CHAPTER XLIII

THE MEDIAEVAL SYNTHESIS: DANTE

It lies before us to draw the lines of mediaeval development together. We

have been considering the Middle Ages very largely, endeavouring to fix in

mind the more interesting of their intellectual and emotional phenomena.

We have found throughout a certain spiritual homogeneity; but have also

seen that the mediaeval period of western Europe is not to be forced to a

fictitious unity of intellectual and emotional quality--contradicted by a

disparity of traits and interests existing then as now. Yet just as

certain ways of discerning facts and estimating their importance

distinguish our own time, making it an “age” or epoch, so in spite of

diversity and conflict, the same was true of the mediaeval period. From

the ninth to the fourteenth century, inter-related processes of thought,

beliefs, and standards prevailed and imparted a spiritual colour to the

time. While not affecting all men equally, these spiritual habits tended

to dominate the minds and tempers of those men who were the arbiters of

opinion, for example, the church dignitaries, or the

theologian-philosophers. Men who thought effectively, or upon whom it fell

to decide for others, or to construct or imagine for them, such, whether

pleasure-loving, secularly ambitious, or immersed in contemplation of the

life beyond the grave, accepted certain beliefs, recognized certain

authoritatively prescribed ideals of conduct and well-being, and did not

reject the processes of proof supporting them.

The causes making the Middle Ages a characterizable period in human

history have been scanned. We observed the antecedent influences as they

finally took form and temper in the intellectual atmosphere of the

latter-day pagan world and the cognate mentalities of the Church Fathers.

We followed the pre-Christian Latinizing of Provence, Spain, Gaul, and the

diffusion of Christianity throughout the same countries, where, save for

sporadic dispossession, Christianity and Latin were to continue, and

become, in the course of centuries, mediaeval and Romance. As waves of

barbarism washed over the somewhat decadent society of Italy and her Latin

daughters, we saw a new ignorance setting a final seal upon the inability

of these epigoni to emulate bygone achievements. Plainly there was need of

effort to rescue the _disjecta membra_ of the antique and Christian

heritages. The wreckers were famous men, young Boëthius, old Cassiodorus,

the great pope Gregory, and princely Isidore. For their own people they

were gatherers and conservers; but they proved veritable transmitters for

Franks, Anglo-Saxons and Germans, who were made acquainted with

Christianity and Latinity between the sixth and the ninth centuries, the

period in the course of which the Merovingian kingdoms were superseded by

the Carolingian Empire.

With the Carolingian period the Middles Ages unquestionably are upon us.

The factors and material of mediaeval development, howsoever they have

come into conjunction, are found in interplay. It was for the mediaeval

peoples, now in presence of their spiritual fortunes, to grow and draw

from life. Their task, as has appeared from many points of view, was to

master the Christian and antique material, and change its substance into

personal faculty. Under different guises this task was for all, whether

living in Italy or dwelling where the antique had weaker root or had been

newly introduced.

This Carolingian time of so much sheer introduction to the teaching of the

past presented little intellectual discrimination. That would come very

gradually, when men had mastered their lesson and could set themselves to

further study of the parts suited to their taste. Nevertheless, there was

even in the Carolingian period another sort of discrimination, towards

which men’s consciences were drawn by the contrast between their antique

and Christian heritages, and because the latter held a criterion of

selection and rejection, touching all the elements of human life.

Whoever reflects upon his life and its compass of thought, of inclination,

of passion, action, and capacity for happiness or desolation, is likely to

consider how he may best harmonize its elements. He will have to choose

and reject; and within him may arise a conflict which he must bring to

reconcilement if he will have peace. He may need to sacrifice certain of

his impulses or even rational desires. As with a thoughtful individual, so

with thoughtful people of an epoch, among whom like standards of

discrimination may be found prevailing. The ninth century received, with

patristic Christianity, a standard of selection and rejection. In

conformity with it, men, century after century, were to make their choice,

and try to bring their lives to a discriminating unity and certain peace.

Yet in every mediaeval century the soul’s peace was broken in ways

demanding other modes of reconcilement.

What profiteth a man to gain the world and lose his eternal life? Here was

the Gospel basis of the matter. And, following their conception of

Christ’s teaching, the Fathers of the Church elaborated and defined the

conditions of attainment of eternal life with God, which was salvation.

This was man’s whole good, embracing every valid and righteous element of

life. Thus it had been with Christ; thus it was with Augustine; thus it

was with Benedict of Nursia and Gregory the Great; only in Benedict and

Gregory the salvation which represented the true and uncorrupt life of man

on earth, as well as the assured preparation for eternal life with God,

had shrunken from the universality of Christ, and even from the fulness of

desire with which Augustine sought to know God and the soul. In these

later men the conception of salvation had contracted through ascetic

exclusion and barbaric fear.

Yet with Benedict and Gregory, in whom there was much constructive sanity,

and indeed with all men who were not maniacally constrained, there was

recognition that salvation was of the mind as well as through faith and

love, or abhorrent fear. It is necessary to know the truth; and surely it

is absolutely good to desire to know the truth forever, without the

cumbrances of fleshly mortality. This desire is a true part of everlasting

life. Through it Origen, Hilary of Poictiers, Augustine largely, and after

them the great scholastics with Dante at their close, achieved salvation.

But why should one desire to know the truth utterly and forever, were not

the truth desirable, lovable? Naturally one loves that which through

desire and effort one has come to know. Love is required and also faith by

him who will have and know the salvation which is eternal life; the

emotions must take active part. Yet salvation comes not through the

unguided sense-desiderative nature. It is for reason to direct passionate

desire, and raise it to desire rationally approved, which is volition.

Thus salvation not only requires the action of the whole man, but is in

and of his entire nature. It presents a unity primarily because of its

agreement with the will of God, and then because of its unqualified and

universal insistence that it, salvation, life eternal, be set absolutely

first in man’s endeavour. What indeed could be more irrational, and more

loveless and faithless, than that any desire should prevail over the

entire good of man and the will of God as well? Oneness and peace consist

in singleness of purpose and endeavour for salvation. Herein lies the

standard of conduct and of discrimination as touching every element of

mortal life.

With mediaeval men, the application of the criterion of salvation depended

on how the will of God for man, and man’s accordant conduct, was

conceived. What kind of conduct, what elements of the intellectual and

emotional life were proper for the Kingdom of Heaven? What matters barred

the way, or were unfit for the eternal spiritual state? The history of

Christian thought lies within these queries. An authoritative consensus of

opinion was represented by the Church at large, holding from century to

century a _juste milieu_ of doctrine, by no means lax and yet not going to

ascetic extremes. Seemingly the Church maintained varying standards of

conduct for different orders of men. Yet in truth it was applying one

standard according to the responsibilities of individuals and their vows.

The Church (meaning, for our purpose, the authoritative consensus of

mediaeval ecclesiastical or religious approvals) always upheld as the

ideal of perfect living the religious life, led under the sanction and

guidance of some recognized monastic _regula_. So lived monks and nuns,

and in more extreme or sporadic instances, anchorites and _reclusae_. The

main peril of this strait and narrow path was its forsaking, the breaking

of its vows. Less austerely guarded and exposed to further dangers were

the secular clergy, living in the world, occupied with the care of lay

souls, and with other cares that hardly touched salvation. The world

avowedly, the flesh in reality, and the devil in all probability, beset

the souls of bishops and other clergy. In view of their exposed positions

“in the world,” a less austerely ascetic life was expected of the

seculars, whose lapses from absolute holiness God might--or perhaps might

not--condone.

Around, and for the most part below, regulars and seculars were the laity

of both sexes, of all ages, positions, and degrees of instruction or

ignorance. They had taken no vows of utter devotion to God’s service, and

were expected to marry, beget children, fight and barter, and fend for

themselves amid the temptations and exigencies of affairs. Well for them

indeed if they could live in communion with the Church, and die repentant

and absolved, eligible for purgatory.

For all these kinds of men and women like virtues were prescribed,

although their fulfilment was looked for with varying degrees of

expectation. For instance, the distinctly theological virtues, faith,

hope, and charity, especially the first, could not be completely attained

by the ignorance and imperfect consecration of laymen. The vices,

likewise, were the same for all, pride, anger, hypocrisy, and the rest;

only with married people a venial unchastity was sacramentally declared

not to constitute mortal sin. For this one case, human weakness, also

mankind’s necessity, was recognized; while, in practice, the Church,

through its boundless opportunities for penitence and absolution,

mercifully condoned all delinquency save obstinate pride, impenitence, and

disbelief.

These were the bare poles ethical of the orthodox mediaeval Christian

scheme. How as to its intellectual and emotional inclusiveness? The

many-phased interest of the mind, _i.e._ the desire to know, was in

principle accepted, but with the condition that the ultimate end of

knowledge should be the attainment of salvation. It was stated and

re-emphasized by well-nigh every type of mediaeval thinker, that Theology

was the queen of sciences, and her service alone justified her handmaids.

All knowledge should make for the knowledge of God, and enlarge the soul’s

relationship to its Creator and Judge. “He that is not with me is against

me.” Knowledge which does not aid man to know his God and save his soul,

all intellectual pursuits which are not loyal to this end, minister to the

obstinacy and vainglory of man, stiff-necked, disobedient, unsubmissive to

the will of God. Knowledge is justified or condemned according to its

ultimate purpose. Likewise every deed, business, occupation, which can

fill out the active life of man. As they make for Christ and salvation,

the functions of ruler, warrior, lawyer, artisan, priest, are justified

and blessed--or the reverse.

But how as to the appetites and the emotions? How as to love, between the

sexes, parent and child, among friends? The standard of discrimination is

still the same, though its application vary. Appetite for food, if

unrestrained, is gluttony; it must be held from hindering the great end.

One must guard against love’s obsession, against sense-passion, which is

so forgetful of the ultimate good: concupiscence is sinful. Through bodily

begetting, the taint of original sin is transmitted; and in all carnal

desire, though sanctioned by the marriage sacrament, is lust and spiritual

forgetfulness. When in fornication and adultery its acts contravene God’s

law, they are mortal sins which will, if unabsolved, cast the sinner into

hell.

Few men in the Middle Ages were insensible to their future lot, and

therefore the criterion of salvation unto eternal life would rarely be

rejected. But often there was conflict within the soul before it

acquiesced in what it felt compelled to recognize; and sometimes there was

clear revolt against current convictions, or practical insistence that a

larger volume of the elements of human nature were fit for life eternal.

Conflict before acquiescence had agitated the natures of sainted Fathers

of the Church, who marked out the path to salvation which the Middle Ages

were to tread. One thinks at once of Jerome’s never-forgotten dream of

exclusion from Paradise because of too great delight in classic reading.

Another phase was Augustine’s, set forth somewhat retrospectively in his

_Confessions_. Therein, as would seem, the drawings of the flesh were most

importunate. Yet not without sighs and waverings did the _mind_ of

Augustine settle to its purpose of knowing only God and the soul. At all

events the chafings of mortal curiosity, the promptings of cultivated

taste, and the cravings of the flesh, were the moving forces of the

Psychomachia which passed with Patristic Christianity to the Middle Ages.

Thousands upon thousands of ardent souls were to experience this conflict

before convincing themselves that classic studies should be followed only

as they led heavenward, and that carnal love was an evil thing which, even

when sacramentally sanctioned, might deflect the soul.

The revolt against the authoritatively accepted standard declared itself

along the same lines of conflict, but did not end in acquiescence and

renunciation. It contended rather for a peace and reconcilement which

should include much that was looked upon askance. It was not always

violent, and might be dumb to the verge of unconsciousness, merely a tacit

departure from standards more universally recognized than followed.

There were countless instances of this silent departure from the standard

of salvation. With cultivated men, it realized itself in classical

studies, as with Hildebert of Le Mans or John of Salisbury. It does not

appear that either of them experienced qualms of conscience or suffered

rebuke from their brethren. No more did Gerbert, an earlier instance of

catholic interest in profane knowledge, though legends of questionable

practices were to encircle his fame.

Other men pursued knowledge, rational or physical, in such a way as to

rouse hostile attention to its irrelevancy or repugnancy to saving faith,

and this even in spite of formal demonstration by the investigator--Roger

Bacon is in our mind--of the advantage of his researches to the Queen

Theology. Bacon might not have been so suspect to his brethren, and his

demonstration of the theological serviceableness of natural knowledge

would have passed, had he not put forth bristling manifestos denouncing

the blind acceptance of custom and authority. Moreover, the obvious

tendencies of methods of investigation advocated by him countered methods

of faith; for the mediaeval and patristic conception of salvation,

whatever collateral supports it might find in reason, was founded on the

authority of revelation.

Indeed it was the lifting up of the standard of rational investigation

which distinguished the veritable revolt from those preliminary inner

conflicts which often strengthened final acquiescence. And it was the

obstinate elevation of one’s individual wisdom (as it appeared to the

orthodox) that separated the accredited supporters of the Church among

theologians and philosophers, from those who were suspect. We mark the

line of the latter reaching back through Abaelard to Eriugena. Such men,

although possibly narrower in their intellectual interests than some who

more surely abode within the Church’s pale, may be held as broader in

principle. For inasmuch as they tended to set reason above authority, it

would seem that there was no bound to their pursuit of rational knowledge,

wherewith to expand and fortify their reason.

But if the intellectual side of man pressed upon the absolutism of the

standard of salvation, more belligerent was the insistency of love--not of

the Crucified. To the Church’s disparagement of the flesh, love made

answer openly, not slinking behind hedges or closed doors, nor even

sheltering itself within wedlock’s lawfulness. It, love, without regard to

priestly sanction, proclaimed itself a counter-principle of worth. The

love of man for woman was to be an inspiration to high deeds and noble

living as well as a source of ennobling power. It presented an ideal for

knights and poets. It could confer no immortality on lovers save that of

undying fame: but it promised the highest happiness and worth in mortal

life. If only knights and ladies might not have grown old, the supremacy

of love and its emprize would have been impregnable. But age must come,

and the ghastly mediaeval fear of death was like to drive lover and

mistress at the last within some convent refuge. Fear brought compunction

and perhaps its tears. Renunciation of the joy of life seemed a fit

penance to disarm the Judge’s wrath. So at the end of life the ideal of

love was prone to make surrender to salvation. Asceticism even enters its

literature, as with the monkish Galahad. There was, however, another way

of reconcilement between the carnal and the spiritual, the secular and the

eternal, by which the secular and carnal were transformed to symbols of

the spiritual and eternal--the way of the _Vita nuova_ and the _Divina

Commedia_, as we shall see.

So in spite of conflicts or silent treasons within the natures of many who

fought beneath the Christian banner, in spite of open mutinies of the mind

and declared revolts of the heart, salvation remained the triumphant

standard of discrimination by which the elements of mediaeval life were to

be esteemed or rejected. What then were these elements to which this

standard, or deflections from it, should apply? How specify their

mediaeval guise and character? It would be possible to pass in review

synoptically the contents of this work. We might return, and then once

more travel hitherward over the mediaeval path, the many paths and byways

of mediaeval life. We might follow and again see applied--or

unapplied--these standards of discrimination, salvation over all, and the

deviations of pretended acquiescence or subconscious departure. We might

perhaps make one final attempt to draw the currents of mediaeval life

together, or observe the angles of their divergence, and note once more

the disparity of taste and interest making so motley the mediaeval

picture. But this has been done so excellently, in colours of life, and

presented in the person of a man in whom mediaeval thought and feeling

were whole, organic, living--an achievement by the Artist moving the

antecedent scheme of things which made this man Dante what he was. We

shall find in him the conflict, the silent departures, and the

reconcilement at last of recalcitrant elements brought within salvation as

the standard of universal discrimination. Dante accomplishes this

reconcilement in personal yet full mediaeval manner by transmuting the

material to the spiritual, the mortal to the eternal, through the

instrumentality of symbolism. He is not merely mediaeval; he is the end of

the mediaeval development and the proper issue of the mediaeval genius.

Yes, there is unity throughout the diversity of mediaeval life; and Dante

is the proof. For the elements of mediaeval growth combine in him,

demonstrating their congruity by working together in the stature of the

full-grown mediaeval man. When the contents of patristic Christianity and

the surviving antique culture had been conceived anew, and had been felt

as well, and novel forms of sentiment evolved, at last comes Dante to

possess the whole, to think it, feel it, visualize its sum, and make of it

a poem. He had mastered the field of mediaeval knowledge, diligently

cultivating parts of it, like the Graeco-Arabian astronomy; he thought and

reasoned in the terms and assumptions of scholastic (chiefly

Thomist-Aristotelian) philosophy; his intellectual interests were

mediaeval; he felt the mediaeval reverence for the past, being impassioned

with the ancient greatness of Rome and the lineage of virtue and authority

moving from it to him and thirteenth-century Italy and the already

shattered Holy Roman Empire. He took earnest joy in the Latin Classics,

approaching them from mediaeval points of view, accepting their contents

uncritically. He was affected with the preciosity of courtly or chivalric

love, which Italy had made her own along with the songs of the Troubadours

and the poetry of northern France. His emotions flowed in channels of

current convention, save that they overfilled them; this was true as to

his early love, and true as to his final range of religious and poetic

feeling. His was the emotion and the cruelty of mediaeval religious

conviction; while in his mind (so worked the genius of symbolism) every

fact’s apparent meaning was clothed with the significance of other modes

of truth.

Dante was also an Italian of the period in which he lived; and he was a

marvellous poet. One may note in him what was mediaeval, what was

specifically Italian, and what, apparently, was personal. This scholar

could not but draw his education, his views of life and death, his

dominant inclinations and the large currents of his purpose, from the

antecedent mediaeval period and the still greater past which had worked

upon it so mightily. His Italian nature and environment gave point and

piquancy and very concrete life to these mediaeval elements; and his

personal genius produced from it all a supreme poetic creation.

The Italian part of Dante comes between the mediaeval and the personal, as

species comes between the genus and the individual. The tremendous feeling

which he discloses for the Roman past seems, in him, specifically Italian:

child of Italy, he holds himself a Latin and a direct heir of the

Republic. Yet often his attitude toward the antique will be that of

mediaeval men in general, as in his disposition to accept ancient myth for

fact; while his own genius appears in his beautifully apt appropriation of

the Virgilian incident or image; wherein he excels his “Mantuan” master,

whose borrowings from Homer were not always felicitous. Frequently the

specifically Italian in Dante, his yearning hate of Florence, for example,

may scarcely be distinguished from his personal temper; but its civic

bitterness is different from the feudal animosities or promiscuous rages

which were more generically mediaeval. As a lighter example, there are

three lines in the fourth canto of the _Purgatorio_ which do not reflect

the Middle Ages, nor yet pertain to Dante’s character, but are, we feel,

Italian. They are these: “Thither we drew; and there were persons who were

staying in the shadow behind the rock, as one through indolence sets

himself to stay.”

Again, Dante’s arguments in the _De monarchia_[672] seem to be those of an

Italian Ghibelline. Yet beyond his intense realization of Italy’s direct

succession to the Roman past, his reasoning is scholastic and mediaeval,

or springs occasionally from his own reflections. The Italian contribution

to the book tends to coalesce either with the general or the personal

elements. Dante argues that the rewards or fruits of virtue belonged to

the Roman people because of the pre-eminent virtue, high lineage, and

royal marriage-connections, of their ancestor Aeneas.[673] Here, of

course, the statements of Virgil are accepted literally, and one notes

that while the argument is mediaeval in its absurdity, it will be made

Italian in its application. Likewise his further arguments making for the

same conclusion, however Italianized in their pointing, are mediaeval, or

patristic, in their provenance: for example, that the Roman Empire was

divinely helped by miracles; that the divine arbitrament decided the

world-struggle or _duellum_ in its favour; and that Christ was born and

suffered legally to redeem mankind under the Empire’s authority and

jurisdiction.[674] Moreover, in refuting the very mediaeval papal

arguments from “the keys,” from “the two swords,” and from the analogy of

the sun and moon, Dante himself reasons scholastically.[675]

The _De vulgari eloquentia_ illustrates the difference between Dante

accepting and reproducing mediaeval views, and Dante thinking for himself.

In opening he speaks of mixing the stronger potions of others with the

water of his own talent, to make a beverage of sweetest hydromel--we have

heard such phrases before! Then the first chapters give the current ideas

touching the nature and origin of speech, and describe the confusion of

language at the building of Babel: each group of workmen engaged in the

same sort of work found themselves speaking a new tongue understood only

by themselves; while the sacred Hebrew speech endured with that seed of

Shem who had taken no part in the impious construction. After this

foolishness, the eighth chapter of Book I. becomes startlingly intelligent

as Dante discusses the contemporary Romance tongues of Europe and takes up

the _idioma_ which uses the particle _si_. Out of its many dialects he

detaches his thought of a _volgare_, a mother tongue, which shall be the

illustrious, noble, and courtly speech in Latium, and shall seem to be of

every Latian city and yet of none, and afford a standard by which the

speech of each city may be criticized. The mediaeval period offers no such

penetrating linguistic observation; and in the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, as

in the _Convito_, Dante is deeply conscious of the worth of the Romance

vernacular.

Written in the _volgare_, the style of the latter nondescript work bears

curious likeness to scientific Latin writing. The Latin scholastic thought

shows plainly through this involved and scholastic _volgare_, while the

scholastic substance is rendered in a scarcely altered medium. The

_Convito_ is indeed a curious work which one need not lament that Dante

did not carry out to its mediaeval interminableness in fourteen books. The

four that he wrote suffice to show its futility and apparent confusion in

conception and form. Besides incidentally explaining the thought of the

idyllic _Vita nuova_, it professed to be a commentary upon fourteen of

Dante’s canzone, the meaning of which had been misunderstood. Indeed they

had been suspected of disclosing a passion bearing a morganatic

relationship to the love of Beatrice. Truly understood they referred to

that love which is the love of knowledge, philosophy to wit; and their

commentary should expound that, and might properly set forth the contents

of the Seven Liberal Arts and the higher divine reaches of knowledge. The

_Convito_ seems also to mark a stage in Dante’s life: the time perhaps

when he turned, or imagined himself as turning, to philosophy for

consolation in youthful grief, or the time perhaps when his nature looked

coldly upon its early faith and sought to stay itself with rational

knowledge. The book might thus seem a _De consolatione philosophiae_,

after the temper, if not the manner, of Boëthius’ work, which then was

much in Dante’s mind. Yet it was to be a setting forth of knowledge for

the ignorant, a sort of _Summa contra Gentiles_, as is hinted in the last

completed chapter. These three purposes fall in with the fact that the

work was apparently the expression of Dante’s intellectual nature, and of

his spiritual condition between the experience of the _Vita nuova_ and the

time or state of the _Commedia_.[676]

Certainly the _Convito_ gives evidence touching the writer’s mental

processes and the interests of his mind. Except for its lofty advocacy of

the _volgare_ and its personal apologetic references, it contains little

that is not blankly mediaeval. And had it kept on to its completion, so as

to have become no torso, but a full _Summa_ or _Tesoro_ of liberal

knowledge, its whimsical form as a commentary upon canzone would have made

it one of the most bizarre of mediaeval compositions. One should not take

this most repellent of Dante’s writings as an adequate expression of the

intellectual side of his nature; though a significant phrase may be drawn

from it: “Philosophy is a loving use of wisdom (_uno amoroso uso di

sapienza_) which chiefly is in God, since in Him is utmost wisdom, utmost

love, and utmost actuality.”[677] A loving use of wisdom--with Dante the

pursuit of knowledge was no mere intellectual search, but a pilgrimage of

the whole nature, loving heart as well as knowing mind, and the working

virtues too. This pilgrimage is set forth in the _Commedia_, perhaps the

supreme creation of the Middle Ages, and a work that by reason of the

beautiful affinity of its speech with Latin,[678] exquisitely expressed

the matters which in Latin had been coming to formulation through the

mediaeval centuries.

The _Commedia_ (_Inferno_, _Purgatorio_, _Paradiso_) is a _Summa_, a

_Summa salvationis_, a sum of saving knowledge. It is such just as surely

as the final work of Aquinas is a _Summa theologiae_. But Aquinas was the

supreme mediaeval theologian-philosopher, while Dante was the supreme

theologian-poet; and with both Aquinas and Dante, theology includes the

knowledge of all things, but chiefly of man in relation to God. Such was

the matter of the _divina scientia_ of Thomas, and such was the subject of

the _Commedia_, which was soon recognized as the _Divina Commedia_ in the

very sense in which Theology was the divine science. The _Summa_ of Thomas

was _scientia_ not only in substance, but in form; the _Commedia_ was

_scientia_, or _sapientia_, in substance, while in form it was a poem, the

epic of man the pilgrim of salvation. In every sense, Aristotelian and

otherwise, it was a work of art; and herein if we cannot compare it with a

_Summa_, we may certainly liken it to a Cathedral, which also was a work

of art and a _Summa salvationis_ wrought in stone. For a Cathedral--it is

the great French type we have in mind--was a _Summa_ of saving knowledge,

as well as a place for saving acts. And presenting the substance of

knowledge in the forms of art, very true art, the matter of which had long

been pondered on and loved or hated, the Cathedral in its feeling and

beauty, as well as in the order of its manifested thought, was a

_Commedia_; for it too was a poem with a happy ending, at least for those

who should be saved.

The Cathedral had grown from dumb barrel-vaulted Romanesque to Gothic,

speaking in all the terms of sculpture and painted glass. It grew out of

its antecedents. The _Commedia_ rested upon the entire evolution of the

Middle Ages. Therein had lain its spiritual preparation. To be sure it had

its casual forerunners (_precursori_): narratives, real or feigned, of men

faring to the regions of the dead.[679] But these signified little; for

everywhere thoughts of the other life pressed upon men’s minds: fear of it

blanched their hearts; its heavenly or hellish messengers had been seen,

and not a few men dreamed that they had walked within those gates and

witnessed clanging horrors or purgatorial pain. Heaven they had more

rarely visited.

Dante gave little attention to any so-called “forerunners,” save only two,

Paul and Virgil. The former was a warrant for the poet’s reticence as to

the manner of his ascent to Heaven;[680] the latter supplied much of his

scheme of Hell. Yet there were one or two others possessed of some

affinity of soul with the great Florentine, who perhaps knew nothing of

them. One of these was Hildegard of Bingen, with her vision of the spirits

in the cloud, and her pungent sights of the bitterness of the pains of

hell.[681] Another sort of affinity is disclosed in the allegorical

_Anticlaudianus_ of Alanus de Insulis, in which Reason can take

_Prudentia_ just so far upon her heavenly journey, and then gives place to

Theology, even as Virgil, symbol of rational wisdom, gives place to

Beatrice at the summit of the Mount of Purgatory.[682] Dante might have

drawn still more enlightenment from the _De sacramentis_ of Hugo of St.

Victor, in which the rational basis of the universal scheme of things is

shown to lie in the principle of allegorical intendment. Yet one finds few

traces of Hugo in Dante except through Hugo’s pupil, Richard, whose works

he had read. That such apt forerunners should scarcely have affected him

shows how he was taught and inspired, not by individuals, but by the

entire Middle Ages.

One observes mediaeval characteristics in the _Commedia_ raised to a

higher power. The mediaeval period was marked by contrasts of quality and

of conduct such as cannot be found in the antique or the modern age. And

what other poem can vie with the _Commedia_ in contrasts of the beautiful

and the loathsome, the heavenly and the hellish, exquisite refinement of

expression and lapses into the reverse,[683] love and hate, pity and

cruelty, reverence and disdain? These contrasts not only are presented by

the story; they evince themselves in the character of the author. Many

scenes of the _Inferno_ are loathsome:[684] Dante’s own words and conduct

there may be cruel and hateful[685] or show tender pity; and every reader

knows the poetic beauty which glorifies the _Paradiso_, renders lovely the

_Purgatorio_, and ever and anon breaks through the gloom of Hell.

Another mediaeval quality, sublimated in Dante’s poem, is that of

elaborate plan, intended symmetry of composition, the balance of one

incident or subject against another.[686] And finally one observes the

mediaeval inclusiveness which belongs to the scope and purpose of the

_Commedia_ as a _Summa_ of salvation. Dante brings in everything that can

illuminate and fill out his theme. Even as the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, so

the _Commedia_ must present a whole doctrinal scheme of salvation, and

leave no loopholes, loose ends, broken links of argument or explanation.

The substance of the _Commedia_, practically its whole content of thought,

opinion, sentiment, had source in the mediaeval store of antique culture

and the partly affiliated, if not partly derivative, Latin Christianity.

The mediaeval appreciation of the Classics, and of the contents of ancient

philosophy, is not to be so very sharply distinguished from the attitude

of the fifteenth or sixteenth, nay, if one will, the eighteenth, century,

when the _Federalist_ in the young inchoately United States, and many an

orator in the revolutionary assemblies of France, quoted Cicero and

Plutarch as arbiters of civic expediency. Nevertheless, if we choose to

recognize deference to ancient opinion, acceptance of antique myth and

poetry as fact,[687] unbounded admiration for a shadowy and much distorted

ancient world, as characterizing the mediaeval attitude toward whatever

once belonged to Rome and Greece, then we must say that such also is

Dante’s attitude, scholar as he was;[688] and that in his use of the

Classics he differed from other mediaeval men only in so far as above them

all he was a poet.

Lines of illustrative examples begin with the opening canto of the

_Inferno_, where Dante addresses Virgil as _famoso saggio_, an appellative

strictly corresponding with the current mediaeval view of the “Mantuan.”

Mediaeval also is the grouping of the great poets who rise to meet Virgil,

first Homer, then _Orazio satiro_, and Ovid and Lucan.[689] More narrowly

mediaeval, that is, pertaining particularly to the thirteenth century, is

Dante’s profound reverence for the authority of Aristotle, _il maestro di

color che sanno_.[690] It may be that the poet’s sense of the enormous,

_elect_, importance of Aeneas,[691] and his putting Rhipeus, most

righteous of the Trojans, as the fifth regal spirit in the Eagle’s

eye,[692] belonged more especially to Dante as the Ghibelline author of

the _De monarchia_. But generically mediaeval was his acceptance of

antique myth for fact, a most curious instance of which is his referring

to the consuming of Meleager with the consuming of the brand, to

illustrate a point of physiological psychology.[693] Antique heroes, even

monsters, seem as real to him as the people of Scripture and history. It

is not, however, his mediaevalism, but his own greatness that enables him

to lift his treatment of them to the level of their presentation in the

Classics. Noble as an antique demigod is the damned Jason, silent and

tearless, among the scourged;[694] and Ulysses is as great in the tale he

tells from out the lambent flame as he was in the palace of Alcinoos,

telling the tale which Dante never read.[695]

The poet, especially in the _Purgatorio_, constantly balances moral

examples alternately drawn from pagan and sacred story. This propensity

was quite mediaeval; for throughout the Middle Ages the antique authority

was used to fortify or parallel the Christian argument. Yet herein, as

always, Dante is Dante as well as a mediaeval man; and his moral examples,

for the aid of souls who are purging themselves for Heaven, are

interesting and curious enough. On the pavement of the first ledge of

Purgatory, Lucifer is figured falling from Heaven and Briareus transfixed

by the bolt of Jove; then Nimrod, Niobe, Saul, Arachne, Rehoboam, Eriphyle

and Sennacherib, the Assyrians routed after Holophernes’ death, and Troy

in ashes.[696] On the third ledge, as instances of gentle forgivingness,

he sees in vision the Virgin Mary, and then appear Peisistratus (tyrant of

Athens) refusing to avenge himself, and Stephen asking pardon for his

slayers.[697] But the most wonderful instance of this combining of the

Christian and the antique, each at its height of feeling, occurs in the

thirtieth canto of the _Purgatorio_, where angels herald the appearance of

Beatrice with the chant, _Benedictus qui venis_, and, as they scatter

flowers, sing _Manibus o date lilia plenis_. This unison of the hail to

Christ upon His sacrificial entry into Jerusalem and the Virgilian

heartbreak over the young Marcellus, shows how Dante rose in his

combinings, and how potent an element of his imagination was the

antique.[698]

Of course the plan of Hell reflects the sixth Book of the _Aeneid_, and

throughout the whole _Commedia_ the Virgilian phrase rises aptly to the

poet’s lips. “Thou wouldst that I renew the desperate grief which presses

my heart even before I put it into words,” says Ugolino, nearly as Aeneas

speaks to Dido.[699] And in the _Paradiso_ the power of the Dantesque

reminiscence rouses the reader, spiritually as it were, to emulate the

glorious ones who passed to Colchos.[700] A more desperate passage was the

lot of those who must drop from Acheron’s bank into Charon’s boat;--the

whole scene here is quite reminiscent of Virgil. The simile:

“Quam multa in silvis auctumni frigore primo

Lapsa cadunt folia,”

is even beautified and made more pregnant with significance in Dante’s

“Come d’autunno si levan le foglie

L’una appresso dell’altra....”[701]

On the other hand, the threefold attempt of Aeneas to embrace Anchises is

stripped of its beautiful dream-simile in Dante’s use.[702] A lovelier bit

of borrowing is that of the quick springing up again of the rush, the

symbol of humility, _l’umile pianta_, with which the poet is girt before

proceeding up the Mount of Purgatory.[703]

With Dante the pagan antique represented much that was philosophically

true, if not veritably divine. In his mind, apparently, the heathen good

stood for the Christian good, and the conflict of the heathen deities with

Titan monsters symbolized, if indeed it did not continue to make part of,

the Christian struggle against the power of sin.[704] We may be jarred by

the apostrophe:

“... O sommo Giove,

Che fosti in terra per noi crucifisso.”[705]

But this is a kind of Christian-antique phrase by no means unexampled in

mediaeval poetry. And we feel the poetic breadth and beauty of the

invocation in which Apollo symbolizes or represents, exactly what we will

not presume to say, but at all events some veritable spiritual power, as

Minerva does, apparently, in another passage.[706] In such instances the

antique image which beautifies the poem is transfigured to a Christian

symbol, if it does not present actual truth.

Yet however universally Dante’s mind was solicited by the antique matter

and his poet’s nature charmed, he was profoundly and mediaevally

Christian. The _Commedia_ is a mediaeval Christian poem. Its fabric,

springing from the life of earth, enfolds the threefold quasi-other world

of damned, of purging, and of finally purified, spirits. It is dramatic

and doctrinal. Its drama of action and suffering, like the narratives of

Scripture, offers literal fact, moral teaching, and allegorical or

spiritual significance. The doctrinal contents are held partly within the

poem’s dramatic action and partly in expositions which are not fused in

the drama. Thus whatever else it is, the poem is a _Summa_ of saving

doctrine, which is driven home by illustrations of the sovereign good and

abysmal ill coming to man under the providence of God. One may perhaps

discern a twofold purpose in it, since the poet works out his own

salvation and gives precepts and examples to aid others and help truth and

righteousness on earth. The subject is man as rewarded or punished

eternally by God--says Dante in the letter to Can Grande. This subject

could hardly be conceived as veritable, and still less could it be

executed, by a poet who had no care for the effect of his poem upon men.

Dante had such care. But whether he, who was first and always a poet,

wrote the _Commedia_ in order to lift others out of error to salvation, or

even in order to work out his own salvation,--let him say who knows the

mind of Dante. No divination, however, is required to trace the course of

the saving teaching, which, whether dramatically exemplified or expounded

in doctrinal statement, is embodied in the great poem; nor is it hard to

note how Dante drew its substance from the mediaeval past.

The _Inferno_, which is the most dramatic and realistic, “Dantesque,” part

of the _Commedia_, and replete with terrestrial interest, is doctrinally

the least rich. Its doctrine chiefly lies in its scheme of punishment, or

divine vengeance, for different sins. Herein Dante followed no set series

like the seven deadly sins expiated in Purgatory. Neither the Church nor

authoritative writers had laid out the plan of Hell. Dante had in mind

Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, also Cicero’s _De officiis_,[707] and,

structurally, Virgil. His scheme also was affected by his own character,

situation, and aversions, and assuredly by the movement of its own

composition. At the mouth of Hell the worthless nameless ones and the

neutral angels receive their due. Then after the sad calm of the place of

the unbaptized and the great blameless heathen, the veritable Hell begins,

and the series of tortures unfold, the lightest being such as punish

incontinence, while the most awful are reserved for those fraudulent ones

who have betrayed a trust. Dante’s power of presenting the humanly

loathsome does not let the progress of hellish torment fail in climax even

to the end, where Brutus, Cassius, and Judas are crunched in the dripping

mouths of Lucifer at the bottom of the lowest pit of Hell.

The general idea of hell torments came to the poet from current beliefs

and authoritative utterances, ranging from the “outer darkness” of the

Gospel to the lurid oratory of St. Bernard. Dante’s thoughts were drawn

generically from the stores of mediaeval convictions, approvals, and

imaginings: they were given to him by his epoch. Of necessity--innocently,

one may say--he made them into concrete realities because he was Dante.

Terrifying phrases and crude ghastliness were raised through his dramatic

power to living experiences. The reader goes through Hell, sees with his

own eyes, hears with his own ears, and stifles in the choking air.

Doubtless the narrative brought fear and contrition to the men of Dante’s

time. But for us the disproportion of the vengeance to the crime, the

outrage of everlasting torments for momentary, even impulsive sin, is

shocking and preposterous.[708] The torments themselves present conditions

which become unthinkable when we try to conceive them as enduring

eternally. Human flesh, or implicated spirit could not last beneath them.

And as for our impulses, there is many a tortured soul with whom we would

keep company, for instance, with the excellent band of Sodomites--Priscian

(!) Brunetto Latini, and those three Florentines whose “honoured names”

the poet greets with reverence and affection.[709] One might even wish to

make a third in the flame which enwraps Diomede and Ulysses. In fact,

Dante’s dramatic genius has brought the mediaeval hell to a _reductio ad

absurdum_, to our minds.

The poet is of it too. He can pity those who touch his pity. And how great

he can be, how absolute. There is compacted in the story of Francesca all

that can be thought or felt over unhappy love. Yet Dante never doubts the

justice of the punishment he describes; sometimes he calmly or cruelly

approves. _Nel mio bel San Giovanni!_ How many thousands have quoted these

detached words to show the poet’s love of his beautiful baptistery. But,

in fact, he refers to the little cylindrical places where stood the

baptizing priests, in order to bring home to the reader the size of the

holes in the burning rock from which protruded the quivering feet of

Simoniacs![710] It appears that the souls of all the damned will suffer

more when they shall again be joined to their bodies after the

resurrection.[711]

The _Inferno_ fully exemplifies the doctrinal statement obscurely set over

the gate which shut out hope: moved by justice, the Trinity, “divine

power, supreme wisdom, primal love, created me (Hell) to endure

eternally.” Dante follows this current authoritative opinion, stated by

Aquinas. Here one may repeat that Dante is the child of the Middle Ages,

rather than a disciple of any single teacher. If he follows Aquinas more

than any other scholastic, he follows Bonaventura also with breadth and

balance. These two, however, were themselves final results of lines of

previous development. Both were rational and also mystically

contemplative, though the former quality predominates in Thomas and the

latter in Bonaventura. And in Dante’s poem, at the end of the _Paradiso_,

Theology, the rational apprehension of divine truth, gives place to

contemplation’s loftier insight. Dante is kin to both these men; but when

he thinks, more frequently he thinks like Thomas, and the intellectual

realization of life is dominant with him. This was evident in the

_Convito_; and that the intellectual vision constitutes the substance of

the _Commedia_, becomes luminously apparent in the _Paradiso_.[712] It is

even suggested at the gate of Hell, within which the wretched people will

be seen, who have lost the good of the Intellect,[713] by which is meant

knowledge of God.

The _Purgatorio_ presents more saving doctrine than the cantica of

damnation. Its Mount with the earthly paradise at the top, may have been

his own, but might have been taken from the Venerable Bede or Albertus

Magnus.[714] The ante-purgatory appears as a creation of the poet,

influenced by certain passages of the _Aeneid_ and by ancient disciplinary

practices which kept the penitents waiting outside the church.[715] The

teaching of the whole cantica relates to the purgation of pride, envy,

anger, _accidia_ (sloth), avarice, gluttony, lust. These are the seven

deadly sins whose _provenance_ is early monasticism.[716] Through their

purgation man is made pure and fit to mount to the stars.

We shall not follow Dante through the _Purgatorio_ and _Paradiso_, or

observe in detail the teachings set forth and the sources whence they were

derived.[717] But a brief reference to the successive incidents and topics

of instruction will show how the _Commedia_ touches every key of saving

doctrine. The soul entering Purgatory goes seeking liberty from sin,[718]

and as a first lesson learns to detach itself from memories of the

damned.[719] It receives some slight suggestion of the limits of human

reason;[720] and is told that according to the correct teaching there is

one soul in man with several faculties.[721] It learns the risk of

repentance in the hour of death;[722] and the efficacy of the prayers of

others to help souls through their purifying expiation; also, that, after

death, souls can advance only by the aid of grace.[723] The symbolism of

the gate of Purgatory teaches the need of contrition and confession. Upon

the first ledge, the proud do penance, disciplined with examples of

humility, and through the Lord’s Prayer are taught man’s entire dependence

upon God. It is fitting that Pride should be the first sin expiated, since

it lies at the base of all sins in the Christian scheme. Much doctrine is

inculcated by the treatment of the different sins and the appositeness of

the hymns sung by the penitents.[724]

Ascending the second ledge, Virgil, _i.e._ human reason, expounds the

first principles of the doctrine of that love which is of the Good.[725]

Next is set forth the theory of human free-will and the effect of the

spheres in directing human inclination--all in strict accord with the

teaching of Thomas;[726] and then, still in accord with Thomas, the fuller

nature of love (or desire) is expounded, and the allotment of purgatorial

pains in expiation of the various modes of evil desire or failure to love

aright.[727] These fitting pains are as a solace to the soul yearning to

accomplish its purgation.[728] Next, generation is explained, the creation

of the soul, and the manner of its existence after separation from the

body, according to dominant scholastic theories.[729] In the concluding

cantos of the _Purgatorio_, much Church doctrine is symbolically set forth

by the Mystic Procession and the rivers of the earthly paradise, Lethe and

Eunoe--the latter representing sacramental grace through which good works,

killed by later sins, are made to live again.[730] The earthly paradise

symbolizes the perfect happiness of life in the flesh, and the state

wherein man is fit to pass to the heavenly Paradise.

Besides doctrine directly bearing on Salvation, the _Commedia_ contains

explanations by the way, needed to understand Dante’s journey through the

earth and heavens, and give it verisimilitude. Apparently these

explanations were also intended to afford a sufficient knowledge of the

structure of the universe. The _Paradiso_ abounds in this kind of

information, largely physical and astronomical. Its first canto offers a

general statement, beautifully put, of the ordering of created things. In

this instance, the instruction is not exclusively astronomical or

physical,[731] but touches upon animated creatures, and follows Thomist

teaching. Another interesting instance is the explanation in the second

canto of the spots on the moon and then of the influence of the heavens.

Here the astronomical matter runs on into elucidations touching human

nature, even that human nature which is to be saved through saving

doctrine. In this way the Christian-Thomist-Dantesque scheme of knowledge

holds together. The _Commedia_ is the pilgrimage of the soul after all

wisdom, and includes, implicitly at least, the matter of the _Convito_.

The _Paradiso_ contains the chief store of saving knowledge. It sets forth

the ultimate problems of human life and divine salvation, with due

emphasis laid upon the limitations of human understanding. Dante,

conscious of the strenuousness of his high argument, warns off all but the

chosen few.

A first point learned in the heavenly voyage is that no soul in Paradise

desires aught save what it has; since such desire would contravene the

will of God. Paradise is everywhere in Heaven, though the divine grace

rains not upon all in one mode.[732] Beatified souls do not dwell in any

particular star, though Plato seems to say so. Scripture condescends to

figure the intelligible under the guise of sensible forms, as Plato may

have done.[733] Broken vows and their reparation are now considered. Then

the history of the Roman Eagle brings out the fact that Christ was

crucified under Tiberius and His death avenged by Titus, which leads on to

the explanation of the Fall and the Redemption, occupying the seventh

canto. The next offers comment upon the divine goodness and the diversity

of human lots; and shows how the bitter may rise from the sweet. With deep

consistency the poet exclaims against the insensate toilsome reasonings

through which mortals beat their wings downward, away from God.[734]

In canto thirteen the reader is enlightened regarding the wisdom of Adam,

of Solomon, and of Christ; and then as to the existence of the beatified

soul before and after it is clothed with the glorified body of the

Resurrection.[735] Incidentally the justice of eternal punishment is

adverted to.[736] The depth of the divine righteousness is next

presented,[737] and its application to the heathen, with illustrations of

God’s saving ways, in the instances of certain princes who loved

righteousness, including Trajan and the Trojan Rhipeus.[738] The

incomprehensibility of Predestination next receives attention.

Now intervenes the marvellous and illuminative beauty of canto

twenty-three, preceding Dante’s declaration of his creed, upon

interrogatories from the apostles, Peter, James, and John. In this way he

states the dogmatic fundamentals of the Christian Faith, and the

substantiating rôles of philosophic argument and authority.[739] After

this, the vision of the hierarchies of angels leads on to discourse upon

their creation and nature, the immediate fall of those who fell, the

exaltation of the steadfast with added grace, and the mode and measure of

their knowledge. Thomas is followed in this scholastic argument.

With the vision of the Rose, rational theology gives place to mystic

contemplation;[740] and further visions of the divine ordering precede the

prayer to the Virgin, with which the last canto opens--that prayer so

beautiful and so expressive of mediaeval thought and feeling as to the

most kind and blessed Lady of Heaven. This prayer or hymn is made of

phrases which the mediaeval mind and heart had been recasting and

perfecting for centuries. It is almost a great _cento_, like the _Dies

Irae_. After the Lady’s answering benediction, there comes to Dante, in

grace, the final mystic vision of the Trinity, enfolding all

existence--substance, accidents and their modes, bound with love in one

volume. Supreme dogmatic truth is set forth, and the furthest strainings

of reason are stilled in supersensual and super-rational vision, which

satisfies all intellectual desire. This vision, vouchsafed through the

Virgin’s grace, assures the pilgrim soul: the goal is reached alike of

knowledge and salvation.

One may say that the _Commedia_ begins and ends with the Virgin. It was

she who sent Beatrice into the gates of Hell to move Virgil--meaning human

reason--to go to Dante’s aid. The prayer which obtains her benediction,

and the vision following, close the _Paradiso_. So the teaching of the

poem ends in mediaeval strains. For the Virgin was the mediaeval goddess,

beloved and universally adored, helpful in every way, and the chief aid in

bringing man to Heaven. But no more with Dante than with other mediaeval

men is she the end of worship and devotion. Her eyes are turned on God.

So are those of Beatrice, of Rachel, and of all the saints in Paradise. As

for man on earth, he is _viator_, journeying on through discipline, in

righteousness and beneficence, but above all in faith and hope and love of

God, with his eyes of knowledge and desire set on God. God is the goal,

even of the _vita activa_, which is also training and enlightenment.

Loving his brother whom he hath seen, man may learn to love

God--practising himself in love. Even Christ’s parable, “Inasmuch as ye

did it unto one of the least of these,” rightly interpreted, implies that

the end of human charity is God: the human charity is preparation,

obedience, means of enlightenment. The brother for whom Christ died--that

is he whom thou shalt love, and that is why thou shalt love him. In

themselves human relationships are disciplinary, ancillary, as all the

sciences are ancillary to Theology. Mediaeval religion is turned utterly

toward God; the relationship of the soul to God is its whole matter. It is

not humanitarian: not human, but _divina scientia, fides, et amor_, make

mediaeval Christianity. Thus Dante’s doctrine is mediaeval. Toward God

moves the desire of the _viatores_ in Purgatory, though they still are

incidentally mindful of earth’s memories. In Paradise the eyes of all the

blessed are set on Him. Because of the divine love they may for a moment

turn the eyes of their knowledge and desire to aid a fellow-creature; the

occasion past, they fix them again on God: thus the Virgin, thus Bernard,

thus Beatrice.

As a son of the Middle Ages, Dante was possessed with the spirit of

symbolism. Allegory, with him, was not merely a way of expressing that

which might transcend direct statement: it embodied a principle of truth.

The universally accepted allegorical interpretation of Scripture justified

the view that a deeper verity lay in allegorical significance than in

literal meaning. This principle applied to other writings also. “Now since

the literal sense [of the first canzone] is sufficiently explained, it is

time to proceed to the allegorical and true interpretation.”[741]

In the _Vita Nuova_ and somewhat more lifelessly in the _Convito_, Dante

explains that it is his way to invest his poetry with a secondary or

allegorical sense. He proposes in the latter work to carry out the formal

notion of the four kinds of meaning contained in profound

writings--literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical.[742] He never holds

himself, however, to the lines of any such obsession, but is content in

practice with the literal and the broadly allegorical sense.[743] Even

then the great Florentine occasionally can be jejune enough. The

conception of the ten heavens figuring the Seven Liberal Arts along with

metaphysics, ethics, and theology, as a plan of composition for the

_Convito_,[744] was on a level with the structural symbolism of the _De

nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_ of Capella. Yet the likening of Ethics to

the _primum mobile_ and Theology to the Empyrean has bearing on Dante’s,

and the mediaeval, scheme of the sciences, among which Theology is chief.

Allegory moulds the structure and permeates the substance of the

_Commedia_. For this Dante himself vouches in the famous dedicatory letter

to Can Grande, where his thoughts may be heard creaking scholastically, as

he describes the nature of his poem, and explains why he entitled it

_Commedia_:

“Literally, the subject is the state of souls after death taken

simply. If, however, the work be accepted allegorically, the subject

is man, according as by merit or demerit through freedom of choice

(_arbitrii libertatem_) he is subject to Justice, rewarding or

punitive.”

This is the positive statement emanating, in all probability, from the

poet. Perhaps it is as well that he did not live to inaugurate the series

of Commentaries upon his poem, which began within a few years of his death

and show no signs of ceasing.[745] So it has been left to others to

determine the metes and bounds and special features of the _Commedia’s_

allegorical intent. The task has proved hazardous, because Dante was such

a great poet, so realistic in his visualizing and so masterful in forcing

the different phases of his many-sided thoughts to combine in concrete

creations. His drama is so living that one can hardly think it an

allegory.

Evidently certain matters, like the Mystic Procession and its apocalyptic

appurtenances in the last cantos of the _Purgatorio_, are sheer allegory.

Such, while suited to suggest theological tenets, are formal and lifeless,

a little like the hieratic allegorical mosaics of the fourth and fifth

centuries, which were composed before Christian art had become imbued with

Christian feeling.[746] Indeed, doffing for an instant one’s reverence for

the great poet, one may say that from the point of view of art and life,

Dante’s symbolism becomes jejune, or at least ceases to draw us, according

as it becomes palpable allegory.[747]

Beyond such incidents one recognizes that the general course of the poem,

its more pointed occurrences, together with its chief characters and the

scenes amid which they move, have commonly both literal and allegorical

meaning.[748] Usually it is wise not to press either side too rigorously.

The poet’s mind worked in the clearly imagined setting and dramatic action

of his poem, where fact and symbolism combined in that reality which is

both art and life. Surely the _Commedia_ was completed and rendered real

and beautiful through many a touch and incident which had no allegorical

intent. Even as in a French cathedral, the main sculptured and painted

subjects have doctrinal, that is to say, allegorical, significance,

besides their literal truth; but there is also much lovely carving of

scroll and flowered ornament and beast and bird, which beautifies the

building.

For Dante’s purpose, to set out the state of disembodied spirits after

death, allegory might prove prejudicial, because of the intensity of his

artist’s vision. Much of the poem’s symbolism, especially in the

_Paradiso_, belongs to that unavoidable imagery to which every one is

driven when attempting to describe spiritual facts. Such symbolism,

however, when constructed with the plastic power of a Dante, may become

itself so convincing or compelling as to reduce the intended spiritual

signification to the terms of its concrete embodiment in the symbol. In

view of the carnality of most sin, one is not surprised to find the place

of punishment a converging cavity within the earth. With Dante, as with

Hildegard, the sights and torments of Hell are realistically given quite

as of course. Perhaps Dante’s Mount of Purgatory begins to give us pause,

and its corniced _mise en scène_ tends to enflesh the idea of spirit and

materialize its purgation. But the limiting effect of symbolism is most

keenly felt in the _Paradiso_, notwithstanding the beauty of that cantica;

for its very concrete symbolism seems sometimes to ensphere the intended

truths of spirit in a sort of crystalline translucency. It is all a

marvellously imagined description of the state of blessed souls. Yet in

the final pure and glorious image of a white rose (_candida rosa_) the

company of the glorified spirits is so visualized as to become, surely not

theatrical, but as if assembled upon the rounding tiers of seats occupied

by an audience.[749] There are topics in which the sheer ratiocination of

Thomas is more completely spiritual than the poetic vision of Dante.

Dante’s most admirable symbolic creation was also his dearest

reality--Beatrice. And while this being in which he has immortalized his

fame and hers, is eminently the creation of his genius, the elements were

drawn from the many-chambered mediaeval past. Some issued out of the vast

matter of chivalric love, with its high heart of service and sense of its

own worth, its science, its foolish and most wise reasoning, its

preciosity of temper--Dante and his literary friends were virtuosos in

everything pertaining to its understanding.[750] This love was of the

fine-reasoning mind. The first canzone of the _Vita Nuova_ does not begin

“Donne, che sentite amore,” but: “Donne, ch’ avete intelletto d’ amore.”

Through that book love is what it never ceases to be with Dante,

_intelligenza_:

“Intelligenza nuova, che l’ Amore

Piangendo mette in lui....”

The _piangendo_, the tears, have likewise part; without them love is not

had or even understood. The enormous sense of love’s supreme worth--that

too is in Dante. It had all been with the Troubadours of Provence, with

Chrétien de Troies, and with the great Minnesingers, and had been reasoned

on, appreciated, felt and wept over, by ladies and knights who listened to

their poems. From France and Provence love and its reasonings had come to

Italy even before Dante’s eyes had opened to it and other matters.

This was one strain that entered the Beatrice of the _Vita Nuova_, of the

_Convito_, of the _Commedia_. But Beatrice is something else: she is, or

becomes, Theology, the God-given science of the divine and human. Long had

Theologia (_divina scientia_) been a queen; and even before her,

Philosophia, as with Boëthius, had been a queenly woman gowned with as

full symbolical particularity as ever the Beatrice of Dante. Indeed from

the time of the _Psychomachia_ of Prudentius to the _Roman de la Rose_ of

De Lorris and De Meun, every human quality, and many an aspect of human

circumstance, had been personified, for the most part under the forms of

gracious or seductive women. Above all of these rose, sweet, gracious, and

potent, the Virgin Queen of Heaven. It came as of course to Dante to

symbolize his conception of divine wisdom in a woman’s form. The

achievement of his genius was the transfusing combination of elements of

courtly love, didactic allegory, and _divina scientia_, in a creature

before whom the whole man Dante, heart and reason and religious faith,

could stand and gaze and love and worship.

Beatrice was his and of him always; but with the visions and experience

of that mature and grace-illuminated manhood, which expressed itself in

the _Commedia_, she comes to be much that she had not been when she lived

on earth or had just left it, and Dante was a maker of exquisite verses in

Florence; and much too that she had scarce become while the poet was

consoling himself with philosophy for his bereavement and the dulling of

his early faith. Beatrice lives and moves and has her ever more uplifted

being as the reality as well as symbol of Dante’s thoughts of life. With

all first love’s idealism, he loved a girl; then she, having passed from

earth, becomes the inspiration and object of address of the young maker of

sonnets and canzoni, who with such intellectual preciosity was intent on

building these verses of fine-spun sentiment. Thereafter, when he is in

darker mood, she does not altogether leave him, whatever variant attitudes

his thought and temper take. And at last the yearning self-fulfilments of

his renewed life draw together in the Beatrice of the _Commedia_.

It is very beautiful, and the growth, as well as work, of genius; but it

is not strange. For there is no bound to the idealizing of the love which

first transfuses a youth’s nature with a mortal golden flame, and awakens

it to new understanding. Out of whatever of experience of life and joy and

sorrow may come to the man, this first love may still vivify itself

anew--often in dreams--and become again living and beautiful, in tears,

and will awaken new perceptions and disclose further vistas of the

_intelligenza nuova_ which love never ceases to impart to him who has

loved.

Dante’s mind was always turning from the obvious sense-actuality of the

fact to its symbolism; which held the truer reality. With such a man it is

not strange that the beloved and adored woman, the love of whom was virtue

and enlightenment, should, when dead to earth, become that divine wisdom

which opens Heaven to the lover who would follow, for all eternity,

whither his beloved has so surely gone. No, it was not strange, but only

as wonderful as all the works of God, that she who while living had been

the spring of virtue of all kinds and meanings in the poet’s breast,

should after death become the emblem, even the reality, of that whereby

man is taught how to win his heavenly salvation. Passage after passage in

the _Purgatorio_ and _Paradiso_ show that Beatrice is this _divina

scientia_, and yet has never ceased to be one whom the poet loves.[751]

Thus it is clear that mediaeval development converges at last in Dante.

He, or his _Commedia_, might be the final _Summa_, were not he, or rather

it, the final poem. Man and work include the emotions and the intellectual

interests of the Middle Ages, embracing what had been known,--Physics,

Astronomy, Politics, History, Pagan Mythology, Christian Theology,--all

bent and moulded at last to the matter of the book. Not the contents of

the _Commedia_ is Dante’s own, but the poem itself--that is his creation.

Yet even the poem itself was a climax long led up to. The power of its

feeling had been preparing in the conceptions, even in the reasonings,

which through the centuries had been gaining ardour as they became part of

the entire natures of men and women. Thus had mediaeval thought become

emotionalized and plastic and living in poetry and art. Otherwise, even

Dante’s genius could not have fused the contents of mediaeval thought into

a poem. How many passages in the _Commedia_ illustrate this--like the

lovely picture of Lia moving in the flowering meadow, with her fair hands

making her a garland. The twenty-third canto of the _Paradiso_, telling of

the triumph of Christ and the Virgin, yields a larger illustration; and

within it, as a very concrete lyric instance, floats that flower of

angelic love, the song of Gabriel circling the Lady of Heaven with its

melody, and giving quintessential utterance to the love and adoration

which the Middle Ages had intoned to the Virgin. Yes, if it be Dante’s

genius, it is also the gathering emotion of the centuries, which lifts the

last cantos of the _Paradiso_ from glory to glory, and makes this closing

singing of the _Commedia_ such supreme poetry. Nor is it the emotional

element alone that reaches its final voice in Dante. Passage after passage

of the _Paradiso_ is the apotheosis of scholastic thought and ways of

stating it, the very apotheosis, for example, of those harnessed phrases

in which the line of great scholastics had endeavoured to put in words

the universalities of substance and accident and the absolute qualities

of God.

Yet one more feature of Dante’s typifying inclusiveness of the past. Its

elements exist in him at first without conscious opposition and yet not

subordinated one to another, the less worthy to those of eternal validity.

Then conflict arises; the mediaeval Psychomachia awakes in Dante.

Evidently he who wrote the _Convito_ after the _Vita Nuova_, had not

continued spiritually undisturbed. Had there come dullings of his early

faith? Did his mind seek too exclusive satisfaction in knowledge? Had he

possibly swerved a little from some high intention? The facts are veiled.

Dante wears neither his mind nor his heart upon his sleeve. Yet a

reconcilement was attained by him, though perhaps he had to fetch it out

of Hell. He achieved it in his great poem, which in its long making made

the poet into the likeness of itself. Fitness for salvation is the

ultimate criterion with Dante respecting the elements of mortal life, as

it had been through the Middle Ages. And the _Commedia_--truly the _Divina

Commedia_--while it presents the scheme of salvation for universal man, is

the achieved salvation of the poet.

INDEX

_NOTE.--Of several references to the same matter the more important are

shown by heavy type._

Abaelard, Peter, career of, ii. 342-5;

at Paris, ii. 343, 344, 383;

popularity there, ii. 119;

love for Heloïse, ii. 4-=5=, 344;

love-songs, ii. =13=, 207;

Heloïse’s love for, i. 585; ii. =3=, =5=, 8, 9, =15-16=;

early relations with Heloïse, ii. 4-5;

suggestion of marriage opposed by her, ii. 6-9;

marriage, ii. 9;

suffers vengeance of Fulbert, ii. 9;

becomes a monk at St. Denis, ii. 10;

at the Paraclete, ii. 10, 344;

at Breton monastery, ii. 10;

St. Bernard’s denunciations of, i. 229, 401; ii. =344-5=, =355=;

letters to, from Heloïse quoted, ii. 11-15, 17-20, 23, 24;

letters from, to Heloïse quoted, ii. 16-17, 21-3, 24-5;

closing years at Cluny, ii. 25, =26=, 345;

death of, ii. =27=, 345;

estimate of, ii. 4, 342;

rationalizing temper, i. 229; ii. =298-9=;

skill in dialectic, ii. 303, =345-6=, 353;

not an Aristotelian, ii. 369;

works on theology, ii. 352-5;

_De Unitate et Trinitate divina_, ii. 10, =298-9=, 352 _and_ _n. 3_;

_Theologia_, ii. =303-4=, 395;

_Scito te ipsum_, ii. 350-1;

_Sic et non_, i. 17; ii. =304-6=, =352=, 357;

_Dialectica_, ii. 346 _and_ _nn._, 349-50;

_Dialogue_ between Philosopher, Jew, and Christian, ii. 350, =351=;

_Historia calamitatum_, ii. =4-11=, 298-9, =343=;

_Carmen ad Astralabium filium_, ii. 192;

hymns, ii. 207-9;

otherwise mentioned, ii. 134, 283 _and_ _n._

Abbo, Abbot, i. =294 and n.=, 324

Abbots:

Armed forces, with, i. 473

Cistercian, position of, i. 362-3 _and_ _n._

Investiture of, lay, i. 244

Social class of, i. 473

Accursius, _Glossa ordinaria_ of, ii. 262, =263=

Adalberon, Abp. of Rheims, i. 240, =282-3=, 287

Adam of Marsh, ii. 389, 400, 487

Adam of St. Victor, editions of hymns of, ii. 87 _n. 1_;

examples of the hymns, ii. 87 _seqq._;

Latin originals, ii. 206, 209-15

Adamnan cited, i. 134 _n. 2_, 137

Adelard of Bath, ii. 370

Aedh, i. 132

Agobard, Abp. of Lyons, i. 215, =232-3=;

cited, ii. 247

Aidan, St., i. 174

Aimoin, _Vita Abbonis_ by, i. 294 _and_ _n._

Aix, Synod of, i. 359

Aix-la-Chapelle:

Chapel at, i. 212 _n._

School at, _see_ Carolingian period--Palace school

Alans, i. 113, 116, 119

Alanus de Insulis, career of, ii. 92-4;

estimate of, ii. 375-6;

works of, ii. 48 _n. 1_, =94=, 375 _n. 5_, 376;

_Anticlaudianus_, ii. =94-103=, 192, 377, 539;

_De planctu naturae_, ii. =192-3 and n. 1=, 376

Alaric, i. 112

Alaric II., i. =117=; ii. 243

Alberic, Card., i. 252 _n. 2_

Alberic, Markgrave of Camerino, i. 242

Alberic, son of Marozia, i. 242-3

Albertus Magnus, career of, ii. 421;

estimate of, ii. 298, 301, =421=;

estimate of work of, ii. 393, 395;

attitude toward Gilbert de la Porrée, ii. 372;

compared with Bacon, ii. 422;

with Aquinas, ii. 433, =438=;

relations with Aquinas, ii. 434;

on logic, ii. 314-15;

method of, ii. 315 _n._;

edition of works, ii. 424 _n. 1_;

_De praedicabilibus_, ii. 314 and _n._, 315, 424-5;

work on the rest of Aristotle, ii. 420-1;

analysis of this work, ii. 424 _seqq._;

attitude toward the original, ii. 422;

_Summa theologiae_, ii. 430, 431;

_Summa de creaturis_, ii. 430-1;

_De adhaerendo Deo_, ii. 432;

otherwise mentioned, i. 17; ii. 82 _n. 2_, 283, 312, 402, 541 _n. 2_

Albigenses, i. 49;

persecution of, i. 366-7, 461, 481, 572; ii. 168

Alboin the Lombard, i. 115

Alchemy, ii. 496-7

Alcuin of York, career of, i. 214;

works of, i. 216-21 _and_ _n. 2_;

extracts from letters of, ii. 159;

stylelessness of, ii. =159=, 174;

verses by, quoted, ii. 136-7;

on _urbanitas_, ii. 136;

otherwise mentioned, i. 212, 240, 343; ii. 112, 312, 332

Aldhelm, i. 185

Alemanni, i. 9, 121, 122, 145 _n. 2_, 174, 192

Alemannia, Boniface’s work in, i. 199

Alexander the Great, Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Life of, ii. 224, 225,

=229-230=;

Walter of Lille’s work on, ii. 230 _n. 1_

Alexander II., Pope, i. 262 _n._, 263 _and_ _n. 1_

Alexander de Villa-Dei, _Doctrinale_ of, ii. =125-7=, 163

Alexander of Hales--at Paris, i. 476; ii. =399=;

Bacon’s attack on, ii. 494, 497;

estimate of work of, ii. 393, 395, 399;

Augustinianism of, ii. 403-4

Alfred, King of England, i. 144 _and_ _n. 2_, =187-90=

Allegory (_See also_ Symbolism):

Dictionaries of, ii. 47-8 _and_ _n. 1_, 49

Greek examples of, ii. 42, 364

Metaphor distinguished from, ii. 41 _n._

Politics, in, ii. 60-1, 275-=6=, =280=

_Roman de la rose_ as exemplifying, ii. 103

Scripture, _see under_ Scriptures

Two uses of, ii. 365

Almsgiving, i. 268

Alphanus, i. 253-4

_Amadas_, i. 565

Ambrose, St., Abp. of Milan, on miracles, i. 85-6;

attitude toward secular studies, i. 300; ii. 288;

_Hexaëmeron_ of, i. 72-4;

_De officiis_, i. 96;

hymns, i. 347-8;

otherwise mentioned, i. 70, 75, 76, 104, 186, 354; ii. 45 _n._, 272

Anacletus II., Pope, i. 394

Anchorites, _see_ Hermits

Andrew the Chaplain, _Flos amoris_ of, i. 575-6

Angels:

Aquinas’ discussion of, ii. 324-5, 435, =457 seqq.=, =469=, =473-5=

Dante’s views on, ii. 551

Emotionalizing of conception of, i. 348 _n. 4_

Hugo of St. Victor on, ii. 68, 69

Symbols, regarded as, ii. 457

Vincent’s _Speculum_ as concerning, ii. 319

Writings regarding, summary of, ii. 457

Angilbert, i. 234-5

Angles, i. 140

Anglo-Saxons:

Britain conquered by, i. 141

Characteristics of, i. 142, =196=

Christian missions by, i. 196, 197

Christian missions to, i. 172, 174, =180 seqq.=

Customs of, i. 141

Poetry of, i. 142-4

Roman influence slight on, i. 32

Aniane monastery, i. 358-9

Annals, i. 234 and _n. 1_

Anselm (at Laon), ii. 343-4

Anselm, St., Abp. of Canterbury, dream of, i. 269-70;

early career, i. 270;

at Bec, i. 271-2;

relations with Rufus, i. 273, 275;

journey to Italy, i. 275;

estimate of, i. 274, =276-7=; ii. =303=, 330, =338=;

style of, i. 276; ii. =166-7=;

influence of, on Duns Scotus, ii. 511;

works of, i. 275 _seqq._;

_Cur Deus homo_, i. 275, 277 _n. 1_, =279=; ii. 395;

_Monologion_, i. 275-7;

_Proslogion_, i. 276-8; ii. =166=, 395;

_Meditationes_, i. 276, =279=;

_De grammatico_, i. 277 _n. 2_;

otherwise mentioned, i. 16, 19, 301-2; ii. 139, 283, 297, 340

Anselm of Besate, i. 259

Anthony, St., i. 365-6;

Life of, by Athanasius, i. 47, =52 and n.=

Antique literature, _see_ Greek thought _and_ Latin classics

Antique stories, themes of, in vernacular poetry, ii. 223 _seqq._

Apollinaris Sidonius, ii. 107

Apollonius of Tyana, i. 44

_Apollonius of Tyre_, ii. 224 _and_ _n._

Aquinas, Thomas, family of, ii. 433-4;

career, ii. 434-5;

relations with Albertus Magnus, ii. 434;

translations of Aristotle obtained by, ii. 391;

_Vita_ of, by Guilielmus de Thoco, ii. 435 _n._;

works of, ii. 435;

estimate of, and of his work, i. 17, 18; ii. 301, =436-8=, 484;

completeness of his philosophy, ii. 393-5;

pivot of his attitude, ii. 440;

present position of, ii. 501;

style, ii. 180;

mastery of dialectic, ii. 352;

compared with Eriugena, i. 231 _n. 1_;

with Albertus Magnus, ii. 433, =438=;

with Bonaventura, ii. 437;

with Duns, ii. 517;

Dante compared with and influenced by, ii. 541 _n. 2_, =547=, 549,

551, 555;

on monarchy, ii. 277;

on faith, ii. 288;

on difference between philosophy and theology, ii. 290;

on logic, ii. 313;

_Summa theologiae_, i. 17, 18; ii. =290 seqq.=;

style of the work, ii. 180-1;

Bacon’s charge against it, ii. 300;

Peter Lombard’s work contrasted with it, ii. 307-10;

its method, ii. 307;

its classification scheme, ii. 324-9;

analysis of the work, ii. 438 _seqq._, 447 _seqq._;

_Summa philosophica contra Gentiles_, ii. 290, 438, =445-6=;

otherwise mentioned, i. 69 _n. 2_; ii. 283, 298, 300, 312, 402

Aquitaine, i. 29, 240, =573=

Arabian philosophy, ii. =389-90=, 400-1

Arabs, Spanish conquest by, i. 9, 118

Archimedes, i. 40

Architecture, Gothic:

Evolution of, i. 305; ii. =539=

Great period of, i. 346

Argenteuil convent, ii. 9, 10

Arianism:

Teutonic acceptance of, i. =120=, 192, 194

Visigothic abandonment of, i. 118 _nn._

Aristotle, estimate of, i. 37-8;

works of, i. 37-8;

unliterary character of writings of, ii. 118, 119;

philosophy as classified by, ii. 312;

attitude of, to discussions of final cause, ii. 336;

the _Organon_, i. =37=, 71;

progressive character of its treatises, ii. 333-4;

Boëthius’ translation of the work, i. 71, =91-2=;

advanced treatises “lost” till 12th cent., ii. 248 _n._, 334;

Porphyry’s _Introduction_ to the _Categories_, i. 45, 92, 102; ii.

312, =314 n.=, 333, =339=;

Arabian translations of works, ii. 389-90;

introduction of complete works, i. 17;

Latin translations made in 13th cent., ii. 391;

three stages in scholastic appropriation of the Natural Philosophy and

Metaphysics, ii. 393;

Paris University study of, ii. 391-2 _and_ _n._;

Albertus Magnus’ work on, ii. 420-1, 424 _seqq._;

Aquinas’ mastery of, i. 17, 18;

Dominican acceptance of system of, ii. 404;

Dante’s reverence for, ii. 542

Arithmetic:

Abacus, the, i. 299

Boëthius’ work on, i. 72, =90=

Music in relation to, ii. 291

Patristic treatment of, i. 72

Scholastic classification of, ii. 313

Arnold of Brescia, i. 401; ii. 171

Arnulf, Abp. of Rheims, i. 283-4

Art, Christian (_For particular arts, see their names_):

Demons as depicted in, ii. 540 _n. 2_

Early, i. 345 _n._

Emotionalizing of, i. 345-7

Evolution of, i. 19-20

Germany, in (11th cent.), i. 312

Symbolism the inspiration of, i. 21; ii. 82-6

Arthur, King, story of youth of, i. 568-569;

relations with Lancelot and Guinevere, i. 584;

with Parzival, i. 592, 599-600, 612

Arthurian romances:

Comparison of, with _Chansons de geste_, i. 564-5

German culture influenced by, ii. 28

Origin and authorship of, question as to, i. 565-7

Universal vogue of, i. =565=, 573, 577

otherwise mentioned, i. 531, 538

Arts, the (_See also_ Latin classics):

Classifications of, ii. 312 _seqq._

Course of, shortening of, ii. =132=, 384

_Dictamen_, ii. =121=, =129=, 381

Grammar, _see that heading_

Masters in, at Paris and Oxford, ii. 384-5;

course for, ii. 388

Seven Liberal, _see that heading_

Asceticism:

Christian:

Carthusian, i. 384

Early growth of, i. 333-5

Manichean, i. 49

Women’s practice of, i. 444, 462-3

Neo-Platonic, i. 43, 44, 46, 50, =331=, 334

Astralabius, ii. 6, 9, 27;

Abaelard’s poem to, ii. 191-2 _and_ _n. 1_

Astrology, i. =44 and n.=; ii. 374:

Bacon’s views on, ii. 499-500

Astronomy:

Chartres study of, i. 299

Gerbert’s teaching of, i. 288-9

Patristic attitude toward, i. 72

Ataulf, i. 112, 116

Athanasius, St., estimate of work of, i. =54=, 68;

Life of St. Anthony by, i. 47, =52 and n.=, 84;

_Orationes_, i. 68

Atlantis, i. 36

Attila the Hun, i. 112-13;

in legend, i. 145-7

Augustine, Abp. of Canterbury, i. 6, 171, =180-2=;

Gregory’s letters to, cited, i. 102

Augustine, St., Bp. of Hippo, Platonism of, i. 55;

personal affinity of, with Plotinus, i. 55-7;

barbarization of, by Gregory the Great, i. 98, 102;

compared with Gregory the Great, i. 98-9;

with Anselm, i. 279;

with Guigo, i. 385, 390;

overwhelming influence of, in Middle Ages, ii. 403;

on numbers, i. 72 _and_ _n. 2_, 105;

attitude toward physical science, i. 300;

on love of God, i. 342, 344;

allegorizing of Scripture by, ii. 44-5;

modification by, of classical Latin, ii. 152;

_Confessions_, i. =63=; ii. 531;

_De Trinitate_, i. =64=, =68=, 74, 96;

_Civitas Dei_, i. 64-65, 69 _n. 2_, =81-82=;

_De moribus Ecclesiae_, i. 65, 67-8;

_De doctrina Christiana_, i. 66-7;

classification scheme based on the _Doctrina_, ii. 322;

_De spiritu et littera_, i. 69;

_De cura pro mortuis_, i. 86;

_De genesi ad litteram_, ii. 324;

Alcuin’s compends of works of, i. 220;

otherwise mentioned, i. 5, 53, 71, 75, 82, 87, 89, 104, 186, 225, 340,

354, 366, 370; ii. 107, 269, 297, 312

Augustus, Emp., i. 26, 29

Aurillac monastery, i. 281

Ausonius, i. 126 _n. 2_; ii. 107

Austrasia:

Church organization in, i. 199

Feudal disintegration of, i. 240

Irish monasteries founded in, i. 174

Rise of, under Pippin, i. 209

Authority _v._ reason, _see_ Reason

Auxerre, i. 506-7

Averroes, ii. 390

Averroism, ii. 400-1

Averroists, ii. =284 n.=, 296 _n. 1_

Avicenna, ii. 390

Avitus, Bp. of Vienne, i. 126 _n. 2_

Azo, ii. 262-3

Bacon, Roger, career of, ii. 486-7

tragedy of career, ii. 486;

relations with Franciscan Order, ii. 299, 486, =488=, 490-1;

encouragement to, from Clement IV., ii. 489-90 _and_ _n. 1_;

estimate of, ii. 484-6;

estimate of work of, ii. 402;

style of, ii. 179-80;

attitude toward the classics, ii. 120;

predilection for physical science, ii. 289, 486-7;

Albertus Magnus compared with, ii. 422;

on four causes of ignorance, ii. 494-5;

on seven errors in theological study, ii. 495-8;

on experimental science, ii. 502-8;

on logic, ii. 505;

on faith, ii. 507;

editions of works of, ii. 484 _n._;

Greek Grammar by, ii. =128= _and_ _n. 5_, 484 _n._, 487, 498;

_Multiplicatio specierum_, ii. 484 _n._, 500;

_Opus tertium_, ii. =488=, 490 _and_ _nn._, 491, 492, 498, 499;

_Opus majus_, ii. 490-1, 492, =494-5=, 498, =499-500=, =506-8=;

_Optics_, ii. 500;

_Opus minus_, ii. 490-1, =495-8=;

_Vatican fragment_, ii. 490 _and_ _n. 2_, =505 n. 1=;

_Compendium studii philosophiae_, ii. 491, 493-4, 507-8;

_Compendium theologiae_, ii. 491;

otherwise mentioned, ii. 284 _n._, 335 _n._, =389=, 531-2

Bartolomaeus, _De proprietatibus rerum_ of, ii. 316 _n. 2_

Bartolus, ii. 264

Baudri, Abbot of Bourgueil, ii. 192 _n. 1_

Bavaria:

Irish monasteries founded in, i. 174

Merovingian rule in, i. 121

Otto’s relations with, i. 241

Reorganization of Church in, 198-9

Bavarians, i. 145 _n. 2_, 209, 210

Beauty, love of, i. 340

Bec monastery, i. 262 _n._, 270-2

Bede, estimate of, i. 185-6;

allegorizing of Scripture by, ii. 47 _n. 1_;

_Church History of the English People_, i. 172, =186=, 234 _n. 2_;

_De arte metrica_, i. 187, =298=;

_Liber de temporibus_, 300;

otherwise mentioned, i. 184, 212

Beghards of Liége, i. 365

Belgae, i. 126

Belgica, i. 29, 32

Benedict, Prior, i. 258

Benedict, St., of Nursia, i. =85 and n. 2=, 94, 100 _n. 4_;

_Regula_ of, _see under_ Monasticism

Benedictus, _Chronicon_ of, ii. 160-1

Benedictus Levita, Deacon, ii. 270

Benoit de St. More, _Roman de Troie_ by, ii. 225, =227-9=

Beowulf, i. 141, =143-4= _and_ _n. 1_

Berengar, King, i. 256

Berengar of Tours, i. 297, 299, =302-3=; ii. 137

Bernard, Bro., of Quintavalle, i. 502

Bernard, disciple of St. Francis, i. 425-6

Bernard of Chartres, ii. 130-2, 370

Bernard, St., Abbot of Clairvaux, at Citeaux, i. 360, 393;

inspires Templars’ _regula_, i. 531;

denounces and crushes Abaelard, i. 229, 401; ii. =344-5=, =355=;

denounces Arnold of Brescia, i. 401; ii. 171;

relations with Gilbert de la Porrée, ii. 372;

Lives of, i. 392 _n._, 393 _n. 1_;

appearance and characteristics of, i. 392-3;

estimate of, i. 394; ii. 367-8;

love and tenderness of, i. 344, 345, =394 seqq.=; ii. 365;

severity of, i. 400-1;

his love of Clairvaux, i. 401-2;

of his brother, i. 402-4;

Latin style of, ii. 169-71;

on church corruption, i. 474;

on faith, ii. 298;

unconcerned with physics, ii. 356;

St. Francis compared with, i. 415-16;

extracts from letters of, i. 395 _seqq._; ii. 170-1;

_Sermons on Canticles_--cited, 337 _n._;

quoted, i. =409-13=; ii. =169=, 368-9;

_De consideratione_, ii. 368;

otherwise mentioned, i. 17, 20, 279, 302, 472, 501; ii. 34, 168

Bernard Morlanensis, _De contemptu mundi_ by, ii. 199 _n. 3_

Bernard Silvestris, _Commentum ..._ of, ii. 116-17 _and_ _n. 2_;

_De mundi universitate_, ii. 119, =371 and n.=

Bernardone, Peter, i. 419, 423-4

Bernward, Bp. of Hildesheim, i. 312 _and_ _n. 1_

Bible, _see_ Scriptures

Biscop, Benedict, i. 184

Bishops:

Armed forces, with, i. 473

Francis of Assisi’s attitude toward, i. 430

Gallo-Roman and Frankish, position of, i. 191-2, 194 _and_ _nn._, 198,

=201 n.=

Investiture of, lay, i. 244-5 _and_ _n. 4_; ii. 140

Jurisdiction and privileges of, ii. 266

Papacy’s ascendancy over, i. 304

Reluctance to be consecrated, i. 472

Social class of, i. 473

Vestments of, symbolism of, ii. 77 _n. 2_

_Blancandrin_, i. 565

Bobbio monastery, i. 178, =282-3=

Boëthius, death of, i. =89=, 93;

estimate of, i. 89, 92, =102=;

Albertus Magnus compared with, ii. 420;

works of, i. 90-3;

Gerbert’s familiarity with works of, i. 289;

works of, studied at Chartres, i. 298-9;

their importance, i. 298;

_De arithmetica_, i. 72, =90=;

_De geometria_, i. 90;

commentary on Porphyry’s _Isagoge_, i. =92=; ii. 312;

translation of the _Organon_, i. 71, =91-2=;

“loss” of advanced works, ii. 248 _n._, 334;

_De consolatione philosophiae_, i. =89=, 188, =189-90=, 299;

mediaeval study of the work, i. 89; ii. 135-6

Bologna:

Clubs and guilds in, ii. 382

Fight of, against Parma, i. 497

Law school at, ii. =121=, 251, =259-62=, 378

Medical school at, ii. 121, 383 _n._

University, Law, inception and character of, ii. 121, =381-3=;

affiliated universities, ii. 383 _n._

Bonaventura, St. (John of Fidanza), career of, ii. 403;

at Paris, ii. 399, 403;

estimate of, ii. 301;

style of, ii. 181-2;

contrasted with Albertus, ii. 405;

compared with Aquinas, ii. 405, 437;

with Dante, ii. 547;

on faith, ii. 298;

on Minorites and Preachers, ii. 396;

attitude toward Plato and Aristotle, ii. 404-5;

toward Scriptures, ii. 405 _seqq._;

_De reductione artium ad theologiam_, ii. 406-8;

_Breviloquium_, ii. 408-13;

_Itinerarium mentis in Deum_, ii. 413-18;

otherwise mentioned, ii. 283, 288

Boniface, _see_ Winifried-Boniface

Boniface VIII., Pope, _Sextus_ of, ii. 272;

_Unam sanctam_ bull of, ii. 509

_Books of Sentences_, method of, ii. 307

(_See also under_ Lombard)

Botany, ii. 427-8

Bretons, i. 113

_Breviarium_, i. 117, 239, =243-4=

Britain:

Anglo-Saxon conquest of, i. 141

Antique culture in relation to, before Middle Ages, i. 10-11

Celts in, i. 127 _n._

Christianity of, i. 171-2

Romanization of, i. 32

Brude (Bridius), King of Picts, i. 173

Brunhilde, i. 176, 178

Bruno, Abp. of Cologne, i. 309-10, 383-4;

Ruotger’s Life of, i. 310; ii. 162 _and_ _n. 1_

Burgundians:

Christianizing of, i. 193

Church’s attitude toward, i. 120

Roman law code promulgated by (_Papianus_), ii. 239, =242=

Roman subjects of, i. 121

otherwise mentioned, i. 9-10, 113, 145

Burgundy, i. =175=, 243 _n. 1_

Byzantine architecture, 212 _n._

Byzantine Empire, _see_ Eastern Empire

Cædmon, i. 183, 343

Caesar, C. Julius, cited, i. =27-9=, 138, 296

Caesar of Heisterbach, Life of Engelbert by, i. 482-6 _and_ _n._;

_Dialogi miraculorum_, cited, i. 488 _n._, 491.

Canon law:

Authority of, ii. 274

Basis of, ii. 267-9

Bulk of, ii. 269

Conciliar decrees, collections of, ii. =269=

Decretals:

Collections of, ii. 269, =271-2=, =275= =n.=

False, ii. 270, 273

Gratian’s _Decretum_, ii. 268-9, =270-1=, 306

_Jus naturale_ in, ii. 268-9

_Lex romana canonice compta_, ii. 252

Scope of, ii. 267

Sources of, ii. 269

Supremacy of, ii. 277

Canossa, i. 244

Cantafables, i. 157 _n. 1_

Canticles, i. 350;

Origen’s interpretation of, 333;

St. Bernard’s Sermons on, i. 337 _n._, =409-13=; ii. =169=, 368-9

Capella, Martianus, _De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_ of, i. =71 and

n. 3=; ii. 553

_Caritas_, ii. 476-8;

in relation to faith, ii. 479-81;

to wisdom, ii. 481

Carloman, King of Austrasia, i. =199-200 and n.=, 209

Carloman (son of Pippin), i. 209-10

Carnuti, i. 296

Carolingian period:

_Breviarium_ epitomes current during, ii. 244, =249=

Continuity of, with Merovingian, i. 210-12

Criticism of records non-existent in, i. 234

Definiteness of statement a characteristic of, i. 225, =227=

Educational revival in, 218-19, 222, =236=; ii. 122, =158=;

palace school, i. =214=, 218, 229, 235

First stage of mediaeval learning represented by, ii. 330, 332

History as compiled in, i. 234-5

King’s law in, ii. 247

Latin poetry of, ii. 188, 194, 197

Latin prose of, ii. 158

Originality in, circumstances evoking, i. 232-3

Restatement of antique and patristic matter in, i. =237=, 342-3

Carthaginians, i. 25

Carthusian Order, origin of, i. 383-4

Cassian’s _Institutes_ and _Conlocations_, i. 335

Cassiodorus, life and works of, i. 93-7;

_Chronicon_, i. 94;

_Variae epistolae_, i. 94;

_De anima_, 94-5;

_Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum_, i. =95-6=; ii.

357 _n. 2_;

otherwise mentioned, i. 6, 88-9, 115; ii. 312

Cathari, i. 49; ii. 283 _n._

Catullus, i. 25

Cavallini, i. 347

Celsus cited, ii. 235, 237

Celtic language, date of disuse of, i. 31 _and_ _n._

Celts:

Gaul, in, i. =125 and n.=, =126-7=, 129 _n. 1_

Goidelic and Brythonic, i. 127 _n._

Ireland, in, _see_ Irish

Italy invaded by (3rd cent. B.C.), i. 24

Latinized, i. 124

Teutons compared with, i. 125

Champagne, i. 240, =573=

Chandos, Sir John, i. 554-5

_Chanson de Roland_, i. 12 _n._, 528 _and_ _n. 2_, =559-62=

_Chansons de geste_, i. =558 seqq.=; ii. 222

Charlemagne, age of, _see_ Carolingian period;

estimate of, i. 213;

relations of, with the Church, i. =201=, 239; ii. 273;

relations with Angilbert, i. 234-5;

educational revival by, i. =213-14=; ii. 110, 122, =158=, 332;

book of Germanic poems compiled by order of, ii. 220;

Capitularies of, ii. 110, =248=;

open letters of, i. 213 _n._;

Einhard’s Life of, ii. 158-9;

poetic fame of, i. 210;

false Capitularies ascribed to, ii. 270;

empire of, non-enduring, i. 238;

otherwise mentioned, i. 9, 115, 153, 562; ii. 8

Charles Martel, i. 197, =198=, =209=; ii. 273

Charles II. (the Bald), King of France, i. 228, 235

Charles III. (the Simple), King of France, i. 239-40

Charles IV., King of France, i. 551

Chartres Cathedral, sculpture of, i. =20=, 297; ii. =82-5=

Chartres Schools:

Classics the study of, i. 298; ii. 119

Fulbert’s work at, i. 296-7, 299

Grammar as studied at, ii. 129-30

Medicine studied at, ii. 372

Orleans the rival of, ii. 119 _n. 2_

Trivium and quadrivium at, i. =298-9=; ii. 163

mentioned, i. 287, 293

Chartreuse, La Grande, founding of, i. 384 (_See also_ Carthusian)

Chaucer, ii. 95

Childeric, King, i. 119, 122

Chivalry:

Literature of:

Arthurian romances, _see that heading_

Aube (alba) poetry, i. =571=; ii. 30

_Chansons de geste_, i. 558 _seqq._

Nature of, i. 20

_Pastorelle_, i. 571

Pietistic ideal recognized in, ii. 288, 533

Poems of various nations cited, i. 570 =n.=

Religious phraseology in love poems, i. 350 _n. 2_

_Romans d’aventure_, i. =564-5=, 571 _n. 2_

Three branches of, i. 558

Nature of, i. 522, =570 n.=

Order of, evolution of, i. 524 _seqq._

(_See also_ Knighthood)

Chrétien de Troies, romances by, i. 566-=7=;

_Tristan_, i. 567;

_Perceval_, i. 567, =588-9=;

_Erec_ (Geraint), i. 567, 586; ii. 29 _n._;

_Lancelot_ or _Le Conte de la charrette_, i. 567, 569-70, =582-5=;

_Cligés_, i. 567, =586 n. 2=;

_Ivain_, i. =571 n. 2=, 586 _n. 3_; ii. 29 _n._;

translation of Ovid’s _Ars amatoria_, i. 574

Christianity:

Appropriation of, by mediaeval peoples, stages in, i. 17-18

Aquinas’ _Summa_ as concerning, ii. 324

Art, in, _see_ Art

Atonement doctrine, Anselm’s views on, i. 279

Basis of, ii. 268

Britain, in, i. 171-2

Buddhism contrasted with, i. 390

Catholic Church, _see_ Church

Completeness of scheme of, ii. 394-5

Dualistic element in, i. 59

Eleventh century, position in, i. 16

Emotional elements in:

Fear, i. 103, 339, 342, 383

Hate, i. 332, 339

Love, i. 331, =345=

Synthetic treatment of, i. 333

Emotionalizing of, angels as regarded in, i. 348 _n. 4_

Eternal punishment doctrine of, i. =65=, =339=, 486

Faith of, _see_ Faith

Feudalism in relation to, i. 524, 527-=9 and n. 2=, =530=

Fifth century, position in, i. 15

Gallo-Roman, i. 191-2

German language affected by, i. 202

Greek Fathers’ contribution to, i. 5

Greek philosophic admixture in, i. 33-4

Hell-fear in, i. 103, =339=, 342, =383=

Hymns, _see that heading_

Ideal _v._ actual, i. 354-5

Incarnation doctrine of, ii. 369

Irish missionaries of, _see under_ Irish

Latin as modified for expression of, ii. 152, =154=, 156, 164, 171

Marriage as regarded by, ii. 8, 529

Martyrs for, _see_ Martyrs

Mediaeval development in relation to, i. 11, 170

Mediation doctrine of, i. 54, 59-60

Militant character of, in early centuries, i. =69-70=, 75

Miracles, attitude toward, i. 50-1

Monasticism, _see that heading_

Neo-Platonism compared with, i. 51

Pagan ethics inconsistent with, i. 66

Pessimism of, toward mortal life, i. 64

Saints, _see that heading_

Salvation:

Master motive, as, i. 59, =61=, 79, 89

Scholasticism’s main interest, as, ii. =296-7=, 300, 311

Standard of discrimination, as, ii. =530=, =533=, 559

Scriptures, _see that heading_

Teutonic acceptance of, _see under_ Teutons

Trinity doctrine of:

Abaelard’s works on, ii. 10, =298-9=, 352-3, 355

Aquinas on, ii. 449-50, 456

Bonaventura on, ii. 416-17

Dante’s vision, ii. 551

Peter Lombard’s Book on, ii. 323

Roscellin on, ii. 340

Vernacular presentation of, ii. 221

Visions, _see that heading_

Chronicles, mediaeval, ii. 175

Chrysostom, i. 53

Church, Roman Catholic:

Authority of, Duns’ views on, ii. 516

Bishops, _see that heading_

British Church’s divergencies from, 171-2

Canon Law, _see that heading_

Charlemagne’s relations with, i. =201=, 239; ii. 273

Classical study as regarded by, i. 260; ii. =110 seqq.=, 396-7

Clergy, _see that heading_

Confession doctrine of, i. 489

Constantine’s relations with, ii. 266

Creation of, i. 11, 68, =86-7=

Decretals, etc., _see under_ Canon Law

Denunciations of, i. 474-5; ii. 34-5

Diocesan organization of, among Germans, i. 196

Doctrinal literature of, i. 68-70

Duns’ attitude towards, ii. 513

East and West, solidarity of development of, i. 55

Empire’s relations with, _see under_ Papacy

Eternal punishment doctrine of, i. =65=, =339=, 486; ii. 550

Eucharistic controversy, _see that heading_

Fathers of the, _see_ Greek thought, patristic; Latin Fathers; _and

chiefly_ Patristic thought

Feudalism as affected by, i. 524, 527-=9 and n. 2=, =530=

Feudalism as affecting, i. 244, 473

Frankish, _see under_ Franks

Gallo-Roman, i. 191-2, 194

Hildegard’s visions regarding, i. 457

Intolerance of, _see subheading_ Persecutions

Investiture controversy, _see under_ Bishops

Irish Church’s relations with, i. 172-4 _and_ =n. 1=

Isidore’s treatise on liturgical practices of, i. 106

Knights’ vow of obedience to, i. 530

Mass, the:

Alleluia chant and Sequence-hymn, ii. 196, =201 seqq.=

Symbolism of, ii. 77-8

Nicene Creed, i. 69

Papacy, Popes, _see those headings_

Paschal controversy, _see_ Eucharistic

Penance doctrine of, i. =101=, 195

Persecutions by, i. 339;

of Albigenses, i. 366-7, 461, 481, 572; ii. 168;

of Jews, i. 118, 332;

of Montanists, i. 332

Popes, _see that heading_

Predestination, attitude toward, i. 228

Property of, enactments regarding, ii. 266

Rationalists in, i. 305

Reforms in (11th cent.), i. 304

Roman law for, ii. 265 _and_ _n. 2_

Sacraments:

Definition of the word, ii. 72 _and_ _n. 1_

Hugo of St. Victor on, ii. 64, 66, 68-9, 71, =72-4=, 90 _n. 2_

Origin of, Bonaventura on, ii. 411-13

Pagan analogy with, i. 53, 59-60

Secularization of dignities of, i. 472

Simony in, i. =244=, 475

Spain, in, _see under_ Spain

Standards set by, ii. 528-9

Suspects to, estimate of, ii. 532

Synod of Aix (817), i. 359

Theodosian Code as concerning, ii. 266-7 _and_ _n. 1_

Transubstantiation doctrine of, i. 226-227

“Truce of God” promulgated by, i. 529 _n. 2_

Churches:

Building of, symbolism in, ii. 78-82

Dedication of, sequence designed for, ii. 210-11

Cicero, i. 26 _n. 3_, 39, 78, =219=

Cino, ii. 264

Cistercian Order:

_Charta charitatis_, i. 361-3

Clairvaux founded, i. 393

Cluniac controversies with, i. 360

Citeaux monastery:

Bernard at, i. 360, 393

Foundation and rise of, i. 360-3

Cities and towns:

Growth of, in 12th cent., i. 305; ii. =379-80=

Italian, _see under_ Italy

Cities (_civitates_) of Roman provinces, i. 29-30

Clairvaux (Clara Vallis):

Founding of, i. 360, 393

Position of, i. 362

St. Bernard’s love of, i. 401-2

Classics, _see_ Latin classics

Claudius, Bp. of Turin, i. 215, 231-2 _and_ _n. 1_

Claudius, Emp., i. 30

Clement II., Pope, i. 243

Clement IV., Pope, ii. 489-91

Clement V., Pope, _Decretales Clementinae_ of, ii. 272

Clement of Alexandria, ii. 64

Clergy:

Accusations against, false, penalty for, ii. 266

Legal status of, ii. 382

Regular, _see_ Monasticism

Secular:

Concubinage of, i. 244

Francis of Assisi’s attitude toward, i. 430, 440

Marriage of, i. 472 _n. 1_

Reforms of, i. 359

Standard of conduct for, i. 471; ii. 529

Term, scope of, i. 356

Clerval, Abbé, cited, i. 300 _n. 1_

Clopinel, Jean, _see_ De Meun

Clovis (Chlodoweg), i. 114, 117, =119-21=, 122, 138, =193-4=; ii. 245

Cluny monastery:

Abaelard at, ii. 25, =26=, 345

Characteristics of, i. 359-60

Monastic reforms accomplished by, i. =293=, 304

Cologne, i. 29, 31

Columba, St., of Iona, i. =133-7=, 173

Columbanus, St., of Luxeuil and Bobbio, i. 6, 133, =174-9=, 196;

Life and works of, 174 _n. 2_

Combat, trial by, i. 232

Commentaries, mediaeval:

Boëthius’, i. 93

Excerpts as characteristic of, i. 104

General addiction to, ii. 390, 553 _n. 4_

Originals supplanted by, ii. 390

Raban’s, i. 222-3

Compends:

Fourteenth century use of, ii. 523

Mediaeval preference for, i. 94

Medical, in Italy, i. 251

Saints’ lives, of (_Legenda aurea_), ii. 184

Conrad, Duke of Franconia, i. 241

Conrad II., Emp., i. 243

Constantine, Emp., ii. 266;

“Donation” of, ii. =35=, 265, 270

Constantinus Africanus, i. =251= _and_ _n._; ii. 372

Cordova, i. 25

Cornelius Nepos, i. 25

_Cornificiani_, ii. =132=, 373

Cosmogony:

Aquinas’ theory of, ii. 456

Mediaeval allegorizing of, ii. 65 _seqq._

Patristic attitude toward, i. 72-4

Cosmology, Alan’s, in _Anticlaudianus_, ii. 377

Cremona, i. 24

Cross, Christian:

Magic safeguard, as, i. 294-5

Mediaeval feeling for, ii. 197

Crusades:

Constantinople, capture of, as affecting Western learning, ii. 391

First:

_Chansons_ concerning, i. 537-8

Character of, i. 535-7

Guibert’s account of, ii. 175

Hymn concerning, quoted, i. 349 _and_ _n._

Italians little concerned in, ii. 189

Joinville’s account of, quoted, i. 546-9

Language of, i. 531

Results of, i. 305

Second, i. 394

Spirit of, i. 535-7

Cuchulain, i. 129 _and_ _nn. 2, 3_

Cynewulf’s _Christ_, i. 183

Cyprian quoted, i. 337 _n._

Cyril of Alexandria, i. 227

Cyril of Jerusalem, i. 53

Da Romano, Alberic, i. 515-16

Da Romano, Eccelino, i. =505-6=, 516

Dacia, Visigoths in, i. 112

Damiani, St. Peter, Card. Bp. of Ostia, career of, i. 262-4;

attitude of, to the classics, i. 260; ii. 112, 165;

on the hermit life, i. 369-70;

on tears, i. 371 _and_ _n._;

extract illustrating Latin style of, ii. 165 _and_ _n. 3_;

works of, i. 263 _n. 1_;

writings quoted, i. 263-7;

_Liber Gomorrhianus_, i. 265, 474;

_Vita Romualdi_, i. 372 _seqq._;

biography of Dominicus Loricatus, i. 381-2;

_De parentelae gradibus_, ii. 252;

otherwise mentioned, i. 17, 19, 20, 260, 343, 345, 391; ii. 34

Damianus, i. 262, 265

Danes, i. 142, =153=

Dante, estimate of, ii. 534-5;

scholarship of, ii. 541 _n. 2_;

possessed by spirit of allegory, ii. 552-5;

compared with Aquinas and influenced by him, ii. 541 _n. 2_, 547, 549,

551, 555;

compared with Bonaventura, ii. 547;

attitude to Beatrice, ii. 555-8;

on love, ii. 555-6;

on monarchy, ii. 278;

_De monarchia_, ii. 535;

_De vulgari eloquentia_, ii. 219, =536=;

_Vita nuova_, ii. =556=, 559;

_Convito_, ii. =537-8=, 553;

_Divina Commedia_, i. 12 _n._; ii. 86, 99 _n. 1_, =103=, 219;

commentaries on this work, ii. 553-4;

estimate of it, ii. 538, 540-1, 544, 553-4;

_Inferno_ cited, ii. 42, 541-3, =545-7=;

_Purgatorio_ cited, ii. 535, 542-3, =548-9=, 554, 558;

_Paradiso_ cited, i. 395; ii. 542-3, =549-51=, 558

Dares the Phrygian, ii. 116 _and_ _n. 3_, 224-=5 and nn.=, 226-7

_De bello et excidio urbis Comensis_, ii. 189-90

De Boron, Robert, i. 567

_De casu Diaboli_, i. 279

_De consolatione philosophiae_, _see under_ Boëthius

De Lorris, Guillaume, _Roman de la rose_ by, i. =586-7=; ii. 103 _and_

_n. 1_, 104

De Meun, Jean (Clopinel), _Roman de la rose_ by, ii. 103 _and_ _n. 1_,

104, =223=

Denis, St., i. 230

Dermot (Diarmaid, Diarmuid), High-King of Ireland, i. =132=-3, 135, =136=

Desiderius, Bp. of Vienne, i. 99

Desiderius, Pope, i. =253=, 263

Devil, the:

Mediaeval beliefs and stories as to, i. 487 _seqq._

Romuald’s conflicts with, i. =374=, 379-80

Dialectic (_See also_ Logic):

Abaelard’s skill in, ii. 118, 119, =345-6=, 353;

his subjection of dogma to, ii. 304;

his _Dialectica_, ii. 346 _and_ _nn._, 349-50

Chartres study of, i. 298

Duns Scotus’ mastery of, ii. 510, 514

Grammar penetrated by, ii. 127 _seqq._

Hugo of St. Victor on, ii. 67

Raban’s view of, i. 222

Thirteenth century study of, ii. 118-20

Diarmaid (Diarmuid), _see_ Dermot

_Dictamen_, ii. =121=, =129=, 381

Dictys the Cretan, ii. 224, 225 _and_ _n. 1_

_Dies irae_, i. 348

Dionysius the Areopagite, ii. 10, 102, =344=

_Divina Commedia_, _see under_ Dante

Divination, ii. 374

Dominic, St., i. =366-7=, 497; ii. 396

Dominican Order:

Aristotelianism of, ii. 404

Founding of, i. =366=; ii. 396

Growth of, i. 498; ii. =398=

Object of, ii. 396

Oxford University, at, ii. 387

Papacy, relations with, ii. =398=, 509

Paris University, position in, ii. =386=, 399

Dominicus Loricatus, i. 263, =381-3=

Donatus, i. 71, 297;

_Ars minor_ and _Barbarismus_ of, ii. 123-=4=

Donizo of Canossa, ii. 189 _and_ _n. 2_

Druids:

Gallic, i. =28=, 296

Irish, i. 133

Du Guesclin, Bertrand, Constable of France, i. 554-6, 557 _n._

Duns Scotus, education of, ii. 511;

career of, ii. 513;

estimate of, ii. 513;

intricacy of style of, ii. 510, 514, =516 n. 2=;

on logic, ii. 504 _n. 2_;

Occam’s attitude toward, ii. 518 _seqq._;

editions of works of, ii. 511 _n. 1_;

estimate of his work, ii. 509-10, 514

Dunstan, St., Abp. of Canterbury, i. 323-4

Durandus, Guilelmus, _Rationale divinorum officiorum_ of, ii. 76 _seqq._

Eadmer, i. 269, 273, 277

Eastern Empire:

Frankish relations with, i. 123

Huns’ relations with, i. 112-13

Norse mercenaries of, i. 153

Ostrogoths’ relations with, i. 114

Roman restoration by, i. 115

Ebroin, i. 209

Eckbert, Abbot of Schönau, i. 444

Ecstasy:

Bernard’s views on, ii. 368

Examples of, i. 444, 446

Eddas, ii. 220

Education:

Carolingian period, in, i. =213-14=, 218-19, 222, =236=; ii. 110, 122,

=158=, 332

Chartres method of, ii. 130-1

Grammar a chief study in, ii. 122 _seqq._, 331-2

Italy, in, _see under_ Italy

Latin culture the means and method of, i. 12; ii. =109=

Schools, clerical and monastic, i. =250 n. 2=, 293

Schools, lay, i. 249-51

Seven Liberal Arts, _see that heading_

Shortening of academic course, advocates of, ii. =132=, 373

Edward II., King of England, i. 551

Edward III., King of England, i. 550-1

Edward the Black Prince, i. 554-6

Einhard the Frank, i. 234 _n. 1_;

_Life of Charlemagne_ by, i. 215; ii. 158-9

Ekkehart family, i. 309

Ekkehart of St. Gall, _Waltarius_ (_Waltharilied_) by, ii. 188

El-Farabi, ii. 390

Eleventh century:

Characteristics of, i. 301;

in France, i. 301, 304, 328;

in Germany, i. 307-9;

in England, i. 324;

in Italy, i. 327

Christianity in, position of, i. 16

Elias, Minister-General of the Minorites, i. 499

Elizabeth, St., of Hungary, i. 391, =465 n. 1=

Elizabeth, St., of Schönau, visions of, i. 444-6

Emotional development, secular, i. 349-50 _and_ _n. 2_

Empire, the, _see_ Holy Roman Empire

Encyclopaedias, mediaeval, ii. 316 _n. 2_;

Vincent’s _Speculum majus_, ii. 315-22

_Eneas_, ii. 225, =226=

Engelbert, Abp. of Cologne, i. 481-6;

estimate of, i. 482

England (_See also_ Britain):

Danish Viking invasion of, i. 153

Eleventh century conditions in, i. 324

Law in, principles of, i. 141-2;

Roman law almost non-existent in Middle Ages, ii. 248

Norman conquest of, linguistic result of, i. 324

English language, character of, i. 324

Epicureanism, i. =41=, 70; ii. 296, 312

Eriugena, John Scotus, estimate of, i. 215, =228-9=, =231=; ii. 330;

on reason _v._ authority, ii. 298, 302;

works of, studied at Chartres, i. 299;

_De divisione naturae_, i. =230-1=; ii. 302;

otherwise mentioned, i. 16; ii. 282 _n._, 312

Essenes, i. 334

Ethelbert, King of Kent, i. 180-1

_Etymologies_ of Isidore, i. 33, 105 _and_ _n. 1_, =107-9=; ii. 318;

law codes glossed from, ii. 250

Eucharistic (Paschal) controversy:

Berengar’s contribution to, i. 302-3

Paschasius’ contribution to, i. 225-7

Eucherius, Bp. of Lyons, ii. 48 _n. 1_

Euclid, i. 40

Eudemus of Rhodes, i. 38

Eunapius, i. 47, 52

Euric, King of the Visigoths, i. 117 _and_ _n. 1_

Eusebius, i. 81 _n. 2_

Evil or sin:

Abaelard’s views concerning, ii. 350

Eriugena’s views concerning, i. 228

Original sin, realism in relation to, ii. 340 _n._

Peter Lombard and Aquinas contrasted as to, ii. 308-10

Experimental science, Bacon on, ii. 502-8

_Fabliaux_, i. =521 n. 2=; ii. 222

Facts, unlimited actuality of, i. 79-80

Faith:

Abaelard’s definition of, ii. 354

Bacon’s views on, ii. 507

Bernard of Clairvaux’s attitude toward, ii. 355

_Caritas_ in relation to, ii. 479-81

Cognition through, Aquinas’ views on, ii. 446

Occam’s views on, ii. 519

Proof of matters of, Aquinas on, ii. 450

Will as functioning in, ii. 479

_False Decretals_, i. 104 _n._, =118 n. 1=

Fathers of the Church (_See also_ Patristic thought):

Greek, _see_ Greek thought, patristic

Latin, _see_ Latin Fathers

Faustus, ii. 44

Felix, St., i. 86

Feudalism (_See also_ Knighthood):

Anarchy of, modification of, i. 304

Austrasian disintegration by, i. 240

_Chansons_ regarding, i. 559 _seqq._, 569

Christianity in relation to, i. 524, 527-=9 and n. 2=, =530=

Church affected by, i. 244, 473

Italy not greatly under, i. 241

Marriage as affected by, i. 571, 586

Obligations of, i. 533-4

Origin of, 522-3

Principle and practice of, at variance, i. 522

Fibonacci, Leonardo, ii. 501

Finnian, i. 136

_Flamenca_, i. 565

_Flore et Blanchefleur_, i. 565

Florus, Deacon, of Lyons, i. 229 _and_ _n._

Fonte Avellana hermitage, i. =262-3=, 381

Forms, new, creation of, _see_ Mediaeval thought--Restatement

Fortunatus, Hymns by, ii. 196-7

Fourteenth century:

Academic decadence in, ii. 523

Papal position in, ii. 509-10

France (_For particular districts, towns, etc., see their names_):

Antique, the, in relation to, before Middle Ages, i. 9-10

Arthurian romances developed in, i. 566

Cathedrals of, ii. 539, 554-5

Church in, secularization of, i. 472-3

Eleventh century conditions in, i. 301, 304, 328

History of, in 11th century, i. 300

Hundred Years’ War, i. 550 _seqq._

Jacquerie in (1358), i. 556

Language modifications in, ii. 155

Literary celebrities in (12th cent.), ii. 168

Monarchy of, advance of, i. 305

North and South, characteristics of, i. 328

Rise of, in 14th century, ii. 509

Town-dwellers of, i. =495=, 508

Francis, St., of Assisi, birth of, i. 415;

parentage, i. 419;

youth, i. 420-3;

breach with his father, i. 423-4;

monastic career, i. 427 _seqq._;

French songs sung by, i. =419 and n. 2=, 427, 432;

_Lives_ of, i. 415 _n._;

style of Thomas of Celano’s _Life_, ii. 182-3;

_Speculum perfectionis_, i. 415 _n._, 416 _n._, =438 n. 3=; ii. =183=;

literal acceptance of Scripture by, i. 365, 406-=7=;

on Scripture interpretation, i. 427 _n. 1_; ii. 183;

universality of outlook, i. 417;

mediaevalism, i. 417;

Christ-influence, i. 417, =418=, =432=-3;

inspiration, i. =419 n. 1=, 441;

gaiety of spirit, i. 421, 427-8, 431-2;

poetic temperament, i. 422, 435;

love of God, man, and nature, i. 366, 428, =432-3=, =435=-7;

simplicity, i. 429;

obedience and humility, i. 365 _n._, =429-30=;

humanism, i. 495;

St. Bernard compared with, i. 415-16;

St. Dominic contrasted with, ii. 396;

_Fioretti_, ii. 184;

Canticle of Brother Sun, i. 433-4, =439-40=;

last testament of, i. 440-1;

otherwise mentioned, i. 20, 21, 279, 344, 345, 355-6; ii. 302

Franciscan Order:

Attractiveness of, i. 498

Augustinianism of, ii. 404

Bacon’s relations with, ii. 486, =488=, 490-=1=

Characteristics of, i. 366

Founding of, i. =427=; ii. 396

Grosseteste’s relations, ii. =487=, 511

Object of, ii. 396

Oxford University, at, ii. 387, 400

Papacy, relations with, ii. =398=, 509

Paris University, in, ii. 386, 399

Rise of, ii. 398

Franconia, i. 241

Franks (_See also_ Germans):

Christianity as accepted by, i. 193

Church among:

Bishops, position of, i. =194 and nn.=, 198, 201 _n._

Charlemagne’s relations with, i. =201=, 239; ii. 273

Clovis, under, i. 194

Lands held by, i. 194, 199-200;

immunities of, i. 201 _and_ _n._

Organization of, i. 199

Reform of, by Boniface, i. =196=; ii. 273

Roman character of, i. 201

Division of the kingdom a custom of, i. 238-9

Gallo-Roman relations with, i. 123

Language of, i. 145 _n. 2_

Law of, ii. 245-6

_Missi dominici_, i. 211

Ripuarian, i. 119, 121; ii. 246

Romanizing of, partial, i. 9-10

Salian, i. 113, =119=; Code, ii. 245-6

Saracens defeated by, i. 209-10 _n. 1_

Trojan origin of, belief as to, ii. 225 _and_ _n. 1_

Frederic, Count of Isenburg, i. 483-6

Frederick I. (Barbarossa), Emp., i. 448

Frederick II., Emp., under Innocent’s guardianship, ii. 32-3;

crowned, ii. 33;

estimate of, i. 497;

otherwise mentioned, i. 250 _n. 4_, 417, 481, 505, 510, 517

Free, meaning of term, i. 526 _n. 3_

Free Companies, i. 556

Free will:

Angelic, ii. 473

Duns Scotus on, ii. 515

Human, ii. 475

Richard of Middleton on, ii. 512

Freidank, i. 475; ii. =35=

Frescoes, i. 346-7

Friendship, chivalric, i. 561-2, 569-70, 583

Frisians, i. 169, 174;

missionary work among, i. =197=, 200, 209

Froissart, Sir John, _Chronicles_ of, i. 549 _seqq._;

estimate of the work, i. 557

Froumund of Tegernsee, i. =312-13=; ii. 110

Fulbert, Bp. of Chartres, i. 287, =296-7=, 299

Fulbert, Canon, ii. 4-6, 9

Fulco, Bp. of Toulouse, i. 461

Fulda monastery, i. =198=, 221 _n. 2_

Fulk of Anjou, ii. 138

Gaius, _Institutes_ of, ii. 241, 243

Galahad, i. 569-70, 583, 584 _and_ _n. 2_

Galen of Pergamos, i. =40=, 251

Gall, St., i. 6, 178, =196=

Gallo-Romans:

Feudal system among, i. 523

Frankish rule over, i. 120, 123

Literature of, i. 126 _n. 2_

Gandersheim cloister, i. 311

Gaul (_For particular districts, towns, etc., see their names_):

Celtic inhabitants of, i. =125 and n.=, =126=-7, 129 _n. 1_

Druidism in, i. =28=, 296

Ethnology of, i. 126

Heathenism in, late survival of, i. 191 _n. 1_

Latinization of, i. 9-10, =29-32=

Visigothic kingdom in south of, i. 112, 116, 117, 121

Gauls, characteristics and customs of, i. 27-8

Geoffrey of Beaulieu, Life of St. Louis by, i. 539-42

Gepidae, i. 113, 115

Geraldus, St., i. 281

Gerard, brother of St. Bernard, i. 402-4

Gerbert of Aurillac, _see_ Sylvester II.

German language:

Christianity as affecting, i. 202

High and Low, separation of, i. 145 _n. 2_

Middle High German literature, ii. 168, 221

Old High German poetry, ii. =194=, 220

Germans (Saxons) (_See also_ Franks):

Characteristics of, i. 138-40, 147, 151-2

Language of, _see_ German language

Latin as studied by, i. =307-9=; ii. =123=, 155

Literature of, ii. 220-1 (_See also subheading_ Poetry)

Marriage as regarded by, ii. 30

Nationalism of, in 13th cent., ii. 28

Poetry of:

_Hildebrandslied_, i. 145-7

_Kudrun_ (_Gudrun_), i. 148, =149=-52; ii. 220

_Nibelungenlied_, i. 145-6, =148-9=, 152, 193, 203 _n. 2_; ii. 220

_Waltarius_, i. 147 _and_ _n._, 148

otherwise mentioned, i. 113, 115, 119, 174, 209, 210

Germany:

Antique, the, in relation to, before Middle Ages, i. 10-11

Art in (11th cent.), i. 312

Church in, secularization of, i. 472

Italy contrasted with, as to culture, i. 249-50

Merovingian supremacy in, i. 121

Papacy as regarded by, ii. 28, 33, =34-5=

Sequence-composition in, ii. 215

Gertrude of Hackeborn, Abbess, i. 466

Gilbert de la Porrée, Bp. of Poictiers, ii. 132, =372=

Gilduin, Abbot of St. Victor, ii. =62= _and_ _n. 2_

Giraldus Cambrensis, ii. 135 _and_ _n._

Girard, Bro., of Modena, i. 498

Glaber, Radulphus, _Histories_ of, i. 488 _n._

Glass-painting, ii. 82-6

Gnosticism, i. 51 _n. 1_

Gnostics, Eriugena compared with, i. 231 _and_ _n. 1_

Godehard, Bp. of Hildesheim, i. 312

Godfrey of Bouillon, i. 535-8

Godfrey of Viterbo, ii. 190 _and_ _n. 4_

Gondebaud, King of the Burgundians, ii. 242

Good and the true compared, ii. 441, 512

Goths (_See also_ Visigoths):

Christianity of, i. 192, 194

Roman Empire invaded by, i. 111 _seqq._