was invited by the Catholic sovereigns to assist Talavera in his
important mission. In addition to the means already employed,
Ximenes resorted to a large distribution of presents. "In order,"
says Von Hefele, "that his instructions might make some
impression on their sensual minds, he did not hesitate to make
the Moorish priests and doctors agreeable presents, consisting
chiefly of costly articles of dress and silks. For this object he
encumbered the revenues of his see for many years." [Footnote
167] Conversions followed in great numbers, and Ximenes baptized
in one day 4000 persons. Many of the mosques were converted into
churches, and the sound of bells for Mass and vespers was heard
continually in the midst of a Moslem population. But this success
produced a reaction. The Moors who were zealous for the false
prophet raised a clamor against the archbishop and the
government. The most noisy were arrested by Ximenes's order, but
"in the height of his zeal he overstepped the bounds of the
treaty which the government had made with the Moors, by trying to
impose on the prisoners the obligation of receiving instruction
from his chaplains in the Christian religion. Those who refused
he even punished very severely." [Footnote 168]
[Footnote 167: Von Hefele, translated by Canon Dalton, p. 62.]
[Footnote 168: _Id_. p. 64.]
Among those who were thus imprisoned was a noble Moor named
Zegri, who had distinguished himself in the recent wars. Being
obliged to fast several days and wear heavy irons, he suddenly
declared that Allah had appeared to him in a vision and commanded
him to embrace the Christian faith. Certain it is that during the
remainder of his life he attached himself to Ximenes with
constant fidelity, and gave undeniable proofs of the sincerity of
his conversion.
Encouraged by this signal success, Ximenes became more and more
averse to dilatory measures. He believed that Providence designed
the extinction of Islamism in Spain, and that he should best
co-operate with the divine will by prompt and energetic steps.
Some thousand copies of the Koran and other religious books were
delivered up to him by the Moorish _alfaquis_, and committed
to the flames in the public square. Works on medicine only
escaped, and these were afterward placed in the library of the
university which he founded at Alcalá. The children of those
Christians who had become renegades were taken from their parents
and received into the Church, for Ximenes would not suffer a
treaty, which he perhaps considered too temporizing, to stand in
the way of rescuing souls from error and converting an entire
people.
About the end of the year 1499, a terrible outbreak checked for a
time the progress of evangelization. Salzedo, the archbishop's
major-domo, was sent by his master into the city with another
servant and an officer of justice to seize the daughter of an
apostate from Christianity. The young woman, however, raised a
cry against the violation of the treaty; the Moors rushed to her
aid; the officer of justice was killed by a stone; and the
major-domo escaped a like fate only by secreting himself under
the bed of an old Moorish woman who offered him assistance. The
Albaycin, or Moslem quarter of the city, containing 5,000
dwellings, rose in arms. The palace of Ximenes was the object of
their attack, and they cried for the blood of him whom a few days
before they had extolled with praises.
{582}
The archbishop's friends urged him to fly to the fortress by a
secret passage. But they knew not the temper of the man whom they
counselled. He would never, he said, desert his servants in the
hour of danger. All night he was engaged with them in repelling
the Moors' assaults, and in the morning the Count of Tendilla
arrived from the Alhambra with an armed force, and rescued
Ximenes from imminent peril. The outbreak, however, was not so
easily subdued. The herald sent by the count to the rebels was
murdered, and his staff of office was broken in contempt. Nine
days this frantic resistance continued, though without even a
remote prospect of ultimate success. Ximenes tried in vain to
soothe the raging multitude; but the milder archbishop, Talavera,
going forth with his cross and a single chaplain, like Pope Leo
when he encountered Attila, the crowd of rebels became appeased,
and pressed round him to kiss his garment's hem. The governor
Tendilla then appeared before them in a civil attire, threw his
scarlet bonnet among the crowd, promised his influence to obtain
the royal pardon, and left his wife and two children as hostages
in the Albaycin.
Meanwhile, Ximenes, on the third day of the revolt, sent to the
sovereigns at Seville an account of what had happened. His
messenger was an Ethiopian slave--one of the telegraphic wires of
those days--who could run fifty leagues in forty-eight hours. But
the slave got drunk on the way, and arrived in Seville five days
after he was despatched, instead of two. Reports frightfully
exaggerated had reached the king and queen. The court was in a
panic. Ximenes was blamed for his indiscretion; and Ferdinand,
who had not forgotten the preference given to Ximenes over
Alfonso of Aragon, his natural son, bitterly reproached Isabella
for having raised an incompetent monk to the see of Toledo. But
the archbishop soon appeared to plead his own cause. The king and
queen were not only satisfied with his explanations, but thanked
him for his services, and assented to his proposal that the
inhabitants of the Albaycin should be punished for high treason,
unless they purchased their pardon by being baptized. The treaty
made with the Moors was thought to be annulled by the violence of
the Moslems themselves. Those who persisted in their errors
retired to the mountains or crossed over into Barbary; but by far
the greater part of the Moors embraced Christianity, and the
number of the converts is computed at about 60,000. Ximenes and
Talavera together catechised the people, working in perfect
harmony, except in reference to the translation of the Bible into
Arabic. Talavera wished to make the version complete, while
Ximenes, on the contrary, was of opinion that the Scriptures
should be preserved in the ancient languages hallowed by being
used in the inscriptions on the cross. To place the Bible in the
vulgar tongue in the hands of neophytes and ignorant persons was,
he believed, to cast pearls before swine, and would certainly
issue in spiritual revolt. But the friendship of the two prelates
remained unbroken, and Talavera declared that the triumphs of
Ximenes exceeded those of Ferdinand and Isabella, since they had
conquered only the soil, while he had won the souls of Granada.
There can be no doubt that in the mass of converts there were
many unworthy persons who afterward disgraced their profession.
It will always be thus when worldly advantages are held out to
proselytes; but Ximenes knew that this would be the case, and was
prepared to meet the evil with appropriate remedies. He believed
that good on the whole would result from his decisive measures;
that many, to say the least, of the conversions would be sincere,
and that the children of the converts in general would be
educated in the true religion.
{583}
We do not criticise his conduct, neither do we altogether set it
up as exemplary. It was more suitable to his time and country
than it would be to ours; and having recorded it faithfully, our
work is done. By whatever means accomplished, the result has been
a happy one. Islamism, after many spasmodic attempts at revival,
has died out of Spain, and the cause of European morality and
civilization has been saved from its most formidable enemy.
Ximenes was in his sixty-fourth year when extreme activity
brought on a severe illness and endangered his life. Every day
his energies were divided between the sovereigns who required his
counsel and aid, and the converts, chiefs, and others who
listened to his instructions. The king and queen evinced the
greatest concern for him when smitten down with fever, and
removed him from the fortress of the Alhambra, which was exposed
to the wind, to the royal summer-house of Xeneralifa. Isabella in
particular bestowed on the venerable prelate her utmost care. He
was soon able to walk along the banks of the Darro and enjoy its
pure and bracing air, soon able to return to his beloved Alcalá,
where he was founding the university which has made his name
blessed for ever; while the queen, so much younger than himself,
who had raised him so high, and from whose sympathy and
protection he had so much to expect, the queen who was "the
mirror of every virtue, the shield of the innocent, and an
avenging sword to the wicked," [Footnote 169] was ere long
[Footnote 170] to be called away from her earthly throne, and
leave her aged and faithful servant to fight his way in the midst
of those who understood him less perfectly and prized him less
highly than she had done.
[Footnote 169: Peter Martyr, _Epist_. 279.]
[Footnote 170: November 26th, 1504.]
He was engaged, at this time, in a great work. The new
university, founded by him at Alcalá in 1500, became the rival of
Salamanca, and was called by the Spaniards "the eighth wonder of
the world." From the moment he was made Archbishop of Toledo, he
resolved to devote its immense revenues to the construction of
this seat of learning. The spot was pleasant, the air pure, and
the site of the ancient Complutum was hallowed in the eyes of all
whose sympathies were with the past. Gonsalvo Zegri, the
converted Moor, assisted at laying the foundation-stone; and
Ximenes obtained from his royal patrons an annual grant and
sundry privileges for the projected establishment. Thither
Ximenes repaired, as to his fondest occupation, whenever the
duties of state and of his diocese permitted. Often he might be
seen on the ground, with the rule in his hand, taking
measurements of the works, and encouraging the laborers by his
example and by suitable rewards. Pope Julius II. issued a brief
authorizing the endowment, and Leo X. afterward augmented the
liberties of the new foundation. The College of San Ildefonso
stood at its head; in 1508, several students arrived, and 33
professors with 12 priests were installed, who answered in their
numbers to the years of our Lord's life and his college of
apostles. Schools were attached for boarders, lectures and
disputations were set on foot, classes were formed, scholarships
founded, examinations publicly conducted, and diplomas conferred.
The intellect of the students was exercised in every branch of
knowledge--in the ancient languages, including Hebrew, in
theology, canon law, medicine, anatomy, surgery, philosophy,
moral philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, and grammar.
{584}
The physical sciences were as yet little known and barely
studied. Theology spread its arms widely beneath and around all
attainable knowledge. In 1514, King Ferdinand visited the
university, attended some of the lectures, and expressed his
admiration of the grandeur and beauty of the buildings. They were
but a feeble sign of the mental fabrics which Ximenes was raising
to the honor of Spain and for her service. Patriotism blended in
him with religion, and helped to make him what he was.
Some years after the death of Ximenes, Francis I., of France, on
visiting Alcalá, is reported to have said: "Your cardinal has
undertaken and accomplished a work I myself could not attempt.
The University of Paris, which is the pride of my kingdom, is the
work of many sovereigns. But Ximenes alone has founded one like
it."
It was by a ruthless decree that this grand and famous seat of
learning was finally broken up, in 1850, by the creation of a
central university and the sale of the buildings to the Count de
Quinto. [Footnote 171] The inhabitants resolved at least to save
the rich tomb of the illustrious cardinal, and the translation of
his remains was effected with great solemnity on the 27th of
April, 1857.
[Footnote 171: _L'Univers_, June 6th, 1857.]
It was in this university that Ximenes published that noble
Polyglot by which he earned the praise and gratitude of all
biblical students. The text of the sacred Scriptures had become
deplorably corrupt at the commencement of the fifteenth century,
owing to the inattention or ignorance of copyists. But the
invention of printing gave a new impetus to every branch of
learning, and promised biblical scholars great advantages in
their study of the Bible. From the year 1462 to 1500 no less than
eighty editions of the Vulgate appeared; and the zeal of Jews in
amending the Hebrew text became an invaluable assistance to the
labors of Christians in the same field. The constant perversion
of the meaning of Scripture by those who were aliens to the
Church made it increasingly necessary to study the Bible in its
original languages, so as to be able to refute the impudent
assertions of upstart divines. Hence Ximenes, whose designs were
naturally grand, formed the intention not only of raising a new
university, but of publishing a new edition of the Scriptures in
their original tongues, and of thus restoring in some measure the
lost _Hexapla_ of Origen. No translation, he held, could
perfectly represent the original, and the MSS. of the Latin
Vulgate were painfully discrepant. It was needful, therefore, to
go back to the prime sources, and "correct the books of the Old
Testament by the Hebrew text, and those of the New Testament by
the Greek text." [Footnote 172]
[Footnote 172: Prolegomena to the Polyglot.]
Having thus resolved to revive the dormant study of Holy Writ,
Ximenes's next step was to procure assistance from learned men,
and access to the most ancient MSS. Several Jewish converts were
enlisted, and, besides other professors, a Greek named Demetrius
Ducas. They were all handsomely paid and stimulated to the utmost
exertion. "Make haste, my friends," Ximenes would say; "for, as
all things in this world are transient, you may lose me or I may
lose you. Let us work together while we can." Enormous sums were
spent by him in the purchase of MSS., and some were lent to him
by Pope Leo X., who honored him as sincerely as he loved the fine
arts.
{585}
To these loans Ximenes refers in the introduction to the
Polyglot. It is calculated by Gomez that nearly £25,000 sterling
(50,000 ducats=$125,000) were spent in bringing the work to a
conclusion. The sale bore no proportion to the publishing
expenses, as 600 copies only were struck off, and these, though
consisting of six folios, were sold at six and a half ducats
each. The price of the copies still in existence varies according
to the state in which they have been preserved; but it ranges
from £40 to ^£75. The Polyglot occupied fifteen years in its
completion, and the New Testament, which forms the sixth volume
of the work, appeared first in order of time. The Greek, being
without the accents, has a strange appearance, but the editors
excuse themselves on the ground of the accents not having been
used by the ancient Greeks, nor by the original writers of the
New Testament. The volume, on the whole, is beautifully printed,
while the grammar and lexicon which accompanies it made it a
valuable means of promoting the study of Greek. The Pentateuch
appeared in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek, together with three Latin
translations. The roots of difficult words in the Hebrew and
Chaldaic texts are given in the margin, and this is no mean
assistance to beginners in studying these languages, in which the
radical meaning pervades all the derivatives in so marked a
degree. Altogether, it was a boon to mankind, munificent in its
cost, noble in its design, beautiful in execution, and as
profound in scholarship as it could be in the age in which it saw
the light. When John Brocario, the printer's son, brought the
last sheets to the cardinal in his best attire, Ximenes raised
his eyes to heaven with great joy, and exclaimed: "I give thee
thanks, O God most high! that thou hast brought to a
long-wished-for end the work I undertook in thy name." Only four
months later his eyes were closed in death. The Complutensian
Polyglot became very useful in preparing subsequent editions of
the Scriptures; and though the labors of Griesbach, Buxtorf,
Michaelis, and other critics have thrown its authority into the
shade, it was an important link in the chain which has issued in
the present comparative purity of sacred texts. All real scholars
award it cheerfully their meed of praise, and the charges brought
against it by Wetstein and Semler have been amply refuted. It is
an astonishing production, considering the disadvantages under
which its compilers lay, that they had not access to the best and
most ancient MSS., and that the _Codex Vaticanus_ was not
within their reach. What MSS. were really used we shall never
know; for, besides that many were returned to their owners after
the Polyglot was completed, others, which had been purchased,
were sold in 1749 as waste-paper to a rocket-maker named Torzo!
As the reform of the Franciscan order was the first glory of the
hermit of Castañar, and the foundation of a great university the
second, so the Bible of Alcalá will ever be regarded as the third
durable monument of Ximenes's vast and varied powers.
But his literary labors were not confined to Holy Writ. He set on
foot a complete edition of the works of Aristotle; and though his
death interrupted the design, he was able to bring out many other
useful books, in Latin and Spanish, for the use of the learned
and the instruction of the people. The demand for such works was
then steadily increasing, and the supply not being equal to it,
there was difficulty in finding on sale, fifty years later, a
single copy of the volumes Ximenes had edited.
{586}
Ecclesiastical music-books also, which had hitherto been in
manuscript, were published by him, and distributed through the
churches of his diocese, so that the Gregorian chant, to which he
was strongly attached, might be better known and practised. Nor
did he forget works on agriculture, being desirous of promoting
in every way the welfare of his kind.
Finding among the MSS. in the library of Toledo a number of
liturgies in old Gothic characters, he conceived a design of
rescuing from destruction the Mozarabic or Mixt-Arabic rite. Its
use was long confined to Toledo and to some parishes where
Christians lived under Moorish dominion. Then, in course of time,
the Mozarabic families having died out, and the reign of the
Moors being at an end, the Gregorian rite superseded the old
Gothic one, and the memory of it was kept alive only by
occasional use on certain festivals. It was evidently desirable,
for the sake of history and literature, to collate the MSS. of
this ancient liturgy, and preserve it in a printed form for
future generations. This task Ximenes accomplished in a manner
worthy of his comprehensive genius. He printed a number of
Mozarabic missals and breviaries, changing the Gothic characters
into Castilian, and erected a chapel in his cathedral where the
Mozarabic Mass might be said daily. He founded a college of
thirteen priests, who should recite the canonical hours, and
perform other functions according to this liturgy. Robles
himself, Ximenes's biographer, was one of these chaplains. This
foundation gave rise to others of the same kind in Salamanca and
Valladolid. They have fully answered the purpose of the founder,
and Mozarabic missals can easily be purchased at the present day.
The obstacles which Ximenes had to overcome in reforming his
diocese were very serious, but he encountered them with the
utmost firmness. The bishops enjoyed at that period immense
revenues, the benefices of priests were richly endowed, and the
clergy were too numerous, lax in morals, and often extremely
ignorant. The corruption of the Castilian court was scandalous,
and the natural children of kings and princes were constantly
elevated to episcopal sees. The monasteries were changed into
abodes of luxury, and it needed a queen like Isabella, and a
primate like Ximenes, to stem the tide of licentiousness. His
first effort was to reform the lives and habits of his chapter,
and in this attempt he was opposed by a canon named Albornoz,
whom he caused to be arrested on his way to Rome and cast into
prison. Severe measures were indispensable in the state of
society then existing. His own life as a bishop was strict in the
extreme. He shunned all intercourse with women, and sitting
always with a Bible open before him, he had no time for idle and
intrusive visitors. His charities made him beloved by the poor,
and all the decrees issued by the synods under his presidency
tended to revive the spirit and the forms of true religion. The
strict rule of the Observantines was introduced into the
Franciscan order, and those who would not conform to it were
expelled [from] the country. The valiant reformer raised up
enemies enough by his courage and zeal; but honest intentions
such as his and force of character only triumph the more signally
by being opposed. His friends pointed to his works of mercy as
the best answer to the calumnies of petty foes.
{587}
He raised twelve churches; he founded four hospitals and eight
monasteries; he fed thirty poor persons daily at his palace,
visited the hospitals, and pensioned desolate widows. Would his
enemies, even if they had possessed the means, have done the
like?
When Isabella died, Ximenes, holding in one hand the archbishop's
cross, grasped in the other the sceptre of state. Joanna, the
consort of Philip the Fair, who inherited the crown of Castile,
had become the prey of a disordered imagination. Her husband
would not reside in Spain, and she would not consent to live
there without him. Isabella had foreseen her incompetency and
probable absence. She had appointed Ferdinand of Aragon, her own
husband, Regent of Castile, till her grandson Charles should have
attained his twentieth year. The nobles of Castile factiously
resisted this wise provision; and though Ferdinand acted with
prudence and moderation, though he caused his daughter Joanna,
with Philip her husband, to be proclaimed sovereigns, and
contented himself with administering the affairs of state in
their absence, a struggle ensued in which Ximenes sided
constantly with Ferdinand, and adhered closely to the terms of
Isabella's will. Philip prepared an army to drive his
father-in-law from Castile, while Joanna wrote to him requesting
that he would not resign the government, and surrendering her
rights to him in the most earnest and affectionate terms.
By the wisdom and resolution of Ximenes, the rupture between
Philip and Ferdinand was partially healed. He mediated between
them with admirable _finesse_, and his success was the more
remarkable because he found in Philip a faithless, wrong-headed,
and vindictive man, the slave of passion and the dupe of evil
counsellors; while the confidence reposed in him by Ferdinand was
not always complete, nor equal at any time to that placed in him
by the virtuous and noble Isabella. With his consent Philip was
allowed to have his own way, and to govern Castile without the
assistance of Ferdinand. But Philip was removed from this world
in the flower of his age, and thus the path was opened for
Ximenes becoming Regent of Castile. He was by this time
thoroughly conversant with the affairs of state. Every Thursday
he gave an audience to the king's chief ministers, and heard from
them the most important matters which were next day to be brought
before the council. On Friday he gave these matters again his
careful consideration, and then handed in a report respecting
them to the king.
It was in September, 1506, that Philip died after a short
illness, and Ximenes, with several others, was chosen provisional
administrator of the kingdom. His powers were soon increased, and
exalted above those of his colleagues. He had a difficult part to
play, for the Castilian nobles were passionate and intriguing,
and the disconsolate widow Joanna refused to endorse his
authority as regent. She sat nearly all day long in a dark
chamber, with her face resting on her hand, silent, bitter, and
sorrowful, listening only at intervals to sweet music which
nursed her melancholy. These eccentricities ended in total
derangement. She disinterred her husband's corpse at Miraflorés,
contrary to the laws of the church and to Philip's will, and
ordered it to be conveyed before her by torch-light to the town
of Torquemada. Endless funereal ceremonies were performed, and
fantastic images of death and grief were multiplied in virtue of
her diseased imagination.
{588}
She insisted on residing in a little town where her court and
attendants could scarcely find a cabin-roof to screen them from
sun and storm.
In August, 1507, the unhappy queen, wild and haggard in
appearance, attended by the corpse of her royal husband, met her
father Ferdinand at Tortolés. With her consent he assumed the
reins of government, and Ximenes resigned his powers into the
hands of the king. His services had been great, and Ferdinand was
too noble to leave them unrewarded. The archbishop was named
Cardinal and Grand-Inquisitor of Castile and Leon. Never was a
cardinal's hat bestowed at Rome with greater satisfaction; and
the important office of grand-inquisitor, which was attached to
the higher dignity, will be estimated more correctly after a few
observations.
It was the opinion of St. Augustine, who herein followed that of
St. Ambrose and St. Leo, that persons ought not to be put to
death for heresy, but the great doctor did not disapprove of
force being employed to restrain and correct heresy. This opinion
became the basis of the civil laws of Theodosius II. and
Valentinian III.; but in the middle ages the alliance between
church and state was much closer than it had been in earlier
years, and it was usual to punish obstinate heresy as a twofold
crime worthy of death. St. Thomas Aquinas defends this as
reasonable, but St. Bernard was in favor of a more lenient
policy. Ecclesiastical tribunals were established in which cases
of heresy were tried, and the civil magistrates were required by
law to carry into effect the judgment of bishops. Papal legates
also, like Peter de Castelnau, were often entrusted with
inquisitorial powers. The Council of Toulouse, in 1229, issued
various decrees relative to the suppression of heresy, [Footnote
173] and may thus be considered as founding the first
inquisition. [Footnote 174] The Dominicans especially were
employed in the work of extirpating heresy, and but for the
exertions of such men the nations of Europe would have been
overrun with Manichaeism and various other forms of pestilent
error. The Jews settled in Spain, penetrated in disguise every
branch of society, and strove in every age to Judaize the people.
The inquisition was directed in a particular manner against this
subtle influence, and the peculiar nature of the evil required
peculiar remedies and antidotes. It was Judaism in the church
that it labored to extirpate, and not the race of Israel dwelling
in the Peninsula.
[Footnote 173: Harduin, tome vii. pp. 173-178.]
[Footnote 174: Von Hefele, p. 286.]
The inquisitors of Seville took office in 1481, and were
appointed by the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella. Nothing was
more natural than that they should seek to rid the body politic
of a gangrene so fatal as secret Judaism. Yet Sixtus IV. had
occasion to rebuke the royal inquisitors for their needless
severity and to take measures for the mitigation of their
sentences. But the tribunal was placed more and more under the
control of the state, and whether clergymen or laymen were
employed, they were alike subservient to the Spanish government.
In 1492, when, by a memorable edict, the Jews were ordered to
quit Spain, unless they submitted to be baptized, the sphere of
the inquisition's labors became greatly enlarged in consequence
of the increased number of Jews who professed Christianity from
worldly motives alone. The Moriscos also, or baptized Moors, came
within the sphere of its action; and it was introduced into
Granada by the advice of the second grand-inquisitor, Deza, in
order to prevent their relapsing into Islamism.
{589}
The sovereigns of Castile and Aragon promoted the inquisition for
other motives besides those here alluded to. They used it as an
instrument for consolidating their own power and breaking that of
the clergy and nobles. Piombal, at a later period, did the same
in Portugal. Hence it was popular with the lower classes,
detested by the aristocracy, and often censured by popes. To
these facts Ranke and Balmez abundantly testify, and their
evidence is confirmed by that of Henry Leo, Guizot, Havemann,
Lenormant, De Maistre, and Spittler. The falsehoods of Llorente
respecting the inquisition have been fully exposed, and those who
sift the matter thoroughly will find that it was latterly more a
political than a religious institution; that the cruelties it
exercised have been enormously exaggerated; that it was in
accordance with principles universally recognized in its day;
that its punishments, however severe, were in keeping with the
ordinary penal laws; that the popes constantly endeavored to
mitigate its decrees; that Gregory XIII., Paul III., Pius IV.,
and Innocent XII., in particular, reclaimed against its rigors;
that its intentions were good on the whole; its proceedings
tempered with mercy; and that Ximenes, the third
grand-inquisitor, conducted himself in that office with
moderation and humanity, provided for the instruction of Jewish
and Moorish converts, and "adopted every expedient to diminish
the number of judicial cases reserved for the tribunal of the
inquisition." [Footnote 175]
[Footnote 175: Von Hefele, p. 387.]
He caused Lucero, the cruel inquisitor of Cordova, to be
arrested, tried, and deposed from his high functions. He
protected Lebrija, Vergara, and other learned men from envious
aspersions, and kept a strict watch over the officers of the
inquisition, lest they should exceed their instructions or abuse
their power. He endeavored, but without success in Ferdinand's
lifetime, to exclude laymen from the council, and thus free the
tribunal as far as possible from state influence. The number of
those who suffered punishment under his _régime_ has been
greatly exaggerated by Llorente; and if he introduced the
inquisition into Oran, America, and the Canary Isles, it must be
remembered that its jurisdiction extended over the old Christians
settled there, and not over the natives.
In reviewing Ximenes's conduct in such matters, we must never
lose sight of the fact that absolute unity of religion was then
the aim of all Catholic governments, whereas circumstances are
now altered, and the question of religious liberty, though the
same in the abstract, is wholly changed in its practical
application. But the scene now changes. We have seen the hermit
of Castañar doff his cowl to wear a mitre, found the University
of Alcalá, edit the famous Polyglot, and rule as regent the
kingdom of Castile. We shall now behold him mount a war-charger,
place himself at the head of an army, and lead it to victory on
the coasts of Africa. We shall admire and wonder at the
versatility of his genius, and the resolution and activity which
no difficulties could break nor advancing years slacken. It would
be easy to point out resemblances between Ximenes and the fiery
Chatham, nor can we wonder that the latter statesman admired the
former more than any other character in history. [Footnote 176]
[Footnote 176: Horace Walpole's _George II_. p. iii. 19.]
{590}
The cardinal had a double reason for advising Ferdinand to employ
the troops which Gonsalvo de Cordova had led to victory in Italy,
in the conquest of some stronghold on the African coast.
Mazarquivir was taken in 1505, and Ximenes, expanding his designs
as usual, conceived a vaster project for a new crusade and the
recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. It had been for ages the favorite
and oft-baffled scheme of popes and Christian princes. It seemed
to realize every hope of Catholic domination in Europe, and to
involve the downfall of Islamism. The idea was as glorious as the
accomplishment would be useful to humanity. It was the cause of
civilization against barbarism, and of truth against error. But
the strife between Philip and Ferdinand, already referred to,
completely frustrated it, and the loss of Mazarquivir, in 1507,
supplied Ximenes with an opportunity of opposing Mohammedanism
nearer home and under more urgent circumstances. At his earnest
request a fleet was fitted out for the conquest of Oran. That
city was strongly fortified, rich and powerful, and in its
harbors were a multitude of cruisers, ever ready to sweep the
shores of the Mediterranean and carry off their victims to be
sold as slaves. Though in his seventy-second year, though
hampered by the infirmities common at such an age, Ximenes
resolved to march in person to the conquest of this place, and to
furnish the means required for the expedition out of his own
revenues. He would thus, he thought, be able to pursue his own
plans with greater freedom, and exempt the king from
responsibility and loss which he might not be able or willing to
incur. There were those who sneered at the cardinal's girding on
his sword, and murmured that he had better tell his beads, but
Ferdinand knew well the temper of his mind. He willingly placed
at his disposal all the forces that could be raised, and gave him
a large number of blank papers, signed only with the royal
manual, to be filled up as the great cardinal might think proper.
Fourteen thousand men were soon under arms, and Count Pedro
Navarro was appointed by Ximenes commander of the forces. A
titular bishop was at the head of one division, and all the
generals were distinguished for their valor. During some years
Ximenes had been husbanding his resources for some such
enterprise, and subsidies flowed in from other churches and
dioceses.
Intrigues and jealousies delayed for awhile the sailing of the
expedition. Navarro strove to obtain the sole command. Ferdinand
was often wavering. A mutiny broke out in the army. The soldiers
demanded their pay in advance. But the voice of the cardinal
calmed the storm, and the soldiers, being promised a part of
their pay as soon as they had embarked, hastened to the ships
with the merry sound of trumpets. On the 16th of May, 1509, the
fleet weighed anchor. Ten galleys, eighty large transports, and
many smaller vessels traversed the straits, and on the following
day--the Feast of the Ascension--Ximenes with his fleet and army
anchored in the port of Mazarquivir. He passed the night in
giving his instructions; and though his health and strength were
impaired by age, toil, and study, his energy filled the troops
with confidence and enthusiasm. He summoned Navarro before him,
and entrusted the conduct of the army to him alone, yet the
relative positions of the cardinal and the commander were not,
after all, clearly defined
{591}
The lines were formed in order of battle, when a striking scene
presented itself. Oran was to be attacked by sea and land. A
mendicant friar was transformed into a chieftain and a hero.
Forth he rode, mounted on a mule, with a sword belted over his
pontifical robes. Many ecclesiastics surrounded him. Canons and
priests were his body-guard. Swords and scimitars hung from their
girdles, and before them rode a giant Franciscan on a white
charger, bearing the primate's silver cross and the arms of the
house of Cisneros. The hymn _Vexilla regis prodeunt_ rose to
heaven as the cavalcade advanced; and the cardinal, riding along
the ranks, imposed silence and harangued the troops. His words
were few, but full of fire. The mothers of Spain, he said, whose
children had been dragged into slavery, were prostrate at that
moment before the altar of God, praying for success to his
soldiers' arms. He desired to share their danger, remembering how
many bishops who had preceded him in the see of Toledo had died
gloriously on the battle-field.
Officers and men were excited to the utmost by Ximenes's address,
but when he was about to place himself at their head, they
entreated him with one voice not to expose so precious a life. He
retired, therefore, within the fortress of Mazarquivir, and
there, in the oratory of St. Michael, implored the God of battles
to crown his troops with victory. Scarcely had he entered the
fort, when the folly of Navarro compelled the cardinal to
interfere. The commander had ordered the cavalry to remain
inactive, because the country was so hilly, and if Ximenes had
not resolutely insisted on their supporting the foot-soldiers,
the day would probably have been lost. With like energy Ximenes
condemned any delay as criminal, and prevented Navarro from
deferring the combat, as he proposed, to the next day, when the
arrival of the chief-vizier of Tremesen with strong
re-enforcements would have been dangerous, if not fatal, to the
Spaniards' prospect of success.
The infantry, therefore, in four battalions, advanced immediately
up the sides of the sierra, shouting, "Santiago, Santiago!" A
shower of stones and arrows was hurled on them by the Moors, and
the position was obstinately disputed. But a battery of guns
playing on the enemy's flank, they wavered and fled, while the
Spaniards, in spite of contrary orders, pursued and slaughtered
them with great havoc. The fleet, meanwhile, bombarded the city,
and, though ill provided with ladders, the Christian troops
scaled the walls, planted their colors, and with loud cries of
"Santiago y Ximenes!" opened the gates to their comrades. In vain
did their general call them off from the work of carnage. No age
or sex was spared; till at last, weary with plunder and butchery,
they sank down in the streets, and slept beside the corpses of
their foes. Four thousand Moors were said to have fallen, and
only thirty Spaniards. The booty was counted at half a million of
gold ducats.
The cardinal spent the night in praising God, and the next day,
proceeding by sea to Oran, made a solemn entry. The troops hailed
him as the conqueror, but he was heard to say aloud, "_Non
nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam_." He set at liberty
three hundred Christian captives; and when the entire spoil of
the city was presented to him, he reserved nothing for himself,
but set apart a portion for the king, and divided the rest among
his troops. Sixty pieces of cannon fell into his hands, and it
seemed little less than a miracle that a place so defended should
have been taken in a few hours.
{592}
Others affirmed that there had been traitors among the
inhabitants, and that Ximenes had gained over to his side some
persons who acted as spies and gave him secret intelligence. The
mosques were soon converted into churches, and a branch of the
inquisition was established, lest convert Jews should hasten from
Spain to Oran and renounce the Christian religion with impunity.
It now became a question whether the war should be pushed further
into Africa. The people of Tremesen, stung to madness by the fall
of Oran, had massacred the Christian merchants and slaughtered
even the Jews. But Navarro had grown jealous of Ximenes, and
scorned to obey orders issued by a monk. He informed the cardinal
that his power expired with the siege of Oran, and that, if he
remained with the army any longer, he would be treated as a
private individual. To this indignity Ximenes would not submit,
yet he had no desire to continue in Africa. A letter of
Ferdinand's, which he saw by chance, instructed Navarro to detain
him there as long as might be needful; and he suspected that the
king wished him to languish and die on a foreign shore. He knew
that Ferdinand could ill bear to see the glory of Gonsalvo de
Cordova, "the great captain," and his special friend, to be
obscured by that of a general in a monk's cowl, but he was not
disposed to gratify his royal master by dying before his time.
Just a week after he had landed, the cardinal set sail on his
return. He remained seven days at Carthagena; established a line
of transports to run between it and Oran, and then departed for
Alcalá, where he made his entry with a sort of military triumph.
A part of the walls had been broken down for him to pass through,
but this honor he declined, and contented himself with entering
through the usual gate, preceded by Moorish slaves leading camels
laden with booty. The keys of Oran, chandeliers from the mosques,
banners, and Arabic MSS. on medicine and astrology were presented
to the university; and a tablet was placed in the Mozarabic
chapel of the cathedral of Toledo, with an inscription recording
the success of the expedition. Some of these curiosities are
still shown to visitors in the cathedral; but the fame of Ximenes
has little need of such memorials. As a martial expedition was an
enterprise least to be expected of him, so it is that which marks
him most prominently on the page of history.
The capture of Oran led to further conquests on the coasts of
Africa; yet, after all, the declining power of Spain made it
difficult to retain what she had acquired, and impossible to
extend her dominions. In 1790, after a dreadful earthquake, Oran
fell into the hands of the Dey of Algiers. Since then, it has
been annexed to the French empire, under conditions more
favorable to civilization than it enjoyed under Spanish rule.
One of the conditions attached by Ximenes to the conquest of Oran
had been that it should either be annexed to the archbishopric of
Toledo, or that the expenses he might incur should be refunded
from the treasury. Cabals, however, were raised against him. He
was charged with having enriched himself, and the promised
conditions seemed likely to stay unfulfilled. He persisted in his
claim, wrote to Ferdinand on the subject, and was mortified by
seeing a commission appointed to examine his private apartments,
in order to ascertain what part of the spoils he had reserved for
himself.
{593}
The account-book, which he handed to the commissioner, was the
only reply he made to this indignity. Not long after, the king
proposed that he should exchange the archbishopric of Toledo for
that of Zaragoza, and yield the primacy to Ferdinand's natural
son, a brave warrior and able politician, but a worldly prelate.
To this unworthy proposal Ximenes made answer that he would never
exchange his see for any other. He was willing to return to the
poverty of a cloister, but if he held any see at all it should be
that one over which Providence had appointed him to rule.
Cold and capricious as Ferdinand was sometimes toward the
cardinal, he treated him with the same respect as ever when his
own interests or those of the state seemed to require it. When he
had espoused the cause of Julius II. against the King of France,
he sent for Ximenes to meet him at Seville and aid him with his
counsels. It was in the depth of winter, but the cardinal
promptly obeyed the summons. He admired the bold attitude assumed
by the pope, and heartily sympathized with his efforts to recover
the territories which had been torn from the Church, to extend
the temporal sovereignty of the successor of St. Peter, to compel
his vassals to obey him, and to humble the power of Venice, then
mistress of almost all his seaports. He saw with satisfaction the
blows inflicted on the pride and insolence of the Baglionis and
Bentivoglios, and he approved of the League of Cambray, by which
Julius II., Louis XII., the Emperor of Germany, and the King of
Spain bound themselves to enfeeble Venice and avenge the injuries
she had done to the domains of the Church. But Ximenes, though he
concurred in the papal policy as regards Venice, shared also the
fears of the sovereign pontiff lest France should extend her
possessions in the north of Italy. He justified Julius II. in
withdrawing from the League into which he had entered, and was
prepared to afford him every assistance in resisting the
arrogance of Louis XII. when he seized on Bologna and convened a
council at Pisa, in defiance of the Holy See. The adhesion of
Ferdinand and Ximenes encouraged Pope Julius to form an alliance
with Venice, and thus to oppose the united forces of the Emperor
Maximilian and Louis XII. Under the auspices of these princes a
schismatical council dared to assemble at Pisa, and afterward at
Milan. Seven insubordinate cardinals and twenty bishops, chiefly
French, were present at the opening, and in the eighth and ninth
sessions they audaciously declared Julius II. deposed. But a
general council, convened by the pope, met in the Lateran in
1512, condemned these schismatical proceedings, and restored the
wavering to obedience. Even Maximilian deserted the King of
France, and Henry VIII. of England sided with Ferdinand against
the pope's enemies.
It may here be mentioned that Ximenes was averse to the
distribution of indulgences under Julius II. and Leo X. for the
completion of St. Peter's in Rome. The ground on which he
disapproved of it was, that the relaxation of temporal punishment
which these indulgences conferred might weaken and disturb
ecclesiastical discipline. Devoutly submissive as he was to the
Holy See, he nevertheless, as Gomez relates, advised Ferdinand to
enact a law by which all papal bulls should, before publication,
be submitted to a minister of state. His object was to guard
against abuses, since dispensations were often obtained too
easily from Rome.
{594}
During Ferdinand's last illness, Ximenes occupied a prominent
post in the affairs of state; and on one occasion, when the
sovereign was absent from Castile, the government was entrusted
to him, in concert with the royal council. It was, therefore,
natural that, when the king died, he should be appointed regent
during the minority of Charles V. Ferdinand had, it is true,
objected to him as too austere, but he yielded to the advice of
others, and consented to the appointment immediately before
receiving the last sacraments. It was, he thought, an advantage
in his case not to have been born of a noble family, since he
could on that account conduct the administration with greater
impartiality. Thus, on the 23d of January, 1516, Ximenes became
once more the ruler of a nation daily rising in importance.
Another claimant of supreme power appeared on the scene. This was
Dean Hadrian, afterward pope, who had been tutor to Prince
Charles, and who produced a document signed by the prince,
authorizing him to assume the regency of Castile in the event of
Ferdinand's demise. The legal decision on the question was
unfavorable to Hadrian's claim; but Ximenes, wishing to avoid
disputes, consented to rule conjointly with his rival until
Charles himself should decide by which of the two he would be
represented. Nothing could exceed the promptitude and energy of
the cardinal's measures. If an insurrection broke out, troops
were despatched instantly to suppress it. Madrid was in the
neighborhood of his own vassals, and he therefore chose it as the
seat of government, lest he might in some other place be exposed
to the violence of interfering grandees.
The authority given in the first instance to Ximenes was fully
confirmed by Charles, and in a letter which he addressed to the
cardinal he declared that "the most excellent clause he had found
in his grandfather's will was that by which Ximenes was invested
with the government of the kingdom and the administration of
justice." The fame of the consummate wisdom, experience, and
eminent virtues of the cardinal had reached, he said, even
Flanders; and he therefore enjoined on all the members of his
family, the nobles and prelates, to recognize him as regent. To
Hadrian the prince assigned a subordinate post, and every
arrangement was made with due regard to the rights of the unhappy
Queen Joanna, whose derangement made her practically a cipher,
though nominally supreme ruler. Her name preceded that of her son
Charles in all public documents; but the prince was proclaimed
King of Castile by order of Ximenes. It was not until Charles
arrived in Spain that the Cortes of Aragon consented to recognize
his title as king of that country also.
The height of power is generally the height of discomfort. Many
of the nobles combined to harass Ximenes, and incite the people
to rebel against "a monk of base extraction." They questioned his
authority, and decided on sending messengers to Flanders to
demand his dismissal. The cardinal, however, was fully apprised
of all their plans; and it is said by Gomez that, when some of
them waited on him to ask for the documents in virtue of which he
held the regency, he took them to the window, and showing them a
park of artillery, said, "These are the powers by which I govern
Castile according to the king's will and command."
{595}
He took, indeed, if Peter Martyr can be credited, great interest
and pleasure in military affairs. He had heard Ferdinand
expatiate on the advantages of a militia as opposed to an army
recruited from different countries; and now that he was wielding
dictatorial power, he resolved to put the scheme in execution. He
conferred with the senate, and issued a proclamation inviting the
enlistment of volunteers. They were, with the exception of
officers and musicians, to serve without pay, but in return they
were exempted from taxes, socages, and all other charges.
Immediate success attended this measure. Thirty thousand citizens
were speedily enrolled, and were daily drilled in public. The
compliments paid to Ximenes by ambassadors, and the envious
cavillings of foreign princes, sufficiently proved the wisdom of
this organization. It encountered great opposition from the
nobles, but, being endorsed by the special approval of Charles,
it triumphed ultimately over every obstacle.
Ximenes's attention, at the same time, was turned to the maritime
power of the kingdom. He added twenty trireme galleys to the
navy, and put the entire fleet in movement against the Moors and
pirates who infested the Spanish coasts. The seas were thus
cleared of "Red Rovers," and Pope Leo X. congratulated the
cardinal on the success of his marine administration. His
government was assailed on all sides, but the great churchman was
never at a loss. Whether he had to meet invading forces on the
frontier, or suppress rebellion in the interior, he was in the
highest degree prompt and resolute; he struck terror into his
foes, and earned the absent sovereign's warmest gratitude. He was
equally attentive to the details of government and to its general
aims. He caused exact accounts to be drawn up of the revenues,
finances, and laws of the three military orders; and was
preparing similar documents relative to the kingdom at large when
arrested in his labors by the hand of death. To relieve the royal
treasury he suppressed numerous sinecures, beginning with those
held by his own friends, and remonstrated with Charles on his
lavish expenditure.
Successful as Ximenes had been in the capture of Oran, it was his
misfortune afterward to be foiled and worsted by a robber. The
name of Horac Barbarossa was feared throughout the Mediterranean.
He was scarcely twenty years of age when a pirate-fleet of forty
galleys sailed under his command. Though a cannon-ball carried
off his left arm in an attack on Bugia in 1515, he returned to
the assault, took the citadel, and put the entire Christian
garrison to death. He roused the fanaticism of the Moslems, and
excited them to throw off the Spanish yoke. The King of Algiers
sought his aid against the Spaniards; but the treacherous pirate
murdered his friend in a bath, seized the throne, and refused to
pay tribute to Spain. He also took the King of Tunis prisoner,
and put him to death. A talkative and bragging general, named
Vera, was sent by Ximenes with 8000 men to reduce this brigand
and usurper to subjection. But he was too strong and skilful for
the blundering Vera. The Spanish expedition utterly failed, and
the two-armed general who could not beat the one-armed buccaneer
was an object of ridicule and scorn to women and children when he
returned to Spain.
{596}
The conquest of Granada had been the means of bringing into
public notice two of the greatest men of that or any other age.
The appointment of Talavera to the see of Granada led to Ximenes
being summoned to court to fill his place as confessor to the
queen; and in the joy felt by Isabella at the final victory over
the Moors in Spain she granted Columbus the vessels he had
solicited during many years. In March, 1493, the glorious
adventurer returned from the far West, and brought with him
numerous proofs of the extent and importance of his distant
discoveries. The natives whom he had on board his ships increased
the desire of Ferdinand and Isabella to impart the blessings of
Christianity to their new subjects; and Ximenes, then occupied
with the conversion of the Spanish Moors, was anxious to
co-operate with the sovereigns for the repression of crime and
cruelty in the American colonies, and in the instruction of the
caciques and the Indian tribes in the faith of the gospel. It is
well known how long and how miserably these pious designs were
frustrated by the barbarity of Spanish governors, the rapacity
and license of Spanish sailors, convicts, and settlers. It is not
surprising that the cacique Hatuey vowed he would rather not go
to heaven if the Spaniards were there.
The royal decrees respecting slavery had been hesitating and
contradictory; nor were the religious orders in the New World
agreed as to the practice that should be pursued. Some of the
governors allowed the natives to be treated as slaves, while
others received orders from the home government to limit slavery
to the case of cannibals. When Ximenes became regent, he
carefully investigated the matter, heard a number of witnesses,
and formed his own resolution independently of other counsellors.
The principal caciques were to be called together, and informed,
in the name of Queen Isabella and her son Charles, that they were
free subjects, and that, though the tribes would be required to
pay a certain tribute, their rights, liberties, and interests
would be protected. The caciques would rule in the several
territories and villages in conjunction with a priest and royal
administrator; religion would be taught, civilization promoted,
merciful laws introduced, and traffic in slaves, whether Indian
or negro, strictly forbidden. It was found by subsequent
experience that these wise and merciful regulations were too good
for the purpose required; that it would be dangerous to
emancipate the Indians suddenly; and that it could only be done
after a sufficient number of negro slaves had been imported from
Africa.
The authority of Ximenes during the latter part of his regency
was disputed, not merely by factious nobles, but also by Dean
Hadrian and the Seigneur de la Chaux. They sought to establish a
triumvirate, and reduce Ximenes to a second-rate power. But the
cardinal receiving some papers to which they had first affixed
their signatures, he immediately ordered fresh copies to be made,
and signed them himself only. From that time neither La Chaux nor
Hadrian was ever allowed to sign a decree. They complained,
indeed, to the king, but with little effect. Ximenes paid no
attention to the remonstrance of the royal ambassador, and the
affair ended by his exclusive authority being recognized and
approved.
{597}
The machinations of his enemies ceased only with his life. To the
last, intrigues, jealousies, and calumnies hedged in his path
with thorns. In August, 1517, it is said, an attempt was made to
poison him; and it would have succeeded had not his servant,
according to custom, first tasted every dish set before him, and
fallen seriously ill at Bozeguillas. His health was failing fast
when Charles arrived from Flanders, and the courtiers used every
artifice to prevent his having an interview with the young
prince. They feared the influence of his genius and experience,
and hoped that death might speedily rid them of his presence.
Issuing vigorous orders daily for the government of the state, he
calmly awaited the arrival of the king, and of his own
approaching end, in the monastery of Aguilera. There he renewed
and corrected the will by which he left the bulk of his vast
property to the University of Alcalá. He often blessed God for
enabling him to say that he had never knowingly injured any man,
but had administered justice even-handed. The peace of his own
conscience did not preserve him from the persecution and insults
of his enemies. They even indulged their spite by the paltry
annoyance of quartering his servants in a neighboring village,
instead of their being under the same roof with their master,
when, wrapped in furs, he took his last journey to meet Charles,
and welcome him to his kingdom and throne. From the sovereign
himself he received a heartless letter, thanking him for all his
great services, and expressing a hope that they should meet at
Mojados; but after their meeting, he suggested that the cardinal
should be relieved of his arduous duties; in other words, that he
should share no longer in the conduct of public affairs. This
cruel letter is thought by many writers to have hastened
Ximenes's death, while others are of opinion that it was never
delivered to him, and that he was thus spared a wanton addition
to the pangs of dying. Ximenes died in all respects the death of
the righteous. The language of contrition and praise was on his
lips, and the crucifix in his hand. He recommended the University
of Alcalá to the king in his last moments, together with the
monasteries he had founded. He expired, exclaiming, "_In te,
Domine, speravi_" on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1517, in the
eighty-second year of his age. All the surrounding country
hastened to kiss his hands while his body lay in state. The
corpse was embalmed, and conveyed by slow stages, and amid the
blaze of numberless torches, to Torrelaguna, his birthplace, and
afterward to Alcalá, the city of his adoption. Arriving there on
the Feast of St. Eugene, the first Archbishop of Toledo, the day
was celebrated yearly from that time by a funeral service and
panegyric in honor of Ximenes. Fifty-eight years after the
university was founded, his monument was enclosed in bronze
tablets, on which the chief events in his career were
represented. Thus, by sermons, by external images, by tradition,
and by history, the memory of this remarkable man was kept alive.
Posterity became indulgent to his defects. They were specks in a
blaze of light. Heroism and saintdom encircled his memory with
effulgent halos. His person became familiar to the Spaniard's
eye: his tall, thin frame, his aquiline nose, his high forehead,
his piercing, deep-set eyes, and those two prominent eye-teeth
which gained him the nickname of "the elephant." According to the
custom of the time, he kept a jester, and his dwarf's jokes
diverted him when depressed with violent headaches, or worn with
the affairs of state and opposition of factious men. Study was
his delight. He never felt too old to learn, and he frequently
assisted at public disputations.
{598}
Prayer lay at the root of his greatness; it regulated his
ambition, tamed his impetuosity, and filled him with the love of
justice. It made him severe toward himself, firm and fearless,
equally capable of wielding a sceptre of iron and a pastoral
crook. You may search as you will for historical parallels, but
Ximenes is the only prime-minister in the world who was held to
be a saint by the people he ruled, and the only primate who has
acquired lasting renown in such varied characters as ascetic,
soldier, chieftain, scholar, man of letters, statesman, reformer,
and regent.
----------
From La Revue Du Monde Catholique.
The Ignorance Of The Middle Ages.
A recent and famous circular respecting the education of women
has called attention to the public schools of France, and the
revolutionary journals have unanimously profited by the
opportunity to load past ages with sarcasm and irony. It is
because there is a question of religion in this case, as in all
the principal incidents of the time. The antichristian press is
but little interested in the degree of knowledge diffused in the
middle ages, or in the pretended degradation of the people of
Rome; [Footnote 177] but under these deceitful pretexts is
concealed a design, persistently and ardently pursued--the
annihilation of Christianity. Christianity must be put down
because it is now the only force that strongly resists unruly
passions, and because modern barbarians, eager to possess the
goods they covet, wish to submit no longer to any obstacle or
delay.
[Footnote 177: The degradation of which an editor of the
_Journal des Débats_ (M. J. Janin) wrote in 1836: "Talk
to me of the enslaved country of the Holy Father as free!"]
Let not Christians be deceived by the hypocritical protestations
of respect uttered by this enemy, to whom falsehood is a jest.
Let them not grow weary of countermining the subterranean attacks
carried on against the city. For each assault let there be a
sortie; for each new battery, a new bastion! Resources are not
wanting; we possess facts, works, men, the testimony of history,
and even the admission of our enemies, and we are sure victory
will be ours in the end.
A former essay [Footnote 178] depicted the savage brutality of
the barbarous nations converted to Christianity, their passions,
their vices, their ferocity, and their excesses. We will now show
what the church did in one particular to subdue, civilize, and
elevate them, by diffusing with unparalleled munificence the most
extended, the most general and complete course of instruction
ever given to the world; how, in the most troublous times--in the
tenth century, for example--the church was the inviolable
guardian of the productions of the human mind; what ardor for
knowledge it excited in these men, but recently so violent and so
material; and besides its saints, what learned men, it
formed--what great men, full of talent and genius!
[Footnote 178: "Les Barbares et le Moyen Age," _Revue du
Monde Cath_., of Aug. 10 and Sept. 10, 1867.]
{599}
I.
Christian Antiquity.
Some writers, having lost the spirit of Christianity, have denied
that Christian antiquity had a taste for science and literature,
and have stigmatized the middle ages as _dark_. If they had
been Christians, they would have known that this accusation is as
erroneous as it is injurious--was contrary to the very
principles of Christianity.
Pagan society, established, with a view to this life, for the
well-being of a few, kept the people in ignorance in order to
keep them in servitude. Ignorance, by rendering men material,
disposes them to servility and strengthens tyranny. It had
academies for the free-born, but not for the slave. Why trouble
themselves about the minds of those miserable creatures who were
"incapable of good, of evil, and of virtue," who were called
speaking instruments and chattels? It had philosophers, poets,
and learned men, but no popular schools; for it loved science and
not man.
The first principle of Christianity, on the contrary, is love.
Love is without narrowness: it does not repel, it attracts: it is
not exclusive, it is all-embracing: it seeketh not its own, it is
generously and openly diffusive, it searches out and summons the
whole world: _Venite ad me omnes_. Christianity knows only
one race of men who are all equal. Its other name is
_Catholicism, universality_. It has but one object, which is
supernatural--to lead men to God.
In order that man may aspire to this sublime end, he must be made
free--_cui liber, est liber_--must be enlightened, that he
may comprehend the Supreme Intelligence that created him.
Christianity breathes into man "that ardent love of knowledge"
[Footnote 179] which buoys up his wings: it lights up before him
a perspective extending to the very confines of heaven. "The more
fully man comprehends in what way God has established everything
in number, weight, and measure, the more ardent is his love for
him," says a simple nun [Footnote 180] of the middle ages,
beautifully expressing the idea of the church. This is the reason
why Christianity has patronized science, and diffused and
cultivated it.
[Footnote 179: J. de Maistre, _Du Pape_, iv. 3.]
[Footnote 180: Roswitha, _Paphnuce_.]
As soon as Christianity had a foothold in the world, instead of
turning toward a few, like the philosophers, it addresses
all--the poor who had been despised, the lowly who had been made
use of, and the slaves who had not been counted. The door of
knowledge was opened wide to plebeians. "We teach philosophy to
fullers and shoemakers," says St. Chrysostom. From the depths of
the catacombs, where they were obliged to conceal themselves, the
first pontiffs, whose lives for three centuries terminated by
martyrdom, founded schools in every parish of Rome, and ordered
the priests to assemble the children of the country in order to
instruct them. What, then, was the result when Christianity,
issuing from the bowels of the earth, bloomed forth in freedom?
There were schools everywhere, monastic schools, schools in the
priests' houses, [Footnote 181] episcopal schools, established by
Gregory the Great, and schools at the entrance of churches, (as
in the portico of the cathedral of Lucca, in the eighth century.)
[Footnote 181: A council of the sixteenth century
speaks of schools in the priests' houses.]
{600}
The decrees of councils, the decretals of popes, attest the
desire of distributing to all the food of the mind, and of
multiplying schools. [Footnote 182] And who were their first
masters? The priests, bishops, and doctors of the church. "It is
our duty," (it is a pope who speaks,) "to endeavor to dispel
ignorance." [Footnote 183] Ulphidas, a bishop of the fifth
century, translated the Bible into the language of the Goths, for
the instruction of the barbarians; and at a later period,
Albertus Magnus and St. Bonaventura composed abridgments of the
Scriptures for the poor, called the _Bible of the Poor, Biblia
Pauperum_. "If the important knowledge of reading and writing
was spread among the people, it was owing to the church," says
St. Simon the Reformer. [Footnote 184]
[Footnote 182: Report of the Minister of Public Instruction,
M. Duruy, 1865.]
[Footnote 183: Innocent III. at the Council of 1215.]
[Footnote 184: _La Science de l'Histoire_.]
And how did the church bestow it? Gratuitously, "to all who could
not pay for it." The church is truly democratic, according to the
modern expression, or rather, it is an institution of charity;
gratuitous instruction is its conception which it put into
execution. (Ventura.) Listen to its councils: "Every cathedral
and every church that has the means is obliged to found a
professorship of theology for ecclesiastics, and provide a master
for the gratuitous instruction of the poor, _according to the
ancient customs_. [Footnote 185] It is thus it understood
obligatory instruction, not imposed on those who received it,
which would be tyranny, but exacted from those who gave it, which
was an act of virtue.
[Footnote 185: The Council of Constantinople in 680; then the
Councils of Lateran in 1179 and 1215, and the Council of
Lyons in 1245. In the eighth century Theodolphus, Bishop of
Orleans, wrote to his priests: "Exact no pay for the
instruction of children, and receive nothing, except what is
offered voluntarily and through affection, by the parents."]
But was it elementary knowledge alone? Does the church disdain
literature, which a father calls the ornament and consolation of
the wretchedness of man--polite literature, the humanities _par
excellence_, because they sustain humanity in the combat of
life? Certainly not; the church found the pagan world powerful
and renowned for its attainments in literature, the sciences, and
the arts; it would not leave to that world its superiority; it
would also become the patron of knowledge, because that would aid
in the progress of truth. "We ought," says St. Basil, "to study
the profane sciences before penetrating the mysteries of sacred
knowledge, that we may become accustomed to their radiance."
[Footnote 186] The church exhorted its children to the
acquirement of knowledge; nay, it even wished itself to excel
therein, and it succeeded so as to terrify its enemies, as in the
case of Julian the Apostate, who, to crush the church, undertook
to prohibit it from studying the sciences. Where shall we find
men more learned than Clement of Alexandria, who fathomed and
explained the origin of pagan mythology; St. Basil and the two
Gregorys, who, pupils of the Athenian school, acquired there the
eloquence in which they equalled Demosthenes; St. Augustine,
whose work, _De Civitate Dei,_ is the compendium of all
knowledge, philosophy, literature, science, and the entire
history of the world; and Origen, before whom the most celebrated
masters of the East rose up and ceased to teach, intimidated by
his presence? "We are not afraid," says St. Jerome, "of any kind
of comparison!"
[Footnote 186: _Discourse on the Utility of reading Profane
Literature_. See also St. Gregory of Nazianzen,
_Discourse at the Funeral of St. Basil_.]
{601}
The church thus continues: "Study," wrote Cassiodorus, in the
fifth century, to his monks--"study Galen, Hippocrates,
Dioscorides, and the other authors you find in the library." The
course of study at Salernum was pursued by a great number of
clerics, priests, and bishops: [Footnote 187] priests learned
history, grammar, Greek, and geometry at the school in the
basilica of Lateran. [Footnote 188]
[Footnote 187: Daremberg, _Cours de 1866 sur l'Histoire de
la Medecine_.]
[Footnote 188: And in the Benedictine monasteries.]
Where did the Greek artists, driven out by iconoclasts, take
refuge? In Rome, under the protection of the popes. Who were the
first historians of the West? Priests and bishops: Gregory of
Tours, Fredegarius, Eginhard, Odo, and Flodoard. There is an
ecclesiastical tone throughout the entire Merovingian
literature--the legends, hymns, and chronicles. [Footnote 189]
Even the poets, Fortunatus and Sidonius Apollinaris, are priests
familiar with the works of antiquity. "I am engaged," wrote
Alcuin to Charlemagne, "in giving instruction to some by drawing
from the fount of Holy Writ, and intoxicating others with the old
wine of the ancient schools." And for what purpose? He continues:
"In order that the church may profit by the increase of
knowledge." Finally, when a pope, great through his genius and
his sanctity--Gregory VII.--was inspired with the noble ambition
of christianizing the world, he called science to his aid,
revived the ancient canons that instituted schools for the
liberal arts in the vicinity of cathedrals; [Footnote 190]
"desiring a saintly clergy, he wished them also learned."
[Footnote 191]
[Footnote 189: D'Espinay, _Influence of Canon Law on French
Legislation_.]
[Footnote 190: Innocent III. continued the work; he extended
the obligation of acquiring knowledge among the priests. "The
bishop will ascertain," says he, "the capacity of those on
whom he confers holy orders. It is better to have a few who
are learned to serve the altar than many who are ignorant."
And in our own day the Roman College gives gratuitous
instruction in the classics and in the higher sciences,
theology, philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, etc., which
does not prevent the revolutionary journals from declaring
the pontifical government an enemy of progress and of light.]
[Footnote 191: Ozanam, _Le Christianisme chez les Barbares_.]
And it is so truly the spirit of Christianity that schools are
multiplied in proportion to its diffusion. Clovis hardly received
baptism when schools were established even in his palace;
[Footnote 192] the more fully kings were imbued with a Christian
spirit, the more letters were protected and honored. Theodosius,
who almost attained to sanctity by his penitence, decreed that
masters, after teaching twenty years, should be ennobled with the
title of count, and be on an equality with the lieutenants of the
prefect of the pretorian guards; and Charlemagne, the great
Christian emperor, established under his eye an academy, which,
we are told, was called the Palatial School: the palace was
consecrated to science, and its true name would have been the
Scholastic Palace. [Footnote 193]
[Footnote 192: Dom Pitra, _Rapport sur une Mission
scientifique_, 1850.]
[Footnote 193: Dom Pitra, _Histoire de St. Léger_, ix.]
II.
The Tenth Century.
We are not contradicted. Yes, in the first centuries the church
favored knowledge; but there is an exception: from the ninth to
the eleventh century, letters almost entirely disappeared, the
light of knowledge was obscured, and this epoch is justly called
_the night of the middle ages_.
It is not so; a multitude of witnesses prove how unfounded is
this prejudice. [Footnote 194]
[Footnote 194: That is to say, the erudite men who have
carefully studied this confused epoch and have arrived at the
same conclusion, whatever their philosophical opinions:
Littré and Ozanam, Daremberg and Villemain, Renan and
Dantier, Hallam and Berrington, etc,]
{602}
Letters never perished. In the sanguinary tumult, the royal
offspring of intelligence was saved by a pious hand, and
protected that it might be restored some day to the world--
great, powerful, and fit to reign. [Footnote 195]
[Footnote 195: In the tenth century, we include the end of
the ninth and the beginning of the eleventh, as men who lived
at the end of the seventeenth century and the commencement of
the nineteenth are considered as belonging to the eighteenth;
Fontenelle and Delille, for example.]
Charlemagne was hardly laid in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, when
his lords, barons, counts, dukes, and the inferior leaders
dispersed and established in a thousand places their divided
rule; furious and devastating wars overwhelmed the people and
spread terror in every heart through the country; there was no
longer peace, security, or leisure. Were intellectual pursuits
suspended during that time? No. Throughout Europe, then a field
of battle, sheltered in the valleys and intrenched on the summits
of the mountains, were fortresses, which became the asylum of
knowledge, with an army resolved to defend it--monks in their
convents. Italy was like a camp with a reserve corps of
instruction: there soldiers were formed and organized and drilled
in the use of all kinds of arms; the Benedictines of Monte
Casino, "where ancient literature was constantly studied,"
[Footnote 196] the ecclesiastical schools of Modena, the
episcopal schools of Milan, the school of jurisprudence at Lucca,
of rhetoric at Ravenna, of literature at Verona, of the seven
arts at Parma, of grammar at Pavia, and, in the midst, Rome,
guardian of the heritage of ancient traditions and the seat of
the papacy, "which has always surpassed all other nations in
learning." [Footnote 197]
[Footnote 196: And a great number of other religious houses;
as late as the seventeenth century there were more than three
hundred.]
[Footnote 197: Villemain, _Histoire de la. Littérature au
Moyen Age_, lesson xx.]
Beyond the Alps, traverse Provence, almost Italian, Languedoc,
also half Roman in learning and in language, on the banks of the
Loire you will find these abbeys, famous as seats of learning:
Fleury, St. Benoit, and Ligugé, (near Poitiers;) and proceeding
to the north, Ferrière, Saint Wandrille, Luxeuil, Corbie, and Le
Bec, (in the eleventh century.) From Lyons you could see, far
away on the mountain-heights of Switzerland, Reichnau, whose
garrison was re-enforced by foreigners who crossed the water,
(Irish monks,) and St. Gall, whose monks quote the _Iliad_.
In Spain, Christians did not strive in valor alone with the
Moors; they vied in learning with the Arabs, and studied and
translated their works. The _mélée_ was universal.
Luitprand, an Englishman, who took part in it, as well as
Gerbert, a Frenchman, heard ten languages spoken there; among
others, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. [Footnote 198]
[Footnote 198: Greek by merchants, Hebrew by the Jews, Arabic
everywhere, while Latin is the foundation of the national tongue.]
Cross the Channel: in England at every step are colleges and
seminaries: that far-off murmur comes from the seven thousand
students of Armagh, in Ireland. And if you penetrate the wilds of
Germany, among the Saxons but just converted, you will discover
the advanced posts--the school of Fulden, founded by St.
Boniface; New Corbie on the Weser, where, at a later day, were
found the five books of the _Annals_ of Tacitus; and what is
more, a convent of learned nuns--the Monastery of Roswitha.
This is the main army, and it is not without support. The leaders
of the people and the directors of souls do not abandon these
valiant troops. Kings, when they have the power and the leisure,
send them reenforcements: there are the schools of Eugene II. for
the study of the liberal arts; of grammar under Lothaire in
France of jurisprudence at Angers; of Edward the Confessor in
England. It is not till the time of Henry of Germany that princes
are unmindful of them. He would not listen to the petition of a
poet for schools of _belles-lettres_ and law. These are the
scattered forts that support and bind together the main army.
{603}
But perhaps they are destitute of arms and have no arsenals and
ammunition? What, then, are all these books of medicine dating
from the seventh to the tenth century, "accumulated in all the
convents"? [Footnote 199]--the celebrated libraries of Ferrière
and Bobbio, which owned Aristotle and Demosthenes; of Reichnau,
which in 850 possessed four hundred volumes catalogued; the Greek
manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries discovered at
Rome, Verona, Monte Casino, [Footnote 200] and at
Tournay:[Footnote 201] the copies of ancient authors, made in the
ninth and tenth centuries by the monks of St. Gall? [Footnote
202] Do you not hear resounding the most illustrious names--of
poets, historians, philosophers, and orators--Homer, Seneca,
Ovid, Sallust, and Pliny? [Footnote 203] This one, like a
watchman who calls for help from the mountain-heights, (Lupus,
abbot of Ferrière to Pope Benedict III.,) requests the loan of
the _Orator_ of Cicero, the _Institutions_ of
Quintilian, and a commentary of Terence; another (see _Life of
St. Columba_) quotes Titus Livius; others (see _Acts of the
Saints_) quote Horace; treaties are fortified with passages
from Cicero; [Footnote 204] and there is not a barbarous
chronicle in which there are not lightning-like flashes from the
inspired lines of Virgil. [Footnote 205]
[Footnote 199: Dander, _Missions scientifiques_.]
[Footnote 200: Renan, _Missions scientifiques_.]
[Footnote 201: Dom Pitra, _ibid_.]
[Footnote 202: Dander, _ibid_.]
[Footnote 203: There are proofs, says Daremberg, that the
Franks of the age of Charlemagne read Pliny. These books were
not lost, but preserved in the convents.]
[Footnote 204: Dom Pitra, _Missions scientifiques_.]
[Footnote 205: See Villemain, _Histoire de la Littérature
du Moyen Age_, lesson x.]
They do not lack arms, and they make use of them. They have
captains--leaders who are capable, learned, and indefatigable.
They are well known: Abbo, abbot of Fleury-sur-Loire, who is
called the "Alcuin of the tenth century," who wrote a history of
the popes, on philosophy, physics, and astronomy, and the
commander of a numerous corps of more than five thousand
students, among whom is one who translated Euclid; [Footnote 206]
Flodoard, author of _La Chronique de France_; the thirty-two
professors of _belles-lettres_ at Salernum; St. Fulbert and
Henry of Auxerre, in France; Elphege at Monte Casino; in Spain,
Petrus Alphonsus, who compares the literature of France with that
of his own country; [Footnote 207] in England, Odo and St.
Dunstan, a geometrician, musician, painter, and
sculptor;[Footnote 208] and finally, that wonderful man, who made
the tour of the world of learning and was familiar with every
part of it--mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, literature, and
philosophy--at once a prince of the church and of science--
Gerbert. [Footnote 209]
[Footnote 206: There is a second Abbo in the tenth century--
a monk also, and a poet.]
[Footnote 207: In his book _De Disciplina Cleri_. See
Dom Pitria, _Histoire de St. Léger_.]
[Footnote 208: Berrington, _History of Literature in the
Ninth and Tenth Centuries_.]
[Footnote 209: Gaillard, in his _Histoire de
Charlemagne_, gives a list of masters who succeeded each
other without interruption from Alcuin till the twelfth
century.]
But, blockaded in their fortresses by barbarism, brigandage, and
tyranny, what important deeds could they achieve, what feats of
arms, what expeditions? In the first place, they held their
position by keeping the ramparts in constant repair.
{604}
In the scriptorium of every abbey, a numerous detachment of
patient copyists, bending all day over manuscripts, transcribed
the holy books and the masterpieces of antiquity, and rendered
eminent service to the arts, to letters, and to history by
preserving and keeping in order the store of munitions which
otherwise would have been squandered and for ever lost. At the
same time, watchful sentinels on the walls observed all that was
passing in the world without, and made an exact report of it;
that is to say, they drew up those chronicles, charters, and
cartularies in which were recorded facts, names, contracts,
donations, and the changes in the countries in which they lived,
among the people they directed, in the lands they cultivated, the
sovereigns who ruled over them, and the conquerors who despoiled
them. [Footnote 210]
[Footnote 210: It is sufficient to mention the
_Polyptique_ of the abbot Irminon, (tenth century,) and
the numerous cartularies that have been published within half
a century.]
And that the descriptions might be complete, painters illuminated
the margins of the vellum manuscripts, supplying by delicate and
faithful miniatures in the brightest colors what was wanting in
the text, general details respecting the splendor of the
vestments, the sculptures on the walls and the ornaments of the
houses, thus bequeathing to posterity a lively and true portrayal
of their time. And the whole makes up the immense and
inexhaustible treasure where we find depicted the manners,
customs, classes of society, the nature of the soil, and facts
respecting the tillers of the earth, their lords, and the church,
forming the moral, industrial, and agricultural history of all
Christendom. These transcripts, chronicles, and paintings are the
magazines, casemates, and bastions without which the citadel of
letters and science would have been dismantled and rendered
uninhabitable for generations to come!
They did not confine themselves to this; nothing was neglected
that should occupy a well-organized army; first, regular
exercise, which makes the soldier active, robust, and ready for
any duty; the study of the liberal arts, divided into two classes
for the recruits and the veterans: the _quadrivium_,
(arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy,) and the
_trivium_ (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics. [Footnote 211]
) These labors were carried on in the interior of the fortress.
They also made expeditions and sallies to keep the ways of access
clear--commentaries upon authors, variations of texts, (as the
commentaries on the _Fasti_ of Ovid, [Footnote 212] the
treatise _De Senectute_, with different readings of the same
text, [Footnote 213] and numerous manuscripts with Greek
annotations.[Footnote 214]) They undertook sieges, for a
translation may be called a siege; everywhere you could find real
workshops for translating Greek authors into Latin, such as books
of medicine, (Galen, Hippocrates, and Oribasus,) the fathers,
(the _Homilies_ of St. John Chrysostom,) and the principal
ancient authors, [Footnote 215] (the _Logic_ of Aristotle.)
Under the guidance of the leaders already named, they went forth
to daily combat and even to fight great battles; in the schools,
colleges, monasteries, and public lectures, professors, doctors,
and students [Footnote 216] stimulated the public mind; they
touched on every science, and treated, under the names of
nominalism and realism, of all those questions about which man is
continually agitated--his nature, his origin, his relations with
God, and his destiny;
[Footnote 211: Mentioned by Roswitha in the tenth century.]
[Footnote 212: Found at Reichnau by M. Dantier.]
[Footnote 213: At Mr. Philipps's in England, by Dom Pitra.]
[Footnote 214: At Monte Casino, by M. Renan.]
[Footnote 215: See Daremberg, _ibid_. A proof, says M.
Littré, in _Les Barbares et le Moyen Age_, that during
the Merovingian and Carlovingian periods the Greek filiation
of the sciences was preserved. As to medical science, he
adds, it is evidently not a simple question of medicine.]
[Footnote 216: Béranger, Lanfranc, Roscelin, etc.]
{605}
struggles constantly renewed, in which they fought furiously and
displayed all their strength by quotations from authors,
allusions to celebrated events and to sayings of antiquity, (for
example, the sarcasm of Julian to the Christians, mentioned by
Roswitha; [Footnote 217] the veil given by a king of England to
the Abbey of Croyland, on which was embroidered the Ruin of Troy;
[Footnote 218] the Latin war hymn chanted at Modena, which
alludes to the devotedness of Codrus; [Footnote 219]) brilliant
tournaments in which, like knights of prowess, some endeavored to
distinguish themselves by a display of erudition better suited,
it might seem, to the refined age of the sixteenth century than
to the tenth. They signed acts written in Greek; [Footnote 220]
in Latin verse; [Footnote 221] they wrote the lives of the saints
in French verse; [Footnote 222] the kings of England prided
themselves on the name of [Greek text]; they spoke Greek in
ordinary intercourse. [Footnote 223] These knights of science,
like the paladins in the combats with giants, displayed wondrous
feats. "I am over shoes in Cicero's _Rhetoric,_" writes
Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland. [Footnote 224]
[Footnote 217: Christians should congratulate themselves on
being deprived of their riches, for Christ said: "Every one
of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot
be my disciple." See the _Gallicanus_.]
[Footnote 218: See Darboy, _Life of St. Thomas of
Canterbury_.]
[Footnote 219: A Latin hymn was also chanted at Pisa, in the
eleventh century, to celebrate a victory over the Saracens.]
[Footnote 220: At Poitiers, at the end of the ninth century.]
[Footnote 221: At Sienna.]
[Footnote 222: In 1050, Thibaud de Vernon, canon at Rouen.]
[Footnote 223: The monks of England and Ireland.]
[Footnote 224: Tenth century.]
They did not confine themselves to the defensive. In studying the
ancient writers they were inspired to imitate them, and they went
forth into the open field and vied in a thousand works of the
imagination--fiction, poetry--(hymns, poems of the eleventh
century, and history.) What is more, they undertook fatiguing and
dangerous expeditions into far-off and almost unknown countries--
archaeology, which had not then a name, (see "the valuable
manuscripts of the tenth century, discovered by Mabillon at
Einsiedeln, which treat of Roman inscriptions;") cosmography, in
which they divined truths of the highest importance. The Irish
monk Virgilius taught in Bohemia the antipodes, and consequently
that the earth is round. He was not comprehended: they supposed
him to believe there were other lands under our earth, with
another sun, another moon, and inhabitants for whom Christ did
not die, and he was excommunicated. He went to Rome, where he was
permitted to explain his theory; the pope withdrew his anathema
and elevated him to the episcopacy. [Footnote 225] Finally, the
drama, into which was infused a new and original character.
Whilst the monk Virgilius taught the true form of the earth, the
nun Roswitha composed her tragedies, the first specimens of the
Christian drama, at once full of the reminiscences of antiquity
and the spirit of the gospel.
[Footnote 225: Quatrefages, _Peuplement de l'Amérique_,
which proves:
1. The geographical knowledge of the times.
2. The perpetuity of tradition.
3. The intercourse of different nations.
4. The tolerance of the church.
Bouillet, in his _Dictionnaire universelle d'Histoire
et de Géographie_, is deceived on this point.]
You will see by all this activity, this animation, and these
names, "that the tenth century has been unjustly accused of
barbarism" (Magnin)--that age in which there was such a taste
for classical studies that "many Christians," says Roswitha,
"preferred the vanity of pagan books to the utility of the Holy
Scriptures, on account of the elegance of their style," and that,
far from meriting the appellation of the Iron Age, it should
rather be called "a great centre of light." [Footnote 226]
[Footnote 226: Dom Pitra, _Rapport sur une Mission
scientifique._ To all these works add the memoir of
Ozanam, _Des Ecoles et de l'Instruction publique en Italie
au Temps barbares_, in which he clearly demonstrates that
letters never ceased to be cultivated.]
{606}
When we look down from the lofty elevation of the nineteenth
century, which is called the age of progress, into this deep gulf
of the middle ages--the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries--we
are not astonished at its darkness, but by the brilliant rays
that issue from it. It is not an abyss. At the first glance there
seem to be only a few points of light; but the eye is soon
attracted by a multitude of peaks everywhere rising up with
brilliant summits and resplendent glaciers sparkling with radiant
light. We are astonished and give ourselves up to admiration, in
the words of the poet who, perceiving the Alps afar off, thinks
that
"Ces monts glacés
Ne sont qu'affreux déserts, rochers, torrents, abîmes,"
but who, when he reaches them,
"Y trouve, ravi,
De l'ombre, des rayons, des solitudes vertes,
Des vergers pleins de dons, des chaumières ouvertes
A l'hospitalité. ...
Des coteaux aux flancs d'or, de limpides vallées,
Et des lacs étoilés des feux du firmament" [Footnote 227]
--finds the hospitality of the church, the solitude of
monasteries, and the firmament of Christianity!
[Footnote 227: Lamartine.]
III.
Intercourse Of Nations.
Doubt is still displayed. There are other objections. Noblemen
did not know how to read, women lived in ignorance; how could
knowledge be diffused when people within fortified walls and the
narrow limits of their territories could with so much difficulty
hold communication with each other?
There is a false idea of the middle ages. It is imagined that
men, so independent and so wilful, remained stationary and shut
up in their fortresses without endeavoring to see and know each
other. It is precisely the contrary. There was a constant and
ardent desire for intercourse which caused nations to mingle and
exchange languages, ideas, and customs. What was the consequence
of the incessant wars, if not to lead men of the North to the
South, those of the East to the West, the people of Normandy to
Naples and to England, the Britons of Armorica into Great
Britain, and _vice versa_, (from the fifth to the eleventh
century;) [Footnote 228] the Burgundians into Lusitania, where
they founded the kingdom of Portugal, (Henry of Burgundy, in the
eleventh century, accompanied by knights and troubadours)? And
then the varied and extensive commerce of the great cities of
France and of the rich and industrious Flemish cities, whose
ports, filled with vessels from every land, resounded, as we are
told by the chroniclers, with the sounds of all languages? And
the celebrated fairs, Beaucaire, Novgorod, and the Landit, (at
St. Denis,) rallying-points for the merchants of Europe, Egypt,
Asia, and the islands of the Levant--and which were the universal
expositions of the productions of the middle ages? The bold
enterprises of the Italian republics, powerful through commerce,
which owned vessels enough to transport the entire army of the
crusaders, and which owned a part of the East--the Genoese, the
faubourgs of Constantinople; the Pisans, several ports in Syria;
the Venetians, the Morea and Crete, the Archipelago; which
trafficked not only with the rest of Europe, but with the coast
of Barbary, Tunis, and Morocco, [Footnote 229] in fact, with the
interior of Asia, into which its adventurous citizens penetrated,
(as in the case of Marco Polo and several others,) and with the
extreme East, which the nineteenth century has only just
discovered, if we may dare say so, and allied with the rest of
the world. [Footnote 230]
[Footnote 228: La Villemarqué, _Discours au Congrès celtigue
de Saint-Brieuc_, 1867.]
[Footnote 229: Malastrie, _Missions scientifiques_.]
[Footnote 230: The Venetian Sanuto penetrated as far as
Cambodia; a goldsmith of Paris settled in China; merchants from
Breslau and Poland met Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian merchants
in the interior of Tartary, etc. See Le Bas, _Précis de
l'Histoire du Moyen Age_.]
{607}
The love of knowledge also drew nations together. Learned men did
not hesitate to undertake long journeys, to cross the Alps, the
Pyrenees, and the sea, that they might pursue their studies in
Italy, (as Fortunatus at Ravenna in the sixth century,) obtain
books on medicine, (Richer in the eleventh century,) [Footnote
231] meet English students in Spain, (Peter the Venerable in the
twelfth century,) hold converse with some doctor at Bologna, or
some monk in a monastery of the Apennines. How could there be no
intercourse between the universities of Salamanca, of Pavia, of
Oxford, and of Paris, when the same questions were discussed at
them all; when the metaphysical heresies which sprang from one
were refuted in another five hundred leagues distant; [Footnote
232] when the masters and pupils of Germany, England, Spain,
France, and Italy flocked to these schools; from France to Padua,
from England to Valencia, and from all countries to Paris, where,
almost at the same time, disputations were carried on by
Englishmen, Italians, Irishmen, and Germans, who were to be known
as Dante, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, Brunetto Latini, Albertus
Magnus, Alexander of Hales, and St. Thomas Aquinas?
[Footnote 231: Daremberg, _ibid_.]
[Footnote 232: And there were such close relations between
the factions in France and those of England, that, in the
fourteenth century, the revolutionary movements in Paris
coincided with those in London. See Naudet, _Conjuration d
Etienne Marcel_.]
It has been said that for literature to flourish, a nation must
be invigorated by powerful and varied deeds: [Footnote 233] at
what epoch was there a more stirring and varied life than in the
middle ages?
[Footnote 233: Madame de Staël.]
Follow the continued journeys of the poet-historian Froissart to
and fro in every direction, in France and without, now at the
foot of the Pyrenees at the Chateau de Foix, and now in Italy,
where, at Milan, he meets another poet, Chaucer of England, who
had come to visit Genoa, Padua, etc. From Brittany he goes to
Flanders, and even to Zealand, where he forms a friendship with a
Portuguese lord. He thinks nothing of crossing the water; he goes
to England repeatedly, dwells there, and penetrates even to
Scotland, then "an unknown land." He traverses France from one
end to the other; is in Spain to-day and to-morrow in Germany.
Would you not think you were reading the life of a modern
individual? He is called a chronicler: a chronicler indeed, and
after the manner of the men of our own time; like them,
chronicler and tourist, traversing earth and sea to participate
in festivities, witness battles, and mingle in courts. [Footnote
234]
[Footnote 234: But with this difference: he did not travel in
a cushioned car going at the rate of forty miles an hour, but
on horseback, at a good round trot, with spurs on his heels
and his luggage behind.]
Yes, kings, conquerors, and those in pursuit of adventures took
long journeys with their armed followers, their vehicles,
machines, and engines of war; princes, nobles, and warriors
traversed Europe, escorted by brilliant cavalcades, upon their
steeds and palfreys; merchants landed on foreign shores, the
winds swelling the sails of their vessels; even learned men
crossed the water and the mountains to add to their knowledge;
conquerors to found empires, princes to strengthen their power by
alliances, and merchants to gain wealth. But there were men who
surpassed all these who were borne by chariots, vessels, and
noble horses--the pilgrims who went on foot.
{608}
Crowds, in constant succession, of men, women, and children, from
all countries, undertook these pilgrimages to hundreds of holy
places in Flanders, Spain, Rome, (where, says Villani, the
jubilee of 1300 led more than two hundred thousand pilgrims,)
and, above all, to the Holy Land, which led to the wonderful
outpouring of all Europe into Asia and Africa for three
centuries--the crusades, during which the West was brought into
contact with Egypt, and through Egypt with India; through
Constantinople, where the Latins founded an empire that lasted
more than fifty years, with the Greeks, and through them with the
_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of pagan and Christian antiquity, and from
whom they obtained books, manuscripts, agricultural implements,
and a knowledge of industrial pursuits literature, and the arts.
[Footnote 235]
[Footnote 235: They brought back, among other books,
Aristotle's works on metaphysics, and cane, millet,
camel's-hair stuffs, etc.]
And the monks, what long journeys they made in the world! Carried
away by zeal for religion, they dispersed in every direction to
preach the gospel; some to Prussia, Poland, and the extremities
of Europe--to Norway; others from Greece, Egypt, and Syria to
Ireland; others still (in the time of St. Louis) into Tartary,
and even into China, where they found traces of Christianity left
there by other monks who had preceded them. They went still
farther beyond Ireland and Norway into Iceland, and from Iceland
(St. Brandan in the eighth century) into an unknown land, peopled
by strange men, clad with the skins of marine animals, where they
built monasteries and churches, whence they penetrated still
farther into the interior, even as far as Mexico perhaps, leaving
behind them an ineffaceable remembrance, thus being the first to
discover [Footnote 236] and inhabit the country to which they did
not give its present name, but which was really the southern
extremity of the New World which, four centuries after, Columbus
discovered, and which is called America.
[Footnote 236: "When, in the eleventh century, the
Scandinavians landed in Greenland, the Esquimaux told them
that at the south there were white men clad in long black
robes, who walked chanting and carrying banners before them;
they were the monks who, in the eighth century, had set sail
for Iceland, and had been thrown by the wind on the American
coast." (Ozanam, _Le Christianisme chez les Barbares_.)
Dom Pitra (_Histoire de St. Léger_) mentions a book of
the sixteenth century on the voyages of the Benedictines into
America--doubtless these monks lost among the savages, who
left those signs of Christianity, crosses, a kind of baptism,
etc., which were afterward found, and which otherwise would
be inexplicable.]
It was neither thirst for riches, nor love of conquest, nor
longing for power, nor even enthusiasm for knowledge, that
induced them to undertake these extensive, dangerous, and
fruitful enterprises; they were inspired by a more sublime
sentiment--the love of God and of souls--the desire of devoting
themselves to God, and of leading to him new followers out of
strange nations.
IV.
Woman
There is no mark more distinctive of the character of individuals
or nations than the treatment of woman. Christianity emancipated
woman; it brought her forth from the obscurity to which she had
been banished, and taking her by the hand, introduced her into
the social world, and gave her a place beside man, that she might
receive the spiritual aliment which would develop her mind, as
well as elevate her soul. Taught by the example of Christ, the
most eloquent and learned of the fathers--those philosophers of
no sect--Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzen, Augustine, Paulinus, and
Basil, address numerous letters to women--to women, so disdained
by paganism that not a single letter to a woman is to be found in
all the correspondence of Cicero. [Footnote 237]
[Footnote 237: And of Pliny. If Seneca composed two
treatises, _De Consolatione_, for Marcia and Helvia it
was because his ideas were modified by contact with
Christianity. And I see herein a proof, which has not been
sufficiently noticed, of his knowledge of the Christian
doctrine or of his acquaintance with St. Paul.]
{609}
But it may be said that these women who showed themselves worthy
of holding converse with such great men read and wrote Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew, and belonged to the highest Roman society.
There are no women who are not noble. The church opened schools
for women where they received the same instructions as men.
[Footnote 238]
[Footnote 238: Dom Pitra, _Histoire de St. Léger_, vi.]
There is, from the time of the illustrious patrician ladies who
followed St. Jerome into the desert, St. Paula, St. Eustochium,
etc., [Footnote 239:] an uninterrupted list of nuns, of abbesses,
whom the church reveres as saints, and who might be claimed by
the literary world on account of their attainments. For example,
St. Radegonde, (in the sixth century,) who introduced into the
monastery of St. Croix, at Poitiers, the rule of St. Caesarius,
which obliged all the nuns to the study of letters, that is to
say, Latin, the fathers, canonical law, history, cosmography,
etc., to devote two hours a day to reading besides that which
they listened to during labor and their meals, and to the
transcribing of books, etc. etc.; Lioba, at Bischofsheim, in
Germany, the mistress of a school in a barbarous country who only
left her books to pray; [Footnote 240]
[Footnote 239: And Marcella, Blezilla, Paulina. Fabiola, (of
the family of Fabii,) Furia, (of the family of Camillus,
Melania, Marcellina, etc.)]
[Footnote 240: See Dom Pitra, _ib_. He mentions St.
Aldegondes, St. Anstrude, etc. The monastery of Lioba, he
says, was like a normal school with respect to the other
schools springing up in Germany.]
St. Bertille, at Chelles; St. Gertrude, in Belgium, (seventh
century,) who sent to Ireland and to Italy for books; and those
poor women who studied theology under St. Boniface, (eighth
century;) and Roswitha, whose dramatic works display not only the
inventive imagination of the poet, but a learning rare among
women of any age, shown by her quotations from the ancient poets,
the historical facts she mentions, her knowledge of foreign
languages, etc. [Footnote 241] A Gerbert and a Roswitha are
sufficient to redeem a whole century from the charge of ignorance
and barbarism; and if nuns in the heart of Germany made such
attainments in literature, what must have been the women of the
age of Charlemagne, of St. Bernard, and of St. Louis? Then the
daughters and nieces of the emperor took lessons of Alcuin: a
queen sang the sweet serenity of the cloister in graceful Latin
verse; [Footnote 242] a young girl of Paris had for her teacher
one of the most celebrated professors of her time; [Footnote 243]
and then was drawn up a course of studies in which were
prescribed, such as these: [Footnote 244]
[Footnote 241: Spanish particularly, proved by the
_Hispanismes_ in her style, pointed out by her learned
editor, Magnin.]
[Footnote 242: Richarde, wife of Charles le Gros.]
[Footnote 243: Heloïse, and doubtless she was not the only
one among the bourgeoisie of Paris. Recall also the learned
nun mentioned in the beginning of Du Guesclin's life, who, in
predicting his success, removed, as it were, the obstacles to
his glorious career.]
[Footnote 244: Boutaric, _Vie et OEuvres de Pierre du
Bois_, in the memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions,
1864.]
"Children of both sexes, from five to twelve years of age:
_reading_, (in the Psalter,) _singing, grammar, moral
distichs_, (of Cato,) and, a little later, Latin, which they
will learn to speak. Young girls: _natural history, surgery,
medicine, logic, Latin, and the oriental languages_"--a plan
drawn up in the dark and ignorant middle ages, which could not be
easily pursued even in this age, distinguished and enlightened by
the romances of so many women of genius!
{610}
We need not wait till the time of Clemence Isaure (fourteenth
century) to find a woman whom Christianity had imbued with taste
and a delicate poetical nature. History, chronicles, and ballads
have opened to us the chateaux where, whilst the mail-clad baron
and his armed followers fought without, his wife, seated in some
deep embrasure, would cast a glance from time to time through the
narrow window upon the varied landscape, and then resume, in the
large, open volume before her, the fabulous and heroic exploits
of knights and brave men among the paynim and giants; where, at
nightfall, in the midst of her servants and followers, she
listened smilingly and thoughtfully to some wandering troubadour
singing of war, of love, and of tournaments, and relating his
adventures--a charming picture which allies the romantic
chatelaine--passing by the elegant and trifling ladies of the
court of the Restoration--with the strong-minded women of the
seventeenth century, so captivating and so learned, who read
philosophical treatises, spoke several languages, studied the
doctors and fathers of the church, and who are considered by the
world as models of wit, taste, elegance, and grace: Longueville,
Montausier, Lafayette, Rambouillet, Jacqueline Pascal, Maintenon,
and Sévigné!
V.
The Nobility.
But it is necessary to make a painful avowal. In the midst of the
general diffusion of knowledge in monasteries, schools,
universities, towns, boroughs, and villages, and even among the
poor and lowly, there is one class of society which remained
during all the middle ages in shameful ignorance--the nobility.
The kings, however, who issued from its ranks, and who in all
ages prided themselves on the name of gentleman, were an
exception. The sons of Clovis were the first pupils of the school
established in his palace and directed by his chaplain. This
example was perpetuated. The princes of the Merovingian dynasty
pursued their studies in the monasteries, and literary habits
became so congenial to them that, in some instances, they were
carried to excess and became a kind of mania, as in the case of
the prince called the _Clerc couronné_. (Chilperic.) As to
Charlemagne, who spoke the Latin language, understood Greek, made
astronomical calculations, brought professors from Italy, (Peter
of Pisa and Paul the Hellenist deacon,) and founded the first
academy and the first university, it is useless to insist on him,
for he is universally acknowledged to be at once a hero, a
learned man, and a saint. Nor are the literary tastes of the most
eminent sovereigns denied, as Alfred the Great, the translator of
AEsop and commentator of Bede; Charles le Chauve, who had
Aristotle and Plato explained to him by masters from
Constantinople; Alfonso the Wise, astronomer, legislator, and
historian; Robert the Pious; Otto II., who appointed Gerbert, the
wisest man of the age, tutor to his son; Frederick II., who spoke
German, French, Arabic, Latin, and Greek; and Philip Augustus,
the patron of literature and the arts, "who, for that age, was as
magnificent as Louis XIV." [Footnote 245]
[Footnote 245: Villemain, _ibid_.]
{611}
And later than the twelfth century, is it astonishing that St.
Louis admitted St. Thomas of Aquin to his table, where, in his
presence, were discussed the highest questions of philosophy?
That the rule of study drawn up for John, son of Philip of
Valois, included Latin and several languages? [Footnote 246] That
Charles V. collected at the Louvre a library of considerable
size, and that his brothers, the dukes of Burgundy and Berri,
carried away by love for the arts, ordered miniatures, which are
admirable paintings, from the celebrated painters, Memling, Van
Eyck, and Jean Fouquet? But we are approaching the time of the
Restoration, and consequently all these facts prove nothing.
[Footnote 246: In a memoir addressed to the queen in 1334 and
composed of one hundred and six articles, the unknown author
gives the king's daily rule of life as follows: "Rise at six
all the year round--Mass at seven--business till ten--supper
at six--to bed at ten--to have his son taught several
languages, even Latin, to fit him to travel."]
But were these enlightened, well-informed, and even learned
monarchs satisfied with their own attainments, and did they live
in their courts among brutal, ignorant, and coarse warriors who
could only talk of combats and gallantry? No; it is well known
that their principal vassals, the minor sovereigns, especially
those of Southern France, where the learning of Rome was
diffused, were not wholly unlettered. In the ninth century, there
was the son of a Count (Maguelonne) St. Benedict of Amiane, who
was at the head of all the monasteries in France, and who
compared, modified, and wrote commentaries on the rules of the
various religious orders--Greek as well as Latin; Foulques, Count
of Anjou, in the tenth century--yes, in the tenth century, that
darkest period of the middle ages--understood Aristotle and
Cicero, as has been proved, and in the following century, when
the leaders of the crusades assembled at Jerusalem to draw up a
code of laws--a civil and political code--charter of
citizenship, etc., they evidently understood not only the general
customs, but Roman law; and several of them (Iselin, etc.) were
no less proficients in the law than valiant knights; [Footnote
247] finally, if the muse of France would trace its ancestry back
to former times, it would find two princes, William of Poitiers
and Thibaut of Champagne. It is right, then, to leave out the
testimony of sovereigns.
[Footnote 247: Robertson, in his introduction to the
_History of Charles V._, is mistaken when he says the
middle ages were ignorant of Roman law until the twelfth
century. Roman law was not revived by the discovery of a copy
of the Pandects at Amalfi: it was always known and practised:
it was cited at the tribunals, and generally known during all
the middle ages, as demonstrated by Savigny, _Histoire du
Droit romain au Moyen Age._ See also Fauriel, _Histoire
des Populations méridionales_.]
History also certifies a very singular fact: the leaders, the
_leudes_, under the Merovingians, sent their children to the
school at the palace "to be initiated in palatial learning."
There they underwent examinations, studied the fathers, history,
law, religious dogmas, received degrees, etc. This fact is thus
explained: these young men were hostages that the king kept at
court to insure the fealty of their fathers, no doubt; and the
consequence of this truly barbarous idea was to convert a prison
into a school and an academy! There was another custom almost as
singular: these young men are represented as travelling, even in
the earliest ages, in the various countries of Europe--France,
Spain, and Italy--and in the East. Yes, notwithstanding the
insecurity of the routes, it was the fashion in the seventh
century to send young Englishmen to France to be reared, and even
in many cases across the Alps to Rome, Padua, etc. Some went to
complete their education in Greece, and, after the establishment
of the Latin Empire, at Constantinople. These young men
apparently belonged to wealthy and noble families.
{612}
And we would recall the fact that in the schools directed by
Clement, a Scotchman, Charlemagne assembled--strange idea!--"a
great number of children of all classes from the highest to the
lowest rank;" [Footnote 248] that among the pupils of Lanfranc,
at the abbey of Bec, were a great number of the children of lords
and barons, and, among others, William, Duke of Normandy, and
that son of an Italian nobleman who, later, was known as Pope
Alexander II. It would appear that these young men did not allow
the faculties they had developed to remain unproductive and
useless, from the fact that the earliest poets were princes and
nobles. But then, poetry is the offspring of the imagination and
of genius, and the French race, particularly in the South, are so
richly gifted therewith!
[Footnote 248: The monk of St. Gall, mentioned by Phil. le
Bas, _ibid_.]
What is more surprising, the first French historians were two
lords: Villehardoin in the twelfth century, and Joinville in the
thirteenth--historians not without culture. There are in their
language elegance, distinction, and Attic wit. They mention,
_en passant_, and without affectation, names and facts that
attest varied knowledge, and their style is so perfect that
competent writers have concluded that the nobility moulded the
French language to history and poetry--the ideal and the
practical! [Footnote 249] It is probably to these studious habits
and this inclination for intellectual pursuits, perpetuated for
ages like a tradition, is due the delicate and correct taste
peculiar to the French nobility of the last two centuries, and
the noble ambition of the great lords who have not been satisfied
with protecting the arts, but have deemed it an honor to have
their historical names inscribed on the list of the academies,
have striven to acquire a knowledge of letters, to excel in it,
and to add to the lustre of their descent brilliancy of talent
and the glory reserved for intellectual labors.
[Footnote 249: Villemain, _ibid_., Léop. Delisle, A. de
la Borderie, Marchegay. See also Audé, Mémoires de la Société
d'Emulation de la Vendée, and the works already mentioned of
Boutaric, Littré, Pierre Clémnent, etc.]
Finally--for we must collect testimony for the acquittal of the
accused--since the judgment has been so severe, the most
conscientious and erudite men of modern times, having traversed
the middle ages and returned laden with documents, declare that,
among the numberless titles that passed through their hands, they
never met this formula, so often mentioned: this one, being a
nobleman, attests his inability to sign his name.
Yet in spite of these proofs, these attestations, and the
authority of the witnesses, there is one fact beyond doubt,
_the absolute ignorance of the nobility of the middle ages_,
and we are forced, to our great regret, to conclude that this
opinion must be accepted as a historical fact of the same class,
and as clearly proved, as the so well authenticated facts of
Sixtus V. throwing away his crutches as soon as he was elected
Pope, Gilles de Raiz slaughtering his wives like Bluebeard,
Charles V. participating in his own funeral rites at St. Just,
Marie de Medicis dying of hunger in a garret at Cologne, and
Galileo imprisoned in a dungeon of the Inquisition!
{613}
VI.
Character Of The Knowledge Of The Middle Ages.
The language of a people is One of the Signs that mark its
progress Or decay. If the genius of a language is fully
developed, the nation is in its apogee; if it is not developed,
or if it is losing its purity, the nation is progressing or
declining. This is a truth remarked by one of the most active
minds of the last century. "In the thirteenth century," says
Rivarol, "the French language had more nearly attained a certain
perfection than in the sixteenth." [Footnote 250] He is
astonished: he finds the fact "very extraordinary," but he does
not explain it. The explanation is easy. The French language was
much nearer perfection in the thirteenth than in the sixteenth
century, because society was more firmly established. The
sixteenth century was an age of transition, the dawn of a great
era--an avenue leading to a large city which we pass through, but
in which we do not linger. The men of that time, without being
aware of it, were preparing for the future. They collected
materials for building from the remains of antiquity and the
attempts of foreigners; they imitated and did not invent.
Consequently their language was obscure and loaded with foreign
idioms and antiquated expressions; it was neither bold, nor
expressive, nor clear; it was ornamented, rich, and redundant; it
was overladen like a tree not pruned; the fruit was hidden by an
excess of foliage. A great wind--the agitation of civil war--
shook off this exuberant foliage and the fruit appeared; the sun
of the seventeenth century warmed and colored it with its rays;
then it ripened, and the French language attained its definite
form and became immortal.
[Footnote 250: In his _Discours sur l'Universalité de la
Langue Française_, always to the point, and often
profound, a writer of our time goes still further: "The
language was fully developed and equal to our own," says M.
Villemain, _Histoire de la Litérature du Moyen Age_,
lesson x.]
The language of the thirteenth century was as complete and
perfect as it could be. At that period were laid the foundations
of Christian science. [Footnote 251] Doubtless, each age adding
to the knowledge of mankind, that science was not as extended as
now, but it had the essential qualities of true science: it was
analytical; it constantly applied this axiom, which is the
condition of progress: _Multùm, non multa_. Everything
corresponds: the science of the Egyptians was on a level with
their arts; their philosophy was as complex as their religion was
mysterious. It was the same in the middle ages. They possessed
the true religion, had right views of philosophy, attained to
eminence in the arts, and made accurate scientific observations.
And late researches have shown that they greatly extended the
knowledge they inherited from antiquity. [Footnote 252] Their
alchemists and physicians were not charlatans. The general
principles of Albertus Magnus and the Jewish and Arabian
physicians of Spain and Asia harmonize with those of modern
science. They were ignorant of certain phenomena, as a certain
skill was wanting to the artists of the time; but this ignorance
can no more be raised as an objection than against the learned
men of our time for not knowing the scientific discoveries of a
thousand years hence. It is not extent of knowledge that stamps
an epoch as great, but the use it makes of it, and the logical
conclusions it draws from its principles.
[Footnote 251: _La Raison Catholique et la Raison
philosophe_, ii., by Ventura.]
[Footnote 252: Littré, _ibid_.]
{614}
The science of the middle ages was eminently logical, for it had
its source in a mountain whose summit rises to heaven--in
theology--whence it flows in streams upon all minds. Theology,
it has been said, [Footnote 253] is only the expression of an
idea: it is much more, it is the sublime end of thought--the
first of all sciences, the science _par excellence_--the
science of God. The sceptre of science belongs to Europe only
because it had its source in theology, [Footnote 254] which
occupied every mind in the middle ages--the greatest as well as
the narrowest minds--"which, dwelling on great things, became
great." It prompted them to other attainments. To climb to the
heights of knowledge, they had to lay hold of the asperities of
the mountain and of all the branches of science one after
another; of jurisprudence, civil law--the branch nearest the
surface of the earth; then of the physical sciences; afterward of
geometry, algebra, astronomy, and the still higher branches,
canon law and philosophy! [Footnote 255]
[Footnote 253: Villemain, _Histoire de la Littérature da
Moyen Age_, lesson xviii. He evidently does not comprehend
the influence of theology, for he adds, "As in another age
the public mind is expressed by politics, the theology of one
epoch is the philosophy of another."]
[Footnote 254: J. de Maistre.]
[Footnote 255: The Oxford students and those of other
universities studied at the same time civil and canon law.]
And above all, and mingled with all, literature; for letters are
the expression of the mind itself--the universal mind--whilst
"the sciences require only a partial application of it."
[Footnote 256] In the literature of a people are embodied its
ideas, manners, arts, industrial pursuits, worship, and its whole
life. By it man traverses countries and ages, imbibes their
spirit, and strengthens his mind more than by any other study.
Thence the incessant study of ancient literature, which, in the
thirteenth century, was more generally diffused than ever. Latin,
the language of tradition and of the church, the original
language of the present dominant nations of France, Italy, Spain,
and even England, (Latin was spoken in England until the
fourteenth century, and a great number of words in the English
language is derived from the Latin,) was understood by all
classes; discussions in Latin were carried on in universities,
and grammar and Latin were taught in the village schools.
[Footnote 257] They were constantly making researches; Villani at
Rome read Lucan, Virgil, Valerius Maximus; the scholars of
Cambridge wrote commentaries on Cicero. In France, Sallust and
Titus Livius were translated, soon followed by Caesar, Ovid, and
Suetonius, (under Charles V.) Greek became more universally known
after the taking of Constantinople by the crusaders; Aristotle
was translated into Latin by Michael Scott, and bishops in Italy
wrote homilies in the language of Chrysostom. [Footnote 258]
Theologians, philosophers, and poets were nourished by the
valuable and concise remains of antiquity; Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, as well as the Franciscan lyrics and the _Romance of
the Rose_. All the works of that time are full of ancient
reminiscences.
[Footnote 256: Expression of Napoleon I.]
[Footnote 257: Léop. Delisle, _Les Classes agricoles en
Normandie au treizième siècle_.]
[Footnote 258: Manuscripts seen by M. Renan, in the Vatican.
_Missions scientifiques_.]
{615}
Nevertheless, they did not neglect other languages. In the great
intercourse of nations there was an exchange of idioms. How much
is proved respecting that intercourse and the knowledge of
languages, by the single fact that the Archbishop of Toledo, at
the Council of Lateran in 1215, delivered a discourse in Latin,
and then repeated it for the laity in Spanish, French, and
German. But they did not restrict themselves to the European
languages. Why should not the learned men who went to seek
knowledge from the Jews and the Moors, and studied Aristotle as
often from the Arabian commentators as from the original works,
endeavor to acquire the language of those they so often came in
contact with? and the adventurers who crossed the deserts into
the heart of Asia; and the Italian republics that traded with
Africa; the ambassadors that kings sent to the Khan of Tartary;
the merchants who daily saw, landing in their ports and mingling
in their fairs, the turbans, pelisses, and caftans of merchants
from Cairo, Aleppo, Bagdad, Novgorod, and Sarmacand? Besides, the
oriental languages had never been neglected. In the sixth
century, King Gontran, at his entrance into Orleans, was
addressed in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. [Footnote
259] In the crowded schools of the eighth century were studied
all languages, even the oriental, says Dom Pitra. From the tenth
century the pilgrimages to the Holy Land and the crusades made
the language of the Saracens (Arabic) familiar to a great number.
But there was a still stronger reason which led to the
acquisition of the Eastern languages--the conversion of the
infidels.
[Footnote 259: See Gregory of Tours.]
The course of study already mentioned was inspired by a great
idea--Christian in its nature--the conquest of the East by the
infusion of Christianity; regeneration by civilization, to use
the modern expression. The noble mind that conceived it wished to
continue the work of the crusades by diffusing the doctrines,
opinions, and arts of Christendom: after arms, the sciences.
France, in its enthusiasm for proselyting, wished to send on a
mission of priests, artisans, physicians, women, entire families,
in fact, a whole colony. These people would establish themselves
in the Holy Land, colonize it, found a Christian race, and from
that sacred spot--from Mount Zion--diverge on every side, into
Africa as well as Asia, into Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and
Arabia; mingle among the people enveloped in darkness, (the term
is just in this case,) influence them by their actions, morals,
intelligence and good deeds, and accomplish in that age--the
thirteenth century--the providential work that Europe, without
entirely knowing what it is effecting, is realizing in our
day--the transformation of the rest of the world, the union of
savage, barbarous, and brutal people into a universal nation who
will be guided by the spirit of the gospel. [Footnote 260]
[Footnote 260: Abel de Rémusat, _Mémoire sur les Relations
des Princes Chrétiens avec les Empereurs Moguls_, quoted
by M. Guizot, _Histoire de la Civilization en Europe_.]