academy, but whatever learning he afterwards attained must have been acquired within the walls of his own monastery, and he could scarcely have found his way to a better school. In the eleventh century there was no branch of learning which was not cultivated among the monks of St. Evroult; music, medicine, poetry, painting, and the mechanical arts, all found there able professors. The history of Odericus leaves us in no doubt as to the extent of his literary attainments. He quotes most of the ancient classical writers, and many of the Fathers of the Church, and the intelligence of his mind is displayed by the way in which he collected the materials of his work. Nothing escaped his notice, and from the lips of some wandering Crusader or passing pilgrim he gathered up the tales and episodes with which he enlivened his pages, giving them in many parts the lively colouring of a romance. One day a monk of Winchester who stopped at the abbey for a few hours chanced to show him a life of St. William, copies of which were then rare in Normandy. Odericus, in raptures at the sight of the treasure, longed to copy it, but the traveller was in haste, and the fingers of Odericus were benumbed with cold, for it was the depth of winter. However, the opportunity was not to be lost, and seizing his tablets he with great difficulty took such notes from the manuscript as enabled him afterwards, at his leisure, to compose a life of the founder of St. Gellone. His “Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy,” which occupied twenty years in its compilation, is the only work he has left to posterity.

Thus much may suffice as to the state of letters in England and Normandy in the time of Lanfranc and Anselm; the scholars who arose after them were not unworthy to be the disciples of a school founded by these two illustrious archbishops; and it will be seen that the University of Paris, which was soon to efface by the splendour of its fame that of every other lesser academy, owed its renown in no small degree to the learning of its English professors.

CHAPTER XII.

THE RISE OF SCHOLASTICISM.

A.D. 1049 TO 1200.

We are sometimes disposed to think and speak of the Middle Ages, as though by that term was to be understood a period including several centuries, during the whole of which society was governed by the same laws, and made but little progress. In point of fact, however, men seldom lived faster, if such an expression be admissible, than during the five centuries to which the term mediæval is most strictly applied. There was then, as now, a continual expansion and development going on, and then, as now, the development was partly good, and partly evil. During the hundred years that elapsed from the accession of Hugh Capet in 996, to the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, Christendom assumed an entirely new aspect. The institutions of feudalism and chivalry were becoming firmly established; the barbaric invasions had ceased, and the Crusades directed the arms of the Christians against a common enemy, and so put an end to the civil wars which had raged under the Carlovingian dynasty. If these changes cannot be said to have ushered in a period of absolute peace, they at least tended to consolidate civil government; and the comparative state of security and order which ensued, naturally encouraged greater intellectual activity. On the other hand, the Saxon emperors of Germany had been replaced by the house of Franconia, and that grievous contest had begun between the temporal and spiritual powers which, for centuries, formed the great political question of Europe; while the convulsions of the last century had let loose on the Church a flood of corruption which probably makes this period one of the saddest in her history.

The chronicles of a semi-barbarous age, however, possess one charm which does not attach in an equal degree to those of more civilised periods. Full as they are of crimes and scandals, they depict a state of society more keenly susceptible than our own to the influence of master-minds. Hence they are often enough the records of heroes, whereas our tamer annals deal less in the acts and words of great men, than in changes of ministry. The eleventh century groaned under the threefold scourge of simony, sensuality, and temporal usurpation. It had the peculiar infelicity of being an age of transition, when the children of the Church were growing weary of submitting to the canonical discipline of ancient times, whilst nothing had yet been established as its substitute. It was, therefore, a time of wild license and feeble restraint. Three men, however, arose to rule and reform their age. The first was of royal blood, a descendant of Charlemagne and Witikind, whom we first find studying at Toul about the year 1018, along with other princely and ducal cousins, for Toul was always celebrated for its noble students. Bruno of Dachsburg was the handsomest man of his time, the idol of his family, graceful, eloquent, and learned, and a skilled musician. The world was already predicting his success at the court of his imperial cousin Conrad, when a trifling accident changed his whole career. One day, the young student, after a hard morning’s work, threw himself on the grass at his father’s castle in Alsace, and fell asleep. An insect stung his face, and the result was a malignant fever which brought him to the gates of death. He rose from his sick bed to renounce all that the world had to offer, and to embrace the monastic state. In 1026 he became Bishop of Toul, and for two-and-twenty years devoted his energies to the reformation of manners and the revival of discipline. At the end of that time he was elected Pope, and, as St. Leo IX., struggled for five years more against simony, the Berengarian heresy, and the Greek schism. But, in the midst of his other labours, he did not neglect letters and the arts. He caused good studies to flourish at Rome, reformed her school of chant, and employed as his legates learned men, such as his old schoolfellow, Cardinal Humbert, who had acquired at Toul that Greek erudition which he used so ably against the Photians.

On the day when Pope Leo entered Rome barefoot to take possession of the Apostolic throne, he was accompanied by a Cluniac monk, whom he had met on his journey into Italy, and well-nigh compelled to join his train. Rome was no new scene to the monk Hildebrand; it was there, in St. Mary’s Abbey on the Aventine Mount,[154] that the poor carpenter’s son had received his education. But he returned thither now to fill a very different station, for Leo created him cardinal, and abbot of St. Paul’s; and from that time up to the day of his death, thirty-six years later, the life of Hildebrand forms the history of his times. The name of him whom the Church reveres as St. Gregory VII. must suffice in this place, there remains to be noticed a third Christian hero, a friend of both those illustrious pontiffs, who struggled with them in the same cause, and against the same enemies. Born at Ravenna towards the close of the tenth century, the youngest of a large family, who only saw in him another to divide their slender inheritance, Peter Damian was all but abandoned in his infancy, and on the death of his parents was maintained by a brother, who treated him as a slave, and employed him to keep swine. The poor farm-drudge grew up without friends and without education; but the soul that was within him had instincts and aspirations which no ill-usage could stifle. One day he chanced to find a piece of money lying on the ground; it was the first time his hands had ever touched silver, and for a moment the thoughts which might occur to other boys flashed through his brain. He would purchase food, or clothes, or give himself an hour’s brief enjoyment. But then came another thought: “When the food is eaten, and the enjoyment past, what will remain to me of my money? Better give it to the parish priest and have a mass said for my father’s soul.” The second thought was followed; and soon afterwards his elder brother Damian, the arch-priest of Ravenna, took pity on the boy, and sent him to school, first at Faenza, and then at Parma, which at that time possessed excellent masters. Peter, who in gratitude assumed his brother’s name in addition to his own, became not only a good scholar, but in time a professor, and his singular capacity in this office obtained him both scholars and wealth, for, as we have seen in the last chapter, the profession of scholasticus was beginning to be one of profit. But he had never forgotten his early experience, and the money that flowed in went to feed the poor, whilst he himself persevered in the practice of rigid poverty. One day he made the acquaintance of two poor hermits belonging to a community that had established itself at a spot called Fonte-Avellano, at the foot of the Umbrian Apennines. His biographer calls it a desert, but it was a desert only in the Italian sense of he word, a solitary valley, that is, shut in between mountains clothed with evergreen oaks, and chest nuts, and the silvery olive, its thickets bright with the blossoms of the Judas-tree and the oleander, and its grass, with the starry cyclamen. To this desert, then, Peter’s new friends conducted him, on a visit to their hermitage, which had been founded a few years previously by the Blessed Ludolf. He found there a community who took the same view of human life as himself. They regarded man as a being made up of two noble and immortal parts, that were to be served and cherished--the soul and the intellect; and of one base and perishable part, that was good only to be mortified--the body. Simple men as they were, they had conceived the idea of doing penance for the huge evil world that lay outside their wilderness. So they lived four days a week on bread and water, allowing themselves on the other three the indulgence of herbs, afflicted their flesh in many ways, and divided their time between psalmody and study. Peter embraced this life with hearty earnestness, and outstripped his companions alike in his austerities and in his application to sacred learning. But his light could not be hid; abbots entreated that he might be sent to instruct their religious; his own brethren elected him their superior; seven successive popes employed him in the service of the Church; and, in 1057, Stephen IX. created him cardinal bishop of Ostia. His life was spent in struggles to stem the corruption of his age and to reform the clergy. Fleury observes that we must not look in his writings for acuteness of reasoning; but he had to do with men sunk in rude gross vices, which were hardly to be remedied by metaphysics. The medicine which St. Peter Damian prescribed for the sick world was penance; and he preached it in a plain homely sort of way, which might possibly offend fastidious tastes, but which had this merit about it, that it was practical, and had results. He entered the profaned sanctuary, scourge in hand, to drive out the unclean animals, and to overthrow the tables of the money-changers. In the intervals between his incessant legations to reform churches and rebuke princes, he retired to his cell at Fonte-Avellano, and might be found there living on pulse and water, employed in making wooden spoons, or other coarse manual labour, and submitting, even to his eightieth year, to the same rule of life as the youngest novice. Yet this was the most elegant scholar of his time; nay, more, he was a poet. And we do not use the term as classing him among the crowd of versifiers who wrote their chronicles, and even their theological treatises in lines which, often enough as Hallam remarks, can only be rendered into hexameters “by careful nursing.” He imitated neither Virgil nor Horace, but wrote in those rhymed trochaics which many classical purists would brand as barbarisms. Yet where shall we see richness of imagery wedded to greater harmony of numbers than in those wonderful stanzas, De Paradisi Gloriâ, wherein Paradise is depicted under the form of all that is fairest and brightest to the poet’s eye? The sparkling of precious gems, the blossoming of early flowers, the glory of the autumn cornfields, and the long shining of a summer’s day, lit by a sun that knows no setting, are painted in words that sound like the echoes of a harpsichord. And from these sensible images of earthly beauty he rises to that which is above sense, and sets before us the ineffable joys of those who see the Divine Beauty face to face, and are filled from the fountains of Eternal charity. The joys of heaven formed, in fact, the constant subject of his meditation, and in one of his prose treatises, speaking on this exhaustless theme, he gives utterance to the sentiment felt by every poet, of the insufficiency of words to express the emotions of the heart. “There is always more in the thing itself than the mind conceives, and more in what the mind conceives than the tongue can utter.”

The reform of manners so vigorously set on foot by these saints and their many disciples was friendly to the growth of letters. Parma attained such celebrity as to be called Chrysopolis, or the golden city, in the days of the great Countess Matilda, who was herself, says Donizzo, her chaplain, more learned than many bishops, and was never without an abundance of books. At her instance Irnerius, the Lucerna Juris, as he was called, began to lecture at Bologna on Roman law about the year 1128. The cathedral schools were everywhere revived by St. Gregory VII., who required the bishops to found seminaries where such did not already exist, where boys should be educated for the priesthood free of cost, certain prebends being set apart for the support of the masters. This injunction was very generally obeyed, and many ancient schools were revived which had fallen into decay. Landulph tells us that at Milan, where things had been in a very bad state, but where the mingled zeal and gentleness of St. Peter Damian, and of St. Ariald, had effected a reform,[155] the schools of philosophy were held in the porch of the cathedral, where the clerics attended, the archbishop presiding in person. In fact, the Italians who, in the tenth century, are represented as having none to teach them the first rudimentary elements, had somehow contrived in the eleventh to possess themselves of academies which they considered the first in the whole world.

A document given by Mabillon illustrates in an amusing manner the jealousy existing at this time between the schools of Italy and France. A certain prior of Chiusi, named Benedict, coming to the abbey of St. Martial at Limoges, was imprudent enough to call in question the commonly-received opinion that St. Martial was an immediate disciple of our Lord. Of course a storm arose, its fury bursting over the head of the luckless and too enlightened critic. The quarrel was taken up by all the monasteries of southern Gaul; and Ademar, a monk of Angoulême, thought it his duty to address a circular to the French monasteries, warning them not to listen to the horrible scandals promulgated by Benedict, whose conceit, he says, was at the bottom of the whole affair. He attempts to pillory his antagonist, by putting in his mouth a ridiculous speech. “I am the nephew,” he is made to say, “of the abbot of Chiusi. He has taken me to many cities of France and Lombardy to study grammar, and my various masters have cost him the round sum of 2000 soldi. I studied grammar nine years, and am studying it still. I am a most learned man. I have two great boxes full of books, and I have not yet read one-half of them. In fact there is not a book in all the world that I have not got. When I leave the schools there will not be such a doctor as myself under heaven.... I am prior of Chiusi, and know how to write sermons.... I am so wise I could arrange and manage an entire council. In Aquitaine there is no learning of any kind, every one there is a dunce; if a man knows a sprinkling of grammar, he is thought at once to be a second Virgil. In France (that is, the province, not the kingdom of France), there is a little more erudition, but not much. The real seat of wisdom is in Lombardy, where I have carried on my studies.” In spite of the sarcastic exaggeration running through this passage, we may gather from it that Benedict had probably assumed a tone of superiority over his Gallican neighbours, and that studies must have greatly revived in Lombardy since the days of the Othos, to furnish the text for a jeu d’esprit of this description.

An age of such increased intellectual activity could hardly fail to be attended with many changes, bad as well as good. We have seen in the last chapter that the new class of teachers who were now springing up taught for gain or reputation, rather than with an eye to the higher ends of education, and that thus learning in their hands lost much of its Christian dress. The intellectual curiosity of students induced many to seek for knowledge in distant lands, with the same perseverance and spirit of enterprise which young knights displayed in quest of military adventure. We can hardly in our day appreciate the difficulties which had to be overcome by men like Athelhard and Robert of Retines, whose student life was the very romance of scholarship. If the stock of knowledge thus collected, surpassed in breadth and variety that which could have been gained in any single monastic school, it is evident, on the other hand, that the education of these itinerant scholars must have been sadly deficient both in mental and moral discipline, failings which were abundantly evident in the character of the new scholastics. They had picked up, it may be, a knowledge of medicine at Salerno, and of mathematics at Cordova, but the claustral rule, the strict subjection to authority, the holy atmosphere or devotion and obedience, had not entered into their intellectual life. They had gained their learning from the lips of professors, in order to become professors in their turn; but a wandering life through half the cities of Europe was but a poor exchange for the claustral discipline; and not a few were found to embrace this kind of life for the very sake of its greater license and freedom from restraint.

But though this new element was making itself perceptibly felt in the learned world, it must not be supposed that in the eleventh century the old system of education was at all superseded for the cathedral and monastic schools still continued the chief seats of learning. They even witnessed a sort of classical renaissance, which sprung up under the encouragement of a crowd of masters who directed the labours of their scholars to the imitation of ancient models, without, however, in any way abandoning the line of Christian studies traced out by Alcuin and his disciples. At Mans, the office of scholasticus was held by the Blessed Hildebert a pupil of Berengarius, and a poet and philosopher, who afterwards became bishop of the same see, and had the distinguished honour of being imprisoned by the Red King, for refusing, at his bidding, to pull down the towers of his cathedral. At Autun, the cathedral schools were directed for twenty years by Honorius, who in his treatise De Exilio Animæ, reprinted in the Thesaurus Anecdotorum of Pez, has described the course of studies followed by his pupils. To the ordinary branches of the trivium and quadrivium, he added instructions in physical science, and gave a distinct course of Holy Scripture. His lectures on rhetoric included the explanation of the best Latin classics, and the same was done in most monastic schools of the period. The notices become more frequent of scholars learned in Greek and Hebrew, and the fact of their being named as engaged in the correction of manuscripts in those languages, compels us to believe that their learning was something more real and solid than that which has been before noticed as rather foolishly displayed on the pages of certain writers of the preceding centuries. Thus, Sigebert of Gemblours, and Marbœuf of Angers, are both spoken of as Greek and Hebrew scholars. Sigebert is said by his biographer to have been learned in the Hebrew Scriptures, which he used in his controversies with the Jews. He was also a good Latin classic, and much addicted to the composition of verses in imitation of his favourite author Horace. He gave lectures on poetry and logic in Paris, but his vanity was not proof against temptation, and led him to take part with Henry IV. against the Holy See. He is the author of a chronicle and other historical works, which he made the vehicle for conveying grave calumnies against the Roman pontiffs. Dante to whom his character as a Ghibelline partisan was itself a recommendation, has placed him in Paradise and notices him as lecturing on logic in the streets of Paris, to students seated, after the custom of the time, on bundles of straw.[156]

It is difficult to determine how much the scholars of this period were really in advance of their predecessors. Hallam, who is generally so sparing of his praise when speaking of any period earlier than that of the Cinque Cento, admits that at the close of the eleventh century a good, and even elegant school of Latin writers was springing up; and notices the Latin vocabulary of Papias as evincing an amount of profane learning far superior to anything that had hitherto been known. Du Cange, however, shows that Papias drew his materials from a dictionary which had been compiled in the Dark Ages, namely, that published in the tenth century, by Solomon, abbot of St. Gall’s. Still, it may be concluded that classical studies were more universally followed than they had hitherto been, and at the same time extraordinary activity was displayed in the multiplication of books and the collection of libraries. Useful results sometimes flow from human infirmities, and there is said to have mingled with the honest love of learning which encouraged this activity, a certain spirit of rivalry and emulation among the different monasteries and religious orders. The Black Monks did not like to be cut out by the new Cistercians; and Bec, as a matter of course, was not going to yield to Cluny. Mabillon says that it was the peculiar pride of the Benedictine abbots of this time, to collect large libraries, and to have their manuscripts handsomely written and adorned. Never, therefore, was there a busier time in the scriptorium; a finer character of writing, and a more convenient system of abbreviation was introduced, and many abbots are mentioned as remarkable for their skill as miniaturists. It is said, however, I know not with what truth, that the copyists, if they got through a greater amount of work, were often less accurate than their brethren of the eighth and ninth centuries, and that in this, as in other things, the proverb held good of “more haste and worse speed.” Hallam, whilst complaining of the multiplication of blunders, does full justice to the prodigious industry exhibited by the monastic copyists of this particular period. As an illustration of the subject, we may quote the account which Othlonus, the scholasticus of St. Emmeran’s, gives of his labours. He seems to have been a Bavarian by birth, and his first school was that of Tegernsee, in Bavaria, a monastery which had been founded in 994, and was famous for its teachers in utrâque linguâ, and even for its Hebrew scholars. Here, in the twelfth century, lived the good monk Metellus, whose eclogues, written in imitation of those of Virgil, describe the monastic pastures and cattle, and the labours of the monks in the fields. The library of Tegernsee was rich in classic works, and possessed a fair illuminated copy of Pliny’s “Natural History,” adorned with pictures of the different animals, from the cunning hand of brother Ellinger. Medicine was likewise studied here, to facilitate which, the monks had a good botanical garden. In such a school Othlonus had every opportunity of cultivating his natural taste for study, which grew by degrees to be a perfect passion. As a child he had intended to embrace the monastic state, but the persuasions of his father, and his own desire to give himself up exclusively to learned pursuits, induced him to abandon this design, and after leaving school he devoted himself for several years to classical studies, with an ardour which his biographer finds no words strong enough to express.

His only earthly desire at this time, as he himself tells us in one of his later spiritual treatises, was to have time to study, and abundance of books. It would seem, however, that this excessive devotion to human learning had its usual results in the decay of devotion. It is thus he describes himself at this period of his life, in his versified treatise De doctrina Spirituali. “Desiring to search into certain subtle matters, in the knowledge of which I saw that many delighted, to the end that I might be held in greater esteem by the world, I made all my profit to consist in keeping company with the Gentiles. In those days what were not to me Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and Tully the rhetorician?... that threefold work of Maro, and Lucan, whom then I loved best of all, and on whom I was so intent, that I hardly did anything else but read him.... Yet what profit did they give me, when I could not even sign my forehead with the cross?”

However, two severe illnesses wrought a great change in his way of looking at life, and in 1032, remembering his early dedication of himself to God, he resolved to forsake the world and take the habit of religion in the monastery of St. Emmeran’s, at Ratisbon, where he gave up all thoughts of secular ambition, in order to devote himself heart and soul to the duties of his state. St. Emmeran’s was, like Tegernsee, possessed of an excellent school and library. In the former many good scholars were reared, such as abbot William of Hirschau, who became as learned in the liberal arts as in the study of the Scriptures, and who afterwards made his own school at Hirschau one of the most celebrated in Germany. Othlonus tells us that in this monastery he found “several men in different classes, some reading pagan authors, others the Holy Scriptures,” and that he began to imitate the latter, and soon learnt to relish the Sacred Books, which he had hitherto neglected, far above the writings of Aristotle, Plato, or even Boëthius.[157]

It will be seen from this little sketch that Othlonus was not a mere transcriber, and indeed he afterwards produced several treatises on mystic theology, besides his “Life of St. Wolfgang,” and was regarded by his brother monks as “a pious and austere man, possessed of an immense love of books.” This love he showed not only by reading them, but by multiplying them; and his achievements in this kind are related by himself with a certain prolix eloquence which, in mercy to the reader, I will somewhat abridge.

“I think it right,” he says, “to add some account of the great capacity of writing which was given me by the Lord from my childhood. When as yet a little child I was sent to school, and quickly learnt my letters; and began long before the usual time of learning, and without any order from the master, to learn the art of writing; but in a furtive and unusual way, and without any teacher, so that I got a bad habit of holding my pen in a wrong manner, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me in that point. Many who saw this, decided that I should never write well, but by the grace of God it turned out otherwise. For, even in my childhood, when, together with the other boys, the tablet was put into my hands, it appeared that I had some notion of writing. Then, after a time, I began to write so well and was so fond of it, that in the monastery of Tegernsee, where I learned, I wrote many books, and being sent into Franconia, I worked so hard as nearly to lose my sight.... Then, after I became a monk of St. Emmeran’s, I was induced again to occupy myself so much in writing, that I seldom got an interval of rest except on festivals. Meantime there came more work on me, for as they saw I was generally reading, writing, or composing, they made me schoolmaster; by all which things I was, through God’s grace, so fully occupied that I frequently could not allow my body the necessary rest. When I had a mind to compose anything, I could not find time for it, except on holidays or at night, being tied down to the business of teaching the boys, and transcribing what I had undertaken. Besides the books which I composed myself I wrote nineteen missals, three books of the Gospels, and two lectionaries; besides which I wrote four service books for matins. Afterwards, old age and infirmity hindered me, and the grief caused by the destruction of our monastery; but to Him who is author of all good, and who has vouchsafed to give many things to me unworthy, be praise eternal!” He then adds an account of a vast number of other books written out by him and sent as presents to the monasteries of Fulda, Hirschfeld, Lorsch, Tegernsee, and others, amounting in all to thirty volumes. His labours, so cheerfully undertaken for the improvement of his convent, were perhaps surpassed by those of the monk Jerome, who wrote out so great a number of volumes, that it is said a wagon with six horses would not have sufficed to draw them. But neither one nor the other are to be compared to Diemudis, a devout nun of the monastery of Wessobrun, who, besides writing out in clear and beautiful characters five missals, with graduals and sequences attached, and four other office books, for the use of the church, adorned the library of her convent with two entire Bibles, eight volumes of St. Gregory, seven of St. Augustine, the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius and Cassiodorus, and a vast number of sermons, homilies, and other treatises, a list of which she left, as having all been written by her own hand, to the praise of God and of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul. This Diemudis was a contemporary of Othlonus, and found time in the midst of her gigantic labours to carry on a correspondence with Herluca, a nun of Eppach, to whom she is said to have indited “many very sweet letters,” which were long preserved.

I have mentioned as one of the scholars of St. Emmeran’s the holy William of Hirschau, who was chosen abbot of his monastery in 1070, and applied himself to make his monks as learned and as indefatigable in all useful labours as he was himself. He had about 250 monks at Hirschau, and founded no fewer than fifteen other religious houses, for the government of which he drew up a body of excellent statutes. These new foundations he carefully supplied with books, which necessitated constant work in the scriptorium. And a most stately and noble place was the scriptorium of Hirschau, wherein each one was employed according to his talent, binding, painting, gilding, writing, or correcting. The twelve best writers were reserved for transcribing the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, and one of the twelve, most learned in the sciences, presided over the tasks of the others, chose the books to be copied, and corrected the faults of the younger scribes. The art of painting was studied in a separate school, and here, among others, was trained the good monk Thiemon, who, after decorating half the monasteries of Germany with the productions of his pencil, became archbishop of Saltzburg, and died in odour of sanctity. The statutes with which abbot William provided his monasteries, were chiefly drawn up from those in use at St. Emmeran’s, but he was desirous of yet further improving them, and in particular of assimilating them to those of Cluny, which was then at the height of its renown. It was at his request that St. Ulric of Cluny wrote out his “Customary,” in which, among other things, he gives a description of the manner in which the Holy Scriptures were read through in the refectory in the course of the year. This “Customary” is one of the most valuable monuments of monastic times which remains to us; it shows us the interior of the monastery, painted by the hand of one of its inmates, taking us through each office, the library, the infirmary, the sacristy, the bakehouse, the kitchen, and the school. How beautiful is the order which it displays, as observed in choir, where, on solemn days, all the singers stood vested in copes, the very seats being covered with embroidered tapestry! Three days in the week the right side of the choir communicated, and the other three the left; during Holy Week they washed the feet of as many poor as there were brethren in the house, and the abbot added others also to represent absent friends. When the Passion was sung, they had a custom of tearing a piece of stuff at the words “they parted my garments;” and the new fire of Holy Saturday was struck, not from a flint, but a precious beryl. There were numberless beautiful rites of benediction observed, as that of the ripe grapes, which were blessed on the altar during mass, on the 6th of August, and afterwards distributed in the refectory, of new beans, and of the freshly-pressed juice of the grape. The ceremonies observed in making the altar breads were also most worthy of note. The grains of wheat were chosen one by one, were carefully washed and put aside in a sack, which was carried by one known to be pure in life and conversation to the mill. There they were ground and sifted, he who performed this duty being clothed in alb and amice. Two priests and two deacons clothed in like manner prepared the breads, and a lay brother, having gloves on his hands, held the irons in which they were baked. The very wood of the fire was chosen of the best and driest. And whilst these processes were being gone through, the brethren engaged ceased not to sing psalms, or sometimes recited Our Lady’s office. A separate chapter in the “Customary” is devoted to the children and their master, and the discipline under which they were trained is minutely described. We seem to see them seated in their cloister with the vigilant eye of the master presiding over their work. An open space is left between the two rows of scholars, but there is no one in the monastery who dare pass through their ranks. They go to confession twice a week, and always to the abbot or the prior. And such is the scrupulous care bestowed on their education, and the vigilance to which they are subjected, both by day and night, that, says Ulric, “I think it would be difficult for a king’s son to be brought up in a palace with greater care than the humblest boy enjoys at Cluny.”

This “Customary” was drawn up during the government of St. Hugh of Cluny, whose letter to William the Conqueror displays something of the independence of mind with which abbots of those days treated the great ones of the earth. William had written to him requesting him to send some of his monks to England, and offering him a hundred pounds for every monk he would send. This method of buying up his monks at so much a head offended the good abbot, who wrote back to the king declining to part with any of his community at such a price, and adding that he would himself give an equal sum for every good monk whom he could draw to Cluny. During the sixty-two years that he governed his abbey, he is said to have professed more than 10,000 subjects. Enough has been said to show that the monastic institute was still strong and vigorous in the eleventh century. Cluny, indeed, represented monasticism rather in its magnificence than in the more evangelic aspect of poverty and abasement, yet in the midst of all her lordly splendour, she continued fruitful in saints. Even the austere St. Peter Damian, whilst he disapproved of the wealth of the monks, was edified at their sanctity, and left them, marvelling how men so rich could live so holily. Their revenues were not spent on luxury; they went to feed 17,000 poor people, and to collect a library of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew authors, such as had not its equal in Europe. It contained among other treasures a certain Bible, called in the chronicle, “great, wonderful, and precious for its writing, correctness, and rich binding, adorned with beryl stones,” which had been written by the single hand of the monk Albert. The following inscription inserted in the volume attests the piety as well as the industry of the writer. “This book was written by a certain monk of Cluny, named Albert, formerly of Treves. It was done by the order and at the expense of the venerable abbot Pontius, Peter being at that time the librarian, and providing all things necessary with joy and diligence. And the aforesaid monk, in company with a certain brother named Opizo, diligently read through the whole book, that he might be able to improve it according to the authority of other books; and he twice corrected it. Therefore Brother Albert a sinner, prostrating himself at the feet of the brethren of Cluny, humbly begs of them to pray to God for himself and for his father, that they may obtain the forgiveness of their sins.”[158]

Elsewhere also the monastic schools continued to produce a number of excellent masters who thoroughly entered into the revival of classical studies, which we have noticed as having at this time sprung up. At Fleury the monk Raoul taught the art of versification to a crowded audience, and in his own poems advocated the study of the ancient models, especially of Horace. Quotations from the same poet, as well as from Virgil and Statius, not unfrequently appear in the lives of the saints, and even the sermons of this period, a fact not adduced as an instance of the good taste, but simply of the erudition, of the authors. In the school of Stavelot, even Greek poetry was studied. Here was trained the celebrated Wibald, successively abbot of Stavelot, Monte Cassino, and Corby.

The letters and other remains of this remarkable man have been inserted by Martene in his collection, and throw much light on the history of the times. He filled several important offices under the Emperor Conrad, who confided to him the education of his son and successor Henry; but whilst constantly immersed in public business he failed not to labour for the good cause which lay at the heart of every true monk, the multiplication of books, and the encouragement of learning. Thus among his letters we find one addressed in 1149 to the scholasticus of Corby, in which he enumerates among the writers to be studied in the school, Pythagoras, Plato, Sophocles, and Simonides, a sufficient proof that Greek literature was then cultivated in certain seminaries, and that the knowledge of that language was not confined, as Hallam suggests, to the occasional singing of a Greek Kyrie or Sanctus. There are other letters addressed to the superiors of monasteries whom he engaged to assist him in the collection of books. Among these was the abbot of Hildesheim, from whom he hoped to obtain a complete copy of the Offices of Cicero. His petition for these is in a certain sense apologetic, for, from the days of St. Jerome, religious men were wont to be a little sensitive, lest too great a love of the Latin orator should expose them to the charge of being a Ciceronian rather than a Christian student. Something of this sort had been playfully hinted at by the abbot of Hildesheim, and Wibald replies: “We do not serve the dishes of Cicero at the first or principal table; but when replenished with better food we partake of them as of sweetmeats that are served for dessert.” Sometimes his letters are addressed to friends who have visited his library, and who shared in his literary tastes. “I wish,” he writes to the Archbishop of Bremen, “that you would come again and remain longer with us, and, as you promised, turn over the volumes on our shelves. I wish we might have this pleasure together in peace and quiet; there is surely no greater happiness to be enjoyed in life.”

It is, perhaps, superfluous to multiply illustrations of this kind, but I cannot resist adding to the names already cited that of Marianus Scotus, whom some call an Irishman, and some a Scot, while others affirm him to have been an honest Northumbrian, and a member of the family of Bede.[159] He died towards the end of the eleventh century, having been successively monk in the abbeys of Cologne, Fulda, and Mayence, and professor of theology some years in that of Ratisbon. He was a poet, and the author of a Chronicle frequently quoted as one of the best mediæval histories, and continued by later writers. His biographers say of him that his countenance was so beautiful, and his manners so simple, that no one doubted he was inspired in all he said and did by the Holy Ghost. A most indefatigable writer, he transcribed the whole Bible with sundry commentaries, and that not once but repeatedly. Moreover he drew out of the deep sea of the holy Fathers, certain sweet waters for the profit of his soul, which he collected in prolix volumes. With all this he found spare moments which he devoted to charitable labours on behalf of poor widows, clerks, and scholars, for whose benefit he multiplied psalters, manuals, and other pious little books, which he distributed to them free of cost for the remedy of his soul. Who will refuse to believe that such loving toils as these were found worthy to receive the miraculous token of favour related in the old legend? “One night,” says the annalist, “the brother whose duty it was, having forgotten to give him candles, Marianus nevertheless continued his work without them; and when the brother, recollecting his omission, came late at night to his cell, he beheld a brilliant light streaming through the chinks of the door, and going in softly, found that it proceeded from the fingers of the monk’s left hand, and he saw and believed.”

In some writers of this time there are indications of increased attention being paid to natural phenomena, and the geographical notices introduced into the chronicle of Otto of Frisingia are praised by the authors of the Histoire Littéraire for their exactness and intelligence. A very singular and interesting fact is recorded in the chronicle of Marianus (or rather in its later continuation), which, though of a supernatural character, may perhaps be admitted among the scientific notices of the time. I allude to the vision seen and described by the Blessed Alpais of Cudot, who saw in rapture the earth hanging suspended in space shaped like a globe, or rather a spheroid, for she calls it not perfectly round, but egg-shaped. It was surrounded by water, and the sun appeared of a vastly greater size. Equally remarkable in another branch of science are the speculations of Ithier, a monk of Limoges, on the faculties of the mind corresponding to different parts of the brain, in which we catch a first glimpse of the modern theory of phrenology. Nor must it be supposed that the classical and scientific studies, which excited so much interest, caused the cultivation of the vulgar dialects to be forgotten. Abbots and bishops often preached in Romance, like St. Vital of Savigny and Hildebert of Mans, though the latter is said to have succeeded better in Latin. St. Bernard delivered his exhortations to his brethren not in Latin but Romance, for the benefit of the lay-brothers who were ignorant of the learned tongues, as Mabillon labours to prove. A vast number of translations were likewise made into the popular dialects, and about the end of the eleventh century the monk Grimoald published a version in Romance of the entire Bible; this translation being made nearly a century before that of the Waldenses, though the latter is very generally represented to be the earliest known version of the Scriptures in any vulgar tongue.[160]

It is evident, then, that all the learning of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was not swallowed up by the new race of scholastics, nor was every scholastic a Berengarius. Yet there is a certain change perceptible in many of those who at this time attained to literary eminence, and a greater predominance of the philosophic element, consequent in some degree from the nature of the studies rendered popular in the school of Bec. We begin more frequently to meet with tales of scholars who, in the midst of their learned pursuits, were overtaken with a dread of the perils which beset their course, and sought to escape them by flying into the desert. The cloisters were peopled with such refugees from the schools, who, like Lanfranc, often reappeared after a while to resume the weapons of human science, which they had thought to fling aside for ever, and use them in the service of their Master.

Of these converts were St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusians, and Odo of Tournai. Bruno is said to have studied at Tours under Berengarius, though this appears doubtful. In 1056 the scholasticus of Rheims having resigned his charge, that he might devote himself exclusively to the affairs of his own salvation, Gervase, Archbishop of Rheims, promoted Bruno to the office, which by this time had become associated to that of Chancellor of the diocese, and gave its holder a certain superiority over the other diocesan schools. Bruno continued to fill this responsible post for twenty years, during which time he numbered among his pupils Odo, afterwards Pope Urban II., and many of the greatest prelates of the time. He was reckoned the first philosopher, theologian, and poet of France, and by writers of his own day is extolled as “the doctor of doctors, the glory of the Church, the model of good men, and the mirror of the whole world.” The romantic story which ascribes his conversion to religion to the horror caused by the voice which came from the dead body of a certain eminent doctor, proclaiming his damnation, is now universally rejected as the production of a later age. In fact, St. Bruno has himself related the manner in which his resolution was first formed in a letter addressed to Raoul, provost of Rheims, wherein he reminds him of a certain day when they were walking with another canon named Fulcius, in the garden adjoining his house, conversing together of the vanities of the world. “Then it was,” he says, “that the Holy Spirit moved us to renounce all perishable things, and embrace the monastic life that we might merit life eternal.” It would also appear that a grievous case of simony, which had scandalised the diocese, powerfully wrought on Bruno’s mind, and moved him to fly from a world so hedged about with temptations. He was followed into his retreat by a number of his former scholars; but it was not until 1084 that they at last determined on the way of life they should choose, and, receiving the monastic habit from the hands of St. Hugh of Grenoble, laid the foundation of the Carthusian Order, which took its name from the desert they had chosen for their abode. In after years the order continued to be largely recruited from the same class whence their first founder had been drawn. Many a fine scholar came to the wild rocks of the Chartreuse to seek in obscurity for a peace which he found by experience the world of intellect could never give; and Bulæus informs us that no order of monks received among their ranks so many members of Paris University as did these austere and penitential recluses.

Odo, or Oudart, the other convert to whom allusion has been made, first attracted notice as a teacher at Toul, a city which had always been rich in schools and schoolmasters, and which had felt a special pride in keeping up its learned reputation, since 1048, when it had sent its bishop to fill the chair of St. Peter in the person of St. Leo IX. Odo’s fame reached the ears of the canons of Tournai, who entreated him to take charge of their cathedral school, which he accordingly governed for five years. A skilful teacher, and a devourer of books, Odo possessed extraordinary powers of labour, and when any literary work was in hand, he rested neither day nor night till it was accomplished. He was also a great friend of method and good moral discipline, but as yet he had been too exclusively taken up with the cares and pleasures of his profession to give much thought to spiritual things. Or perhaps we might rather say that he hardly knew of their existence. Like other busy, hard-working men, he was swept along in the tide of daily life, and thought it much to preserve a character of stainless honour and respectability. His success as a teacher was so great, that disciples came to him from all parts of France, as well as from Flanders, Italy, and Saxony. The city of Tournai became literally filled with students, who might be seen disputing together in the public streets: and as you drew near the school you would see them walking with the master, or seated around him; or, in the evening, standing with him at the church door, while he taught them the various constellations, and explained to them the course of the stars.

Odo was as remarkable for his virtue as his learning. He took all his disciples to the church with him daily. They never numbered fewer than two hundred; but he made them walk two-and-two through the streets, he himself bringing up the rear, and enforcing a discipline as strict as would have been observed in the most regular monastery. No one ventured to speak to his companion, or to look right or left, and in choir they might have been taken for monks of Cluny. He did not allow them to frequent the company of women, or to wear any kind of finery; and if they transgressed his orders in these respects, he turned them out of his school. At the hours when he gave his lectures no layman was allowed to enter the cloisters, which were at other times the resort of the public. So strict was he in this, that he did not hesitate to exclude Everard, the Castellan of Tournai, a nobleman of power and influence; for it was Odo’s principle that a man must not deviate a hair’s-breadth from his duty from the motive of human respect. By these means he won the love and esteem of every one: canons and people alike spoke well of him, though some were found to say that his regularity of life sprang rather from philosophy than religion.

He had directed his school for about five years, when one day, a certain clerk having brought him St. Augustine’s “Treatise on Free-will,” he purchased it, merely with the view of increasing his library, and threw it into a coffer among some other books without looking at it, for his taste inclined him rather to the study of Plato than of the Fathers. About two months afterwards, however, as he was explaining Boëthius to his disciples, he came to the fourth book of the “Consolations of Philosophy,” in which the author treats of Free-will. Remembering the book he had lately purchased on the same subject, he sent for it, and having read two or three pages, was struck with the beauty of the style; and calling his pupils, said to them, “I own that until now I was ignorant how agreeable and eloquent are the writings of St. Augustine;” and that day and the following he read to them from this work, explaining its difficulties as he proceeded.

In this way he came to that passage in the third book, wherein St. Augustine compares the soul of the sinner to a slave condemned to some vile and disgusting labour. Odo sighed as he read the powerful words of the writer, exclaiming, “How striking is this comparison! it seems as if written expressly for us men of science. We adorn the corrupt world with the little stock of learning which we possess, and after death, perhaps, are not found worthy of eternal happiness, because we have done God no service; but have used our intellects for vanity and worldly glory!” With these words he rose from his chair, and going into the church, remained there in floods of tears, his scholars meanwhile remaining astonished and perplexed. From that day he gradually discontinued his lectures, and began to frequent the church more diligently, and to distribute in alms all the money he received from his pupils. He also fasted so rigorously that his appearance soon completely changed, and he became so thin and attenuated as scarcely to be recognised.

The rumour soon ran through the town that Odo, the famous doctor, was about to abandon the world. Four of his disciples resolved never to quit him, and made him promise to do nothing except in concert with them. Monks and abbots from every religious house in the neighbourhood of Tournai, wanted Odo to join their communities, but his disciples preferred the rule of the canons as being easier than that of the monks. Rabod, the Bishop of Tournai, accordingly made over to them an old church, part of an abbey which had been destroyed by the Normans, and they took possession of it in 1092. Two years later they resolved on embracing the monastic rule, and the bishop giving his consent, Odo was elected first abbot of the restored abbey of Tournai. Though he had fled to the cloister to escape from the pride of the schools, he did not neglect the cause of learning. Like most of the religious superiors of his day, he gave much time and trouble to the formation of a good library and scriptorium, and used to make an innocent boast of the many good writers whom the Lord had given him. Had you gone into his scriptorium, says his successor, you would have seen twelve youths, sitting in silence, most diligently engaged in copying manuscripts, at tables made for the purpose. And he enumerates among the books so transcribed the works of St. Jerome and St. Gregory, and all that he could collect of Bede, Isidore, Ambrose, Austin, and the Lord Anselm of Bec.

About this time the rival philosophical sects known as the Realists and Nominalists began to attract attention. The questions in dispute between them regarded the validity and existence of universal ideas. The expression requires explanation. An idea is the representation in the mind of some impression made on the senses by an external object. These ideas may be either particular or universal. They are particular when they correspond to some individual object, as John Smith, or that tree. They are universal when we separate them from any individual object, and conceive them as corresponding to something which is to be found in many individuals, whereby these may be classified together, as when we speak of men or trees. According to the scholastics, there are five kinds of such universal ideas, namely, species, genus, difference, property and accident. The species includes many individuals, as sheep, oak. The genus includes many species, as animal, tree. Difference is something which distinguishes one species from another belonging to the same genus. Property, or essential attribute, is what necessarily belongs to the essence of a thing; as when we say of a globe that it is round. Accident is some attribute to be found in a thing which is not necessary to its existence, as if we were to say of the same globe that it is green. We are able to hold these ideas in our mind, abstracted from any object, and so we come to have the abstract ideas of men, animals, trees, roundness, or whiteness, without connecting them with any particular individual. But the Nominalists denied the existence of such ideas, and declared the above distinctions to be mere sounds of the voice, corresponding to no external reality. They knew what was meant by a wise man, or a white horse, but professed themselves unable to comprehend what was meant by wisdom or whiteness. The Realists, on the other hand, appealing to the authority of Boëthius, contended that these ideas were real and existent.

Both parties numbered great names in their ranks. Odo of Tournai was a partisan of the Realists, as was also the Blessed Robert of Arbrisselles. At the head of the Nominalists appeared his fellow-student and professor in the Paris schools, Roscelin, a canon of Compeigne, and a man whose character too closely resembled that of Berengarius. He seems to have adopted novel and startling opinions as a means of drawing the eyes of men on himself, and the manner in which he applied his philosophical method of reasoning to revealed doctrines, specially that of the Holy Trinity, resulted in actual heresy, and brought on him in 1092 the condemnation of the Council of Soissons. Taking refuge in England, he there met with a vigorous opponent in the person of St. Anselm, who, whilst freely admitting, and even advocating the exercise of the intellectual powers on the mysteries of faith, marked out the limits between faith and reason, and severely condemned the presumption of those who would attempt to make reason the test of faith. He declares that we must seek the intelligence of those things that we already believe; that reason is not the means by which we attain to faith, but rather that by which we enjoy the evidence and contemplation of the mysteries which we already believe: and that right order demands that we should first receive the profound truths of faith before we dare to exercise our reason upon them.[161] As time went on, and both sects pushed their philosophical views to extremes, grave errors were charged against both, and the foundations were laid of many forms of modern Rationalism.

Paris was now rapidly becoming the centre of scholastic activity. The fame of her masters spread over Europe, and among them were Lambert, a disciple of Fulbert of Chartres; Manegold, whose very daughters were learned, and opened a school for the education of their own sex, Anselm of Laon and Bernard of Chartres. John of Salisbury, whose favourite master, William de Conches, had himself been a pupil of Bernard’s, has left us an interesting account of the method of this last-named teacher. He explained all the best authors, not confining himself to grammar strictly so called, but making his pupils observe all the refinements of rhetoric. He pointed out the propriety of certain terms and metaphors, and the best order and arrangement of a subject; and showed the variety of styles to be used according to the different matters treated of by a writer. If any passage occurred in their reading referring to other sciences, he took pains to explain it, according to the capacity of his hearers. He was careful to cultivate their memory, making them learn and recite choice passages from the classic historians, poets, and philosophers; requiring them one day to give an exact account of what they had heard or read the day previous. He was always exhorting them to read much in private, but not indiscriminately, directing them to avoid what was only fit to feed curiosity, and to content themselves with the works of standard authors. For, he used to say, quoting Quinctilian, “it is a great weakness to read all that every miserable writer has to say on every subject, and only loads the memory with superfluous and worthless things.”

As he knew that it is to very little purpose to hear or study examples unless we accustom ourselves to reproduce the treasures thus stored up in the memory, he was anxious that his pupils should every day compose something both in prose and verse, and he established conferences among them wherein they mutually questioned and answered one another, the utility of which exercise John of Salisbury speaks of very highly; “provided,” as he observes, “that charity govern the emulation displayed in such encounters, so that while we make progress in letters we still preserve humility. For a man should not serve two masters so opposed one to the other as learning and vice.”

This was also the rule observed by Bernard, who maintained that the first and principal key to knowledge was Humility, to which he assigned Poverty as a companion. The subjects on which he exercised his scholars were always fitted to cherish both faith and good morals. And the work of each day was finished with the recitation of the “Our Father,” and a brief prayer for the dead.

Anselm of Laon was a teacher of much the same character, and, if possible, of greater renown. He and his brother Radulph were called by Guibert de Nogent the two eyes of the Latin Church, and by their knowledge of the Scriptures converted many heretics. Some of their pupils were as famous as themselves, such as Hugh Metellus, a great lover of the classics, whose flow of language was so great that he dictated to two secretaries at once, and could improvise a thousand verses, standing on one leg, and who was induced by the teaching of his pious masters to exchange a life of worldly vanity, the love of dress and delicate diet, for the austere regimen of a canon regular of Toul. Another of Anselm’s scholars was William de Champeaux, under whom the Paris schools first attained that pre-eminence which they maintained in the world of letters down to the period of the Revolution. After studying successively under Manegold and Anselm, he was appointed archdeacon of the Church of Paris, and master of the Cathedral school, where he taught logic, rhetoric, and theology, with great success. And about the year 1100 his reputation attracted one disciple whose name is indelibly associated with the literary history of the period,--the celebrated Peter Abelard.

Abelard’s choice of a scholar’s life is said to have been influenced in the first instance by his dislike of the profession of arms. Nature, while it had given him an insatiable desire for fame and worldly glory, had denied him the gift of personal courage, and he himself made no secret of the feeling which, as he said, had moved him to enrol himself under the banners of Minerva, rather than those of Mars. His subtle mind was very early devoted to the study of logic, but not satisfied with the teaching to be found in his own diocese of Nantes, he led a wandering life for some time, passing from school to school; and at last found his way to Paris, where William de Champeaux was then at the height of his reputation as a teacher of dialectics. The brilliant qualities of his new pupil at first won the heart of his master, but erelong Abelard began to show signs of that presumption and contempt of every one’s attainments except his own, which kept him at war with all his contemporaries. He came to the lecture rooms less with the view of learning than with the secret hope of outshining his fellow-students and perplexing his master. He was perpetually proposing vexatious questions, for the purpose of entrapping the latter in some logical subtlety; and affecting to consider that William had shown himself unable to answer these difficulties, he disdained any longer to be the scholar of one whom he considered his inferior, and determined on setting up a school for himself.

Unable to do this in Paris, where the influence of William de Champeaux was at that time all-powerful, he established himself first at Mélun, and then at Corbeil, which was nearer to the capital. He was but twenty-two when he first appeared before the world as an independent professor, and soon made himself talked of for his brilliancy, his fluency, and the vehemence with which he attempted to make the art of logic supersede all the other liberal arts, which he was accustomed to treat with contempt. His passion for glory soon brought him back to Paris, where William de Champeaux was now archdeacon, and head of the cathedral school. Abelard renewed his attacks on his old master, and that with such success, that the cloisteral schools became deserted, and the fickle audience flocked to the lectures of the new professor. The circumstance seems to have touched the heart of William with a contempt for intellectual renown which was so easily won and lost, and resigning his school, he retired among the canons regular of St. Victor, a religious house destined to play a great part in the history of the future university. This was in 1109, and, by the advice of Hildebert, Bishop of Mans, who wrote to the new canon, congratulating him on “the step by which he had at last become a true philosopher,” William opened a school within his monastery, which afterwards produced several illustrious theologians, who are all distinguished by the surname of St. Victor.

It is unnecessary to pursue the rivalries of the two professors through all their windings; in 1113 William was raised to the see of Châlons, a circumstance which seems to have first induced Abelard to study theology, with the hope of attaining similar honours. Accordingly, we next find him at Laon, attending the school of Anselm, now dean of that church, whom, however, he very soon declared to be altogether unworthy of his great renown. “His learning was,” he said, “nothing but foliage without fruit; long custom, rather than any real merit, had acquired him a name. If you consulted him on any difficulty, you came away just as wise as you went. There was nothing but abundance of fine words, without a grain of sense or reason.” So, in despair of finding a master wise enough to teach one of his genius, he resolved to do without one, and, with the help of a commentary, began to give lectures on the prophet Ezechiel. His wit, his fluency, and his singular charms of voice and manner, veiled the real shallowness of his theological attainments, and, on returning to Paris, he succeeded in gaining what had been for so many years the great object of his ambition, the direction of the cathedral school. Then began the period of his extraordinary popularity; disciples flocked to him from all parts of France and Germany, as well as from Rome and England. His vanity easily persuaded him that he was not merely the greatest, but the only philosopher of his time; all the world hung on his eloquence, but amid the long catologue of his admirers, none was to be found so bewitched with his merits as he was himself.

Abelard’s teaching bore the character of his own restless and impatient genius. Disdainful of anything which did not promise quick results, he aimed at presenting his disciples with a philosophy which professed to lead them to the possession of wisdom by a royal road. The trivium and quadrivium were to be consigned to oblivion; the classics and the Fathers might alike grow dusty on the shelves, logic was to be all in all, and the philosopher and the theologian might abandon every other study, provided they perfected themselves in the art which St. Bernard characterised with caustic wit, as “that of ever studying, and never reaching the truth.” Abelard’s condemnation of the classics is worth noticing, as showing the similarity of mind which existed between him and Berengarius, whom Guitmond describes as “making no account of the opinions of his masters, and despising the liberal arts.” In neither of them did this condemnation arise from a preponderance of the Christian sense; but from their repugnance to objective realities.[162] Their philosophy was in short that of which the apostle speaks, when he condemns the “vain babblings” of those who “desire to be teachers of the law,” which differed little from the “foolish questionings” of the sophists. The effect of these new doctrines was to inaugurate a scholastic revolution. One by one the fair branches of the tree of science were severed from the trunk, till at last nothing remained but the exercise of subtle and captious argumentation, wherein logic came to be used not as a means but an end, and the scholar was no longer led to seek for truth as his object, but to rest content with the search after it.

Thus passed several years, during which Abelard had earned a fame, brilliant indeed beyond that of any of his contemporaries, but unhappily one which left his moral reputation far from stainless. In 1117 we find him in the abbey of St. Denis, where he had taken refuge from the disgrace entailed on him by his connection with Heloïsa. Even here his insupportable vanity was not long before it betrayed itself in the criticisms he passed on his abbot and his brother monks, among whom he seems to have aspired to act as the reformer. The abbot longed to get rid of so troublesome a subject, and the opportunity of doing so soon presented itself. Crowds of students began to clamour at the gates of St. Denis for their old master, and to implore him to reopen his school. He therefore resumed his lectures, but unable to rest contented with teaching only what had been taught before him, he began to introduce logical subtleties into his theological views, and put forth certain explanations on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which raised a storm of opposition. His chief opponents were Alberic and Lotulf, two former disciples of Anselm of Laon, and William of Champeaux. They not only attacked his opinions as heterodox, but complained that he had no right to teach at all. His position as a professor was, they said, altogether irregular, for, contrary to the established usages of the Paris schools, he taught sine magistro.

This term requires a little explanation; and shows us the germ of what soon afterwards developed into the system of university graduation. According to established custom, no scholar could be licensed to teach publicly who had not previously gone through a regular course of study under some approved doctor. But Abelard had had no master in theology, except himself; for, as we have seen, he gave up his attendance in Anselm’s school through contempt for his inferiority, and had at once begun to teach a science which in reality he had never studied. At a Council assembled at Soissons, his Treatise on the Holy Trinity was condemned, and he himself required to cast it into the fire, and to make public profession of the faith by reciting the creed of St. Athanasius, which he did with many tears and sighs, after which he was sent back to the monastery of St. Denys. He had not been there long, however, when a controversy which he thought fit to raise on the question of the identity of St. Denys, the Areopagite, with the patron of the abbey, got him into fresh trouble, and he fled from the monastery to the territory of the Count of Champagne, where he fixed his residence in a beautiful solitude near Nogent, which was soon found out by his disciples. “They came crowding to me,” he writes, “from all parts, and leaving the towns and cities, were content to dwell in the wilderness. Instead of spacious houses, they set up for themselves little tents, and put up gladly with wild herbs instead of delicate viands. People said one to another, ‘Behold the world is gone after him.’ At last, as my little oratory would not hold them, they enlarged it, building it of wood and stone.” To this new building he gave the name of the Paraclete, and it might truly have been his consolation could he have learnt wisdom from the past, and bowed his erratic genius under the yoke of faith. But the school of the Paraclete soon resounded with new errors; to the former opinions put forth regarding the Holy Trinity, were now added equally heterodox views on the subject of grace and original sin, which were at once discerned and denounced by two saints who then illuminated the church with their doctrine and their virtue--St. Norbert, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Abelard, whose natural cowardice shrank from the prospect of new dangers, endeavoured to escape the consequences of his own imprudence by abandoning the Paraclete, and accepting the government of St. Gildas’ abbey; but the uncouth manners and language of the monks filled him with repugnance, or perhaps it would be truer to say, the monastic routine proved insufferable to one who had nothing of the real monk about him. In 1126, therefore, we find him once more teaching in the schools of St. Geneviève. He was never really at home save in the Professor’s chair, but unhappily he never filled it without betraying himself into some of the audacities of unorthodox philosophy. Soon his old errors were reproduced, and called forth the zeal of St. Bernard, who protested with all the force of his nervous eloquence against the strange assemblage of heresies to be found united in the teaching of a single man. “When he speaks of the Holy Trinity,” he says, “it is in the style of Arius; he is a Pelagian when he treats of grace, and a second Nestorius when he speaks of the Person of Jesus Christ. His vanity,” continues the saint, “is such that he brags as if there were nothing in heaven and earth he did not know; and in truth he knows a little of everything except himself.” In his 190th Epistle, addressed to Pope Innocent II., St. Bernard sums up all the errors of Abelard, who had ventured to deny, and even to ridicule, the doctrine of Redemption, which he presumptuously declared illogical, declaring that our Lord came only to instruct us by His Word and Example. His final condemnation took place at the Council of Sens, which imposed silence on him for ever, a sentence confirmed by the authority of Pope Innocent II. This condemnation might possibly have had no better result than that of Soissons, had it not been for the charity of the Venerable Peter of Cluny, at whose monastery Abelard stopped on his way to Rome, where he purposed to appeal against his sentence. The holy abbot succeeded in drawing from him a recantation of his errors; he induced him to renounce the scholastic career, which had been the source of so many temptations, and frankly to submit to the judgment of the Council and the Pope. More than this, he exerted himself to effect a personal reconciliation between Abelard and St. Bernard, and lastly, he offered to the wounded spirit of the unhappy scholar a secure and sheltered retreat in his own community, where, under the habit of religion, the Professor of St. Geneviève spent the last years of his life in the exercise of piety and penance.

There then, let us leave him, in his poor cell with its wooden candlestick and its crucifix, with the Holy Scriptures and a few treatises of the Fathers for his only library; defeated, as some might say, put to silence, and extinguished--but with his heart, at last, at peace. Well might he have exclaimed with the Psalmist, “It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me!” A change was wrought in him so great, that, as we read the words in which his good abbot describes it, we can scarcely recognise the old Abelard of former years. “Never did I see a man more humble,” writes Peter the Venerable, “whether in gesture, habit, or countenance. He read continually, prayed often, and kept silence at all times, unless when forced to speak; and after his reconciliation with the Holy See, offered the Holy Sacrifice almost daily, and occupied himself only with meditating or teaching me truths of religion or philosophy.” A marvellous change indeed; and happy were it if all who incurred the same censures could follow in the same course.

We have seen that the rationalistic errors of Abelard found their ablest opponent in St. Bernard, who had conceived a distrust of the new philosophy when studying as a mere boy in the canon’s school at Chatillon, where the fashionable scholasticism was just then beginning to be introduced. He seems to have felt an instinctive dread of its ultimate tendencies, and to have preserved during his whole life the sentiments resulting from his early experience of what his biographer Geoffery of Igny designates as the “wisdom of the world.” Closely united to him in their theological views, were the great scholars of St. Victor’s, Hugh, Richard, and Adam. Hugh of St. Victor, the third prior in succession from William de Champeaux, was styled the second Augustine, from his devoted admiration of that Father. Brought up in a house of canons regular in Saxony, he bore testimony in after life to the care they bestowed on his education. “I do not fear to certify,” he says, “that they neglected no means of perfecting me in the sciences, and even instructed me in many things which might be thought trifling and extraordinary.” These words occur in his Didascalion, or Treatise on Studies, which he drew up with the view of remedying the disorderly and unmethodical manner in which most scholars then pursued their academic labours. In it he gives an interesting account of his own early life as a scholar. “I never despised anything that belonged to erudition,” he says; “when I was a scholar I studied the names of everything I saw. I committed to memory all the sentences, questions, replies, and solutions I had heard and learnt during the day; and I used to describe the figures of geometry on the floor with charcoal. I do not say this to boast of my knowledge, which is nothing, but to show that he proceeds best who proceeds with order. You will find many things in histories and other books, which taken in themselves seem of little profit, but which nevertheless are useful and necessary when taken in connection with other things.” Hugh, like all the disciples of this school, advocated the old system, according to which all the parts of knowledge stood in mutual relation to one another, and theology dominated over the whole. In his Treatise De Vanitate Mundi, he describes an imaginary school, in which is no doubt depicted that of his own monastery. The students are described divided into groups, according to the different subjects on which they are engaged. All the liberal arts are cultivated in turn, and while the fingers of some are employed in designing or colouring an illuminated page, others are studying the nature of herbs, or the constitution of the human frame. As a spiritual writer, Hugh of St. Victor is considered to be surpassed by his disciple Richard of St. Victor, a Scotchman by birth, and one of the greatest mystic theologians of the Church. The special doctrines insisted on by this school were those which put forth faith, and not reason, as the ground of certainty, and maintained that reason was to be exercised only to demonstrate the truths that were held by faith. Abelard, in his extravagant exaltation of the claims of reason, had gone so far in his “Introduction to Theology,” as to define faith as an opinion, and to depreciate a too ready belief, praising that cautious philosophy which does not yield its faith till it has subjected all things to the test of reason. To believe without doubting, according to this view of things, was the religion of women and children; to doubt all things before we believe them was alone worthy of the dignity of man. The scholars of St. Victor not only vindicated the true claims of faith, but they sought to prove that faith itself must rest on the foundation stone of charity. They loved to remind their disciples of those words of Our Lord, “If any man will do the will of God he shall know of the doctrine.” Charity, they said, is then the foundation, and Humility the key, to all true science, and we can understand the Truth of God only in proportion as we obey it. They did not seek to set aside the just use of the reason, but to assign it limits, and to prohibit the search after things confessedly above the grasp of human intellect. “What is it to be wise,” asks Hugo of St. Victor, “but to love God? for love is wisdom.” He complains of the cavilling spirit of the dialecticians who would fain turn the simplest precepts of the Gospel into matter of dispute. If they read that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, they begin to argue, saying, “If I love one man as myself, then I must love three or four men more than myself;” and this they style seeking truth. Again, he blames the conceit of those who, ignorant of the very first elements, will condescend to study nothing but the sublimest matters, forgetting that the beginning of all discipline is humility. Neither would he endure that presumptuous spirit which gloried in the subtlety of its own powers, but, like a true disciple of St. Augustine, desired that reliance on Divine Grace should be the foundation of the whole spiritual and intellectual edifice.

Perfectly in accordance with this teaching was that of John of Salisbury, who exposed the vain pretensions of those who ought to make philosophy consist in a barren exercise of the reasoning powers. “Philosophy,” he says, “is nothing else but the love of God, and if that love be extinguished philosophy vanishes away. All studies worthy of that end must tend to the increase of charity, and he who acquires or increases charity has gained the highest object of philosophy. This, therefore, is the true rule of philosophy, that all learning and all reading should be made conducive to truth and charity, and then the choir of virtues will enter into the soul as into a temple of God. They most impudently err who think that philosophy consists in mere words, who multiply phrases and propose a thousand ridiculous little questions, endeavouring to perplex their hearers that they may seem more learned than Dædalus. But though eloquence is a useful and noble study, this loquacity of vain disputation is a most hateful thing.” Truth, as all agreed, was the only object of science; but whilst Abelard and his followers sought this truth in the subjective reasonings of their own minds, the mystics of St. Victor’s school declared that it was not to be sought by the understanding alone, but by the heart and will. For what is Truth, they asked, but God Himself? Who is to be sought by love rather than by science. He therefore who seeks God, seeks the highest truth, and embraces it when it finds Him. It knows all things in proportion as it knows more of God, Whom not to know is darkness. And it knows all things in Him, for, in the words of St. Gregory, “what does not he see, who sees Him Who sees all things?”

Such was the sublime teaching which St. Bernard and the contemplatives of his time opposed to the growing spirit of philosophic rationalism. The Cistercian cloisters and the disciples of the school of St. Victor everywhere propagated the same spiritual maxims, and thus provided a wholesome antidote to the baneful spirit of the age. But the very existence of the antidote bears witness how wide-spread was the poison which it sought to nullify, how greatly the mind of Christendom had broken away from the old landmarks of thought, and how rapidly it was sweeping onward to what threatened to cause the wreck of faith and philosophy together.

The actual state of the schools at the middle of the twelfth century may best be gathered from the description given by our own country man, John of Salisbury, of his own course of studies. He appears to have come to Paris for the first time in 1136, being then a youth of sixteen, and, like thousands of the same age, was launched into the world of the great capital, to complete his education under the many wise professors who were contending for popular favour. Here we catch a glimpse of the new system which was gradually establishing itself. Education was no longer given exclusively in cloistered schools, but in great cities, where the young aspirant after science, instead of being sheltered under law and discipline, was cast abroad to shift for himself, and only required to attend the lectures of some licensed master. No doubt it was an excellent way of teaching him a knowledge of the world, but this had not hitherto been included in the branches of a noble youth’s early education. However, at sixteen John had to take care of himself in the great world of Paris, which exercised over him the fascination of which all were conscious who passed from the semi-barbarous isle of Britain to the brilliant capital, and beheld the gay vivacity of its citizens, the gravity of its religious ceremonials, the splendour and majesty of its many churches, and the busy life of its schools.[163] “Happy banishment,” wrote the young scholar, “that is permitted here to find a home!” His first care was to choose what Professor he would attend. It was just the time when Abelard’s fame was at its greatest height, and the English youth was naturally enough led to join the crowds that thronged the school of St. Geneviève. His first impression was one of delight, but soon his English good sense revolted at the shallowness which he detected under the showy outside, while the contemptuous neglect with which Abelard was wont to treat the ancient learning, was unendurable in the eyes of one who, young as he was, already had a thoroughly-formed taste for the classics. So bidding adieu to St. Geneviève, he placed himself under the two English masters, Robert de Mélun and William de Conches; by the first of whom he was initiated into the art of logic. He praises the disinterestedness shown by Robert, who, in his conduct as Professor, despised worldly gain and sought only the benefit of his scholars. Robert afterwards became Bishop of Hereford, and in that capacity acquired a very unenviable notoriety as one of the chief opponents of St. Thomas of Canterbury. Under William de Conches, John next passed three years with very great profit, studying grammar, which was then understood to include the explanation of good authors. He never regretted the time he devoted to this study. William was a disciple of the old school, a stout champion of the liberal arts, and warmly opposed to the new system introduced by Abelard. He liked to exercise his pupils in prose and verse, and required not only good prosody, but also good sense from his scholars. It was doubtless a fine thing to hear the warm-hearted, testy Englishman speak of the schools in which he had been brought up half a century ago, when boys were taught to behave like boys, and to listen to their masters in silence. Things were much altered now; and it was no longer the custom to follow the wholesome rule which Pythagoras taught his disciples, namely, to listen in silence for seven years, and only begin to ask questions in the eighth. On the contrary, these new scholars would come into your school with a supercilious air, and propose you their doubts and quibbles before they were well seated. They seemed to fancy that they knew everything when they had followed the schools for a year, and as if their business was to instruct their masters by their amazingly clever questions. On all these abuses Master William was wont to expend his honest indignation, but he certainly could not complain that John of Salisbury exhibited any of these marks of reprobation. Far from seeming to think he knew everything after a year’s study, John, after spending twelve years in the schools, regarded himself as still a learner. After his three years of grammar, he spent seven years more in successive courses of rhetoric, mathematics, and theology. Among the masters whose lectures he attended were Robert Pullus, or Pulleyne, and Gilbert de la Poiree. The latter afterwards became Bishop of Poitiers, in which dignity he was accused of teaching certain heterodox opinions on the Holy Trinity, which were condemned at the Council of Rheims, in 1148. His errors, like those of Abelard, appear to have arisen out of an abuse of that scholastic method of argumentation so popular among the professors of the time, and which too often proved dangerous weapons in the hands of men whose theological studies by no means kept pace with the cultivation of dialectics. Robert Pullus, the English master of theology, and restorer of sacred studies at Oxford, was a man of far more solid learning. “He knew,” says his great disciple, “how to be wise with sobriety.” The soundness of his doctrine was evinced by his “Sum of Theology,” and his disinterestedness, by his refusal of a bishopric offered him by Henry I. Robert declined abandoning a life of study for the precarious honours of a dignity which exposed its owner to the almost certain contingency of a struggle with the crown. He desired nothing more honourable than the life of a master; nevertheless, he was unable to avoid the dignities thrust on him by Celestine II., who created him cardinal and chancellor of the Roman Church.

During the whole time of his residence at Paris, John of Salisbury enjoyed a scholar’s honourable state of poverty, and supported himself by giving lessons to younger students, much after the fashion of a modern college tutor. His tutorship was, however, by no means a very profitable post, and supplied him with little beyond the bare necessaries of life. Happily, however, the threadbare gown of the poor scholar was still regarded with respect, and his humble circumstances did not prevent him from forming many valuable friendships. Among his friends he numbered the two great masters Adam du Petit Pont, and Richard l’Évêque, the former of whom he describes as a man of undoubted learning, but so vain that he wrapped up his knowledge in a cloud of obscurity, and made himself unintelligible for the sake of appearing profound, saying to those who reproached him with this weakness, that were he only to teach in the common way, he should get no one to attend his lectures. Richard was a man of a very different temper; his pride lay rather in concealing what he knew, than in displaying it; he cared nothing at all for worldly applause, and was deemed as holy in life as he was erudite. At first he followed the excellent method of Bernard of Chartres, but by degrees he yielded to the fashion of the times, and giving up the teaching of grammar and rhetoric, confined himself entirely to lecturing on dialectics.

To these friends of John of Salisbury we must add the name of a third, an Englishman like himself, and one of Anglo-Saxon blood. He was a young law-student, who, if inferior to many of his companions in scholastic acquirements, made up for the deficiency by the brilliancy of his native gifts, and those personal graces which add so largely to the power of wit or eloquence. The large grey eyes, thin aquiline nose, and beautiful countenance, so calm, yet with a glance so full of fire, are all known to us; for if the features of St. Thomas à Becket have not been preserved chiselled in marble, they have yet been made familiar to us by the description of those who laid up in their hearts the memory of that beloved countenance. It bore the unmistakable impress of genius, and of that sensitive organisation with which genius is so frequently accompanied. But his great natural gifts had received very imperfect culture in the schools of Merton and those of the English metropolis. At Paris his studies were almost exclusively confined to law, and he afterwards regretted that he had not devoted more time during his academic career to sacred learning. The intimacy which sprang up between him and John of Salisbury was not, therefore, based on any similarity in their literary tastes. The letters of both evince a striking difference in their intellectual training; those of St. Thomas, powerful in matter, are yet abrupt, harsh, and technical in style--those of his friend, on the other hand, are conveyed in classic phraseology, and betray the careful polish, not always free from affectation, of one who has laboriously formed himself on ancient models. In fact, John of Salisbury was, beyond dispute, the first scholar of his day, and naturally enough bewailed the revolution which he witnessed taking place in the schools. The science of reasoning was now affirmed by its advocates to contain the pith of all philosophy. Rhetoric was regarded by them as altogether unnecessary, because eloquence being a gift of nature, could not be acquired by art. Those who possessed the gift needed no study of ancient authors to infuse it into them; and those who did not possess it, would study them to no purpose. The art of logic to such men was all in all, and such was the eagerness with which they indulged their taste for disputation, that some spent their whole days in argument, and carried on their tiresome wrangling in the very streets. And what arguments they were! They examined seriously and at alarming length the weighty question, whether a pig who is driven by a man to be sold at the market, is held by the man, or by the cord fastened round his leg; and whether one who buys a cloak can be held to have purchased also the hood fastened to the cloak. As two negatives are equal to one affirmative, professors were accustomed to introduce into their arguments such a number of negatives, that in order to reckon them up, and see in what sense their propositions were to be understood, the hearers had recourse to the device of dropping a bean at each negative, and reckoning up the sum total at the end of the lecture. John, in his writings, complains of all these extravagancies, and of the tiresome way in which these choppers of logic would dispute over a tuft of wool, and instantly contradict any man who opened his lips in their presence. Nor did he cease lamenting over the neglect of good literature, which was resulting from the predominance given in the schools to logical disputation. He specially attacks one of the leading scholastics whom he does not name, but speaks of him under the sobriquet of “Cornificius;”[164] and those who showed themselves hostile to the claims of grammar and rhetoric are denominated by him “Cornificians.” In spite of all his wit and eloquence, the Cornificians won the day. The study of polite literature fell into neglect, and the intellectual power of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was turned into another channel--a channel which no doubt gave rise to a good deal of barbarous Latinity, but whence was to issue, in process of time, something more precious than mere literary elegance, the scholastic philosophy of the Church.

The caustic strictures of John of Salisbury were not directed against that system of philosophy, which as yet had no existence,[165] but against the error which put forth the exercise of sophistical argumentation as itself the sum of all philosophy, and the danger which he saw too well must arise from the deification of human reason. For the scholastic method, to which the theology of the Church stands so deeply indebted, is not to be confounded with the scholasticism which was rampant in the days of Abelard. The errors and sophistries of the professors of his day, arising as they did out of an extravagant adherence to the uncorrected teaching of Aristotle, were from the first discerned and condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities; and by none were they more firmly opposed than by St. Bernard, who saw to what fatal results the unrestrained culture of human reason, under the guidance of a pagan master, must necessarily lead. We shall see further on how jealously the Church continued to regard the study of Aristotle, and in what way she sought to check the evils flowing from it to the schools, up to the time when his philosophy was finally adapted to the service of the faith by the labours of St. Thomas.

In the midst of his studies, his tutorships, and his passages of arms with the Cornificians, twelve years slipped away, at the end of which time John of Salisbury found himself possessed of a vast fund of erudition[166] and an empty purse. The latter circumstance was not one which greatly disquieted him, for his theory was that the keys which opened the door of philosophy were not of gold, but consisted of poverty, humility, silence, and a quiet life, together with that detachment from family and worldly ties which is best found in a foreign land.[167] So little had he of the spirit of worldly ambition, that when in 1148 Peter des Celles, abbot of Moutier des Celles, offered him a chaplaincy in his monastery, he gladly accepted a post, which, however humble, gave him at least the leisure and the means to study. He remained in this retreat for the space of three years. Peter des Celles was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and has made himself best known by his epistles; for, like most of the literary personages of the twelfth century, he was a great letter writer. He had received his education in the monastic school of St. Martin des Champs, and does not seem to have been one whit behind the more fashionable students of Paris. “I had,” he writes, “an insatiable appetite for learning; my eyes were never tired of beholding books, or my ears of listening to them; yet with all my ardour, God was always the beginning, centre, and end of all my studies. They had but Him for their object, though indeed I studied everything, even law, without prejudice, however, to the duties of my state, attendance on the Divine Office, and my accustomed prayers.” This worthy inheritor of the genuine monastic spirit acted the part of a true father to our English scholar, who at last, through the favour of St. Bernard, obtained the post of secretary to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose household he renewed his acquaintance with two of his former fellow-students, Peter de Blois, and Thomas à Becket. Peter de Blois had been one of his pupils; a man of versatile talent, who had studied first at Tours, then at Paris, and lastly at Bologna, and had seen something of half the courts of Europe. He was equally skilled in law, medicine, and theology, but it is by his epistles that he is chiefly known, and his ready and somewhat gossiping pen has left us graphic sketches of the manners and customs of his time. He was, in fact, the Horace Walpole of the twelfth century, curious, fluent, and volatile. Henry II. made him archdeacon, first of Bath, and then of London, and often employed him as secretary, so that he had excellent opportunities for studying the court of our first Plantagenet sovereign, which he describes in a sufficiently amusing manner. He assures us that Henry’s court, from the conversation of learned men and the discussion of questions, was a daily school. The king, he says, is deeply versed in literature, and has more gifts of mind and body than he can so much as enumerate; nevertheless, he lets out the ugly fact that it is best not to go too near him when he is out of humour, as he is then more of a lion than a lamb, and is quite as likely as not to tear out your eyes. How any man of letters can ever attach himself to a court life is more than he can understand; and how any man, lettered or unlettered, could be brought to endure the daily miseries he describes, such as the eating of “mouldy bread and stale fish, wine that can only be drunk with the eyes shut, lodgings for which pigs would be ashamed to quarrel,” and days spent “without order, plan, or moderation of any kind,” must seem equally incomprehensible to his readers. But he has something more cheering to say of the household of Archbishop Theobald. It is crowded with learned men, who spend their time between prayers and dinner in lecturing, disputing, and examining causes. All the knotty questions of the kingdom are referred to them, and discussed in the common hall; and there is no sort of jealousy or contention, but the youngest present is listened to with courtesy and attention. In these letters Peter de Blois has a good deal to say On the subject of education. He tells us that in his youth he was trained, not in idle fables, but solid literature, and names Livy, Quintius Curtius, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus among the books then most commonly used in schools. He regards the new scholasticism with undisguised contempt: it is good, he says, neither at home nor abroad, neither in the church, the cloister, the camp, the court, or the bar. In fact, in his literary tastes he showed himself a worthy disciple of John of Salisbury.

Meanwhile the latter attached himself to the rising fortunes of St. Thomas, and dedicated to him, when chancellor, his two great works, the Polycraticon and the Metalogicon, the last of which is a formal apology for humane letters, and is considered to display an amount of learning and literary elegance far exceeding anything which had been produced since the days of Boëthius. When St. Thomas became primate, his friend continued to retain the office he had held under his predecessor, and never spared the archbishop the benefit of his frank and fearless advice. Among other things, he took on him to give him some directions with regard to his studies which are worth quoting, as showing the view taken at that time by spiritual men, of the danger resulting from an excessive application to law and logic. “My counsel is,” he says, “that you put off some of your other occupations, in order to give your whole mind to prayer. Laws and canons are all very well, but believe me, they nourish curiosity more than devotion.... Who ever rose from the study of law with a sentiment of compunction in his heart? Nay, I will say more, the exercises of the schools often increase knowledge till a man is puffed up with it, but they rarely inflame devotion. I would far rather that you meditated on the Psalms or read the ‘Morals of St. Gregory,’ than that you were learned in philosophy, after the fashion of the scholastics.” St. Thomas was not slow in taking his friend’s advice, and both at Canterbury and Pontigny often spent whole nights in the study of the Scriptures, and was wont always to carry a few pages in the loose sleeve of his tunic, that he might have them at hand whenever he found a leisure moment for reading.

We need not pursue further the history of John of Salisbury. The fidelity with which he adhered to the cause of St. Thomas exposed him to no small loss and personal danger, and after the martyrdom of the saint he had to fly from England, and taking refuge in France, became Bishop of Chartres in 1176, his election being entirely due to his personal merits, and the honour with which the French clergy regarded one who had been the companion of the Blessed Martyr. But before concluding our notice of the Parisian masters, it remains for us to name the three Peters, as they are called, who all illustrated the schools about the same period. The first was Peter Comestor, or the Eater--so called from his habit of devouring books--a very famous personage in his day, who became chancellor of Paris in 1164, but resigned all his dignities to put on the habit of the canons of St. Victor’s. His Historia Scholastica, or Epitome of Sacred History, was so much esteemed in the twelfth century, that portions of it were read in the churches. A namesake of his, called Peter the Chanter, was almost of equal fame. He too, after filling the eye of the public for several years, withdrew from their applause, and became a simple religious in the Abbey of Long-Pont, where he died in 1197.

Both were men of tried virtue, and showed themselves hostile to the sophists of the day, whose wranglings they declared to be opposed to the simplicity of the Gospel. But more renowned than either was the Italian scholar, Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, as he was called, and the real Father and founder of scholastic theology. He commenced his study of civil law at Bologna, and thence passed on to Paris, where he was admitted among the canons of St. Victor’s, and afterwards taught for some years in the cathedral school. In 1159 he became bishop of Paris, through the influence of his royal pupil, prince Philip, brother to the reigning king, Louis the Young. The king offered the bishopric to his brother, who was educated for the ecclesiastical state, but he nobly refused it in favour of his master. Peter Lombard’s great work was the celebrated Book of Sentences, consisting of a number of passages selected from the works of the fathers, and commented on in such a manner as to present the student with a body of theological doctrines systematically arranged. The convenience of finding every point of theology treated of in a precise and methodical order, and within the compass of a single volume, was speedily recognised, and the Book of the Sentences soon became the favourite text-book used in the schools, both for the lectures of the masters and the private study of their disciples. Hence the title of Sententiarus, which came to be applied to those who taught or studied the Sentences. Notwithstanding the immense popularity obtained by this work, it is said to contain several important omissions, and even some theological errors, one of which was formerly condemned by Pope Alexander III. Its importance is derived from the circumstance of its being the first attempt to reduce theology to a compact and orderly scientific system; and from this period we date the real rise of the science of scholastic theology.

It will have been observed that in what has been said up to this time of the schools of Paris, they have not been designated by the title of a university. For, in fact, as yet these schools had no claim to be regarded as a corporate body; they were accidents rather than an institution, and it was only gradually that they acquired a corporate character, and became possessed of a government, a head, and a body of laws and privileges. This change was effected by no sudden act of royal or ecclesiastical legislation; it developed itself insensibly but of the very necessity of the case. The immense number of masters and pupils who flocked to the capital, gave rise to disorders, which obliged the superiors of the different schools to unite together and agree to certain rules of common discipline.

Thus in 1195 we find a certain John, abbot of St. Albans, associated to the “body of elect masters.” Some years before, in the very thick of the quarrel between Henry II. and St. Thomas, occurs the first notice of that division of the scholars into nations or provinces, which formed one of the peculiarities of the university. Henry offered to choose as arbiters either the peers of France, the French clergy, or the heads of the different provinces in the school of Paris. We find also certain laws, or at least established customs having the force of laws, respecting the method to be observed in granting licenses for the opening of a school. It was the rule in all dioceses that no one could open a school without permission from the cathedral scholasticus, or chancellor of the diocese, who was bound to grant such licenses to all who were capable. Pope Alexander III., who showed a lively interest in everything that concerned the encouragement of education, ordered that such licenses should be granted gratuitously, but he afterwards permitted the Chancellor of Paris, who was at that time Peter Comestor, to exact a certain fine. It appears, also, that in Paris the chancellor or scholasticus of St. Geneviève shared this right with the chancellor of Notre Dame. There were also other laws, such as those which prohibited religious from teaching or studying in the schools of law or medicine. The two faculties, as they were called, of arts and theology, which formed the basis of the university, appear to have been already distinguished. Certain privileges, too, were already enjoyed by the students. They were beginning to claim the right of being tried only by the ecclesiastical tribunals, and this right was granted to them in 1194 by a decree of Celestine III. Alexander III. permitted clerics to retain their benefices whilst teaching or studying at Paris. Finally, in the year 1200, we find the existence of the university as a corporate body, governed by a head, acknowledged in the diploma of Philip Augustus, wherein, having confirmed the exemption of the scholars from the secular courts, he decreed that the head of the studies should, in particular, be incapable of arrest or punishment from the secular judge, and obliged every provost of the city on his entrance into office to swear to the observance of this decree.

From this time, therefore, we may properly date the formal recognition of the university of Paris, and passing over the obscurities in which its earlier commencements are involved, shall proceed to present our readers with a sketch of that institution as it existed in the palmy days of the thirteenth century.

CHAPTER XIII.

PARIS AND THE FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES.

A.D. 1150 TO 1250.

The modern visitor to Paris who finds his way to that portion of the city lying on the southern bank of the river, which still bears the name of the Quartier de l’Université, sees himself surrounded by buildings, many of which bear unmistakably the character of their original destination. He stands, in fact, amid the débris of the old university of Paris, the schools and colleges of which were clustered for the most part about the Mont St. Geneviève, and occupied an entire suburb, which was first enclosed within the city walls by Philip Augustus. That monarch, passionately desirous to increase the splendour of his capital, and at the same time to afford larger space for the accommodation of the crowds of students, whose numbers are said to have exceeded those of the citizens themselves, added a large district, which in the year 1200 presented a fair expanse of fields and vineyards, interspersed with churches, houses, and farms, but in which you would vainly have sought for any of those magnificent and semi-monastic structures which we are accustomed to associate with the idea of a university. Colleges, in fact, had as yet no existence at Paris, and the university consisted of an assemblage, not of stately buildings, but of masters and scholars gathered out of every European land.

It is no easy matter to convey an idea of the enthusiasm with which the Paris schools were regarded at the beginning of the thirteenth century. No one, whatever might be his country, could pretend to any consideration who had not studied there in his youth; if you met a priest or doctor, whose skill in letters you desired to praise, it was enough to say, “one would think he had passed his whole life in Paris.” It was, to use the expression of Gregory IX., the Cariath-sepher, or city of letters,[168] which drew to itself the intellectual wealth of Christendom. “Whatever a nation has that is most precious,” writes William of Brittany, the chaplain of Philip Augustus, in his poem of the Philipide, “whatever a people has most famous, all the treasures of science and all the riches of the earth; lessons of wisdom, the glory of letters, nobility of thought, refinement of manners, all this is to be found in Paris.” Others declared, in yet more pompous language, that neither Egypt nor Athens could be compared to the modern capital, which was, they said, the very fountain-head of wisdom, the tree of life in the midst of the terrestrial paradise, the torch of the house of the Lord. The exile who had once tasted of its delights no longer regretted his banishment from his own land; and, in truth, the beauty of the city, its light elastic atmosphere, the grace and gaiety of its inhabitants, and the society of all that was most choice in wit and learning, rendered it no less fascinating a residence in the thirteenth century as the capital of learning than it has since become as the metropolis of fashion.

To these attractions were added the advantages which the Parisian students enjoyed in virtue of their privileges. I have already spoken of the diploma granted by Philip Augustus, and its provisions were greatly enlarged by subsequent monarchs. Philip le Bel ordered that the goods of students should never be seized for debt, and they were also exempt from taxes. If a French scholar travelled, all farmers were obliged to supply him with horses at a reasonable rate of hire. Artisans were not allowed to annoy him with unpleasant odours or noises, and on complaint being made of such nuisances, they had to remove themselves out of his neighbourhood. The rights of citizenship were likewise enjoyed by the members of all the French universities, and in those days this involved many important exemptions. Scholarship was, in short, regarded as an honourable profession, something which almost conferred on its possessor a patent of nobility; the new master of arts had lighted flambeaux carried before him in the public streets, and the conferring of a doctor’s degree was an event which caused as much stir as the dubbing of a knight. Nay, in those days, so permeated with the romantic spirit of chivalry, scholars were not unfrequently spoken of as “the knights of science,” and the disputation at which some youthful aspirant contended for the doctor’s cap was regarded as the intellectual tournament.

Yet, there was another side to this brilliant picture, and one plainly discerned by those whose calmer judgment would not suffer itself to be deceived as to the perils which awaited so many young and ardent minds, exposed without restraint or guidance to the manifold temptations, both moral and intellectual, that awaited them in that busy throng. “O Paris!” exclaims Peter of the Cells, in a letter to one of his monks who had been sent thither to study, “resort of every vice, source of every disorder, thou dart of hell; how dost thou pierce the heart of the unwary!” John, the young monk whom he addresses, had, it would seem, deplored the new scenes amid which he found himself as painfully out of harmony with his monastic training. “Who but yourself,” replies the abbot, “would not reckon this Paris to be a very Eden, a land of first-fruits and flowers? Yet you have spoken truly, though in jest, for the place which is richest in bodily pleasures miserably enslaves the soul. So, at least, thinks my John, and rightly therefore does he call it a place of exile. May you always so esteem it, and hasten home to your true country, where in the book of life you will find, not figures and elements, but Divinity and Truth itself. O happy school of Christ! where He teaches our heart with the word of power, where the book is not purchased nor the Master paid. There life avails more than learning, and simplicity than science. There none are refuted save those who are for ever rejected; and one word of final judgment, Ite or Venite, decides all questions and all cavils for ever. Would that men would apply themselves to these studies rather than to so many vain discourses; they would find more abundant fruit and more availing honour.”

In these words we see the distrust with which the representatives of the old learning regarded the rising university system, contrasting as it did so strangely with the claustral discipline in which they had themselves been reared. Nor can it be denied that the fair outside of the great city concealed a monstrous mass of deformity. James de Vitry, who had himself been a student, gives a frightful picture of the vices which were fostered in a society drawn from every rank and every country, and associated together without moral discipline of any kind, at an age when the passions were least subject to restraint. The very sense of moral rectitude, he says, seems to have been lost. A profuse extravagance was encouraged by the example of the more wealthy students, and those who lived frugally, or practised piety, were ridiculed as misers and hypocrites. There was at that time no provision for the accommodation of the students in halls or hospices; they lodged in the houses of the citizens wherever they could secure the cheapest entertainment. Not unfrequently the very schools of the masters were held in the upper story of some house, the groundfloor of which was the resort of the most abandoned characters.[169] There was no common table; but the students dined at taverns where they often associated with the worst companions, and indulged in the lowest excesses, and the jealousy between “town and gown” continually broke out in disgraceful quarrels, terminating not unfrequently in bloodshed. As most of those engaged in these affrays were clerics, and as the striking of a cleric brought on the guilty party the sentence of excommunication, the results of these disorders were exceedingly grave. It became necessary to grant extraordinary powers to the university officers, and to prohibit the scholars from bearing arms, a prohibition grounded on the atrocious crimes with which they stood charged; and which at one time threatened to bring about the total extinction of the university. For the magistrates having proceeded to revenge a certain riot which had arisen out of a tavern quarrel, by ill-judged acts of severity, both masters and scholars resolved to abandon the city; nor did they return till the wise and timely interference of Pope Gregory IX. brought about a reconciliation between the civil and academic authorities.

The university, in fact, presented the spectacle, at that time new in Christendom, of a system of education which aimed at informing the intellect without disciplining the soul. Its work was done in the lecture room, where alone the master exercised any authority, and the only tie existing between him and his disciples was the salary paid by one party and received by the other. In addition to the dangers incident to this state of uncontrolled liberty, were the more subtle temptations to pride and presumption which beset a man in the schools. Mere youths were sometimes seen promoted to the professor’s chair, and seeking to win a passing popularity by the promulgation of some new extravagance, an abuse which led to the passing of an ordinance forbidding any one to teach Theology before he had attained the age of twenty-five. But the teaching of the professors was influenced by other peculiarities in their position. “The university doctors,” says Fleury, “were doctors, and they were nothing more. Exclusively engaged with theoretic views, they had leisure to write at great length on the most frivolous questions; and plentiful occasions were thus ministered of quarrel and dispute.” And he proceeds to notice the contrast between such a system and that of earlier ages, when the teachers of the Church were for the most part bishops, engaged in the duties of their pastoral charge, and able to support their doctrines with the weight of practical experience. The character of the new professors is drawn severely enough in the curious poem of Architrenius,[170] which was written towards the close of the twelfth century by John de Hauteville, an English monk of St. Albans. Architrenius, the hero, is supposed to travel through the world, trying various states and conditions, and finding vanity and emptiness in all of them; at last he comes to Paris, and devotes a whole book to describing the vanity of the masters, and the miseries of their disciples. He depicts the negligent and squalid appearance of the poor scholars, their ragged dress, uncombed hair, bad lodging and hard beds. After spending half the night in study, he says, they are roused at daybreak and forced to hurry to the school, where the master treats them rudely, and where they have to endure the mortification of seeing others of less merit rewarded, and themselves passed over with neglect. He goes on to describe the hill of presumption which he peoples with doctors and scholastics, gifted with far less learning than conceit, and concludes, that the schools are as full of vanity and disappointment as the rest of the world.

The sufferings of the poor scholars, which Architrenius so graphically describes, were destined, however, to bring about a most beneficial change in the university system, by being the chief occasion of the foundation of hospices and colleges, the multiplication of which, and their organisation under regular discipline, in time applied a remedy to the worst of the existing evils. From a very early date, the relief and support of poor scholars had been recognised as a meritorious work of charity; it formed one of the favourite devotions of the two kings, Robert the Pious and Lewis the Young, the former of whom attempted something in the shape of a hospital to receive them. How miserable their condition was, we may gather from the benefaction of the good knight Jocius de Londonne, who, returning from the Holy Land in 1171, found some poor scholars miserably lodged in the Hôtel-Dieu, and gave money to provide them with beds, and a small monthly alms, on condition of their carrying the Cross and Holy-water at the funeral of those who died in the hospital, and repeating the Penitential Psalms for the repose of their souls. The earliest establishment actually made for their reception appears to have been the Hospice of St. Thomas of Canterbury, founded in the twelfth century by Robert Dreux. It embraced a number of other charitable works, and was administered by canons who were under religious vows, the scholars being governed by a provost of their own. Other colleges gradually arose, some for scholars of particular nations, as those of the Danes and Swedes; others for separate dioceses. One of the earliest foundations was the College of Constantinople, founded by Baldwin of Flanders, shortly after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, for the education of young Greeks in the orthodox faith. Chapels were opened in connection with these colleges so early as 1248, in which year we find Pope Innocent IV. granting permission for such a chapel to be attached to the college des Bons Enfants. But the collegiate system became more thoroughly established by the influence of the Religious Orders, who very soon found themselves obliged to open religious houses in connection with the university, for the education of their own students. These houses of studies afforded the young religious the regular discipline of the old monastic schools, combined with the advantages of university education; and their example made it a necessity to provide similar protection for the secular students.

The Trinitarian Order, founded by one of the most illustrious of the Parisian doctors, and largely recruited from the ranks of his co-professors, was naturally the first to associate itself to the university, out of whose bosom it had sprung; and so early as the year 1209, we find the friars in possession of the Church of St. Maturin, which was ordinarily used by the university as their place of assembly. Next to them came the Dominicans and Franciscans, the former of whom owed their establishment in Paris to the good will of the university authorities, who made over to them certain claims they possessed on the Hospital of St. James, which had been granted to the new comers by the good doctor, John of St. Quentin. A little later, the College of the Bernardines was founded by Stephen of Lexington, an Englishman who had been a pupil of St. Edmund, and who in 1242 became abbot of Clairvaux. Strictly contemplative as was the rule of the Cistercians, it did not exclude the cultivation of sacred studies. It aimed rather at restoring monastic life to the ancient Benedictine type, in which, as we have seen, the homely labours of husbandry were mingled with those of the scriptorium. The Cistercians, whilst they laboured to bring back religious poverty and simplicity into the cloister, always showed themselves hearty encouragers of learning. St. Stephen Harding had himself set on foot that great copy of the Bible, long preserved at Citeaux, which was corrected with the utmost precision after being collated with a vast number of manuscripts, several learned Jews being consulted by the abbot on the Hebrew text. To procure a correct version of the Gregorian Antiphonary, he sent all the way to Metz, trusting to obtain a sight of the copy laid up there by Charlemagne. The library at Citeaux was rich in the works of the Fathers, though the outside of the books exhibited nothing of that costly ornament on which the skill of monastic binders and jewellers was elsewhere expended. The early Cistercians were connected very closely with some of the best Paris scholars, such as William of Champeaux, the friend of St. Stephen, and after his elevation to the episcopate, the diocesan of St Bernard. In England their ranks had been largely recruited from the University of Oxford, and their monastery of Rievaux was famous at home and abroad for its school of learning. Stephen of Lexington was not, therefore, departing from the traditions of his order in considering that the maintenance of sacred studies was a necessity of the times. Two years after his election he obtained permission from Pope Innocent IV. to begin the erection of a college at Paris for the young monks of his order; but the proposal was very unfavourably received by the other Benedictine houses who saw in it the break-up of the old monastic system of studies. The conservative spirit which was roused among them is discernible in the complaints of Matthew Paris, who laments over the contempt with which a proud world is beginning to regard the old Benedictine monks. “This new institution of colleges,” he says, “is not, that we can see, derived from the rule of St. Benedict; on the contrary, we read that he quitted the schools to retire into the desert.”

Stephen, however, persevered in his design; he was aware that the contempt with which the monks were so frequently treated, both by the secular doctors and the new orders of friars, was grounded on the charge of their illiteracy, and he therefore believed it essential to provide his monks with better means of education than, under the altered state of things, they were now able to command in their claustral schools. His design was crowned with perfect success. Not only did the College of the Bernardines become illustrious for its good scholarship, but the conduct of its religious shed a good odour of edification over the whole university, and ten years after its foundation, Matthew Paris himself bore honourable witness to the holy example of the monks, which, he said, “gave pleasure to God and man.” For Stephen there was reserved the reward of disgrace and humiliation. The Chapter-General of Citeaux deposed him from his office in 1255, instigated, says Matthew Paris, by envy for the superior merits of an Englishman. Whatever were the cause of his disgrace, it gave him an opportunity of proving that his adoption of what had seemed an innovation on established customs, sprang out of no defect in the religious spirit. He refused to accept of the protection offered him by the Pope, in favour of which he might have been reinstated in his dignity, and preferred spending the rest of his days as a private religious, entirely occupied with his own sanctification.

The example of the Bernardines was quickly followed by other religious orders. The Carmelites took up their station at the foot of Mt. St. Geneviève, the Augustinians in the Quartier Montmartre. The old Benedictines, or Black Monks, had their college near the abbey of St. Germain, and the Carthusians received from St. Louis a grant of the royal Chateau de Vauverd. The monks of the latter order were indeed prohibited by their rule from attending in the schools, but the object of their establishment so near the capital is expressly stated to have been, that they might profit by the salutary streams of doctrine which flowed forth from the city of letters. To these must be added the monks of Cluny and Marmoutier, the former of whom provided their students with lecturers within their own cloisters; and a new Institute originally founded by four doctors of theology, who in 1201 gave up their academic honours and pursuits, and, smitten with that desire of poverty and obscurity which not unfrequently overtakes men in the very zenith of their popularity and success, retired to a wild valley in the diocese of Langres, and assumed the religious habit of the Canons Regular of St. Victor. Here they were soon joined by other professors and scholars, till their numbers rendered it impossible for them to find subsistence in the desolate wildness they had chosen, exposed to the fury of the mountain torrents, and the falling of precipitous rocks. They, therefore, removed in 1224 to a more fertile valley, which obtained the name of the Val d’Ecoliers, a title afterwards bestowed on the new order itself. Five years later they opened a house of studies in Paris, and the Church of St. Catherine was built for them at the charge of a certain knight, in fulfilment of a vow he had taken at the battle of Bouvines, the young St. Louis laying the first stone with his own hand.

The bishops were not slow to follow the example set them by the monastics; and indeed they, more than others, felt the necessity of providing in some way or other for the training of their clerks. It was vain to think of competing with the university in the cathedral schools; and, on the other hand, what was to be hoped from a secular clergy, formed in no higher school of discipline than that which James of Vitry has described? Colleges, therefore, where the young clerics might be reared in ecclesiastical habits, were, strictly speaking, essential; and, accordingly, we find them established for the clergy of different dioceses, as those of Laon, Narbonne, and Bayeux. In these the scholars lived in common, celebrated the Divine Office, had appointed hours of study and recreation, and were governed and watched over by regents. In fact, says Fleury, “they were so many little seminaries;” differing in many respects, and doubtless, far inferior to those old ecclesiastical schools which had been established in the bishop’s house, wherein the young clerks grew up under the eye, and were trained by the lips of their chief pastor; yet still schools of discipline, the good results of which were so apparent that, erelong, every country which followed the Latin rite adopted the system which had begun in France and Italy. The most famous of all the secular colleges was that of the Sorbonne, the founder of which, Robert of Sorbonne, was chaplain to St. Louis. Crevier calls it the greatest ornament of the university, and from very humble beginnings it came at last to be regarded as the first theological school in the Christian world. In it were afterwards founded no fewer than seven Chairs of Theology; namely, those of the Reader, of Contemplative, and Positive Theology, of the Holy Scriptures, of Casuistry, of Controversial Divinity, and of the Interpretation of the Hebrew Text.

Gradually, but surely, the university freed itself from the chaotic disorder of its first beginnings, and assumed the form of a great institution, governed by regular laws and invested with vast powers and privileges. At the period of its complete development, it was composed of seven companies; namely, the Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine, and the four nations of France, Picardy, Normandy, and England. These four nations together formed the Faculty of Arts, but each had a separate vote in the affairs of the university. The Rector was chosen by the nations out of the Faculty of Arts, the other faculties being governed by their deans.

An immense benefit was conferred on the University by Innocent III., who had himself studied at Paris at a time when the want of discipline was most severely felt. He was the first to supply his Alma Mater with a body of academic statutes; which were promulgated in 1215 by his legate, Robert de Courçon, an Englishman by birth, and a man of piety and learning. They embraced the whole discipline of the schools, regulating the conditions on which everyone was to be admitted to teach, the books that were to be read and those that were prohibited. No one was to profess arts before the age of twenty-one, or without having previously studied for six years under some approved master. He must bear a good reputation, and before commencing his lectures, was to undergo an examination according to certain rules. The books he was to read were to be the “Dialectics” and “Topics” of Aristotle, Priscian, and certain others, the authors of which are not named, but which seem to have been well-known popular treatises on philosophy, rhetoric, grammar, and mathematics. The physics and metaphysics of Aristotle were forbidden, together with the writings of certain heretics, such as Amauri de Bene, who had drawn their errors from the teaching of the Greek Philosopher.[171]

To teach Theology, the statutes required that a man should be at least thirty-five years of age, and that he should have studied under some approved master. We see here the germ of the system of graduation, which was perfected before the close of the century. The rule, as then established, was for a bachelor to begin by explaining the Sentences in the school of some doctor for the space of a year. At the end of that time he was presented to the Chancellor of the Cathedral of Paris, and if, on examination, he was judged worthy, he received a license and became licentiate, until he was received as doctor, when he opened a school of his own, in which he explained the Sentences for another year. At the end of that time he was allowed to receive some bachelor under him. The whole doctor’s course lasted three years; nor could any one take a degree unless he had taught according to these regulations. It was supposed that before beginning his theological studies the doctor must have passed through his course of arts, the various stages in which were distinguished by the names of grammar, poetry, philosophy, &c., in each of which, according to the theory of the ancient schools, a student had to study successively for an appointed time. The plan was excellent, says Fleury, had its execution been possible; but life was too short to allow of a man’s perfecting himself in every known branch of learning before entering on his theological studies. It implied that his whole life was to be spent in the schools; and, indeed, no inconsiderable portion of it was so spent, as we have seen in the case of John of Salisbury, whose academical career spread itself over the space of twelve years. But, in estimating the exact value of these statements, we must bear in mind that the university course at this time began at a very early age, and included those more elementary studies which occupy a schoolboy of our day for several years before his matriculation.

The statutes of Paris University, first promulgated by Innocent III., and enlarged under subsequent pontiffs, not only regulated all matters of study and discipline, but provided for the preservation of that religious element which must always find a place in any system of education sanctioned by the Church. The Christian schools, as we have seen, found their cradle in the monastic and episcopal seminaries, in which, as a matter of course, religious exercises were intermingled with intellectual ones, to a very large degree. The Catholic universities, in their complete form, adapted this system to their own needs, and required of their students daily attendance, not only in the lecture rooms, but also in the church or the collegiate chapel. The weekly “chapels” exacted from our Oxford and Cambridge students are fragments of the old rules, which, at Paris as in the English universities, required daily attendance at Mass and Vespers, and, at certain times also, at the Office of the Dead; and appointed public processions at different seasons of the year, and days when the public studies were suspended in order to give more time for the due celebration of feasts, and preparation for the reception of the Sacraments. If any reader be disposed to think that these demands on the time of the students must have proved an interruption to their studies, the fact is at once, and readily, admitted. But it may be suggested whether, in this interruption, there does not manifest itself a grand principle on which the Church acts wherever there is question of the exercise of the human intelligence. The problem she had to resolve was, not how to convey the greatest possible amount of knowledge with the greatest possible saving of time; but rather, how to provide that a certain amount of intellectual labour should be gone through in such a way as not to interfere injuriously with the spiritual well-being of the soul. In cases where the intellect is brought into exercise and stimulated to extraordinary activity, there is danger lest what is in itself a wholesome and necessary exercise may become vitiated by a certain natural impetuosity, which disposes a man to pour himself out into the occupation in which he is engaged; an impetuosity which opens the door to the human spirit, and which brings in along with it a host of bad company, such as pride, envy, ambition, contention, and the like. If this be allowed, study, instead of being an instrument of our sanctification, degenerates into its enemy; and hence the object aimed at in the Catholic system has ever been to supply checks and safeguards to nature, and to sanctify intellectual labour by a large admixture of prayer. Among the monastic students the regular duties of religious life supplied these necessary checks, the “retinacula,” as they were called by Bede, who fully understood their value and importance; and the Catholic universities, to a certain degree, imitated the monastic system, by requiring fixed religious duties to be complied with by their students, as a part of their academic course. Nor need we suppose that these interruptions, so salutary in a spiritual sense, were at all injurious in an intellectual point of view. The discipline of the Church, by a beautiful harmony, provides for the well-being of our nature, at the very time that she mortifies it. Her rules of fasting and abstinence, when observed, often prove the best preservatives of health; and, in the same way, her checks on study were not always hindrances. The truest economy of time does not, obviously, consist in cramming the twelve hours of the day with excessive work, but in laying them out to the best advantage. It is possible to tax the mental powers beyond their strength, in which case nature revenges herself on those who violate her laws, and the mind itself weakens under the pressure of excessive labour. Could we compare the horarium of an Oxford or Paris student of the thirteenth century, with that of a modern Rugby schoolboy, and obtain an accurate statistical table, showing the proportion of exhausted brains to be found among an equal number of either class, it might appear that the Church legislated even for the mental well-being of her children when she interposed so often between them and their studies, by requiring of them the fulfilment of solemn offices at stated times.

Of course, besides the principle above alluded to, there was the more manifest object of religious training, touching which I will merely quote the words of a former Rector of the Paris University, who wrote in anything but a religious age. “Religion,” says M. Rollin, in his treatise on “Education,” “should be the object of all our instructions; though not perpetually in our mouths, it should always be in our minds. Whoever examines the ancient statutes of the university which relate to masters and scholars, and takes notice of the prayers, solemnities, public processions, festivals, and days set apart for preparing for the Sacraments, may easily discover that the intention of their pious Mother is to consecrate and sanctify the studies of youth by religion, and that she would not carry them so long in her bosom were it not with the view of regenerating them to Jesus Christ. It is with this design that she requires that in every class, besides their other exercises of piety, the scholars should daily repeat certain sentences from Holy Scripture, and especially from the Gospels, that their other studies may be, as it were, seasoned with salt.” And he quotes passages from the ancient statutes, requiring that “the Divine Word be mingled with the eloquence of the pagans, as is fitting in Christian schools where Christ, the One Teacher of man, should not only be present, but preside.”

The very slight mention made in the statutes of Robert de Courçon of Rhetoric, as included in the course of arts, is the last which we shall meet with for a considerable space of time. The Bull of Gregory IX., published in 1231, and the statutes of the Regents of Arts, which appeared in 1254, make no reference to this study. The arts are there represented by philosophy alone, and there is no allusion to the cultivation of rhetoric, or the reading of the classical authors, which from this date became very generally neglected. As a natural consequence, grammar also lamentably decayed. It was, of course, not absolutely banished, inasmuch as a certain amount of it was essential for the pursuit of any studies at all; but it became altogether barbarised and debased. Those rules of syntax and prosody, over which the old monastic masters had so lovingly lingered, were totally neglected, and although Latin poems were still produced, their Latinity was full of false quantities and grammatical solecisms. The tenth century, with all its darkness, knew far more of humane letters than the thirteenth; nor was the superiority of the earlier schools confined to a knowledge of the classics. The exaggerated prominence given to philosophy, or rather to dialectics, had caused a neglect of the Fathers, who were now chiefly studied in Sums and Sentences, which professed to present the student with the pith of theology in a single volume, forming the text-books on which the doctors delivered lectures and commentaries, coloured, naturally enough, with their own ideas. The original works of the Fathers, which had been the familiar study of the monastic students, appear at this time to have been little in request; and when St. Louis, on his return from Palestine, formed a plan for collecting a library of all the most useful and authentic ecclesiastical writings, he had to get copies made of St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and other Catholic doctors, from the codices stored up in remote monastic libraries; for in the schools of Paris they were not to be found. The extreme scholastics, indeed, were accustomed to speak of the Fathers as rhetoricians; writers, that is, who expressed themselves according to the rules of natural eloquence, a terrible delinquency in the eyes of the new illuminati, who considered that a man should display his science by loading his pages with the terms of logic--assertion, proof, major, minor, and corollary. The good king, however, whose taste was superior to that of most of his contemporaries, persevered in his noble enterprise, and at great pains and cost collected a library of the best Christian authors, in which he himself studied profoundly; liberally granting its use to others also. “He read the works of the Fathers, whose authority is established,” says his biographer, “more willingly than those of the new doctors;” and he gave as a reason for making new copies, in preference to buying up the old ones, that by this means he multiplied writings which he desired should be more widely known. He ordered that after his death this library should be divided among the three monasteries he had founded; those, namely, of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the Cistercians; and it was from this source that the Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais, who filled the office of tutor to the royal children, drew the materials of his famous work, The Great Mirror, of which we shall hereafter have occasion to speak.

If positive theology and the humanities began to be neglected, however, civil and canon law were better treated. The appearance in 1157 of the “Decretals” of Gratian, had been followed by the erection of a Chair of Jurisprudence at Bologna, and another at Paris. The new branch of study had one advantage which commended it to popular favour: it led to substantial profits, and scholars were found not unwilling to let Horace and Cicero drop into disuse in favour of a science which paid so well for the time spent on its acquisition. The prodigious popularity of these new pursuits at length caused grave apprehensions lest the schools of arts and theology should in time be altogether deserted, and in 1220 Honorius III. found it necessary to forbid the further study of civil law at Paris. Crevier complains of this prohibition as injurious to the university, and it was, in fact, very generally eluded; although the formal permission to include civil law in the Faculty of Right was not granted till 1679. But in point of fact, the alarm which was felt was not without foundation. At Oxford such a revolution had been brought about by the introduction of the law lectures, that it was feared both arts and theology would be utterly neglected. What was worse, the law students aspired after and obtained benefices; and this abuse was encouraged by sovereigns, who found law prelates much more easy to deal with, and to accommodate to their own political views, than theologians. Innocent III. had, at last, to prohibit the admission to benefices of those who had only graduated in law, and insisted that all who aspired to ecclesiastical benefices should also pursue a regular course of theology. The tendency of the age, however, was manifest; the universities were falling more and more away from that idea of education which the old system had, in theory at any rate, professed to carry out; namely, the presenting of knowledge as a whole, its various parts arranged under the heads of the seven liberal arts, presided over by theology. Philosophy, according to this idea, included a knowledge of truth in all its various departments, and all the arts were but branches springing from one trunk, one of which could not be struck off without injuring the proportion and harmony of the whole.

The neglect of arts, and the excessive preponderance given to law studies and dialectics, made up a grave and momentous change in the whole theory of education, which was daily losing something more of that breadth and largeness which formed one of the chief features of education as proposed by the ancients, whose traditions had been accepted by the Christian schools. This seems a fair statement of the mischievous side of the change; but there is also another view of the question, which justly claims to be recognised. There was a deeper cause for the popularity of law and logic in the European schools of this period than any sordid motive of gain, or any mere love of disputation. Both of them formed a part of that extraordinary intellectual revolution which marked the opening of the thirteenth century. Men had grown indifferent to the study of language in proportion as they had been aroused to the deeper interest of mental science. Though the immediate result was to introduce a decay of polite letters, and not a few philosophic extravagancies, it cannot be doubted that many faculties were roused into vigorous action, which, under the former system, had lain dormant. The grand defect of the old monastic scholars, as scholars, was, that they cultivated learning rather than mind; they studied other men’s thoughts, but were not equally exercised in training their own. They seldom investigated for themselves either mental or physical phenomena; whatever absurdities were to be found in the natural philosophy which they received from the ancients, were generally adopted without question, and handed on to the next generation; and the instances are rare in which an appeal is made to the results of personal observation.

Even their theological works were chiefly compilations, and St. Anselm may be called the first original thinker who had appeared among divines since the close of the fifth century. When the intellectual powers of Europe again woke into action, men were not unnaturally induced to regard mere elegances of style with a certain rude indifference. Like soldiers who, when about to engage in a conflict for life or death, are careless whether or no they wear their holiday trappings, the scholastics of the thirteenth century, while they exercised their mental powers in subtle disputation, conceived a contempt for the charms of mere rhetoric, and valued language only as the vehicle for expressing the distinctions of philosophy. Under such circumstances Latinity, of course, grew barbarous; and many far graver disorders arose out of the daring and undue exercise of reason. Yet, real intellectual progress was being made, in spite of the decay of letters; and the growth of mind went on in the same way as the growth of body, when the delicate tints and graceful form of childhood disappear, whilst bone and muscle are being built up, and the feeble child is expanding into the strong-armed man. When the revival of literature took place two centuries later, it found a race of strong thinkers in place of diligent readers. The scholars of the Renaissance were forward in ridiculing the barbarism of the scholastic philosophers, but in doing so they showed that they had very superficially studied the intellectual era that preceded their own. Undoubtedly, the excess of legal and logical studies had many abuses, but they are not therefore to be arbitrarily condemned. Even the lawyers, with whom it is most difficult to keep charity, and whose influence was the most mischievous in the schools, had a considerable share in the education of modern Europe. Careful critics, on studying the legal documents of the Middle Ages, such, for example, as our own Magna Charta, fail not to express their wonder and admiration at the keenness of intellect which is displayed in their provisions, and the precision of language in which they are expressed. The men of the pen were cautiously and sagaciously circumventing the men of the sword. Every constitutional principle laid down in the statute-book established the sovereignty of law over that of brute force; it was a victory of mind over matter, and was therefore a mighty step in the history of intellectual progress.

These considerations must be calmly weighed before we pass any judgment on the scholastic revolution of the thirteenth century. Our sympathies, no doubt, will linger with the elder scholars, and we shall be disposed to look with a very jealous eye on the triumph of the sophists and the Cornificians; but it will suffice to reconcile us to the temporary necessity of the change, that it was accepted by the Church, and that she set her seal to the due and legitimate use of those studies which were to develope the human intellect to its full-grown strength. Nay, more, she absorbed into herself an intellectual movement which, had she opposed it, would have been directed against her authority, and so, to a great extent, neutralised its powers of mischief. The scholastic philosophy, which, without her direction, would have expanded into an infidel Rationalism, was woven into her theology itself, and made to do duty in her defence, and that wondrous spectacle was exhibited, so common in the history of the Church, when the dark and threatening thunder cloud which seemed about to send out its lightning bolts, only distils in fertilising rain.[172]

The statutes of Robert de Courçon, after regulating the studies, pass on to the manners of the students. They descend with great simplicity into various details, which are not uninteresting, as furnishing us with some idea of the usages of the times. Great banquets were forbidden to be held at the installation of new masters, who were only allowed to invite a few companions and friends. No master reading arts was to wear aught but a round black gown falling as low as his heels, “at least,” adds the cardinal with much naïveté, “when it is new.” A cloak is allowed, but the abomination of pointed shoes is strictly prohibited. When a scholar of arts or theology died, one-half of the masters were to attend his funeral; if it were a master, all the other masters were to assist at the Office for the Dead. They were, moreover, to recite, or cause to be recited, an entire Psalter for his soul, to remain in the church where the Office was celebrated until midnight, and on the day of burial all exercises in the schools were to be suspended. He confirms to the students the free possession of those broad and delightful meadows, so dearly prized as a place of recreation, which gave their name to St. Germain des Prés, and for the protection of the scholars, fixes the rate at which the citizens shall be obliged to furnish them with lodgings.

The university thus established, redounded, it need not be said, to the profit as well as to the glory of the French capital. Not only the intellect, but the wealth also, of Europe flowed into that great centre. New branches of industry sprang up in connection with the schools; the Rue de Fouarre supplied them with straw for their seats, and the Rue des Ecrivains was entirely peopled with booksellers and book-lenders, mostly Jews, who furnished the scholars with literary wares, suffering those who were too poor to buy, to hire their volumes at a fixed rate. The bookselling trade fell at last under the jurisdiction of the university, and the booksellers were enrolled as academic officers, taking an oath on their appointment to observe the statutes and regulations. They were not suffered to open a traffic without testimonials as to character, and the tariff of prices was fixed by four of their number appointed by the university. Fines were imposed for incorrect copies, and the traders were bound to hang up a priced catalogue in their shops. If books of heretical or immoral tendency were found introduced, they were burnt by order of the university officers. The same powers were exercised over the book trade by the universities of Vienna, Toulouse, and Bologna, and the name of Stationarii began to be given to those who held these stores; stalls, or shops of all descriptions, being often denominated Stations. By degrees, however, the licensed Stationarii lost their monopoly of the trade, and the custom became tolerated of allowing poor scholars to sell books of low price in order to obtain the means of pursuing their studies. The Librarii were the copyists of new books, who dealt also in parchment and writing materials, and exercised a very important profession before the days of printing; those who transcribed old books were considered a separate branch, and styled Antiquarii, and by this distinction the scholar in search of a volume knew at once from which Statio he might obtain the object of his desires.

But as in those days of high prices and book scarcity, the poor student was sorely impeded in his progress, to provide against these disadvantages, a law was framed at Paris, compelling all public booksellers to keep books to lend out on hire. The reader will be surprised at the idea of lending libraries in the Middle Ages, but there can be no doubt of the fact that they were established at Paris, Toulouse, Vienna, and Bologna. These public librarians, too, were obliged to write out regular catalogues of their books, and hang them up in their shops with the prices affixed, so that the student might know beforehand what he had to pay for reading each book. Some of these lists are preserved, in which we find three sous charged for the loan of Peter Lombard’s Book of the Sentences, and ten sous for a Bible.

The custom began to be introduced among the scholars of expending great sums on the adornment of their books with gilt letters and fantastic illuminations, and writers of the time complain of the extravagant sums thus dissipated. Thus Odofred speaks of a certain gentleman who sent his son to Paris, giving him an annual allowance of 100 livres. “What does he do? Why, he has his books ornamented with gold initials and strange monsters, and has a new pair of boots every Saturday.” The mention of these literary trades leads me to speak of what we may call the great festival day of the trades in general, and of the scholars and booksellers in particular. Who has not heard of the great fair of St. Denis, the Landit, as it was called, originally held to enable the Bishop of Paris to display the relics preserved in the abbey to those devout multitudes whose numbers, being too great for any church to contain them, rendered it necessary to assemble them in the open fields? A French poet describes this fair as he beheld it at the close of the twelfth century, crowded with tailors, furriers, linendrapers, leather-sellers, shoemakers, cutlers, corn-merchants, jewellers, and goldsmiths. The enumeration of all the trades at last passes his powers, and he begs his readers to excuse his completing the catalogue. And what has this to do with the university? it may be asked. Much, for thither also flocked the sellers of parchment. The rector of the university went there in state to choose the best article which the fair produced; nay, what is more, all dealers in parchment were forbidden by royal edict to purchase any on the first day of the fair, until the merchants of the king and the bishop, and the masters and scholars of the university, had laid in their yearly provision. This going of the rector to the Landit was the grand annual holiday. He was attended by all the masters and scholars on horseback, and not unfrequently, says Lebœuf, in his “History of the Diocese of Paris,” this expedition was the occasion of many falling sick, through heat and fatigue, especially the youngsters.

The Landit was not the only recreation day of the scholars; besides those red-letter days which in olden time were lavishly provided for solace and refreshment of mind and body, they took part in all popular rejoicings, and on occasion of the great victory of Bouvines claimed and obtained a whole week’s vacation, during which time, says Lebœuf, “they sang and danced continually.” Their country walks to Chantilly and other rural villages were known as the Ire ad Campos, for which leave had to be asked by the inmates of colleges. James of Vitry alludes to the national characteristics apparent in the different nations represented among the students, the luxurious habits of the French, the love of fighting exhibited by the Germans, and the propensity of the English to indulge in deep potations. In the schools their habits were simple enough. The lectures were begun punctually at the first stroke of the bells of Notre Dame, as they rung out the hour of Prime. Clocks were not then very common, and the cathedral bells, rung at the different hours and heard at a great distance, furnished citizens and scholars with their ordinary mode of reckoning time. At the last stroke the scholars were supposed to be all assembled; seated on trusses of hay or straw, which supplied the place of benches, they listened to the lecture of the master, delivered after the manner of a spoken harangue, and took such notes as they were able. The method of dictation, which had been in use in the earlier schools, appears to have been dropped, or to have been retained only in the more elementary schools. The vivâ voce lecture was, in fact, the speciality of the university system; and to its use may, in great part, be attributed that enthusiasm which animated the scholars of some popular master, who contrived to infuse the charm of his personal grace and eloquence into the hard syllogisms with which he dealt. “The act of instruction vivâ voce,” says one, himself a master, “has I know not what hidden energy, and sounds more forcibly in the ears of a disciple, when it passes from the master’s lips, than the written word can do.” Hence these dry logicians of the Middle Ages were possessed with as ardent an enthusiasm for their own pursuits as that which kindled the armies of the Crusaders; nay, when we read of the mad devotion of Abelard’s followers, or the resistless impetuosity of those crowds who mustered in the Place Maubert to listen to the great Albert as he lectured on the Sentences, we need to bear in mind that the age was that of generous impulse; keenly susceptible to personal influence, capable of being roused to great enterprises by some strong word spoken to the heart, and ready to cast itself on the shores of Palestine, or to swell the ranks of a mendicant order, according to the deep emotions called forth by some eloquent tongue.

The history of the university, indeed, is not without its chapters of romance. At one time we may wander in imagination out into the green meadows of St. Germains, and watch a group of young scholars, John, the Englishman, and William Scot, with another John, of Provençal blood, and his Italian fellow-student, the young Lothairius Conti, as they join together in familiar talk, little thinking of the changes which a few short years are to make in the destinies of each; when the Provençal will have become the founder of the Trinitarian Order, and his old companions, John and William, shall have flung away their doctors’ caps, to assume the blue and crimson cross, and it shall be from Lothaire himself, now seated in the chair of St. Peter as Pope Innocent III., that he is to receive its first formal confirmation.

Or, shall we gaze for a moment on that poor ragged boy, begging his bread in the streets of Paris, where like a rustic simpleton, he has come in hopes of finding the way to fame and fortune? Yet, a simpleton he is not;--he struggles on ill fed, ill-lodged, but, thanks to pious alms, just able to scrape together the means of study. He passes from one grade to another; and in time Paris learns to be proud of her great doctor, Maurice of Sully, and forgets that he owes his surname to the lordly territory where his fathers cultivated the soil. At last his fame reaches his native place, and his old mother who is still living, resolves to go and find out her boy, whom she always knew would make his fortune. So taking staff in hand, she found her way to the great city, and asked the first fine ladies whom she met in the streets, if they could tell her where she could find the Doctor Maurice. The good ladies, taking pity on her, took her to their house, gave her refreshment, and throwing a better kind of mantle over the coarse woollen petticoat which she wore, after the fashion of French peasants, led her to Maurice, and introduced her to him as his mother. “Not so,” said Maurice, “my mother is a poor peasant woman, she wears no fine clothes like these; I will not believe it is her unless I see her in her woollen petticoat.” Then she threw off her cloak, and seeing her in her own garb he embraced her, and introduced her to the great people who stood about him, saying, “This is indeed my mother.” “And the thing spread through the city,” says the chronicler, “and did good honour to the master, who afterwards became Bishop of Paris;” in which office he did many notable things, and among others built the present Cathedral of Notre Dame.[173]

I might ask my readers, in like manner, to glance at other scenes, no less characteristic; to look into that same cathedral where crowds have assembled to hear the preaching of the famous doctor, John of St. Quentin. He has chosen the subject of holy poverty, and he seems inspired by some unwonted strain of eloquence as he speaks of the snares, the emptiness, and the vanity of the world. At last he stops, and descends the pulpit stairs. Is his discourse finished, or what is he about to do? the crowd moves hither and thither with curiosity, and sees him kneeling at the feet of the Dominican Prior of St. James, of whose Order little was then known, save that its members were mendicants, and owed their lodging in the city to the bounty of this very John. But now the white habit is thrown over his doctor’s gown, the black mantle, the garb of poverty and humility is added, and he returns to finish his discourse, exhibiting to his wondering audience that he can teach not by words only, but by example. Or, once more let us wander into that old church of St. Mery, which even to this day retains a certain air of quaint antiquity; where the long lancet windows, and the Ladye chapel with its carved wooden reredos, black with age, and adorned with silver statuettes, and its walls frescoed with the figures of saints, carry us back to mediæval times; and the cool air with its sweet fragrance of incense, and the silence broken only by a passing footstep on the worn and broken pavement, soothe and tranquillise us as though we had passed out of the busy streets into the atmosphere of another world. In that church, and before that Ladye altar, you might nightly have seen an English scholar, who had passed over to Paris whilst still a mere boy to study his course of arts. Every night he comes hither to assist at Matins, and remains there till daybreak, kneeling absorbed in heavenly contemplation till the hour strikes which is the signal for him to betake himself to the schools. Against those very pillars, perhaps, he leant his weary head; that dusty and shattered pavement was once watered with his tears; and who is there that loves and venerates the memory of St. Edmund of Canterbury, who will not, for his sake, be glad to escape from the thoroughfares of the brilliant capital to spend an hour of pilgrimage in the church of St. Mery?[174]

Pictures such as these, embodying the legends of an age, the daily life of which was fraught with poetry, might be multiplied to any extent; but I prefer to fix the reader’s attention on one which tells more of the university life of Paris at this precise epoch, than could be conveyed by many a laboured description. It was then about the year 1199, just when the princes of Europe were deliberating on a fifth crusade, that there lived at Neuilly-sur-Marne, halfway between Paris and Lagny, a simple country Curé, named Fulk, unlearned in worldly and even in divine science, but full of holy zeal, governing his parish with all diligence, and preaching with a certain rude eloquence--not sparing of his reproofs, but ready at all times to speak the truth boldly and freely alike to rich and poor. He who, of old, chose unlettered fishermen to be the heralds of His Word, made choice of this poor priest to reform the follies of those vain scholars who, to use the words of James of Vitry, “intent on vain wranglings and questions of words, cared not to break the Bread of Life to little ones.” Feeling his own want of knowledge, and specially his ignorance of the Holy Scriptures, Fulk determined, old as he was, to commence a regular course of study in the schools, and began to go regularly into the city, attending the theological lectures of Peter the Chanter. How the gay scholars stared and wondered at the sight of the rustic Curé, in his coarse frock and grey hairs, humbly entering the school, with his note-book in his hand, wherein he entered only a few phrases, such as his poor capacity was able to gather from the lips of the speaker. He understood little and cared less for all the terms of art which the dialecticians of those days so lavishly dispensed to their hearers; and if his companions had glanced over his shoulder, they would have read on the parchment page nothing but some scattered texts of Scripture, sprinkled here and there with trite and practical maxims. Yet these were enough for Fulk: they were the seed falling into good ground, watered with prayer and meditation, and bringing forth the hundredfold. Often did he read and ponder over his little book, and commit its maxims to his memory, and on Sundays and Festival days, returning to his own parish, he gave forth to his flock what he had thus carefully gathered in the schools. His master, observing the zeal and fervour of his new disciple, and penetrating through that rough exterior which concealed a richly-gifted soul, required of him at last that he should preach in the Church of St. Severinus before himself and a great number of the students. Fulk obeyed with his accustomed simplicity, and lo! “the Lord gave to His servant such grace and power that it seemed as if the Holy Spirit spoke by his mouth; and from that day masters and scholars began to flock to his rude and simple preaching. They would invite one another, saying, ‘Come and hear the priest Fulk--he is another Paul.’”

One day a vast multitude were assembled to hear him in the Place de Champeaux, for the churches were not large enough to contain those who gathered to the preaching; and he spoke with such eloquence that hundreds, pierced to the very heart, fell at his feet, and, presenting him with rods, besought him to chastise them for their sins, and guide them in the way of penance. He embraced them all, giving thanks to God, and to each one he gave some suitable words of advice. He had something appropriate to say to all, to usurers and public sinners, fine gentlemen, men-at-arms, and scholars. He admonished the masters to give more pithy, wholesome, and profitable lectures in the fear of God; he bade the dialecticians put away what was unprofitable in their art, and retain only that which bore fruit; the canonists he reproved for their long and wearisome disquisitions; the theologians for their tediousness and over-subtlety; and so, in like manner, he fearlessly rebuked and admonished the teachers of other arts, and called on them to leave their vain babblings, and apply themselves to what was profitable to salvation.

The tide had now fairly turned, and those who, awhile before, were ready to turn the poor Curé into ridicule, gladly changed places with him, and brought their note-books to his preaching, that they might take down the words from his mouth. Many even entreated him to accept them as his followers, and missions began to be preached through all the neighbouring towns and villages by the company of learned doctors, who put themselves under the direction of the Curé of Neuilly. Among these were Peter the Chanter, his former master; Alberic de Laon, afterwards Archbishop of Rheims; Robert de Courçon, of whom we have already spoken; and our own Stephen Langton.

Fulk and his followers preached throughout France, Burgundy, Flanders, and a great part of Germany. Their missions were followed by a great reform of manners, and the sanctity of Fulk is said to have been attested by miracles. He had a vein of pleasantry in him, and sometimes treated his audience with a somewhat rough familiarity; and, if he could obtain silence by no other means, would freely use his stick over the shoulders of the disorderly. But the people esteemed his very blows a blessing; wherever he appeared, they pressed around him to tear away morsels of his habit. One day he was nearly suffocated, and owed his deliverance to an ingenious device--“My habit is not blessed,” he cried, “to what purpose, then, would you carry it away? But I will bless the clothes of yonder man, and you may take as much as you choose.” The individual whom he indicated was at once surrounded, and thought himself happy to escape with the loss of his mantle.

These scenes were of daily occurrence when Fulk, having himself assumed the Cross, began to preach the Holy War; and, in fact, the throngs who joined the Fifth Crusade from France and Flanders were chiefly induced to do so by his eloquence. He chanced, on one occasion, to hear that Count Thibault of Champagne had proclaimed a magnificent tournament, which was to take place at the Château d’Ecris, in the forest of Ardennes. All the chivalry of France and England were gathered there; but amid the tossing plumes and glittering pennons appeared the figure of Fulk of Neuilly, who bade them first hear him, and painted to them the higher glory which they might acquire in the sacred wars, instead of wasting their time and strength on the mock combats of a tournament. A fiery ardour kindled the brilliant throng, and Thibault himself, with his noble guest, Simon de Montfort, and the two brothers, Walter and John de Brienne, the latter of whom was destined to wear the crown of Jerusalem, and five of the house of Joinville, and that heroic knight, Sir Matthew de Montmorency, whose valour was so renowned that Richard of England reckoned it his greatest deed of prowess to have overcome him in single combat:--all these, and many more, hastened to receive the Cross from the hands of the preacher, and to prepare for that expedition which was to terminate with the Conquest, not of Jerusalem, but of Constantinople.

It is not my intention, however, to speak further of the crusading career of Fulk de Neuilly, and I have only introduced him here as an illustration of the spirit which then animated all classes, whether knights or doctors, easily swayed as they were to good or evil by the words of a powerful leader; and to show, moreover, in what light the subtle dialectics of the Paris schools were regarded by the Apostle of his times.

We must now turn our attention to some of the other European universities, and first to that of Bologna, the Mater Studiorum, as it was called, of Italy, which vied with Paris in point of antiquity as in renown. The revival of the study of Roman jurisprudence, which took place in this city under Irnerius, has already been noticed; when a chair of civil law was first erected in the High School, which had existed in Bologna from very early times. It is unnecessary to enter into the vexed question of the so-called discovery of the Pandects[175] at Amalfi in 1137, which, according to Sigonius, was the origin of a total change in the Italian jurisprudence. Tiraboschi calls the whole story in question, and represents that the Pandects had really never been lost, and that the revival of law studies must be traced to the efforts made about that time by the Italian cities to free themselves from the Imperial yoke, and appoint their own judges and magistrates. However that may be, the fame of Bologna as the first law school in Europe was fairly established by the end of the twelfth century, and there is not an Italian writer of that period who has not something to say of the science of docta Bononia. By the middle of the same century the study of canon law had been added to that of civil jurisprudence, chiefly, as has been before said, after the publication of the Decretals of Gratian. This prodigious work, executed by a simple Benedictine monk of Chiusi, was a summary of the decrees of the Popes, and of 150 councils, with selections from various royal codes, and extracts from the Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers, all methodically arranged so as to facilitate its use in the schools. Its compilation incessantly occupied the author for the space of twenty-five years. Many errors found their way into the work, which contained some false quotations, and cited as authorities certain decrees and synodical acts which have since been proved to be spurious, and are known as the False Decretals. But whatever were its shortcomings, it gave a facility to the study of canon law which had not before existed, and the two branches of jurisprudence were immediately professed side by side in the schools of Bologna. Almost at the same time the students obtained some important privileges, which encouraged foreigners to resort to a university where they were secure of protection from the civil power. In 1158, when the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held his great diet on the plains of Roncaglia, for the purpose of publishing a code of laws which should secure his own power in Italy, four professors were summoned from Bologna to assist in the deliberations. He treated them with much distinction, and with good reason, as they fully supported the Imperial claims. They did, however, better service to their university by obtaining from the emperor those celebrated ordinances known as the Habita, which, though originally promulgated in favour of Bologna, came to be recognised as establishing similar rights in other European universities. In them he extends his protection in a special manner to the masters and scholars. “It is our duty to protect all our subjects,” he says, “but specially those whose science enlightens the world, and who teach our people the obligation of obeying God and us, the ministers of His Divine power. Who will not have compassion,” he continues, “on those precious exiles, whom the love of learning has banished from their own countries, who have exposed themselves to a thousand dangers, and, far from their friends and families, live here without defence, in poverty and peril?” He therefore directs that all foreign students shall have safe-conduct both for themselves and their messengers, both for coming, going, and reading at the university, and that if anything be taken from them, the magistrates of the city shall be bound to restore it fourfold. Moreover, he exempts them from the ordinary civil jurisdiction, and grants the right of being judged by the master of the school to which they belong, or by the bishop.

The grant of these privileges at once raised the Bolognese university to a position which ranked it on a level with that of Paris, and whilst a tide of scholars from beyond the Alps, as well as from the other Italian cities, flowed in, eager to take advantage of these imperial favours, the Roman pontiffs began to extend their protection to the rising institute. The first of these was Alexander III., who had a particular interest in the university, having taught theology there for some years before his elevation to the purple.

Among the more famous Bolognese scholars were St. Thomas of Canterbury; Lotharius Conti, afterwards Pope Innocent III., both of whom read canon law here after finishing their theology at Paris; Vacarius, afterwards law professor at Oxford; and the troubadour chronicler, Geoffrey de Vinesauf, who, though an Englishman by birth, seems to have been rather ashamed of the barbarism of his mother country, and declares that to go from England to Rome was like going from darkness to light, and passing from earth into heaven.

He was the author of the Ars Poetica, and of another learned work entitled Ars Dictaminis, written for the use of his Bolognese pupils; but he is chiefly remembered as the companion and historian of Richard Cœur de Lion, in the Second Crusade.

Before the end of the twelfth century, Bologna numbered 10,000 students, and in the following generation the influence exercised in the schools by the Dominican Order, which made its headquarters in Bologna, still further extended its fame. At this time, besides the law lecturers, there were professors of moral and natural philosophy; but it is somewhat singular that this flourishing university does not appear to have had any regular chair of theology before 1362, in which year a Bull for the erection of the theological faculty was issued by Innocent VI. But we are not to suppose that the study of theology was therefore neglected, for the want was supplied by the schools attached to the monastic houses, specially the monasteries of St. Felix and St. Proculus, and those of the two orders of Friars. It was in one of these schools that Rolando Bandinelli, afterwards Pope Alexander III., must have taught, as he professed theology at Bologna at the same time that Gratian taught canon law, when certainly no other theological schools existed in the university. Nor was this state of things peculiar to Bologna. In Padua likewise, the students appear to have been for some time dependent on the monastic schools for the means of following their theological studies; so that in 1280 we find the Abbot Engelbert, after completing his course of philosophy in the university, removing to the convent of the Friar Preachers to study theology. Afterwards, when the Emperor Frederic II. drove the Friars out of his dominions, the university had recourse to the Benedictines of Monte Cassino, who sent thither the monk Erasmus to open a theological school. We also find honourable mention in this century of a certain Florentine physician named Taddeo, a professor of the university, of whom the Bolognese were so proud that they granted his scholars the privilege of law students. The common physician’s fee at this time was a load of hay for his horse; but Taddeo, if summoned to a distance, demanded fifty gold scudi, and a safe-conduct out and home. This is one of the earliest instances on record in which medicine takes its place among the other learned faculties. The pay of all these professors seems to have been extremely small, and never exceeding the sum of 200 lire, about £40.

The university of Padua appears to have owed its erection to a quarrel among the Bolognese professors, some of whom migrated in a body, about the year 1222, and opened schools which soon attracted the notice of the learned. The new university was specially distinguished by its excellent school of arts; these, as we have seen, were sinking into neglect at Paris; but under the genial sky of Italy, and in a country where Latin was still so completely regarded as the native and living tongue, that as yet no one had thought of using the vernacular Italian for literary purposes, it was impossible that the names of Cicero and Virgil should be suffered to drop into oblivion. Hence we find that the scholars of Padua il Dotto cultivated a taste for the profane poets and the great writers of antiquity; and it has been observed that Albert the Great, who studied in her schools for at least ten years, was so imbued with the classic literature, that his very sermons often present us with a tissue of philosophic maxims, drawn from the writings of Virgil, Juvenal, and Cicero, the latter of whom he styles affectionately noster Tullius. A love of the classics, in fact, survived in most of the Italian schools, and Hasse tells us that the Mantuans went so far as to give their capital the title of the “Virgilian city,” in honour of the great bard, whose statue they erected in their market-place, and on the 15th of October (which was supposed to be his birthday) danced around it, crowned with laurel, and singing verses in his praise.

Tiraboschi observes that in none of these universities does there appear to have been erected anything like a library for the use of the students. Copyists seem to have been employed to furnish them with books, at a given price, and in Bologna, women were employed on this work, a fact to which P. Sarti ungallantly attributes the frequent errors found in many MSS. of the time. The rich collections of books which had formerly been found in the cathedral and monastic libraries, had been for the most part dispersed during the wars which had ravaged Italy for so many centuries, and the scanty catalogues which are preserved, generally present us with no more than the names of a few books on canon or civil law.

In addition to the Italian universities already named, must be noticed that of Naples, which owed its foundation, in 1224, to the Emperor Frederic II. That monarch, irritated at the opposition which he met with from the citizens of Bologna, who warmly embraced the cause of the Popes, and refused to receive the emperor within their walls, conceived, in revenge, the plan of ruining the university of the refractory city, by establishing a rival institution in his own Sicilian states. For this purpose he chose the city of Naples, and used every effort to attract scholars, by the grant of extraordinary privileges; and masters, by the promise of rare pecuniary advantages. As regarded his own subjects he did not allow much liberty of choice, but absolutely forbade them, under penalties, to study either at Bologna or Paris, or anywhere but at the Imperial academy. No cost was spared to put it on an equal footing with the institutions with which it was to compete; an immense sum was expended in the collection of Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew books, many of those in the last three tongues being translated at the royal expense. The works of Aristotle are said to have been translated into Latin by the famous Michael Scott, who at that time filled the office of astrologer to the emperor. The professor of philosophy was the almost equally celebrated Peter the Irishman, grammar and rhetoric being taught by another Peter, an Italian by birth. In short, ample provision was made for the intellectual profit of the students, but further than this little could be expected from a founder of Frederic’s character.

Touron, in his life of St. Thomas, has given us a frightful picture of the state of morals prevailing in the Ghibbeline university, and says that there was a common proverb at that time current in Italy, to the effect that Naples was an earthly paradise inhabited by demons. Frederic was indeed a splendid patron of learning, and is said to have been well skilled in the German, French, Latin, Greek, and Arabic tongues. His book on birds is praised by Humboldt,[176] as displaying a knowledge of natural history which at that time was truly extraordinary. He was also reckoned, like all the princes of his house, to be a good poet, and a somewhat freethinking philosopher. Much of his literary and scientific tastes he owed to the influence of his celebrated chancellor, Peter delle Vigne, who had studied at Bologna, and was considered one of the most learned men of his time. But his learning was steeped in the infidelity peculiar to the age; and common belief attributed to him and to his Imperial master the authorship of a blasphemous work, entitled “The Three Impostors,” though the truth of this is warmly disputed. Suspected of treachery by the emperor, Peter delle Vigne was at last deprived of his eyes, and imprisoned in a monastery, where, in 1245, he miserably put an end to his own life by dashing out his brains against a wall.[177]

So much has been said by historians of the protection afforded to letters by Frederic and his successors on the throne of Sicily, that we might almost be led to suppose that the Ghibbeline monarchs had none to share their fame in this respect. But in point of fact the Popes in this, as in all times, were the true nursing fathers of Christian science. To Innocent III., himself one of the most learned men of his age, the university of Paris was indebted for that body of laws of which we have already spoken; he also granted large privileges to the university of Bologna, and it was he who ordained in the Fourth Lateran Council that provision should be made for the maintenance of Christian studies, by the appointment in every cathedral church of a master in grammar for the instruction of the younger clerics, as well as of a theologian. His successor, Honorius III., directed the chapters to send certain of the younger canons to study at the universities, and granted them a dispensation from the obligation of residence; and we are told he once removed a bishop on finding him grossly ignorant of grammar. Benedict XII. confirmed the decrees of his predecessors, and required not only cathedrals, but also monasteries and priories, to provide a master to instruct the younger monks in grammar, logic and philosophy.

Gregory IX. who, according to Muratori, was profoundly skilled in the liberal arts, and whom he calls “a river of Tullian eloquence,” drew up five books of decretals, and was so firm a friend to the university of Paris, that, to use the expression of Crevier “it had no other support during the troubles with which it was vexed in the thirteenth century, than in this Pope.” Innocent IV. erected public schools of law at Rome, and founded the university of Piacenza, besides which, as Crevier acknowledges, he surpassed all his predecessors in the benefits which he heaped on the university of Paris, and the singular protection he afforded it. Such was the zeal of this pontiff in promoting learning, that wherever he was, he established in his palace a little university. Thus, being at Lyons in the second year of his pontificate, he opened a studium generale at his court for the study of theology and canon law; and did the same at Naples, where he died; and at the Council of Lyons in 1245, he enforced the decrees of previous pontiffs regarding the establishment of cathedral grammar schools for the gratuitous education of poor children.

It was Gregory X. who, among the other acts of his glorious pontificate, moved the King of Sicily to restore the schools which had fallen into decay in his dominions. His letter is printed in the collection of Martene. God, he says, has willed that man fallen into barbarism should be taught and civilised by the culture of the arts and sciences. It is study which confers on man the grace of a cultivated education, as a heavenly gift; and the king who uses his power to continue a generation of wise and learned men, and to provide the Church with worthy ministers, performs an act most honourable and pleasing to God.

To Urban IV. belongs the glory of having revived the study of philosophy in Italy. He is known to have commanded St. Thomas to comment on the works of Aristotle; and so great was his love of this branch of learning, that he always had at his table certain professors whom he would afterwards cause to sit at his feet and engage in erudite disputations among themselves, he himself presiding over their trial of wits, and deciding to whom the victory was due. It was to his noble encouragement that the world owed the mathematical works of Campano of Novara, whom he appointed his chaplain, and who wrote a learned commentary on Euclid. In one of the mathematical treatises of this philosopher, is to be found a dedication to Urban, in which he eulogises the magnificent support afforded by that pontiff to philosophical studies, which, owing to his encouragement, after having long languished in the dust, were once more loved and cultivated. The university of Montpellier was founded by Nicholas IV., and that of Cracow by Urban V.

We also find that, besides the universities, a vast number of public schools were opened in Italy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, most of them by authority of the Sovereign Pontiffs; those founded in Rome by Innocent IV. were at first exclusively intended for the study of law, but in 1303 Boniface VIII. erected these schools into a university for every faculty. Other schools of grammar, medicine, and law arose at Modena, Reggio and Parma, and at Milan there were no fewer than eighty schoolmasters instructing youth in the year 1288. The college of the Sapienza, at Perugia, was founded by Innocent IV. out of his private purse, for the education of forty boys, as the Gregorian college was raised somewhat later at Bologna by Pope Gregory XI. And of Urban V. we read that he supported more than a thousand scholars at different academies at his own expense, and supplied them with the books necessary for prosecuting their studies.

Enough has, perhaps, been said to show that the Roman Pontiffs of this period were not altogether indifferent to the interests of learning. Owing partly to their encouragement, and partly to the excessive popularity then attaching to the study of law, the number of universities continued, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to multiply in a manner which makes it difficult to conjecture how students could have been found to people so many academies. Thus, in France alone, we find the universities of Toulouse,[178] Montpellier, Orleans, Lyons, Avignon, Poictiers, Angers, Bourdeaux, Bourges, Cahors, Nantes, Rheims, Caen, Valence, and Grenoble; in Italy, there were those of Ravenna, Salerno, Arezzo, Ferrara, Perugia, Piacenza, Siena, Treviso, Vercelli, Pavia, and Vicenza; in Spain, the two great universities of Salamanca, and Valladolid, besides twenty-four smaller ones; in Poland, of Cracow; in Germany, of Vienna, Prague, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Erfurt, besides others of rather later date. Sixty-six such institutions altogether are reckoned as having been founded in various European countries before the period of the Reformation. The numbers of students who repaired to these academies was certainly very great. At Bologna, in the thirteenth century, we find mention of ten thousand scholars; at Paris, of forty thousand; at Bourdeaux, a single college boasted of upwards of two thousand scholars; and Oxford, in Henry III.’s time, is said to have contained thirty thousand. These universities had each their own distinctive character--Paris excelled in theology, Montpellier and Salerno in medicine, Pavia in the arts, Bologna, Bourges, and Orleans in jurisprudence. Caen, an English foundation was particularly favoured by the monastic students, and a great number of abbeys had here their own colleges, the abbots being accustomed to assemble and assist at the yearly opening of the schools. Of the English universities we will speak more at length in another chapter, but it remains for us to say a few words here on the general character and tendency of all these institutions, and of the revolution which their establishment brought about in the system of education.

To form something like an accurate judgment on this matter, we must glance back at some of the facts elicited in the foregoing pages. From what has been already said, it will appear that the germ of all Christian schools is to be found in the episcopal seminaries--those seminaries which, in ancient times, formed a part of the bishop’s own household, and in which he himself personally directed the studies of his younger clergy, and trained them to the duties of the ecclesiastical state. The cathedral or canonical schools were but the expansion of these early seminaries, over which the bishop still presided, the office of scholasticus being conferred on one of the canons, though, as we have seen, masters were often invited to direct the studies from other dioceses. The monastic schools were formed on the model of these episcopal schools, the abbot doing for his own monks what the bishop did for the clergy of his diocese. The constitution of all these schools was most strictly ecclesiastical, and though seculars were admitted to share in their advantages, they were primarily intended for the education of the clergy. The strong religious character that must have been impressed on the education given in such academies was perfectly in harmony with the spirit of the early ages, when, as Balmez remarks, the intellectual development of Europe had a distinctly theological bias. Religion in those days was the preponderating element, it ruled the family and the state, as well as the individual: and in days when the laws were drawn up in the spirit and the language of ecclesiastical canons, there was nothing at all out of place in the sons of knights and nobles being set to study church chant, the Psalter, and the Fathers. That their studies were by no means exclusively theological has, I think, been amply shown; nevertheless, it is undeniable that, in the ecclesiastical schools, the liberal arts were chiefly cultivated in their relation to the things of faith, and that every branch of learning was more or less tinged with the theological element.

It was not to be expected that such a state of things could continue without large modification. Nations, like individuals, pursue an inevitable course of mental development, and the time necessarily came when the human mind, growing from childhood into maturity, demanded a wider and freer expansion. Hence ensued that remarkable change observable at the opening of the eleventh century, when the European intellect seemed to be passing out of a long winter into a sudden spring, and burst into a vigorous activity, accompanied, naturally enough, by many excesses. Schools and teachers were indefinitely multiplied; the office of teaching was no longer confined to ecclesiastics, and, falling into the hands of lay professors, unavoidably assumed a new character. But it is remarkable that the main principles of the former system still remained in force. Education was recognised to be a religious work, and one which, as such, fell under the jurisdiction of the bishop. As chief pastor in his own diocese, he was supreme in all things appertaining to the spiritual interests of his flock, and the office of teaching was acknowledged to be one that fell under his pastoral charge.[179] The new scholastics, therefore, were not entirely exempted from episcopal jurisdiction; and in the eleventh century we find the system generally established, according to which the scholasticus of the cathedral, or bishop’s school, exercised a certain control over all the schools in the diocese, no professor being suffered to open any private school without a license from him.[180] I do not know whether we can affirm that there were episcopal inspectors, but there were certainly certificated masters in the days of St. Anselm. The office of cathedral scholasticus belonged properly to the archdeacon of the diocese, who might appoint a substitute to direct the school, but with whom the power of granting licenses always remained. In many churches it was also identical with the office of chancellor.[181]

And here one observation irresistibly presents itself. How striking a contrast does not this system offer to that which finds favour in our own times! Here we see it formally and distinctly recognised that the office of teacher was one of those that fell directly under episcopal supervision. The bishop of the diocese exercised jurisdiction over schools, as he did over churches, in virtue of his pastoral office, and his license was the necessary certificate of moral and intellectual fitness. But, according to the principles accepted by most countries which rejoice in a National system of education, the authority formerly exercised by the bishop is transferred to a Board. We make over to a minister of public instruction, or a committee of privy council, or some other secular organ of an unspiritual state, what our fathers regarded as an integral portion of the pastoral office, an incongruity which, little as it now startles us, is, we may say without exaggeration, scarcely less opposed to the Christian order than if the crown should assume the power of granting faculties to preach. What wonder that the result of such a change should be the gradual, but most sure, unchristianising of the popular mind, and that infidelity has found no more efficient allies than the multitudinous and plausible codes of state education which have sprung up since the destruction of the ancient system!

That the control thus recognised as belonging to the bishop through his officers was not merely nominal is quite clear. In 1132, we find Stephen de Senlis, Bishop of Paris, through his chancellor, interdicting a certain professor, named Galon, from continuing to teach. Galon persisted, in defiance of the bishop; and, his pupils deserting his school through fear of incurring ecclesiastical censures, he was at last put to silence. However, he appealed to the Pope, and this, says Crevier, “is the first occasion in which the authority of the Court of Rome appears as interfering in the affairs of the university.” He adds that it was also the beginning of those disputes which the university of Paris maintained for long years against the bishop and chancellor of Notre Dame, arising out of the claims of the latter to exercise jurisdiction over the schools, and the vigorous resistance of the academic authorities. It is clear that the episcopal rights were never totally and completely revoked; nevertheless, they were reduced to a minimum, and the universities, to all practical purposes, established their independence. And the change thus introduced was the more portentous from the fact that, with the rise of the universities, we date the disappearance of the episcopal seminaries. “The institution of seminaries,” says Theiner, “disappeared throughout Christendom after the twelfth century.” The universities became the great seats of learning, human and divine, and though the cathedral schools continued to exist, their students passed from them at an early age to finish their education in theology and canon law in Paris, Oxford, and Bologna; whilst, in many cases, the cathedral schools themselves were absorbed in the new universities of which they formed the nucleus. The bishops, unable to stem the tide, were forced to yield to it, and to witness the education of their clergy passing out of their own control into the hands of newly-constituted bodies which jealously disputed their authority, which were often enough infected with an infidel philosophy, which did not at first supply their members with any spiritual or moral discipline, and which were not necessarily impressed with an ecclesiastical character. For, what is a university? “It consists,” says a writer in the “Analecta Juris Pontificii,”[182] “of an aggregation of schools, governed by a body of doctors, who divide among themselves the several branches of instruction which, in the public schools, are united under one master.” “A university,” says Crevier, “is a body composed of masters teaching and disciples who are taught.” And the writer first quoted goes on to examine whether it would have been possible or desirable for the universities to have established the collegiate discipline of the ancient schools with a view to protect the piety and morals of the students, and decides that such an attempt would have been a chimera. The universities, he says, were intended for seculars as well as clerics, and it was, therefore, unfitting that the rule of clerical schools should be enforced in them. But it is at least obvious that a prodigious and calamitous revolution was being effected in the education of the clergy when young clerics were trained in academies wherein such rules were avowedly not enforced. The difference was this, that in old time they had received secular students into their seminaries, and then the education of laymen was tinged with an ecclesiastical character. Now the world received clerics into her academies, and the education of the future clergy of Europe became necessarily, in a certain sense, secularised. Nor is this said as in any way depreciating the universities, or representing them in an unfavourable light. They will lose nothing by being represented as what they truly are, academies of science, schools of worldly training, learned corporations in which degrees are granted for intellectual proficiency in liberal studies, and in which a man acquires knowledge, refinement, and all that can fit him for taking his place in society, and filling it with credit. Yet, all this does not make them substitutes for ecclesiastical seminaries. They are doubtless capable of being employed in the service of religion, and have often been so employed: they have been established and encouraged by the bulls of Popes, and, in more than one instance, founded with the direct view of furnishing bulwarks against the spread of heresy. Yet, it is evident that, as places of education for the clergy, the universities were at a disadvantage. They could not give the young clerics that training in the ecclesiastical spirit which they had hitherto enjoyed. Even granting that the establishment of colleges afforded the benefits of regular life to their students, it could not give them the watchful protection of their bishop’s eye. That close and paternal tie which had grown up between the chief pastor and his future clergy was altogether lost, except, indeed, in so far as the evil results of the system were counteracted by the personal efforts of the bishop. And here, happily, some of the habits of feudal society came to his aid, and enabled him to receive into the enormous household then maintained by every lord, whether spiritual or temporal, a number of young clerks, who, after their university career was over, thus passed under the immediate rule of their bishop, and received a certain sort of ecclesiastical training at his hands.

Fleury speaks of this custom as universal throughout the Church in the Middle Ages; and says that each bishop took special care of the instruction of his clergy, particularly of those young clerics who were continually about his person, serving him in the capacity of lectors or secretaries, carrying his letters and transmitting his orders. These episcopal households, however, could not do the work of a seminary, still less could they undo the work of a university in the souls of those who had been subjected for a course of years to its social and intellectual training. The idea of the seminary, and the episcopal or monastic school, is pre-eminently that of preservation; it takes the soul in the freshness of youth, and hedges round with thorns the garden that is to be consecrated to God. But according to the mediæval university system, a lad began his studies at Oxford or Paris at the age of twelve or fourteen, and seldom spent less than nine, sometimes twelve, years in native or foreign academies, so that the whole of his most impressible years were spent in the midst of secular fellow-students, thus opening upon him a flood of evils that scarcely require to be pointed out. The dissolute manners which prevailed, specially in the Italian universities, which were, perhaps, next to that of Paris, the most frequented, are depicted by successive Pontiffs as a sort of moral contagion. In many there prevailed a tone of philosophic scepticism, even yet more gravely injurious. False opinions were supported by the example and eloquence of fine scholars and great intellects, and few could enter such an atmosphere, and be subjected to such an influence, without at least losing some of the instincts of faith. The habits of expense, rendered fashionable by wealthy students, brought poverty, the scholar’s ancient and honourable badge, into disrepute, and encouraged an eagerness for offices and benefices. The office of teaching itself lost something of its ancient nobility when made a means of ministering to cupidity and ambition; for it must be owned there were few Wolfgangs to be found at Paris or Bologna. And as avarice and sensuality became the predominant vices of those out of whose ranks the future clergy were to be formed, what wonder that the two centuries which followed the rise of these brilliant and captivating academies should be filled with complaints of clerical corruption; that the salt of the earth should have lost its savour, and that abuses accumulated which cried loudly for reform?

But besides all this the universities had a spirit of their own. In most cases they were creations of the State, and betrayed their origin in the principles which they advocated. We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to the part taken by Paris university during the struggle between Philip le Bel and Boniface VIII. That Pontiff had been prodigal of his favours to the French schools, and had done more than any preceding Pope to extend their privileges; yet at the bidding of the crown the Paris doctors did not hesitate to give their sanction to the monstrous charges by which Philip sought to blacken the reputation of the man he had resolved to destroy. They certified to the truth of accusations drawn up at the king’s direction, representing the Sovereign Pontiff as having a familiar demon, and as blaspheming the doctrine of the real Presence. Crevier says one cannot but smile at these articles, which were notoriously destitute of a shadow of foundation, and in which not one man who signed them for a moment believed. Yet, he adds, the university of Paris gave in its adhesion to this act, and her example was followed by that of Toulouse, because they deemed it proper to support the authority of the Crown. His own comments on these facts are not less startling than the facts themselves. “It was an act,” he says, “of great consequence, and the university has constantly adhered to this sound doctrine, and made it her greatest glory that, owing all her privileges to the power of the Popes, she has never sought to extend their power beyond its just limits, but on the contrary, has ever been the scourge of theologians and canonists flattering to the court of Rome.”[183] In the preface to his work he lays down this sound doctrine of the university in very plain terms, which we commend to the attentive study of the reader, as indicating the inevitable bias of State institutions. “The university of Paris is intimately united to the State, of which it forms a part. It finds in the public power that protection which it requires, and acquits itself of all its duties towards the State by inspiring with all possible care into the disciples whom it trains the sentiments of citizens and Frenchmen. This is one of the chief characteristics, I may say, the peculiar glory, of our university. Its first object is God and religion. But it knows that God Himself commands us to regard as the first of duties those which refer to our country and our sovereign, who resumes all the rights of the nation in his own person. Hence that enlightened and courageous zeal which has always animated the university of Paris for the defence of our precious maxims on the independence of the Crown, the distinction of the two powers, the legitimate rights of the Head of the Church, and the respective rights of the Church herself, as opposed to her Head. These maxims, so important to the tranquillity of Church and State, have always had adversaries, and our university shares with the Parliament the glory of having ever faithfully maintained them.”

These words were written in the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. Who can regret that an institution, the character of which is thus depicted by one of its own professors, should have been doomed to extinction in the midst of that storm which overthrew both state and monarchy, and taught the terrible lesson how little stability is to be looked for in any civil power which seeks to base itself on the “precious maxims” of State supremacy? Yet, this spirit was not confined to the university of Paris alone; her doctors put it forth, perhaps, with peculiar boldness and precision, but it was shared by almost all her sister academies, as may be seen by the part which the universities of Europe took in the contest between Henry VIII. and the Holy See, and the active support which he obtained from their professors. And there is no doubt that this is in great part to be attributed to the excessive predominance of the study of the Roman law, which rendered popular a certain Cæsarism in politics, which eventually proved as destructive to civil, as it did to religious, liberty.

So far, our observations apply to the universities at all periods of their existence. But, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, there existed some dangers peculiar to the time. The new academies threatened to prove no less hostile to the purity of doctrine than to the purity of manners. Aggregations of schools incorporated by royal charters are not the appointed guardians of the deposit of faith, nor has the promise of infallibility been given to doctors and theological professors. The monastic scholars had, for the most part, been secured from error by their reverence for tradition, and from the fact of their naturally contemplating truth, rather through the heart, than through the reason. But the new scholastics contemplated it through the metaphysics of Aristotle, and, what is more, through Aristotle as he was rendered by Arabic interpreters, who added to the errors of the pagan philosophers a pantheistic system of their own. At the head of these was Averrhoes, the son of an Arabian physician, whose religion it would be hard to determine, as he scoffed alike at Christianity, Judaism, and Mahometanism. His commentaries on Aristotle found such favour in the eyes of the free-thinking students of the day that they commonly spoke of him as “the Commentator.” His grand doctrine was that which averred all mankind to possess but one common intellect. All after death were to be united to what the modern Germans would call the Over-Soul, and hence the dogma of reward and punishment, according to individual merit, crumbled away, and there was no difference between saint and sinner--between St. Peter and Mahomet. These doctrines were propagated by wandering minstrels, and supported by imperial scholars. Frederic II. entertained at his court the two sons of Averrhoes, whose religious views, in the main, coincided with his own. He patronised the Arabian schoolmen, partly out of a love of the natural sciences which they cultivated, and partly from a sympathy with their sceptical philosophy; and his support helped to set the fashion. Soon the new philosophy linked itself to those Manichean doctrines, the poison of which was always lurking somewhere within the fold. Secret societies were formed, the members of which were bound together by oaths, and were to be found in most of the great universities; and Bulæus tells us that an organisation existed for disseminating their opinions among the people by agents disguised as pedlars. A new translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics appeared in 1167, and, says Crevier, “men’s minds became wholly filled with them.” Many fell into open unbelief, and he relates the well-known story of Simon of Tournai, who, after explaining all the doctrines of religion with great applause, blasphemously boasted that it was as easy for him to disprove, as to prove the existence of God. He offered to do so on the following day, but, in the midst of his impious speech, he was struck with apoplexy, and the event was regarded as a manifestation of the Divine displeasure.

Another of the Paris professors, Amauri de Bene, was regent of arts about the same time with Simon. He was remarked as being fond of singular opinions; and as having a way of thinking on most subjects peculiar to himself, but in his own lifetime the real truth was never suspected. But after his death startling discoveries were made. He was found to have been the head of one of the Albigensian sects who preserved the name of Christianity, while rejecting all its dogmas. The doctrine of the sacraments was swept away; a new religion was announced to the initiated as the work of the Spirit, which was to replace that which had been introduced by the Son; and this second gospel was associated with hideous immorality. All this had been cautiously propagated among disciples bound to secresy by oath. On investigation it proved that the greater number of the Paris professors were infected with this poison, and the university found itself compelled to limit the number of its doctors in theology to eight. A council being called at Paris in 1210, it was resolved to strike at the evil in its head by prohibiting the study of Aristotle’s Philosophy in the schools. It was in consequence of this decree that Robert de Courçon in his statutes interdicted the reading of Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics. In 1231 Gregory IX. rendered the prohibition less absolute, but before the end of the century a recurrence of the old disorders rendered it once more necessary to condemn a whole system of pagan errors taught by the Parisian masters.[184] “Even those who did not push the abuse to such extremes,” says Crevier, “altered, at least in part, the purity of Christian dogma, by interpretations more conformable to the principles of Aristotle than of the Fathers.” And it was this that caused Gregory IX., true friend to ancient learning as he was, to fulminate a bull against the Paris professors, charging them with presumptuous arrogance, and forbidding them to mingle their philosophic opinions with the truths of revelation.

Decrees of this nature were, however, insufficient to meet the evil. The intellect of Europe, as it flowed into these academies, was trembling on the brink of infidelity, and so long as the schools of philosophy were in the enemy’s hands, it was vain to expect to put down error by the simple voice of authority. What power, then, was to be evoked in defence of Christian dogma? Where were the champions to be found to meet the teachers of error on their own ground, and beat them with their own weapons? The monastic orders had ever proved the militia of the Church at such crises, but in the present case their position seemed to preclude their taking a prominent part in the contest. Though they were beginning to make use of the universities for the education of their younger members, yet this was felt by many to be a straining of their rule, and a very general prejudice against the practice prevailed among the monks themselves. Certainly it would never have been tolerated for them to have aspired to the professor’s chair, yet the battle, it was plain, would have to be fought in the arena of the schools. Something seemed required in which the spirit of the schools and of the cloister should be combined; in which all the science of the one should be united to all the unworldly self-devotedness of the other. A new institute seemed called for in the Church, and at the moment that it was called for, it appeared. The Divine Householder, bringing out of His treasure-house things new as well as old, had in His providence prepared the shield which was to cast back the weapons of the new scholasticism on those who wielded them; to Christianise the schools, and press philosophy into the service of the faith. And this gigantic work was to be wrought by the ministry of doctors indeed, but of men who were not merely doctors, but saints. But of them and of their triumphs we must speak in a separate chapter.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DOMINICANS AND THE UNIVERSITIES.

A.D. 1215-1300.

In the very same year which witnessed the publication of the Paris Statutes by Robert de Courçon, the city of Toulouse was being electrified by the lectures of a certain professor of theology named Alexander, who was held in great esteem throughout the south of France. One autumn day in the year 1215, having risen at a very early hour to pursue his studies, he fell asleep in his chair, and in his sleep he had a dream. He thought that seven stars appeared before him, small at first, but gradually increasing in size, and at last illuminating the whole world with their splendour. Starting from his slumber, he found that the hour had come for him to open his school, and hastening thither, seven men presented themselves to him as he entered, and informed him that they were about to preach in the country round about Toulouse, and desired, before doing so, to attend his lectures. They wore the usual dress of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, namely, a white serge tunic covered with a linen surplice, and over that a black mantle; and they were headed by one on whose brow the master seemed to recognise the starry splendour which he had seen in his late vision: they were Dominic Guzman, prior of Prouille and Canon of Osma, and his first six followers.

The Order of Preachers was at this time but just founded, but even before its holy patriarch had given it a rule, and obtained for it the Apostolic confirmation, he directed its first steps to the schools. The institute, of which he had conceived the plan, was expressly designed for the purpose of teaching and preaching, and hence the culture of sacred science formed, from the first moment of its existence, one of its primary and essential duties. Having, therefore, established his followers at Toulouse to pursue their studies under the direction of Alexander, St. Dominic hastened to Rome to lay his plans before Pope Innocent III., then presiding over the Fourth Lateran Council. The Fathers of that Council had already formally recognised the grand evils of the age, which cried for a remedy, to be the want of sound religious instruction among the people and of theological science among the clergy. And a decree had been passed directing the bishops in each diocese to choose persons capable of preaching and instructing the people who were to be employed in this office; and requiring that certain learned men should be appointed in all churches, whether cathedral or conventual, to assist the bishops in preaching the Word of God and administering the Sacraments. Thus the outline of a teaching and preaching order had been sketched by the Lateran Fathers even before its perfect design had been submitted to the Pope by its founder. No wonder, therefore, that it was readily approved; it appeared as though raised up by God to supply a want at the very moment when the existence of that want had been distinctly acknowledged. And as if to mark the fact that, from the first moment of its formal existence, the Order of Preachers was expressly intended to teach and cultivate sacred science, Honorius III., when confirming the rule in the year following, bestowed upon St. Dominic the office of Master of the Sacred Palace, which may be briefly defined as that of the Pope’s theologian. This office became hereditary in the Order, and distinguished the sons of St. Dominic as the chosen theologians of the Church.

To form a just idea of the solicitude of the holy founder, and of those who immediately succeeded him, in establishing a perfect system of studies, we must turn to the Constitutions of the Order. It was at the first general chapter held at Bologna in 1220, and presided over by the saint himself, that an ordinance was passed declaring that as the principal end of the Order is preaching, the brethren should concern themselves rather with books and studies than with the singing of Responsories and Antiphons, provided, however, that prayer be vigilantly attended to.[185] And elsewhere the pursuit of sacred learning is declared to be “most congruous to the design of the Order,” both because the Order professes the contemplative life, and the study of sacred things is necessary to this end, and because it is also designed for teaching others the Divine knowledge which its members have acquired by learning.[186] Schools were therefore to be opened in every convent, under a Master of Studies, which differed from the old monastic schools in being exclusively intended as theological seminaries, and not as academies of the arts. The study of arts was not indeed absolutely prohibited, but it was to be pursued under limitations, and too much time was not to be given to secular branches of learning.[187] It was, however, required that in all convents the brethren should study the languages of the neighbouring countries;[188] and early in the fourteenth century the study of the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic tongues was likewise enjoined. Still later, in 1553, it was ordained that in all convents where there were younger brethren, there should be a lector appointed to teach them grammar and the arts, according to their capacity. But the studies chiefly contemplated by the rule were those of philosophy and theology. Three years were to be devoted to the study of philosophy, before the commencement of the theological course. The length of time devoted to theological studies may be gathered from the rule which enjoined that in each of the chief houses of studies there should be a Regent of Studies, a certain number of Bachelors and Lectors, and a Master of Studies; but no one could be appointed Regent till he had publicly taught theology for twelve years, and the Bachelor or Lector, ten years; and all these must have maintained at least five public disputations in the schools before the assembled doctors and scholars. Moreover, before any one could present himself for the examination required in order to become a Master of Studies, it was necessary to have completed the course of arts, and another four years’ course of theology.[189]

During the year of religious probation which preceded profession, the novices were exclusively to occupy themselves in acquiring a knowledge of their rule and the duties of their state, and were exercised in chanting the Divine Office and studying the Ceremonies of the Order. During this time they were not allowed to engage in any study except that of languages. After their profession their scholastic course began, during which time every facility was to be afforded them for pursuing their philosophical and theological course. They were to have suitable cells in which they might read, write, and even sit up at night with a light. There was to be some place in which the Master of Studies could assemble them to propose doubts and questions, in discussing which good order and courtesy were to be observed. Every student was to be provided with three books; a Bible, a copy of the Sentences, and a book of histories.[190] The studies began with a course of philosophy, then the Scriptures were explained, and no one could be sent to a Studium Generale, a house of general studies, until he had passed at least one year under a professor of the Sacred Scriptures. After this came the explanation of the Sentences, which formed the theological text-book, until the works of St. Thomas were substituted in their place. In the schools the Lector was forbidden to use any written manuscript; he might have the text of Aristotle and of the Sentences, but no gloss. The pupils might take written notes if they chose, and if they were able to do so, though, as they sat on bundles of straw, or at best on benches without desks, this was not always easy. Most were content to trust to their memory, and assist it afterwards by repetitions of the master’s lesson among themselves. Classes were held every day, and there were weekly and yearly examinations. At first there was but one Studium Generale, that, namely, of St. James’s Convent in Paris, but in 1248 four others were established at Cologne, Oxford, Montpelier, and Bologna, in all of which the students were able to take the same degrees as in Paris. The number of these houses was afterwards greatly multiplied, one being provided for each province. Certain scholars of remarkable capacity were selected by their superiors and sent to those houses. From the Studium Generale the students passed on to graduate at some university, unless, as was often the case, the house was itself aggregated to a university, as at Paris and Bologna. The order observed at Paris in advancing to the degree of Doctor, is given by Fleury in his “Fifth Discourse,” and was as follows. He who was named Bachelor by the General of the Order, or by the Chapter, began by explaining the Sentences in the school of some doctor, for the space of a year, at the end of which time the prior of the convent, with the other doctors then professing, presented him to the Chancellor of the Church of Paris, and affirmed on oath that they judged him worthy of obtaining a license to open a school of his own and teach as a doctor; after going through certain examinations, he taught the second year in his own school, and the third year was allowed to have a bachelor under him, whom at the end of that year he presented for his license. Thus, the doctor’s course lasted three years, and no one could be raised to the degree of Doctor of Divinity or Master of Sacred Theology, who had not thus publicly taught.[191] The teaching of the Friar Preachers, however, was not exclusively given in the pulpit or the professor’s chair. It was their aim to ingraft in men’s minds a knowledge and love of the truth, to protect them from heresy by informing them with the spirit of the Church, that spirit which finds expression, not in her creeds alone, but her Liturgy and sacred ceremonies. In our own day we have become accustomed to the idea that institutes founded for the purpose of teaching must necessarily lay aside something of the monastic character. The long offices, the solemn ceremonial, the austerities and ritual observances which take up so large a portion of cloistered life, are, it is thought, difficult, if not impossible, to associate with the active work of the Apostolate. But in the thirteenth century men were still deeply penetrated with the Liturgical spirit which animated the Church in earlier times; it was held that no words could be so fit to convey her teaching as her own, and not words alone but acts, the exact performance of her beautiful rites, made familiar to the eye and heart of the worshipper; her office, her music, the beauty of her sanctuary, and the silent eloquence of her sacred art. All these, therefore, were embraced by the Dominican rule and used as instruments of popular instruction, and it is probable that the Friars cherished those privileges which threw open their churches to the people, and encouraged them to assist at their public offices, almost equally with those that secured to them the free possession of the professor’s chair.

How thoroughly the newly-constituted order was fitted to supply the intellectual wants of the times is proved by the fact, that in the first period of its existence it was chiefly recruited from the ranks of university scholars and professors. Among the names that figure in its early annals those of the Blessed Reginald of Orleans, and St. Peter Martyr, Jordan of Saxony, and his friend Henry of Cologne, the Englishman, John of St. Giles, and the Parisian, Vincent of Beauvais, the three Bolognese doctors Roland, Conrad, and Moneta, Cardinal Hugh de St. Cher, and his disciple the Blessed Humbert, with the Spanish canonist St. Raymund Pennafort, were all taken from this class.

The chief extension of the Order, especially among the students of Paris and Bologna, took place under the generalship of Blessed Jordan, who had a remarkable gift of drawing to himself the affection and confidence of the young. His influence was naturally enough most powerfully felt among his own countrymen. The convent of Cologne had already been founded by his old fellow-student and bosom friend Henry of Utrecht; and a namesake of his, Henry the German, who had begun life as a student, then assumed the cross, and finally taking the religious habit, became its first theological professor. And there in 1230 arrived the young Swabian, Albert of Lauingen, who had been drawn to the Order by B. Jordan, whilst pursuing his studies at Padua. Albert during his student-life had been remarkable for his love of the old classic literature and his enthusiastic admiration for Aristotle; and had already displayed a singular attraction to those physical sciences which he afterwards so profoundly studied. He had examined various natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, the mephitic vapours issuing from a long closed well, and some curious marks in a block of marble, which he explained in a manner which betrays an acquaintance with some of the chemical theories of modern geology.[192] After going through his theological course at Bologna, he was appointed to fill the vacant post of professor at Cologne, where he taught sacred and human science for some years, and lectured moreover at Hildesheim, Strasburg, Friburg, and Ratisbonn, in which last city an old hall is shown which still bears the title of “Albert’s School.” Converted into a chapel by one of his successors and ardent admirers, it may be supposed to exhibit the same form and arrangement as that which it bore five centuries ago. Round the walls are disposed ancient wooden seats, for the accommodation of the hearers, and fixed against the middle of the wall is an oak chair, or rather pulpit, covered with carvings of a later date, representing St. Vincent Ferrer delivering a lecture, and a novice in the attitude of attention. The chair is of double construction, containing two seats, in one of which sat the master, and in the other the bachelor, who explained under him the Book of the Sentences. All around are texts from the Holy Scriptures, fitly chosen to remind the student in what spirit he should apply himself to the pursuit of sacred letters. Ama scientiam Scripturarum, et vitia carnis non amabis. Qui addit scientiam addit et laborem. Bonitatem et disciplinam et scientiam doce me. Qui fecerit et docuerit, hic magnus vocabitur in regno cælorum. Videte ne quis vos decipiat per philosophiam, secundum elementa mundi, et non secundum Christum.

In such a hall as this we may picture to ourselves the Blessed Albert the Great lecturing at Cologne in 1245, where he first received among his pupils that illustrious disciple whose renown, if it eclipsed his own, at the same time constitutes his greatest glory. There are few readers who are not familiar with the student life of St. Thomas of Aquin, the silent habits which exposed him to the witticisms of his companions, who thought the young Sicilian a dull sort of importation, and nicknamed him “the dumb ox;” the obliging compassion which moved a fellow-student to offer him his assistance in explaining the lessons of the master, and the modesty and humility with which this greatest of Christian scholars veiled his mighty intellect, and with the instinct of the saints, rejoiced to be counted the least among his brethren. But the day came which was to make him known in his true character. His notes and replies to a difficult question proposed by Albert from the writings of St. Denys, fell into the hands of his master, who reading them with wonder and delight, commanded him on the following day to take part in the scholastic disputation. St. Thomas obeyed, and the audience knew not whether most to admire his eloquence or his erudition. At last Albert, unable to restrain his astonishment, broke out into the memorable words, “You call this the dumb ox, but I tell you his roaring will be heard throughout the whole world.” From that day St. Thomas became the object of his most solicitous care; he assigned him a cell adjoining his own, and when in the course of the same year he removed to Paris, to govern the school of St. James for three years, in order afterwards to graduate as doctor, he took his favourite scholar with him.

The position which the Friars at that time occupied in Paris requires a few words of explanation. In the year 1228, a tavern brawl, which terminated in a disgraceful riot, had brought on a collision between the civic and academic authorities; and the indiscriminating severity with which the excesses of the students had been punished, had determined all the masters to desert the city, and open their schools elsewhere. This quarrel, which threatened the entire break-up of the university, lasted three years, and was only finally adjusted by the interference of the Pope. During the absence of the masters, the archbishop and chancellor of Paris conferred one of the vacant chairs of theology on the Friars Preachers, and shortly afterwards erected a second chair in their favour, Roland of Cremona and John of St. Giles being named the two first university professors of the order.

When the masters returned to Paris they affected to regard this as an infringement of their rights, and a warm controversy arose, which lasted with ever-increasing violence for forty years, and was at its height when the two saints made their first appearance in the Parisian schools. It did not, however, prevent Albert from winning his doctor’s cap, together with the reputation of having illuminated every branch of science, and of knowing everything that was to be known.[193]

His doctor’s triennium had scarcely expired when he was recalled to Cologne to take the Regency of the Studium Generale, newly erected in that city; and St. Thomas accompanied him to teach, as licentiate or bachelor, in the school which proved the germ of a future university. This epoch of Albert’s life appears to have been that in which most of his philosophic writings were produced. They consist chiefly of his “Commentary on Aristotle,” in which, after collating the different translations of that author with extraordinary care, he aims at presenting the entire body of his philosophy in a popular as well as a Christian form; a commentary on the Book of the Sentences; other commentaries on the Gospels, and on the works of St. Denys, all of which are preserved; and a devout paraphrase of the Book of the Sentences cast into the form of prayers, which has been lost. His published works alone fill twenty one folio volumes, and it is said that a great number of other treatises exist in manuscript. Fleury, who is pleased to say that he knows nothing great about this writer except his volumes, takes in very bad part the labour he has expended on the study of natural science. The course of the stars; the structure of the universe; the nature of plants, animals, and minerals, appear to him unsuitable subjects for the investigation of a religious man; and he hints that the seculars who paid for the support of such students by their liberal alms expected them to spend their time on more profitable studies. The reader need not be reminded that Albert was not singular in directing his attention to these subjects, and that the scientific labours of our own Venerable Bede have ever been considered as among his best titles to admiration as a scholar. But more than this, it is surely a narrow and illiberal view to regard the cultivation of science as foreign to the purposes of religion. At the time of which we are now speaking, as in our own, physical science was unhappily too often made an instrument for doing good service to the cause of infidelity. It was chiefly, if not exclusively, in the hands of the Arabian philosophers, who had drawn great part of their errors from the physics of Aristotle. Schlegel, indeed, considers that the extraordinary popularity of Aristotle in the Middle Ages did not so much arise from the love of the mediæval schoolmen for his rationalistic philosophy, as from the attraction they felt to some great and mysterious knowledge of nature. His works seemed to give promise of unlocking to them those vast intellectual treasures reserved for the scrutiny of our own age, but of the existence of which they possessed a kind of dim half-consciousness. Hence the teachers of the thirteenth century could hardly do more effective service to the cause of truth than by handling these subjects according to a Christian method, and proving that faith and science were in no sense opposed to one another. Hallam affects to grieve over the evil inflicted on Europe by the credit which Albert’s influence gave to the study of astrology, alchemy, and magic. The author of Cosmos, however, passes a very different verdict on the nature of his scientific writings, and one which our readers will be disposed to receive as more worthy of attention. “Albertus Magnus,” he says, “was equally active and influential in promoting the study of natural science, and of the Aristotelian philosophy.... His works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of plants. One of his works, bearing the title of Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum, is a species of physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation, and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun’s rays in heating the ground, which have excited my surprise.”[194] Jourdain, another modern critic, says, “Whether we consider him as a theologian or a philosopher, Albert was undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary men of his age; I might say, one of the most wonderful men of genius who has appeared in past times.”

It may be of interest to notice here a few of the scientific views of Albert, which show how much he owed to his own sagacious observation of natural phenomena, and how far he was in advance of his age. He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast assemblage of stars, but supposes, naturally enough, that they occupy the orbit which receives the light of the sun. The figures visible on the moon’s disk are not, he says, as has hitherto been supposed, reflections of the seas and mountains of the earth, but configurations of her own surface. He notices, in order to correct it, the assertion of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only twice in fifty years; “I myself,” he says, “have observed two in a single year.” He has something to say on the refraction of the solar ray, notices certain crystals which have a power of refraction, and remarks that none of the ancients, and few moderns, were acquainted with the properties of mirrors. In his tenth book, wherein he catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his time, he observes, “all that is here set down is the result of our own experience, or has been borrowed from authors, whom we know to have written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these matters experience alone can give certainty.” (Experimentum solum certificat talibus.) Such an expression, which might have proceeded from the pen of Bacon, argues in itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the mediæval friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of Aristotle.

He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which Bede had acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of the equator was uninhabitable, and considers that, from the equator to the south pole, the earth was not only habitable, but, in all probability, actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where he imagines the cold to be excessive. If there are any animals there, he says, they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigour of the climate, and are probably of a white colour. The intensity of cold is, however, tempered by the action of the sea. He describes the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and divides the climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a scholar’s freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that persons living at the opposite region of the earth must fall off--an opinion which can only arise out of the grossest ignorance, “for, when we speak of the lower hemisphere this must be understood merely as relatively to ourselves.” It is as a geographer that Albert’s superiority to the writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is truly admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain chains of Europe, with the rivers which take their source in each, remarking on portions of coast which have in later times been submerged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised, by volcanic action, above the level of the sea, noticing the modification of climate caused by mountains, seas, and forests; and the divisions of the human race, whose differences he ascribes to the effect of the countries they inhabit. In speaking of the British Isles, he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another distant island, called Tile or Thule, existed far in the Western Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate, but which, he says, has perhaps not yet been visited by man. He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap during evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial indentations.[195] His minute observations on the forms and variety of plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He distinguishes the star from the bell flower, tells us that a red rose will turn white when submitted to the vapour of sulphur, and makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of germination. The extraordinary erudition and originality of this treatise has drawn from M. Meyer the following comment:--“No botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to him, unless it be Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after him none has painted nature in such living colours, or studied it so profoundly, until the time of Conrad, Gesner, and Cesalpini. All honour, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but even to equal him for the space of three centuries.”

In the Treatise on Animals which Jourdain particularly praises, nineteen books are a paraphrase of Michael Scott’s translation of Aristotle, but the remaining seven books are Albert’s own, and form, says Jourdain a precious link between ancient and modern science. It was not extraordinary that one who had so deeply studied nature, and had mastered so many of her secrets, should by his wondering contemporaries have been judged to have owed his marvellous knowledge to a supernatural source, or that his mechanical contrivances,[196] his knowledge of the power of mirrors, and his production of a winter garden, or hothouse, where, on the feast of the Epiphany 1249, he exhibited to William of Holland, king of the Romans, plants and fruit-trees in full blossom, should have subjected him in the mind of the vulgar to the suspicion of sorcery. But it is certainly surprising that such charges should be reproduced by modern critics, who, it might have been thought, would have condemned the very belief in witchcraft as a mediæval superstition. The more so as Albert devotes no inconsiderable portion of his pages to the exposure and refutation of those forbidden arts, which he will not allow to be reckoned among the sciences, such as geomancy, chiromancy, and a formidable list of other branches of magic.

During the time that Albert was engaged in these labours, his daily life was one which might rather have seemed that of a contemplative than of a student of physical science. “I have seen, and know of a truth,” says his disciple Thomas of Cantimpré, “that the venerable Albert, whilst for many years he daily lectured on theology, yet watched day and night in prayer, daily recited the entire Psalter, and at the conclusion of every lesson and disputation gave himself up to Divine contemplation.” His skill as a master drew an incredible number of students to Cologne, whom he not only inspired with his own love of science, but directed in the spiritual life. Among these were the blessed Ambrose of Siena, and Ulrich of Engelbrecht, who afterwards became provincial of Germany, and made use of the mechanical and scientific lore he had acquired from his master in the construction of the great organ in Strasburg cathedral.

But the fame of all the other pupils of Albert pales like his own before that of St. Thomas of Aquin, who claims our notice in these pages less in his character of saint and theologian than in that of Regent of schools. From the period of his promotion to the doctorate to the day of his death, he was incessantly engaged in the work of teaching, as a very brief outline of his life will show. After lecturing for four years in Cologne, he was recalled to Paris in order to take his degrees, and though under the accustomed age, for he was then but twenty-five, no opposition was offered on the part of the university to his being received as Bachelor, and lecturing as such in the public schools. But at the end of the year, when he should, by right, have proceeded to the degree of Doctor, the quarrel which had already broken out between the Seculars and Regulars was fanned into a flame by the calumnies of William de St. Amour, and the secular Regents persisted in refusing to admit the friars to any of the theological chairs. The dispute being at last referred to Rome, St. Thomas was summoned thither, and by his eloquent defence procured the condemnation of St. Amour’s book on “The Perils of the Latter Times,” in which the religious orders were attacked in scandalous terms. Not only were the deputies of the university obliged to subscribe this condemnation, but also to promise on oath, in presence of the cardinals, to receive members of the two mendicant orders to their academic degrees, and especially St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas, who had hitherto been unable to obtain their Doctor’s caps. The publication of the Pope’s bull, and the authority of St. Louis, finally brought this vexatious dispute to a close, but the university authorities, though forced to yield, contrived to give expression to their ill-will by an act which provided that the Dominicans should always hold the last place, not only after the secular regents, but after those of every other religious body.[197]

On the 23rd of October, 1257, the two saints were received to their Doctor’s degree. St. Thomas, who had no small difficulty in overcoming the scruples of his humility, and who only yielded at last to the orders of his superiors, chose for the text of his “Act of Theology,” not as it would appear without a divine inspiration, the words of the Psalmist, “Thou waterest the hills from Thy upper rooms; the earth shall be filled with the fruit of Thy works;”[198] words which he interpreted to refer to Jesus Christ, who, as the Head of men and angels, waters the heavenly mountains with the torrent of His graces, and fills the Church with the fruit of His works, in the Sacraments which convey to us the merits of His Passion. But as Père Croiset observes, the event gave to this text the character of a prophecy regarding his own future career.

Having taken his Doctor’s degree, he now, according to custom, taught in his own school, having under him a bachelor, who appears to have been either Annibal Annibali, his particular friend, and afterwards cardinal, or Peter Tarantasio, afterwards Pope Innocent V. Many of his theological works were composed during the time he was teaching at Paris, and among the rest his “Summa against the Gentiles,” written at the particular request of St. Raymond Pennafort. Father Nicholas Marsillac, one of his disciples, who gave evidence at the process of his canonisation, speaking of his extreme love of poverty, declared that when he was composing this work, he was often in want of paper to write it on. Nor were his charity and humility less remarkable than his spirit of detachment. In the arena of disputation, where the desire to be right, and the shame of appearing wrong, are apt enough to elicit warm feelings and sharp words, those who watched him the most closely never saw his tranquillity for one moment disturbed;[199] master of himself and of his passions, he possessed his soul in meekness and patience.

On the death of Alexander IV., in 1261, his successor, Urban IV., summoned St. Thomas to Rome, where he continued to discharge the same functions as at Paris, and composed a great number of his theological treatises. It was also during this period of his life that he visited England, being present as Definitor to the General Chapter, held at the Blackfriars in London, in the year 1263. Immediately on his return he was called to Orvieto, and charged by Urban to draw up an office for the newly-appointed Feast of Corpus Christi. “What chiefly strikes us in this office,” says Dom Guéranger,[200] “is the grand scholastic form which it presents. Each of the Responsories at Matins is composed of two sentences, one drawn from the Old, and the other from the New Testament, which are thus made to render their united testimony to the great mystery which is the object of the Feast. This idea, which has in it something truly great, was unknown to St. Gregory and the other authors of the ancient liturgy. But St. Thomas possessed the genius not only of a theologian, but of a poet. In his prose Lauda Sion, as the same writer observes, he has found means to unite scholastic precision to poetry, and even to rhyme. For,” he adds, “every sentiment of order necessarily resolves itself into harmony, and hence, St. Thomas, the most perfect scholastic of the thirteenth century, is on that very account its most sublime poet.” About the same time he appears to have composed his Treatise on the “Unity of the Intellect,” against the errors of Averrhoes; at least it is known to have been written during the pontificate of Urban IV., who died in 1264.

Clement IV., who succeeded him, showed himself no less sensible of the merits of the great doctor than his predecessor had been. He wished to have raised him to the archbishopric of Naples, and even published a Bull conferring that dignity on him, but the prayer of the saint induced him to suppress it, being unwilling, by persisting in his design, to afflict one so dear to him. St. Thomas was therefore left in peace, and he used his liberty to commence his great work, “The Summa of Theology,” of which John XXII. is reported to have said, that if the author had worked no other miracle, he might be deemed to have worked as many as there were articles in the book. Tolomeo of Lucca says, that it was begun in the year 1265, and that the saint devoted to it the remaining nine years of his life, during which time, however, he never ceased to preach and teach publicly both at Rome, Bologna, and Naples. At Bologna, in particular, his lectures caused a sort of revival of learning in that city, and drew thither a great number of foreigners. He remained there for three years, at the end of which time he was called to Paris to attend the General Chapter of his order, and, according to Echard, was again raised to the professor’s chair in that university, which he filled for two years. On his return to Bologna, in 1271, the publication of the second part of his “Summa” produced such an excitement that all the universities of Europe disputed which should gain possession of him. Naples won the preference, and thither the saint repaired, passing on his way through Rome, where he began the third part of his “Summa” and lectured in public according to his custom. A contemporary writer, quoted by the Bollandists, affirms that being engaged in explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the waxlight, which he held in his fingers, burnt down and scorched them without his being conscious of the pain, so entirely was he absorbed in the greatness of his subject.

At Naples he found a very different state of things from that which had prevailed there when he had studied as a youth in the Ghibbeline university of Frederic II. The rule and the race of that emperor had passed away like a dream, and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was now held by Charles of Anjou, the brother of St. Louis, and the faithful supporter of the rights of the Holy See. He reckoned it among the glories of his reign to have drawn to his capital the greatest doctor of the Church; and an inscription engraved on marble was long to be seen at the entrance of the school of the Dominican Convent at Naples, bidding the visitor, before entering, do reverence to the chair whence St. Thomas had taught an infinite number of disciples, King Charles I. having procured this happiness for his kingdom and assigned an ounce of gold per month for the support of the said doctor. During the year and a half that he resided at Naples, St. Thomas continued his accustomed labours; only during the three last months of his life did he lay aside his pen, and cease to write or dictate.

It appeared as though he were conscious of his approaching end, for which God was preparing him by astonishing revelations. Often he was rapt in ecstasies at the altar, concerning which, when questioned, he could only answer, “So great are the things that have been revealed to me, that all I have hitherto taught and written seems to me as nothing.” Yet he was able, before his death, to complete the third part of the Summa, which he left in the state in which we still possess it, and besides this to compose several other lesser treatises. On his deathbed, as is well known, his humility yielded to the entreaties of the religious who surrounded him, and he consented to explain to them the Canticle of canticles. His dying words, as they are reported by the Bollandists, are precious as the last instruction of the greatest of Christian scholars. When he beheld the Sacred Host in the hands of the priest who was about to administer to him the last sacraments, he made his profession of faith according to the accustomed form. Then he added, “I have written much, and have often disputed on the mysteries of Thy law, O my God! Thou knowest I have desired to teach nothing save what I have learnt from Thee. If what I have written be true, accept it as a homage to Thine Infinite Majesty; if it be false, pardon my ignorance. I consecrate all I have ever done to Thee, and submit all to the infallible judgment of Thy Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I am about to depart this life.”

It will be seen that the career of St. Thomas was exclusively that of a scholastic professor, and the anecdotes left us by his biographers prove with what a hearty and genuine earnestness he devoted himself to the cause of sacred learning. His prodigious powers of mind were accompanied with a childlike simplicity of character, which has been recognised by every writer of his life, and which, no less than the purity of his doctrine, won him the title of the Angelic Doctor. In the schools he was known as the sweetest and most charitable, as well as the most learned, of masters; no harsh word was ever heard to pass his lips, and the youngest of his scholars could reckon on commanding his whole attention. He had no thoughts apart from his religions duties and his books; and the splendours of the courts of France and Naples, in both of which he was received with such distinguished honour, had no power to dazzle him. Seated at the table of St. Louis, he was absorbed in a convincing argument against the Manicheans, and became wholly forgetful of the royal presence; and at Naples his student-like absence of mind was not less conspicuous. When the cardinal legate and the Archbishop of Capua came to visit him, he descended into the cloister to receive them; but on the way, revolving in his mind the solution of a theological difficulty, became so absorbed in his subject that by the time he reached the cloister he had forgotten all about the business and the visitors that had called him thither, and stood like one in a dream. The archbishop, who had formerly been his pupil, persuaded the cardinal to leave him alone till he should have recovered himself, and assured him that these reveries were perfectly well understood by those familiar with his habits.

F. Daniel d’Agusta once pressed him to say what he considered the greatest grace he had ever received from God, sanctifying grace, of course, excepted. He replied, after a few moments’ reflection, “I think, that of having understood whatever I have read.” St. Antoninus says, in his life, that no doubt was ever proposed to him that he did not solve, and that he remembered everything he had once heard, so that his mind was like a huge library. He often wrote, dictating at the same time on other subjects to three or four secretaries. Erveo Britto, one of these secretaries, declared that on one occasion the saint becoming weary, closed his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep, but that in this state he nevertheless continued to dictate as before.

There are few saints, in fact, of whose daily life and habits we know more than St. Thomas. He is familiar to us as one of ourselves. We seem to see him enjoying his ordinary recreation of walking up and down the cloister of his convent, occasionally dragged off by his brethren to take a breath of fresh air in the garden, but sure in such cases to be found before long in some remote corner, absorbed in cogitation. Or we behold him contentedly following a lay brother through the markets of Bologna, who, ignorant of the rank of the new guest in the convent, had summoned him to be his companion on the quest, and charged him with the bag, which he carried all day on his shoulder, with undisturbed good-humour. His clothes were always the poorest in the whole convent, and his love of poverty was so great, that we are told that he wrote his “Summa against the Gentiles” on old letters and other scraps of paper. He ate but once in the day, and his total indifference to comfort or convenience, seemed to indicate that he had been heard, in what is said to have been his daily prayer for detachment: Da mihi, Domine, cor nobile, quod nulla deorsum trahat terrena affectio. And with these homely anecdotes are mingled others which exhibit him to us in ecstasy before his crucifix, preparing himself for his daily celebration of Mass by penance, confession, and meditation, and making his thanksgiving by humbly serving another, feeding his devotion by acts of charity, and binding himself by a law never to admit into his soul a single thought that should not be directed to God.[201]

In the last chapter we have seen something of the ravages caused by that pagan philosophy which had gradually established itself in the schools, and without some knowledge of which it is impossible to appreciate the work accomplished by St. Thomas. The university professors of the thirteenth century regarded Aristotle much as the masters of Carthage had done, of whom St. Augustine says that they spoke of the Categories of that philosopher with their cheek bursting with pride, as of something altogether divine. To displace a system which had obtained so firm a hold of the European mind, would probably have been a hopeless enterprise, and St. Thomas therefore achieved his triumph in another way. He humbled the proud Agar, Reason, under the hand of her mistress, Faith, and presented the truths of Revelation in the language of philosophy. In the five volumes which he devoted to his Commentaries on Aristotle he purged the text of the pagan philosopher from everything opposed to the truths of Christianity, and in his Summa of Theology he used the Aristotelian system of reasoning to combine those truths in one vast and harmonious whole.[202] Far from depreciating the office of the understanding, he vindicated its rights, by proving how close an alliance existed between Faith and Reason, and drove from the field the pantheistic dreams of Averrhoes by defining the nature and powers of the individual intellect.

The Arabian philosopher had attempted to explain the existence of universal ideas as found alike in all minds, by the hypothesis that mankind had but one common intellect, and that their ideas were therefore the creation not of many intellects, but of one. His view was embraced by many of the schoolmen, and carried to its extremest consequences, so that it was not uncommon to hear it asserted that after death all souls were merged in one, and thus that all distinction of rewards and punishments would be impossible.

“St. Thomas fought the new sceptical school with their own weapons; with the Conceptualists he admitted the axiom that the mind is the creator of its own objects:[203] by its own powers it forms its ideas of external things; yet its ideas are no false representations of the external world, for the matter of these ideas has been furnished from without by the senses.[204] There was, therefore, no necessity for imagining such a oneness of intellect as Averrhoes held, in order to give objective certainty to human knowledge. The intellect of each man has its own powers, and is the image of the Everlasting Wisdom; and its ideas are shadows of the archetypal ideas of the Divine mind, according to which the world was created. Limited as are its powers, by looking on itself it can form a notion of God, which, though feeble and inadequate, is capable of being developed by the Church on earth, and more perfectly still in heaven. The Pantheism of Averrhoes was nothing but the perversion of a great truth. There is, indeed, one Light ‘which lighteneth every man who cometh into the world,’ but the intellect of each man is a substantive thing with its own powers and operations. Moreover, Averrhoes had removed the intellect utterly out of the control of the conscience; according to him and his disciples the doctrines of faith and the conclusions of reason were the direct contradictory to each other; nevertheless, both might exist together in the mind without the necessity of coming to any conclusion. In other words, they believed in nothing whatever; and truth was a mere matter of words. St. Thomas, therefore, set himself to place faith and reason in right relations to each other. The intellect, he said, was a sacred gift of God, and could never be really contrary to the truth.[205] In its own sphere it was perfect, but the field of faith was a vast system lying beyond the sphere of the intellect. It was out of the jurisdiction of the reason which could pronounce nothing on the matter. Yet though powerless as an organ for the discovery of the faith, it may serve as an expression of the doctrines of revelation. Faith no more excludes reason than grace excludes nature,[206] and Divine truths when received into the human mind, must take the shape of human ideas and human words. Therefore it was that St. Thomas conceived it possible that the great truths of revelation might be expressed in terms of reason, and that the faith might be systematised and presented as one vast whole. And to effect this he chose the terms of Aristotle’s philosophy, as the most scientific classification of the ideas of the human mind.”[207]

The mind of Europe, which had been fast lapsing into infidelity, found itself at last in possession of a system of Christian philosophy wherein the Aristotelian dialectics were employed to defend the Catholic dogmas. “In the Summa of Theology was presented,” says Ozanam, “a vast synthesis of the moral sciences, in which was unfolded all that could be known of God, of man, and of their mutual relations,--a truly Catholic philosophy.” The value of such a gift, at such a time, was at once apprehended, and so instantaneously was the doctrine of St. Thomas accepted in the schools of his own order, that only four years after his death we find a decree of the general chapter of Milan directing that certain English friars should be severely punished for having departed from his teaching, and having had the temerity to call in question some of his propositions. Before the end of the century decrees were passed[208] expressly requiring all the brethren to adhere to the doctrine which he taught, without allowing the least departure from it, and this even before his canonisation. But it was not his own order alone which thus adopted his teaching, and bore witness to his position as a Doctor of the Church. That very university of Paris, which in 1255 had refused him his Doctor’s cap in 1259, agreed to refer to his sole decision a theological question of deep interest, regarding the Sacramental species which then agitated the schools; and in 1274 addressed a letter to the Chapter-General of the Order, in which it speaks of the consternation into which the schools of the metropolis have been cast by the news of his death. They know not where to find expressions honourable enough by which to designate him; he is the morning star, the luminous sun, the light of the whole Church. They remind the Fathers how vehemently they had desired to have him restored to them, and beg that they may now at least be permitted to have his ashes. Two years after his canonisation, certain students in arts having revived some of the philosophical errors refuted by St. Thomas, Stephen, Bishop of Paris, immediately issued a letter, condemning every article which seemed to affect “the doctrine of that most excellent Doctor, the Blessed Thomas,” whom he calls “the great luminary of the Catholic Church, the precious stone of the priesthood, the flower of Doctors, and the bright mirror of the university of Paris.” The universities of Bologna, Padua, Naples, Toulouse, Salamanca, Alcala, and Louvain, at various times and in various ways formally declared their adhesion to his doctrine, as did also a great number of the religious orders, enumerated by Touron in his life of the saint.[209] And even during the lifetime of the saint, as Echard remarks,[210] the numerous disciples whom he had trained in his school, carried his teaching into the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, Rome, and Cologne, for so great was the authority which his name enjoyed, that they seldom made use of any other commentaries than those of their master.

The character of St. Thomas is commonly regarded as presenting us with the perfect model of a Christian doctor. The ideal of such a character has been sketched by his own pen in that commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel, wherein he reminds the reader that it is not enough for the scholar to study the truths of religion, if he does not draw near to God in his life. For God is the source of light, whom if we approach by faith and charity we shall be truly illuminated, and it is by a holy life rather than by subtlety of reasoning that we must seek for a knowledge of the truth. There is a light which men may gain by study, but it suffices not to fill the soul; and there is a light which God pours out on those who sanctify study with prayer, and this is the true wisdom; according to the words of the Wise Man--“I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me.” The perfect Doctor, therefore, he continues, is he whose life, as well as whose doctrine, is light. Three things are necessary to him: stability, that he may never deviate from the truth; clearness, that he may teach without obscurity; and purity of intention, that he may seek God’s glory, and not his own.[211] The life and the writings of St Thomas verified his own words. “The most learned of the saints,” said Cardinal Bessarion, “he was also the holiest among the learned.” He has himself expressed the guiding principle of his scholastic career in a passage which we may be permitted to quote here for the edification of all scholars. It occurs in his Summa against the Gentiles, wherein he attempts to define the office of the true philosopher, and shows that, even according to Aristotle, the only real philosophy is the science of truth. But, if truth is to be held, error must be refuted; hence, the office of the wise man is twofold--to meditate on the divine truths, and to combat all errors opposed to them. “Encouraged, therefore, by the divine goodness to undertake this office, albeit the enterprise is far beyond my powers, my intention is, according to my scanty measure, to manifest the truth professed by the Catholic faith, and to eliminate the contrary errors; for to use the words of St. Hilary, I feel and am persuaded that the chief duty of my life which I owe to God is, in all my words, as in all my thoughts, to speak His praise.”[212]

What an earnest loyalty to God breathes forth in these words! What a deep conviction of the oneness of philosophy with divine dogma! What a majesty of resolve in his determination to make the manifestation of Catholic truth the “duty of his life,” and how rare a picture of lifelong purpose nobly achieved when we compare these expressions with his dying words!--“Sumo Te pretium redemptionis animæ meæ, sumo Te viaticum peregrinationis animæ meæ; pro cujus amore studui, vigilavi et laboravi, prædicavi et docui; nihil unquam contra Te dixi; sed si quid dixi ignorans, non sum pertinax in sensu meo. Totum relinquô correctioni Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, in cujus obedientia nunc transeo ex hac vita.”[213]

The reconciliation of revealed truth and philosophy to which St. Thomas devoted his life must doubtless be regarded as the great intellectual triumph of the thirteenth century; and when we contemplate the group of illustrious men who took part in that work, it is impossible not to render homage to the good providence of God, who, in the hour of need, supplies His Church with fit instruments with which to effect His own purposes. The Friar Minors shared with the Friar Preachers the toils and glory of this great enterprise. Their order had not, indeed, been founded with the same express view of cultivating sacred science; but they were required to labour for the salvation of souls, and as souls could only be saved at this crisis by the vigorous defence of Catholic dogma, the humble sons of St. Francis scrupled not to enter the university schools, and soon gave to the Church a long line of doctors. The seraphic St. Bonaventure was bound to St. Thomas in the ties of friendship, and intimately associated with him in his work; and his teaching regarding the office of the human intellect, and the source of its illumination, is homogeneous with his. “All illumination descends to man,” he says, “from God, the Fontal Light: all human science emanates, as from its source, from the Divine light.” This light, he goes on to say, is fourfold--there is the inferior, the exterior, the interior, and the superior light. The first gives us the knowledge of those things manifested by the senses. The second illuminates us in respect of artificial forms, and includes a knowledge of the useful and ornamental arts, even those of the loom and the needle.[214] The third is the light of philosophical knowledge, and its object is intelligible truth; and this is threefold, for there are three kinds of verities--truth of language, truth of things, and truth of morals. Lastly, superior truth is that of grace and holy Scripture, and illuminates us in respect of saving truth. “Thus, the fourfold light descending from above has yet six differences, which set forth so many degrees of human science. There is the light of sensitive knowledge, the light of the mechanical arts, the light of rational philosophy, of natural philosophy, and of moral philosophy, and lastly, the light of grace and holy Scripture. And so there are six illuminations in this life of ours, and they have a setting, because all this knowledge shall be destroyed. And therefore there succeedeth to them the seventh day of rest, which hath no setting, and that is the illumination of glory.”[215]

It is obviously beyond our present purpose to attempt anything like an account of the Dominican theologians who succeeded St. Thomas, and were formed in his school; and I shall content myself, therefore, with noticing a few of those friars of the thirteenth century, whose influence may be said to have told on education rather than on theology. And the first who claims our attention as having distinguished himself in this line, is, naturally, the librarian of the good king St. Louis, and the tutor of his children, Vincent of Beauvais. He devoted a great part of his life to a gigantic undertaking, the very conception of which attests the colossal scale on which men of those days thought and laboured for futurity. He desired to facilitate the pursuit of learning by collecting into one work everything useful to be known. The plan was not a new one; many such Encyclopædias had already been produced, as that of St. Isidore, and their value was great in an age when the scarcity of books rendered it next to impossible for any ordinary student to procure all the authors he would require to consult, if he desired to perfect himself in various sciences. But it is also possible that a more profound motive than that of mere convenience induced so many of the Christian writers to spend their labours on these encyclopædiac collections. They desired to present to the student the idea of knowledge as a whole, the parts of which were intimately connected, and could not be dissevered from one another without mutual injury. By philosophy, they understood a knowledge of truth in all its parts; and hence the student, according to the old established system, was steadily led through his trivium and quadrivium, those seven liberal arts selected as representing the chief divisions of philosophy, properly so called. The scholastics of Abelard’s stamp had revolutionised this system, and, as we have seen, had all but banished the arts from the school, and made philosophy to consist in little more than the science of reasoning. And this was one point on which Hugo of St. Victor attacked them. Bred up in the old school of monastic students, he contended that their philosophy was no philosophy at all, and that the seven liberal arts cohered one with another, so that, if one were wanting, philosophy, which consisted in a comprehensive knowledge of all science,--rational, physical, and moral,--must necessarily be imperfect.[216] The same teaching is implied in the passage from St. Bonaventure, quoted above; and it seems probable that this sound view of the intimate connection of all parts of human knowledge flowing, as separate streams, from One Fontal source, prompted Vincent of Beauvais to undertake his gigantic work, that so the great edifice of science should be once more presented with all its halls and porticoes forming one harmonious whole, domed over, if we may so express ourselves, with Theology, and surmounted by the Cross.

He had some special facilities for carrying out his design which were not at the command of ordinary students. He was able to make free use of that noble library collected by St. Louis, and attached by him to the Sainte Chapelle. It was thence that he drew the materials of his work, and nature had endowed him with exactly the kind of genius which his task demanded. Antoine Poissevin says of him that he was a man who was never tired of reading, writing, teaching, and learning; the most gigantic labours did not alarm him; neither work, watching, nor fasting was ever known to cause him fatigue; and after devoting one-half of his life to reading the royal library, and every other collection of books that came within his reach, he did not shrink from employing the other in producing a compendium of all he had read. He limited himself to no one subject, or section of subjects; but resolved to embrace all arts and all sciences, whatever he found that was beautiful and true in the physical or in the moral world; whatever could make known the wonders of nature, or the yet greater wonders of grace; all that poets, philosophers, historians, or divines had said that was worth remembering--all this he determined to set before his reader in orderly arrangement; and undismayed at the magnitude of his enterprise, he laboured at it day and night till it was accomplished. “The Great Mirror,” as he calls his work, is divided into three parts, in which are treated separately, Nature, Doctrine, and History. All his scientific and philosophic views are not, of course, original, for he proposed rather to give to the world the cream of other men’s thoughts than of his own. But for this very reason the statements contained in his book are of greater value, as they show the shallowness of those charges so continually brought against the science of the Middle Ages, by writers who have probably concerned themselves very little to ascertain in what that science consisted. Vincent did not write to support new theories or explain away vulgar errors; he aimed only at presenting, in a compendious form, the commonly-received views of his own time, and of times anterior to his own, occasionally illustrating his subject with a sagacious remark, derived from reflection or personal observation. And what a host of misconceptions and traditional calumnies fall to pieces, as we glance through such an analysis of his pages as is given by Rohrbacher![217] How then, we exclaim, did not the mediæval savants oscillate between the opinion that the earth was a flat plane, and that other equally luminous view, that it was a cube? Is it possible that they knew anything of the principle of the attraction of gravitation, and stranger still, that they explained the spherical form of the earth by reasoning drawn from that very principle? Are we to believe our eyes when we read that Vincent of Beauvais illustrates this part of his subject by reminding us of the globular form of the rain drops, which he says, in language which reads like an anticipation of the verses of Montgomery, are so formed by the very same law as that which regulates the shape of the earth?

And who would expect to find the librarian of St. Louis putting forth the argument which still does good service in our popular class-books, wherein the spherical form of the earth is demonstrated by the gradual disappearance below the horizon of the hull and sails of a receding ship, and their as gradual reappearance in a contrary order, on its approach towards us? Yet there it is, together with yet more learned things; such as the method for measuring an arc of the meridian as a means of obtaining the circumference of the earth, quoted from the writings of Gerbert. His treatment of the metaphysical questions which occupied so much attention at the time at which he wrote, is no less remarkable than his natural philosophy, and Rohrbacher, comparing his explanation of universal ideas with that of Bossuet, gives the preference in point of profundity to the mediæval friar. “Thus, then,” he continues, “by the middle of the thirteenth century, the religious of St. Dominic and St. Francis had resumed all Christian doctrine, the teaching of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Councils into a sum of theology; St. Thomas had examined in detail the pagan philosophy, had corrected it, and reconciled it with Christian truth. Roger Bacon, the Franciscan, not content with the ancient sciences catalogued by Aristotle, had begun to penetrate deeper into the secrets of nature, and the Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais, presented in his ‘Mirror’ an epitome of all that man, up to that time, knew in nature, science, art, philosophy, and history.”[218]

Even had the benefits conferred by the friars on the world of letters stopped here, they would have done very much to counteract that narrowing tendency which has been noticed in the last chapter and to restore the broader and truer theory of education which in the twelfth century had been gradually pushed out of place. But to complete our idea of the work achieved by the Dominicans, we must add that they largely encouraged the cultivation of Biblical studies, and of the Greek and Oriental tongues. The Cardinal Hugh de St. Cher claims the gratitude of students as the author of the first Biblical Concordance, a work which he commenced in the year 1236. The Chapter-General of the Order, which was that year held in Paris, entered with large liberality into so useful a design, and appointed a great number of the brethren to labour at it under his direction. Martene, in his Thesaurus Anecdotorum, gives an ordinance of the Chapter of Paris, directing that all copies of the Sacred Scriptures used in the Order should be revised, corrected, and punctuated according to the correction of the body of religious thus employed. This great work was begun under the generalship, and with the hearty concurrence, of Blessed Jordan of Saxony; his successor St. Raymund Pennafort, whose election had been mainly brought about through the exertions of Hugh de St. Cher, made yet more important provision for the encouragement of the Scriptural sciences. With a view of promoting the critical study of the Scriptures, and arming his brethren with weapons of controversy against the Jews and Mahometans, whose influence in this century was far more powerfully felt among Christians than it now is, he established Arabic and Hebrew studies in all the convents of Spain. Not content with this, he founded two colleges more expressly intended for the same purpose, attached to convents of the Order, one at Murcia, and the other at Tunis, filling them with religious whom he selected as best qualified to devote themselves to these pursuits. One of these was his celebrated namesake, Raymund Martin, the author of the Pugio Fidei, whom a learned French academician, M. Houtteville, has, by a singular blunder, numbered among the literary stars of the sixteenth century, unable, as it would seem, to credit the fact that so erudite a scholar could have flourished before the age of Francis the First. He was, however, a contemporary of St. Raymund, and is declared to have been as familiar with the Arabic, Hebrew, and Chaldaic tongues, as he was with Latin. The two last parts of his book are written in Hebrew, and he employed his last years in teaching the same language to a number of disciples, as well secular as religious.[219] The value of St Raymund’s labours in founding these schools, which won him the title of the Restorer of Oriental Studies, was publicly acknowledged in a Bull of Clement VIII., who declares that the revival of the Eastern languages in the Dominican schools has contributed to the glory both of Spain and of the entire Church, and has been the proximate cause of a vast number of conversions.[220] Ten thousand Saracens had already been won to the faith before the year 1236.

Nevertheless, no charge is more commonly brought against the scholars of the Middle Ages, than that of neglecting the study of the Greek and Oriental languages. Hallam, in his “Literary History,” with a great show of candour and painstaking research, notices certain examples of authors belonging to the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, who, he says, appear to have known a few words of Greek. Greek books, he admits, were to be found in the libraries of the eleventh century, and Greek lexicons were compiled by Benedictine abbots, which seems an odd waste of labour if no one ever dreamed of using them. In the “Philobiblon” of Richard of Bury, written in the fourteenth century, he gravely informs us that he has counted five words of Greek. As to the statement made in the same book to the effect that the learned author had caused Greek and Hebrew grammars to be drawn up for the use of students, he dismisses the passage with the comment that no other record of such grammars is to be found. Nor does the decree of the Council of Vienne, passed in 1311, ordering the establishment of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic professorships in the universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca, strike him as offering any evidence that these languages were really cultivated. The decree, he says (though he brings no authority in support of his words), “remained a dead letter.” He accounts for the occasional phenomenon which is to be met with, of a scholar acquainted with five words of Greek, by attributing it to the assistance of Greek priests who found their way into Europe; and observes, that after all, supposing anybody did really know the language, he only used it to read “some petty treatise of the Fathers, or apocryphal legend.” One is tempted to criticise the accuracy of a writer who begins by denying that any mediæval scholars in the West were acquainted with Greek, and then goes on to tell us what they did, and what they did not, read in that language. But there is a more serious fault in these statements than their bad logic. Having made an assertion of this nature on a subject which is certainly of no mean importance in the history of literature, he was bound to take some pains in investigating it. And it is difficult to understand how he can really have examined the literary history of the thirteenth century, without coming across some incidental proof of the ardour with which the Greek and Oriental languages were being at that time pursued in the Dominican schools. It was a fact of such world-wide notoriety that the motive which induced the university of Oxford to assign the Jews’ quarter of the town to the Friars Preachers, was their known familiarity with the learned tongues, by means of which it was hoped they might become efficient instruments for the conversion of their Jewish neighbours. General after General added to the ordinances made by his predecessors for keeping up these studies. Humbert de Romanis, the fifth General of the Order, to whom St. Raymund had communicated the success of his own efforts in Spain, at once determined to extend the ordinance, which had hitherto been partial in its operation, to all the convents of the order; and in 1256 he addressed a circular letter to the brethren, in which he invites all who feel themselves inspired by the grace of God to devote themselves to the study of Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, to communicate with him, because the knowledge of these languages is most necessary in order to extend the light of the Gospel among the Greek schismatics and Moorish infidels.[221] F. Penna, auditor of the Rota to Clement VIII., assures us that it was the success of the colleges established by the Friars Preachers, and specially in Spain, that moved the Council of Vienne to issue the decree already quoted, and the same is repeated by other writers. The acts of that council are, however, by others attributed to the influence of the celebrated Franciscan Raymund Lully, the Illuminated Doctor, as he was called, who devoted many years and much labour to the endeavour to obtain the foundation of colleges for the study of these languages, in order to provide missionaries qualified to labour among the infidels. He himself was a profound Orientalist, and the legendary tales which multiplied in connection with his extraordinary life, represent the tree under which he constructed his mountain hut, as bearing on its very leaves the Greek, Arabic, and Chaldaic characters. At last he persuaded King James of Arragon to found a college in the island of Miraman for thirteen Franciscans who were to be given up to the study of the learned tongues. Pope Honorius IV. entered warmly into his views, but died before he was able to forward them; Philip le Bel acceded so far as to endow a college at Paris, and the Council of Vienne passed its decree confirming the erection of that college, and directing that similar establishments should be formed in the other chief European universities. Hallam, as we have seen, boldly asserts that the decree remained “a dead letter.” How generally it was carried out, or how long its provisions remained in force, may not be easy to determine; but there are precise documents to prove that it was at least put in force at Paris and Oxford. A letter is preserved, written in 1325, by Pope John XXII., to his legate in Paris, recommending him to watch the holders of the new professorships very closely, lest, under colour of the study of the Oriental tongues, they introduce any of the pernicious philosophical doctrines already condemned, and gathered out of the Gentile books.[222] The historic evidence of the bonâ fide existence of the professorships at Oxford is yet more circumstantial, and is thus referred to by Ayliffe in his history of that university. “I pass on,” he says, “to speak of the lectures founded by Pope Clement V. for the teaching of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Greek languages, among which lectures John de Bristol, a converted Jew, read the Hebrew for many years at Oxford with great applause; and this year (1318), received a stipend settled on him by Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, and a tax of an halfpenny per mark from every ecclesiastical benefice throughout his province. This money was collected at the beginning of every Lent, and was lodged with the prior of the Holy Trinity.”[223] He goes on to notice some frauds committed in the collection of this tax in 1327, which, he says, is the last notice he finds concerning it. It is very probable that the professorships afterwards fell into abeyance, but the assertion that they were never founded is manifestly one of those made by a writer who draws his bow at a venture, and never cares to inquire into the fact.

Among those who took part in the deliberations of the Council of Vienne was Aymeric of Placentia, twelfth General of the Order of Preachers, who in the previous year had established a house of studies in every Province for the Greek and Oriental languages, requiring the Provincials to provide very learned teachers of the same, and if none such were to be found among the brethren, they were to engage the services of secular professors, to be paid out of the revenues of the Province,[224] a provision which certainly seems to imply that such professors were there to be found. This Aymeric, whom the chronicle of the Masters-General call “a learned man, and a great lover of letters,” did much also to promote the study of the Scriptures at other chapters of his Order. Echard tells us of the magnificent present bestowed by him on the convent of Bologna, in the shape of a Hebrew Pentateuch, which Bernard of Montfauçon describes as having himself seen. It contained an inscription, declaring the book to be the identical copy written by Esdras the scribe after the return from Babylon, and which he read in the ears of the people. After being preserved in various Jewish synagogues with the utmost veneration, Aymeric had obtained possession of it, and its authenticity was attested by several learned Jews. Though Echard hesitates to yield full credit to the tradition, he admits that the antiquity of the copy was not to be doubted.

The culture of Greek in the Order is no less distinctly proved than that of the Oriental tongues. William de Moerbeka made a number of translations from Plato, Galen, and Proclus of Tyre; and his translation of Aristotle was made directly from the original, at the request of St. Thomas, who himself understood the language well enough to criticise his friend’s version. Moerbeka was appointed Archbishop of Corinth in 1277, after being several times despatched as apostolic missionary to the East. Another fellow-student and intimate friend of St. Thomas, the cardinal Annibal Annibaldi,[225] is declared to have been learned both in Greek and Arabic philosophy. These examples of the linguistic erudition of the friars are but few out of many that might be given, and it is clear that their Greek reading was not limited to Apocryphal legends and petty treatises of the Fathers. It certainly included the Greek philosophy, both Plato and Aristotle having found translators among the Friars Preachers of the thirteenth century. But it is more than probable that the poets and historians of Greece were little known or cultivated, for the object of these studies was less literary than practical. The Friars had to contend with a false philosophy, drawn out of the books of the Gentiles, and to maintain controversies with Greek schismatics and Jewish and Moorish unbelievers; and they studied to arm themselves for the work in which they were engaged. Practical views predominated very generally in that wonderful thirteenth century, which we are so disposed to contemplate through a poetic medium; and so we may safely admit the likelihood that the Greek poetry was not much studied before the period of classic renaissance.

The influence of the Dominicans meanwhile extended to other universities besides those of Paris, Cologne, and Bologna, to which they were first affiliated. At Toulouse, the nursery of their Order, they naturally held a forward position, and led the struggle against the Albigensian errors, for the suppression of which the university had been mainly founded. At Orleans their convent was used as the place of assembly for the doctors, and the establishment of the university being for some reason regarded with disfavour by the citizens, they directed their spleen against the friars, regarding them as the main prop of the unpopular institution, and did their best to level the convent with the ground. But they always held their ground at Orleans, and their larger theories on the subject of education may have had something to do with the character which distinguished that university, for Orleans opposed itself to the rage for logic, and always upheld the study of the arts.

One other foundation must be named, which, though it in no way shares the brilliant historic fame of so many sister academies, is too illustrative of the position held by the Dominicans in the mediæval schools to be passed over in this place.

The ancient university of Dublin was founded in 1320 by Archbishop Bicknor, in virtue of a Bull from Pope Clement V., confirmed by Pope John XXII.; one of its first masters and doctors being an Irish Dominican, William De Hardite.[226] This university was established in connection with St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but from the troubles of the times and the want of funds, it very soon declined, and in the following century became all but extinct. To supply the means of academic education to the youth of Ireland, therefore, the Dominicans of Dublin made a noble effort. In 1428 they opened a gymnasium, or high school, on Usher’s Island, dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas, in which all branches of knowledge were taught, from grammar to theology, and to which all classes of students, whether ecclesiastical or secular, were admitted. Hither a great number of young men flocked to pursue their course of philosophy and theology. As the convent was on one side of the river, and the house of studies on the other, the friars, with that munificence which characterised the ancient regular orders, erected a stone bridge of four arches at their own expense, long known as the “Old Bridge,” which was not destroyed till 1802, and which for two centuries was the only bridge of the kind in Dublin. With the consent of the common council, a Dominican lay brother received the tolls paid by carriage passengers over the bridge, and sprinkled the passers-by from a font for holy water, which was erected there. “It is an interesting fact in the history of education in Ireland,” says Mr. Wyse,[227] “that the only stone bridge in the capital of the kingdom was built by one of the monastic orders as a communication between a convent and its college, a thoroughfare thrown across a dangerous river for teachers and scholars to frequent halls of learning, where the whole range of the sciences of the day was taught gratuitously.” But even this noble foundation did not satisfy the Irish Dominicans. In 1475, the four mendicant Orders, headed by the Friars Preachers, presented a memorial to Pope Sixtus IV., praying for canonical authority to erect their schools in Dublin into a university for the liberal arts and theology, which petition was granted, and a Brief[228] was issued the same year to that effect, granting the new academy the same rights and privileges that were enjoyed by the members of the university of Oxford. It appears certain that the proposed scheme was really carried into effect, for Campion, in his History of Ireland, written in 1570, before his conversion to the Catholic faith, declares that before the subversion of the monasteries, “divines were cherished” in them, “and open exercise maintained.” But whatever were the success or the failure of the scheme, it is equally worthy of our admiration that four mendicant Orders should thus unite, under the leadership of the children of St. Dominic, to supply an academic education to the youth of their country solely out of their own resources. They asked neither for royal charters nor state endowments, but, content with the authority of the Papal Brief, they offered to their countrymen, with more than princely munificence, a gratuitous university education.

The result of the Christian philosophy established in the schools by the labours of St. Thomas, and propagated by the brethren of his Order, spread far beyond the academic circles. That philosophy appeared in an age which was full of the force and passion of youth, and ready to find utterance in the language of the heart and the imagination. It spoke, not in the Summa alone, but in the poetry of Dante, in the paintings of Cimabue and Giotto, and in the minsters of Salisbury or Cologne. For in each and all of these we see in various ways the reflection of Christian dogma. If we may credit the voice of tradition, it was to the geometrical science, united to the profound Christian mysticism of Albert the Great, that the German architects were indebted for many of the secrets of their art. He is known to have consecrated, and is believed to have designed, more than one of those superb cathedrals which date their existence from the same century which witnessed the rise of the universities; and the choir of the Dominican convent at Cologne, which Rodolph tells us was rebuilt by the great master “according to the rules of geometry, and as a most skilful architect,” is said to have served as the model on which the cathedral itself was designed. Almost at the same time the two Dominican artists, Fra Sisto, and Fra Ristoro, were initiating an architectural reform in Italy, and it was the Greek paintings that decorated their beautiful church of Sta. Maria Novella, at Florence, that gave the first impulse to the genius of Cimabue. That great man, the father of Italian art, was a pupil of the Florentine Dominicans. The friars, “in order to carry out that portion of their rule which commands them to be useful,” says Marchese, “had opened a grammar school for the instruction of the Florentine youth, as well as for their own novices. The grammar master was sometimes one of the friars, and sometimes a secular; and in the latter case he received a fixed salary of a florin a month, with board and lodging.” At this time the office happened to be filled by an uncle of Cimabue, who numbered his own nephew among his scholars. The boy often escaped from his books in order to watch the painters at work in the church; and in school, instead of attending to his lessons, would sometimes employ himself in making rude pen-and-ink sketches. His masters discerned his rare gifts, and instead of punishing him for preferring his pencil to his grammar, they wisely determined to encourage his genius, and placed him under the tuition of the Greek artists, whom he soon surpassed, as he was himself surpassed by his own pupil Giotto. The latter also was largely indebted to the Dominican Order, for his first patron was Pope Benedict XI., a Friar Preacher, and a disciple of St. Thomas, who was gifted with that love of art which has ever been hereditary in the order. Giotto was the friend of Dante, and, like him, steeped in the essentially Christian ideas of the age. The hero of his pencil was St. Francis, and he has left his poems in honour of that hero painted on the walls of the church of Assisi.

We may judge how very powerfully the Christian philosophy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries told on the restoration of art by a glance at such documents as the statutes drawn up for the corporation of Siennese painters, in 1335. “We are called by the grace of God,” they say, “to manifest to rude and ignorant men who cannot read the miraculous things operated by the power of the holy faith. Now our faith chiefly consists in believing and adoring one eternal God--a God of infinite power, immense wisdom, and boundless love and goodness; and we are persuaded that nothing, however small it may be, can be begun or finished without three things--namely, power, wisdom, and will, with love.”[229] Who drew up these statutes, and whence were such ideas of art derived? We know not; yet the theological cast of the phraseology leads us to infer that their author must have been perfectly familiar with the writings of St. Thomas.[230]

To speak broadly, then, we may say that the victory achieved in the thirteenth century, through the labours of the scholastic theologians, was that which established the supremacy of dogma in the schools, and which made its power indirectly felt in every province of thought, art, and literature. The immediate result may be stated in the words wherein Rohrbacher sums up the ecclesiastical history of this period. “During the whole of this time,” he says, “in spite of the prodigious activity which we have seen taking possession of men’s minds in the West, moving them to embrace and examine every question of theology, philosophy, and other sciences, as well in general as in detail, not a single new heresy arose.”[231] Order had been introduced into the wild chaos of opinion, and the Christian schoolmen assumed the position as masters of thought, which had hitherto been held by pagans.

Before closing this chapter, we will anticipate an objection which has probably suggested itself to some who have accompanied us through the foregoing studies. Whilst freely acknowledging the services rendered to the faith by the scholastic theologians, they may be disposed to fear lest something of the elder tone of spirituality was lost when the lecture halls of university professors were substituted for the claustral schools of the Benedictines. There was doubtless more accurate science; but was there the old contemplative wisdom that fed itself in silent communing on God? Had the heart kept pace with the intellect, or had not the schools become more rich in dogma, and less full of love? And this kind of doubt as to the possibility of uniting things apparently so little in harmony as philosophic acuteness and unction of heart, is the more natural and excusable as we find that it actually prevailed to a very considerable extent among the religious students of the period, and gave rise to not a few disputes. Hence, in the early days of the order of Preachers, conscientious scruples were entertained by some among the friars themselves as to the lawfulness of cultivating philosophy and the liberal arts; and we find a decree passed, in consequence, at one of the first Chapters-General, declaring the use and necessity of such studies. So powerful, however, was the impulse felt in the order towards the contemplative life during the first century of its existence, that some still felt uneasiness lest the too great application to scholastic science should leave the heart dry and barren. But Humbert de Romanis severely condemned such scruples, comparing those who entertained them to the Philistines, who deprived the children of Israel of all smiths’ tools;[232] and declared the study of philosophy to be necessary on the part of Christian scholars, inasmuch as it was now employed by unbelievers as a weapon with which to attack the dogmas of the Church.

Dryness and spiritual barrenness, in fact, were the last faults which could be charged against the dogmatic theologians of the thirteenth century. It is remarkable that the Dominican convent most noted as a house of studies north of the Alps, and which was the nursery of all the greatest doctors of the order, was precisely that in which the brethren most eagerly devoted themselves to the contemplative life. All the first friars of Cologne, including Brother Henry, the first prior, distinguished themselves as contemplative writers.[233] Albert the Great--the greatest star of the Cologne school--displayed in his later writings the germs of that tender mysticism which afterwards appeared in the writings of Tauler and Suso. In the distinction he draws between Christian and pagan philosophy, he clearly shows that the studies then pursued in the order, whilst they illuminated the intellect, were far from drying up the heart. “The contemplation of the Catholic Christian is one thing,” he said, “and that of a pagan philosopher is another. The philosopher meditates for his own utility alone--his end is merely to learn and to know. But the Christian contemplates out of love for Him whom he contemplates--that is, God. Hence, not only has he a more perfect knowledge for his end, but he passes from knowledge into love.” And the very last of his works, written in his old age, and, as his biographer says, with the view of refreshing his mind when weary with the fatigues of teaching, bears the title De Adhærendo Deo, and opens with these touching words:--“Having desired to write something, in order, as far as possible, to end well our labours in this region of exile, we have proposed to ourselves to inquire how a man may best detach himself from all below, in order to attach himself solely, freely, and purely, to our Lord God. For the end of Christian perfection is love, and it is by love that we adhere to God.”[234]

To the same effect are the words of St. Thomas: “In the perfect contemplative life, divine truth is not merely seen, but loved.”[235] The soul, plunging itself in the contemplation of the Divine greatness, acquires a knowledge of God, not so much by means of light and cognition, as by an experimental union with Him; so that, through the affections thence derived, it knows and it contemplates. “Hence it comes to pass,” he continues, “that He is loved more than He is known, because He can be perfectly loved, even although He be not perfectly known.”[236]

His life corresponded to his teaching. Though not exhibiting to the ordinary observer that miraculous and extraordinary character which attaches to many of the saints, all his biographers agree in asserting that his union with God became at last wholly uninterrupted. “So entirely was his mind intent upon God,” says Flaminius, “that nothing was able to separate him from this contemplation.” “I have learnt more by prayer than by study,” were his own words to his familiar companion, Brother Reginald, and he often repeated the warning that, Wisdom being the gift of God, a man ought not to endeavour or hope to acquire it by dint of study, without humbly asking for it in prayer. From none of the writings of the saints could there be collected maxims of more tender piety than from St. Thomas; it was he who said that the measure of our love of God was to love Him without measure,[237] who called the Holy Scriptures the Heart of Christ,[238] and who confessed to one of his friends that there were two things he did not understand: how a religious could ever think or speak of anything, but God, and how a man who had committed mortal sin could ever smile. Divine science took in him its most attractive form, and, to use his own words in describing the truly wise man, it lifted him into a world beyond the moon where he enjoyed a perpetual serenity.[239] The violence and injustice to which he was exposed in the long and vexatious controversy with the Parisian doctors never had power to disturb him; and this sweet serenity of heart was so apparent on his countenance that he is said to have had a peculiar power of imparting the gift of spiritual joy to all who conversed with him.

When he preached the Lent to the people of Naples, he appeared in the pulpit like one rapt in ecstacy, with his eyes closed and his face turned towards heaven, as though he were contemplating another world. Even at table he was always ruminating divine things, and St. Antoninus tells us that, when he was asleep, he was often heard to pray aloud. It is clear that he fully recognised the possibility of a life of study drying up the fountains of devotion, for he gave as his reason for daily reading the Collations of Cassian, after the example of his holy patriarch St. Dominic, that he might draw thence devotion, and that by means of devotion his understanding might be raised to sublimer things.[240] And it was the same principle which made him, like Bede, inflexible with himself in never absenting himself from assisting in choir, both by day and night, frequently telling his religious that a student must by all means keep open the wells of devotion, so that the work of the head may never cause the heart to grow dry and tepid.

Some particular instances are recorded of his special love for the Divine Office, and the singular relish he took in the Sacred Psalmody. Flaminius speaks of the frequent raptures and devout tears which certain portions of it elicited from him, such as the versicle “Ne projicias me in tempore senectutis,” which recurs so frequently in the time of Lent. It may also be observed that all his biographers notice the unction which attached to his preaching, for he possessed an extraordinary power of moving the hearts of his hearers, and exciting compunction and amendment of life. He was frequently called upon to preach the Lent both at Rome and Naples, and on one of these occasions, when preaching in St. Peter’s to an immense audience on Good Friday, all the people who heard him were moved to tears, and ceased not to weep until Easter day, when his Paschal sermon filled them with holy jubilation.

Massoulié, one of the greatest commentators on St. Thomas, has remarked the erroneous impression entertained by many who believe that great doctor to have been “so completely occupied with the speculations of the intellect as not to have applied himself equally to excite the emotions of the heart.... It is, however, certain,” he continues, “that, if we attentively read his works, we shall find his love to have been equal to his knowledge, for they contain all the secrets of the mystical life, and the sublimest and most divine operations of grace in the hearts of those consecrated to God. In fact, there is nothing really important in all the states to which a soul can be raised in the spiritual life, and in all God’s secret communications with holy souls, which he has not explained in the second part of his Summa; whilst in his smaller works he has given his heart full liberty to expand itself.... Hence,” he adds, “we must not suppose that St. Thomas received the name of the Angelic Doctor only on account of his profound arguments and vast knowledge of the truths of faith; but still more justly on account of those ecstacies which made him enter into the society of the blessed Spirits.”[241] So far, indeed, was the Angel of the Schools from being all intellect and no heart, that even the more human side of his character exhibits him to us as peculiarly accessible to the tenderness of Christian friendship. He described it with his pen, he felt it in his heart, and he failed not to excite corresponding sentiments in others. The tie which existed between him and St. Bonaventure is well known, nor was that which bound him to Blessed Albert less close and enduring. After the death of St. Thomas, Albert was never able to speak of his great pupil without shedding tears, a circumstance which is even alluded to in the process of canonisation. His brethren wondered at it, and feared lest this excessive weeping should arise from some weakness of the head. But his tears flowed only out of the abundance of his love. The very name of his beloved disciple sufficed to draw from him these tokens of affection, and he never wearied in repeating to those around him that they had lost “the flower and ornament of the world.”

The stem that produced that flower did not lose its fertility when its fairest blossom was transplanted to Paradise. The “Order of Truth,” as it was called, continued to bud forth a long succession of philosophers and theologians, the bare enumeration of whose names would fill a volume, for according to a moderate computation they number about 5000. When St. Dominic and his six disciples first entered the school of Alexander of Toulouse, who could have anticipated the mighty stream that was to flow from that seemingly humble source? Yet now “the brook had become a river,” and the river had swelled into a sea, and the doctrine of his sons “shone forth as the morning light,” and was poured out to “all those who sought the Truth.”[242]

CHAPTER XV.

ENGLISH SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES.

A.D. 1149 TO 1170.

The paramount importance attaching to the schools of Paris has too long detained us from following the history of scholarship in our own island; and we shall now have to retrace our steps some two hundred years, in order, before speaking of the Oxford schools and scholars of the thirteenth century, to say something of the origin of the university, and to notice the other English schools existing at the same period. It would be little less than audacious to pretend to give any authentic account of the rise of Oxford University, and we may as well at once admit the fact that one of our great national institutions, alive and vigorous in the nineteenth century, dates its beginning from ages whose traditions are purely mythical. However far we go back in the history of Oxford, we are always referred to some date that is yet earlier. From the reign of the Confessor, we glance back to the days of the great Alfred, who allotted one-eighth of his revenue to the support of her schools, and is popularly regarded as her founder. But even Alfred cannot claim to have done more than restore the schools which had existed there before his time, and the history of St. Frideswide carries us back to the eighth century, and tells us how in the reign of her father, Didan, King of Mercia, certain inns were constructed in the vicinity of St. Mary’s Church, diversoria religioni aptissima, which were used as places of education, and grew into a religious house, afterwards dedicated to St. Frideswide. This famous priory was the real nucleus of the university. In 1049 Harold, then Earl of Oxford, placed canons here; then came the Norman Conquest, and in the reign of Henry the Scholar, who had received his early education from the monks of Abingdon, the king handed the priory over to his favourite chaplain Guimond, who established therein a community of Norman canons, and set about building, as none but a Norman prior knew how to build.

From St. Frideswide’s priory let us now turn to the old residence of the Mercian kings, in which Offa resided, which Alfred made a “king’s house,” which had Saxon towers, deemed to be ancient in the days of the Confessor, and which, eight years after the Conquest, was granted to Robert D’Oyley, who added the great keep and other buildings. Within the castle of Oxford thus founded, he and his sworn brother in arms, Robert D’Ivery, raised a church dedicated to St. George, and served by secular canons. This was the second foundation stone of the university; and in 1149 his nephew, Robert D’Oyley the Second, transferred the foundation to his priory of Austin Canons at Osney. I cannot withhold from the curious reader the legend of the foundation of Osney, as it is quaintly related by Leland. After telling us that Robert D’Oyley had married a wife named Edith, and founded a priory of black canons “at Oseney by Oxford, among the isles that Isis river ther makyth,” he continues: “Sum write that this was the occasion of the making of it. Edithe usid to walke out of the Castelle with her gentlewomen to solace, and oftentimes wher yn a certen place in a tre, as often as she cam, a certen Pyes usid to gither to it, and ther to chattre, and as it were, to speke on to her. Edithe much mervelyng at this matter, and was sometyme sore ferid as by a wondre, whereupon she sent for one Radulphe, a Chanon of S. Frediswide’s, a man of a vertuous lyfe, and her confessour, askyng hym counsell: to whom he answerid aftir he had sene the faschion of the Pyes chatteryng only at her cummyng, that she shulde bilde sum chirche or monasterie in that place. Then she entreated her husband to bilde a priorie, which he did, makyng Radulphe first prior of it. The cummynge of Edithe to Oseney, and Radulphe waiting on her, and the tre with the chatteryng Pyes be payntid in the waulle of the arch over Edith’s tumbe in Oseney Priorie.”[243]

The two priories of Osney and St. Frideswide became both of them great houses of study, but the little church of St. George had also its share in the same work. The apartments in the castle formerly occupied by the canons were, after their removal to Osney, made over to certain poor scholars, known as “the wardens and scholars of St. George, within the castle of Oxford.” They formed perhaps the earliest collegiate establishment of the university, being governed by a body of statutes, wherein mention is made of a warden, fellows, scholars, and commoners. The warden was always one of the Osney canons, who came once or twice in the week to see that good order was preserved, and in his absence governed through his deputy. Tanner gives some curious particulars of the customs in use among the fellows, and the ceremonies of their installation, and tells us that Henry V. had intended to have enlarged this college into a splendid royal foundation, but was prevented by death from carrying out his design.

Other inns and halls of a quasi collegiate character gradually clustered round these religious houses. No fewer than forty-two hospitia, or inns for scholars, were inhabited in Robert D’Oyley’s time. So early as 1175, the Benedictines of Winchcombe Abbey had established a studium generale at Oxford, for the use of their monks, and a great number of schools, some attached to religious and collegiate houses, and others presided over by independent masters, very early gave their name to “School Street.” In these buildings there was no attempt at architectural grandeur. They were only distinguished from those devoted to “base mechanic uses” by quaint devices and inscriptions over their doors. Both halls and schools before 1170 were built of timber and thatched with straw, when a great fire destroyed the greater part of the city, and the inhabitants were induced to erect a few stone and slated edifices, the “stramina,” or thatched houses, still appearing in many localities. The schools of Osney Abbey were only rooms over certain shops, and the lectures were read by the masters in their own chambers. The effect of the “Aularian” system, as it has been called, was certainly to multiply the number of the scholars; for many were able to pursue their studies in the wretched accommodation thus afforded them, who could find no place in the richer colleges of later times. To the thousands of native scholars were added those who, after the fashion of the times, resorted to Oxford from other countries, no man being then content with studying at a single academy, or thinking he had qualified himself for the post of doctor till he had passed some years in foreign schools. It was no easy matter to preserve discipline in such a motley society; the chancellor was the only recognised authority, and when his single arm proved insufficient for the task of government, he was assisted by an officer named the Hebdomadarius, now represented by the Hebdomadal Board. The disorders which prevailed here, as at Paris, finally led to the establishment of colleges with regular statutes of discipline; but this change, which had the immediate effect of diminishing the number of students, was not even begun before the reign of Henry III.

Previous to that date, it would not be easy to determine with any exactness the system of discipline or of studies that prevailed. We know, however, that in 1133, when Robert Pulleyne came over from Paris and opened his school in Oxford, he found sacred letters had for some years fallen into neglect, and, to restore them, not only read lectures on the Scriptures gratuitously, but obtained the services of other professors at his own expense. He also preached every Sunday to the people, and left no stone unturned to instruct the students in the learned languages. In 1142 he was summoned to Rome by Innocent II., and, becoming Cardinal and Chancellor of the Roman Church, obtained large privileges for the Oxford scholars. In 1149, the very date of the Osney foundation, when England was in the thick of the disturbances of Stephen’s reign, Vacarius, a Bolognese professor, began to deliver lectures on civil law at Oxford, and that with so much success as to throw the schools of arts and theology into the shade. Before the end of the century, the study of canon law was added, and about the same time the lectures on medicine began to attract so much attention that the authorities felt a reasonable alarm lest their university should altogether cease to be a seat of liberal learning. “Physic brings men riches,” they said, “and law leads to honour, while logic is forced to go a-foot.” All the divines of the day, both at home and abroad, agreed in condemning the preference given to law over theology. “What is this?” exclaims St. Bernard, “from morning till night we litigate and hear litigation: day after day uttereth strife, and night after night indicateth malice.” And in the same spirit Stephen Langton reproves his fellow-ecclesiastics for “leaving the true field of Booz, the study of Holy Scripture, in order that they may win the poor honour of being called decretalists.” Arts, indeed, always continued to be regarded theoretically as the proper subject of Oxford University studies, but in their eagerness to acquire the more lucrative branches of learning, the students were too often content with a smattering of polite letters. Hence, according to Wood, they came to be divided into three classes, the Shallow, the Patchy, and the Solid. The first did not study arts at all, the second crammed from convenient abstracts, and the third, a very small minority, laid a good foundation, and thereon built a tolerable superstructure.

The troubles which affected the English Church in the reign of Henry II. affected the university very unfavourably. The persecution directed against St. Thomas and his adherents, created such a general feeling of insecurity that, in 1169, a great number of the Oxford students emigrated in a body to Paris, where they were well received by Louis VII. Indeed, at this time there was no European country in which some English scholars might not be found, who preferred a voluntary exile to the dangers to which they thought themselves exposed at home from the hands of the royal tyrant. This crisis hastened the decay of liberal studies at Oxford. Daniel Merlac, who, about the close of Henry’s reign, travelled into Spain to collect books and perfect himself in mathematics, declares, in the preface to his treatise De Rerum Naturis, that it was his knowledge of the neglect of good learning which prevailed in his own country which induced him to remain so long in exile. He passes a very severe criticism on the ignorance of the professors, not only at Oxford, but at Paris also, agreeing pretty much with the strictures passed by John of Salisbury on the “Cornificians.” In particular, he describes with great disgust the conduct of certain “beasts,” as he calls them, whom he saw occupying seats at the latter university with an air of great importance, having desks set out before them, with huge books adorned with golden letters, wherein, from time to time, they solemnly jotted down a word or two. It was all very well, so long as they kept silence, but as soon as they opened their mouths they betrayed their ignorance. Wood, who complains bitterly of the decay of humane learning caused by the reign of law at Oxford, and of logic in France says that polite letters would never have fallen into such neglect had the monastic schools retained their ascendancy. As it was, he says, “purity of speech decayed, philosophy was neglected, and nothing but Parisian quirks prevailed.”

Oxford revived a little during the reign of the Lion-hearted Richard, who loved the city as his birthplace, and, moreover, was inclined to favour the university, were it only to emulate his great rival, Philip Augustus, who had declared himself the protector of the Paris scholars. His brother John seemed at first disposed to follow his example, and granted the students their first charter, exempting them from the jurisdiction of the Ordinary; but he soon counterbalanced this favour by hanging three clerks--an act so deeply resented by the ecclesiastical authorities that the city was laid under an interdict, and the scholars dispersed to Cambridge, Reading, and Maidstone.

Better days dawned on the Church on the accession of Henry III. The arrival of the mendicant orders in England gave an immense stimulus to the schools, and in 1229 the king took occasion of the quarrel just then raging between the civil and academic authorities at Paris, to invite the discontented masters and scholars over to England. This immigration from France raised Oxford to a high degree of prosperity. The number of her students is said to have risen to 30,000, though Wood admits that the company was not always the most select. “Among these,” he says, “were a set of varlets, who pretended to be scholars, shuffling themselves in, and doing much villany in the university by thieving, quarrelling, &c. They lived under no discipline and had no tutors, but, only for fashion’s sake, would sometimes thrust themselves into the schools at ordinary lectures; and when they went to perform any mischief, then would they be accounted scholars, that so they might free themselves from the jurisdiction of the burghers.”

The presence of so many “varlets” will perhaps account for the frequency of unseemly brawls which disturbed the peace of the city, and brought sad discredit on the university. One instance will suffice to show the semibarbarous state of society in the city of letters at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Cardinal Otho, the cardinal legate, coming to Oxford in 1238, was honourably entertained at Osney Abbey. The scholars sent him a handsome present for his table, and a deputation of them came after dinner to pay their respects. The Italian porter, however, not only refused them admission, but, through the half-open door, loaded them with abuse. This, of course, was not to be endured; the door was forced in a moment, and a lively contest ensued between the English and the Italians. The cardinal’s steward, stung with the derisive epithets lavished on him by the scholars, threw some dirty water in the face of a poor Irish priest, who was patiently waiting at the door for some broken victuals. This was the signal for a call to arms, and one of the party, seizing a bow, shot the unhappy steward dead on the spot. The legate took refuge in the church tower, whence, escaping by night, he joined the king and demanded justice. Thirty scholars were accordingly arrested, the city was laid under another interdict, and all the university exercises suspended. Nor was tranquillity restored till ample satisfaction had been offered by the English bishops, who, says Matthew Paris, were ready to make any sacrifice necessary to preserve “the second school of the Church.”

Brawls of this sort make up a very large portion of early Oxford history. Here, as at Paris, the division of “nations” was a fruitful source of squabbling. Northerns and Southerns, Welshmen, Englishmen, and Irishmen, fought pitched battles, one with another, on all available opportunities; and the Jews, whose audacity reached an incredible height, did their best to add another element of discord by disturbing the scholars at their prayers. We need not enter into the history of these strange disturbances. The Irish seem to have exhibited the greatest pugnacity, and obliged the magistrates to pass many wholesome laws for their correction and conversion to “more civil walking,” though, as it would seem, with very small success. The chief occasions on which the king’s peace was wont to be broken were the national festivals celebrated in honour of St. George, St. Patrick, and St. David; and at length it became necessary to forbid popular demonstrations on these days, under pain of the greater excommunication.

In this early period of the university history, the schools frequented by the scholars were of two kinds,--the secular schools ruled by masters who rented rooms in the houses and over the shops of the burghers, and the claustral schools, held in the various religious houses. As a general rule, the students were expected to know grammar before matriculating at the university, but in case they entered very young, or that their early education had been neglected, they could make up their deficiencies in the grammar schools, some of which were afterwards attached to colleges, for the benefit of the clerks and choristers connected with those institutions. Wood gives some interesting particulars about these grammar schools. He says they were placed by the chancellor under the supervision of some master of arts, to whom the grammar master promised obedience. He moreover engaged to read nothing with his scholars without license from the chancellor, to instruct them in Latin authors, and make them construe in French as well as English, and not to read certain portions of the Latin poets, which might be considered injurious to good morals. Degrees were at that time granted in grammar, as in other faculties. Thus, in the reign of Edward I., we find Maurice Byrchensaw graduating as bachelor of grammar and rhetoric, and composing, as his customary exercise on that occasion, a hundred verses in praise of the university, and thereupon having his head solemnly crowned with laurel.

Some of the illustrations which Wood has collected as to the state of studies at Oxford in ancient times, are sufficiently amusing. It seems that Lent was generally a time unfavourable to peace, by reason of the unusual amount of logical disputation, indulged in at that season by the scholars who were preparing for their degrees. Hence the king’s peace was very often broken over the discussion of quiddities, and the grammar students showed themselves equally pugnacious over the niceties of Latin syntax. Musical degrees were very often granted, the candidates being required to read the musical books of Boëthius, and on the day of inception to present a mass of their own composition, which was to be sung on the occasion, together with certain antiphons. The masses and antiphons were generally composed in two parts, up to the time of Henry VIII., who, being exceedingly skilful in musical science, was able, not only to sing his part sure, but to compose masses in four, five, and even six parts, which more complicated style of composition thus came into fashion at the university.

The Oxford scholars often complained of the grievance of having to attend the schools on festival days, and presented more than one poetical petition to the ruling powers that they might have a little breathing space, at least on the greater feasts. And certainly, if we may take the account given us at a considerably later period as furnishing any notion of the life of a poor scholar of the thirteenth century, it was one of hard work and little comfort. It occurs in a sermon preached at Cambridge in the middle of the sixteenth century, by Thomas Lever, Fellow of St John’s, and has been preserved by the historian Strype. There is every reason to suppose that the picture which he gives would apply as well to the reign of the First as to that of the Sixth Edward; substituting the hearing of Mass for the attendance of common prayer. “There be divers which rise daily about four or five of the clock in the morning, and from five to six use common prayer in a common chapel; and from six till ten of the clock use ever either private study or common lectures. At ten of the clock they go to dinner, whereat they be content with a penny piece of beef among four, having a few pottage made of the broth of the said beef, with salt and oatmeal, and nothing else. After this slender diet they be either teaching or learning until five of the clock in the evening; whereat they have a supper not much better than their dinner. Immediately after which they go either to reasoning in problems or to some other study until it be nine or ten o’clock; and then, being without fires, they are fain to walk, or run up and down half an hour, to get a heat on their feet when they go to bed.”

At the opening of the thirteenth century, then, we find England possessed of schools and universities, the value of which was felt both at home and abroad, and which had already produced several men of eminence. Among these was Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welsh historian, who received his early education in the school of his uncle, the Bishop of St. David’s; after which he passed on to Paris, which city he twice revisited and lectured there on polite literature. Giraldus was one of those who deeply deplored the preference then given to law and logic over classical studies, and laboured hard to keep alive a better taste among his contemporaries. The second time he went to Paris he assures us the doctors and scholars were never weary of listening to him, being thoroughly bewitched by the sweetness of his voice and the elegance of his language. Henry II. summoned him to court, and appointed him his chaplain and tutor to Prince John, with whom he travelled into Ireland, the result of which expedition was seen in his two works, the “Topography” and the “Conquest” of Ireland. Then he accompanied Archbishop Baldwin in his progress through Wales and the western counties of England, preaching the Crusade, and has given a description of this journey also in his “Itinerary.” It was performed on foot, and its difficulties are described with a graphic, and, sometimes, a poetic pen. We see the weary travellers making their way through the mountain ravines near Bangor, till the poor archbishop is forced at last to sit down and rest on an oak tree torn up by the winds and lying by the wayside. As he converses with his followers, the sweet notes of a bird are heard from an adjoining thicket. Is it a thrush or a nightingale? “The nightingale is never heard in Wales,” observes one. “Is she not? Then she has followed wise counsel never to come into Wales,” replies the archbishop, “whilst we, following unwise counsel, are going right through it.” What an exquisite picture is that which he gives of the Vale of Llanthony, where the monks, as they sit in the cloister of their abbey, have but to raise their eyes from their books in order to behold the pleasant prospect of mountains ascending on all sides to a great height, and may watch the deer peacefully grazing on the verdant slopes. In old times, he adds, a hermitage stood on this spot, with no other ornament than green moss and ivy. One sees in passages like these that artistic love of beauty which is one of the marked characteristics of our early writers.[244] In 1179 we find Giraldus at Oxford, where he recited his “Topography” before the university, dividing it into three parts and assigning a separate day to each. On each day there was a great feast--the first day for the poor, the second for the doctors, the third for the scholars and burghers. The entertainment, he says, was worthy of classic times, and its like had never before been seen in England.

By far the greater number of the literary men, however, who flourished in England at this time were monks, and the pupils of monks. Such were the historians William of Malmsbury, Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Roger Wendover, Matthew of Westminster, Eadmer of Canterbury, and many more. Some of them indeed had graduated at the universities before assuming the monk’s cowl, like Simeon of Durham, who lectured on natural philosophy at Oxford, “diving into the hidden recesses of nature,” during the reign of Stephen. In England, as elsewhere, not a few of those who in early life had won their doctor’s cap in the schools, grew weary of the vanity which they found there, and took refuge in the cloister. It seems idle to speak of men whose names are now known only to the curious, yet, in their own day, who was more thought of than Robert de Bertune, “the Oxford clerk,” as Gervase calls him, who died Bishop of Hereford, and whose sanctity of life caused some steps to be taken to procure his canonisation? Or Thomas of Marleberg, who, after teaching canon law at Oxford, Paris, and Exeter, retired to Evesham, bringing with him all the books he had used in the schools, and became first prior and then abbot of his monastery. His doctor’s library included one book of Democritus, the Gradual of Constantine, St. Isidore’s Offices, several of the works of Cicero, Lucan, and Juvenal, together with a valuable collection of MS. notes, sermons, and questions on theology. There were, besides, other notes and rules on the art of grammar, and a book concerning accents. During his government he caused a great number of useful books to be copied out and bound, and bought a fine collection of the books of Scripture, with their accompanying gloss. Evesham always retained its character for learning, and there, as well as at Reading, St. Alban’s, Ramsey, and Glastonbury, a great number of excellent scholars were reared. There can be no doubt that the monastic schools of England continued to cultivate humane letters long after they had fallen into neglect at the universities. The Latin poets who flourished in England in the twelfth century are noticed with respect by all critics; and the epic poem of “Antiocheis,” composed by Joseph of Exeter, after his return from the Holy Land, whither he accompanied King Richard I., is declared by Warton to be “a miracle of classic composition.” He also praises the elegant versification of Henry of Huntingdon, Robert of Dunstable, Lawrence of Durham, and others, all of whom were monks. None of these English Latinists condescended to the barbarism of Leonine rhymes, which they probably regarded with much the same feeling that Bede expressed for the “songs of vulgar poets.” One and all did their utmost to uphold the rules of prosody, and rejoiced in the solemn protest put forth by their countryman, Geoffrey de Vinsauf, against the corruption of pure Latinity.

Henry of Huntingdon, named above among our Latin poets, and equally distinguished as an historian, was altogether a scholar of monastic training. He received his education in the school of Ramsey, a monastery which enjoyed the reputation of having none but learned men for its abbots. The library collected by them was the richest in the kingdom. The catalogue may still be seen among the Cottonian MSS., and contains, besides books of more ordinary occurrence, the works of Aristotle, Plato, Sallust, Terrence, Martial, Ovid, Lucan, Horace, Virgil, and Prudentius. There was also a Hebrew Bible, and Hebraic literature was cultivated by many of the monks. When the Jews were banished from England, a great number of their books were sold, and the monks largely possessed themselves of these treasures. A great sale of Rabbinical MSS. took place at Huntingdon and Stamford, when Geoffrey, prior of Ramsey, made large purchases, and used the books he thus procured to such good purpose as to become a great adept in the Hebrew language, and communicate similar tastes to many of his brethren. Even down to the middle of the thirteenth century, notices occur of Hebrew scholars among the monks and librarians of Ramsey, and one of them, Lawrence Holbech by name, is spoken of as compiling a Hebrew Lexicon.

Great work at this time went on in the English scriptoria, and a pleasant sort of barter was practised among the different abbeys, by means of which each was supplied with the goods most to their liking. Thus brother Henry, of Hyde Abbey, wrote out with his own hand the works of Boëthius, Suetonius, Terence, and Claudian, which he exchanged with a prior of St Swithin’s, who had a more classical taste than himself, for four missals and a copy of St. Gregory on the pastoral care. All the monks of Hyde Abbey were good writers and illuminators, and were taught to bind their books with much care. In 1240 the library of Glastonbury contained four hundred books, and among them were the chief Latin classics. At Edmondsbury the scriptorium was endowed with two mills, and at Ely the revenues of two churches were granted to the monks “for the making of books.” At Peterborough Abbey the library at the time of the dissolution contained 1700 manuscripts. And at Tavistock, besides the ordinary school and library, there existed another school in which the Anglo Saxon language was taught, for the purpose of enabling the monks to decipher their own ancient charters. But Tavistock was not the only religious house in which the old English tongue continued to be studied. In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, is still preserved a Latin Psalter after two versions, each version written in a separate column. Over the lines of one column runs an Anglo-Saxon translation, and over those of the other one in Anglo-Norman. The writing is exquisite, and the whole manuscript is richly illuminated, containing several historical paintings, together with the portrait of Eadmer, the monk of Canterbury, who wrote it out in the reign of Stephen. He holds in his hand a metal pen, and an inscription over his head records his caligraphic skill. He is, moreover, found worthy to be noted in the library catalogue as mighty in the art of transcription, and from his name is considered to have been of Saxon lineage.

Some of the larger of our English abbeys had not only schools within their own precincts, but others dependent on them in the neighbouring towns. Thus the school of Dunstable was dependent on the abbey of St. Alban’s, and in 1180 was governed by a pupil of that abbey, who in every way deserves mention as one of the most remarkable scholars of his time. Alexander Neckham was foster-brother to Richard I., and educated in the claustral school of St. Alban’s. Being appointed regent of the Dunstable school, he taught there for some time with considerable success, and thence proceeded to Paris, where he studied and professed for seven years. At the end of that time he returned to England, and resumed his former functions at Dunstable. At last, wishing to enter the monastic state, he is said to have applied for admission to the abbot of St. Alban’s, in an epistle commencing with the words, “Si vis, veniam,” to which the abbot, who loved a joke, replied, “Si bonus es, venias,--si nequam nequaquam.” The pun on his name (Neckam) appears to have disgusted him; at any rate, instead of a Benedictine, he became an Augustinian, and took the habit in the priory of Cirencester, about the year 1187. He was a universal scholar, a proficient in canon law, medicine, and theology, the best Latin poet of his age, and remarkable for the purity of his style. Like a true scholastic, he was a great lover of grammar, and wrote several works on the subject, which are still preserved in MS., some at Oxford, some at Cambridge, and some in the British Museum. He was also the author of a set of tracts, common enough in later times, for teaching scholars the Latin names of different articles by connecting them in a sort of descriptive narrative. To this work he gives the title of De nominibus Utensilibus, in which he describes every apartment of a house, from the kitchen to the bedrooms, with the furniture, dress, &c., in use in the twelfth century. An interlinear version is given in French, and at the end are grammatical notes and comments. He has also left a poem on the monastic character, another on science, in which he treats with some sublimity of the creation of the angels, stars, and elements; of the birds, fishes, rivers, and principal towns in England; of the earth, with her metals, plants, fruits, and animals; and of the seven liberal arts. His remarks on natural history are original and sagacious, specially those contained in his treatise De Rerum Naturis. In his poems he praises his country with its pastures, cornfields, and running streams, and celebrates the good qualities of its sons. “The feathered birds of Lybia, and pheasants,” he says, “often enrich thy tables, O Anglia. Nowhere are there more joyous countenances at the festive board, more gracious hosts, more profuse hospitality. The adornment of the table could not be more exquisite, or the service more prompt and cheerful. The Englishman, by nature and from his boyhood, gives gifts worthy to be given; and no age is too old to give.” After adding much on the liberality of his countrymen, he observes, that they are fond of hunting, and that they have a very subtle genius for mechanics, as well as for the liberal arts.

The character here bestowed on our countrymen corresponds well enough with the more satirical portraiture of Nigel Wireker, who, in his Speculum Stultorum, whilst lashing the follies of the world in general, and the universities in particular, describes the English students at Paris, as “noble in look and manner, full of strong sense brightened with wit, lavish with their money, and haters of everything sordid, whilst their tables groan with dishes, and the drinking knows no laws.”

The students who frequented the English seminaries were seldom of the nobler class. So late as the reign of Henry II., the Anglo-Norman barons preferred sending their sons to French schools and universities, out of a nervous dread lest their Norman speech should be barbarised by any admixture of the English accent. Even in the English schools for the higher orders, the native tongue was never used. Children were taught the French tongue from their cradle; and this custom, introduced at the Conquest, continued to prevail down to the reign of Edward III. However, it was not easy to preserve the Norman dialect pure from Saxon adulteration in a Saxon land, and hence the sly allusions which Chaucer throws out to the difference between the French of Paris and that of the school of “Stratford atte Bowe.” Robert of Gloucester, who felt the absurdity of the system, and was one of the first writers after the Conquest who ventured to use the English language for literary purposes, after telling us that the Norman spoke nothing but French, and “their children did teche,” observes that, unless a man know French, men talk of him but little, and that none but “low men” now hold to their national speech--a thing not to be found in any other country. “But I wot well,” he continues, “that it is well to know both, for the more a man knoweth, the more worth he is.”

Besides the great monastic and cathedral schools, there existed in London and other large towns certain public schools, of which Fitz Stephen has given a lively description, doubtless familiar to the reader. “On holidays,” he says, “it is usual for these schools to hold public assemblies in the church, in which the scholars engage in logical disputations, some using enthymems, and others perfect syllogisms; some aiming at nothing but to gain the victory, and make an ostentatious display of their acuteness; while others have in view the investigation of truth. Artful sophists on these occasions acquire great applause, some by a prodigious inundation of words, and others by their specious but fallacious arguments. After the disputation, other scholars deliver rhetorical declamations, in which they observe all the rules of art, and neglect no topic of persuasion. Even the younger boys in the different schools contend against each other about the principles of grammar, and the preterites and supines of verbs. There are some who, in epigrams, rhymes, and verses, use that trivial raillery so much practised by the ancients, freely attacking their companions with Fescennine license, but suppressing the names, touching with Socratic wit the failings of their school-fellows, or even of greater personages, or biting them more keenly with a Theonine tooth.”[245] It was in one of these London schools that St. Thomas of Canterbury received his early education, after leaving the school of the Canons Regular at Merton, and before proceeding to the university. The masters were generally some of those professors whom Oxford and Paris sent forth at this time in such abundance that not only cities, but villages also, had their learned teachers, as Roger Bacon testifies. They were, of course, skilled in the disputatious sciences of the day, and extremely well fitted to train a generation of “artful sophists.”

There was one private school of this period of which we must give a more particular notice, associated as it is with the history of St. Gilbert of Sempringham, the founder of the only religious order which we can claim as strictly of English growth. He was the son of a Norman knight of Lincolnshire and a Saxon mother, inheriting more of the Saxon than the Norman temperament. In youth he showed no taste for the chase or the tilt-yard, and gave no promise of intellectual superiority to make up for his deficiency in manly accomplishments. But as he grew in years a studious disposition began to manifest itself, in consequence of which his father sent him to study at Paris, where he remained until he had received his master’s degree, and, with it, license to open a school. The school of Sempringham very soon became famous. It received pupils of both sexes, who were trained not merely in the rudiments of learning, but also in a holy life; for, says the biographer of the Saint, the scholars, though they wore a secular garb, lived under a kind of monastic discipline. They were not allowed to play and wander about like other children, but were obliged to keep silence in the church and in the dormitory, where the boys all slept together, and were only supposed to speak in certain appointed places. They had, moreover, set hours for study and prayer, and, in a word, were trained in the rules of strict discipline. “For, from his childish years, it had been the one thought of Gilbert how he could best win souls to God, and profit them by word and example; wherefore, keeping himself unspotted from the world, he occupied himself incessantly in holy and spiritual things.”

After a time, two churches were founded on his father’s manor, and Gilbert was instituted rector of the parishes of Sempringham and Torington; although, not being at that time in holy orders, he was obliged to appoint a chaplain to serve the church in his stead. However, he acted as rector in so far as regarded the government of his parish and his school. He catechised and instructed his parishioners, and that with such success that we are told the greater number of those who heard him served God as if under regular monastic discipline, although remaining seculars: he was earnest in his endeavours to withdraw them from the revelries so attractive to their class, and to accustom them to the practice of the works of mercy; he particularly made it his aim to instruct them in the ritual and ceremonies of the Church; and at length it came to be said that you might tell a parishioner of Sempringham by his way of entering church, the humility of his attitude, and the devotion he exhibited in prayer.

The young rector himself resided in a little house which he built for himself in the churchyard, and spent most of his day in the church. After a time, however, his reputation reaching the ears of Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln, he was summoned to the Episcopal Palace, and, having received minor orders, was appointed to an office in the bishop’s household, which he retained under his successor, Alexander. By the latter he was ordained priest, and promoted to the post of Penitentiary to the diocese. Greater dignities were offered to him; but Gilbert longed to return to his rustic parishioners, and, in 1130, he escaped from his court life, and with a glad heart made his way back to Sempringham. He had conceived the idea of attaching a religious house of some sort to his church, and among his former pupils he selected seven young women, for whom he built a small monastery adjoining the north wall of the church of St. Andrew. We are told that the nuns retained the learned tastes they had acquired in the founder’s school, so that at last it was found necessary to forbid them to speak Latin to one another, unless occasion should oblige them. A very considerable portion of their time was given to reading and meditation, and minute rules were given as to their manner of behaving as they read in the cloister, where they were to sit one behind another, and all looking one way, unless two chanced to be reading out of the same book. The same rule enjoined that they should ever preserve a sweet and cheerful countenance, and never exhibit signs of anger. To provide for the temporal necessities of his nuns, Gilbert appointed first a community of lay sisters, and then of lay brothers, and he conceived the idea of establishing a certain sort of religious rule among all the labourers on his paternal estate, to which, by the death of his father, he had now succeeded, and making his various farms dependent, in some sort, on the monastery, at the same time that they supplied the temporal necessities of the nuns.

Gilbert’s aim in this singular experiment was the amelioration of the lower orders; for the expressions used in speaking of those whom he selected show that they were of the very humblest class. Some were those whom he had known from childhood, the hinds and peasants attached to the manor; others were runaway serfs, for whom he obtained freedom by giving them the religious habit; and others, again, were very poor beggars. In fact, like the servant in the Gospel, he went out into the highways and hedges, and wherever he found the poor and the despised, he invited them into the house of the Lord. He did not attempt to teach these lay brethren letters, only requiring them to learn the Pater, Credo, and Miserere in Latin, but he trained them in obedience, humility, and temperance. They had constitutions of their own, admirably fitted for their state, and for giving religious discipline to a community made up of shepherds, herdsmen, and farm-labourers, who were to discharge the humble duties of their several callings under the religious garb. Some of the rules show plainly enough the kind of men for whom Gilbert was legislating; they were Saxon rustics, whose besetting sin was a love of the alehouse, and whom Gilbert accordingly forbids to drink wine, unless it be well watered, and prohibits, under any pretext, from selling anything to seculars, or from opening any house for the sale of liquor, seu, ut lingua Teutonica dicitur, tappam. It was a strange experiment this, of converting a gross rustic population into a religious community, and for a time it seemed blessed with perfect success. The institute spread rapidly, till at last Gilbert felt the necessity of providing for its more regular government, and for this purpose he applied to the Cistercians, in order that it might be grafted into their family. The request was, however, declined, and Gilbert had no other course open than to found another order of canons, who might take the spiritual direction of his convents of nuns. The foundation of this third branch of the institute did not take place till nearly twenty years after the establishment of the first convent. The first canons, like the first nuns, were chosen from Gilbert’s own scholars; seven were attached to every priory of the religious sisters, besides which, some houses were founded exclusively for the canons, and before he died Gilbert saw himself the spiritual father of fifteen hundred nuns and seven hundred canons, besides a vast number of lay brethren, whom he had rescued from their life of abject serfdom, but from whose turbulent conduct he had unhappily much to suffer. The order, in fact, declined rapidly after the death of its founder, who lived to extreme old age, being upwards of a hundred at the time of his death. Its weak point was the attempt made to unite so many forms of religious life under one government, and perhaps the hope of long preserving an austere religious discipline among an association of rural labourers savoured somewhat of a scholar’s Utopian dream.

The Gilbertine canons, however, continued for many years to cherish a love of letters, and had the chief part in the foundation of that pseudo-university of Stamford which threatened at one time to draw away the north country students from Oxford, the Stamford schools taking their rise in a Gilbertine house of studies. Among the first writers who condescended to make use of the English vernacular tongue was a Gilbertine canon named Robert Manning, who, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, considering in his heart that the “lewd,” as well as the “learned,” ought to know something of the history of their own country, and to be familiar with the deeds of kings,

Whilk did wrong and whilk did right, And whilk mayntened pees or fight,

composed his metrical chronicle, in which, desiring to lay a good foundation, and to begin from the beginning, he commences his story,

“gre by gre, Since the tyme of Sir Noe.”

In the reign of Henry II., however, the English tongue (as distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon) had not yet assumed a literary shape. In all higher schools, public or private, the French and Latin languages were exclusively used. The Saxon or Teutonic dialect, referred to in the Gilbertine rule, was considered only fit for peasants, and even they had a certain comprehension of Latin. This is clear from many circumstances. Thus, Giraldus tells us that when Archbishop Baldwin journeyed through Wales for the purpose of preaching the Crusade, he was never so successful as when he preached in Latin. The populace, as we know, do not always measure their appreciation of a discourse by the degree in which they understand it, yet it is difficult to think that these effective sermons can have been delivered in an altogether unknown tongue. But the fact is that, in one respect, the rude ignorant peasantry of the Middle Ages were a great deal more learned than the pupils of our model schools. In a certain sort of way, every child was rendered familiar with the language of the Church. From infancy they were taught to recite their prayers, the antiphons, and many parts of the ritual of the Church, in Latin, and to understand the meaning of what they learnt, and hence they became familiar with a great number of Latin words; so that a Latin discourse would sound far less strange in their ears than in those of a more educated audience of the same class in the present day.

In many cases, indeed, the children who were taught in the priest’s, or parochial school, learnt grammar, that is, the Latin language; but all were required to learn the Church chant and a considerable number of Latin prayers, and hymns, and psalms. This point of poor school education deserves more than a passing notice. Its result was, that the lower classes were able thoroughly to understand, and heartily to take part in, the rites and offices of Holy Church. The faith rooted itself in their hearts with a tenacity which was not easily destroyed, even by penal laws, because they imbibed it from its fountain source--the Church herself. She taught her children out of her own ritual and by her own voice, and made them believers after a different fashion from those much more highly educated Catholics of the same class who, in our day, often grow up almost as much strangers to the liturgical language of the Church as the mass of unbelievers outside the fold. Can there be any incongruity more grievous than to enter a Catholic school, rich in every appliance of education, and to find that, in spite of the time, money, and method lavished on its support, its pupils are unable to understand and recite the Church offices, and are untrained to take part in Church Psalmody? The language of the Church has, therefore, in a very literal sense, become a dead language to them, and it is from other, and far inferior, sources that they derive their religious instruction. Thus they are ignorant of a large branch of school education, in which the children of a ruder and darker age were thoroughly trained; no doubt, on the other hand, they know a great many things of which children in the Middle Ages were altogether ignorant, and the question is simply to determine which method of instruction has most practical utility in it. Without dogmatising on this point, we may be permitted to regret that through any defect in the system of our parochial schools, Catholic congregations should in our own days be deprived of the solemn and thorough celebration of those sacred offices which in themselves comprise a body of unequalled religious instruction; and that in an age which makes so much of the theory of education, we should have to confess our inability to teach our children to pray and sing the prayers of the Church, as the children of Catholic peasants prayed and sang them six hundred years ago.[246]

The English schools of that period enjoyed the benefit of no other inspection than that of the parish priest and the archdeacon, “the eye of the bishop,” as he was called; and if their pupils knew little about “monocotyledons,” the “crustacea,” or grammatical analysis, they were able to recite their Alma Redemptoris and their Dixit Dominus with hearty, intelligent devotion. They knew the order of the Church service, and could sing its psalms and antiphons in the language of the Church, and to her ancient tones; and so they did not, through their ignorance, oblige their pastors to lay aside, as obsolete, the use of that office so truly called Divine, in order to substitute in its place English hymns and devotions from any less inspired source. On this point we hold their education, therefore, to have been immeasurably superior to our own, nor are we to suppose that because they learnt Latin prayers and the Church chant, they learnt nothing besides. Reading and grammar are often named as taught in parochial schools; and among the humblest class of pupils a good deal of instruction, both devotional and practical, was conveyed in English verse, which the pupils committed to memory, much as some among ourselves have, ere now, learnt to remember the number of days in each month by means of doggerel rhymes. The traditions of the Saxon schools, wherein so much use was made of these versified instructions, was kept up so late as the fifteenth century, when we shall have occasion to quote some of the methods in popular use for teaching children the succession of the English kings, the names of towns and villages, the four quarters of the globe, and the outline of the Latin accidence. The Commandments of God and the Church, the Creed, Our Father, and Hail Mary, and other similar portions of Christian doctrine, were also taught in verse, as they may still be seen in most French elementary books of religious instruction; and specimens of the English language, as it existed in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, might very fairly be selected from the different versified forms of the Hail Mary in use at these periods. I will give but one, which is supposed to belong to the early part of the thirteenth century:--

Mary ful off grace, weel thou be, God of heven be with the, Over all wimmen bliscedd thou be, So be the bairn that is boren of the.

It is needless to observe, that in all times a very special importance has been attached by Catholic teachers to the instruction of the people in their prayers. In those early times, when the laws of the State recognised that the people had souls as well as bodies and purses, this was even made a matter of legislation, as in the canons of King Edgar the Peaceable, and the statutes of Canute, wherein every father was commanded to teach his children the Creed and the Our Father, and every man was required to know them, “if he desired to be laid in a hallowed grave, or to be thought worthy of Holy Housel.” The familiar explanation of these prayers, and of the Sunday Gospels, formed the ordinary subjects of the parish priest’s sermon; and in almost every collection of Synodal decrees we find injunctions calling on Christian men and women to learn their prayers, and say them seven times a day. The Hail Mary was enjoined, in addition, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, as we find in the constitutions of St. Richard of Chichester.

Some of the very earliest known specimens of the English, as distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon language, are fragments of hymns which appear to have been in popular use in our poor schools. One of these is commonly known as St. Godric’s hymm, and runs as follows:--

Seinte Marie, clene Virgine Moder Jhesu Christe Nazarene, Onfoll, scild, help thin godrich, Onfangen bring hœle width the in godes riche.

Seinte Marie, Christes bour, Meiden’s clenhed, Modere’s flour, Dilie mine sennen, reyne in min mod, Bring me to winne wit the selfe God.[247]

To understand whence St. Godric derived his poetical inspiration, we must briefly glance at his history. He lived in the reigns of Stephen and Henry II., and began life as a Norfolk pedlar, getting his living by travelling about the country and selling smallwares in the villages through which he passed. We may fancy him such a one as Wordsworth’s Wanderer, concealing under a humble speech and garb a sublime philosophy. Wanderers of the twelfth century, however, had one advantage over our modern pedlars; they visited not only fairs and cities, but holy shrines and places of pilgrimage; nay, generally speaking, the fairs which they attended were assembled round some holy spot, and took their origin in the devout celebration of a martyr’s or a founder’s festival. Godric, as he plodded on through the north country on his way from Scotland, whither he had gone by sea on a trading expedition, visited Lindisfarne and Durham, and the Isle of Farne, made sacred by the hermit-life of St. Cuthbert. These pilgrimages awoke his soul to a new life, and abandoning his trade, he repaired to Jerusalem, and on his way back visited the holy shrine of Compostella.

Returning to England, he took service in the family of a Suffolk gentleman, but disgusted with the profligacy of his fellow-servants, once more left his country and went to visit the holy places of Rome. Nevertheless, the scenes where first his heart had been touched by God drew him back to them by a sweet, irresistible attraction; and after some years more spent in these devout wanderings, Godric felt himself moved to return to the north of England, and there seek out some solitude where he might lead the life of an anchorite. He entered Durham, therefore, a way worn, ragged pilgrim, and desiring, before he utterly retired from the world, to acquire a knowledge of such psalms and devotions as might enable him to sing the praises of God in his cell, he repaired for that purpose to the school which, as was often the case, was held, in default of a schoolhouse, within the church of St. Mary’s.[248] In this school, says Reginald of Durham, children were taught the first elements of letters, and here Godric learnt many things of which he was before ignorant, but which he now acquired “by hearing, reading, and chanting them.” And those things which he heard the children frequently repeat became tenaciously fixed in his memory. In a very brief space of time, therefore, he learnt as many psalms, hymns, and prayers as sufficed for his purpose, and retired to a lonesome wilderness north of Carlisle, which he afterwards exchanged for that of Finchdale, where he died, about the year 1170. William of Newbridge, who often visited him, describes him as one whose body seemed already dead, but whose tongue was ever repeating the names of the Three Divine Persons. The similarity of some of the expressions occurring in St. Godric’s hymn, to productions of the same kind in popular use in the following centuries, leads us to believe that it may have been one of the school hymns he had learnt at Durham, unless indeed we accept as literally true the legend which represents it as having been taught him by Our Lady herself. The whole notice of this Durham school is exceedingly interesting, and not only confirms what has been said as to the teaching of the Church chant and office, but shows us that the poor children likewise learnt their letters, and were taught to read--a fact greatly at variance with the vulgar notion of mediæval ignorance. For that this was only a poor school is certain, from the fact of the ragged and penniless vagrant being able to find admission into it. And having begun to speak of the Durham poor schools, I may take this opportunity of remarking that the city of St. Cuthbert was remarkably well supplied with them. For besides her parochial schools, she possessed an excellent monastic poor school, which continued to flourish down to the time of the Reformation. The usages of monastic bodies underwent so little alteration in the lapse of centuries that the description of this school, as it existed at the time of its suppression, probably gives us a sufficiently accurate notion of its condition in far earlier times. “There were certain poor children, called the children of the almery, who were educated in learning, and relieved with the alms and benevolence of the whole house, having their meat and drink in a loft on the north side of the abbey gates. This loft had a long slated porch over the stairhead, and at each side of the porch were stairs to go up to the loft, with a stable underneath.... The children went to school at the Infirmary School, without the abbey gates, which was founded by the priors of the abbey at the charge of the house. The meat and drink that the children had was what the monks and novices had left. It was carried in at a door adjoining the great kitchen window, into a little vault at the west end of the Frater House, like a pantry, called the covie, kept by a man. Within it was a window, at which some of the children received the meat from the said man (who was called the clerk of the covie) out of the covie window, and carried it to the loft. This clerk waited on them at every meal to preserve order.” The description given of the Song school attached to Durham monastery, which, according to the same authority, was built “many years without memory of man, before the suppression of the house,” is worth quoting, as showing that the material comfort of the pupils was not uncared for. It was “very finely boarded round about, a man’s height about the walls, and had a long desk from one end of the school to the other for the books to lie on; and all the floor was boarded under foot for warmness, and long forms set in the ground for the children to sit on. And the place where the master sat and taught was all close boarded both behind and on either side, for warmness.”[249]

Similar schools for poor scholars were attached to all the great abbeys, and were of a higher order with respect to learning than the parochial schools. The pupils reared in them, though of the humblest origin, often rose to high dignities in Church and State. John of Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, born of a peasant’s family, received his early education in the poor school of the Cluniac monks of Lewes, where, many years later, Dudley, the son of a poor travelling carpenter, was also received, and sent to Oxford by his charitable patrons, who little foresaw the kind of renown which their protégé would achieve, or the evil which his descendants would bring upon the Church. Alexander of Hales, “the Irrefragable Doctor,” as he was called, was in like manner a pupil of the Cistercians, who, says his biographer, “had the heroic charity to teach youth;” and it is well known that the facilities afforded by the religious houses to poor scholars were so great as to be regarded with much jealousy by the feudal lords, whose pride revolted at the promotion to ecclesiastical dignities of men who had risen from the lowest grades.

There will be occasion to examine our English poor schools more closely in a future chapter, but at present we must return to Oxford, where the collegiate system was gradually developing in its grandest form, and the influx of the mendicant orders was introducing a splendid era for the schools.

CHAPTER XVI.

OLD OXFORD.

A.D. 1200 TO 1300.

There are probably few prospects which unite so many forms of beauty and interest as the distant view of a great city; and none in which the reality is more thoroughly idealised in the eye of the spectator. As he gazes at some fair assemblage of ancient towers gleaming aloft through a framework of green boughs, and hears their far-off chimes mingling with the nearer music of the thrush’s note, he forgets “the loud stunning tide of human crime” which surges at their base, and is ready to cheat himself into the pleasant fancy that he beholds a sacred city full of venerable shrines. But if this character of solemn beauty attaches even to our busiest capitals when seen from a distance, much more does it belong to Oxford, the ancient “Bellositum,” which finds no rival to compete with her in the marvellous aspect of her

Majestic towers Lifting their varied shapes o’er verdant bowers.

Gardens, churches, and palaces shining through a vista of stately forest trees, surrounded by green meadows and reflected in the waters of a noble river, make up a picture which may well arrest the eye of the artist or the poet, and suggest a dream which, if it find no substantial reality, is yet a form of beauty evoked from the ancient worship, carrying our thoughts to days when the sanctuaries of Oxford were first raised for cloistered students, and when St. Edmund and St. Richard were teaching in her schools.

Yet, if we were suddenly transported back to the beginning of the thirteenth century, very little of this architectural beauty would meet our eye. There was the castle indeed, and the spire of St Frideswide’s priory, but they were surrounded, not as now with graceful colleges, but with the humble straw-thatched houses of the citizens, and with those equally humble inns and halls of which we have already spoken. A great oak forest separated the city from the village of Abingdon, and was inhabited by wolves and wild boars; and tradition preserves the story of a certain student who was met in his walk by a ferocious boar, which he overcame by thrusting Aristotle down the beast’s throat. The boar, having no taste for such logic, was choked by it; and his head, borne home in triumph, was no doubt honourably served up at table with a sprig of rosemary in its mouth. The stately abbey of Osney, second to none in the kingdom, would have been seen in those islet meadows, where at present not a stone remains to mark its former site; and its two grand towers rose among the trees, musical with the bells which now ring out their tuneful chimes from the cathedral spire. There were to be seen the stately quadrangle and the abbot’s house, so often the resort of kings and papal legates; and pleasant walks under the elm trees wound along the waterside overlooking the stream which separated the abbey lands from those other islets where the two orders of mendicant friars had just established themselves.

The scholars were fond of such shady walks, and had laid out a certain plot of ground which bore the name of Campus Martius, and was divided into several portions, according to the scholastic degrees. One of the walks was non ultra walk, and led to a little hill called Rome, wherein was a cave and a meander, or winding path, and at the top thereof a cross of stone. Two clear springs were seen at either end of this scholastic garden, appropriately bearing the names of Plato and Aristotle. There were many other such wells in the city, one of which was called Holy Well, over which was raised a stately cross. Its waters were pure and intensely cold, and were esteemed for the many cures which were wrought by them on pious pilgrims. For Oxford drew pilgrims as well as scholars to her holy shrines. Not only was the tomb of St. Frideswide visited by thousands, but also her image in that little country church of Binsey, which she is said to have founded, and which in early days was surrounded by hawthorn woods, and was a place of recreation for the nuns of her convent. There you may still see, not the image, but the empty niche where it formerly stood, and the stone pavement worn away with many feet and many knees, a relic in itself, which we may stoop and reverently kiss; for here St. Edmund was wont to pray; and here on certain festivals the scholars came out with cross and banners, and wound their way among the flowering hawthorn woods to pay their homage to the patron saint of Oxford.

There was another well in St. Clement’s parish, near the old hospital of St. Bartholomew, which claimed to have been founded by Henry the Scholar, which was also held in much esteem. It was one of those spots which our ancestors were wont to designate “Gospel places,” where, on the Rogation Days, it was the custom to read portions of the Gospel, by way of invoking a blessing on the corn-fields, and the streams, and the fountains of water, that they might not be infected by the power of wicked spirits. The well was in a grove hard by St. Bartholomew’s chapel; and here came out the students, young and old, carrying poles adorned with flowers, and singing the canticle Benedicite, wherein they called on the fountains and all the green things of the earth to bless the Lord. The poor folk of the hospital made ready for them by strewing the ground with flowers, and adorning the well itself with green boughs and garlands. Then the Gospel was read, and the well was blessed, and in later times an anthem, in three or more parts, was sung by the scholars.

The meadows that lie around the city, through which, to use the words of brave old Stowe, “the river passeth on to London with a marvellous quiet course,” were then, as now, highly prized by the scholars as places of recreation, and are as frequently alluded to in the university histories, as the famous “Pré aux Clercs” at Paris. But let us enter within the walls, and take a glance at the streets with their quaint designations. “School Street” and “Logic Lane” speak for themselves, but what can have been the origin of the “Street of the seven deadly Sins”? Here is a very important turning which leads to the Schedeyerde, or Vicus schediasticorum. You shudder perhaps, at the sound of such barbarous Latin; yet had you been an Oxford scholar of good King Henry’s days, you would very often have bent your steps hitherward: for here abode the sellers of parchment, the schedes or sheets of which gave their name to the locality, and here the transcribers and book merchants carried on their traffic; and here scholars with long purses obtained their literary wares, and those with empty ones were fain to look and long. You can tell the schools by their pithy inscriptions, Ama scientiam, imposturas fuge, litteras disce, and the like, but you will look in vain for public schools, or congregation house, or library, or observatory, or collegiate piles. Churches, indeed, there are in plenty, and if the tower of St. Martin’s strikes your eye by its strength and height, you may be surprised to learn that the citizens use it as a fortalice, and on occasion of quarrels with the students retire there to shoot at them with stones, and bows, on which account it was afterwards cut down to its present dumpy proportions by Edward III. In truth, it must be confessed, the state of things in old Oxford was anything but orderly. Not only did the northern and southern men embrace different sides both in philosophy and politics, and fight out their differences in the public streets, but the townsmen and the gownsmen stood on much the same terms as those which existed of old time between Athens and Sparta; there might be a truce between them, but there was never a peace. The students lived, as yet subject to no statutes and very little law, and committed many villanies; and, on the other hand, the burghers preyed on them, provoked them, and sometimes burnt their books.

We have now to watch the gradual growth into form and order of these chaotic elements, and will pass over to the other side of the great oak forest, and make our way to the village of Abingdon, where the abbey which we saw founded by good St. Ethelwold had been rebuilt by his Norman successors, and in the early days of the reign of Henry III. was flourishing in great splendour. In the village that had gathered round its walls there lived, at that time, a widow, named Mabel Rich, the mother of four children, whom she brought up in all holy living. Her husband, before his death, had put on the monk’s cowl in the neighbouring abbey of Eynsham, whither his eldest son had followed him; another son retired to the priory of Boxley in Kent, whilst Mabel, in heart also a religious, remained in the world to educate her remaining children. Growing up under the shadow of the old cloister, by the side of a mother who trained him in the austere practices of ancient piety, Edmund Rich was steeped from childhood in the spirit of Catholic devotion. He assisted with Mabel at the midnight office in the abbey, he learnt the Psalter from her lips; and his soul gradually received that beautiful mould which we have again and again admired in the scholars of old time, and which perhaps found in him its most perfect realisation. At twelve years old he went to Oxford, and it is his own brother, Robert Rich, who tells us how, at that time, going out into the meadows in order to withdraw himself from the boisterous play of his companions, the Child Jesus appeared to him, and saluted him with the words “Hail, beloved one!” And he, wondering at the beauty of the Child, replied, “Who are you, for to me you are certainly unknown?” Then said the Child, “How comes it that I am unknown to thee, seeing that I sit by thy side at school, and wherever thou art, there also do I accompany thee? Look in My face and see what is there written.” Edmund looked and saw the words, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” “This is My name,” said the Child, “write it on thy forehead every night, and it shall protect thee from sudden death.” Then He disappeared, on Whom the Angels desire to look, leaving the other with a sweetness in his heart passing that of honey.

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