To complete the conversion and civilisation of the country,

Boniface conceived the plan of bringing over some religious women

from England, and establishing them in various parts, that they

might provide the means of education to their own sex. Othlonus,

in his history, names Chunihilt and her daughter Berathgilt as the

first Englishwomen who passed over into Germany at the invitation

of Boniface, and calls them _valde eruditæ in liberali scientia_.

But their renown has been eclipsed by that of St. Lioba, to whom

the archbishop naturally turned as the likeliest of his English

friends to aid him in his great designs. In fact, there were many

at Wimbourne disposed to enter heart and soul into the interests of

the German mission. Lioba and her cousin Thecla were nearly related

to the archbishop, and Walburga was sister to his two companions,

Winibald and Wilibald. He knew that their acquirements qualified

them to teach others. They had all been carefully trained by the

abbess Tetta, and were skilful, not merely in the womanly art of the

needle, but likewise in sacred literature. Lioba’s accomplishments

may be truly called surprising, when we remember that their owner was

a nun, living in the middle of the eighth century in a remote abbey

of a half-barbarous land. Instructed from her childhood in grammar,

poetry, and the liberal arts, she had increased her treasure of

learning by assiduous reading. She had attentively studied the Old

and New Testaments, and committed a great part of them to memory.

She was familiar with the writings of the Fathers, and with the

decrees and canons of the Church--grave sort of reading for so fair

a student--(and I do not use the epithet in a conventional sense,

for her biographer tells us she was named Lioba, or the _beloved

one_, because of her exceeding beauty); but in those days lighter

literature there was none. As we have seen, she could write in the

Latin tongue with a graceful simplicity, both in prose and verse.

When not engaged in study she worked with her hands, as was enjoined

by the rule, but she greatly preferred reading, or hearing others

read, to manual employments. Indeed, it was not easy to satisfy her

in this respect. When abbess, she insisted on all those under her

charge taking that midday repose allowed by the rule of St. Benedict,

chiefly, as she said, because the want of sleep takes away the love

of reading. But when she herself lay down at these times to rest,

she had some of her pupils to read the Scriptures by the side of her

couch, and they could not omit or mispronounce a word without her

correcting it, though apparently she might be asleep. Yet all this

learning was accompanied with a modesty and humility that made her

seek in all things to be regarded as the least in the house. There

was nothing of arrogance in her behaviour, nothing of bitterness in

her words, says her biographer, Ralph of Fulda. “She was as admirable

in her understanding as she was boundless in her charity. She liked

to wash the feet of her spiritual children, and to serve them at

table, and she did this when she herself was fasting. Her countenance

was truly angelic, always sweet and joyful, though she never indulged

in laughter. No one ever saw her angry, and her aspect agreed with

her name, which in Saxon signifies the Beloved, and in Greek,

Philomena.”[67]

It was in 748 that the letters from St. Boniface reached Wimbourne,

requesting that Lioba, Thecla, and Walburga might be sent over to

him, together with as many of their companions as might be willing to

share in their enterprise. Thirty nuns at once offered themselves,

and the little colony, after a stormy passage across the sea to

Antwerp,[68] was met at Mentz by the archbishop, who proceeded to

establish Lioba in a monastery he had built for her at Bischoffsheim,

where she very soon collected a numerous congregation of holy

virgins. Walburga went on to Thuringia, where her brother, Winibald,

was superior of seven houses of monks. He had long purposed retiring

to some greater solitude, and, with the advice of his brother, he

chose a wild valley in the diocese, clothed with majestic forests

and watered by mountain streams. It bore the name of Heidensheim;

and here, in 752, Winibald, having cleared the ground, erected a

church and two monasteries, one for himself and his monks, the other

for Walburga’s community. The savage natives beheld with jealous

eyes this intrusion into their solitudes, and the destruction of

their sacred oaks; but ere a few years had passed, the minster of

Heidensheim stood in the centre of a Christian population, and the

wild pagan forest had been converted into a smiling land of woods

and pastures, where all the arts of civilised life were taught and

practised in a society over which the abbot presided with something

like paternal sway.

Walburga and her nuns seem to have cultivated letters as diligently

in their forest home as by the banks of the Wimburnia. The travels

of St. Wilibald, who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and

often related what he had seen to his sister and her nuns, were

afterwards written by them, not certainly in very classical Latin,

but with a lucidity and truthfulness of style which appears in all

the Anglo-Saxon writers, and which contrasts very remarkably with the

marvellous narrations of Sir John Mandeville. St. Walburga appears

also to have been the author of the “Life of St. Winibald,” and

it is quite clear that the singular taste for literature existing

among German nuns in the tenth century formed part of the tradition

which they had received from their Anglo-Saxon foundresses. Mabillon

praises not merely their erudition, but the zeal they displayed

in employing it for the good of their neighbours, and says that,

moved by a laudable emulation, they devoted themselves to study and

the transcription of books with no less energy than the monks. He

particularly praises the nuns of Eiken, who employed their time in

reading, meditating, transcribing, and painting; specially the two

abbesses Harlinda and Renilda, who wrote out the Psalter, the four

Gospels, and many other books of Holy Scripture, adorning them with

liquid gold, gems, and pearls.

The after-career of St. Boniface exhibits him to us reforming

the Frankish Church, long vexed with schism and other frightful

disorders, which had grown out of a century of treasons and civil

distractions unequalled in any history. The enemies of discipline

were naturally enough enemies also to the authority of the Holy See.

They had taken advantage of the chaotic state to which society had

returned to reject the law of clerical celibacy, and to establish

the practice of simony on a gigantic scale. St. Boniface struck at

the root of the evil by enforcing obedience to the Roman pontiff,

and, happily for the future destinies of the French Church, his

efforts were heartily supported by the brothers Carloman and Pepin,

the two mayors of the palace, and the real sovereigns of Gaul. His

canons of reform were promulgated in a grand national council, and

in 748 Pope Zachary established the authority of the see of Mentz

over all the German provinces from Utrecht to the Rhetian Alps. One

would have thought that the government of such a province would have

sufficed to employ the energies of one man; but Boniface kept a place

in his thoughts for the necessities of his native land. Exile as he

was, he never forgot that he was an Englishman, and though it does

not appear that he ever revisited his own country, he took a very

active part in some of her affairs. It is rather puzzling to make

out how in those days of rude civilization the German missionaries

contrived to carry on their voluminous correspondence with friends

at home, for the transmission of letters was certainly not provided

for by any international postage regulations. It appears, however,

from many passages in the letters of St. Boniface that his mails

were brought to him by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who were continually

streaming from England to Rome. Some of these were students, going

to make their studies in the Saxon school, lately established in

the holy city by King Ina; others were devout monks; and others,

unhappily, rather indevout and disedifying characters, who made

their pilgrimage a pretext for gadding about the world, and casting

off the restraints of respectability. The see of Canterbury was at

that time filled by a great friend of St. Boniface, named Cuthbert,

who applied to him for help and advice in the sore troubles which

surrounded him. The evil example of Ethelbald, King of Mercia, was

causing a grievous relaxation of discipline among the clergy, whereby

many grave scandals were brought on the Church, and St. Boniface did

not hesitate to address the king a letter of remonstrance, which

seems to have produced its effect. In 747, the Council of Cloveshoe

was summoned for the reform of abuses by command of Pope Zachary,

Ethelbald also giving it the weight of his presence and authority.

The Fathers of this Council owed much to the advice of Boniface, and

their decrees, which are exceedingly interesting, have a good deal

to say on the subject of education. They ordain that priests should

constantly teach and explain the Creed and the “Our Father” in the

vulgar tongue; that bishops, abbots, and abbesses do by all means

diligently provide that all their people incessantly apply their

minds to reading; that boys be brought up in the ecclesiastical

schools, so as to be useful to the Church of God, and that their

masters do not employ them in bodily labour. Sunday is to be strictly

observed, and no man is to dare to do any servile work on that day,

save for the preparing of his meat; but if it be necessary for him

to journey on that day he may ride, row, or travel by any conveyance

he chooses, provided he first hear mass. It is only fitting that

every man should honour that day, on which God created light, sent

manna to the Israelites, rose from the dead, and sent down the Holy

Ghost, and it is also fitting that Christian men should prepare for

its celebration by coming to church on Saturday, bringing a light

with them, and then hearing evensong, and after midnight, prime

also; being careful whilst there to keep a peaceful mind, and not to

dispute or quarrel. Our forefathers were not left in uncertainty as

to what was comprised under the head of servile work, for on this

point Archbishop Theodore had laid down rules of great exactness.

He divided it into two heads, man’s work, and woman’s work; the

first of which comprised husbandry, garden work, the felling of

trees, the building of houses and walls, the quarrying of stone, and

the digging of ditches; while to the gentler sex belonged weaving,

washing, sewing, baking, brewing, wool-combing, the beating of flax

and the shearing of sheep. The feeling with which the observance of

the Sunday was regarded is best expressed by the beautiful Saxon word

by which it was called, the _freolsday_, or day of _freedom_, on

which even serfs did not do serfs’ work. The _freolsung_, or Sunday

freedom, lasted from noontide on Saturday to the dawn of light on

Monday morning--other similar seasons of freedom being established at

the greater festivals. The council likewise enjoined the exercise of

private prayer after the accustomed formula, wherein prayer to the

saints and intercession for the dead are specially named. In church

schools every one is to learn the psalter by heart, even if he cannot

master the art of chanting it, and the chant itself, as well as the

ritual for the administration of the Sacraments, the order of feasts,

and everything else appertaining to divine worship, is ordered to be

exactly conformed to the custom of the Roman Church.[69]

It may be asked what are the schools to which reference is made

in these decrees? Chiefly, no doubt, the Episcopal and monastic

seminaries; but it would seem that the mass priest’s school is also

intended, of which mention is often made in the Anglo-Saxon councils.

Among our Saxon forefathers the education of the children of his

parishioners was recognised as one of the chief duties of the parish

priest. “Mass-priests shall always have in their houses a school of

learners; and if any good man will trust his little ones to them for

lore, they shall right gladly receive and kindly teach them. For ye

shall remember that it is written: ‘They that be learned shall shine

as heaven’s brightness; and they that instruct many to justice shall

shine as stars for ever.’ They shall not however, for such lore,

demand anything of the parents, besides that which the latter may

give of their own will.”[70] This decree, the parentage of which

is to be traced to the Council of Vaison, reappears in the acts of

several councils of England, France, and Italy, the very language

being preserved in the Carlovingian Council of Orleans, and in the

Constitutions of Atto of Vercelli. And here we see the origin of our

parochial schools, which are as emphatically the priest’s schools, as

the seminaries are the schools of the bishop.

The career of Boniface was now drawing to its close, and he seized

the occasion of Pepin’s coronation to obtain the sanction of the

new monarch to a design he had long secretly cherished. It was that

of resigning his dignities, and ending his life, as he had begun

it, in humble missionary labours. He accordingly wrote, entreating

the king’s protection for his churches, clergy, and scholars. “I

beg his highness,” he says, “in the name of Christ, to let me know,

while I live, in what way he will deal with my disciples after

my death. For they are, almost all of them, foreigners; some are

priests established in distant places, others monks _employed in

their different cloisters in the education of youth_, some of them

are old men, who have been for years the companions and sharers of

my labours. Therefore I am most anxious that they should not be

disturbed after my death, but should remain under the protection of

the king.” Pepin having fully granted all his wishes, and recognised

Lullus, whom, by permission of Pope Zachary, Boniface had named as

his successor, the archbishop published the charter granted by the

Holy See to the abbots of Fulda, which exempted it from episcopal

jurisdiction, and made over to Lullus the church of St. Martin at

Utrecht, the ancient see of his predecessor and countryman, St.

Wilibrord. When all these arrangements had been made, St. Boniface

joyfully prepared for his fourth and last expedition to Frisia, where

he seems to have already anticipated receiving the martyr’s crown.

He wrote to Lullus early in 755 telling him that the end of his life

was approaching, and bidding him finish the church of Fulda, in which

he desired that his body might be laid. “Prepare all things for my

journey,” he says, “and do not forget to enclose with my books a

shroud, to contain my mortal remains.”

He would not depart without bidding farewell to St. Lioba, whom he

recommended to his successor, giving orders that at her death she

also might be buried in the church of Fulda, that together they might

await the resurrection. Having nothing of greater value to bestow on

her, he gave her, as his parting gift, his monk’s cowl, a precious

token of his fatherly regard, and of the absolute poverty which

he professed. He then set out, attended by Eoban, an Anglo-Saxon

monk, whom he had consecrated Bishop of the Frisians, and fifty-one

companions, of whom ten only were priests; and, sailing down the

Rhine, made his way into Eastern Friesland. A great number of the

pagans were induced by his preaching to embrace the faith; and June

5, being the vigil of Pentecost, was fixed for the administration

of Holy Baptism. A tent was erected on a plain near the banks of a

little river, not far from the modern town of Dokkum. But whilst the

saint awaited his converts, the tidings reached him that a band of

pagans were approaching, armed with shields and spears. The laymen in

his company would have offered resistance, but Boniface forbade them

to draw their swords. “Forbear, my sons,” he said, “for the Scripture

teaches us to return not evil for evil, but rather good. To me the

long-expected day has at last arrived: the time of my departure is at

hand. Be comforted, and fear not them who can destroy the body, for

they cannot touch the immortal soul. Trust in God and rejoice in Him,

and fix the anchor of your hope in Him who will give you a place in

His glorious mansion together with the angels.”

Whilst he was yet speaking, the barbarians rushed on him and

struck him to the ground. As he fell, with the instinct of

self-preservation, he raised the hand which held the Book of the

Gospels, in order to protect his head. A sword-stroke from one

ruffian cut through the book, while at the same time the dagger of

another pierced his heart; and the rest of the band turned on his

companions who stood around, and slaughtered them every one. They

then seized the baggage of the archbishop, which they hoped would

prove a rich booty, but to their disappointment found nothing but

books and holy relics, which they scattered about the surrounding

fields, casting some of the books into a neighbouring marsh, whence

they were afterwards rescued by the Frisian Christians. Three of

them are still preserved at Fulda; they consist of the copy of the

Gospel already mentioned, which had been written out by the saint’s

own hand, and which, though cut through with the sword which took

his life, has not so much as a letter destroyed; a Harmony of the

Gospels or Canons of the New Testament, and a Book containing various

Treatises and Letters, the pages of which are stained with his blood.

The body of St. Boniface was carried to Mentz, and thence translated

to Fulda, when the church of that monastery was consecrated by St.

Lullus, the whole history of the event being related by the monk

Candidus, in his metrical Life of Abbot Eigil. St. Lioba survived

her friend for twenty-four years, during which time she founded a

great number of convents, all of which she governed as superior. She

received special marks of respect from Charlemagne and his queen

Hildegardis, who often sent for her to Aix-la-Chapelle, and loved

her as her own soul. She frequently visited Fulda, and on her death,

which took place in 779, her body was carried thither for burial.

The elder monks remembered the wish that had been expressed by St.

Boniface, that their bones should be laid together, but, fearing to

open the sepulchre of the holy martyr, they buried St. Lioba at the

north side of the altar, which he had himself consecrated in honour

of the twelve Apostles. There the two saints still repose, for though

the church of Fulda has been rebuilt four times since the day of its

first dedication, the ancient crypt has always been preserved, and

there the English pilgrim may still revere the relics of his great

countryman which are preserved in their antique shrine, together with

two memorials of him, the ivory crosier which he was accustomed to

use, and the dagger that shed his blood.

_CHAPTER V._

CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN.

A.D. 747 TO 804.

At the moment when the nascent civilisation of Saxon England was

being doomed to extinction, and the Danish hordes were everywhere

making havoc of those religious houses which for 160 years had been

the chief nurseries of learning in the West, light was beginning once

more to dawn over the schools of France, where under the barbarism of

the Merovingian kings liberal studies had all but entirely decayed.

At an earlier period indeed, as we have seen, the Church of Gaul,

far from deserving the charge of barbarism, had produced a crowd

of illustrious writers, by whom the Christian dogmas were clothed

in a classic dress. Down to the end of the sixth century remains

of the old Roman municipal schools continued to exist, wherein

Christian students disdained not “to hold the harp with Orpheus, or

the rule with Archimedes; to perceive with Pythagoras, to explain

with Plato, to imply with Aristotle, to rage with Demosthenes, or to

persuade with Tully”[71]--in other words, they followed the ordinary

course of studies provided in the Roman schools. Even when these

disappeared, the episcopal and monastic schools continued to preserve

some knowledge of letters. The multiplication of monasteries, even

before the arrival of the Benedictines in 543, had progressed with

extraordinary rapidity. We read of one bishop establishing forty

communities in his own diocese; and during the century that succeeded

the first foundation made by St. Maurus, as many as 238 Benedictine

monasteries are known to have arisen in different provinces of Gaul.

It is probable that most of these monasteries, to whatever rule

they belonged, possessed a school. The monastic rules which sprung

up previous to the arrival of St. Maurus--such as those established

by St. Martin, St. Eugendus, St. Yrieix, and St. Columbanus--all

enjoined study and the transcription of books, as well as manual

labour. Nor can it be doubted that secular as well as religious

pupils were received in the monastic schools, and that the education

given was not exclusively ecclesiastical. It even appears as though

the Gallo-Roman nobility of this period were more solicitous to give

their sons a liberal education than their chivalric descendants of

six centuries’ later date. I will give but two examples. At the

monastery of Condat it is expressly stated that noble secular youths

were educated in all the learning of the times; and what this term

implies is explained in the life of St. Eugendus, who received his

entire training there, and never once left the monastery from his

seventh to his sixtieth year. He was as familiar with the Greek

as with the Latin orators, says his biographer, and was besides a

great promoter of sacred studies. The other example is even more

to the point, as showing up to what age secular youths were then

expected to continue students. St. Aicard received his education in

the monastic school of Soissons, about the middle of the seventh

century, and remained there until his seventeenth year, when he

was summoned home by his father to be introduced at court and to

commence his military career--a career, be it remembered, into which

the aspirant to chivalry in the twelfth century would have been

initiated at seven. He afterwards embraced the religious state, and

did much to improve the studies in his monastery of Jumièges. Then

there were the episcopal schools, in which the learning given was

far from being superficial. St. Gregory of Tours tells us that when

King Guntram entered Orleans in 540 he was met by a band of scholars

from the bishop’s school, who welcomed him in Latin, Greek, Hebrew,

and Syriac verses of their own composition. St. Gregory had himself

received his education in the episcopal schools of Clermont and

Vienne, and informs us that even ecclesiastical students, before

entering on their sacred studies, went through a course of the seven

liberal arts, together with one of poetry and the Cantus.[72] M.

Guizot gives a list of the principal monastic and episcopal schools

of which a distant notice is to be found in the histories of the

seventh century. Twenty of them are in Neustria alone, and their

multiplication forms the subject of repeated decrees of provincial

councils.

We need not, however, dwell on their history more particularly,

for whatever may have been their number or their excellence, it

is certain that before the accession of Charlemagne, the Gallican

schools had fallen into general decay. The decline was progressive,

but it ended in something like total extinction. “At the end of the

fourth century,” says M. Guizot, “profane and sacred literature

flourished side by side: pagan letters were indeed dying, but they

were not entirely dead. They soon, however, disappeared, and sacred

literature alone was cultivated. But if we go on a little further,

we find that the cultivation of Christian literature has itself

vanished,”[73]--the decay had, in fact, become universal.

Tennemann, in his history of philosophy, does not hesitate to

attribute this deplorable state of things to the tyranny of the

Church, and the triumph of the principle of faith and authority

over that of liberty and reason. But from the sixth to the eighth

century, the ecclesiastical powers in Gaul had not the strength to

exercise tyranny, even had they possessed the will. The slightest

acquaintance with the history of those centuries and their horrible

social disorders will suffice to show that submission to the

principle of Church authority had not at that time assumed any very

alarming proportions north of the Alps. The Church of Gaul was torn

with petty schisms, and disgraced by scandals arising mainly from

the absence of any authority at all strong enough to repress them,

and the supremacy of the Holy See had to be firmly re-asserted by

St. Boniface before any adequate remedy of these disorders could

be applied. The intellectual sterility of this epoch may rather be

traced to the want of that principle, than to its excess; it was in

fact an unavoidable result of the anarchy and dissolution of all

social ties which followed on the fall of the Roman Empire. Had

ecclesiastical discipline been preserved, we might yet at least

have found the theological studies flourishing; but what could be

expected from bishops who had either simoniacally obtained their

dignities, or had been appointed by barbarian rulers from the ranks

of their own soldiers or courtiers? Destitute themselves of all

knowledge of sacred letters, they were not likely to cherish them

in others; and in many cases they held their sees as baronies might

be held by lay proprietors. The incessant civil commotions that

prevailed perpetuated the reign of darkness, for, as the writer

just quoted remarks, when the state of society becomes rude and

difficult, studies necessarily languish. “The taste for truth and the

appreciation of the beautiful are delicate plants, needing a pure

sky and a kindly atmosphere:--in the midst of storms they droop

their heads and perish.” So far from the Church being held answerable

for the decay of literature, it was she alone that provided it any

asylum in those dismal times, and it was in her monastic houses that

learning, “proscribed and beaten down by the tempest that raged

around, took refuge under the shelter of the altar, till happier

times should suffer it to reappear in the world.”[74]

The dawn of a better state of things began to show itself under the

rule of Pepin. That monarch appears to have contemplated something of

the same plan of reform afterwards carried out by the vaster genius

of his son. His first step was to renew those close relations with

the Holy See, the interruption of which had so largely contributed

to disorganise the Church of France. In 747, being then mayor of

the palace, he despatched an embassy to Pope Zachary, imploring his

assistance and advice in the reformation of the episcopal order. It

has been shown in the foregoing chapter, that a similar reformation

had been set on foot in Austrasia by his brother Carloman, where, by

the assistance of St. Boniface acting as apostolic vicar, the bishops

and secular clergy had solemnly engaged to observe the ecclesiastical

canons, and the abbots, to receive the rule of St. Benedict. The

subsequent change of dynasty was affected by the will, it is true,

of the Frankish people, but not until it had received the sanction

of the Pope, who decided that he who held the power of king should

likewise assume the royal title. This appeal of the Franks to the

authority of the Holy See in the election of their sovereign is a

fact of immense political importance, and from that hour the tide of

barbarism began to ebb. The councils held under Pepin ceased not to

labour at the correction of abuses; and the journey of Pope Stephen

III. into France in 748, if it exhibits him on one hand as a fugitive

from the Lombards, displays him to us no less as receiving from kings

and people the homage due to him as Father of the Christian Church.

Together with the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline and the

legitimate authority of the Holy See, appear the first indications of

an approaching revival of learning. One of the ambassadors despatched

by Pepin to conduct the Pope into France was Chrodegang, Bishop of

Metz, a German by birth, and learned for the times in which he lived.

In 762 he had done his best to restore discipline and letters in his

own diocese, by establishing canonical life among his cathedral

clergy, and giving them a rule in which provision was made for the

maintenance of the episcopal seminary. Previously to this he had

founded several monasteries, with the view of promoting sacred

studies, among others the great abbey of Gorze, the school of which

became afterwards so famous. At the same time Pepin was directing

his attention to the correction of the liturgical books. He obtained

from Pope Stephen an Antiphonary and Responsory, together with

copies of the works of St. Denys, the dialectics of Aristotle, some

treatises on geometry and orthography, and a grammar. The movement

was inaugurated by an attempted reform in the ecclesiastical chant.

During the stay of Pope Stephen at the Frankish court, Pepin was

struck by the majesty of the Roman tones, and entreated that some of

the Papal singers might instruct the choristers of his own chapel.

Simeon, the Pope’s chapel-master, therefore remained in France, and

gave lessons there for some years; but the reform thus effected was

only partial, and was not finally established in Charlemagne’s time

without a struggle.

Pepin’s further plans were cut short by his death, which took

place in 768, and was followed in 771 by that of his son Carloman,

Charlemagne, the surviving son of Pepin, being thus left master of

all the Frankish territories. We need not follow the course of his

conquests, which gradually extended the boundaries of his empire,

from the shores of the Baltic to the banks of the Ebro, and from

the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean. During the forty-six years that

he ruled the destinies of Europe, he was engaged in incessant wars,

which seemed to leave little leisure for literary pursuits, and

was organising a vast political system which, even in peaceable

times, would have demanded the undivided attention of any ordinary

sovereign. But if there ever was a man who by his mere natural

endowments soared above other men, it was Charlemagne. His life,

like his stature, was colossal. Time never seemed wanting to him

for anything that he willed to accomplish, and during his ten years

campaign against the Saxons and Lombards, he contrived to get leisure

enough to study grammar, and render himself tolerably proficient

as a Latin writer in prose and verse. He found his tutors in the

cities that he conquered. When he became master of Pisa, he gained

the services of Peter of Pisa, whom he set over the Palatine school,

which had existed even under the Merovingian kings, though as yet

it was far from enjoying the fame to which it was afterwards raised

by the teaching of Alcuin. He possessed the art of turning enemies

into friends, and thus drew to his court the famous historian, Paul

Warnefrid, deacon of the Church of Rome, who had previously acted

as secretary to Didier, king of the Lombards. When Charlemagne set

the crown of Lombardy on his own head, in 744, Paul resisted the new

order of things, and made three attempts to restore his country’s

independence. The Frankish judges condemned him to lose his eyes and

his hands, but Charlemagne interfered. “We shall not easily find

another hand that can write history,” he said, and Paul, conquered

by his generosity, went back with him to France, and accepted the

charge of teaching Greek to the young princess Richtrude, who had

been affianced to the Greek emperor, Constantine. The Lombard

scholar appeared nothing less than a prodigy in the eyes of the

Frankish courtiers, and Peter of Pisa poured out his admiration in

a poetical epistle, in which he calls him, “in Greek, a Homer; in

Latin, a Virgil; in Hebrew, another Philo.” It speaks well for the

real scholarship of Paul that he declined swallowing all the flattery

conveyed in this pompous address, and plainly stated in his reply

that though he could read Greek, he could not speak it, and that he

knew no more of Hebrew than a few words he had picked up at school.

As to his being a second Homer or Virgil, he seems to have considered

the insinuation anything but a compliment, and declared rather

bluntly that he wished to have nothing in common with two heathens.

He was afterwards employed in establishing the schools of Metz, and

finally became a monk at Monte Cassino, where he wrote his life of

St. Gregory the Great, and the well-known hymn “Ut queant laxis.”[75]

Another Italian scholar, St. Paulinus, of Aquileja, was coaxed into

the service of the Frankish sovereign after his conquest of Friuli;

I will not say that he was _bought_, but he was certainly paid for

by a large grant of confiscated territory made over by diploma to

“the Venerable Paulinus, master of the art of grammar.” But none

of these learned personages were destined to take so large a part

in that revival of learning which made the glory of Charlemagne’s

reign, as our own countryman Alcuin. It was in 781, on occasion of

the king’s second visit to Italy, that the meeting took place at

Parma, the result of which was to fix the English scholar at the

Frankish court. Having obtained the consent of his own bishop and

sovereign to this arrangement, Alcuin came over to France in 782,

bringing with him several of the best scholars of York, among whom

were Wizo, Fredegis, and Sigulf. Charlemagne received him with joy,

and assigned him three abbeys for the maintenance of himself and his

disciples, those namely, of Ferrières, St. Lupus of Troyes, and St.

Josse in Ponthieu. From this time Alcuin held the first place in the

literary society that surrounded the Frankish sovereign, and filled

an office the duties of which were as vast as they were various.

Three great works at once claimed his attention, the correction of

the liturgical books, the direction of the court academy, and the

establishment of other public schools throughout the empire. Alcuin

began with the task first on the list, for until the books at his

command were themselves rendered readable, it was of small avail to

talk of opening schools. In the hands of ignorant copyists the text

of Scripture had become so corrupt as to be hardly intelligible. The

Book of Gospels and Epistles for Sundays and festivals was first

corrected, and such a system of punctuation and accentuation adopted

as might enable even the unlearned to read them without making any

gross error. The more arduous undertaking of correcting the whole

Bible was not completed till the year 800, when on the occasion of

Charlemagne’s coronation at Rome as Emperor of the West, Alcuin

forwarded to him, as the best present he could offer, a copy of the

sacred volume, carefully freed from error.[76]

But it was as head of the Palatine school that Alcuin’s influence

was chiefly to be felt in the restoration of letters. Charlemagne

presented himself as his first pupil, together with the three

princes, Pepin, Charles, and Louis, his sister Gisla and his

daughter Richtrude, his councillors Adalard and Angilbert, and

Eginhard his secretary. Such illustrious scholars soon found plenty

to imitate their example, and Alcuin saw himself called on to

lecture daily to a goodly crowd of bishops, nobles, and courtiers.

The king wished to transform his court into a new Athens preferable

to that of ancient Greece, in so far as the doctrine of Christ is

to be preferred to that of Plato. All the liberal arts were to be

taught there, but in such a way as that each should bear reference

to religion, for this was regarded as the final end of all learning.

Grammar was studied in order better to understand the Holy Scriptures

and to transcribe them more correctly; music, to which much attention

was given, was chiefly confined to the ecclesiastical chant; and it

was principally to explain the Fathers and refute errors contrary

to the faith that rhetoric and dialectics were studied. “In short,”

says Crevier, “the thought both of the king and of the scholar who

laboured with him was to refer all things to religion, nothing being

considered as truly useful which did not bear some relation to that

end.”[77]

At first Alcuin allowed the study of the classic poets, and in his

boyhood, as we know, he had been a greater reader of Virgil than

of the Scriptures. His writings evince a perfect familiarity with

the ancient poets and philosophers, whom he continually quotes,

and though in his old age he discouraged his monastic pupils from

following this study, it is certain that he allowed and even

advocated it while presiding over the Palatine school. This appears

from one of his familiar epistles to Charlemagne, in which he gives

a lively picture of the labours carried on there by the students and

their masters. One he describes as teaching the lectors of the royal

chapel to read without misplacing their accents; another is training

the boys in sacred chant; Eginhard, who is pronounced “learned in

prosody,” seems to have been idling his time, but Gisla had been

contemplating the stars in the silent night. “_But what crime_,” he

continues, “_has harmonious Virgil committed? Is not the father of

poets worthy of finding a master who shall teach the children of the

palace to admire his verse?_” And he concludes with the hope that

two, whom he names Thyrsis and Menalcas, may long survive to keep the

cooks in order, and supply the writer with large goblets of Greek

wine, and smoking dishes.

In this little _jeu-d’esprit_ we see, in the midst of its playful

allusions to their familiar intercourse, what was the serious

work of the Palatine scholars, and when Alcuin thus wrote he

was certainly far from entertaining those severe views regarding

classical studies which are generally attributed to him. It is true

that at a later period he endeavoured to dissuade his disciple,

Sigulf, from studying what he called, “the impure eloquence of

Virgil,” telling him that the Sacred Scriptures should be enough for

him. He also rebuked Rigbod, Archbishop of Mentz, for carrying Virgil

in his bosom, and wished he would carry in its place the Book of

the Gospels; but it is probable that most ecclesiastics would think

with him that an archbishop might spend his time more profitably

over the Gospels than over the Æneid. Sigulf did not certainly feel

himself obliged literally to carry out the advice of his master, for

in the school of Ferrières, which he afterwards governed, the Latin

poets were very generally studied. He established such a classical

taste among his scholars, that in the next reign we find Lupus of

Ferrières correcting the works of Pliny, and sending to Rome copies

of Suetonius and Quintus Curtius. It is clear, therefore, that

the classics were not absolutely excluded from Alcuin’s system of

education, though in the main Crevier’s account must be allowed to

be correct, and gives a fair statement of the views that prevailed

during the whole of the monastic period. The authors whose study

Charlemagne and Alcuin desired to promote, were not so much Virgil

and Cicero, as St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and Charlemagne, in his

excessive admiration of those Fathers, gave utterance to the wish

that he had a dozen such men at his court. The _City of God_ was read

at the royal table, and the questions addressed by the court students

to their master turned rather on the obscurities of Holy Writ than

the difficulties of prosody. In one thing, however, they betrayed a

classic taste, and that was in their selection of names. The Royal

Academicians all rejoiced in some literary soubriquet; Alcuin was

Flaccus; Angilbert, Homer; but Charlemagne himself adopted the more

scriptural appellation of David.

The eagerness with which this extraordinary man applied himself

to acquire learning for himself, and to extend it throughout his

dominions, is truly admirable, when we remember the enormous labours

in which he was constantly engaged. Hincmar, Bishop of Rheims, has

left us an interesting account of the business of all kinds which he

every day personally investigated. Yet, while the “King of Europe,”

as he was fitly called, was regulating with his own hands the affairs

of a mighty empire, he was patiently pursuing a course of studies

which might have befitted a university student. He spoke and wrote

Latin with facility, and read Greek well, though he was not equally

successful in speaking it. He had some knowledge of Syriac, and

towards the end of his life corrected a Latin copy of the Gospels,

after comparing it with the Greek and Syriac text. He studied all

the liberal arts under Alcuin, and was a true German in his love of

music. He completed the reform of the Church chant, which his father

had attempted, an undertaking rendered somewhat difficult by the

obstinacy of his own singers. It was during the Easter festival of

787, that Charlemagne, being then at Rome, was called on to decide a

dispute which had broken out between the Gallican and Roman chanters.

The Gallicans maintained that their tones were the most beautiful,

whilst the Romans appealed to the teaching of St. Gregory, which

had been jealously preserved in his school, but which, as they

affirmed, the Gallicans had corrupted. The dispute grew warm, for

whilst the fiery Franks, trusting in the king’s protection, loaded

their opponents with abusive epithets, the more refined Romans

took refuge in sarcasm, and affected to pity the rusticity of such

ignorant barbarians. Charlemagne listened to what both parties had

to say, and then addressed his own chanters. “Tell me,” he said,

“where is the stream the purest, at its source or in its channel?”

“In its source, of course,” was the reply. “Well, then,” said the

king, “do you return to the source, for by your own showing, the

corruption lies with you.” This was an argument _ad hominem_, and the

crestfallen Franks were fain to own themselves vanquished. To set the

question at rest for ever, Charlemagne requested Pope Adrian to give

him two chanters from the Gregorian school, and an authentic copy

of the Roman Antiphonary, which Adrian had himself noted according

to the system then established at Rome. The two chanters, Theodore

and Benedict, accordingly accompanied the king back to France, and

were employed to teach the correct chant; and to purge the Gallican

Antiphonaries of their corruptions, Charlemagne established two

schools of music, one at Metz, for Austrasia, and the other at

Soissons, for Neustria, which were each presided over by one of the

Roman teachers; all choir masters were commanded to resort thither

and study under their direction, and to send in their books for

correction, which, up to that time, says the monk of Angoulême, every

one had spoiled after his own fancy.[78]

John the Deacon, who wrote in the following century, and who

evidently exceedingly relished the defeat of the Gallicans,

introduces the whole story of the dispute into his life of St.

Gregory. He observes that the Frankish organs were unable to

express certain tremblings and delicacies of the Italian chant.

“The barbarous harshness of their cracked throats,” he says, “when,

by inflections and reverberations, they endeavoured to emit a

gentle psalmody, out of a certain natural hoarseness sent forth

grating sounds like that of carts on a high road; and thus, instead

of delighting the souls of their hearers, their singing, on the

contrary, rather troubled them, by provoking distractions.”[79] This

is bad enough; but the Monk of Angoulême would have us know that it

was not merely through their ears that the Frankish congregations had

to suffer distractions. The sore distress which one inexperienced

singer endured in his attempt to produce the required “tremblings”

must certainly have severely tried the self-command of those who

witnessed it. “It chanced,” says the historian, “that a certain

clerk, ignorant of the accustomed rules, was called on to figure in

the royal chapel, when, agitating his head in a circular manner, and

opening an enormous mouth, he painfully endeavoured to imitate those

around him.” The choir, of course, was in a suppressed titter, but

Charlemagne, without betraying the slightest token of annoyance or

ridicule, called the unfortunate performer to him after the office

was over, and rewarded his good-will with a handsome present. This

great king often assisted at matins, and indicated with his hand the

clerk who was to sing the lessons, or responsory. It is also said

that he used to mark the end of the motetts with a certain guttural

sound (a _grunt_, his historian calls it), which became the diapason

for the recommencement of the phrase. The use of organs began to be

introduced during his reign, and Walafrid Strabo tells us of a woman

who died of the ecstacy occasioned by first hearing one of these

instruments.

It has been repeatedly asserted that Charlemagne, with all his

learning, never knew how to write. The supposition rests on the

words of his secretary, Eginhard, who says, “He tried to write, and

constantly carried little tablets about him, that in his leisure

moments he might accustom his hand to the drawing (_effigiendis_)

of letters, but he succeeded badly, having applied himself to the

art too late.” Even if this passage is to be understood of the

use of pen and ink, it only informs us that the emperor wrote a

schoolboy’s scrawl, a circumstance not altogether without a parallel

in the history of great men. But the expression of _drawing_

or _delineating_ letters seems rather to apply to the art of

illumination and _ornamental writing_, which properly forms the art

of caligraphy: and this explanation derives additional support from

the fact that Charlemagne was a passionate admirer of painting, and

caused innumerable manuscripts to be adorned with miniatures and

ornaments, many of which are still preserved, the portrait of the

emperor being often introduced. His very camp oratory was painted,

and one of the offices of the envoys, whom he sent at stated periods

through his dominions, was to inspect and report on the state of the

paintings in the churches. His warlike hand very probably wielded

the sword with more address than the pen, and, it may easily be

believed, made sad results with the paint-brush, but that he knew how

to write is sufficiently proved by the copy of the Gospels corrected

by his hand, after he had compared it with the Greek and Syriac text,

which is still preserved at Vienna, and by the direct testimony of

Hincmar.[80]

This prelate, in his account of the Council of Nismes, remarks:

“We have often heard the courtiers of King Charles say that this

prince, who excelled all the other kings of France in knowledge of

the Scriptures and of the civil and ecclesiastical law, always had

at his bed’s head _tablets and pens_, to note down, whether by day

or night, any thoughts that occurred to him that might be useful

to Church or State.” He also presented to the Church of Strasburg

a Psalter, in which his name was written with his own hand;[81]

and it is to be presumed that he himself transcribed his numerous

letters to Alcuin. Among the works of that scholar we find thirty

letters addressed to the king, containing answers to his questions on

theological and scientific subjects. These letters show that Alcuin

had no easy task in satistying the intellectual requirements of a man

who thought of everything, and busied himself equally with history,

chronology, morals, astronomy, grammar, theology, and law. He took a

very special delight in the study of astronomy, and on serene nights

was fond of observing the stars from the roof of his palace. In the

year 798 considerable anxiety was felt both by the king and his

academicians, in consequence of the erratic movements of the planet

Mars, whose disappearance for a whole year it passed their powers

to account for. Alcuin was written to, and entreated to explain the

phenomenon, and his reply shows that he had tested the statements

found in his books by careful astronomical observations. “What has

now happened to Mars,” he says, “is frequently observed of all the

other planets, viz., that they remain longer under the horizon than

is stated in the books of the ancients. The rising and setting of the

stars vary from the observations of those who live in the southern

and eastern parts of the world, where the masters chiefly flourished

who have set forth the laws of the universe.” From these words it may

be gathered that Alcuin was acquainted with the globular form of the

earth, and comprehended the phenomena depending on it. Charlemagne

had some claims to the reputation of a poet, and nine pieces of Latin

poetry from his pen are printed in his works, which are given in the

collection of the Abbé Migne.[82] One of these was an epitaph on his

friend Pope Adrian I., which he desired to have placed over the tomb

of that pontiff, and caused it therefore to be engraved in letters of

gold on a marble tablet, and sent to Rome. These verses, thirty-eight

in number, have attained a singular kind of immortality. The tablet

has been preserved in the portico of St. Peter’s Basilica, where

it may still be seen by the pious visitor, together with another

inscription containing the ancient grant from Pope Gregory II. of

a wood of olives to supply the oil for the lamps burning round the

Apostle’s tomb. All ancient writers are unanimous in declaring these

verses to have been the genuine composition of the emperor, and not

of Alcuin, as some pretend. They bear the title, _Epitaphium Adriani

I., Papæ, quo Carolus Magnus sepulchrum ipsius decoravit_.

But one of the most interesting features in Charlemagne’s

intellectual labours was the attempt he made to perfect his native

language, and give it a grammatical form. He began the composition

of a German grammar, which was afterwards continued by Raban Maur;

the other Palatine scholars joined him in the task, and assigned

to the months and days of the week the names which they still bear

in German. In pursuance of the same design, the emperor made a

collection of old Tudesque songs, some of which he took down from

the lips of his soldiers; but after his death Louis the Debonnaire

found the manuscript, and perceiving the names of Scandinavian

deities, with little appreciation of the importance of the work

on which his great father had been engaged, tossed it into the

fire. There was nothing which Charlemagne had more at heart than

the completion of this undertaking, and he was accustomed to say

that he hoped to see the day when the laws should be written in the

Frankish tongue, comparing the shutting them up in a language of

which the common people were ignorant to the conduct of Caligula,

who caused his edicts to be written in illegible characters, and

placed out of sight, that the people might unconsciously break them

and so incur sentence of death. Alcuin no doubt assisted in this

work, which was one that ever found favour with the English monks.

Even before leaving his native country he is said to have made an

Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, which was preserved and used

so late as the twelfth century; and he would naturally be disposed

to enter into the king’s designs, and specially to provide for the

religious instruction of the people in their own language. Something

in this direction had already been done in Germany by the followers

of St. Boniface; and early in the eighth century we find formulas

of confession, brief confessions of faith, and portions of psalms

and hymns translated for popular use into the rude Tudesque dialect.

Some of the early German hymns appear to have been written by the

monks of St. Gall, and were used as valuable means of instructing

the people in the elements of religion. Specimens of these are given

by Noth in his history of the German language, and among them is

a fragment of the 138th Psalm. It will of course be borne in mind

that the language spoken by the people of Germany was essentially

the same as that of the English missionaries, who thus possessed

peculiar facilities in preaching and instructing their converts.

Thus the form of abjuration and the confession of faith drawn up

by St. Boniface and his followers, for the use of their German

catechumens, is equally akin to the Anglo-Saxon and to the Tudesque

idioms:--“Forsachister Diabolæ? Ec forsachs Diabolæ. Gelobistu in Got

Almehtigan, Fadaer? Ec Gelobo in Got, Almehtigan Fadaer. Gelobistu

in Crist, Godes suno? Gelobistu in Halsgan Gast?” And when we speak

of Charlemagne as cultivating the Tudesque or old German dialect, it

will also be remembered that the Franks were a German race, and that

what we now call _French_ is not formed from their language, but from

the Romanesque, or corrupt Latin, which prevailed in the southern

provinces of Gaul, as well as in Spain and the north of Italy. As

in course of time the Gallo-Roman element prevailed in France,

the Romance language became universally used, while the Tudesque

remained, as before, the language of the Germans. Hence Verstigan was

not dealing in paradox when he asserted that in old times the English

people all talked French, the Frankish and Saxon dialects being

substantially the same language.

The graver studies of the Palatine scholars were enlivened, after the

fashion of the Anglo Saxon schools, by dialogues, in which enigmas

and a play of words are introduced in tiresome profusion. A curious

fragment exists bearing the title of a disputation between Alcuin and

Pepin, wherein the wits of the pupil are stimulated by the questions

of the master. These exercises, _ad acuendos pueros_, as they were

called, were much used by the English teachers, and specimens of a

similar description are to be found which appear to have been used

so late as the fourteenth century. “What is writing?” asks Alcuin.

“The keeper of history.” “What is speaking?” “The interpreter of

the soul.” “What is the liberty of man?” “Innocence.” “What is the

day?” “The call to labour.” “What is the sun?” “The splendour of the

universe.” “What is winter?” “The exile of spring.” “What is spring?”

“The painter of the earth.” Alcuin says, “I saw the other day a man

standing, a dead man walking, a man walking who had never breathed.”

Pepin. “How can that have been? explain yourself.” Alcuin. “It was my

image reflected in the water.” Pepin. “How could I fail to understand

you? I have often seen the same thing.”

In his letters to the young princes Alcuin freely points out their

faults, and gives them excellent advice. “Seek,” he writes, “to

adorn your noble rank with noble deeds; let humility be in your

heart, and truth on your lips; and let your life be a pattern of

integrity, that so God may be pleased to prosper your days.” The

court school, however, was not intended exclusively for princes and

nobles; children of an inferior rank were also admitted, in order to

receive such an education as might hereafter fit them to fill various

offices in church and state. Charlemagne took this charge on himself,

and afterwards promoted his scholars according to their merits and

ability. We learn this from the following charming narrative related

by the Monk of St. Gall.

“The glorious King Charles,” he says, “returning into Gaul after a

prolonged absence, ordered that all the children whom he caused to

be educated should be brought before him, that they might present

him their compositions in prose and verse. Those of an inferior

and obscure rank had succeeded best, whereas the sons of the nobles

brought nothing of any value. Then the wise prince, separating the

good scholars from the negligent ones, and putting the first on his

right hand, said to them, ‘My children, you may rely on my friendship

and protection, since you have done your best to execute my orders,

and have worked hard according to the best of your abilities. Try

to do yet better, and depend upon it you will receive the most

honourable offices I have to give, and that you will always be

precious in my eyes.’ Then turning to those on his left hand; ‘As to

you,’ he said, ‘born of noble blood, and children of the first houses

in my kingdom, vainly confident in your birth and riches you have

neglected to obey my orders, and have preferred play and idleness to

study, which is the proper glory of your age. But I swear to you,

your noble birth shall find no consideration from me; and if you do

not make up for your indolence by earnest study, you will obtain no

favour from Charles.’”

Some writers, and among them M. Ampère, have considered that after

all that has been said and written about the Palatine school,

there was in reality no school, but only a literary academy. The

probability is that there was both a school and an academy, and that

the two institutions, though not identical, were directed by the same

masters. According to this view, the Palatine _Academy_ was formed

of the friends and courtiers of Charlemagne, while the _School_ was

for the education of youths, chiefly, if not exclusively, intended

for the ecclesiastical state, and chosen from all ranks, noble and

simple. The Monk of St. Gall is decisive on this last point, and

mentions two scholars, the sons of millers, who, after leaving

the emperor’s school, in which they do not seem greatly to have

distinguished themselves, obtained admission into the monastery of

Bobbio. The proofs of the actual existence of this school are in

fact too overwhelming to admit of a doubt. M. Ampère appears to have

been staggered at the notion of a crowd of schoolboys accompanying

the emperor wherever he sojourned. However strange and inconvenient

such a system appears to our notions, the historical evidence is very

strong in proof that it really existed. In the life of St. Adalard,

there are allusions to the _turba clericorum palatii_. Alcuin in

his letters complains not a little of the fatigue occasioned by

this constant journeying. And we know that Otho the Great, whose

revival of a Palatine school was undertaken in avowed imitation of

Charlemagne, always required his scholars to accompany him; and that

his brother Bruno, who superintended their studies, followed the

court, and carried his books with him.

It was then, as we must believe, a real school over which Alcuin

presided, and most French writers claim it as the germ of the

university of Paris. The court of the Frankish monarch was indeed

fixed, not at Paris, but at Aix-la-Chapelle, but it seems to have

been removed to Paris in the reign of Charles the Bald, and there the

Palatine school continued to flourish under a succession of famous

masters, and possibly formed the nucleus of that great institution

which fills so large a place in the history of education.

Meanwhile, his scholastic labours did not so occupy the time of

Alcuin, as to hinder him from devoting himself to the correction of

manuscripts, and the multiplication of books went on apace. A staff

of skilful copyists was gradually formed, and so soon as any work had

been revised by Alcuin and his fellow labourers, it was delivered

over to the hands of the monastic scribes. Particular abbeys, as that

of Fontanelles, acquired renown for the extraordinary accuracy of

their transcribers, and the beauty of their writing. At Rheims and

Corby, also, the monks greatly excelled, and laying aside the corrupt

character which had till then been in use, they adopted the smaller

Roman letters. Rules were made forbidding any man to be employed as a

copyist who had not the knowledge of grammar requisite for enabling

him to avoid errors; and treatises on orthography and punctuation

were drawn up by Alcuin for the special use of his scribes. Libraries

were gradually collected in all the principal monasteries, including

the chief works of the Fathers and the Latin classics. In the library

of St. Riquier, of which abbey Angilbert became superior, we find

a few years later copies of Homer, Virgil, and Cicero; in that of

Rheims, Cæsar, Livy, and Lucan; Dijon possessed a Horace, and at

Montierendes there were the works of Cicero and Terence. The text of

the last-named author was revised and corrected by Alcuin himself,

a fact which confirms what has been before said of his toleration

of the poets. From this time the transcription of books came to be

regarded as one of the ordinary branches of monastic manual work, in

a great degree taking the place of that agricultural labour on which,

in earlier ages, the monks were so generally employed. The real

hard work of head, eyes, and hand, which it involved, was pithily

expressed in the well-known couplet:--

Tres digiti scribunt, totum corpusque laborat,

Scribere qui nesciunt, nullum putant esse laborem.

If the hope of gain stimulated those outside to follow it as a

trade, more spiritual motives were laid before the children of the

cloister. As a work of charity done for the love of God and man,

it was promised an eternal reward, and the persevering toils of

a long life were, it was thought, capable of being offered as an

acceptable work of penance. Meanwhile, the spirit of improvement

was diffusing itself from the court through the whole country. The

Capitulars of Charlemagne--so called because arranged in heads, or

chapters--included amongst various laws for the regulation of the

civil government others which regarded the encouragement of learning.

A circular letter addressed by Charlemagne on his return from Rome

in 787 to all the bishops and abbots of the kingdom, after thanking

them for their letters and pious prayers, proceeded to criticise the

grammar in which these had been expressed. “They who endeavour to

please God by a good life,” writes the king, “should not neglect to

please Him by correct phraseology, and it is well that monasteries

and episcopal seminaries should pay attention to literature as well

as to the practices of religion. It is better indeed to lead a good

life than to become learned; nevertheless knowledge precedes action.

Each one, then, should understand what he is about, and the mind

better comprehends its duty when the tongue in praising God is free

from mistakes of language.” The writer then goes on to notice that

the excellent sentiments of his clergy had been expressed in a rude

and uncouth style; they had been inspired by true devotion, but

the tongue had failed for want of culture. “But if errors in words

are dangerous, much more so are errors in their signification. We

exhort you therefore that you fail not to cultivate learning with

the humble intention of pleasing God, so as more surely to penetrate

the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. We wish, in short, to see you

what the soldiers of Christ ought to be--devout in heart, learned

in intercourse with the world, chaste in life, and scholars in

conversation--so that all who approach you may be as much enlightened

by your wisdom as they are edified by your holy life.” This was

not allowed to remain an empty recommendation; it was followed by

ordinances for reviving the old monastic and cathedral schools, and

for founding other public schools, the establishment of which forms

the most important feature in Charlemagne’s revival of learning.

In the Benedictine monasteries two kinds of schools had always

existed, or been supposed to exist--the greater and the less. In the

minor schools, according to Trithemius, were taught “the Catholic

faith and prayers, grammar, church music, the psalter, and the

_Computum_, or method of calculating Easter,” while in the major

schools the liberal sciences were also taught. In the Capitular of

Aix-la-Chapelle, published in 789, Charlemagne required that minor

schools should be attached to all monasteries and cathedral churches

without exception, and that children of all ranks, both noble and

servile, should be received into them. At the same time the larger

and more important monasteries were to open major schools, in which

mathematics, astronomy, arithmetic, geography, music, rhetoric, and

dialectics were taught; and these again were of two descriptions.[83]

Some were interior, or claustral, intended only for the junior monks,

while others were exterior, or public, and intended for pupils as

well secular as ecclesiastic. Some monk, qualified by his learning,

was appointed scholasticus, and if none such were to be found in the

community, it was not an uncommon practice to invite a monk from

some other religious house to take charge of the school. A claustral

and an exterior school often existed attached to the same monastery

or cathedral, governed by separate masters, the scholars of the

claustral school forming part of the community, while those of the

exterior school, though subject to a certain claustral discipline,

did not follow the same religious exercises. Lay students were

received in these exterior schools, and that far more extensively

than is commonly supposed, most popular writers having represented

the monastic schools as exclusively intended for those in training

for the religious life, thus confusing together the interior and

exterior schools. Public schools of this kind were erected at Fulda,

St. Gall’s, Tours, Hirsauge, Hirsfield, Gorze, Fleury, L’Isle Barbe,

Fontanelles, and Ferrières, as well as at many other monasteries

and cathedrals, a list of which is given by Mabillon.[84] Bulæus,

indeed, endeavours to show that Charlemagne limited the studies of

the ecclesiastical schools to grammar and sacred learning, and

only permitted the monasteries and episcopal churches to retain the

_minor_ schools, “from the clear view that a variety of sciences,

sacred and profane, is inconsistent with the profession of ascetics.”

He even ventures to put forth the notion that the higher schools

were confined to certain central spots, such as Pavia, Bologna, and

Paris. But Bulæus wrote with an object, which was to magnify his

university at the expense of the monastic schools. We ask ourselves

with surprise where he could have found evidence even for the

existence of any schools at all at Paris and Bologna in the reign of

Charlemagne?[85] And as to limiting the monastics to minor schools,

it may be safely affirmed that the idea of limitation of any kind was

the very last that ever suggested itself to the mind of the emperor.

As Theodulph of Orleans says, he did nothing all his life but urge

forward his monks and bishops in the pursuit of learning. During the

whole Carlovingian period the schools of most repute were certainly

not those of Bologna, Paris, and Pavia. They were the episcopal and

monastic schools of Tours, Fulda, Rheims, St. Gall, and Hirsfield,

the teachers of which were all either monks or canons. The ordinance

of 789 must be clearly understood, not as forbidding ecclesiastics

to study anything but theology, grammar, and church music, but as

rendering it obligatory on them to study _at least_ so much; whilst,

to use the words of Trithemius, “where temporal means were more

abundant, and by reason of the number of the monks, more likelihood

existed of finding one skilled in the teaching of sacred letters,”

the other liberal arts were also required. The monks of those

monasteries in which the higher studies were not taught travelled to

other religious houses, and studied in their public schools; and we

certainly find no trace, however faint, of the principle that the

higher studies were considered unsuitable to ascetics, for, in point

of fact, the ascetics were all but the only scholars of the age.

If lay students were also to be met with--and even, as I think we

shall see, more frequently than is ordinarily acknowledged by modern

historians--yet they were still exceptional cases, and the vast

majority of those who studied, as of those who taught, continued for

centuries to be drawn from the monastic body.

The establishment or revival of the ecclesiastical schools scattered

the seeds of learning broadcast over the Frankish empire. All the

great men whom Charlemagne gathered around him took part in one

way or other in this work. Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans, a Goth by

nation, and an Italian by birth, specially distinguished himself by

his zeal in the establishment of schools throughout his diocese. He

published a Capitular on the duties of priests, in which he permitted

them to send their nephews or other relations to certain schools in

the diocese which were not then regarded as public. He also enjoined

that priests should open schools in villages and rural districts,

“and if any of the faithful should wish to confide their little ones

to him in order to study letters, let him not refuse to receive

and instruct them, but charitably teach them.” This was to be done

gratis, no remuneration being accepted save what might be willingly

offered by the parents. One would gladly know more of the kind of

teaching given in these parochial schools, and specially how far

the children of the peasantry were admitted into them. That village

rustics really went to school and learnt something in the days of

Charlemagne seems, however, past dispute; and among the Capitulars of

the King of Europe we find one which requires the peasants, as they

drive their cattle to pasture and home again, to _sing the canticles

of the Church_, that all men may recognise them as Christians. This

command obviously implied that the Latin canticles were well known to

the peasantry, and probably the conning of church hymns and antiphons

formed a very large portion of their school instruction. Theodulph

was one of the _missi dominici_, or envoys sent by Charlemagne

through the provinces of his empire to inquire into and reform

abuses. On his return from one of these expeditions he published a

poem entitled, “An Exhortation to Judges,” in which he gives a very

remarkable account of his progress through the Narbonnese provinces,

and describes the difficulty he found in resisting the attempts that

were made to bribe him. The proffered bribes were of all kinds--gold

and precious stones, delicately chased vases--which, from the classic

subjects they represented, were doubtless relics of ancient Grecian

art--horses, mules, furs, woollen stuffs, and candles. He refused

everything, however, except food for himself and hay for his horses,

and advises all judges to do in like manner. This was the same

Theodulph whose name is familiar to us as author of the Responsory,

_Gloria, laus et honor_. Having incurred the displeasure of the

Emperor Louis, he was imprisoned by order of that prince at Angers;

but on Palm Sunday as the emperor passed in the solemn procession of

the day by the bishop’s prison walls, Theodulph sang from the window

the words which he had composed, and thereby so touched the heart of

the Debonnaire monarch that he gave him his liberty, and caused the

same anthem to be thenceforth introduced into the office of the day,

of which it still forms a part.

The name of Theodulph is to be had in remembrance not only as a

founder of schools, but also as a writer of school-books. He felt

compassion for young and tender minds condemned to gather all their

knowledge from the dry and unattractive treatises of Priscian, and

Martian Capella, and hit on a plan of his own for rendering them a

little more popular. He composed in easy Latin verse the description

of a supposed tree of science, which he caused moreover to be drawn

and painted, on the trunk and branches of which appeared the seven

liberal arts. At the foot of the tree sat Grammar, the basis of all

human knowledge holding in her hand a mighty rod; Philosophy was

at the summit: Rhetoric stood on the right with outstretched hand,

and on the left the grave and thoughtful form of Dialectics; and

so of the rest. The whole was explained in the _Carmina de septem

artibus_, wherein the good bishop endeavoured with all his might to

scatter the thorny path of learning with the flowers of imagination.

The attempt was at least commendable, and in so great a scholar it

had the gracefulness of condescension, for Theodulph is reported to

have pursued some rare branches of study, and to have had at least a

tincture of Greek and Hebrew.

Other ministers of Charlemagne are also named as actively sharing in

the labours of the Renaissance. Smaragdus, abbot of St. Michael’s, in

the diocese of Verdun, and one of the emperor’s prime councillors,

not only established schools in every part of the diocese, and

specially in his own abbey, but wrote a large Latin grammar for

the use of his scholars. The copy which Mabillon saw preserved in

the abbey of Corby bore on the title-page the words: _In Christi

nomine incipit Grammatici Smaragdi Abbatis mirificus Tractatus._

Then follows a prologue in which the abbot declares that having,

according to his capacity, taught grammar to his monks, they had been

accustomed to transfer the pith of his lectures to their tablets,

that what they took in with their ears they might retain by dint of

frequent reading. And from this they took occasion to conjure him to

write this treatise, which he has done, adorning his little book with

sentences not from Maro or Cicero, but from the Divine Scriptures,

that his readers may at one and the same time be refreshed with the

pleasant drink of the grammatical art and also of the Word of God.

And his reason for doing so has been that many defend their ignorance

by saying that in grammar God is not named, but only pagan names

and examples, and that therefore it is an art rightly and justly

neglected. But he is rather of opinion that we should do as the

Israelites did when they spoiled the Egyptians, and offer to God the

treasures taken from the heathen. He appears to have devoted some

attention to the vulgar dialects, and gives lists of Frank and Gothic

patronymics with their Latin interpretations.[86]

St. Benedict of Anian, the cupbearer of Charlemagne, and afterwards

the great reformer of the Benedictine order, was almost as zealous

in restoring studies as in bringing back regular discipline.

“Everywhere,” says his disciple St. Ardo, “he appointed cantors,

taught readers, established grammar-masters, and those skilled in

sacred letters; also he collected a great multitude of books.”

Nor must we omit to notice the labours of Leidrade, the emperor’s

librarian, and one of the “missi dominici,” who, being appointed

Archbishop of Lyons, addressed a curious letter to his imperial

master, in which he describes the result of his various labours. He

has, by God’s grace, established regular psalmody in his church;

he has schools of singers, and schools of readers, who cannot only

read the Scriptures correctly, but who understand the spiritual

sense of the gospels and the prophecies; some even have attained

to the mystical signification of the books of Solomon and of Job.

He has also done what in him lay to promote the copying of books,

and has built, repaired, and decorated an incredible number of

churches and monasteries. Besides these there was Angilbert, the

favourite minister both of Pepin and Charlemagne, who retiring from

court became abbot of St. Riquier and founder of a noble library;

and Adalhard, the emperor’s cousin, created by him count of the

royal palace, who, out of a holy fear of offending God, and losing

His grace in the seductions of a court atmosphere, took refuge in

the abbey of Corby, where he was eventually chosen abbot. In this

capacity he greatly raised the reputation of the Corby schools.

Paschasius, who wrote his life, says that Adalhard was a most elegant

scholar, having been carefully educated in the Palatine school, and

that he was equally eloquent in the Tudesque and Romanesque dialects

as in Latin, and instructed the common people in their own barbarous

tongues. His literary friends gave him the double surname of Antony

Augustine--Antony from his love of that saint, and Augustine, because

like him he studied to imitate the virtues of all those around him.

Meanwhile Alcuin, who had been master to most of these illustrious

men, ceased not to cherish the hope that he might be suffered to

return to his native land. “The searcher of hearts knows,” he

writes, “that I neither came thither, nor do I continue here for

the love of gold, but only for the necessities of the Church.” Like

a true Englishman his heart clung to his old home, to the memory

of his quiet cell at York, where he had studied Horace and Homer,

undisturbed by other sound than the waving of the branches as they

were shaken by the genial morning breeze, a sound which, he says, did

but stir his mind the more to meditation. The flowery meadows and

murmuring streams of England, the smiling garden of his monastery

full of its May apple blossoms or its July roses, and the abundance

of birds singing in the Yorkshire woods, all these find a place in

the sweet verses in which the English exile paints the beloved scenes

in the midst of which he had passed his childish days;[87] and all

the brilliancy of Charles’s court could not compensate to his mind

for the loss of home. In 790 he was, therefore, permitted to revisit

England, but two years later he was recalled by urgent messages

from the emperor, who desired that he should attend the Council of

Frankfort held to condemn the heresy of Elipandus. Alcuin felt

himself obliged to obey the summons, but he did not bid farewell

to York without testifying the regret with which he tore himself

from its peaceful retirement. “I am yours in life and in death,” he

writes to his brethren, “and it may be that God will have pity on

me, and suffer that you should bury in his old age, him whom in his

infancy you brought up and nourished.” Charlemagne, however, having

regained possession of his favourite scholar, was not to be induced a

second time to give him up; the utmost that poor Alcuin could obtain

was permission to retire from the court to some monastery within

the Frankish dominions. Fulda was too far distant from the royal

residence, and the death of Ithier, abbot of St. Martin’s of Tours,

in 796, enabled the emperor to appoint Alcuin as his successor.

Tours at that time held the first rank among the religious houses

of France, and what with the task of reforming its discipline and

establishing a first-rate school within its walls, Alcuin enjoyed

little of the leisure after which he yearned. He found himself in

fact in possession of a great abbatial lordship, to which were

attached vast revenues and 20,000 serfs. The revenues were expended

by him in foundations of charity, such as hospitals, which earned

for him the gratitude of the people of Tours. He applied himself

to his new duties with unabated energy, enriched his library with

the precious manuscripts he had brought from York, and by his own

teaching raised the school of Tours to a renown which was shared

by none of its contemporaries. In the hall of studies a distinct

place was set apart for the copyists, who were exhorted by certain

verses of their master, set up in a conspicuous place, to mind their

stops, and not to leave out letters. Here were trained most of those

scholars whom we shall have to notice in the following reigns,

such as Rabanus Maurus, the celebrated abbot of Fulda. A letter

addressed by Alcuin to the emperor soon after his establishment

at Tours gives a somewhat bombastical account of his labours, but

the reader will pardon the pedantry of one who had spent all his

life as a schoolmaster. “The employments of your Flaccus in his

retreat,” he says, “are suited to his humble sphere, but they are

neither inglorious nor unprofitable. I spend my time in the halls

of St. Martin, teaching the noble youths under my care: to some

I serve out the honey of the Holy Scriptures; others I essay to

intoxicate with the wine of ancient literature: one class I nourish

with the apples of grammatical studies, and to the eyes of others

I display the order of the shining orbs that adorn the azure

heavens. To others again I explain the mysteries contained in the

Holy Scriptures, suiting my instructions to the capacity of my

scholars, that I may train up many to be useful to the Church of God

and to be an ornament to your kingdom. But I am constantly in want

of those excellent books of erudition which I had collected around

me in my own country, both by the devoted zeal of my master Albert

and my own labour. I therefore entreat your majesty to permit me

to send some of my people into Britain that they may bring thence

flowers into France....” After some lengthy praises of the utility

of learning, he proceeds: “Exhort then, my lord the king, the youth

of your palace to learn with all diligence, that they may make such

progress in the bloom of their youth as will bring honour on their

old age. I also, according to my measure, will not cease to scatter

in this soil the seed of wisdom among your servants, remembering the

words, ‘In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold

not thy hand.’ To do this has been the most delightful employment

of my whole life. In my youth I sowed the seeds of learning in the

flourishing seminaries of my native soil. Now in the evening of my

life, though my blood is less warm within me, I do not cease to

do the same in France, praying to God that they may spring up and

flourish in both countries.” In consequence of this suggestion, a

commission was despatched to England for the purpose of transcribing

some of the treasures of the York library. The French scribes made

copies of the English service books, and that so exactly, that they

took no heed of the geographical distinctions of the two countries,

but copied the pontifical of Archbishop Egbert, and its form for the

anointing and coronation of kings, exactly word for word. Hence in a

Rheims pontifical of the ninth century, still preserved in Cologne

cathedral, the emperor of the Franks is addressed as King of the

Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians--a circumstance which has induced

some modern critics to speculate as to the exact time when the North

of England was subject to the Frankish sceptre. The copies procured

through the industry of these scribes were multiplied at Tours, and

thence dispersed throughout the kingdom. Alcuin’s own works were also

in great demand, specially his elementary treatises on the different

sciences. His other works, which are very numerous, consist chiefly

of theological treatises and commentaries on the Scriptures, some

metaphysical and philosophical writings, and a collection of poems,

among which are the _Eulogium on the Archbishops and the Church

of York_, and the _Elegy on the Destruction of Lindisfarne_, the

latter of which is perhaps the happiest production of his pen, and

evinces the real feeling of a poet. The news of the sad event which

it commemorates excited consternation throughout Europe, but by none

was it received with bitterer sorrow than by the abbot of Tours.

“The man,” he says, “who can think of that calamity without terror,

and who does not cry to God in behalf of his country, has a heart

not of flesh but of stone.” He at once wrote letters of sympathy to

Ethelred, King of Northumbria, and the monks who had escaped from

the sword, which would be sufficient to evince how fondly his heart

still clung to his native land even without the touching apostrophe

which he introduces to his cell at York. What view was taken by

Alcuin of the work of education, to which his whole life was devoted

may be gathered from his treatise on the seven liberal arts, the

introduction to which is cast in the form of dialogue between the

master and his disciples. I will give an extract which may suffice

to show the noble and elevated sentiments which these early scholars

entertained on the subject of learning:--

_Dis._ “O, wise master, we have often heard you repeat that true

philosophy was the science that taught all the virtues, and the only

earthly riches that never left their possessor in want. Your words

have excited in us a great desire to possess this treasure. We wish

to know where the teaching of philosophy will lead us, and by what

steps we may attain to it. But our age is weak and without your help

we shall not be able to mount these steps.”

_Master._ “It will be easy to show you the way of wisdom, provided

you seek it purely for God’s sake to preserve the purity of your own

soul, and for the love of virtue; if you love it for its own sake,

and do not seek in it any worldly honour and glory or, still less,

riches or pleasure.”

_Dis._ “Master, raise us up from the earth where our ignorance now

detains us, lead us to those heights of science where you passed your

own early years. For if we may listen to the fables of the poets,

they would seem to tell us that the sciences are the true banquets of

the gods.”

_Master._ “We read of Wisdom, which is spoken of by the mouth of

Solomon, that she built herself a house and hewed out seven pillars.

Now, although these pillars represent the seven gifts of the Holy

Ghost and the seven Sacraments of the Church, we may also discern

in them the _seven liberal arts_, grammar, rhetoric, dialects,

arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, which are like so many

steps on which philosophers expend their labours, and have obtained

the honours of eternal renown.”

As the school of St. Martin rose in celebrity, it became the resort

of a crowd both of foreigners and natives. Alcuin’s own countrymen in

particular flocked around him, and it would seem that the number of

English scholars who constantly arrived, at last excited the jealousy

of the clergy of Tours. One day as four Frankish priests were

standing at the gate of the monastery, a newly arrived Englishman,

Aigulf by name, passed in, and supposing him to be ignorant of their

language, one of them exclaimed, “There goes another of them! When

shall we be free from these swarms of Britons? They gather round the

old fellow like so many bees!” Aigulf hung his head and blushed; but

when Alcuin heard what had passed he sent for the Frenchmen, and

courteously requested them to sit down, and drink the health of the

young scholar in his best wine. “The old Saxon,” as they called him,

ceased not in his retirement to watch over the interests of learning,

even in the remotest provinces. There was hardly a bishop or abbot of

any distinction who had not at one time or other been his pupil, and

he continued to enjoy and exercise among them the privileged freedom

of an old and honoured master. His letters bear evidence of the

immense range over which his influence extended. In his ninety-fourth

epistle he conjures a young missionary to be always reminding the

parish priests to keep up their schools. Another time he addresses

a bishop, and advises him to return to his own country that he may

set in order good grammar lessons for the children of his diocese.

His fifty-sixth letter is to the English Archbishop of York; and in

it he enters into several useful details; and advises him to have

his school divided into different classes--one for reading, one for

writing, and one for chanting, so as to preserve good order. Then

comes a letter to the Emperor, reminding him to have the Palatine

scholars daily exercised in their learning; arithmetical subtleties

accompany another letter, and some sage observations on the utility

of punctuation, which commendable branch of grammar has, he regrets

to say, been of late much lost sight of. In short, his active mind,

thoroughly Anglo-Saxon in its temper, worked on to the end; labouring

at a sublime end by homely practical details. One sees he is of the

same race with Bede, who wrote and dictated to the last hour of his

life, and when his work was finished, calmly closed his book and died.

It was after the retirement of Alcuin from court, that we must date

the arrival in France of the Irish scholars, Dungal and Clement,

concerning whom the monk of St. Gall relates a story which is treated

as apocryphal by Tiraboschi, though it has found a place in most

earlier histories. He tells us, that having landed on the coast of

France, they excited the curiosity of the people by crying aloud,

“Wisdom to sell! who’ll buy?” The rumour of their arrival reaching

Charlemagne’s ears, he caused them to be brought before him, and

finding them well skilled in letters, retained them both in his

service. Clement remained at Paris and received the direction of the

Palatine school, whilst Dungal was sent to Pavia, where he opened an

academy in the monastery of St. Augustine. Whatever may be thought of

the incident connected with their first appearance in France, there

is no doubt as to their historic identity. Tiraboschi quotes an edict

of the Emperor Lothaire published in 823, for the re-establishment of

public schools in nine of the chief cities of Italy, from which it

appears that Dungal was at the time still presiding over the school

of Pavia. He seems to be the same who, in 811, addressed a long

letter to Charlemagne on the subject of two solar eclipses, which

were expected to take place in the following year, and may be yet

further identified with the _Dungalus Scotorum præcipuus_, who is

noticed in the catalogue of the library of Bobbio, where he at last

retired, bringing with him a great store of books, which he presented

to the monastery. Among them were four books of Virgil, two of Ovid,

one of Lucretius, and a considerable number of the Greek and Latin

fathers.

As to Clement, there is no difficulty in tracing his career. He seems

to have been deeply imbued with the learned mysticism of the school

of Toulouse, and in a treatise on the eight parts of speech, which

is still preserved, quotes the rules of the grammarian Virgil, and

the writings of the noble doctors Glengus, Galbungus, Eneas, and

the rest. Alcuin complained much of the disorder introduced into

the Studies of the court school after his departures. “I left them

Latins,” he exclaimed, “and now I find them Egyptians.” This was a

double hit at the gibberish of the twelve Latinites, which Alcuin

could not abide, and at the hankering which the Irish professors

always displayed, both in science and theology, for the teaching of

the school of Alexandria, many of them having embraced the peculiar

views of the Neo-Platonists. The Egyptians, however, found a welcome

at the court of Charlemagne in spite of their eccentricities; for

there no one was ever coldly received who could calculate eclipses,

or charm the ears of the learned monarch with Latin hexameters. And

it is perhaps to one of these Irish professors that we must attribute

those verses preserved by Martene, and professing to be written by an

“Irish exile,” which contain such agreeable flattery of the Frankish

sovereign and of his people, and which were presented to the emperor

as he held one of those solemn New-year courts, at which his subjects

vied one with another in offering him jewels, tissues, horses, and

bags of money. And perhaps, to his mind, the graceful lines that

celebrated the Frankish people as “a race of kings come forth from

the walls of Troy, into whose hands God had delivered the empire of

the world,” were more acceptable than even the glittering heaps of

the precious metals.

Charlemagne did his utmost to draw Alcuin once more to his side, and

specially pressed him to accompany him on his visit to Rome, in the

year 800, when he received the imperial crown. But Alcuin was not to

be moved by his arguments and entreaties, though he did not refuse

to quit his retirement at the call of real duty. In 799 he attended

the council of Aix-la-Chapelle, to oppose in person the heretical

teacher, Felix of Urgel, who, together with Elipandus, had revived

the Nestorian heresy in a new shape. After a disputation of six days,

Felix owned himself vanquished, and frankly renounced his errors.

This was perhaps the most glorious moment in Alcuin’s life; but he

only used the credit which he had thus obtained with his sovereign

to solicit permission to resign all his preferments into the hands

of his disciples, that he might spend the remainder of his life in

retirement. Frèdegise, therefore, succeeded him in the abbacy of St.

Martin’s, and Sigulf in that of Ferrières. “I have made all things

over into the hands of my sons,” writes the old man, rejoicing in

his late-earned freedom, “and laying down the burden of the pastoral

care, I wait quietly at St. Martin’s until my change shall come.”

The short remainder of his life was spent in the humblest exercises

of charity and devotion. He chose the place of his interment and

often visited it with disciples, and his letters show him to have

been incessantly occupied with the great thought of his approaching

end. It came at last, and on the morning of Whitsunday, May 19, 804,

the great scholar passed gently and happily to the eternity he had

so long contemplated. Charlemagne mourned his death as that of a

friend and master, and before his final departure addressed him some

Latin verses, which, if not distinguished for much poetical merit,

at least do justice to the honest affection that dictated them. He

survived Alcuin ten years, and was buried in the royal “chapel”[88]

that he had erected as the place of his sepulture, not reclining in

a coffin, but seated on his throne, with the crown on his brow, the

sceptre in his hand, his good sword Joyeuse by his side, and the book

of the Gospels resting on his knees. And a brief inscription marked

the spot where rested all that was mortal of “the great and orthodox

emperor.”

_CHAPTER VI._

THE CARLOVINGIAN SCHOOLS.

A.D. 804 TO 900.

The death of Alcuin in no degree checked the intellectual movement

to which he had communicated the first impulse. He had fairly done

his work; and even after his death his influence survived in the

disciples whom he had so carefully trained and who long supplied the

public schools of the empire with a succession of excellent masters.

St. Martin’s of Tours, indeed, declined under the government of

Fredegise, and the Palatine scholars themselves did not pass into

the best hands. After Alcuin’s withdrawal from court the school of

the palace fell, as we have seen, first under the management of the

Irishman Clement, who had a fancy for changing the whole method

of instruction, and then under that of Claud, Bishop of Turin, a

man of audacious opinions, the only one of the Western bishops who

declared in favour of the Iconoclasts, and who likewise took up the

heretical tenets of Felix of Urgel. The school continued to decline

during the whole reign of Louis le Debonnaire; but it revived under

his son and successor Charles the Bald, who followed the example of

his illustrious grandfather, and gathered around him learned men

from all countries, especially from England and Ireland. The crowds

of scholars who flocked from the latter island is noticed by Henry

of Auxerre, who says, that it seemed as if Ireland herself were

about to pass over into Gaul, and it became a proverb during the

reign of this monarch, that instead of speaking of the school of the

palace, one should rather call the royal residence the palace of the

schools. Charles was not merely an encourager of humane letters;

he possessed a certain philosophical turn of mind which led him to

indulge in abstruse speculations, and to encourage similar tastes

in those around him. He addressed a capitular to the bishops of his

kingdom, questioning them on their opinions as to the immateriality

of the soul; and he placed at the head of his royal school a scholar

more famous for the subtlety of his intellect than the orthodoxy

of his views. John Scotus Erigena, an Irishman by birth, had early

applied himself to the study of the Greek language and philosophy,

and had embraced the chief doctrines of the Neo-Platonic school.

He astonished the Western world by his translation of the works of

St. Denys the Areopagite, an achievement which the Roman scholars,

who still regarded their Transalpine neighbours as essentially

barbarians, could hardly be brought to credit, and which exhorted

compliments from Anastasius, the papal librarian, and some complaints

from Pope Nicholas I., who would have been better pleased had the

work been first submitted to ecclesiastical approval. Erigena’s free

opinions won him no disfavour with Charles the Bald; nevertheless

certain controversies, of which we shall have to speak hereafter,

and in which he took an active part, drew from him the expression

of heterodox sentiments which excited no little scandal. This was

increased by the publication of his philosophical treatise, “_De

Natura Rerum_,” in which he plainly put forth the doctrines of the

Greek Platonists, and represented the Creator and the creature as

essentially one and the same. Besides this radical Pantheistic error,

which runs through all his works, his views on the subject of the

supremacy of reason over authority are liberal in the extreme.[89]

“Authority,” he says, “emanates from reason, not reason from

authority; true reason has no need to be supported by any authority.

We must use reason first in our investigations and authority

afterwards.” He also affirmed that the substance of man was his will.

The only punishment of sin, he says, is sin; there is no eternal

fire; even the lost enjoy a certain happiness, for they are not

deprived of truth. These, and a thousand equally unsound passages,

raised him a crowd of adversaries, all of whom he treated with that

supercilious contempt which would seem necessarily to enter into the

character of the scholastic heretic. “They are all deceived,” he

writes, “owing to their ignorance of liberal studies; they have none

of them studied Greek, and with a knowledge of the Latin language

alone it is impossible for them to understand the distinctions of

science.”

In 855 the Council of Valence, nothing dismayed at having to deal

with a foe who was acquainted with Greek, examined his writings,

declared certain propositions extracted from his treatise on

Predestination to be the invention of the devil, and everywhere

interdicted them from being read. Nevertheless, Erigena was not

removed from his post at court; nor was it until ten years later,

in 865, that he found himself obliged to retire, in consequence of

the remonstrances addressed to the king by Pope Nicholas I., who

required his removal from the Palatine academy, “where he was giving

poison instead of bread, and mingling his tares with the wheat.”

All authorities agree in regarding him as intellectually superior

to any man of his age, though it is possible that his heterodox

principles have had some share in winning him the extraordinary

favour which he has found at the hands of Hallam and Guizot, who

are willing, naturally enough, to make the most of one who in the

Dark Ages set at nought the claims of authority, and raised the

standard of independent reason. In spite, however, of the prominent

position which he holds among men of letters, and the noisy eulogiums

which have been heaped on him at the expense of his more orthodox

contemporaries, I shall say no more of him in this place than that he

withdrew from Gaul,[90] and was succeeded in his office as Palatine

scholasticus by the monk Mannon, who, after teaching with success for

some years, returned to his monastery at Condat; after which we hear

no more of the Palatine school till its revival, at the beginning of

the tenth century, under the famous Remigius of Auxerre.

But the Palatine school by no means held the most important place in

the educational institutions bequeathed by Charlemagne to the empire.

The work begun by Alcuin was being far more successfully carried out

in the monastic schools, especially those of Fulda, Rheims, and the

two Corbys. The abbey of Fulda, mindful of its great origin, was one

of the first to enter heartily into the revival of letters initiated

by Charlemagne; and in order to fit the monks for the work to which

they were called, it was resolved to send two of the younger brethren

to study under Alcuin himself at Tours, that after being there imbued

with all the liberal arts, they might return to their own monastery

as teachers. The two chosen for this purpose were Hatto and Rabanus,

and they accordingly began their studies at St. Martin’s in 802. The

name of Maurus was bestowed by Alcuin on his favourite disciple,

and was afterwards retained by Rabanus in addition to his own. He

studied both sacred and profane sciences, as appears from the letter

he addressed many years later to his old schoolfellow, Haimo, Bishop

of Halberstadt, in which he reminds him of the pleasant days they had

spent together in studious exercises, reading, not only the Sacred

books, and the expositions of the Fathers, but also investigating

all the seven liberal arts. In 813, being then twenty-five years of

age, Rabanus was recalled to Fulda, by the abbot Ratgar, and placed

at the head of the school, with the strict injunction that he was

to follow in all things the method of his master Alcuin. The latter

was still alive, and addressed a letter to the young preceptor,

which is printed among his other works, and is addressed to “the boy

Maurus,” in which he wishes him good luck with his scholars. His

success was so extraordinary that the abbots of other monasteries

sent their monks to study under him, and were eager to obtain his

pupils as professors in their own schools. The German nobles also

gladly confided their sons to his care, and he taught them with

wonderful gentleness and patience. He carried out the system which

had been adopted by Alcuin of thoroughly exercising his scholars in

grammar before entering on the study of the other liberal arts. “All

the generations of Germany,” says Trithemius, “are bound to celebrate

the praise of Rabanus, who first taught them to articulate the sound

of Greek and Latin.” At his lectures every one was trained to write

equally well in prose or verse on any subject placed before him, and

was afterwards taken through a course of rhetoric, logic, and natural

philosophy, according to the capacities of each. From this time the

school of Fulda came to be regarded as one of the first monastic

seminaries of Europe, and held a rank at least equal to that of St.

Gall. It had inherited the fullest share of the Anglo-Saxon spirit,

and exhibited the same spectacle of intellectual activity which we

have already seen working in the foundations of St. Bennet Biscop.

Every variety of useful occupation was embraced by the monks; while

some were at work hewing down the old forest which a few years before

had given shelter to the mysteries of Pagan worship, or tilling

the soil on those numerous farms which to this day perpetuate the

memory of the great abbey in the names of the towns and villages

which have sprung up on their site,[91] other kinds of industry were

kept up within doors, where the visitor might have beheld a huge

range of workshops in which cunning hands were kept constantly busy

on every description of useful and ornamental work in wood, stone,

and metal. It was a scene, not of artistic _dilettanteism_, but of

earnest, honest labour, and the treasurer of the abbey was charged to

take care that the sculptors, engravers, and carvers in wood, were

always furnished with plenty to do. Passing on to the interior of the

building the stranger would have been introduced to the scriptorium,

over the door of which was an inscription warning the copyists to

abstain from idle words, to be diligent in copying good books, and to

take care not to alter the text by careless mistakes. Twelve monks

always sat here employed in the labour of transcription, as was also

the custom at Hirsauge, a colony sent out from Fulda in 830; and

the huge library which was thus gradually formed, survived till the

beginning of the seventeenth century, when it was destroyed in the

troubles of the thirty years’ war. Not far from the scriptorium was

the interior school, where the studies were carried on with an ardour

and a largeness of views, which might have been little expected

from an academy of the ninth century. Our visitor, were he from the

more civilised south, might well have stood in mute surprise in the

midst of these fancied barbarians, whom he would have found engaged

in pursuits not unworthy of the schools of Rome. The monk Probus is

perhaps lecturing on Virgil and Cicero, and that with such hearty

enthusiasm that his brother professors accuse him, in good-natured

jesting, of ranking them with the saints. Elsewhere disputations are

being carried on over the Categories of Aristotle, and an attentive

ear will discover that the controversy which made such a noise in

the twelfth century, and divided the philosophers of Europe into

the rival sects of the Nominalists and Realists, is perfectly well

understood at Fulda, though it does not seem to have disturbed the

peace of the school. To your delight, if you be not altogether wedded

to the dead languages, you may find some engaged on the uncouth

language of their father-land, and, looking over their shoulders, you

may smile to see the barbarous words which they are cataloguing in

their glossaries; words, nevertheless, destined to reappear centuries

hence in the most philosophic literature of Europe. The monks of

Fulda derive their scholastic traditions from Alcuin and Bede, and

cannot, therefore, neglect a study of the vernacular. Yet they are,

I am sorry to say, beset with one weakness common to the scholars

of the time, and are ashamed of their Frankish and Saxon names;

and Hatto, Bruno, and Rechi, three of the best pupils of Rabanus,

are known in his academy under the Latin soubriquets of Bonosus,

Candidus, and Modestus. Brower, in his “Antiquities of Fulda,” has

depicted the two last-named scholars from an illuminated manuscript

of their monastery in which their portraits are introduced. Candidus,

the assistant of Rabanus in the school, holds a book in one hand

while with the other he points out to Modestus a passage on the

page before him. From the open lips and extended hand of his pupil

we surmise that he is reciting the words thus indicated. Both are

clothed in the tunic without sleeves, scapular, and large capuce

which then formed the Benedictine habit. It may be added that

the school of Fulda would have been found ordered with admirable

discipline. Twelve of the best professors were chosen and formed a

council of seniors or doctors, presided over by one who bore the

title of Principal, and who assigned to each one the lectures he was

to deliver to the pupils.

In the midst of this world of intellectual life and labour, Rabanus

continued for some years to train the first minds of Germany, and

counted among his pupils the most celebrated men of the age, such as

Lupus of Ferrières, Walafrid Strabo, and Ruthard of Hirsauge, the

latter of whom was the first who read profane letters to the brethren

of his convent “after the manner of Fulda.” Lupus was a monk of

Ferrières, where he had been carefully educated by the abbot Aldric,

who was a pupil of Sigulf, and had acted for some time as assistant

to Alcuin in the school of Tours. Aldric afterwards became Archbishop

of Sens, and sent Lupus to complete his education at Fulda, under

Rabanus. Like all the scholars of Ferrières, Lupus had a decided

taste for classical literature; the love of letters had been, to use

his own expression, innate in him from a child, and he was considered

the best Latinist of his time. His studies at Fulda were chiefly

theological, and he applied to them with great ardour, without,

however, forgetting “his dear humanities.” It would even seem that

he taught them at Fulda, thus returning one benefit for another. The

monastery was not far from that of Seligenstadt, where Eginhard,

the secretary and biographer of Charlemagne, was their abbot. A

friendship, based on similarity of tastes, sprang up between him and

Lupus, and was maintained by a correspondence, much of which is still

preserved. Lupus always reckoned Eginhard as one of his masters; not

that he directly received any lessons from him, but on account of

the assistance which the abbot rendered him by the loan of valuable

books. In one of his earliest letters to this good friend he begs for

a copy of Cicero’s “Rhetoric,” his own being imperfect, as well as

for the “Attic Nights” of Aulus Gellius, which were not then to be

found in the Fulda library. In another letter, he consults him on the

exact prosody of certain Latin words, and begs him to send the proper

size of the Uncial letters used in manuscripts of that century.

Among the fellow-students of Lupus at this time was Walafrid Strabo,

a man of very humble birth, whose precocious genius had early made

him known in the world of letters. In spite of the unfortunate

personal defect which earned him his surname of Strabo, (or the

lame), Walafrid’s Latin verses had gained him respect among learned

men at the age of fifteen, and they are favourably noticed even

by critics of our own time. He had received his early training

in the monastery of Reichnau, the situation of which was well

fitted to nurture a poetic genius. His masters had been Tetto and

Wettin, the latter of whom was author of that terrible “Vision of

Purgatory” which left an indelible impress on the popular devotion of

Christendom. From Reichnau he was sent by his superiors to study at

Fulda, where he acquired a taste for historical pursuits, and is said

to have assisted in the compilation of the annals of the monastery.

It was out of the Fulda library that he collected the materials for

his great work, the Gloss, or Commentary on the Text of Scripture,

gathered from the writings of the Fathers. It received many additions

and improvements from subsequent writers, and, for more than six

hundred years, continued to be the most popular explanation of the

Sacred text in use among theologians. Returning to Reichnau, Walafrid

was appointed to the office of scholasticus, and filled it with

such success as fairly to establish the reputation of that monastic

school. Ermanric, one of his pupils, says of him, that to the end

of his life he continued to exhibit the same delightful union of

learning and simplicity which had endeared him to his masters and

school-fellows. Even after he was appoined abbot, he found his chief

pleasure in study, teaching, and writing verses, and would steal

away from the weightier cares of his office to take a class in his

old school and expound to them a passage of Virgil. Neither old age

nor busy practical duties dried up the fount of Abbot Walafrid’s

inspiration, and we find him in his declining years writing his poems

entitled “_Hortulus_,” wherein he describes with charming freshness

of imagery, the little garden blooming beneath the window of his

cell, and the beauty and virtue of the different flowers which he

loved to cultivate with his own hands.

Another of the Fulda scholars contemporary with those named above,

was Otfried, a monk of Weissemburg, who entered with singular

ardour into the study of the Tudesque dialect. Rabanus himself

devoted much attention to this subject, and composed a Latin and

German glossary on the books of Scripture, together with some other

etymological works, among which is a curious treatise on the origin

of languages. Otfried took up his master’s favourite pursuits with

great warmth, and the completion of Charlemagne’s German grammar

is thought to be in reality his work, though generally assigned to

Rabanus. On retiring to his own monastery, where he was charged with

the direction of the school, he continued to make the improvement

of his native language the chief object of his study. A noble zeal

prompted him to produce something in the vernacular idiom which

should take the place of those profane songs, often of heathen

origin, which had hitherto been the only production of the German

muse. Encouraged by a certain noble lady named Judith, to whom

he confided his ideas, he conceived the plan of rendering into

Tudesque verse the most remarkable passages from the Life of Our

Lord, which he chose so happily, and wove together with so skilful

a hand, that his work may be regarded as a Harmony of the Gospel

narrative. It was accompanied with four dedicatory epistles, in one

of which, addressed to Luitbert, Archbishop of Mentz, he complains

of the neglect with which the Franks have hitherto treated their own

language. Prudentius, Juvencus, and other Latin writers had written

the Acts of the Lord in Latin verse, wherefore he now desired to

attempt the same in his mother tongue. “I wish,” he says, “to write

the Gospels, the history of our salvation, in the Frankish tongue.

Now, therefore, let all men of good-will rejoice, and let those of

the Frankish tongue also rejoice, and be glad, since we have lived

to celebrate the praises of Christ in the language of our fathers.”

The other epistles were addressed to the Emperor Louis, and to some

of the monks of St. Gall, who were celebrated for the labour which

they bestowed on the cultivation of the Tudesque dialect, and could

therefore appreciate Otfried’s work at its full value. It had the

effect which he anticipated; his verses became familiar in the mouths

of those who had hitherto been acquainted only with the rude songs

of their pagan ancestors, and dispelled much of the prejudice which

existed against the use of the barbarous dialects for the purpose of

religious instruction. And in 847, three months after Rabanus was

raised to the see of Mentz, a decree was published by the provincial

council, requiring every bishop to provide himself with homilies for

the instruction of the people, translated out of Latin into Tudesque

or Romanesque (as the Rustic Latin was sometimes called), that they

might be understood by rude and ignorant persons.

The character of Rabanus may be gathered from that of his pupils.

He was in every respect a true example of the monastic scholar, and

took St. Bede for the model on which his own life was formed. All

the time not taken up with religious duties he devoted to reading,

teaching, writing, or “feeding himself on the Divine Scriptures.” The

best lesson he gave his scholars was the example of his own life, as

Eginhard indicates in a letter written to his son, then studying as

a novice at Fulda. “I would have you apply to literary exercises,”

he says, “and try as far as you can to acquire the learning of your

master, whose lessons are so clear and solid. But specially imitate

his holy life.... For grammar and rhetoric and all human sciences

are vain and even injurious to the servants of God, unless by Divine

grace they know how to follow the law of God; for science puffeth up,

but charity buildeth up. I would rather see you dead than inflated

with vice.”

Nevertheless, the career of Rabanus was far from being one of

unruffled repose, and the history of his troubles presents us with

a singular episode in monastic annals. The abbot Ratgar was one of

those men whose activity of mind and body was a cross to every one

about him. He could neither rest himself nor suffer anybody else to

be quiet. The ordinary routine of life at Fulda, with its prodigious

amount of daily labour, both mental and physical, did not satisfy

the requirements of his peculiar organisation. He had a fancy for

rearranging the whole discipline of the monastery, and was specially

desirous of providing himself with more splendid buildings than

those which had been raised by the followers of the humble Sturm.

Every one knows that the passion for building has in it a directly

revolutionary element; it is synonymous with a passion for upsetting,

destroying, and reducing everything to chaos. Hence, the monks of

Fulda had but an uncomfortable time of it, and what was worse, Ratgar

was so eager to get his fine buildings completed, that he not only

compelled his monks to work as masons, but shortened their prayers

and masses, and obliged them to labour on festivals. Rabanus himself

could claim no exemption; he had to exchange the pen for the trowel;

and to take away all possibility of excuse, Ratgar deprived him

of his books, and even of the private notes which he had made of

Alcuin’s lectures. Rabanus was too good a monk to protest against his

change of employment, and carried his bricks and mortar as cheerfully

as ever he had applied himself to a copy of Cicero; but he did

not conceive it contrary to religious obedience humbly to protest

against the confiscation of his papers, and attempted to soften the

hard heart of his abbot with a copy of verses. “O sweet father!” he

exclaims, “most excellent shepherd of monks! I thy servant pray thee

to be propitious, and to let thy tender pity hear me, who cry to thee

though unworthy. O ever-compassionate Ruler! thy kindness in old time

permitted me to study books, but the poverty of my understanding was

a hindrance to me; and lest my wandering mind should lose all that my

master taught me by word of mouth, I committed everything to writing.

These writings in time formed little books, which I pray thee command

to be returned to thy unworthy client. Whatever slaves possess is

held by right of their masters, therefore all that I have written is

thine by right. Nor do I petulantly claim these papers as my own,

but defer all things to thy judgment; and whether thou grantest my

petition or not, I pray God to grant thee all good things, and help

thee to finish the good fight by an honourable course.”

Such a petition, so just, so modest, and so free from the least

tinge of insubordination might have been thought capable of touching

the hardest heart, but, says Rudolf his biographer, “he sang to a

stone.” The building grievance at last grew to such a pitch, that

the monks in despair appealed to Charlemagne, who summoned Ratgar

to court to answer their charges, and appointed a commission of

bishops and abbots to inquire into the whole matter. Their decision

allayed the discord for a time, and so long as the emperor lived,

Ratgar showed his monks some consideration. But no sooner was he

dead than the persecution recommenced, and Rabanus, again deprived

of his books and papers, seems to have consoled himself by making

a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He describes the unhappy state of Fulda

at this time, in some very doleful verses addressed to one of the

exiled monks; for, not content with overwhelming his brethren with

fresh labours, Ratgar had turned many out of the monastery, chiefly

the aged ones, whose temperate remonstrances annoyed him. We have

in these verses a touching account of the farewell visit paid by

the exiles before their departure to the tomb of St. Boniface, whom

they conjured to intercede in their favour. Some of them did not

rest content with a course of passive submission, but repaired once

more to court and implored the Emperor Louis to apply some remedy to

the abuses, which threatened to end in the disruption of the first

religious house in his dominions. A new commission was therefore

appointed, and the result was that Ratgar was deposed from office

and banished from the monastery, while in his place was elected the

holy and gentle St. Eigil, a disciple of St. Sturm, whose government

presented a singular contrast to that of the harsh and haughty

Ratgar. He did nothing without consulting his brethren, and made it

his aim to heal the wounds which a long course of ill-treatment had

opened in the community. To set his children an example of humility

and paternal concord, he often served them at table, and especially

during the feast of Christmas. In his overflowing love and charity,

he petitioned, as a personal favour, that they would consent to

the recall of poor Ratgar, and on his return it appeared that his

humiliation had not been without a beneficial effect. He showed no

disposition to disturb the peace of the community again, but as the

twofold desire of commanding and of building was not wholly eradicted

from his soul, they let him satisfy it in moderation, by constructing

a small monastery on an adjoining hill, to which he afterwards

removed himself. He seems to have made a good end, asking pardon of

all those whom he had offended, and Fulda very soon recovered its

former flourishing condition. Rabanus was restored to his books and

his school immediately on the election of St. Eigil, and in 822,

on the death of the good abbot, whose life was written by the monk

Candidus, Rabanus was chosen his successor. To him this was a very

sorrowful business, for, with the government of a community of one

hundred and fifty monks on his hands, he was necessarily obliged

to give up his scholars. He resigned them to the care of Candidus,

in all that concerned the humane letters, reserving to himself,

however, the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Singularly

enough, however, the man whose whole life had been passed in literary

labour, evinced a talent for business not always found united to

great scholarship. He kept up regular discipline, and put all the

offices of the abbey in a state of thorough efficiency, completing

many of the half-finished buildings of Ratgar, and enriching his

treasury with a vast quantity of holy relics. He also looked so well

after the farms and dependencies of the abbey as greatly to increase

its revenues. Still the school was not neglected, and the lectures

he delivered there were destined to be the seeds of a work important

in the history of ecclesiastical literature. His pupils had been

accustomed from time to time to ask him questions on the chief duties

of ecclesiastics and their signification, and the proper manner of

administering the Rites of Holy Church. His answers they noted down

on their tablets, without, however, observing much method, and as

the matter constantly increased in bulk and value, they begged him

at length to revise their notes and arrange them in better order.

The result was his celebrated Treatise _De Institutione Clericorum_,

an invaluable monument of the faith and practice of the Church in

the ninth century. It treats in three books of the Sacraments, the

Divine office, the feasts and fasts of the Church, and the learning

necessary for ecclesiastics, concluding with instructions and rules

for the guidance of preachers. On the last subject he observes that

three things are necessary in order to become a good preacher; first,

to be a good man yourself, that you may be able to teach others

to be so; secondly, to be skilled in the Holy Scriptures and the

interpretations of the Fathers; thirdly, and above all, to prepare

for the work of preaching by that of prayer. As to the studies proper

to ecclesiastics, he distinctly requires them to be learned not only

in the Scriptures, but also in the seven liberal arts, provided only

that these are treated as the handmaids of theology, and he explains

his views on this subject much in the same way as Bede had done

before him. For the rest, he was an enemy to anything like narrowness

of intellectual training. His own works, in prose and verse, embraced

a large variety of subjects, some of them belonging to mystic

theology, such as his book on the Vision of God and his poem on the

Holy Cross, which, in spite of its inaccurate prosody, still raises

the admiration of the reader from the elevation of its sentiments. He

is also commonly reputed the author of the “Veni Creator.”

In 847, Rabanus was raised to the archiepiscopal see of Mentz, in

which office he was called on to examine the errors of Gotteschalk,

a man who, beginning life as a monk of Fulda, had quitted that

monastery in disgust, and subsequently led a wandering and not

very reputable life, though he appears to have considered himself

attached to the monastery of Orbais. The opinions he broached on

the subject of predestination being condemned by the council of

Mentz, Rabanus sent him to his own metropolitan, Hincmar, Archbishop

of Rheims. The severity with which he was treated was disapproved

even by many who condemned his doctrines, and a warm controversy

arose, in the course of which Hincmar, who was far more a man of

action than of the pen, bethought himself of employing on his side

of the argument the genius of Scotus Erigena, then at the head of

the Palatine school. Erigena was as yet only known to the learned

world as a Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic scholar, and a man of surpassing

wit and power of argument. His heterodox tendencies were not even

suspected, and Hincmar congratulated himself on having engaged the

services of one confessedly without a rival in the arena of letters.

But his choice of an ally proved most unfortunate. Erigena opened

fire on the opposite party with the assertion, characteristic enough

of the self-sufficient sophist, that every question, on every

imaginable subject, was capable of solution when submitted to the

four philosophic rules of division, definition, demonstration, and

analysis. To work he went, therefore, with his four rules, and while

combating the ultra-predestination of Gottischalk, gave utterance to

such free opinions on the subject of Divine Grace as raised against

him all the theologians of France. Among these were St. Prudentius

of Troyes, Amolan, Archbishop of Lyons, a Hebrew scholar whose wise

and moderate manner of dealing with the subject aimed at refuting

the errors of both the opposite partisans, and his successor,

St. Remigius. The opinions put forth by Scotus had increased the

difficulties of the question, and writers thickened on both sides.

It is needless to say that neither Rabanus nor Hincmar were any way

responsible for the errors broached by Scotus; nevertheless, the

line of argument which they took did not satisfy the theologians

of Valence and Lyons, and in the course of the controversy which

troubled his declining years, Rabanus found himself opposed by his

former pupil, Lupus of Ferrières. He died in 856, leaving his books

to be equally divided between the abbeys of Fulda and St. Alban’s, of

Mentz.

Meanwhile, Lupus of Ferrières had become abbot of his monastery, for

Sigulf in his old age resigned his dignity, and chose to become the

disciple of his former pupil. Lupus continued after his promotion

to carry on his labours in the monastic school. The favour with

which he was regarded by Charles the Bald was the occasion of much

trouble to the poor scholar, who was constantly summoned to act as

royal ambassador, and sometimes even to join the army and take part

in active war. His monastery happened to be one of those which owed

the king military service, and in an action fought in Angoumois

between Charles and his nephew Pepin, Lupus, who had no taste at all

for the life of a soldier, lost all his baggage and found himself a

prisoner. So soon as he recovered his liberty he addressed a moving

letter to the king, imploring him to set him free henceforth from

his military engagements at any price. “Most willingly,” he says,

“will I resume the office of professor in my monastery, for I desire

nothing better than all my life to teach what I have learnt.” Charles

appears to have seen that by persisting in his feudal claims he would

only be making a very bad soldier out of an admirable scholar, so he

suffered him to return to Ferrières, where he set about collecting

a noble library, as well sacred as profane. As he wrote himself to

Einard, he never grew weary of books; he took extraordinary pains

in seeking for his treasures even in distant countries, in causing

them to be transcribed, and sometimes in lovingly transcribing them

himself. His interesting correspondence contains frequent allusions

to these Bibliographical researches. At one time he asks a friend

to bring him the “Wars of Catiline and of Jugurtha” by Sallust, and

the “Verrines of Cicero.” At another, he writes to Pope Benedict

III., begging him to send by two of his monks, about to journey to

Rome, certain books which he could not obtain in his own country,

and which he promises to have speedily copied and faithfully

returned. They are, the “Commentaries of St. Jerome on Jeremias,”

“Cicero de Oratore,” the twelve books of Quinctilian’s Institutes,

and the “Commentary of Donatus on Terence.” With all his taste for

the classics, however, Lupus had too much good sense not to see the

importance of cultivating the barbarous dialects, and sent his nephew

with two other noble youths to Prom, to learn the Tudesque idiom.[92]

In his school he made it his chief aim to train his pupils, not only

in grammar and rhetoric, but also in the higher art of a holy life.

The monastic seminaries were proverbially schools of good living as

well as good learning, _recte faciendi et bene dicendi_, as Mabillon

expresses it; and there was nothing that Lupus had more at heart

than the inculcation of this principle, that the cultivation of head

and heart must go together. “We too often seek in study,” he writes

in his epistle to the monk Ebradus, “nothing but ornament of style;

few are found who desire to acquire by its means purity of manners,

which is of far greater value. We are very much afraid of vices

of language, and use every effort to correct them, but we regard

with indifference the vices of the heart.” His favourite Cicero had

before his time lifted a warning voice against the capital error of

disjoining mental from moral culture, and in the Christian system of

the earlier centuries they were never regarded apart.