of some of them will serve to show how explicit was Albert in his
consideration of various chemical subjects. He has treatises
concerning Metals and Minerals; concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the
Secret of Chemistry; A Concordance, that is a Collection of
observations from many sources with regard to the Philosopher's Stone;
A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A Treatise on Compounds;
most of these are to be found in his works under the general heading
"Theatrum Chemicum."
It is not surprising for those who know of Albert's work, to find that
his pupil Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately
and showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of
investigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of
chemistry he speaks in his "Opus Tertium" in the following words:
"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from
their elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and
liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and
other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other
colors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in
the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of
the Latins acquainted with these things."
In physics Albertus Magnus was, if possible, more advanced {47} and
progressive even than in chemistry. His knowledge in the physical
sciences was not merely speculative, but partook to a great degree of
the nature of what we now call applied science. Humboldt, the
distinguished German natural philosopher of the beginning of the
Nineteenth Century, who was undoubtedly the most important leader in
scientific thought in his time and whose own work was great enough to
have an enduring influence in spite of the immense progress of the
Nineteenth Century, has summed up Albert's work and given the headings
under which his scientific research must be considered. He says:
"Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential in promoting the
study of natural science and of the Aristotelian philosophy. His
works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic
structure and physiology of plants. One of his works bearing the
title of 'Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum,' is a species of
physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the
dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation,
and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays
in heating the ground, _which have excited my surprise_."
To take up some of Humboldt's headings in their order and illustrate
them by quotations from Albert himself and from condensed accounts as
they appear in his biographer Sighart and in Christian Schools and
Scholars [Footnote 6], will serve to show at once the extent of
Albert's knowledge and the presumptuous ignorance of those who make
little of the science of the medieval period. When we have catalogued,
for instance, the many facts with regard to astronomy and the physics
of light that are supposed to have come to human ken much later, yet
may be seen to have been clearly within the range of Albert's
knowledge, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching at various
times at both Paris and Cologne, for they are found in his authentic
works, we can scarcely help but be amused at the pretentious
misconception that has relegated their author to a place in education
so trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by the term
scholastic.
[Footnote 6: Christian Schools and Scholars. Drane.]
"He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast {48} assemblage
of stars, but supposes naturally enough that they occupy the orbit
which receives the light of the sun. The figures visible on the
moon's disc are not, he says, as hitherto has been supposed,
reflections of the seas and mountains of the earth, but
configurations of her own surface. He notices, in order to correct
it, the assertion of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only twice
in fifty years; 'I myself,' he says have observed two in a single
year.' He has something to say on the refraction of a solar ray,
notices certain crystals which have a power of refraction, and
remarks that none of the ancients and few moderns were acquainted
with the properties of mirrors."
Albert's great pupil Roger Bacon is rightly looked upon as the true
father of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately
taken from him to confer it undeservedly on his namesake of four
centuries later, but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to
develop the principles of experimental science can be found in many
places in his master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he
catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these
matters experience alone can give certainty" (_experimentum solum
certificat in talibus_). "Such an expression," says his biographer,
"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in
itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval
friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural
philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto
tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of
Aristotle."
Botany is supposed to be a very modern science and to most people
Humboldt's expression that he found in Albertus Magnus's writings some
"exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of
plants" will come as a supreme surprise. A few details with regard to
Albert's botanical knowledge, however, will serve to heighten that
surprise and to show, that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists,
{49} who have often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties
of nature around them, these scholars of the Middle Ages did not
devote themselves to nature study, are absurd, because if the critics
but knew it there was profound interest in nature and all her
manifestations and a series of discoveries that anticipated not a
little of what we consider most important in our modern science. The
story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a single very
full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also quotes an appreciative
opinion from a modern German botanist which will serve to dispel any
doubts with regard to Albert's position in botany that modern students
might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good authority to
support their opinion, though of course it will be remembered that the
main difference between the medieval and the modern mind is only too
often said to be, that the medieval required an authority while the
modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the most skeptical of modern
minds however, will probably be satisfied by the following paragraph.
"He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical
opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap through
evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence
of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial
indentations. His minute observations on the forms and variety of
plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He
distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us that a red
rose will turn white when submitted to the vapor of sulphur and
makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of
germination. . . . The extraordinary erudition and originality of this
treatise (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the following
comment: 'No Botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to
him, unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after
him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so
profoundly until the time of Conrad Gesner and Cesalpino.' All
honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the
science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but
even to equal him for the space of three centuries."
{50}
We point out in the chapter on Geography and Exploration how much this
wonderful Thirteenth Century added to the knowledge of geographical
science. Even before the great explorers of this time, however, had
accomplished their work, this particular branch of science had made
such great progress as would bring it quite within the domain of what
we call the science of geography at the present time. When we remember
how much has been said about the ignorance of the men of the later
Middle Ages as regards the shape of the earth and its inhabitants, and
how many foolish notions they are supposed to have accepted with
regard to the limitation of possible residents of the world and the
queer ideas as to the antipodes, the following passages taken from
Albert's biographer will serve better than anything else to show how
absurdly the traditional notions with regard to this time and its
knowledge, have been permitted by educators to tinge what are supposed
to be serious opinions with regard to the subject matters of education
in that early university period:
"He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which Bede had
acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of the equator was
uninhabitable, and considers, that from the equator to the South
Pole, the earth was not only habitable, but in all probability
actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where he imagines
the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there, he says,
they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigor of the
climate, and they are probably of a white color. The intensity of
cold, is however, tempered by the action of the sea. He describes
the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and divides the
climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a scholar's
freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that persons living
at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an opinion that
can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, 'for when we speak of
the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as relatively
to ourselves.' It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to
the writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the
astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is
truly admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain
chains of Europe, with the rivers which take {51} their source in
each; remarking on portions of coast which have in later times been
submerged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised by
volcanic action above the level of the sea; noticing the
modification of climate caused by mountains, seas and forests, and
the division of the human race whose differences he ascribes to the
effect upon them of the countries they inhabit! In speaking of the
British Isles he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another
distant island called Tile or Thule, existed far in the Western
Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate, but which,
he says, has perhaps not yet been visited by man."
Nothing will so seriously disturb the complacency of modern minds as
to the wonderful advances that have been made in the last century in
all branches of physical science as to read Albertus Magnus' writings.
Nothing can be more wholesomely chastening of present day conceit than
to get a proper appreciation of the extent of the knowledge of the
Schoolmen.
Albertus Magnus' other great pupil besides Roger Bacon was St. Thomas
Aquinas. If any suspicion were still left that Thomas did not
appreciate just what the significance of his teachings in physics was,
when he announced that neither matter nor force could ever be reduced
to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the consideration that
he had been for many years in intimate relations with Albert and that
he had probably also been close to Roger Bacon. After association with
such men as these, any knowledge he displays with regard to physical
science can scarcely be presumed to have been stumbled upon unawares.
St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on chemical subjects and
it is said that the first occurrence of the word amalgam can be traced
to one of these treatises. Everybody was as much interested then, as
we are at the present time, in the transformation of metals and
mercury with its silvery sheen, its facility to enter into metallic
combinations of all kinds, and its elusive ways, naturally made it the
center of scientific interest quite as radium is at the present
moment. Further material with regard to St. Thomas and also to the
subject of education will be found in the chapter, Aquinas the
Scholar.
After this brief review of only a few of the things that they taught
in science at the Thirteenth Century universities, most {52} people
will scarcely fail to wonder how such peculiar erroneous impressions
with regard to the uselessness of university teaching and training
have come to be so generally accepted. The fault lies, of course, with
those who thought they knew something about university teaching, and
who, because they found a few things that now look ridiculous, as
certain supposed facts of one generation always will to succeeding
generations who know more about them, thought they could conclude from
these as to the character of the whole content of medieval education.
It is only another example of what Artemus Ward pointed out so
effectively when he said that "there is nothing that makes men so
ridiculous as the knowing so many things that aint so." We have been
accepting without question ever so many things that simply are not so
with regard to these wonderful generations, who not only organized the
universities but organized the teaching in them on lines not very
different from those which occupy people seven centuries later.
What would be the most amusing feature, if it were not unfortunately
so serious an arraignment of the literature that has grown up around
these peculiar baseless notions with regard to scholastic philosophy,
is the number of men of science who have permitted themselves to make
fun of certain supposed lucubrations of the great medieval
philosophers. It is not so very long ago that, as pointed out by
Harper in the Metaphysics of the School, Professor Tate in a lecture
on Some Recent Advances in Physical Science repeated the old slander
that even Aquinas occupied the attention of his students with such
inane questions as: "How many angels could dance on the point of a
needle?" Modern science very proudly insists that it occupies itself
with observations and concerns itself little with authority. Prof.
Tate in this unhappy quotation, shows not only that he has made no
personal studies in medieval philosophy but that he has accepted a
very inadequate authority for the statements which he makes with as
much confidence as if they had been the result of prolonged research
in this field. Many other modern scientists (?) have fallen into like
blunders. (For Huxley's opinion see Appendix.)
The modern student, as well as the teacher, is prone to wonder what
were the methods of study and the habits of life {53} of the students
of the Thirteenth Century, and fortunately we have a short sketch,
written by Robert of Sorbonne, the famous founder of the Sorbonne, in
which he gives advice to attendants at that institution as to how they
should spend their time, so that at least we are able to get a hint of
the ideals that were set before the student. Robert, whose long
experience of university life made him thoroughly competent to advise,
said:
"The student who wishes to make progress ought to observe six
essential rules.
"First: He ought to consecrate a certain hour every day to the study
of a determined subject, as St. Bernard counselled his monks in his
letter to the Brothers of the Mont Dieu.
"Second: He ought to concentrate his attention upon what he reads
and ought not to let it pass lightly. There is between reading and
study, as St. Bernard says, the same difference as between a host
and a guest, between a passing salutation exchanged in the street
and an embrace prompted by an unalterable affection.
"Third: He ought to extract from the daily study one thought, some
truth or other, and engrave it deeply upon his memory with special
care. Seneca said _'Cum multa percurreris in die, unum tibi elige
quod illa die excoquas'_--When you have run over many things in a
day select one for yourself which you should digest well on that
day.
"Fourth: Write a resume of it, for words which are not confided to
writing fly as does the dust before the wind.
"Fifth: Talk the matter over with your fellow-students, either in
the regular recitation or in your familiar conversation. This
exercise is even more profitable than study for it has as its result
the clarifying of all doubts and the removing of all the obscurity
that study may have left. Nothing is perfectly known unless it has
been tried by the tooth of disputation.
"Sixth: Pray, for this is indeed one of the best ways of learning.
St. Bernard teaches that study ought to touch the heart and that one
should profit by it always by elevating the heart to God, _without,
however, interrupting the study_."
Sorbonne proceeds in a tone that vividly recalls the modern university
professor who has seen generation after generation {54} of students
and has learned to realize how many of them waste their time.
"Certain students act like fools; they display great subtility over
nonsensical subjects and exhibit themselves devoid of intelligence
with regard to their most important studies. So as not to seem to
have lost their time they gather together many sheets of parchment,
make thick volumes of note books out of them, with many a blank
interval, and cover them with elegant binding in red letters. Then
they return to the paternal domicile with their little sack filled
up with knowledge which can be stolen from them by any thief that
comes along, or may be eaten by rats or by worms or destroyed by
fire or water.
"In order to acquire instruction the student must abstain from
pleasure and not allow himself to be hampered by material cares.
There was at Paris not long since two teachers who were great
friends. One of them had seen much, had read much and used to remain
night and day bent over his books. He scarcely took the time to say
an 'Our Father.' Nevertheless he had but four students. His
colleague possessed a much less complete library, was less devoted
to study and heard mass every morning before delivering his lecture.
In spite of this, his classroom was full. 'How do you do it?' asked
his friend. 'It is very simple,' said his friend smiling. 'God
studies for me. I go to mass and when I come back I know by heart
all that I have to teach.'"
"Meditation," so Sorbonne continues, "is suitable not only for the
master, but the good student ought also to go and take his promenade
along the banks of the Seine, not to play there, but in order to
repeat his lesson and meditate upon it."
These instructions for students are not very different from those that
would be issued by an interested head of a university department to
the freshmen of the present day. His insistence, especially on the
difference between reading and study, might very well be taken to
heart at the present time, when there seems to be some idea that
reading of itself is sufficient to enable one to obtain an education.
The lesson of learning one thing a day and learning that well, might
have been selected as a motto for students for all succeeding
generations with manifest advantage to the success of college study.
{55}
In other things Sorbonne departs further from our modern ideas in the
matter of education, but still there are many even at the present time
who will read with profound sympathy his emphatic advice to the
University students that they must educate their hearts as well as
their intellects, and make their education subserve the purpose of
bringing them closer to God.
A word about certain customs that prevailed more or less generally in
the universities at this time, and that after having been much
misunderstood will now be looked at more sympathetically in the light
of recent educational developments will not be out of place here.
One of the advantages of modern German university education has often
been acclaimed to be the fact that students are tempted to make
portions of their studies in various cities, since all the courses are
equalized in certain ways, so that the time spent at any one of them
will be counted properly for their degrees. It has long been
recognized that travel makes the best possible complement to a
university course, and even when the English universities in the
Eighteenth Century sank to be little more than pleasant abiding places
where young men of the upper classes "ate their terms," the fact that
it was the custom "to make the grand tour" of continental travel,
supplied for much that was lacking in the serious side of their
education. Little as this might be anticipated as a feature of the
ruder times of the Thirteenth Century, when travel was so difficult,
it must be counted as one of the great advantages for the inquiring
spirits of the time. Dante, besides attending the universities in
Italy, and he certainly was at several of them, was also at Paris at
one time and probably also at Oxford. Professor Monroe in his text
book in the History of Education has stated this custom very
distinctly.
"With the founding of the universities and the establishment of the
nations in practically every university, it became quite customary
for students to travel from university to university, finding in
each a home in their appropriate nation. Many, however, willing to
accept the privileges of the clergy and the students without
undertaking their obligations, adopted this wandering life as a
permanent one. Being a privileged order, they readily found a
living, or made it by begging. A monk of {56} the early university
period writes: 'The scholars are accustomed to wander throughout the
whole world and visit all the cities, and their many studies bring
them understanding. For in Paris they seek a knowledge of the
liberal arts; of the ancient writers at Orleans; of medicine at
Salernum; of the black art at Toledo; and in no place decent
manners.'"
With regard to the old monk's criticism it must be remembered that old
age is always rather depreciative in criticism of the present and
over-appreciative of what happened in the past _se pueris_. Abuses
always seem to be creeping in that are going to ruin the force of
education, yet somehow the next generation succeeds in obtaining its
intellectual development in rather good shape. Besides as we must
always remember in educational questions, evils are ever exaggerated
and the memory of them is prone to live longer and to loom up larger
than that of the good with which they were associated and to which
indeed, as anyone of reasonable experience in educational circles
knows, they may constitute by comparison only a very small amount.
Undoubtedly the wanderings of students brought with it many abuses,
and if we were to listen to some of the stories of foreign student
life in Paris in our own time, we might think that much of evil and
nothing of good was accomplished by such wandering, but inasmuch as we
do so we invite serious error of judgment.
Another striking feature of university life which constituted a
distinct anticipation of something very modern in our educational
system, was the lending of professors of different nationalities among
the universities. It is only at the beginning of the Twentieth Century
that we have reestablished this custom. In the Thirteenth Century,
however, Albertus Magnus taught for a time at Cologne and then later
at Paris and apparently also at Rome. St. Thomas of Aquin, after
having taught for a time at Paris, lectured in various Italian
universities and then finally at the University of Rome to which he
was tempted by the Popes. Duns Scotus, besides teaching in Oxford,
taught also at Paris. Alexander of Hales before him seems to have done
the same thing. Roger Bacon, after studying at the University of
Paris, seems to have commenced teaching there, though most of his
professional work was {57} accomplished at the University of Oxford.
Raymond Lully probably had professional experiences at several Spanish
Universities besides at Paris. In a word, if a man were a
distinguished genius he was almost sure to be given the opportunity to
influence his generation at a number of centers of educational life,
and not be confined as has been the case in the centuries since to but
one or at most, and that more by accident than intent, to perhaps two.
In a word there is not a distinctive feature of modern university life
that was not anticipated in the Thirteenth Century.
[Illustration]
FLYING BUTTRESS (AMIENS)
{58}
IV
THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.
For most people the surprise of finding that the subjects with which
the students were occupied at the universities of the Thirteenth
Century were very much the same as those which claim the attention of
modern students, will probably be somewhat mitigated by the thought
that after all there were only few in attendance at the universities,
and as a consequence only a small proportion of the population shared
in that illumination, which has become so universal in the spread of
opportunities for the higher education in these later times. While
such an impression is cherished by many even of those who think that
they know the history of education, and unfortunately are considered
_by others_ to be authorities on the subject, it is the falsest
possible idea that could be conceived of this medieval time with which
we are concerned. We may say at once that it is a matter of
comparatively easy collation of statistics to show, that in proportion
to the population of the various countries, there were actually more
students taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire university
education in the Thirteenth Century, than there were at any time in
the Nineteenth Century, or even in the midst of this era of widespread
educational opportunities in the Twentieth Century.
Most people know the traditions which declare that there were between
twenty and thirty thousand students at the University of Paris toward
the end of the Thirteenth Century. At the same time there were said to
have been between fifteen and twenty thousand students at the
University of Bologna. Correspondingly large numbers have been
reported for the University of Oxford and many thousands were supposed
to be in attendance at the University of Cambridge. It is usually
considered, however, that these figures are gross exaggerations. It is
easy to assert this but rather difficult to prove. As a matter of fact
the nearer one comes to the actual times in the {59} history of
education, the more definitely do writers speak of these large numbers
of students in attendance. For instance Gascoigne, who says that there
were thirty thousand students at the University of Oxford at the end
of the Thirteenth Century, lived himself within a hundred years of the
events of which he talks, and he even goes so far as to declare that
he saw the rolls of the University containing this many names. There
is no doubt at all about his evidence in the matter and there is no
mistake possible with regard to his figures. They were written out in
Latin, not expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals, the copying of which
might so easily give opportunities for error to creep in.
In spite of such evidence it is generally conceded that to accept
these large numbers would be almost surely a mistake. There were
without any doubt many thousands of students at the Thirteenth Century
universities. There were certainly more students at the University of
Paris in the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century than there were at
any time during the Nineteenth Century. This of itself is enough to
startle modern complacency out of most of its ridiculous
self-sufficiency. There can be scarcely a doubt that the University of
Bologna at the time of its largest attendance had more students than
any university of modern times, proud as we may be (and deservedly) of
our immense institutions of learning. With regard to the English
universities the presence of very large numbers is much more doubtful.
Making every allowance, however, there can be no hesitation in saying
that Oxford had during the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century a
larger number than ever afterwards within her walls and that
Cambridge, though never so numerous as her rival, had a like good
fortune. Professor Laurie of Edinburgh, a very conservative authority
and one not likely to concede too much to the Middle Ages in anything,
would allow, as we shall see, some ten thousand students to Oxford.
Others have claimed more than half that number for Cambridge as the
lowest possible estimate. Even if it be conceded, as has sometimes
been urged, that all those in service in the universities were also
counted as students, these numbers would not be reduced very
materially and it must not be {60} forgotten that, in those days of
enthusiastic striving after education, young men were perfectly
willing to take up even the onerous duties of personal services to
others, in order to have the opportunity to be closely in touch with a
great educational institution and to receive even a moderate amount of
benefit from its educational system. In our own time there are many
students who are working their way through the universities, and in
the Thirteenth Century when the spirit of independence was much less
developed, and when any stigma that attached to personal service was
much less felt than it is at the present time, there were many more
examples of this earnest striving for intellectual development.
If we discuss the situation in English-speaking countries as regards
the comparative attendance at the universities in the Thirteenth
Century and in our own time, we shall be able to get a reasonably good
idea of what must be thought in this matter. The authorities are
neither difficult of consultation nor distant, and comparatively much
more is known about the population of England at this time than about
most of the continental countries. England was under a single ruler,
while the geographical divisions that we now know by the name of
France, Spain, Italy and Germany were the seats of several rulers at
least and sometimes of many, a circumstance which does not favor our
obtaining an adequate idea of the populations.
That but two universities provided all the opportunities for whatever
higher education there was in England at this time, would of itself
seem to stamp the era as backward in educational matters. A little
consideration of the comparative number of students with reference to
the population of the country who were thus given the opportunity for
higher education--and took advantage of it--at that time and the
present, will show the unreasonableness of such an opinion. It is not
so easy as might be imagined to determine just what was the population
even of England in the Thirteenth Century. During Elizabeth's reign
there were, according to the census, an estimate made about the time
of the great Armada, altogether some four millions of people. Froude,
accepts this estimate as representing very well the actual number of
the population. Certainly there were not more {61} than five millions
at the end of the Sixteenth Century. Lingard, who for this purpose
must be considered as a thoroughly conservative authority, estimates
that there were not much more than two millions of people in England
at the end of the Twelfth Century. This is probably not an
underestimate. At the end of the Thirteenth Century there were not
many more than two millions and a half of people in the country. At
the very outside there were, let us say, three millions. Out of this
meagre population, ten thousand students were, on the most
conservative estimate, taking advantage of the opportunities for the
higher education that were provided for them at the universities.
At the present moment, though we pride ourselves on the numbers in
attendance at our universities, and though the world's population is
so much more numerous and the means of transportation so much more
easy, we have very few universities as large as these of the
Thirteenth Century. No American university at the present moment has
as large a number of students as had Oxford at the end of the
Thirteenth Century, and of course none of them compares at all with
Paris or Bologna in this respect. Even the European universities, as
we have suggested, fall behind their former glory from this
standpoint. In the attendance to the number of population the
comparison is even more startling for those who have not thought at
all of the Middle Ages as a time of wonderful educational facilities
and opportunities. In the greater City of New York as we begin the
Twentieth Century there are perhaps fifteen thousand students in
attendance at educational institutions which have university
privileges. I may say that this is a very liberal allowance. At
universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than
ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to
include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in
colleges and schools of various kinds. Of these fifteen thousand at
least one-fourth come from outside of the greater city, and there are
some who think that even one-third would not be too large a number to
calculate as not being drawn directly from our own population.
Connecticut and New Jersey furnish large numbers of students and then,
besides, the post-graduate schools {62} of the universities have very
large numbers in attendance even from distant states and foreign
countries.
It will be within the bounds of truth, then, to say, that there are
between ten and twelve thousand students, out of our population of
more than four millions in Greater New York taking advantage of the
opportunities for the higher education provided by our universities
and colleges. At the end of the Thirteenth Century in England there
were at least ten thousand students out of a population of not more
and very probably less than three millions, who were glad to avail
themselves of similar opportunities. This seems to be perfectly fair
comparison and we have tried to be as conservative as possible in
every way in order to bring out the truth in the matter.
It can scarcely fail to be a matter of supreme surprise to find that a
century so distant as the Thirteenth, should thus equal our own
vaunted Twentieth Century in the matter of opportunities for the
higher education afforded and taken advantage of. It has always been
presumed that the Middle Ages, while a little better than the Dark
Ages, were typical periods in which there was little, if any desire
for higher education and even fewer opportunities. It was thought that
there was constant repression of the desire for knowledge which
springs so eternally in the human heart and that the Church, or at
least the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, set themselves
firmly against widespread education, because it would set people to
thinking for themselves. As a matter of fact, however, every Cathedral
and every monastery became a center of educational influence, and even
the poorest, who showed special signs of talent, obtained the
opportunity to secure knowledge to the degree that they wished. It is
beyond doubt or cavil, that at no time in the world's history have so
many opportunities for the higher education been open to all classes
as during the Thirteenth Century.
In order to show how thoroughly conservative are the numbers in
attendance at the universities that I have taken, I shall quote two
good recent authorities, one of them Professor Laurie, the Professor
of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
Edinburgh, and the other Thomas Davidson, a well-known American
authority on educational {63} subjects. Each of their works from which
I shall quote has been published or revised within the last few years.
Professor Laurie in "The Rise and Early Constitution of the University
with a Survey of the Medieval Education," which formed one of the
International Educational Series, edited by Commissioner Harris and
published by Appleton, said:
"When one hears of the large number of students who attended the
earliest universities--ten thousand and even twenty thousand at
Bologna, an equal, and at one time a greater, number at Paris, and
thirty thousand at Oxford--one cannot help thinking that the numbers
have been exaggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford
attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstey's 'Mon
Acad.'); but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college
cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community,
and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized
training grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesiastical or
legal or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the
substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance--especially
when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere
boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age."
As to the inclusion of servitors, we have already said that many,
probably, indeed, most of them, were actual students working their way
through the university in these enthusiastic days. Professor Laurie's
authority for the assertion that a large number of the students at
Paris and Oxford were mere boys, is a regulation known to have existed
at one of these universities requiring that students should not be
less than twelve years of age. Anyone who has studied medieval
university life, however, will have been impressed with the idea, that
the students were on the average older at the medieval universities
rather than younger than they are at the present time. The rough
hazing methods employed, almost equal to those of our own day! would
seem to indicate this. Besides, as Professor Laurie confesses in the
next paragraph, many of the students were actually much older than at
present. Our university courses are arranged for young men between 17
and 22, but that is, to fall back on Herbert Spencer, presumably
because the period of infancy is {64} lengthening with the evolution
of the race. There are many who consider that at the present time
students are too long delayed in the opportunity to get at the
professional studies, and that it is partly the consequence of this
that the practical branches are so much more taken up under the
elective system. As we said in the chapter on Universities and
Preparatory Schools, in Italy and in other southern countries, it is
not a surprising thing to have a young man graduate at the age of 16
or 17 with his degree of A. B., after a thoroughly creditable
scholastic career. This means that he began his university work proper
under 13 years of age; so that we must judge the medieval universities
to some extent at least with this thought in mind.
Mr. Thomas Davidson in his "History of Education," [Footnote 7] in
the chapter on The Medieval University has a paragraph in which he
discusses the attendance, especially during the Thirteenth Century,
and admits that the numbers, while perhaps not so large as have been
reported, were very large in comparison to modern institutions of the
same kind, and frankly concedes that education rose during these
centuries which are often supposed to have been so unfavorable to
educational development, to an amazing height scarcely ever surpassed.
He says:
[Footnote 7: A History of Education, by Thomas Davidson, author of
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideas. New York: Scribners, 1900.]
"The number of students reported as having attended some of the
universities in those early days almost passes belief; _e. g._
Oxford is said to have had thirty thousand about the year 1300, and
half that number even as early as 1224. The numbers attending the
University of Paris were still greater. These numbers become less
surprising when we remember with what poor accommodations--a bare
room and an armful of straw--the students of those days were
content, and what numbers of them even a single teacher like Abelard
could, long before draw into lonely retreats. That in the Twelfth
and following centuries there was no lack of enthusiasm for study,
notwithstanding the troubled condition of the times, is very clear.
The instruction given at the universities, moreover, reacted upon
the lower schools, raising their standard and supplying them with
competent teachers. Thus, in the Thirteenth and {65} Fourteenth
centuries, education rose in many European states to a height which
it had not attained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian."
{opp64}
[Illustration]
CHRIST DRIVING OUT MONEY CHANGERS (GIOTTO)
[Illustration]
HEAD FROM ANNUNCIATION (GIOTTO)
[Illustration]
BRIDE MARRIAGE AT CANA (GIOTTO)
[Illustration]
SAINT'S HEAD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S VENICE)
A very serious objection that would seem to have so much weight as to
preclude all possibility of accepting as true the large numbers
mentioned, is the fact that it is very hard to understand how such an
immense number of students could have been supported in any town of
the Middle Ages. This objection has carried so much weight to some
minds as to make them give up the thought of large numbers at the
medieval universities. Professor Laurie has answered it very
effectively, however, and in his plausible explanation gives a number
of points which emphasize the intense ardor of these students of the
Middle Ages in their search for knowledge, and shows how ready they
were to bear serious trials and inconveniences, not to say absolute
sufferings and hardships, in order that they might have opportunities
for the higher education. The objection then redounds rather to the
glory of the medieval universities than lessens their prestige, either
as regards numbers or the enthusiasm of their students.
"The chief objection to accepting the tradition (of large numbers at
the universities) lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those
days, so large a number of the young men of Europe could afford the
expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty,
however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students
were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men,
already monks and canons, and that the endowments of Cathedral
schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to
attend foreign universities. Monasteries also regularly sent boys of
thirteen and fourteen to university seats. A papal instruction of
1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send
boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their
residents. Then, state authorities ordered free passages for all who
were wending their way through the country to and from the seat of
learning. In the houses of country priests--not to speak of the
monastery hospitals--traveling scholars were always accommodated
gratuitously, and even local subscriptions were frequently made to
help them on their way. {66} Poor traveling scholars were, in fact,
a medieval institution, and it was considered no disgrace for a
student to beg and receive alms for his support."
After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather
difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so
commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the
Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for
English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a
very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. About a
century ago the Comte de Maistre said in his Soirees de St.
Petersburg, that history for the three hundred years before his time
"had been a conspiracy against the truth." Curiously enough the
editors of the Cambridge Modern History in their first volume on the
Renaissance, re-echoed this sentiment of the French historical writer
and philosopher. They even use the very words "history has been a
conspiracy against the truth" and proclaim that if we are to get at
truth in this generation, we must go behind all the classical
historians, and look up contemporary documents and evidence and
authorities once more for ourselves. It is the maintenance of a
tradition that nothing good could possibly have come out of the
Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, that has led to this
serious misapprehension of the true position of those extremely
important centuries in modern education--the Thirteenth and the
Fourteenth.
To those who know even a little of what was accomplished in these
centuries, it is supremely amusing to read the childish treatment
accorded them and the trivial remarks that even accredited historians
of education make with regard to them. Occasionally, however, the
feeling of the reader who knows something of the subject is not one of
amusement, but far from it. There are times when one cannot help but
feel that it is not ignorance, but a deliberate purpose to minimize
the importance of these times in culture and education, that is at the
basis of some of the utterly mistaken remarks that are made. We shall
take occasion only to give one example of this, but that will afford
ample evidence of the intolerant spirit that characterizes the work of
some even of the supposedly most enlightened historians of education.
The quotation will be from Compayre's {67} "History of Pedagogy" which
is, I understand, in use in nearly every Normal School in this country
and is among the books required in many Normal School examinations.
M. Compayre in an infamous paragraph which bears the title "The
Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age," furnishes an excellent
example of how utterly misunderstood, if not deliberately
misrepresented, has been the whole spirit and content and the real
progressiveness of education in this wonderful period. After some
belittling expressions as to the influence of Christianity on
education--expressions utterly unjustified by the facts--he has this
to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century, which is all the more
surprising because it is the only place where he calls any attention
to it. He says:
"In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of St. Gall, there was not
one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries
public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride
in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the Twelfth Century,
instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the
privilege of the ecclesiastics and even they did not carry it very
far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only
for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter."
This whole paragraph of M. Compayre (the rest must be read to be
appreciated), whose history of education was considered to be of such
value that it was deemed worthy of translation by the President of a
State Normal School and that it has been adopted as a work of
reference, in some cases of required study, in many of the Normal
Schools throughout the country, is a most wonderful concoction of
ingredients, all of which are meant to dissolve every possible idea
that people might have of the existence of any tincture of education
during the Middle Ages. There is only one fact which deeply concerns
us because it refers to the Thirteenth Century. M. Compayre says that
in 1291 of all the monks of the Convent of Saint Gall there was not
one who could read and write. This single fact is meant to sum up the
education of the century for the reader. Especially it is meant to
show the student of pedagogy how deeply sunk in ignorance were the
monks and all the ecclesiastics of this period.
{68}
Before attempting to say anything further it may be as well to call
attention to the fact that in the original French edition the writer
did not say that there was not a single monk. He said, "There was but
one monk, who could read and write." Possibly it seemed to the
translator to make the story more complete to leave out this one poor
monk and perhaps one monk more or less, especially a medieval monk,
may not count for very much to modern students of education. There are
those of us, however, who consider it too bad to obliterate even a
single monk in this crude way and we ask that he shall be put back.
There _was one_ who could read and write and carry on the affairs of
the monastery. Let us have him at least, by all means.
In the year 1291 when M. Compayre says that there was but a single
monk at the monastery of St. Gall who could read and write, he, a
professor himself at a French Normal School, must have known very well
that there were over twenty thousand students at the University of
Paris, almost as many at the University of Bologna, and over five
thousand, some authorities say many more than this (Professor Laurie
would admit more than ten thousand), at the University of Oxford,
though all Christian Europe at this time did not have a population of
more than 15,000,000 people. He must have known, too, or be hopelessly
ignorant in educational matters, that many of the students at these
universities belonged to the Franciscans and Dominicans, and that
indeed many of the greatest teachers at the universities were members
of these monastic orders. Of this he says nothing, however. All that
he says is "Education was the privilege of the ecclesiastics and they
did not carry it very far." This is one way of writing a history of
education. It is a very effective way of poisoning the wells of
information and securing the persistence of the tradition that there
was no education until after the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.
Meantime one can scarcely help but admire the ingenuity of deliberate
purpose that uses the condition of the monastery of St. Gall to
confirm his statement. St. Gall had been founded by Irish monks
probably about the beginning of the Eighth Century. It had been for at
least three centuries a center of education, civilization and culture,
as well as of religion, for the {69} barbarians who had settled in the
Swiss country after the trans-migration of nations. The Irish had
originally obtained their culture from Christian Missionaries, and now
as Christian Missionaries they brought it back to Europe and
accomplished their work with wonderful effectiveness. St. Gall was for
centuries a lasting monument to their efforts. After the Tenth
Century, however, the monastery began to degenerate. It was almost
directly in the path of armies which so frequently went down to Italy
because of the German interest in the Italian peninsula and the claims
of the German emperor. After a time according to tradition, the
emperor insisted that certain of the veterans of his army should be
received and cared for in their old age at St. Gall. Gradually this
feature of the institution became more and more prominent until in the
Thirteenth Century it had become little more than a home for old
soldiers. In order to live on the benefices of the monastery these men
had to submit to ecclesiastical regulations and wear the habit. They
were, it is true, a sort of monk, that is, they were willing, for the
sake of the peace and ease which it brought, to accept the living thus
provided for them and obey to some degree at least the rules of the
monastery. It is not surprising that among these there should have
been only one who could read and write. The soldiers of the time
despised the men of letters and prided themselves on not being able to
write. That a historian of pedagogy, however, should take this one
fact in order to give students an idea of the depth of ignorance of
the Middle Ages, is an exhibition of some qualities in our modern
educated men, that one does not like to think of as compatible with
the capacity to read and write. It would indeed be better not to be
able to read and write than thus to read and write one's own
prejudices into history, and above all the history of education.
Compayre's discussion of the "Causes of the Ignorance" of the Middle
Ages in the next paragraph, is one of the most curious bits of special
pleading by a man who holds a brief for one side of the question, that
I think has ever been seen in what was to be considered serious
history. He first makes it clear how much opposed the Christian Church
was to education, then he admits that she did some things which cannot
be denied, but minimizes their significance. Then he concludes that it
was not {70} the fault of the Church, but in this there is a precious
bit of damning by faint praise. It would be impossible for any
ordinary person who had only Compayre for authority to feel anything
after reading the paragraph, but that Christianity was a serious
detriment and surely not a help to the cause of progress in education.
I quote part of the paragraph:
"What were the permanent causes of that situation which lasted for ten
centuries? The Catholic Church has sometimes been held responsible for
this. Doubtless the Christian doctors did not always profess a very
warm sympathy for intellectual culture. Saint Augustine has said: It
is the ignorant who gain possession of heaven (indocti coelum
rapiunt.) Saint Gregory the Great, a Pope of the Sixth Century,
declared that he would blush to have the holy word conform to the
rules of grammar. Too many Christians, in a word, confounded ignorance
with holiness. Doubtless, towards the Seventh Century, the darkness
still hung thick over the Christian Church. Barbarians invaded the
Episcopate, and carried with them their rude manners. Doubtless, also,
during the feudal period the priest often became a soldier, and
remained ignorant. It would, however, be unjust to bring a
constructive charge against the Church of the Middle Age, and to
represent it as systematically hostile to instruction. Directly to the
contrary, it is the clergy who, in the midst of the general barbarism,
preserved some vestiges of the ancient culture. The only schools of
that period are the Episcopal and claustral schools, the first annexed
to the Bishops' palaces, the second to the monasteries. The religious
orders voluntarily associated manual labor with mental labor. As far
back as 530, St. Benedict founded the Convent of Monte Cassino, and
drew up statutes which made reading and intellectual labor a part of
the daily life of the monks." When this damning by faint praise is
taken in connection with the paragraph in which only a single monk at
the Monastery of St. Gall is declared to have been able to read and
write, the utterly false impression that is sure to result, can be
readily understood even by those who are not sympathetic students of
the Middle Ages. This is how our histories of education have been
written as a rule, and as a consequence the most precious period in
modern education, its great origin, has been ignored even by
professional scholars, to the great detriment not only of historical
knowledge but also of any proper appreciation of the evolution of
education.
Portraits
Bennozo Gozzoli
[Illustration]
PETRARCA OMNIUM VIRTUTUM
MONARCA
[Illustration]
GIOTTO, PICTOR EXIMIUS
[Illustration]
DANTE THEOLOGUS NULLIUS
DOGMATIS EXPERS
{71}
It will be said by those who do not appreciate the conditions that
existed in the Middle Ages, that these numbers at the universities
seeking the higher education, mean very little for the culture of the
people, since practically all of those in attendance at the
universities belonged to the clerical order. There is no doubt that
most students were clerics in the Thirteenth Century. This did not
mean, however, that they had taken major orders or had in any way
bound themselves irrevocably to continue in the clerical vocation. The
most surprising thing about the spread of culture and the desire for
the higher education during the Thirteenth Century, is that they
developed in spite of the fact that the rulers of the time were all
during the century, embroiled in war either with their neighbors or
with the nobility. Anyone who wanted to live a quiet, intellectual
life turned naturally to the clerical state, which enabled him to
escape military duties and gave him opportunities for study, as well
as protection from many exactions that might otherwise be levied upon
him. The church not only encouraged education, but supplied the
peaceful asylums in which it might be cultivated to the heart's
content of the student.
While this clerical state was a necessity during the whole time of
residence at the university, it was not necessarily maintained
afterward. Many of the clerics did not even have minor orders--orders
which it is well understood carry with them no absolute obligation of
continuing in the clerical state. Sextons and their assistants were
clerics. When the word canon originally came into use it meant nothing
more than that the man was entered on the rolls of a church and
received some form of wages therefrom. Students at the universities
were by ecclesiastical courtesy then, clerics (from which comes the
word clerk, one who can read and write) though not in orders, and it
was because of this that the university was able to maintain the
rights of students. It was well understood that after graduation men
might take up the secular life and indeed most of them did. In
succeeding chapters we shall see examples of this and discuss the
question further. Professors at the {72} universities had to maintain
their clerical condition so that even professors of law and of
medicine were not allowed to marry. This law continued long beyond the
Thirteenth Century, however. Professors of medicine were the first to
be freed from the obligation of celibacy, but not until the middle of
the Fifteenth Century at Paris, while other professors were bound thus
for a full century later. Certain minor teaching positions at Oxford
are still under this law, which evidently has seemed to have some
advantage or it would not have been maintained.
It might perhaps be thought that only the wealthier class, the sons of
the nobility and of the wealthy merchants of the cities had
opportunities at the universities. As a matter of fact, however, the
vast majority of the students was drawn from the great middle class.
The nobility were nearly always too occupied with their pleasures and
their martial duties to have time for the higher education. The
tradition that a nobleman should be an educated gentleman had not yet
come in. Indeed many of the nobility during the Thirteenth Century
rather prided themselves on the fact that they not only had no higher
education, but that they did not know even how to read and write. When
we reflect, then, on the large numbers who went to the universities,
it adds to our surprise to realize that they were drawn from the
burgher class. It is evident that many of the sons even of the poor
were afforded opportunities in different ways at the universities of
the time.
Tradition shows that from the earliest time there were foundations on
which poor students could live, and various arrangements were made by
which, aside from these, they might make their living while continuing
their studies. Working one's way through the university was more
common in the Thirteenth Century than it is at the present day, though
we are proud of the large numbers who now succeed in the double task
of supporting and educating themselves, with excellent success in both
enterprises. There are many stories of poor students who found
themselves about to be obliged to give up their studies, encountering
patrons of various kinds who enabled them to go on with their
education.
There is a very pretty set of legends with regard to St. Edmund of
Canterbury in this matter. He bears this name {73} because he was
afterward the sainted primate of England. For many years he taught at
the University of Oxford. The story is told of a clerical friend
sending him up a student to Oxford and asking that his bills be sent
to him. St. Edmund's answer was that he would not be robbed of an
opportunity of doing good like this, and he took upon himself the
burden of caring for the student. At the time there were many others
dependent on his bounty and his reputation was such that he was
enabled to help a great many through the benefactions of friends, who
found no higher pleasure in life than being able to come generously to
Edmund's assistance in his charities.
Those who know the difficulty of managing very large bodies of
students will wonder inevitably, how the medieval universities, with
their less formal and less complete organizations, succeeded in
maintaining discipline for all these thousands of students. Most
people will remember at once all the stories of roughness, of horse
play, of drinking and gaming or worse that they have heard of the
medieval students and will be apt to conclude that they are not to be
wondered at after all, since it must have been practically impossible
for the faculties of universities to keep order among such vast
numbers. As a matter of fact, however, the story of the origin and
maintenance of discipline in these universities is one of the most
interesting features of university life. The process of discipline
became in itself a very precious part of education, as it should be of
course in any well regulated institution of learning. The very fact,
moreover, that in spite of these large numbers and other factors that
we shall call attention to in a moment, comparatively so few
disgraceful stories of university life have come down to us, and the
other and still more important fact that the universities could be
kept so constantly at the attainment of their great purpose for such
numbers, is itself a magnificent tribute to those who succeeded in
doing it, and to the system which was gradually evolved, not by the
faculty alone but by teachers and students for university government.
With regard to the discipline of the medieval universities not much is
known and considerable of what has been written on this obscure
subject wears an unfavorable tinge, because it is unfortunately true
that "the good men do is oft interred with {74} their bones" while the
evil has an immortality all its own. The student escapades of the
universities, the quarrels between town and gown, the stories of the
evils apparently inevitable, where many young men are congregated--the
hazing, the rough horse play, the carousing, the immoralities--have
all come down to us, while it is easy to miss the supreme significance
of the enthusiasm for learning that in these difficult times gathered
so many students together from distant parts of the world, when
traveling was so difficult and dangerous, and kept them at the
universities for long years in spite of the hardships and
inconveniences of the life. With regard to our modern universities the
same thing is true, and the outside world knows much more of the
escapades of the few, the little scandals of college life, that
scarcely make a ripple but are so easily exaggerated, and so
frequently repeated and lose nothing by repetition, the waste of time
in athletics, in gambling, in social things, than of the earnest work
and the successful intellectual progress and interests of the many.
This should be quite enough to make the modern university man very
slow to accept the supposed pictures of medieval student life, which
are founded mainly on the worse side of it. Goodness is proverbially
uninteresting, a happy people has no history and the ordinary life of
the university student needs a patient sympathetic chronicler; and
such the medieval universities have not found as yet. But they do not
need many allowances, if it will only be remembered under what
discouragements they labored and how much they accomplished.
The reputation of the medieval universities has suffered from this
very human tendency to be interested in what is evil and to neglect
the good. Even as it is, however, a good deal with regard to the
discipline of the universities in the early times is known and does
not lose in interest from the fact, that the main factor in it was a
committee of the students themselves working in conjunction with the
faculty, and thus anticipating what is most modern in the development
of the disciplinary regime of our up-to-date universities. At first
apparently, in the schools from which the universities originated
there was no thought of the necessity for discipline. The desire for
education was considered to be sufficient to keep men occupied in {75}
such a way that further discipline would not be necessary. It can
readily be understood that the crowds that flocked to hear Abelard in
Paris, and who were sufficiently interested to follow him out to the
Desert of the Paraclete when he was no longer allowed to continue his
lectures in connection with the school at Paris, would have quite
enough of ruling from the internal forum of their supreme interest,
not to need any discipline in the external forum.
In the course of time, however, with the coming of even greater
numbers to the University of Paris, and especially when the attendance
ran up into many thousands, some form of school discipline became an
absolute necessity. This developed of itself and in a very practical
way. The masters seem to have had very little to do with it at the
beginning since they occupied themselves entirely with their teaching
and preparation for lectures. What was to become later one of the
principal instruments of discipline was at first scarcely more than a
social organization among the students. Those who came from different
countries were naturally attracted to one another, and were more ready
to help each other. When students first came they were welcomed by
their compatriots who took care to keep them from being imposed upon,
enabled them to secure suitable quarters and introduced them to
university customs generally, so that they might be able to take
advantage, as soon as possible, of the educational opportunities.
The friendships thus fostered gradually grew into formal
organizations, the so-called "nations." These began to take form just
before the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. They made it their
duty to find lodgings for their student compatriots, and evidently
also to supply food on some cooperative plan for at least the poorer
students. Whenever students of a particular nationality were injured
in any way, their "nation" as a formal organization took up their
cause and maintained their rights, even to the extent of an appeal to
formal process of law before the magistrates, if necessary. The
nations were organized before the faculties in the universities were
formally recognized as independent divisions of the institution, and
they acted as intermediaries between the university head and the
students, making themselves responsible for discipline to no slight
{76} degree. At the beginning of the Thirteenth Century in Paris all
the students belonged to one or other of four nations, the Picard, the
Norman, the French, which embraced Italians, Spaniards, Greeks and
Orientals, and the English which embraced the English, Irish, Germans,
Poles (heterogeneous collection we would consider it in these modern
days) and in addition all other students from the North of Europe.
Professor Laurie, of the University of Edinburgh, in his Rise and
Early Constitution of Universities in the International Educational
Series [Footnote 8] says:
[Footnote 8: The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a
survey of Medieval Education, by S. S. Laurie, LL.D., Professor of
the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
Edinburgh. New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1901.]
"The subdivisions of the nations were determined by the localities
from which the students and masters came. Each subdivision elected its
own dean and kept its own matriculation-book and money-chest. The
whole "nation" was represented, it is true, by the elected
procurators; but the deans of the subdivisions were regarded as
important officials, and were frequently, if not always, assessors of
the procurators. The procurators, four in number, were elected, not by
the students as in Bologna and Padua, but by the students and masters.
Each nation with its procurator and deans was an independent body,
passing its own statutes and rules, and exercising supervision over
the lodging-houses of the students. They had each a seal as
distinguished from the university seal, and each procurator stood to
his "nation" in the same relation as the Rector did to the whole
university. The Rector, again, was elected by the procurators, who sat
as his assessors, and together they constituted the governing body;
but this for purposes of discipline, protection and defense of
privileges chiefly, the _consortium magistrorum_ regulating the
schools. But so independent were the nations that the question whether
each had power to make statutes that overrode those of the
_universitas_, was still a question so late as the beginning of the
Seventeenth Century."
It is typical of the times that the governing system should thus have
grown up of itself and from amongst the students, rather than that it
should have been organized by the teachers {77} and imposed upon the
university. The nations represented the rise of that democratic
spirit, which was to make itself felt in the claims for the
recognition of rights for all the people in most of the countries
during the Thirteenth Century, and undoubtedly the character of the
government of the student body at the universities fostered this
spirit and is therefore to a noteworthy degree, responsible for the
advances in the direction of liberty which are chronicled during this
great century. This was a form of unconscious education but none the
less significant for that, and eminently practical in its results. At
this time in Europe there was no place where the members of the
community who flocked in largest numbers to the universities, the sons
of the middle classes, could have any opportunities to share in
government or learn the precious lessons of such participation, except
at the universities. There gradually came an effort on the part of the
faculties to lessen many of the rights of the nations of the
universities, but the very struggle to maintain these on the part of
the student body, was of itself a precious training against the
usurpation of privileges that was to be of great service later in the
larger arena of national politics, and the effects of which can be
noted in every country in Europe, nowhere more than in England, where
the development of law and liberty was to give rise to a supreme
heritage of democratic jurisprudence for the English speaking peoples
of all succeeding generations.
{78}
V
POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
In modern times it has often been said that no university can be
considered to be doing its proper work unless, besides teaching, it is
also adding to the existing body of knowledge by original research.
Because of unfortunate educational traditions, probably the last thing
in the world that would enter into the minds of most people to
conceive as likely to be found in the history of the universities of
the Thirteenth Century, would be original research in any form. In
spite of this almost universal false impression, original work of the
most valuable kind, for much of which workers would be considered as
amply deserving of their doctorates in the various faculties of the
post-graduate departments of the most up-to-date of modern
universities, was constantly being accomplished during this wonderful
century. It is, as a matter of fact, with this phase of university
activity that the modern educator is sure to have more sympathy than
with any other, once the significant details of the work become clear.
All surprise that surpassing original work was accomplished will cease
when it is recalled that, besides creating the universities
themselves, this century gave us the great Cathedrals--a well-spring
of originality, and a literature in every civilized country of Europe
that has been an inspiration to many subsequent generations. At last
men had the time to devote to the things of the mind. During what are
called the Dark Ages, a term that must ever be used with the
realization that there are many bright points of light in them, men
had been occupied with wars and civic and political dissensions of all
kinds, and had been gradually climbing back to the heights of interest
in intellectual matters which had been theirs before the invasion of
the barbarians and the migration of nations. With the rebirth of
intellectual interests there came an intense curiosity to know
everything and to investigate every manifestation. {79} Everything
that men touched was novel, and the wonderful advances they made can
only be realized from actual consultation of their works, while the
reader puts himself as far as possible at the same mental point of
view from which they surveyed the world and their relations to it.
The modern university prides itself on the number of volumes written
by its professors and makes it a special feature of its announcements
to call attention to its at least supposed additions to knowledge in
this mode. It must have been immensely more difficult to preserve the
writings of the professors of the medieval universities for they had
to be copied out laboriously by hand, yet we have an enormous number
of large volumes of their works, on nearly every intellectual topic,
that have been carefully preserved. There are some twenty closely
printed large folio volumes of the writings of Albertus Magnus that
have come down to us. For two centuries, until the time of printing,
ardent students must have been satisfied to spend much time in
preserving these. While mainly devoted to theology, they treat of
nearly everything else, and at least one of the folio volumes is taken
up almost exclusively with physical science. St. Thomas Aquinas has as
many volumes to his credit and his work is even of more importance.
Duns Scotus died at a very early age, scarcely more than forty, yet
his writings are voluminously extensive and have been carefully
preserved, for few men had as enthusiastic students as he. Alas! that
his name should be preserved for most people only in the familiar
satiric appellation 'dunce.' The modern educator will most rejoice at
the fact that the students of the time must have indeed been devoted
to their masters to set themselves to the task of copying out their
work so faithfully for, as Cardinal Newman has pointed out, it is the
personal influence of the master, rather than the greatness of the
institution, that makes education effective.
First with regard to philosophy, the mistress of all studies, whose
throne has been shaken but not shattered in these ultimate times.
After all it must not be forgotten that this was the great century of
the development of scholastic philosophy. While this scholastic
philosophy is supposed by many students of modern philosophy to be a
thing of the past, it still continues {80} to be the basis of the
philosophical teaching in the Catholic seminaries and universities
throughout the world. Catholic philosophers are well known as
conservative thinkers and writers, and yet are perfectly free to
confess that they consider themselves the nearer to truth the nearer
they are to the great scholastic thinkers of the Thirteenth Century.
Even in the circle of students of philosophy who are outside the
influence of scholasticism, there is no doubt that in recent years an
opinion much more favorable to the Schoolmen has gradually arisen.
This has been due to a study of scholastic sources. Only those despise
and talk slightingly of scholasticism who either do not know it at all
or know it only at second hand. With regard to the system of thought,
as such, ever is it true, that the more close the acquaintanceship the
more respect there is for it.
With regard to theology the case is even stronger than with regard to
philosophy. Practically all of the great authorities in theology
belong to the Thirteenth Century. It is true that men like Saint
Anselm lived before this time and were leaders in the great movement
that culminated in our century. Saint Anselm's book, _Cur Deus Homo_,
is indeed one of the best examples of the combination of scholastic
philosophy and theology that could well be cited. It is a triumph of
logical reasoning, applied to religious belief. Besides, it is a great
classic and any one who can read it unmoved by admiration for the
thinker who, so many centuries ago, could so trenchantly lay down his
thesis and develop it, must be lacking in some of the qualities of
human admiration. The writers of the Thirteenth Century in theology
are beyond even Anselm in their marvelous powers of systematizing
thought. One need only mention such names as Albertus Magnus, Thomas
Aquinas, Bonaventure. Duns Scotus, and Raymond Lully to make those who
are at all acquainted with the history of the time realize, that this
is not an idle expression of the enthusiasm of a special votary of the
Thirteenth Century.
As we shall see in discussing the career of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the
Catholic Church still continues to teach scholastic theology on
exactly the same lines as were laid down by this great doctor of the
church in his teaching at the University of Paris. Amid the crumbling
of many Christian systems of {81} thought, as upheld by the various
protestant sects, there has been a very general realization that the
Catholic Church has built up the only edifice of Christian
apologetics, which will stand the storms of time and the development
of human knowledge. Confessedly this edifice is founded on Thirteenth
Century scholasticism. Pope Leo XIII., than whom, even in the
estimation of those who are least sympathetic toward his high office,
there was no man of more supremely practical intelligence in our
generation, insisted that St. Thomas Aquinas must in general principle
at least, be the groundwork of the teaching of philosophy and theology
as they are to form the minds of future Catholic apologists.
The scholastic theology and philosophy of the Thirteenth Century have
come to us in absolute purity. The huge tomes which represent the
indefatigable labors of these ardent scholars were well preserved by
the subsequent generation which thought so much of them, and in spite
of the absence of printing have come down to us in perfectly clear
texts. It is easy to neglect them and to say that a study of them is
not worth while. They represent, however, the post-graduate work and
the research in the department of philosophy and theology of these
days, and any university of modern time would consider itself honored
by having their authors among its professors and alumni. Any one who
does not think so need only turn to the volumes themselves and read
them with understanding and sympathy, and there will be another
convert to the ranks of that growing multitude of scholars, who have
learned to appreciate the marvelous works of our university colleagues
of the Thirteenth Century.
With regard to law, not much need be said here, since it is well
understood that the foundations of our modern jurisprudence (see
chapters on Legal Origins), as well as the methods of teaching law,
were laid in the Thirteenth Century and the universities were the most
active factors, direct and indirect, in this work. The University of
Bologna developed from a law school. Toward the end of the Twelfth
Century Irnerius revived the study of the old Roman law and put the
curriculum of modern Civil Law on a firm basis. A little later Gratian
made his famous collection of decretals, which are the basis of Canon
{82} Law. Great popes, during the Thirteenth Century, beginning with
Innocent III., and continuing through such worthy emulators as Gregory
IX. and Boniface VIII., made it the special glory of their
pontificates to collect the decrees of their predecessors and arrange
and publish them, so that they might be readily available for
consultation.
French law assumed its modern form, and the basis of French
jurisprudence was laid, under Louis IX., who called to his assistance,
in this matter, the Professors of Law at the University of Paris, with
many of whom he was on the most intimate terms. His cousin, Ferdinand
of Castile, laid the foundation of the Spanish law about the same time
under almost similar circumstances, and with corresponding help. The
study of law in the English universities helped to the formulation of
the principles of the English Common Law in such simple connected form
as made them readily accessible for consultation. Just before the
beginning of the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century, Bracton, of
whose work much more will be said in a subsequent chapter, drew up the
digest of the English Common Law, which has been the basis of English
jurisprudence ever since. It took just about a century for these
countries, previously without proper codification of the principles of
their laws, to complete the fundamental work to such a degree, that it
is still the firm substructure on which rests all our modern laws.
Legal origins, in our modern sense, came not long before the
Thirteenth Century; at its end the work was finished, to all intents
and purposes. Of the influence of the universities and of the
university law departments, in all this there can be no doubt. The
incentive, undoubtedly, came from their teachings. The men who did so
much for legal origins of such far-reaching importance, were mainly
students of the universities of the time, whose enthusiasm for work
had not subsided with the obtaining of their degrees.
It is in medicine, however, much more than in law or theology, that
the eminently practical character of university teaching during the
Thirteenth Century can be seen, at least in the form in which it will
appeal to a scientific generation. We are so accustomed to think that
anything like real progress in medicine, and especially in surgery,
has only come in very {83} recent years, that it is a source of great
surprise to find how much these earnest students of a long distant
century anticipated the answers to problems, the solutions of which
are usually supposed to be among the most modern advances. Professor
Allbutt, the Regius professor of Physic in the University of
Cambridge, a position, the occupant of which is always a leader in
English medical thought, the present professor being one of the
world's best authorities in the history of medicine, recently pointed
out some of these marvels of old-time medicine and surgery. In an
address On the Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the end
of the Sixteenth Century, delivered at the Congress of Arts and
Sciences at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, he (Prof. Allbutt) spoke
with regard to one of the great university medical teachers of the
Thirteenth Century as follows:
"Both for his own great merits, as an original and independent
observer, and as the master of Lanfranc, William Salicet (Guglielmo
Salicetti of Piacenza, in Latin G. Placentinus de Saliceto--now
Cadeo), was eminent among the great Italian physicians of the latter
half of the Thirteenth Century. Now these great Italians were as
distinguished in surgery as in medicine, and William was one of the
protestants of the period against the division of surgery from inner
medicine; a division which he regarded as a separation of medicine
from intimate touch with nature. Like Lanfranc and the other great
surgeons of the Italian tradition, and unlike Franco and Ambroise
Pare, he had the advantage of the liberal university education of
Italy; but, like Pare and Wurtz, he had large practical experience
in hospital and on the battlefield. He practised first at Bologna,
afterward in Verona. William fully recognised that surgery cannot be
learned from books only. His Surgery contains many case histories,
for he rightly opined that good notes of cases are the soundest
foundation of good practice; and in this opinion and method Lanfranc
followed him. William discovered that dropsy may be due to a
'_durities renum_'; he substituted the knife for the Arabist abuse
of the cautery; he investigated the causes of the failure of healing
by first intention; he described the danger of wounds of the neck;
he sutured divided nerves; he forwarded the diagnosis of {84}
suppurative disease of the hip, and he referred chancre and
phagedaena to their real causes."
This paragraph sets forth some almost incredible anticipations of what
are usually considered among the most modern phases of medicine and
surgery. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the simple statement
that Salicet recognized that surgery cannot be learned from books
alone. His case histories are instructive even to the modern surgeon
who reads them. His insistence on his students making careful notes of
their cases as the soundest foundation of progress in surgery, is a
direct contradiction of nearly everything that has been said in recent
years about medieval medicine and especially the teaching of medicine.
(See Appendix.)
William's great pupil, Lanfranc, followed him in this, and Lanfranc
encouraged the practise at the University of Paris. There is a
note-book of a student at the University of Paris, made toward the end
of the Thirteenth Century, carefully preserved in the Museum of the
University of Berlin. This notebook was kept during Lanfranc's
teaching and contains some sketches of dissections, as well as some
illustrations of operative procedures, as studied with that celebrated
surgeon. The tradition of case histories continued at the University
of Paris down to the beginning of modern surgery.
Some of the doctrines in medicine that William of Salicet stated so
clearly, sound surprisingly modern. The connection, for instance,
between dropsy and _durities renum_ (hardening of the kidneys) shows
how wonderfully observant the old master was. At the present time we
know very little more about the dropsical condition associated with
chronic Bright's disease than the fact that it constantly occurs where
there is a sclerosis or contraction of the kidney. Bright in his study
of albuminuria and contracted kidney practically taught us no more
than this, except that he added the further symptom of the presence of
albumin in the urine. It must have been only as the result of many
carefully studied cases, followed by autopsies, that any such doctrine
could have come into existence. There is a dropsy that occurs with
heart disease; there is also a dropsy in connection with certain
affections of the liver, and yet the most frequent cause is just this
hardening of the kidneys {85} spoken of by this
middle-of-the-Thirteenth Century Italian professor of medicine, who,
if we would believe so many of the historians of medicine, was not
supposed to occupy himself at all with ante and post-mortem studies of
patients, but with the old-time medical authorities.
Almost more surprising than the question of dropsy is the
investigation as to the causes of the failure of healing by first
intention. The modern surgeon is very apt to think that he is the only
one who ever occupied himself with the thought, that wounds might be
made to heal by first intention and without the occurrence of
suppuration or granulation. Certainly no one would suspect any
interest in the matter as far back as the Thirteenth Century. William
of Salicet, however, and Lanfranc, both of them occupied themselves
much with this question and evidently looked at it from a very
practical standpoint. Many careful observations must have been made
and many sources of observational error eliminated to enable these men
to realize the possibilities of primary union, especially, knowing as
they did, nothing at all about the external causes of suppuration and
considering, as did surgeons for nearly seven centuries afterward,
that it was because of something within the patient's tissues that the
cases of suppuration had their rise.
Unfortunately, the pioneer work done by William and his great disciple
did not have that effect upon succeeding generations which it should
have had. There was a question in men's minds as to whether nature
worked better by primary union or by means of the suppurative process.
In the next century surgeons took the wrong horn of the dilemma and
even so distinguished a surgeon as Guy de Chauliac, who has been
called, not without good cause, the father of surgery, came to the
conclusion that suppuration was practically a necessary process in the
healing of large wounds at least, and that it must be encouraged
rather than discouraged. This doctrine did not have its first set-back
until the famous incident in Ambroise Pare's career, when one morning
after a battle, coming to his patients expecting to find many of them
very severely ill, he found them on the contrary in better condition
than the others for whom he had no forebodings. In accord with old
custom {86} he poured boiling oil into the wounds of all patients, but
the great surgeon's supply of oil had failed the day before and he
used plain water to cleanse the wounds of a number, fearing the worst
for them, however, because of the poison that must necessarily stay in
their wounds and then had the agreeable disappointment of finding
these patients in much better condition than those whom he had treated
with all the rules of his art, as they then were. Even this incident,
however, did not serve to correct entirely the old idea as to the
value of suppuration and down to Lister's time, that is almost the
last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, there is still question of the
value of suppuration in expediting the healing of wounds, and we hear
of laudable pus and of the proper inflammatory reaction that is
expected to bring about wound repair.
The danger of wounds of the neck is, of course, not a modern doctrine,
and yet very few people would think for a moment that it could be
traced back to the middle of the Thirteenth Century and to a practical
teacher of surgery in a medieval Italian university. Here once more
there is evidence of the work of a careful observer who has seen
patients expire in a few minutes as the result of some serious
incident during the course of operations upon the neck. He did not
realize that the danger was due, in many cases, to the sucking in of
air into the large veins, but even at the present time this question
is not wholly settled and the problem as to the danger of the presence
of air is still the subject of investigation.
As to the suture of divided nerves, it would ordinarily and as a
matter of course be claimed by most modern historians of surgery and
by practically all surgeons, as an affair entirely of the last half
century. William of Salicet, however, neglected none of the ordinary
surgical procedures that could be undertaken under the discouraging
surgical circumstances in which he lived. The limitations of
anesthesia, though there was much more of this aid than there has
commonly been any idea of, and the frequent occurrence of suppuration
must have been constant sources of disheartenment. His insistence on
the use of the knife rather than on the cautery shows how much he
appreciated the value of proper healing. It is from such a man that we
might expect the advance by careful {87} investigation as to just what
tissues had been injured, with the idea of bringing them together in
such juxtaposition as would prevent loss of function and encourage
rapid and perfect union.
{opp87}
[Illustration]
SCREEN (HEREFORD)
[Illustration]
DOORWAY OF SACRISTY (BOURGES)
Perhaps to the ordinary individual William's reference of certain
known venereal affections to their proper cause, will be the most
astonishing in this marvelous list of anticipations of what is
supposed to be very modern. The whole subject of venereal disease in
anything like a scientific treatment of it is supposed to date from
the early part of the Sixteenth Century. There is even question in
certain minds as to whether the venereal diseases did not come into
existence, or at least were not introduced from America or from some
other distant country that the Europeans had been exploring about this
time. William's studies in this subject, however, serve to show that
nothing escaped his watchful eye and that he was in the best sense of
the word a careful observer and must have been an eminently suggestive
and helpful teacher.
What has thus been learned about him will serve of itself and without
more ado, to stamp all that has been said about the unpractical
character of the medical teaching of the medieval universities as
utterly unfounded. Because men have not taken the trouble to look up
the teaching of these times, and because their works were until recent
years buried in old folios, difficult to obtain and still more
difficult to read when obtained, it has been easy to ignore their
merit and even to impugn the value of their teaching completely.
William of Salicet was destined, moreover, to be surpassed in some
ways by his most distinguished pupil, Lanfranc, who taught at the
University of Paris at the end of the Thirteenth Century. Of Lanfranc,
in the address already quoted from, Professor Allbutt has one very
striking paragraph that shows how progressive was the work of this
great French surgeon, and how fruitful had been the suggestive
teaching of his great master. He says:
"Lanfranc's 'Chirurgia Magna' was a great work, written by a
reverent but independent follower of Salicet. He distinguished
between venous and arterial hemorrhage, and used styptics (rabbit's
fur, aloes, and white of egg was a popular styptic in elder
surgery), digital compression for an hour, or in severe cases
ligature. His chapter on injuries of the head {88} is one of the
classics of medieval surgery. Clerk (cleric) as he was, Lanfranc
nevertheless saw but the more clearly the danger of separating
surgery from medicine."
Certain assertions in this paragraph deserve, as in the case of
Lanfranc's master, to be discussed, because of their anticipations of
what is sometimes thought to be very modern in surgery. The older
surgeons are supposed to have feared hemorrhage very much. It is often
asserted that they knew little or nothing about the ligature and that
their control of hemorrhage was very inadequate. As a matter of fact,
however, it was not primary hemorrhage that the old surgeons feared,
but secondary hemorrhage. Suppuration often led to the opening of an
important artery, and this accident, as can well be understood, was
very much dreaded. Surgeons would lose their patients before they
could come to their relief. How thoroughly Lanfranc knew how to
control primary hemorrhage can be appreciated from the quotation just
made from Dr. Allbutt's address. The ligature is sometimes said to
have been an invention of Ambroise Pare, but, as a matter of fact, it
had been in use for at least three centuries before his time, and
perhaps even longer.
Usually it is considered that the difficult chapter of head injuries,
with all the problems that it involves in diagnosis and treatment, is
a product of the Nineteenth Century. Hence do we read, with all the
more interest, Allbutt's declaration that Lanfranc wrote what is
practically a classical monograph, on the subject. It is not so
surprising, then, to find that the great French surgeon was far ahead
of his generation in other matters, or that he should even have
realized the danger of separating surgery from medicine. Both the
Regius professors of medicine at the two great English universities,
Cambridge and Oxford, have, since the beginning of the Twentieth
Century, made public expression of their opinion that the physician
should see more of the work of the surgeon, and should not depend on
the autopsy room for his knowledge of the results of internal disease.
Professor Osler, particularly, has emphasized his colleague, Professor
Allbutt's opinion in this matter. That a surgical professor at the
University of Paris, in the Thirteenth Century, should have
anticipated these two leaders {89} of medical thought in the Twentieth
Century, would not be so surprising, only that unfortunately the
history of medieval teaching has, because of prejudice and a
lamentable tradition, not been read aright.
Occasionally one finds a startling bit of anticipation of what is most
modern, in medicine as well as in surgery. For instance, toward the
end of the Thirteenth Century, a distinguished English professor of
medicine, known as Gilbert, the Englishman, was teaching at
Montpelier, and among other things, was insisting that the rooms of
patients suffering from smallpox should be hung entirely with red
curtains, and that the doors and the windows should be covered with
heavy red hangings. He claimed that this made the disease run a
lighter course, with lessened mortality, and with very much less
disfigurement. Smallpox was an extremely common disease in the
Thirteenth Century, and he probably had many chances for observation.
It is interesting to realize that one of the most important
observations made at the end of the Nineteenth Century by Dr. Finsen,
the Danish investigator whose studies in light and its employment in
therapeutics, drew to him the attention of the world, and eventually
the Nobel prize of $40,000 for the greatest advance in medicine was,
that the admission of only red light to the room of smallpox patients
modified the disease very materially, shortened its course, often
prevented the secondary fever, and almost did away completely with the
subsequent disfigurement.
It is evident that these men were searching and investigating for
themselves, and not following blindly in the footsteps of any master.
It has often been said that during the Middle Ages it was a heresy to
depart, ever so little, from the teaching of Galen. Usually it is
customary to add that the first writer to break away from Galen,
effectually, was Vesalius, in his De Fabrica Corporis Humani,
published toward the end of the second quarter of the Sixteenth
Century. It may be said, in passing, that, as a matter of fact,
Vesalius, though he accomplished much by original investigation, did
not break so effectually with Galen as would have been for the best in
his own work, and, especially, for its influence on his successors. He
certainly did not set an example of independent research {90} and
personal observation, any more fully, than did the medical teachers of
the Thirteenth Century already mentioned, and some others, like
Mondaville and Arnold of Villanova, whose names well deserve to be
associated with them.
One reason why it is such a surprise to find how thoroughly practical
was the teaching of the Thirteenth Century university medical schools,
is because it has somehow come to be a very general impression that
medicine was taught mainly by disputations, and by the consultation of
authorities, and that it was always more important to have a passage
of Galen to support a medical notion, than, to have an original
observation. This false impression is due to the fact that the writers
of the history of medical education have, until recent years, drawn
largely on their imaginations, and have not consulted the old-time
medical books. In spite of the fact that printing was not discovered
for more than two centuries later, there are many treatises on
medicine that have come down to us from this early time, and the
historians of medicine now have the opportunity, and are taking the
trouble, to read them with a consequent alteration of old-time views,
as to the lack of encouragement for original observation, in the later
Middle Ages. These old tomes are not easy reading, but nothing daunts
a German investigator bound to get to the bottom of his subject, and
such men as Pagel and Puschmann have done much to rediscover for us
medieval medicine. The French medical historians have not been behind
their German colleagues and magnificent work has been accomplished,
especially by the republication of old texts. William of Salicet's
surgery was republished by Pifteau at Toulouse in 1898. Mondaville's
Surgery was republished under the auspices of the Society for the
Publication of old French Texts in 1897 and 1898. These republications
have made the works of the old-time surgeons readily available for
study by all interested in our great predecessors in medicine, all
over the world. Before this, it has always been necessary to get to
some of the libraries in which the old texts were preserved, and this,
of course, made it extremely difficult for the ordinary teacher of the
history of medicine to know anything about them. Besides, old texts
are such difficult reading that few, except the most earnest of
students, {91} have patience for them, and they are so time-taking as
to be practically impossible for modern, hurried students.
Unfortunately, writers of the history of medicine filled up this gap
in their knowledge, only too frequently, either out of their
imaginations, or out of their inadequate authorities, with the
consequence of inveterating the old-time false impression with regard
to the absence of anything of medical or surgical interest, even in
the later Middle Ages.
Another and much more serious reason for the false impression with
regard to the supposed blankness of the middle age in medical
progress, was the notion, quite generally accepted, and even yet not
entirely rejected, by many, that the Church was opposed to scientific
advance in the centuries before the reformation so-called, and that
even the sciences allied to medicine, fell under her ban. For
instance, there is not a history of medicine, so far as I know,
published in the English language, which does not assert that Pope
Boniface VIII., by a Bull promulgated at the end of the Thirteenth
Century, forbade the practise of dissection. To most people, it will,
at once, seem a natural conclusion, that if the feeling against the
study of the human body by dissection had reached such a pass as to
call forth a papal decree in the matter, at the end of the century,
all during the previous hundred years, there must have been enough
ecclesiastical hampering of anatomical work to prevent anything like
true progress, and to preclude the idea of any genuinely progressive
teaching of anatomy.
There is not the slightest basis for this bit of false history except
an unfortunate, it is to be hoped not intentional, misapprehension on
the part of historical writers as to the meaning of a papal decree
issued by Boniface VIII. in the year 1300. He forbade, under pain of
excommunication, the boiling of bodies and their dismemberment in
order that thus piecemeal they might be transported to long distances
for burial purposes. It is now well known that the Bull was aimed at
certain practises which had crept in, especially among the Crusaders
in the East. When a member of the nobility fell a victim to wounds or
to disease, his companions not infrequently dismembered the body,
boiled it so as to prevent putrefaction, or at least delay decay, and
then transported it long distances to his home, in {92} order that he
might have Christian burial in some favorite graveyard, and that his
friends might have the consolation of knowing where his remains
rested. The body of the Emperor Frederick Barbarosa, who died in the
East, is said to have been thus treated. Boniface was one of the most
broadly educated men of his time, who had been a great professor of
canon and civil law at Paris when younger, and realized the dangers
involved in such a proceeding from a sanitary standpoint, and he
forbade it, requiring that the bodies should be buried where the
persons had died. He evidently considered that the ancient custom of
consecrating a portion of earth for the purpose of burial in order
that the full Christian rites might be performed, was quite sufficient
for noble as for common soldier.
For this very commendable sanitary regulation Boniface has been set
down by historians of medicine as striking a death blow at the
development of anatomy for the next two centuries. As a matter of
fact, however, anatomy continued to be studied in the universities
after this Bull as it had been before, and it is evident that never by
any misapprehension as to its meaning was the practise of dissection
lessened. Curiously enough the history of human dissection can only be
traced with absolute certainty from the time immediately after this
Bull. It is during the next twenty-five years at the University of
Bologna, which was always closely in touch with the ecclesiastical
authorities in Italy and especially with the Pope, that the
foundations of dissection, as the most important practical department
of medical teaching, were laid by Mondino, whose book on dissection
continued to be the text book used in most of the medical schools for
the next two centuries. Guy de Chauliac who studied there during the
first half of the Fourteenth Century says he saw many dissections made
there. It was at Montpellier, about the middle of the century, when
the Popes were at Avignon not far away, that Guy de Chauliac himself
made attendance at dissections obligatory for every student, and
obtained permission to use the bodies of criminals for dissection
purposes. At the time Chauliac occupied the post of chamberlain to the
Popes. All during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries constant
progress was making in anatomy, especially in Italy, and some of it
was accomplished at Rome {93} by distinguished teachers of anatomy who
had been summoned by the popes to their capital in order to add
distinction to the teaching staff at the famous Papal School of
Science, the Sapienza, to which were attached during the next two
centuries many of the distinguished scientific professors of the time.
This story with regard to the papal prohibition of dissection has no
foundation in the history of the times. It has had not a little to do,
however, with making these times very much misunderstood and one still
continues to see printed references to the misfortune, which is more
usually called a crime, that prevented the development of a great
humanitarian science because of ecclesiastical prejudice. This story
with regard to anatomy, however, is not a whit worse than that which
is told of chemistry in almost the same terms. At the beginning of the
Fourteenth Century Pope John XXII. is said to have issued a Bull
forbidding chemistry under pain of excommunication, which according to
some writers in the matter is said to have included the death penalty.
It has been felt in the same way as with regard to anatomy, that this
was only the culmination of a feeling in ecclesiastical circles
against chemistry which must have hampered its progress all during the
Thirteenth Century.
An examination of the so-called Bull with regard to chemistry, it is
really only a decree, shows even less reason for the slander of Pope
John XXII. than of Boniface VIII. John had been scarcely a year on the
papal throne when he issued this decree forbidding "alchemies" and
inflicting a punishment upon those who practised them. The first
sentence of the title of the document is: "Alchemies are here
prohibited and those who practise them or procure their being done are
punished." This is evidently all of the decree that those who quoted
it as a prohibition of chemistry seem ever to have read. Under the
name "alchemies," Pope John, as is clear from the rest of the
document, meant a particular kind of much-advertised chemical
manipulations. He forbade the supposed manufacture of gold and silver.
The first sentence of his decree shows how thoroughly he recognized
the falsity of the pretensions of the alchemists in this matter. "Poor
themselves," he says, "the alchemists promise riches which are not
forthcoming." He then forbids them further to impose upon the poor
people {94} whose confidence they abuse and whose good money they take
to return them only base-metal or none at all.
The only punishment inflicted for the doing of these "alchemies" on
those who might transgress the decree was not death or imprisonment,
but that the pretended makers of gold and silver should be required to
turn into the public treasury as much gold and silver as had been paid
them for their alchemies, the money thus paid in to go to the poor. As
in the case of the Bull with regard to anatomy, it is very clear that
by no possible misunderstanding at the time was the development of the
science of chemistry hindered by this papal document. Chemistry had to
a certain extent been cultivated at the University of Paris, mainly by
ecclesiastics. Both Aquinas and his master Albertus wrote treatises on
chemical subjects. Roger Bacon devoted much time to it as is well
known, and for the next three centuries the history of chemistry has a
number of names of men who were not only unhampered by the
ecclesiastical authorities, but who were themselves usually either
ecclesiastics, or high in favor with the churchmen of their time and
place. This is true of Hollandus, of Arnold of Villanova, of Basil
Valentine, and finally of the many abbots and bishops to whom
Paracelsus in his time acknowledged his obligations for aid in his
chemical studies.
Almost needless to say it has been impossible, in a brief sketch of
this kind limited to a single chapter, to give anything like an
adequate idea of what the enthusiastic graduate students and
professors of the Thirteenth Century succeeded in accomplishing. It is
probably this department of University life, however, that has been
least understood, or rather we should say most persistently
misunderstood. The education of the time is usually supposed to be
eminently unpractical, and great advances in the departments of
knowledge that had important bearings on human life and its relations
were not therefore thought possible. It is just here, however, that
sympathetic interpretation and the pointing out of the coordination of
intellectual work often considered to be quite distinct from
university influences were needed. It is hoped then that this short
sketch will prove sufficient to call the attention of modern educators
to a field that has been neglected, or at least has {95} received very
little cultivation compared to its importance, but which must be
sedulously worked, if our generation is to understand with any degree
of thoroughness the spirit manifested and the results attained by the
medieval universities.
[Illustration]
DOUBLE FLYING BUTTRESS (RHEIMS)
{96}
VI
THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.
The most important portion of the history of the Thirteenth Century
and beyond all doubt the most significant chapter in the book of its
arts, is to be found in the great Gothic Cathedrals, so many of which
were erected at this time and whose greatest perfection of finish in
design and in detail came just at the beginning of this wonderful
period. We are not concerned here with the gradual development of
Gothic out of the older Romanesque architectural forms, nor with the
Oriental elements that may have helped this great evolution. All that
especially concerns us is the fact that the generations of the
Thirteenth Century took the Gothic ideas in architecture and applied
them so marvelously, that thereafter it could be felt that no problem
of structural work had been left unsolved and no feature of ornament
or decoration left untried or at least unsuggested. The great center
of Gothic influence was the North of France, but it spread from here
to every country in Europe, and owing to the intimate relations
existing between England and France because of the presence of the
Normans in both countries, developed almost as rapidly and with as
much beauty, and effectiveness as in the mother country.
It is in fact in England just before the Thirteenth Century, that the
spirit which gave rise to the Cathedrals can be best observed at work
and its purposes most thoroughly appreciated. The great Cathedral at
Lincoln had some of its most important features before the beginning
of the Thirteenth Century and this was doubtless due to the famous St.
Hugh of Lincoln, who was a Frenchman by birth and whose experience in
Normandy in early life enabled him successfully to set about the
creation of a Gothic Cathedral in the country that had become his by
adoption.
{opp96}
[Illustration]
ANGEL CHOIR (LINCOLN)
{97}
Hugh himself was so great of soul, so deeply interested in his people
and their welfare, so ready to make every sacrifice for them even to
the extent of incurring the enmity of his King (even Froude usually so
unsympathetic to medieval men and things has included him among his
Short Studies of Great Subjects), that one cannot help but think that
when he devoted himself to the erection of the magnificent Cathedral,
he realized very well that it would become a center of influence, not
only religious but eminently educational, in its effects upon the
people of his diocese. The work was begun then with a consciousness of
the results to be attained and the influence of the Cathedral must not
be looked upon as accidental. He must have appreciated that the
creating of a work of beauty in which the people themselves shared,
which they looked on as their own property, to which they came nearly
every second day during the year for religious services, would be a
telling book out of which they would receive more education than could
come to them in any other way.
Of course we cannot hope in a short chapter or two to convey any
adequate impression of the work that was done in and for the
Cathedrals, nor the even more important reactionary influence they had
in educating the people. Ferguson says: [Footnote 9 ]
[Footnote 9: Ferguson--History of Architecture. N. Y., Dodd, Mead &
Co.]
"The subject of the cathedrals, their architecture and decoration
is, in fact, practicably inexhaustible. . . . Priests and laymen
worked with masons, painters, and sculptors, and all were bent on
producing the best possible building, and improving every part and
every detail, till the amount of thought and contrivance accumulated
in any single structure is almost incomprehensible. If any one man
were to devote a lifetime to the study of one of our great
cathedrals--assuming it to be complete in all its medieval
arrangements--it is questionable whether he would master all its
details, and fathom all the reasonings and experiments which led to
the glorious result before him. And when we consider that not in the
great cities alone, but in every convent and in every parish,
thoughtful professional men were trying to excel what had been done
and was doing, by their predecessors and their fellows, we shall
{98} understand what an amount of thought is built into the walls of
our churches, castles, colleges, and dwelling houses. If any one
thinks he can master and reproduce all this, he can hardly fail to
be mistaken. My own impression is that not one tenth part of it has
been reproduced in all the works written on the subject up to this
day, and much of it is probably lost and never again to be recovered
for the instruction and delight of future ages."
This profound significance and charming quality of the cathedrals is
usually unrecognized by those who see them only once or twice, and
who, though they are very much interested in them for the moment, have
no idea of the wealth of artistic suggestion and of thoughtful design
so solicitously yet happily put into them by their builders. People
who have seen them many times, however, who have lived in close touch
with them, who have been away from them for a time and have come back
to them, find the wondrous charm that is in these buildings.
Architects and workmen put their very souls into them and they will
always be of interest. It is for this reason, that the casual visitor
at all times and in all moods finds them ever a source of constantly
renewed pleasure, no matter how many times they may be seen.
Elizabeth Robbins Pennell has expressed this power of Cathedrals to
please at all times, even after they have been often seen and are very
well known, in a recent number of the _Century_, in describing the
great Cathedral of Notre Dame, "Often as I have seen Notre Dame," she
says, "the marvel of it never grows less. I go to Paris with no
thought of time for it, busy about many other things and then on my
way over one of the bridges across the river perhaps, I see it again
on its island, the beautiful towers high above the houses and palaces
and the view now so familiar strikes me afresh with all the wonder of
my first impression."
This is we think the experience of everyone who has the opportunity to
see much of Notre Dame. The present writer during the course of his
medical studies spent many months in daily view of the Cathedral and
did a good deal of work at the old Morgue, situated behind the
Cathedral. Even at the end of his stay he was constantly finding new
beauties in {99} the grand old structure and learning to appreciate it
more and more as the changing seasons of a Paris fall and winter and
spring, threw varying lights and shadows over it. It was like a work
of nature, never growing old, but constantly displaying some new phase
of beauty to the passers-by. Mrs. Pennell resents only the
restorations that have been made. Generations down even to our time
have considered that they could rebuild as beautifully as the
Thirteenth Century constructors; some of them even have thought that
they could do better, doubtless, yet their work has in the opinion of
good critics served only to spoil or at least to detract from the
finer beauty of the original plan. No wonder that R. M. Stevenson, who
knew and loved the old Cathedral so well, said: "Notre Dame is the
only un-Greek thing that unites majesty, elegance, and awfulness."
Inasmuch as it does so it is a typical product of this wonderful
Thirteenth Century, the only serious rival the Greeks have ever had.
But of course it does not stand alone. There are other Cathedrals
built at the same time at least as handsome and as full of
suggestions. Indeed in the opinion of many critics it is inferior in
certain respects to some three or four of the greatest Gothic
Cathedrals.
It cannot be possible that these generations builded so much better
than they knew, that it is only by a sort of happy accident that their
edifices still continue to be the subject of such profound admiration,
and such endless sources of pleasure after seven centuries of
experience. If so we would certainly be glad to have some such happy
accident occur in our generation, for we are building nothing at the
present time with regard to which we have any such high hopes. Of
course the generations of Cathedral builders knew and appreciated
their own work. The triumph of the Thirteenth Century is therefore all
the more marked and must be considered as directly due to the
environment and the education of its people. We have then in the study
of their Cathedrals the keynote for the modern appreciation of the
character and the development of their builders.
It will be readily understood, how inevitably fragmentary must be our
consideration of the Cathedrals, yet there is the consolation that
they are the best known feature of Thirteenth {100} Century
achievement and that consequently all that will be necessary will be
to point out the significance of their construction as the basis of
the great movement of education and uplift in the century. Perhaps
first a word is needed with regard to the varieties of Gothic in the
different countries of Europe and what they meant in the period.
Probably, the most interesting feature of the history of Gothic
architecture, at this period, is to be found in the circumstance that,
while all of the countries erected Gothic structures along the general
lines which had been laid down by its great inventors in the North and
Center of France, none of the architects and builders of the century,
in other countries, slavishly followed the French models. English
Gothic is quite distinct from its French ancestor, and while it has
defects it has beauties, that are all its own, and a simplicity and
grandeur, well suited to the more rugged character of the people among
whom it developed. Italian Gothic has less merits, perhaps, than any
of the other forms of the art that developed in the different nations.
In Italy, with its bright sunlight, there was less crying need for the
window space, for the provision of which, in the darker northern
countries, Gothic was invented, but, even here the possibilities of
decorated architecture along certain lines were exhausted more fully
than anywhere else, as might have been expected from the esthetic
spirit of the Italians. German Gothic has less refinement than any of
the other national forms, yet it is not lacking in a certain
straightforward strength and simplicity of appearance, which
recommends it. The Germans often violated the French canons of
architecture, yet did not spoil the ultimate effect. St. Stephen's in
Vienna has many defects, yet as a good architectural authority has
declared it is the work of a poet, and looks it.
A recent paragraph with regard to Spanish Gothic in an article on
Spain, by Havelock Ellis, illustrates the national qualities of this
style very well. As much less is generally known about the special
development of Gothic architecture in the Spanish peninsula, it has
seemed worth while to quote it at some length: