There is no such thing as a line marking definitely the time when
ancient Rome ceased to be itself and became the Rome of the Middle Age.
If there were such a line, we should probably have crossed it already,
whether in recording the last real Roman setting of the Horatian house
in order by Mavortius in 527, or in referring to Venantius Fortunatus,
the last of the Latin Christian poets. The usual date marking the end of
the Western Empire, 476, is only the convenient sign for the culmination
of the movement long since begun in the interferences of an army
composed more and more of a non-Italian, Northern soldiery, and ending
in a final mutiny or revolt which assumed the character of invasion and
the permanent seizure of civil as well as military authority. The coming
of Odoacer is the ultimate stage in the process of Roman and Italian
exhaustion, the sign that life is not longer possible except through
infusion of northern blood.
The military and political change itself was only exterior, the outward
demonstration of deep-seated maladies. The too-successful
bureaucratization of Augustus and such of his successors as were really
able and virtuous, the development of authority into tyranny by such as
were neither able nor virtuous, but mad and wilful, had removed from
Roman citizenship the responsibility which in the olden time had made it
strong; and the increase of taxes, assessments, and compulsory honors
involving personal contribution, had substituted for responsibility and
privilege a burden so heavy that under it the civic life of the Empire
was crushed to extinction. In Italy, above all, the ancient seed was
running out. Under the influence of economic and social movement, the
old stock had died and disappeared, or changed beyond recognition. The
old language, except in the mouths and from the pens of the few, was
fast losing its identity. Uncertainty, indifference, stagnation,
weariness of body, mind, and soul, leaden resignation and despair,
forgetfulness of the glories of the past in art and even in heroism,
were the inheritance of the last generations of the old order. Jerome
felt barbarism closing in: _Romanus orbis ruit_, he says,--the Roman
world is tumbling in ruins.
In measure as the vitality of pagan Rome was sapped, into the inert and
decaying mass there penetrated gradually the two new life-currents of a
new religion and a new blood. The change they wrought from the first
century to the descent of the Northerners was not sudden, nor was it
rapid. Nor was it always a change that carried visible warrant of
virtue. The mingling of external races in the army and in trade, the
interference of a Northern soldiery in the affairs of the throne, the
more peaceful but more intimate shuffling of the population through the
social and economic emergence of the one-time nameless and poor, whether
of native origin or foreign, may have contributed fresh blood to an
anaemic society, but the result most apparent to the eye and most
disturbing to the soul was the debasement of standards and the fears
that naturally come with violent, sudden, or merely unfamiliar change.
The new religion may have contributed new hope and erected new
standards, but it also contributed exaggerations, contradictions, and
new uncertainties. The life of logic began to be displaced by the life
of feeling.
The change and turmoil of the times that attended and followed the
crumbling of the Roman world were favorable neither to the production of
letters nor to the enjoyment of a literary heritage. Goth, Byzantine,
Lombard, Frank, German, Saracen, and Norman made free of the soil of
Italy. If men were not without leisure, they were without the leisure of
peaceful and careful contemplation, and lacked the buoyant heart without
which assimilation of art is hardly less possible than creation.
Ignorance had descended upon the world, and gross darkness covered the
people. The classical authors were solid, the meat of vigorous minds.
Their language, never the facile language of the people and the
partially disciplined, now became a resisting medium that was foreign to
the general run of men. Their syntax was archaic and crabbed, their
metres forgotten. Their substance, never grasped without effort, was now
not only difficult, but became the abstruse matter of another people and
another age. To all but the cultivated few, they were known for anything
but what they really were. It was an age of Virgil the mysterious
prophet of the coming of Christ, of Virgil the necromancer. Real
knowledge withdrew to secret and secluded refuges.
If the classical authors in general were beyond the powers and outside
the affection of men, Horace was especially so. More intellectual than
Virgil, and less emotional, in metrical forms for the most part lost to
their knowledge and liking, the poet of the individual heart rather than
of men in the national or racial mass, the poet strictly of this world
and in no respect of the next, he almost vanished from the life of men.
Yet the classics were not all lost, and not even Horace perished.
Strange to say, and yet not really strange, the most potent active
influence in the destruction of his appeal to men was also the most
effective instrument of his preservation. Through the darkness and the
storms of the nine hundred years following the fall of the Western
Empire, Horace was sheltered under the wing of the Church.
It was a natural exaggeration for Christianity to begin by teaching
absolute separation from the world, and to declare, through the mouths
of such as Tertullian, that the blood of Christ alone sufficed and
nothing more was needed, and that literature and all the other arts of
paganism, together with its manners, were so inseparable from its
religion that every part was anathema. It was natural that Horace, more
than Virgil, should be the object of its neglect, and even of its active
enmity. Horace is the most completely pagan of poets whose works are of
spiritual import. The only immortality of which he takes account is the
immortality of fame. Aside from this, the end of man is dust and shadow.
It is true that in the depth of his heart he does not feel with
Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius that "Dust thou art, to dust
returnest" is spoken of soul as well as body. The old Roman instinct for
ancestor-communion is too strong in him for that. But he acquiesces in
their doctrine in so far as shadowy existence in another world inspires
in him no pleasing hope. He displays no trace of the faith in the
supernatural which accompanies the Christian hope of happy immortality.
He contains none of the expressions of yearning for communion with the
divine, of self-abasement in the presence of the eternal, which belong
to Christian poetry. The flights of his muse rarely take him into the
realm of a divine love and providence. His aspirations are for things
achievable in this world: for faithfulness in friendship, for enduring
courage, for irreproachable patriotism,--in short, for ideal _human_
relations.
Horace's idealism is not Christian idealism, and is only in a limited
way even spiritual idealism. When he prays, it is likely to be for
others rather than himself, and for temporal blessings only: for the
success of Augustus at home and in the field, for prolongation of
Maecenas' life and happiness, for the weal of the State, for the
nurslings of his little flock, for health of body and contentment of
heart. His dwelling is not in the secret place of the Most High.
Philosophy, not religion, is his refuge and his fortress. In philosophy,
not in God, will he trust.
In a word, Horace is logical, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. He sees
no happy future after this life, is conscious of no providence watching
over him, is involved in no obligation to the beings of an eternal
world. He looks this world and the next, gods and men, directly in the
face, and expects other men to do the same. Life and its duties are for
him clear-cut. He is no propounder of problems, no searcher after hidden
purposes. He lacks almost absolutely the feverish aspiration and unrest
which characterize Christian and other humanitarian modes of thought and
sentiment, and whose manifestation is one of the best known features of
recent modern times, as it was of the earliest Christian experience.
But Christianity was a religion of men, and therefore human. If its
exaggerations were natural, its reservations and its reactions were also
natural. There were men whose admiration continued to be roused and
whose affections continued to be touched by Virgil and Horace. There
were men whose reason as well as whose instinct impelled them to employ
the classic authors and the classic arts in the service of the new
religion. Christianity possessed no distinct and separate media of
expression and no separate body of knowledge which could bear fruit as
matter of instruction. Pagan art and literature were indispensable
whether for the study of history or of mere humanity. Christianity was
therefore compelled to employ the old forms of art, which involved the
use of the old instrumentalities of literary education. When, finally,
paganism had fallen under its repeated assaults, what had been forced
use became a matter of choice, and the classics were taken under the
Church's protection and marked with her approval.
The data regarding Horace in the Middle Age are few, but they are clear.
We need not examine them all in order to draw conclusions.
The monastic idea, of eastern origin and given currency in the West by
Jerome, was first reduced to systematic practice by Benedict, who
created the first Rule at Monte Cassino about the time of the Mavortian
recension of Horace, in 527. New moral strength issued from the
cloisters now rapidly established. Cassiodorus, especially active in
promoting the spiritual phase of monkish retreat, made the intellectual
life also his concern. Monte Cassino, between Naples and Rome, and
Bobbio, in the northern part of the peninsula, were the great Italian
centers. The Benedictine influence spread to Ireland, which before the
end of the sixth century became a stronghold of the movement and an
inspiration to England, Germany, France, and even Italy, where Bobbio
itself was founded by Columban and his companions. St. Gall in
Switzerland, Fulda at Hersfeld in Hesse-Nassau, Corvey in Saxony, Iona
in Scotland, Tours in France, Reichenau on Lake Constance, were all
active centers of religion and learning within two hundred years from
Benedict's death.
The monasteries not only afforded the spiritual enthusiast the
opportunity of separation from the world of temptation and storm, but
were equally inviting to men devoted first of all to the intellectual
life. The scholar and the educator found within their walls not only
peaceful escape from the harshnesses of political change and military
broil, but the opportunity to labor usefully and unmolested in the
occupation that pleased them most. The cloister became a Christian
institute. The example of Cassiodorus was followed two hundred years
later on a larger scale by Charlemagne. Schools were founded both in
cloister and at court, scholars summoned, manuscripts copied, the life
of pagan antiquity studied, and the bond between the languages and
cultures of present and past made firmer. The schools of the old régime
had fallen away in the sixth century, when Northern rule had closed the
civic career to natives of Italy. A great advance in the intellectual
life now laid the foundations of all cultural effort in the Middle Age.
No small part of this advance was due to the preservation of manuscripts
by copying. In this activity France was first, so far as Horace was
concerned. The copies by the scribes of Charlemagne went back to
Mavortius and Porphyrio, the originals of which were probably discovered
at Bobbio by his scholars. Of the two hundred and fifty manuscripts in
existence, the greater part are French in origin, the oldest being the
Bernensis, of the ninth or tenth century, from near Orléans. Germany was
a worthy second to France. The finds in monastery libraries of both
countries in the humanist movement of the fifteenth century were
especially rich. Italy, on the contrary, preserved few manuscripts of
her poet, and none that is really ancient. Italy began the great
monastery movement, but disorder and change were against the diffusion
of culture. Charlemagne's efforts probably had little to do with Italy.
The Church seems to have had no care to preserve the ancient culture of
her native land.
What this meant in terms of actual acquaintance with the poet would not
be clear without evidence of other kinds. By the end of the sixth
century, knowledge of Horace was already vague. He was not read in
Africa, Spain, or Gaul. Read in Italy up to Charlemagne's time, a
hundred years later his works are not to be found in the catalogue of
Bobbio, one of the greatest seats of learning. What the general attitude
of the Church's leadership toward him was, may be conjectured from the
declaration of Gregory the Great against all beauty in writing. Its
general capacity for Horace may perhaps be surmised also from the
confession of the Pope's contemporary, Gregory of Tours, that he is
unfamiliar with the ancient literary languages. The few readers of the
late Empire had become fewer still. The difficult form and matter of the
_Odes_, and their unadaptability to religious and moral use,
disqualified them for the approval of all but the individual scholar or
literary enthusiast. The moralities of the _Epistles_ were more
tractable, and formed the largest contribution to the _Florilegia_, or
flower-collections, that were circulated by themselves. Horace did not
contain the facile and stimulating tales of Ovid, he was not a Virgil
the story-teller and almost Christian, his lines did not exercise a
strong appeal to the ear, he was not an example of the rhetorical, like
Lucan, his satire did not lend itself, like a Juvenal's, to universal
condemnation of paganism.
In the eighth century, Columban knows Horace, the Venerable Bede cites
him four times, and Alcuin is called a Flaccus. The York catalogue of
Alcuin shows the presence of most of the classic authors. Paul the
Deacon, who wrote a poem in the Sapphics he learned from Horace, is
declared, he says, to be like Homer, Flaccus, and Virgil, but
ungratefully and ungraciously adds, "men like that I'll compare with
dogs." In Spain, Saint Isidore of Seville knew Horace in the seventh
century, though the Rule of Isidore, as of some other monastic
legislators, forbade the use of pagan authors without special
permission; yet the coming of the Arabs in the eighth century, and the
struggle between the Gothic, Christian, and Islamic civilizations
resulted, for the next six or seven centuries, in what seems total
oblivion of the poet.
In the ninth and tenth centuries, under the impulse of the Carolingian
favor, France, in which there is heretofore no evidence of Horace's
presence from the end of Roman times, becomes the greatest center of
manuscript activity, the Bernensis and six Parisian exemplars dating
from this period. Yet the indexes of St. Gall, Reichenau, and Bobbio
contain the name of no work of Horace, and only Nevers and Loesch
contained his complete works. The _Ecbasis Captivi_, an animal-epic
appearing at Toul in 940, has one fifth of its verses formed out of
Horace in the manner of the _cento_, or patchwork. At about the same
time, the famous Hrosvitha of Gandersheim writes her six Christian
dramas patterned after Terence, and in them uses Horace. Mention by
Walter of Speyer, and interest shown by the active monastery on the
Tegernsee, are of the same period. The tenth century is sometimes spoken
of as the Latin Renaissance under the Ottos, the first of whom, called
the Great, crowned Emperor at Rome in 962, welcomed scholars at his
court and made every effort to promote learning.
The momentum of intellectual interest is not lost in the eleventh
century. Paris becomes its most ardent center, with Reims, Orléans, and
Fleury also of note. The _Codex Parisinus_ belongs to this period.
German activity, too, is at its height, especially in the education of
boys for the church. Italy affords one catalogue mention, of a Horace
copied under Desiderius. Peter Damian was its man of greatest learning,
but the times were intellectually stagnant. The popes were occupied by
rivalry with the emperors. It was the century of Gregory the Seventh and
Canossa.
In the twelfth century came the struggle of the Hohenstaufen with the
Italian cities, and the disorder and turmoil of the rise of the communes
and the division of Italy. One catalogue shows a Horace, and one
manuscript dates from the time. England and France are united by the
Norman Conquest in much the same way as Germany and France had been
associated in the kingdom of Charlemagne. It is the century of Roger
Bacon. Especially in Germany, England, and France, it is the age of the
Crusades and the knightly orders. It is an age of the spread of culture
among the common people. In France, it is the age of the monastery of
Cluny, and the age of Abelard. Education and travel became the mode. In
general, acquaintance with Horace among cultivated men may now be taken
for granted. The _Epistles_ and _Satires_ find more favor than the
_Odes_. Five hundred and twenty citations of the former and
seventy-seven of the latter have been collected for the twelfth century.
The thirteenth century marks a decline in the intellectual life. The
Crusades exhaust the energies of the time, and detract from its literary
interest. The German rulers and the Italian ecclesiasts are absorbed in
the struggle for supremacy between pope and emperor. Scholasticism
overshadows humanism. The humanistic tradition of Charlemagne has died
out, and the intellectual ideal is represented by Vincent of Beauvais
and the _Speculum Historiale_. There is no mention of Horace in the
catalogues of Italy. The manuscripts of France are careless, the
comments and glosses poor. The decline will continue until arrested by
the Renaissance.
It must not be forgotten that among all these scattered and flickering
attentions to Horace there was the constant nucleus of instruction in
the school. That he was used for this purpose first in the Carolingian
cloister-schools, and later in the secular schools which grew to
independent existence as a result of the vigorous spread of educational
spirit, cannot be doubtful. Gerbert, dying at the beginning of the
eleventh century as Pope Sylvester II, is known to have interpreted
Horace in his school. This is the oldest direct evidence of the
scholastic use of Horace, but other proofs are to be seen in the
commentaries of the medieval period, all of which are of a kind suitable
for school use, and in the marginal annotations, often in the native
tongue.
The decline of humane studies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
meant also the decline of interest in Horace, who had always been above
all the poet of the cultivated few. At the beginning of the thirteenth
century in Italy, nowhere but at Bologna and Rome was Latin taught
except as the elementary instruction necessary to the study of civil and
canonical law. Gaufried of Vinesaux, coming from England to Italy, and
composing an _Ars Dictaminis_ and a _Poietria Nova_ containing Horatian
reminiscences, is one of two or three significant examples of Latin
teachers who concerned themselves with literature as well as language.
Coluccio Salutati, wanting to buy a copy of Horace in 1370, is
apparently unable to find it. The decline of interest in Horace will be
arrested only by the Rebirth of Learning.
The intellectual movement back to the classical authors and the
classical civilizations is well called the Rebirth. The brilliance of
the new era as compared with the thousand years that lead to it from the
most high and palmiest days of Rome is such as to dim almost to darkness
the brightest days of medieval culture. The new life into which Horace
is now to enter will be so spirited and full that the old life, though
by no means devoid of active influence in society at large and in the
individual soul, will seem indeed like a long death and a waiting for
the resurrection into a new heaven and a new earth.