Lupus was not too great a scholar to condescend to labour for

beginners, and drew up, for the benefit of his pupils, an abridgment

of Roman history, in which he proposes the characters of Traian

and Theodosius for the study of Christian princes. He was wont to

boast of his double descent from Alcuin, as being a pupil of Sigulf

and Rabanus, both of them disciples of the great master. His own

favourite scholar Heiric, or Henry of Auxerre, indulged in a similar

morsel of scholastic pride. He had studied under both Lupus and Haimo

of Halberstadt, the former school-fellow of Rabanus, at St. Martin of

Tours. Haimo seems to have lectured for some time at Ferrières, and

Heiric tells us in some not inelegant verses that it was the custom

of the two pedagogues to give their pupils a very pleasant sort of

recreation, relating to them whatever they had found in the course of

their reading that was worthy of remembrance, whether in Christian or

Pagan authors. Heiric, who was somewhat of an intellectual glutton,

and had a craving for learning of all sorts and on all imaginable

subjects, made for himself a little book, in which he diligently

noted down every scrap that fell from the lips of his masters. This

book he subsequently published, and dedicated to Hildebold, Bishop of

Auxerre. Heiric himself afterwards became a man of letters; he was

appointed scholasticus of St. Germain’s of Auxerre, and was intrusted

with the education of Lothaire, son of Charles the Bald, as we learn

from the epistle addressed to that monarch which he prefixed to

his life of St. Germanus, in which he speaks of the young prince,

recently dead, as in years a boy, but in mind a philosopher. Another

of his pupils was the famous Remigius of Auxerre, who, towards the

end of the ninth century, was summoned to Rheims by Archbishop Fulk,

to re-establish sacred studies in that city, and worked there in

concert with his former schoolfellow, Hucbald of St. Amand, who

attained a curious sort of reputation by his poem on bald men, each

line of which began with the letter C, the whole being intended as

a compliment to Charles the Bald. Fulk himself became their first

pupil, and after thoroughly restoring the school of Rheims, Remigius

passed on to Paris, where we shall have occasion to notice him among

the teachers of the tenth century. From his time the schools of

Paris continued to increase in reputation and importance, till they

developed into the great university which may thus be distinctly

traced through a pedigree of learned men up to the great Alcuin

himself. This genealogy of pedagogues is of no small interest, as

showing the efforts made in the worst of times to keep alive the

spark of science and the persistence with which, in spite of civil

wars and Norman invasions, the scholastic traditions of Alcuin were

maintained.

We must not take leave of abbot Lupus without noticing one other

pupil of his, more celebrated than any yet named, the great St.

Ado of Vienne. He studied in the school of Ferrières under Sigulf,

Aldric and Lupus, and from his school life his masters predicted

his future sanctity. The jealousy of his companions obliging him

to leave Ferrières, he removed to Prom, and placed himself under

the discipline of the good abbot Marcward, and there taught the

sacred sciences for some years, after which he found himself able to

return to Ferrières. During the course of a journey into Italy he

met with an ancient martyrology, which served as the basis on which

he compiled his own, which was published in 858. Two years later he

became Archbishop of Vienne, and in that office did much for the

promotion of letters. The scholars of these dark ages were often

bound together in ties of very close friendship, founded on mutual

tastes, the recollection of early school days spent together under

some wise and well-loved master, and the exchange of good offices in

the shape of manuscripts lent and borrowed. If Ado’s intellectual

superiority had made him enemies among a few of the more churlish

spirits of Ferrières, his sweet and amiable disposition elsewhere

earned him many friends. Among these was the Deacon Wandalbert, a

monk of Prom, and the learned Florus of Lyons. When Ado left Prom,

Wandalbert succeeded him as scholasticus, and a famous one he made.

His peculiar line was natural philosophy, and in pursuing it he was

not content with gathering up other men’s ideas, but observed and

experimentalised for himself. He greatly excelled in poetry, and

produced a martyrology written in verse, in which, besides hymns in

honour of the different saints whom he commemorates, he contrives

to introduce short poems descriptive of the seasons, the different

rustic labours proper to each month, the beauties of nature under her

different aspects, seed-time and harvest, the vintage and the chase;

together with other more learned subjects, such as the movements of

the heavenly bodies by which we regulate our time. He gives rules for

telling the time by the length of shadow cast by the sun, though he

is careful to remind the reader that these rules will not be the same

in all countries, inasmuch as in those that lie more to the south

the shadows will necessarily be shorter, the earth being then more

directly under the solar rays.

We must now turn to the great abbey of Old Corby, where, as we have

already seen, Adalhard, a Palatine scholar, and a prince of the

blood-royal, had retired from the perils of a courtier’s life, and

become abbot. Unusual importance attached to its monastic school,

from the circumstance of its having been chosen by Charlemagne as

the academy to which the youth of Saxony were sent for education, in

order that on their return to their own country they might assist in

planting the Church on a solid foundation. The master chosen for the

task of rearing these future missionaries was Paschasius Radpert, one

of the most remarkable men of his time. Originally of very humble

birth, he owed his education to the charity of the nuns of Soissons,

who first received the desolate child into their own out-quarters,

and then sent him to some monks in the same city, under whose tuition

he acquired a fair amount of learning, and addicted himself to the

study of Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and Terence. He never forgot the

kindness of his early benefactresses, and in after years dedicated

his Treatise on the Virginity of the Blessed Virgin to the good nuns,

styling himself therein their _alumnus_, or foster-son. The deep

humility of this great scholar is spoken of by all his biographers

as his characteristic virtue, and is apparent in a passage which

occurs in his exposition of the 44th Psalm, which he dedicates to

these same nuns. In it he refers to the fact of his having received

the clerical tonsure in their Church, and, as it would seem, in their

presence. After expressing the reverence he feels for those whose

names are written in heaven, and whom he regards not only as the

spouses of Christ, but as the choicest flowers in the garden of the

Church, he goes on to say: “When I behold you I sigh bitterly to

think that this sacred crown, which as a boy I received before the

holy altar of the Mother of God, in the midst of your prayers and

offices of praise, I lost long ago, exiled in the world’s wilderness,

and stained by many worldly actions.... I pray you, therefore, when

you lift up your hearts on high, be mindful of me also, and implore

for me the divine grace, that the most clement Judge may restore to

me my lost crown.” In fact, after receiving the tonsure in early

youth, Paschasius, whose tastes for Terence and Cicero rather

predominated at that time over his relish for more sacred studies,

abandoned his first inclination for the cloister, and lived for some

years a secular life. Touched at last by divine grace, he entered the

abbey of Old Corby, and there made his profession under the abbot

Adalhard. All the ardour he had previously shown in the pursuit

of profane literature he now applied to the study of the Divine

Scriptures. Yet he only devoted to study of any kind those “furtive

hours,” as he calls them, which he was able to steal from the duties

of regular discipline, and was never seen so happy as when engaged

in the choral office or the meaner occupations of community life.

Such, then, was the master chosen by Adalhard for the responsible

office of scholasticus, and a very minute account is left us of his

manner of discharging its duties. Every day he delivered lectures

on the sacred sciences, besides preaching to the monks on Sundays

and Festivals. His thorough familiarity with the best Latin authors

appears from the frequent allusions to them which occur in his

writings. Quotations from the classic poets drop from his pen, as it

were, half unconsciously, and we are told that he continued to keep

up his acquaintance with them, so far as was necessary for teaching

others. But his own study was now chiefly confined to the Holy

Scriptures and the Fathers;[93] and among the latter, his favourites

were St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom,

St. Bede, and St. Gregory the Great. “He did not approve,” says his

biographer, “of the diligence displayed by some men of the time in

explaining and meditating on profane authors.” In a passage which

occurs in the preface to his exposition of St. Matthew’s Gospel, he

blames those lovers of secular learning, “who seek various and divers

expounders, that so they may attain to the understanding of beautiful

lies concerning shameful things, and who will not pass over--I do not

say a single page, but a single line or syllable, without thoroughly

investigating it, with the utmost labour and vigilance, while at the

same time they utterly neglect the Sacred Scriptures. I wonder,” he

continues, “that the Divine words can be so distasteful to them, and

that they can refuse to scrutinise the mysteries of God with the

same diligence they so unweariedly bestow on the follies of profane

tragedies and the foolish fables of the poets. Who can doubt that

such labour is altogether thrown away, being bestowed on a thing

undeserving of reward?” This was not the utterance of a narrow-minded

bigot, who condemned pursuits and tastes to which he was himself a

stranger. Few were more keenly alive than he to the charms of polite

literature, neither did he at all condemn its use within proper

limits, even among cloistered students. It would, indeed, have been

a difficult matter to have eradicated the love of the beautiful from

the heart of Paschasius. He possessed it in every shape, and was not

merely a poet, but a musician also. In one of his writings he lets

fall an observation which might be taken for a prose rendering of a

verse of Shelley’s, although the Christian scholar goes beyond the

infidel poet, and does not merely describe the sentiment which all

have felt, but traces it to its proper source. Shelley complains

that--

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Paschasius explains the mystery: “There is no song to be found,” he

says, “without a tone of sadness in it; even as here below there are

no joys without a mixture of sorrow; for songs of pure joy belong

only to the heavenly Sion, but lamentation is the property of our

earthly pilgrimage.” His musical tastes were perfectly shared and

understood by his master St. Adalhard, whose sensibility to the

influence of melodious sounds is spoken of by his biographer Gerard.

Even during his residence at the court of Charlemagne, it is said of

him that “he was always so full of a sweet intention towards God,

that if while assisting at the royal council he heard the sound of

some chance melody, he had it not in his power to refrain from tears,

for all sweet music seemed to remind him of his heavenly country.”

The importance attached to the study of music by the Christian

scholastics of these times is not a little remarkable. They inherited

the traditions of the ancients, and with them regarded music as a

science intimately associated with the knowledge of divine things.

They were the true descendants of those holy fathers of old, who, as

the son of Sirach tells us, “sought out musical tunes and published

canticles, and were rich in virtue, studying beautifulness, and

living at peace in their houses.” The narratives of our early

English schools will sufficiently have illustrated the fact that

music held a very prominent place in the system of education which

held sway in the early centuries; and the theory on which this high

esteem was based will nowhere be found better explained than in the

writings of Rabanus. “Musical discipline,” he says, “is so noble

and useful a thing, that without it no one can properly discharge

the ecclesiastical office. For whatsoever in reading is correctly

pronounced, and whatsoever in chanting is sweetly modulated, is

regulated by a knowledge of this discipline; and by it we not only

learn how to read and sing in the church, but also rightly perform

every rite in the divine service. Moreover, the discipline of music

is diffused through all the acts of our life. For when we keep the

commandments of God, and observe His law, it is certain that our

words and acts are associated by musical rhythm with the virtues

of harmony. If we observe a good conversation, we prove ourselves

associated with this discipline; but when we act sinfully, we have in

us no music.”[94]

Paschasius, then, was a poet and a musician, but he was also a

scientific theologian, and one who was in some degree in advance

of his age in the philosophic method he adopted when analysing

the dogmas of faith. In the year 831 he wrote his famous treatise

on the “Sacrament of the Altar,” which was specially intended for

the instruction of his Saxon pupils, who required a plain and

comprehensive exposition of that mystery. He composed it, therefore,

in a very simple style, comparing it to “milk for babes;” and it is

evident that in a treatise drawn up under such circumstances, for the

instruction of young converts, the author would necessarily seek,

not the setting forth of theological subtleties or private views,

but the simple, straightforward statement of the Church’s doctrine

as universally taught and believed by all the faithful. He declares

in very express and distinct terms that “the _substance of bread_ is

not to be found in the Sacrament, and that there is present only the

Real Body of Jesus Christ, the same that was born of the B. Virgin,

and was crucified, and rose again, and ascended into Heaven.”[95]

The treatise was dedicated to Warin, abbot of New Corby, and excited

no controversy until fifteen years later, when a second edition,

dedicated to Charles the Bald, fell into the hands of Scotus Erigena,

whose captious mind found matter of offence in the expressions used

by Paschasius. He, accordingly, wrote in reply _his_ treatise on

the “Holy Eucharist,” of which no copy now exists; for, after being

condemned by several Councils, all the copies that could be found

were ordered to be burnt in 1059, in consequence of the use made of

them by the Berengarian heretics. Paschasius defended his words by a

simple appeal to the universal sense of Christendom, which, since the

days of the Apostles, had never ceased to believe and confess this

salutary doctrine.

At the time when this vexatious controversy broke out he was abbot

of his monastery, and soon after retired from office, and joyfully

returned to his cell and his studies, spending his last days in the

completion of his greatest work, the “Commentary on St. Matthew’s

Gospel.” Whether in public or private life, his lowliness of spirit

was equally remarkable, while the self-sufficient presumption of his

opponent Erigena exhibits an ugly example of that knowledge which

puffeth up. In Paschasius we see the opposite virtue, which faileth

not “when tongues shall cease and knowledge shall be destroyed.”

He styled himself by no more honourable title than the “Monachorum

Peripsema,” and in his last sickness imposed so strict an injunction

on his brethren never to write his life, that they dared not disobey

him, and thus many interesting particulars concerning him have

necessarily been lost.

He left many disciples, among whom was Anscharius, who succeeded

him in the government of his school, and of whom we must now say

something. He had begun his school life very early, being sent to the

monastery after his mother’s death, when a child of only five; and,

says his biographer, Rembert, after the manner of young children, he

showed at first a much greater liking for childish sports than for

learning of any kind. At five this may perhaps be thought excusable,

but there are those whom wisdom preventeth, and when they go forth

they find her “sitting at their door.” And to Anscharius the love of

wisdom was brought by Her who is herself “the Mother of fair love,

and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope; in whom is all

grace of the way and of the truth, all hope of life and of virtue.”

One night he seemed to find himself in a dark and gloomy place, out

of which, when he sought to find some way of escape, he perceived

a delightful path wherein Our Lady appeared to him surrounded by a

crowd of saints clothed in white garments, among whom he recognised

his mother. He ran towards her, stretching out his childish hands;

whereupon the Blessed Virgin addressed him, saying: “My son, do you

wish to come to your mother? Know that if you would share in her

happiness you must fly from vanity, lay aside childish follies, and

abide in holiness of life. For we detest all vice and idleness;

neither can they who delight in such things be joined to our company.”

From this time Anscharius changed his conduct: he applied himself to

his tasks, and spent his whole time in reading and meditation, and

acquiring useful arts; so that his companions wondered at a change

the cause of which was unknown to them. As he grew in years he was

favoured with other heavenly visions, which I notice here, because it

is often said, and doubtless with much truth, that the occupations

of study and teaching have in them a direct tendency to dry up

the sources of devotion. When, therefore, in studying the history

of these ancient Christian schools we find among their teachers a

succession of saints, and even of contemplatives, who enjoyed the

most intimate communications with God, and were distinguished by the

highest supernatural gifts, one cannot but ask wherein the difference

lay; what divine secret they possessed enabling them to keep the

sweet fountain of holy tears from drying up, so that they seem to

have been wholly unconscious of the existence of any danger to the

spiritual life in the occupations of study or teaching, and regarded

such duties as in themselves spiritual. Possibly their safeguard

lay in those happy _retinacula_ of religious life of which St. Bede

speaks, and which, as we have seen, were regarded as their first

object even by scholars like Rabanus and Paschasius, who devoted to

study only the “furtive hours” not claimed by prayer and obedience.

And hence they created a tradition which was kept up in the Christian

schools down to a far later period, the grand principle of which

was to interweave spiritual with intellectual employment, and by

timely interruptions, prevent the whole nature from being poured

out over its mental work. In what manner this was effected in the

collegiate foundations of the Middle Ages we shall have occasion to

show hereafter; it is sufficient here to remind the reader that such

a system was naturally supplied by the discipline of religious life

in those cloistered schools which were the nurseries of Christian

education. And the result was that the monastic teachers were

something very unlike the modern notion of schoolmasters; they were

not mere men of the rod and the grammar; and it cannot but strike us

as remarkable how almost universally they are spoken of as enjoying,

in a very special degree, the gift of prayer. This was preeminently

the case with St. Anscharius, and some of his visions are related by

his biographer, Rembert, who had heard them in confidence from his

own lips. He mentions one remarkable revelation received by the saint

in the early part of his religious life, whence he understood that

he was to be called to preach the faith to heathen nations. Some of

these supernatural incidents are related as mixed up with ordinary

details of his life in the schools. While he was scholasticus of

Old Corby it was his invariable custom, says Rembert, when going to

and returning from the school, to turn aside into a little oratory

dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and there pray awhile in secret.

On one such occasion when he rose from his knees he saw standing

at the entrance One clothed after the Jewish fashion, beautiful in

countenance, from whose eyes went forth a Divine light. Recognising

it to be our Lord Anscharius prostrated at His feet, but in a sweet

voice He bid him rise, saying, “Confess thy sins, Anscharius, that

thou mayst receive pardon.” “What need is there, O Lord,” said

Anscharius, “that I should tell them to Thee, seeing that Thou

knowest them all?” But he replied, “I know them, indeed, nevertheless

I would have thee confess them that thou mayst be justified.”

Anscharius accordingly declared all the sins he had ever committed

since his childhood, and was consoled by the assurance that he

had received their full remission. About the same time, continues

Rembert, it happened that one of his little scholars, named Fulbert,

received a blow with a slate from another lad, of so serious a nature

that within a few days he died. When the accident was made known

to Anscharius, the good master was overwhelmed with anguish at the

thought of such a mischance having befallen a child committed to his

care. During the time that Fulbert continued to linger, Anscharius

never left his bedside, till at last, wearied out with sorrow and

long watching, they persuaded him to take some repose. He fell into

a heavy slumber, in which he was consoled by a gracious vision. He

seemed to see the dear child carried up to heaven by the hands of

the angels, and placed in the company of the martyrs; and, wondering

at the sight, it was explained to him that because Fulbert had borne

his wound with great patience, and had heartily loved and forgiven

him from whom he had received the injury, and had prayed much for

him, accepting his own premature death with loving submission to the

Divine will, his sweetness and resignation had deserved from the

Divine compassion so great a reward as to be placed among the holy

martyrs. Anscharius was still absorbed in the joy of this revelation

when he was roused by Witmar, a younger monk associated with him in

the government of the school, who came to tell him that even at that

very moment Fulbert had expired. He found that Anscharius already

knew it, and doubtless, adds Rembert, this comfort had been given him

by God that he might not grieve overmuch for the death of the child,

but might rather rejoice at the happy state of his soul.

Anscharius was one of those chosen to colonise the monastery of New

Corby, the mention of which requires a few words of explanation. The

foundation of this daughter-house was the great work of St. Adalhard,

who so soon as his young Saxons were sufficiently trained in learning

and monastic discipline, consulted them on the possibility of their

obtaining a suitable site for a foundation in their native land.

After many difficulties had been raised and overcome, ground was

procured, and the building of the abbey was begun. Adalhard repaired

thither to superintend operations in company with Paschasius and his

own brother Wala, who, brought up like himself as a soldier and a

courtier, had in former years held military command in Saxony and won

the affections of the people by his wise and gentle rule. When the

Saxons saw their old governor among them again in the monastic habit,

nothing could exceed their wonder and delight: they ran after him in

crowds, looking at him, and feeling him with their hands to satisfy

themselves that it was really he, paying no attention whatever to the

presence of the abbot or any other of his companions. The first stone

of the new abbey was laid on September 26, 822; Old Corby made over

to the new colony all the lands held by the community in Saxony; the

Emperor Louis gave them a charter, and some precious relics from his

private chapel, and in a few years that great seminary was completed

which was destined to carry the light of faith and science to the

pagan natives of the farther North. It would be hard to say which of

the two Corbies held the highest place in monastic history; a noble

emulation existed between them, each trying to outstrip the other in

the perfection of monastic discipline. New Corby, in her turn became

the mother-house of a vast number of German colonies, over all of

which she continued to maintain a certain superiority. A law was

made obliging every abbot of these branch-houses to keep a chronicle

of his monastery and send a copy of it to the Corby library; and by

another law, every novice on the day of his profession was bound to

present to the library some useful book. The library of new Corby

grew to be one of great value and importance, and its catalogue,

still preserved, exhibits the names of not a few Arabic and Hebrew

works. It was here also that in the days of Leo X. was disinterred

the famous manuscript of Tacitus, which may still be seen at Florence.

A monastery that cared so much for the formation of its library was

not likely to be indifferent to its school. It was the boast of

both Corbies in turns to possess Anscharius as their scholasticus,

“that great preceptor,” as Mabillon calls him, for his reputation

as a master was spread over all Germany. He was at the same time

appointed to preach to the people, an office particularly agreeable

to that apostolic spirit which he had never ceased to nurture in

his heart. The time was approaching when the prophetic vision of

former years, and the secret instincts of his own soul, were to be

accomplished. In 826 Harold, king of Denmark, having embraced the

faith, and been baptized with great pomp at Mentz, petitioned the

Emperor Louis to give him some holy missionaries, who might accompany

him home to Denmark, and plant the Church in that country. Wala,

then abbot of New Corby, fixed on Anscharius, and he, mindful of

the revelation which had long before assured to him the glory of an

apostolic career, joyfully accepted the mission, heedless alike of

the criticism of friends and enemies, who all found something to

say against it. Anscharius turned a deaf ear to their reasonings

and remonstrances, and withdrew to a certain vineyard in the

neighbourhood of Aix-la-Chapelle, where he prepared for his new

duties by a kind of spiritual retreat. Here he was sought out and

discovered by a monk of Old Corby, named Aubert, and thinking that

his visitor had only come to pester him with more advice, Anscharius

bade him spare himself the trouble of arguing the question, as he

had irrevocably made up his mind. “You have nothing to fear from

me,” said Aubert, “my only reason for coming to you, is to beg you

to accept me as your companion, if the abbot Wala can be brought

to give his consent.” Anscharius joyfully welcomed him as a fellow

labourer, and they soon after set out in company with the king. His

majesty, however, was more than half a barbarian, and the equipment

he provided for his missioners was not luxurious. The royal and

ecclesiastical retinue embarked on board a very dirty boat, the only

accommodation on board consisting of two miserable cabins in which

king and missioners were packed together with very little ceremony.

However, they arrived at last at their journey’s end, and began

their labours by opening a little school in Friesland, where they

received twelve children, among whom were the two sons of king Harold

himself. A little later we find them passing on to Sweden, attacked

on the way by pirates, and robbed of all their baggage, containing

their library of forty books. Such were the humble beginnings of a

great apostolate, which at its close found Anscharius Archbishop of

Hamburgh, and papal legate, not only over the Scandinavian kingdoms,

but also over Iceland and the distant shores of Greenland, which

are expressly named in the Bull of Pope Gregory IV. One of the most

successful means adopted by the saint for the propagation of the

faith, was the purchase of young Danes who were offered for sale as

slaves, and whom he then sent to Corby, whence, after receiving a

Christian education, they returned to their own country as zealous

missionaries.

It would take us too long, and probably prove but wearisome to the

reader, were we to examine in detail the foundation and history of

all the monastic schools of this period. Glance where we will, we

shall find indications of the same intellectual activity struggling

to make head against the darkness of a semi-barbarous age. The

schools of Hirschau, Hirsfield, Fleury, and Prom, might all be

made to furnish illustrations of the ardour with which scientific

and literary pursuits were carried on by their scholars. But while

passing over these and others, which have almost equal claims on our

interest, it is impossible to leave without notice two houses whose

prëeminent importance in the history of monastic studies has made

their names especially venerable: I mean the abbeys of Reichnau,

and St. Gall. The first foundation of St. Gall’s belongs indeed

to a date far earlier than that of which we are now treating: it

owed its origin to St. Gall, the Irish disciple of St. Columbanus,

who, in the seventh century, penetrated into the recesses of the

Helvetian mountains and there fixed his abode in the midst of a pagan

population. Under the famous abbot St. Othmar, who flourished in the

time of Pepin, the monks received the Benedictine rule, and from that

time the monastery rapidly grew in fame and prosperity, so that in

the ninth century it was regarded as the first religious house north

of the Alps. It is with a sigh of that irrepressible regret called

forth by the remembrance of a form of beauty that is dead and gone

for ever, that the monastic historian hangs over the early chronicles

of St. Gall. It lay in the midst of the savage Helvetian wilderness,

an oasis of piety and civilisation. Looking down from the craggy

mountains, the passes of which open upon the southern extremity of

the lake of Constance, the traveller would have stood amazed at the

sudden apparition of that vast range of stately buildings which

almost filled up the valley at his feet. Churches and cloisters,

the offices of a great abbey, buildings set apart for students and

guests, workshops of every description, the forge, the bakehouse, and

the mill, or rather mills, for there were ten of them, all in such

active operation, that they every year required ten new millstones;

and then the house occupied by the vast numbers of artisans and

workmen attached to the monastery gardens too, and vineyards creeping

up the mountain slopes, and beyond them fields of waving corn, and

sheep speckling the green meadows, and far away boats busily plying

on the lake and carrying goods and passengers--what a world it was

of life and activity; yet how unlike the activity of a town! It

was, in fact, not a town, but a house,--a family presided over by a

father, whose members were all knit together in the bonds of common

fraternity. I know not whether the spiritual or the social side of

such a religious colony were most fitted to rivet the attention.

Descend into the valley, and visit all these nurseries of useful

toil, see the crowds of rude peasants transformed into intelligent

artisans, and you will carry away the impression that the monks

of St. Gall had found out the secret of creating a world of happy

Christian factories. Enter their church and listen to the exquisite

modulations of those chants and sequences peculiar to the abbey which

boasted of possessing the most scientific school of music in all

Europe; visit their scriptorium, their library, and their school, or

the workshop where the monk Tutilo is putting the finishing touch

to his wonderful copper images, and his fine altar frontals of gold

and jewels, and you will think yourself in some intellectual and

artistic academy. But look into the choir, and behold the hundred

monks who form the community at their midnight office and you will

forget everything, save the saintly aspect of those servants of God

who shed abroad over the desert around them the good odour of Christ,

and are the apostles of the provinces which own their gentle sway.

You may quit the circuit of the abbey and plunge once more into the

mountain region which rises beyond, but you will have to wander

far before you find yourself beyond the reach of its softening,

humanising influence. Here are distant cells and hermitages with

their chapels, where the shepherds come for early mass; or it may be

that there meets you, winding over the mountain paths of which they

sing so sweetly,[96] going up and down among the hills into the thick

forests and the rocky hollows, a procession of the monks carrying

their relics, and followed by a peasant crowd. In the schools you

may have been listening to lectures in the learned, and even in the

Eastern tongues; but in the churches, and here among the mountains,

you will hear these fine classical scholars preaching plain truths,

in barbarous idioms, to a rude race, who before the monks came among

them sacrificed to the Evil One, and worshipped stocks and stones.

Yet, hidden away as it was among its crags and deserts, the abbey of

St. Gall’s was almost as much a place of resort as Rome or Athens--at

least to the learned world of the ninth century. Her schools were

a kind of university, frequented by men of all nations, who came

hither to fit themselves for all professions. You would have found

here not monks alone and future scholastics, but courtiers, soldiers,

and the sons of kings. The education given was very far from being

exclusively intended for those aspiring to the ecclesiastical state;

it had a large admixture of the secular element, at any rate in the

exterior school. Not only were the Sacred sciences taught with the

utmost care, but the classic authors were likewise explained; Cicero,

Horace, Virgil, Lucan, and Terence were read by the scholars, and

none but the very little boys presumed to speak in any tongue but

Latin. The subjects for their original compositions were mostly

taken from Scripture and Church history, and having written their

exercises they were expected to recite them, the proper tones being

indicated by musical notes. Many of the monks excelled as poets,

others cultivated painting and sculpture, and other exquisite

cloistral arts; all diligently applied to the grammatical formation

of the Tudesque dialect and rendered it capable of producing a

literature of its own. Their library in the eighth century was only

in its infancy, but gradually became one of the richest in the world.

They were in correspondence with all the learned monastic houses

of France and Italy, from whom they received the precious codex,

now of a Virgil or a Livy, now of the Sacred Books and sometimes

of some rare treatise on medicine or astronomy. They were Greek

students, moreover, and those most addicted to the cultivation of

the “Cecropian Muse” were denominated the “fratres Ellenici.” The

beauty of their early manuscripts is praised by all authors, and the

names of their best transcribers find honourable mention in their

annals. They manufactured their own parchment out of the hides of

the wild beasts that roamed through the mountains and forests around

them, and prepared it with such skill that it acquired a peculiar

delicacy. Many hands were employed on a single manuscript. Some

made the parchment, others drew the fair red lines, others wrote

on the pages thus prepared; more skilful hands put in the gold and

the initial letters, and more learned heads compared the copy with

the original text, this duty being generally discharged during the

interval between matins and lauds, the daylight hours being reserved

for actual transcription. Erasure, when necessary, was rarely made

with the knife, but an erroneous word was delicately drawn through by

the pen, so as not to spoil the beauty of the codex. Lastly came the

binders, who enclosed the whole in boards of wood cramped with ivory

or iron, the Sacred Volumes being covered with plates of gold and

adorned with jewels.

In such a school it was no wonder that the pupils of St. Gall, like

those of Eton, became famous for their good writing. Ekhehard I. had

a method in this as in everything else; if he found a boy dull over

his grammar he set him to copy; arguing that nature was an economist

in her gifts, and did not dispense all to all; and that often where

the head was somewhat slow in learning, the deficiency was made up by

an extra dexterity with the fingers. But boys were never employed on

the Gospels, or Church service books, these being reserved for men

of perfect age, who would bring greater care to their responsible

task. We have even the copy ordinarily set for beginners in the

monastic scriptorium, a doggerel line, introducing every letter of

the alphabet:

“Adnexique globum Zephyrique Kanna secabant.”

That the labour of transcription was often exceedingly irksome, is

evident from sundry notes scattered over these manuscripts. “As the

sick man desireth health,” writes one, “even so doth the transcriber

desire the end of his volume.” Another contents himself with the

laconic observation, “written with great trouble;” but a third, who

may be supposed to have been employed over a very tough copy, breaks

out into verse, and exclaims at his last page:

“Libro completo

Saltat scriptor pede læto.”

The monks of St. Gall were no less famous for their music than for

their painting. Their musical tastes were inherited probably from

their Irish founders, and were further improved by the teaching

of those Roman cantors, whom we have seen in a former page sent

into France, at Charlemagne’s request, to civilise the barbarous

singing of his Frankish cantors. On their way back into Italy, one

of them, to whom the St. Gall historians give the name of Romanus,

was attacked by fever, and stopping at the Swiss monastery, was

there charitably entertained and nursed by the brethren, who had

excellent doctors among them. In return, he taught them the Roman

chant, and bestowed on them the identical antiphonarium he had

brought from Rome, making a certain case or instrument to contain it.

“And to this day,” writes Ekhehard, “if there is any dispute about

the singing, the error may be detected by consulting this book.”

Moreover, this Romanus was the first who thought of assigning the

letters of the alphabet to the musical notes, a system which Notker

Balbulus afterwards explained, and which, being further elucidated

by a certain friend of his named Lambert, was adopted throughout

Germany.[97]

Leaving a more particular notice of the studies and students of this

great abbey for a future chapter, I must here add a few words on

another religious house, the history of which is closely associated

with that of St. Gall, and where the sciences flourished in equal

perfection under the shelter of those lofty mountains which shut out

the tumult of the world and the incursions of the barbarians. At the

western extremity of the lake of Constance, just where it narrows

towards the outlet of the Rhine, lies a green island sparkling

like an emerald gem on the unruffled surface of the waters. There,

half hidden amid the luxuriant foliage, you may still see the grey

minster of that famous abbey called Augia by its Latin historians,

but better known by its German name of Reichnau. Walafrid Strabo,

the pupil of Rabanus and the chief chronicler of his time, was

abbot of Reichnau in the ninth century, and in one of his poems has

painted its situation in very exact terms. He gives the succession

of abbots from St. Pirminius, who first established himself in the

island in the reign of Pepin, and shows that the school was one of

the very earliest which had at that time attained celebrity. I have

already spoken of Walafrid’s fame as a master, but I cannot here omit

mentioning his pupil and biographer, Ermenric, who has made himself

known to us by a letter which he wrote after paying what seems to

have been a very pleasant visit at St. Gall’s. Walafrid had sent him

there for a holiday, and on his return he expressed the enjoyment it

had given him, in an epistle addressed to abbot Grimoald. As soon as

he crossed the lake, he says, he found himself welcomed by a group of

illustrious men. “There,” he continues, “I found each one humbler and

more patient than his fellow. I saw neither envy nor jealousy, but

all were bound together with the triple chord of charity, simplicity,

and concord. How shall I speak of the generosity of Engilbert, or the

kindness of that most clever brother Hartmod? It would be impossible

for me to do justice to the excellence which these servants of God

had attained in so many of the arts, but you may judge of the birds

by looking at the nests which they inhabit. Examine their cloister

and you will agree with what I say. What else can I call Winhart but

a second Dædalus? or Isenric but another Beseleel? for indeed the

graving tool is never out of his hand, save when he stands at the

altar to exercise his sacred ministry. And yet there is such humility

among them that no one disdains the humblest employment, remembering

those words of Scripture, ‘the prayer of the humble shall pierce the

clouds.’”

Reichnau, however, had its own line of great masters, among whom

Ermenric, who could do such generous justice to the excellence of

others, was himself worthy to be reckoned. The most illustrious

was, perhaps, the cripple Hermann Contractus, originally a pupil

of St. Gall’s, who is said to have prayed that he might not regain

the use of his limbs, but that he might receive instead a knowledge

of the Scriptures. He was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and

Arabic; he wrote treatises on history, poetry, ethics, astronomy,

and mathematics; he calculated eclipses, and explained Aristotle,

and, in spite of an impediment in his speech, his lectures were

so learned that he had pupils from the most distant provinces of

Italy. He set his own poems to music, made clocks and organs, and

was as much revered for his sanctity as his universal genius. Many

hymns and antiphons used by the Church are attributed to his pen,

among others the _Alma Redemptoris_. But if Hermann was the most

famous scholar of Reichnau, a yet greater celebrity, though of a

different kind, attaches to the name of Meinrad. The story of his

vocation to the eremitical life affords an apt illustration of the

contemplative character already noticed as so frequently belonging

to the early pedagogues: and as it presents us with an agreeable

picture of a “whole play-day” in the Dark Ages, we will give it as

it stands in the pages of the monk Berno. Meinrad was the son of a

Swabian nobleman of the house of Hollenzollern, and had studied in

the monastic school under abbot Hatto and his own uncle Erlebald.

When the latter became abbot he appointed Meinrad to the care of the

school which was attached to a smaller house dependent on Reichnau,

and situated at a spot called Bollingen, on the lake of Zurich.

He accordingly removed thither, and had singular success with his

scholars, whom he inspired with great affection by reason of his

gentle discipline. He used to take them out for walking parties

and fishing parties, into what Berno, his biographer, calls “the

wilderness,” a wilderness, however, which was adorned with a majestic

beauty to which Meinrad was not insensible. One day he and his boys

crossed the lake in a small boat, and landing on the opposite shore

sought for some quiet spot where they might cast their fishing

lines. Finding a little stream which flowed into the lake and gave

good promise of trout, Meinrad left them to pursue their sport and

strolled about, meditating on the joys of that solitary life after

which he secretly pined. After a while, returning to his scholars, he

found that their fishing had been unusually successful, and taking up

their baskets, they retraced their steps to the village of Altendorf,

where they entered the house of a certain matron to rest and refresh

themselves with food. Whilst the boys ate and drank, and enjoyed

themselves in their own way, Meinrad and their hostess engaged in

conversation, and Meinrad, who was full of the thoughts to which his

mountain walk had given rise, opened his whole heart to her. “Beyond

all riches,” he said, “I desire to dwell alone in this solitude

that so I might wholly give myself to prayer, could I but find some

one who would minister to me in temporal things.” The good lady

immediately offered to provide him with whatever he wanted, in order

to carry out his design; and the result of that day’s fishing-party

was the establishment of the former scholasticus of Bollingen in a

little hermitage which he constructed for himself out of the wattled

boughs of trees. But he found himself in one way disappointed; he

had sought the desert to fly from the world, and the world followed

him thither in greater throngs than he had ever encountered at

Reichnau. The saints possess a strange power of attraction, and

neither mountains nor forests are able to hide them. In his own day

men compared St. Meinrad to the Baptist, because the multitudes went

out into the wilderness to hear him preach penance and remission of

sins. For seven years he continued to dispense the Word of Life to

the pilgrims who gathered about him from all parts of Europe. But one

day unable to resist his longing for retreat, he took his image of

Our Lady, a missal, a copy of St. Benedict’s rule, and the works of

Cassian, and laden with these, his only treasures, he plunged into

the forest, and choosing a remote and secluded spot erected a rude

chapel which he dedicated to Our Lady, and a yet ruder dwelling for

himself. There he lived for thirty years, and at the end of that time

he was assassinated in his hermitage by some ruffians who hoped to

find some hidden treasure in his cell. His body was carried back to

Reichnau, and in after years the great sanctuary of Einsidlen rose

over the site of his hermitage, where is still venerated the image of

Our Lady which he had formerly carried thither with his own hands.

We are now in a position to form some idea of the real character

of these early monastic schools, and of the teaching which they

conveyed. From the eighth to the twelfth century, the scholastic

system underwent so little change, that we may select our

illustrations indifferently from any part of that period, without

risk of inaccuracy.

First, then, as to the schoolroom itself. In most cases the interior

or claustral schools of monasteries and cathedrals were held in the

cloisters. A strange contrast, indeed, to the luxurious requirements

of modern times; but boarded floors, patent stoves, and easy-backed

forms were luxuries undreamt of by the hardy Frankish or Gothic

students who studied under Walafrid or Rabanus. It is not until the

fifteenth century that we meet with a document hinting at the novelty

of providing schoolrooms with boarded floors.[98] The cloisters of

York and Worcester, now so desolate and deserted, were once peopled

with a busy race of scholars, who probably suffered often enough,

like the pupils of Bede, from stiffened fingers and bleeding cracks.

Even so late as the twelfth century, the schools of Paris were held

in the cloisters of Nôtre Dame, and only removed thence when the

repose of the canons was disturbed by the unruly crowds who rushed

to listen to the lectures of Abelard. The number of scholars received

into a monastery varied according to its size. At St. Riquier, where

there were 300 monks, abbot Angilbert wished never to have less than

a hundred children, the sons of dukes, counts, and kings.[99] They

were seldom or never left alone, and in the cloister or schoolroom

the master’s seat was so arranged, that all were under his eye.

It does not seem, however, that the surveillance in school-hours

was carried out with any excessive rigidity, for we find frequent

notice of the pranks and surreptitious consumption of good things

perpetrated by the school boys in the temporary absence of their

masters. In the dormitories, however, the discipline was more strict;

there the lamp was kept constantly burning, and though there are no

traces of an odious espionage, there is evidence of a constant, ever

present vigilance. Awaked in the morning by the wooden signal board

of the master, the children were conducted to the lavatory by the

“pedagogues” or junior assistants of the school. These pedagogues

were very numerous, and their duties were various. Among other things

it belonged to them to see to the cleanliness and neatness of dress

and person, a thing not at all despised in the Dark Ages. At Cluny,

where in the twelfth century all the older monastic traditions of

school discipline were resumed and perfected, it was not permitted

for the children to sit together on benches, but each one had his

own little box, in which he kept his writing materials, and which

also served him for a seat. A midday siesta was allowed at Cluny,

but no one was permitted to read or write on his bed.[100] In all

these regulations may plainly be seen a solicitude for order and

good morals, together with a certain tone of refinement, which is

more than we should expect, and which satisfies us how profoundly

the whole subject of education had been studied by the medieval

masters. Their ideas on the subject of punishment were in more simple

accordance with those of Solomon than our fastidious age would

approve. The rod, in fact, was so very generally used, that under the

form of the ferule it afterwards became the badge of the bachelor

in arts, and was solemnly delivered to him when he took his degree.

Medieval schoolboys were not more fond of a flogging than those of

later growth, and to escape it the scholars of St. Gall once adopted

the extraordinary expedient of setting fire to the monastery. Yet

with all this austerity of discipline, nothing is more certain than

that the monastic masters possessed the secret of making themselves

beloved, and that the love which they inspired was not the less

familiar because mingled with respect. I may add, that at Cluny,

though flogging was permitted, boxing on the ears was strictly

prohibited, apparently with the view of allowing no indulgence to the

irritated feelings of the master. Punishment, like everything else

at Cluny, was administered in an orderly and methodical manner; in

fact, the peculiar excellence of the Cluniacs lay in their manner of

systematising everything, whether homely or sublime.

The masters in most large schools were very numerous, but none were

allowed to hold any office until of mature age. At Fulda there

were twelve professors and a principal (_Principalis_), besides

assistants.[101] In the cathedral schools, in like manner, there

was the _Archischolus_ and his assistants, and the _Proscholus_, or

prefect of discipline.[102] The reader will perhaps smile when he

hears that one of the duties of the _Proscholus_ was to teach the

children how to walk, bow, and behave in presence of superiors. This,

however, was a speciality of the Canons Regular. Learning was not

the only qualification required in a master. He was to be of tried

virtue. The office of teacher was a cure of souls, and so great was

the honour in which it was held, that bishops even, who had formerly

filled the post of scholasticus, not unfrequently affixed their old

to their new title, when signing their names.

The education of the scholars began at a very early age, sometimes at

five or six. The first task consisted in learning by heart certain

portions of Holy Scripture, and specially of the Psalter. Even

those who very early abandoned their books for the more congenial

exercises of the tilt-yard, seldom did so till they had run through

their Psalter: “_decurso psalterio_,” is a common expression used

in speaking of a youth who had left school with the least possible

smattering of an education. As for those who stayed a more reasonable

time at school, they acquired, besides their profane learning, a

familiarity with the Church office and with the words of Holy Writ,

not certainly possessed by all scholars of the present day. This is

abundantly illustrated by the histories of the times. Thus Einold

of Toul, sitting at the window of his cell, hears a voice chanting

the words, “I will give you the heritage of your father Jacob,” and

at once concludes that it must be a schoolboy conning his morning’s

task. How beautiful is that story which we find in the chronicle of

Monte Cassino, of the monk Levitius, who, returning from Jerusalem,

came to Mount Albaneta, where he proposed to build a monastery. As

he was inspecting the site of his new foundation, he saw approaching

him a little school boy, carrying his bag of books on his shoulders,

and the thought came into his head that he would ask him if he

could sing. The boy replying that he could, Levitius told him to

sing the first thing he could remember, secretly resolving that

he would place the church under the dedication of any saint the

boy might happen to name. The little scholar thought a moment, and

then intoned the Antiphon, _Veni electa mea_, which he sang with

much sweetness. Levitius listened with delight, and the monastery

which afterwards rose on the spot was dedicated to the Ever Blessed

Virgin. Scholars of all ages were very largely exercised in what one

old monk calls “the holy memory.” Learning by rote was used more

generally than among ourselves, partly because books were rare, and

all could not enjoy the luxury of a Psalter or Breviary for private

use; and partly, because the teachers of old time sought to sanctify

this power of the soul, by thoroughly informing it with holy words.

Besides the Psalter, the novices of a religious house were expected

to know the New Testament at least by heart, half-an-hour a day being

assigned for the purpose.

The liberal arts were, as is well known, classed under two heads,

the _trivium_, which included grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and

the _quadrivium_, which embraced arithmetic, geometry, music, and

astronomy. This division is expressed in the well-known distich:--

Gram: loquitur. Dia. vera docet. Rhet. verba colorat.

Mus. canit. Ar. numerat. Geo. ponderat. Ast. colit astra.

The trivium, with the Ecclesiastical chant, and so much of arithmetic

as was required for the computation of the calendar, was taught in

all schools; the quadrivium only in those which embraced the higher

studies. Music was divided into two kinds, the _cantus_, which

formed part of the routine of studies even in the lower schools, and

_musica_, properly so called, which included the theory of music,

a knowledge of the laws of sound, and the connection of harmony

with numbers. And this explains how it was that a knowledge of

music was in those days considered a proof that its possessor was a

well-educated man: it evidenced that he had not only gone through

the elementary studies of the trivium, but that he had completed his

education in one of those higher schools in which the quadrivium

also was taught. And these higher schools were frequented not only

by ecclesiastics but by laics, whose inferiority to the clergy in

point of mental culture has been greatly overstated, and where it

existed, was the effect of accident rather than of system. Men who

by force of necessity were called into the field at a very early

age, and engaged in active military service during the greater part

of their lives, had seldom much time to devote to study; but there

was no sort of prejudice against their becoming as learned as they

chose. Abbot Philip, of Good Hope, who lived in the time of St.

Bernard, when the institution of Chivalry had certainly not tended

to render the lay-nobles more studious, protests against the notion

that learning is the exclusive apanage of the clergy. “Many laymen,”

he says, “are well instructed in letters. When a prince can withdraw

from the tumult of arms and business he should study himself in books

just as he contemplates his face in a mirror.” And he proceeds to

speak in commendation of the noble Count Charles who was “as prompt

in meditating the Psalms as in drawing the sword to avenge outraged

justice,” and Count Adolph “who ceased not to bless his parents for

the good education they had given him.” Of Henry, Count of Champagne,

it is said that between his warlike expeditions, when not engaged in

the judicial duties of his rank, he delighted in withdrawing to some

retired part of his castle and entertaining himself with a classic

author or a volume of the Fathers. And in the Imperial library is

still to be seen a fine copy of Valerius Maximus, written out for him

by the monks of Provins. Every one is familiar with the name of Fulk

the Good, Count of Anjou, against whose learning Hallam has directed

so uncourteous a sneer. The story, threadbare as it is, affords too

good an illustration of the subject to be omitted. He was accustomed

to sing in choir with the canons of St. Martin’s of Tours, and when

ridiculed by king Louis IV. of France, for the habit, sent to that

monarch a pithy epistle to the following effect: “Know, sir, that

an illiterate king is a crowned ass.” “It seems, then,” observes

Hallam, “that with the monkish historians a knowledge of music passed

for literature. The same writer calls Geoffrey Plantagenet _optime

literatus_, which perhaps imports little more learning than was

possessed by his ancestor, Fulk.”[103] The monkish biographer here

alluded to meant nothing of the kind, but he knew, as both Fulk and

Louis also knew, that at that time a knowledge of music might be

taken as a tolerably satisfactory token that the musician had studied

at one of the higher schools, and completed the full course of the

quadrivium. And such, indeed, was the case with Fulk, who, as the

same biographer tells us a few pages further on, was well read in

Cicero and Aristotle.

A methodical idea of the system of education which prevailed in the

higher monastic schools, is given in a little manual called the

“Doctrinale Puerorum,” the authority of which is beyond dispute.

Though the production of the twelfth century, so little change took

place in the system of studies from the time of Charlemagne to that

of Lanfranc that it may be taken as equally descriptive of the

method followed in the ninth and tenth. According to the writer of

this manual a child as soon as he had learnt to read and write, set

to work on the Latin Grammar of Donatus or Priscian, if he were so

fortunate as to be able to provide himself with a book. The larger

number of pupils probably had to depend on the oral instructions

dictated by their master, and their own notes of his lessons. We know

for certain that not only grammar, but rhetoric and the explanation

of classic authors were taught orally, rules and examples being

thus dictated and learnt by frequent repetition. From their ninth

to their twelfth year the boys studied elementary Latin books,

specially the Fables of Esop, and the poems of Christian authors,

such as Theodulus, who, in the tenth century, wrote in verse the

miracles of the Old and New Testaments, with the view of providing

young children with suitable class-books. The _Distichia Moralia_,

commonly attributed to Cato, a very old class-book, was probably

the authorship of some Christian writer of the seventh century;

and has found a home even in the Eastern languages. As the boys

advanced in years, select portions from the works of Seneca, Ovid,

Virgil, Persius, and Horace, but specially of Lucan and Statius

were placed in their hands, explained and committed to memory, and

these were followed by Cicero, Quinctilian, and the Latin version of

Aristotle.[104]

Some readers will, doubtless, be tempted to regard such an account

of the ancient course of classical studies as a work of the

imagination. They will call to mind the scruples of Alcuin and the

condemnation passed by Paschasius on those who spent their time

in the explanation of the profane poets. But it may be observed,

that the very examples so often quoted to prove that the monks

disapproved of the study of the classics, show us that at any

rate they knew a good deal about them. Alcuin had studied Virgil

himself before he forbade Sigulf to do so, and so had St. Odo, who

prohibited the reading of the Mantuan bard, after he had seen in a

vision a vessel full of serpents, which he understood to represent

his works. And the strictures of Paschasius on those who neglected

the Scriptures, while they weighed every line and syllable of Pagan

authors, shows at least how extensively those authors were read. But

it must strike every impartial reader that these prohibitions do,

in fact, prove nothing at all as to the state of school studies.

They apply entirely to the use of the classics, not among students,

but among the monks themselves. Because it was thought undesirable

that young ecclesiastics should spend their time in the study of

the profane poets, and because their attention was rather directed

by their superiors to the cultivation of sacred science, we must

not, certainly, conclude in the face of evidence that the classics

were excluded from the schools. Teachers in the ninth century were

no less solicitous than those of the nineteenth to form the mind

and the style of their scholars; their compositions are perhaps not

quite so full of the _membra disjecta_ of Tully as a scholar of

the Renaissance might have desired, yet he was certainly read, and

though the imitations of Virgil and Ovid attempted by these obscure

writers may be very indifferent, they could only have been produced

by men who were perfectly familiar with the original writings of the

Latin poets. Mabillon has not failed to draw the distinction between

the studies pursued by monks and bishops, and those of masters

and scholars.[105] He quotes two passages very much to the point,

in one of which Lanfranc declines entering into certain questions

appertaining to secular literature, submitted to him by the monk

Domnoald, because he says, “though in my youth I delighted in such

things, I determined wholly to renounce them when I accepted the

pastoral charge.” In the other passage St. Anselm writes to his old

pupil, Maurice, and advises him to read Virgil, and the other good

Latin authors, as much as he can, excepting always such passages as

offend good morals.

This last condition is often insisted on; nor was it until the

period of the classic Renaissance that the _indiscriminate_ use

of the classics by the young was tolerated. Rabanus in his book

_De Institutione Clericorum_, while permitting the study of

profane literature, even to clerics, stipulates that it be read

for edification, and that whatever has a contrary tendency be put

aside. The monastic scholars even recognised that reflection of

primeval tradition which gleams through the pagan authors, and

which, as Ozanam says, opened to Virgil the schools of the Middle

Ages. What they did not allow was that the exclusive study of these

models should be suffered to paganise the Christian mind, and they

contrived, therefore, in explaining the works of Cicero or Plato

to weave a Christian tone into the lessons by connecting them or

comparing them with passages from the Holy Scriptures.

Latin was the only language universally cultivated, though the

other learned tongues were not entirely neglected. Bede and Alcuin

certainly possessed a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and, no doubt,

communicated their learning to some of their pupils. Greek, as we

have seen, was studied at St. Gaul’s, and Charlemagne, who himself

had some knowledge of that tongue, founded a Greek college at

Osnaburgh, chiefly with a view to providing ecclesiastics whose

familiarity with the language of the Eastern empire might be of

service to him in his constant intercourse with Constantinople. Some

writers whose aim it is to represent the learning of these centuries

as altogether unworthy of notice, affect to doubt whether the Greek

college, if proposed, were ever really founded; but the evidence of

contemporary historians is positive on the point. “Do not wonder,”

writes the chronicler of Ottberg, “that the abbot of Hermann should

always have carried with him a Greek Testament, that learned man

was well skilled in the Greek tongue, which he had learnt in the

Caroline college at Osnaburgh, for in that foundation all the clergy

were skilled in Greek as well as in Latin.” Louis the Debonnaire and

Charles the Bald were both Greek scholars, and the latter monarch

had a Greek and Latin glossary compiled for the use of the Church of

Laon, which he would hardly have had done had there been none capable

of using it. Florus, the learned deacon of the Church of Lyons,

was well versed not only in Greek but Hebrew, as we learn from the

following circumstance. A certain abbot, Hyldrade, sent him a Latin

Psalter, begging him to correct it carefully, that it might serve as

a copy for his monks to transcribe from. Among the many curious and

valuable monuments of antiquity discovered by the late Cardinal Mai,

is the reply of Florus to this request. From it we find that he had

compared the Latin version of St. Jerome with the Septuagint, and

suspecting that the text of St. Jerome had itself become corrupted by

careless copying, had likewise collated it with the original Hebrew.

He quotes what he calls “the well-known” letter of St. Jerome to two

learned Celts, pointing out the errors in the vulgar copies; but

Rohrbacher remarks that this letter was well-known only in the ninth

century, for in ours it no longer exists. The whole letter of Floras

is exceedingly valuable as evidence of the extraordinary learning and

diligence bestowed on the correction of the Sacred Text.[106]

Nevertheless, an examination of the catalogues of early monastic

libraries, makes it clear that the study of Greek, if not wholly

neglected, was exceptional, and certainly did not include any

extensive acquaintance with ancient Greek literature. Among the

books named as the favourites of St. Paschasius, we find the works

of St. John Chrysostom; but in general the book collections are only

rich in the Latin Fathers. Scotus Erigena evidently introduced a

novelty when he translated the works of St. Denys the Areopagite,

and the eagerness displayed by Louis the Debonnaire to possess a

Latin version of the works of this author arose, perhaps, less

from an interest in Greek letters, than from the opinion, then

finding favour with Gallican scholars, which identified him with the

Apostle of France.[107] The mention, however, of any Greek poets or

philosophers is exceedingly rare. Homer, as has been said, had been

brought into England by Archbishop Theodore, and the St. Gall library

contained the works of Sophocles, but these are certainly exceptions,

and we may conclude that a knowledge of the Greek language was a

rare accomplishment, from the extreme complacency with which the

possession of a very superficial smattering of it was often regarded.

Hincmar, of Rheims, warns his nephew to avoid the foolish affectation

of some, who pick a handful of Greek words out of their glossaries to

adorn their pages and give them a learned look; a folly too common

also with our native scholars.

The sciences of arithmetic and geometry were probably taught in

rather a meagre form, until the genius of Gerbert, in the tenth

century, gave fresh impulse to these branches of learning. We have

seen what difficulties attended their study in the days of St.

Aldhelm; nevertheless the path of the young student was somewhat

smoothed by pleasant devices, and the Anglo-Saxon masters quickened

the brains of their pupils by problems and questions, some of which,

such is the power of tradition, have kept their places in our own

school-books. Arithmetical problems, such as the following, were

propounded to the schoolboys of Alcuin and Rabanus: “The swallow once

invited the snail to dinner; he lived just a league from the spot,

and the snail travelled at the rate of one inch a day: how long was

he before he dined?” Or, again: “An old man met a child; ‘Good day,

my son,’ he said, ‘may you live as long as you have lived and as much

more, and thrice as much as all that put together, and then if God

give you one year more, you will be just a century old;’ how old was

the boy?”

Besides the sciences above enumerated, some schools, and particularly

those of England, taught a certain amount of natural philosophy,

very imperfect, if compared with our own larger and more accurate

knowledge of these subjects, yet valuable in its way, as directing

the mind to a branch of learning where improvement could only be

hoped for by patient and persevering observation. Geography, again,

though in its infancy, was a favourite study with the Anglo-Saxons,

and from none did it receive greater extension than from king Alfred,

who added whole chapters to the science as it existed before his

time. This, in common with a great many other branches of knowledge,

was sometimes taught to tardy scholars by the help of verses. Several

versified summaries of grammatical rules and geographical definitions

are in existence in very early English, but for the credit of the

geographers, I will not say in what quarter of the globe they place

the land of Egypt.

We have yet to speak, however, of a far more important subject

connected with the early monastic schools, the religious training of

their pupils, and the sacred studies which they pursued. In nothing,

probably, did the ancient system of education differ more widely from

our own, than in the amount of vocal prayer in which children were

expected to take a part. Of course we must bear in mind when reading

of children assisting at all the Canonical Hours of the monastery in

which they were educated, that in most cases the children spoken of

were those “offered” by their parents and intended for the monastic

state. They were the pupils of the interior or claustral schools;

and it is probable that those belonging to the exterior school were

subject to a less rigorous discipline. Still, in either case, they

were children, with the propensities common to all children, whether

of the ninth or nineteenth centuries; yet we find nothing to indicate

that the choral attendance described by the Anglo-Saxon schoolboy in

the dialogues of Ælfric, was found by experience to be excessive.

“To-day,” says the boy, “I have done many things; this night, when

I heard the knell, I arose from my bed and went to the church and

sang Night-song with the brethren; after that we sang the service of

All Saints and the morning Lauds; then followed Prime and the Seven

Psalms, and the Litanies, and the first Mass; then Tierce, and the

Mass of the day; then Sext; and then we ate and drank and went to

sleep, and rose again and sang None; and now we are here before thee

ready to hear what thou hast to say to us.” “Who awakens you for

Night-song?” asks the interlocutor. “Sometimes,” answers the scholar,

“I hear the knell, and rise of myself; but ofttimes the master

arouseth me with his rod.”

If this attendance in choir surprise us as being daily required from

young children, we must remember that the habits of the grown-up

laity in early ages would be equally at variance with our own. The

Divine Office of the Church was not then exclusively recited by

priests and religious; the faithful assisted even at the Night-hours,

and were constantly urged to do so. In the days of Charlemagne, as

in those of St. John Chrysostom, rich and poor, men and women, took

part in that sublime worship, and so eager were they in their desire

to join in the chant, that it became necessary for abbots to issue

injunctions, forbidding their monks to cut up their Psalters in order

to distribute the leaves to seculars who solicited the precious

fragments, certain devout women being foremost among the beggars.

Without some knowledge of the habits of the time, we can form no

tolerably fair judgment on the education which was of course fitted

and adapted to those habits. The spirit of these early ages was

pre-eminently _Liturgical_. The world was as yet too little civilised

to furnish her children with those countless elegant methods of

killing time which later ages have so marvellously multiplied;

theatres had no existence, and even the superabundant games and

pastimes so popular in the Middle Ages, were as yet unthought of.

The people sought not merely their instruction, but their recreation

also in the Church, and their education thoroughly fitted them to

join in her ceremonies and ritual, which it is to be feared, by more

cultivated intellects of a later generation, are too often but very

imperfectly understood. The education of children partook, of course,

of the character of the age; it was more or less ecclesiastical, even

for those not intended for the religious or clerical state; and this

has given rise to the very hasty conclusion that in the centuries of

which we speak, education was given to none save those who aspired to

the priesthood. But in point of fact the whole atmosphere of society

was then so permeated with the Christian, and what we have ventured

to denominate the _Liturgical_ spirit, that children of seculars then

received a training which, to modern eyes, appears exclusively suited

to ecclesiastics.

The one branch of learning, therefore, which, in the judgment

of the monastic teachers, exceeded in importance all the rest,

was undoubtedly the study of the Scriptures. “In the study of

the Scriptures,” says Mabillon, “consisted the whole science of

the monks.” Scholastic theology was as yet unknown, and the Holy

Scriptures and the commentaries of the Fathers formed the exclusive

study of theologians. That alliance between faith and reason, wherein

reason, exercising itself on revealed truth under the control and

guidance of faith, built up the dogmas of the Church into a compact

and well-ordered system, was the work of later centuries; the

monastic scholars of the age of Charlemagne knew nothing about it.

They had the Scriptures, interpreted by the Fathers, and the decrees

of the Church, for their guides in dogma; and for discipline, the

sacred Canons. With these they were abundantly satisfied. Placed in

green pastures and by the side of running waters, they enjoyed the

inheritance that had fallen to them, and sought for nothing more.

Their divines, therefore, hardly aimed at the merit of original

composition, and were content to study, to copy, and to compile

the teaching, and often the very phraseology of St. Augustine, St.

Ambrose, or St. Gregory. Hence the complaint not unjustly brought

against them, is that, though tolerably acquainted with books, they

were for the most part deficient in original argument. In fact, they

sought to hand on the traditions of the Church pure and uncorrupted,

rather than to earn for themselves a fame as original thinkers; and

one of the marks of the age is an absence of the disputatious spirit

which, if it diminishes their rank in the world of letters, forms the

charm of their characters as men. There was nothing of the sophist

or logician in those sweet and venerable countenances, the unruffled

beauty of which is so often dwelt on by their biographers. True,

indeed, controversies did arise, as we have seen in the beginning

of this chapter, but they were out of harmony with the time. The

character of Scotus Erigena, like his learning, was that of a man

born out of due time; he belonged to the twelfth rather than to

the ninth century, and his wrangling must have sounded strangely

discordant in the ears of his contemporaries. The real spirit of the

age was one of reverence for Tradition; and the large and active

intellects of a Bede, a Boniface and a Paschasius, found all they

sought and all they desired in the Positive Theology of the Church.

So much has been done in our time to dispel the vulgar illusion that

the Scriptures were unknown and uncared for in the Dark Ages, that

I need not here enter into any proof of what is now, or at least

ought to be, an uncontroverted fact. Mr. Maitland’s “Essays” have

convincingly proved that if the monks read nothing else they at

least read the Bible. But what he has not shown with equal power,

is the love, the enthusiasm with which, to use the expression of

the biographer of Rabanus, they “fed themselves on the Divine

Scriptures.” Like the Jews of old, they meditated on them, “sitting

in the house or walking on a journey;” they were written “on the

entry and on the doorposts.”[108] At the tables of bishops and

abbots, of nobles and of kings, the Scriptures were daily read aloud:

the little child learnt from them his first lesson, and the old man

died with their accent on his lips. What need had they of the fables

of the poets, when the beauties of the inspired writers were graven

on their memories, familiar as household words? How could they care

to listen to what Ovid had to tell them of the Golden Age, they to

whom the glowing imagery of the Prophet had painted the kingdom of

the Son of Jesse, where the wolf was to dwell with the lamb, and

the kid with the leopard, and a little child should lead them? And

what great wonder was it if the degrading tales of heathen deities,

even when sung by the Muse of Virgil, should fall somewhat flat and

profitless on their ears, accustomed as they were to the sublime

marvels of God’s dealings with His ancient people, and the history of

the Incarnate Word?

It was not merely as the inspired Word of God that the Holy

Scriptures were thus valued; but in the schools of which we are

speaking they held the place of the great Christian classic. They

were not a mere dry repertory of texts illustrative of doctrine, but

they formed at once the favourite book of prayer, of meditation, of

spiritual reading, and of recreative delight. Pondered on day and

night, with all their hidden meaning laid open by the comments of

the Fathers, what a treasury of wisdom, what a fountain of poesy was

there! The very language of Scripture wonderfully harmonised with

the daily monastic life, so patriarchal in its simplicity, its noble

toils, and its humble duties of the shepherd, the husbandman, and the

vinedresser. It harmonised with the scenes in the midst of which they

lived, the mountains, and the wooded valleys, the fields standing

thick with corn, the wilderness in its untrampled beauty, where rose

up “the verdure of the reed and the bulrush,” and where the myrtle

and the olive-tree grew by the running waters. It harmonised with

their deep sympathy with the Beautiful, their intimate acquaintance

with Nature in all her aspects, by day or by night, so familiar to

the eyes of those who sanctified all hours by prayer, and to whom

“the outgoings of the morning and of the evening were made joyful,”

by the Matins and Vesper psalmody. But chiefly and above all, it

harmonised with that thirst that devoured their souls for the true

and living God; a thirst which made them weary of all things in which

He was not to be found, which made all things sweet in which He had

His part; which led them by a strange inspired ingenuity to turn

all things to Him, to Christianise every study, to divinise every

act; which taught them to create new arts to deck His sanctuary, new

sciences to minister to His praise--a thirst which, unslaked by the

choicest fountains of Gentile antiquity, drank deep and refreshing

draughts at those streams of sacred poetry, out of which they framed

the language of their daily Office, and which moulded the very

fashion of their daily speech.

The Scriptures, then, were the Christian classics of the monks

and their pupils. Their study was not confined to ecclesiastical

students, but formed one of the chief branches of every Christian

man’s education.[109] And by their study we must understand, of

course, not a mere familiarity with the dead letter, but an intimate

knowledge of their spiritual sense. We may gather some idea of

what was implied in the monastic study of the Scriptures, from a

letter written by a certain monk of Citeaux to one of his friends,

in which he draws out a compendious method for his guidance.

Together with the different divisions of his subject, he advises

him to read appropriate commentaries. Thus Josephus and Hegesippus

are to be read with the Pentateuch and the Historical Books, and

if any words occur of doubtful signification, the student is to

consult the “Etymologies” of St. Isidore, and St. Jerome on the

“Explanation of Hebrew Names;” and that other book on “Derivations,”

“which is to be found in most large libraries,” and finally the

“Gloss.” Certain passages of more importance, and summaries of the

principal facts, are to be written out and committed to memory;

and the writer proceeds to give directions on this point, adding,

that on all the subjects he names it will be useful to consult St.

Augustine “_De Quæstionibus_.” When the Historical Books have been

carefully studied, the Prophetical Books may be begun. We are to

note which prophecies are fulfilled, and which unfulfilled, and the

exact time and circumstances under which each was written. After

these the Books of instruction, and then the Gospels. In reading the

Gospels, it will be necessary to have St. Jerome’s description of the

“Holy Places of Palestine,” and the “Harmony of the Gospels.” And

we must carefully observe where, when, and before whom our Lord’s

Sermons were delivered, and His miracles worked. The rest of the New

Testament is afterwards to be read. The student is then directed to

read certain works on the Sacraments, on the reason for assigning

different portions of Scripture to different seasons, and some of the

works of St. Augustine. And when the literal sense of the Holy Books

has been thus carefully studied, and not before, he may pass on to

their allegorical and mystic interpretation, and read both Testaments

through in the same order a second time, special authors being

recommended to assist his comprehension of their spiritual sense.[110]

This double method of study, in which the literal meaning of the

Scriptures was made the basis of interpreting their spiritual

signification, was begun very early, and even young children were

considered capable of being introduced by degrees to the spiritual

comprehension of the Sacred Books. So far from these being a treasure

sealed up to all save the clergy, they formed the foundation stone of

all education. Thus Thegan writes of the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire,

that he had been perfectly instructed in the allegorical and mystical

interpretation of the Scriptures, and we learn from St. Aldhelm’s

treatise, “_De Laudibus Virginitatis_,” that the nuns for whom

he intended it were not only accustomed to read the Old and New

Testaments, together with the Commentaries of the Fathers, but that

they also studied the historical, allegorical, and analogical senses

of different passages. Nor is this by any means an exceptional case,

for in the religious houses of women sacred studies were pursued with

hardly less eagerness than in those of men.

And here the temptation presents itself to say something of the

schools provided in the Dark Ages for the education of women, such

as the royal house of Chelles, where the wise Bertilla presided over

scores of English scholars sent by their parents to France, as we

must needs suppose, for fashion’s sake, for there were certainly

plenty of good schools to be found in England. Fashion, however, has

much to do with the selection of a school, and Chelles was naturally

popular with the English, having been founded in the seventh century

by a princess of Anglo-Saxon blood.

Queen Bathildis, indeed, was not of royal birth; she was a poor

maiden who had been sold as a slave into France, and attracting the

attention of Clovis II., was raised by him to share his throne. Her

first thought in her new position was to procure the abolition of

slavery, or at least the amelioration of the condition of slaves.

“She was,” says her biographer, “of a beautiful and cheerful

countenance, to her husband an obedient wife, to the princes a

mother, to boys and youths the best of counsellors; to all an amiable

and gracious friend,” and he adds that among her other good deeds,

“she was always exhorting and encouraging the youth around her to

religious studies.” So soon as her son Clothaire was old enough to

govern, Bathildis, who during his minority had acted as regent,

retired to Chelles and spent the remainder of her days in the humble

office of infirmarian. But her foundation had meanwhile acquired a

great reputation for learning, which was yet further increased when

Gisella, the sister of Charlemagne, and the pupil of Alcuin, assumed

its government in the ninth century.

Nor must it be supposed that these examples of learning in the

cloisters of nuns were confined to those communities which had caught

their tone from the little knot of literary women educated by St.

Boniface. It was the natural and universal development of religious

life. We have but to glance back a century or two, and we shall find

foundations of purely French origin, those of St. Cesarius of Arles,

in which the nuns were to be seen reading even over their work, and

busy at the transcription of the Sacred Books. And we might quote

the account of St. Cesaria’s death, written by one of her devout

children, which M. Guizot hesitates not to rank among the gems of

literature. Or we might turn to the Latin poems of St. Radegundes,

the Queen of Clothaire I., and the friend of Venantius Fortunatus,

who composed his celebrated hymn “Vexilla regis” on occasion of the

translation to her monastery at Poitiers of a relic of the true

Cross. This royal nun of the sixth century was accustomed to read

the Greek and Latin Fathers, and as her biographer tells us, was not

only _vultu elegans_, but _litteris erudita_. She liked her disciples

to be as learned as herself, insisted that all should be able to

read, and should learn the Psalter by heart, and gathered together

more than two hundred daughters of noble families, in whose company

and instruction she took such passing great delight, that, says

Baudoniva, one of them whom she had educated from a child and who

afterwards wrote her life, she would address them in the tenderest

terms, calling them her light, her life, and her chosen little

plants.[111]

The picture of St. Cesaria in the sixth century, and of St. Lioba in

the eighth, is reproduced in that of St. Adelaide of Gueldres, abbess

of Cologne in the tenth. She had enjoyed a learned education, and

took great delight in collecting around her young virgins to whom she

communicated her lessons with a truly maternal care. Every day she

showed herself in the school, and propounded grammatical subtleties

to her disciples; rewarding the diligent with caresses, and punishing

the slothful with a severity for which her tender heart was wont

afterwards often to reproach her. In fact, were I to repeat all that

her biographer relates of her zeal in the matter of correction, I

might convey the impression that the pupils of the abbess Adelaide

lived under a rather terrible taskmistress. She sometimes visited the

offenders with rods, and sometimes with a good box on the ear. The

latter chastisement was even inflicted in choir when her pupils sang

out of tune; but her biographer adds, it was never found necessary to

administer it a second time, for the touch of her saintly hand had

such power in it, as to cure all defects of voice and ear for the

future.[112] But yet she was a tender and a loving mother, and when

she had punished any one, would conjure some of her sisters to go and

console the poor victim whom she immediately began to compassionate.

Nay, her love went so far, that besides the incessant thought she

bestowed on providing her children with good food and raiment, she

would steal into their dormitory in the winter nights, to find out

if any were suffering from cold feet, and would warm them by rubbing

them with her hands.

These examples are all of religious women; but we have direct

evidence that even those who embraced a secular life were expected

to receive a certain amount of education. Amalarius, of Metz, whose

great work on the “Ecclesiastical Offices” appeared in the year 820,

requires that young girls should learn the Psalter, the Books of

Job and Proverbs, the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles.

Perhaps there is no more interesting and decisive testimony as to

the amount of learning to be found among the laity in the Dark Ages,

than the curious will of Count Eberhard, of Terouanne, who died in

860, and left behind him a precious library, equalling in extent

many of those possessed by religious houses. He directed that this

library should, after his death, be divided among his children in

the manner prescribed by his will. The four sons and four daughters

each received their share, though the boys, naturally enough,

obtained the lion’s share. Among the books named in the catalogue are

treatises on law, military affairs, history, and natural philosophy,

besides religious works.[113] One of the books bequeathed to Gisla,

is the “Enchiridion” of St. Augustine. We have besides incidental

notices occurring in the biographies of the time, which represent

mothers writing to their sons and conveying to them sound practical

advice, and noble ladies keeping up a correspondence with learned

ecclesiastics, who seem to have directed their studies. There was

certainly no difficulty in the way of ladies obtaining an education

if they chose, for the convents of Chelles, Farmoutier, Brie,

and Andelys, all had excellent schools, and often enough English

mistresses, whose teaching was held in special esteem. And Theodulph,

of Orleans, does not seem to have been giving the princess Gisella a

piece of advice at all out of harmony with the manners and ideas of

the age, when he counselled her to divide her time equally between

reading and the homely cares of the household, concluding his

admonitions with the two following lines:

Assidue si ores, tibi si sit lectio crebra,

Ipsa Deo loqueris, et Deus ipse tibi.

An attentive study of the history of the following centuries will

convince us that if the dames and spinsters of the Middle Ages were

not exactly blue-stockings, they perfectly understood the value of

Theodulph’s counsels, and that they were often not only learned

themselves, but the cause of learning in others. For not a few of the

learned foundations in England owe their existence to the munificence

of noble ladies, who, in this country at least, have ever shown

themselves the nursing mothers of polite letters. But of this there

will be more to say in its proper place.

_CHAPTER VII._

KING ALFRED.

A.D. 873 TO 900.

The history of King Alfred, and his noble efforts in the cause of

learning, are so familiar to all readers that it may seem unnecessary

to say much of the restoration of letters which took place in England

during his reign. From our childhood, the stories of his life have

been as familiar to us as those of Scripture, and it is probable

that the illuminated manuscript which first tempted him to learn

his alphabet has encouraged not a few of us in our childish love of

picture-books. Every one knows that at the time of his accession

England was plunged in her darkest night of ignorance; and every

one who has studied Hume, Hallam, and other standard writers, knows

that the illiteracy of the English clergy at that precise period is

commonly cited as a sample of the state of things which prevailed

throughout Europe during the Dark Ages. Hallam, indeed, in a note

appended to his remarks on the subject, admits that before the

Danish Invasion, the churches were well furnished with books, but

adds that “the priests got little good from them, being written in

a foreign language they could not understand.”[114] The fact that

the state of things complained of was not normal, but accidental,

is uniformly ignored by these writers; they beheld the waters of an

inundation, and would have their readers believe them to be the ocean

in its natural bed. However, far from wishing to deny the ignorance

which existed in England at the time of Alfred’s accession, I will

add to the colouring of the picture by quoting Dr. Lingard’s brief

but emphatic summary of the grievances under which the kingdom then

groaned. “At the close of this calamitous period,” he says, after a

graphic sketch of the devastations perpetrated by the Danes, “the

Anglo-Saxon church presented a melancholy spectacle; the laity had

resumed the ferocious manners of their pagan forefathers; the clergy

had grown indolent, dissolute, and illiterate; the monastic order was

apparently annihilated, and it devolved on Alfred, now victorious

over his enemies, to apply remedies to all these evils.”

The Whitsuntide of the year 873 had been signalised by the great

battle of Ethandun, gained by Alfred over the Danes; and this was

followed by a short but brilliant campaign, at the close of which

the “heathen men” retired into East Anglia and made their submission

to the crown of Wessex. This final success was succeeded by fifteen

years of comparative tranquillity, which were employed by Alfred in

those multifarious acts of wise legislation which restored order to

his distracted kingdom, and gained for himself the well-merited title

of “the Great.” No work, however, lay closer to his heart than the

restoration of learning, for though at this time quite as illiterate

as the rest of his people, Alfred’s desire to become learned had

very early evinced itself. He had learned to read and write at

twelve years old, in spite of many obstacles, no good masters being

then to be obtained in all Wessex. His reading, however, was not

extensive; it seems to have been confined to a little book in which

were collected the day hours of the church, and a few psalms and

collects, and which he always carried about him. The manuscript

which by its brilliant illuminations had first excited his curiosity

was a collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and there is no reason for

supposing that Alfred was at this time possessed of any other books.

But an intellect like his finds other food than that which can merely

be extracted from books. In company with his father, Ethelwulf,

Alfred had made the pilgrimage to Rome, where Ethelwulf rebuilt

the Saxon school which had been founded by King Ina.[115] On their

homeward journey he had visited the court of Charles the Bald, and

seen and talked with learned men; he had assisted at his father’s

second marriage with the Princess Judith, which was celebrated by

Hincmar of Rheims; and at St. Omer’s he had made acquaintance with

the Provost Grimbald, whose conversation left a lasting impression

on his mind. All this had been a kind of education to him, and by

showing him the superior enlightenment of other countries, made him

more bitterly regret the rudeness of his own. The first step he took

in order to begin a reform was to search out the few learned men

still to be found among the Anglo-Saxon clergy. How few they were

he lets us know in that oft-quoted passage from the Preface to his

translation of St. Gregory, and which, after speaking of the “blessed

times” formerly existing in England, when there were holy kings and

a zealous clergy, and people came hither from foreign countries in

quest of instruction, he laments over the change that has fallen on

the land, and declares that knowledge has now so escaped from the

English people, that few priests south of the Humber can be found

who understand the divine service, or can explain a Latin epistle in

English. “They are so few,” he adds, “that I cannot remember one,

south of the Thames, when I began to reign.”

And yet, says Hallam, the district south of the Thames was “the best

part of England.” This, however, is clearly a mistake, for every one

of the surviving Saxon scholars whom Alfred succeeded in hunting out

and drawing to his court were Mercians. They were Werefrith, Bishop

of Worcester; Plegmund, who when the Danes were ravaging the country

had fled into Cheshire and there became a hermit; and two other

Mercian priests, named Ethelstan and Werwulf. Plegmund was drawn

out of the solitude called from him Plegmundesham, and in 890 was

chosen by God and the people to be Archbishop of Canterbury, says

the Saxon Chronicle, of great part of which he is supposed to have

been the compiler. Werefrith, whom Asser calls most erudite in the

divine Scriptures, was sufficiently a Latin scholar to undertake the

translation of St. Gregory’s dialogues. Ethelstan and Werwulf were

appointed royal chaplains, and had no light office, for they were

required by the king to read to him at every leisure moment, “both

by day and by night,” that so he might become acquainted with books

which he could not read for himself. In Wessex Alfred found no one

fitted to take part in the proposed reform, with the exception of a

poor swineherd named Denewulf, whom he fell in with whilst hunting

in the forest of Selwood; and, charmed with the native genius he

betrayed in his conversation, had him educated, and eventually raised

him to the see of Winchester. These, however, were not sufficient for

the work which the king contemplated, and his thoughts turned to the

foreign monks whose acquaintance he had formed on his journey from

Rome. He specially desired to obtain possession of Grimbald, who was

renowned for his knowledge of the Scriptures and his proficiency in

the musical science, and for this purpose despatched an embassy to

Fulk, Archbishop of Rheims, begging that the learned provost might

be sent to him without delay. Mr. Turner, in his interesting account

of the literary labours of Alfred, informs us that Fulk addressed

the king a very singular letter in reply, wherein he calls both

Grimbald and the English prelates who formed the embassy by the

name of _dogs_. “You have sent me some noble generous dogs to drive

away the irreligious wolves, and they came desiring other dogs, not

dumb dogs like those spoken of by the prophet, but good noisy dogs

that can bark and make themselves heard.” Reference to the original

letter of Fulk however, which is printed at the end of Asser’s Life

of Alfred,[116] will show that this is a very free translation of a

passage capable of simple explanation. The neighbourhood of Rheims

was, it seems, infested with wolves, no uncommon thing even in the

suburbs of great cities in those wild times; and Alfred, among the

costly presents which he sent to the archbishop, had included a pack

of English wolf-hounds. Fulk in his letter thanks him for the welcome

gift. “You have sent us,” he says, “noble and generous, although

mortal and corporal dogs, to drive away the visible wolves with

which, among other scourges of God’s justice, our country abounds;

and you have asked of us, other dogs, not corporal, but spiritual

ones; not such as those of whom the Psalmist speaks, saying, ‘Dumb

dogs not able to bark,’ but such as may guard their master’s house

by their barking, and wisely keep his flock from the wolves of the

unclean spirit, which are the devourers of souls, of which number

one is Grimbald the priest and monk,” whose learning and sanctity

he then proceeds to extol. Grimbald arrived in England in 884, and,

after being honourably received by Alfred and Archbishop Ethelred, is

said to have made an excellent oration to the clergy and nobility in

a Synod held at London, calling on them, one and all, to embrace a

devout life, and to lend their aid in remedying the disorders which

had followed on the Danish invasions. According to most writers,

he began to teach sacred letters in the schools opened by Alfred

at Oxford, and afterwards became abbot of the monastery which the

king had founded at Winchester. Another of Alfred’s foreign scholars

was John of Old Saxony, a monk of Corby, who has been erroneously

confused with John Scotus Erigena. He appears to have brought with

him a small community of French monks who were placed by Alfred in

the monastery newly erected in the Isle of Athelney.

But none of these rendered Alfred such effectual help in his

literary labours as the British scholar Asser, a monk of St.

David’s monastery, whose fame having reached the King’s ears, he

was invited to the royal “vill” of Dene, in Sussex, and travelled

thither “through many wide intervening ways,” under the conduct of

some Saxon guides, in the same year that witnessed the arrival of

Grimbald. Asser, who has told us much concerning his royal patron,

and has traced his genealogy through Woden up to Bedwig, the grandson

of Noe, has been provokingly concise in his account of himself,

and the history of his first introduction to the Saxon court. We

only know that Alfred vainly endeavoured to induce him to give up

his own country, and devote himself entirely to his service; and

that Asser steadily refused to do so, thinking, as he says, that it

was not right to forsake the holy place where he had been nurtured

and consecrated for the prospect of earthly gain and honour. A

compromise was, therefore, agreed to, by which Alfred secured his

services for six months in every year; and the direction of the court

school was delivered into his hands. The plan of this school was

the same as that of Charlemagne’s Palatine academy; and in it not

only the princes and sons of the nobility, but many also of humbler

rank, received their education. They read both Saxon and Latin

books, and wrote in both languages, so that before they were strong

enough to take part in the chase and other manly sports, they were

fully instructed in what Asser calls the liberal arts. Ethelward,

Alfred’s youngest son, is specially commended for his diligence and

love of learning; and his elder brother, Edward, and their sister,

Ethelswitha, continued their studies even after they were grown up.

We have not the same accurate information with regard to the nature

of their acquirements as we have of those of Alcuin’s scholars; but

Asser says they pursued all the liberal sciences, learnt the Psalter,

and read Saxon books very frequently, especially Saxon poems. Another

school was opened at Athelney, which seems to have been exclusively

intended to educate future monks and clergy, and among its scholars

the greater number were foreigners. Asser speaks of having seen one

of the pagan youths studying there, by which expression he probably

means a Dane. He himself had no reason to complain of not being well

paid for his services, for Alfred had the merit, so highly prized

among his nation, of possessing an open hand. He conferred on his

favourite scholar the monasteries of Congresbury and Banwell in one

day; and another time gave him Exeter and all the parishes annexed

to it in Wessex and Cornwall, as well as a silk pallium and a man’s

load of incense, with promises of more at a future time. These

liberal grants of land and possessions were possibly made with the

covert design of eventually fixing Asser altogether on the Saxon side

of the Severn, and not without success, if, as seems probable, he

afterwards became Bishop of Sherborne.

It was Alfred’s own desire to extend the blessing of education to all

his free-born subjects; and he even made it a law that every freeman

possessed of two hides of land should keep his sons at school till

they were fifteen, “because a man born free, who is unlettered, is

to be regarded no otherwise than as a beast, having, like them, no

understanding.” If they had no sons of their own, he encouraged them

to choose among the sons of their vassals those of most promise,

who might at their expense be trained in good learning, and fitted

to fill offices in church and state. He was literally dismayed at

the amount of ignorance which he found among his judges, and by his

reproofs shamed some of them into seeking in their old age for the

instruction they had neglected in their youth. “I marvel,” he would

say, “that you who have been intrusted with the office of the Wise

(Witan) should have neglected the studies of the wise. Therefore,

either at once resign your offices, or apply yourselves to gain

wisdom.” Many, urged by words like these, placed themselves under

the court teachers, and those who considered the labour of learning

to read too gigantic to be undertaken at their age, had their sons

and freed men educated, and employed them to read to them, lamenting

their own ignorance, and extolling the superior advantages enjoyed by

the youth of the present times.

But though the good work was begun, Alfred knew well enough that the

only way to perpetuate it was the foundation of monastic schools;

and here lay his great difficulty, for not only were all the old

monasteries destroyed by the Danes, but the religious spirit that

had formerly peopled the cloisters of Malmsbury, and Jarrow, and

Croyland, and Lindisfarne with communities numbering their hundreds,

were now entirely extinct. Asser informs us that the monastic

institute was held in such contempt at that time, that no freeman

was to be found in all Wessex willing to embrace it, and those

from other provinces who had embraced it neglected all its rules.

A gross sensuality had taken possession of the English people, and

resulted in a wide-spread neglect on the part of the secular clergy

of the sacred canons which bound them to a single life. Their

example was ruinous to the morals of the laity, and the practice of

divorce was becoming common among all ranks; and to complete the

moral degradation of the English, drunkenness was frightfully on the

increase among them, that vice the progress of which St. Boniface

had so often lamented in his letters to the English prelates, saying

that he blushed to find England alone disfigured by a brutal habit to

which the very pagans were strangers. In such a state of society we

are not surprised to find that the monastic profession was generally

regarded with dislike. Athelney had to be peopled with foreign monks,

and the murderous attempts they made on the life of their abbot seems

to show that the community was made up of worthless members. The only

other religious house of any importance which owed its foundation

to Alfred was that at Winchester, and in consequence of the support

it received from the king it seems to have enjoyed a larger share

of prosperity. Still, it must be admitted that Alfred’s efforts to

restore monasticism in England were a failure; and in this respect

his restoration of learning differed from that of Charlemagne. The

Frankish monarch found himself surrounded by institutions which only

needed encouragement to become the fit instruments for his work. The

monastic spirit was vigorous in France in the eighth century, and he

had but to speak the word to see schools and libraries starting up in

connection with the cathedrals and monasteries. But in England the

case was far different, and hence the real good achieved by Alfred

was effected less by the schools that he founded than by the books

that he wrote.

It is truly astonishing to think that we should number among our

authors a king who, when he came to the throne, could barely read and

write, and who during the whole of his reign was overwhelmed with

business of all kinds, and worn down by constant bodily sickness.

If Charlemagne’s greatness had a more brilliant character, that of

Alfred is perhaps more admirable when we remember how very few he

had to assist him in his toils. He had to regenerate every branch

of government, and to see to each department with his own eye. If

Asser’s statement is to be received as literally correct, the king

found himself called on to teach his officers even their most homely

duties. In the midst of Danish incursions and daily infirmities, he

had not only to guide the rudder of the State, but to instruct his

goldsmiths and other artificers, his huntsmen, falconers, fowlers,

and dog-keepers. Many useful arts he himself taught his people; they

were so barbarised and discouraged by their long continued sufferings

that agriculture was becoming neglected in many parts, and the king

was forced to offer premiums to those who would apply themselves

to it, and to distribute seed from the royal storehouses. He was

likewise a great builder, and introduced the fashion of building

brick and stone houses instead of wooden hovels, himself furnishing

the necessary directions and designs. I need not speak of what he did

as a lawgiver, or of the numberless social and political institutions

which he created. He was at once head, eye, and hand to the kingdom,

and found so few among his nobles capable of seconding him in his

efforts for the good of his people, that we are told he had to hang

forty-five of his judges for gross crimes in the execution of their

duty. How in the midst of all these multifarious cares he contrived

to find time for the liberal arts, is only to be explained when we

remember that he was pre-eminently a good manager and an economist

of time; not an economist in that sense of the word in which we

understand one who sacrifices everything to business, for according

to this practical view Alfred might certainly have made more of his

time than he did; and his method of disposing of the eight hours a

day which he devoted to prayer and study, would probably by some be

regarded as anything but economical. A man who was in the habit of

hearing mass and reciting the divine office daily, and of satisfying

his devotion by frequent and stealthy visits to the church, at

such times as he judged himself least likely to be observed by his

attendants, seemed to be expending his few and precious leisure

moments on duties not of obligation. But this holy prodigality

of the time given to God is a speciality in our early Christian

scholars on which it is profitable to dwell. It formed a part of

their system, and was as remarkable in Alfred as it was in Bede.

And however familiar the reader may be with the anecdotes of his

life, some, perhaps, will not be equally familiar with them as they

stand in their original garb, from which the religious element has

been carefully pared away by each successive story-teller. I shall,

therefore, make no apology for introducing so threadbare a subject as

King Alfred and his horn lanthorns, persuaded that comparatively few

of those who have heard of him as their inventor, have ever dreamt

that they had any sort of connection with the spiritual side of our

great king’s character. Here, then, is the story as it appears in the

pages of Asser. After telling us of the many undertakings happily

brought to completion by the king, and his incessant activity in the

government of the realm, he continues: “Having set all these things

in order, mindful of that saying of Holy Writ, ‘Let him who would

give an alms begin with himself,’ he reflected on what he could offer

to God of the service of his own mind and body, wishing to consecrate

these to God as well as his exterior riches. So he promised, as far

as infirmity, possibility, and means would permit, willingly and with

all his might to give to God one-half of the service of his mind

and body, both by day and night. However, as he could not any way

reckon the night hours, by reason of the darkness, nor equally divide

those of the day, because of the frequent rain and clouds, he began

to think how he might, with God’s help, observe the tenor of his

vow even until death. At last he hit on a useful and clever device.

He ordered his chaplains to provide a sufficient quantity of wax,

which when brought he caused to be weighed out in pennyweights. When

seventy-two pennyweights of it had been measured out, he ordered his

chaplains to make thereof six candles, all of equal dimensions, each

candle being marked out into twelve inches of length. This being done

the six candles were burnt day and night without intermission through

the twenty-four hours before the holy relics of many saints, which

he took with him wherever he went. But as sometimes the candle would

not burn through a whole night and day up to the same hour at which

they had been lighted the preceding evening (doubtless because of the

violence of the winds, which often blew through the doors and windows

of the church, or through the many chinks in the walls and roofs,

and their hangings), and as thus they burnt out more quickly than

they should have done, Alfred began to consider how he might prevent

this effect of the wind, and caused a lanthorn to be beautifully

constructed of wood and cow’s horn (for white cows’ horns carefully

scraped are no less transparent than glass), and the candle, being

placed in this lanthorn, shone as brightly without as it did within,

unimpeded by the blasts of wind.”[117]

So, then, it was in fulfilment of a religious vow that King Alfred

cast about to discover how he might accurately measure out his time,

and his horn lanthorns were but the means he hit on to help him how

to give the half of his service of mind and body, day and night, to

God. Truly a vow worthy of a Christian hero, and right faithfully

and heroically kept. Of course, in the time thus consecrated to God,

he included those hours he devoted to study, for this with him was

a religious exercise. How, indeed, he contrived to secure his eight

hours a day of prayer and reading, is a mystery of the same nature

with those marvellous facts which we meet with in the lives of the

saints, whose days and nights seem to have had forty-eight hours

in them, if we measure them by the amount of prayer and work they

accomplished during their course. Alfred, whilst thus disposing of

his time by vow, had, as it might seem, no time to himself. However,

he made the most of what with most men are idle moments, and when not

actually engaged in business was always reading or hearing others

read. In his chamber he always had a book open before him, and never

travelled without carrying his books with him. The attainment of

wisdom, both human and Divine, was his absorbing desire; and Asser,

after speaking of his incomparable affability and cheerfulness with

others, and the great love and honour he showed to all those whom he

drew around him, as well foreigners as natives, and his exceeding

tenderness for his own children, and for the other youths whom he

caused to be bred up in his palace, as though they were all members

of his own family, goes on to say that he had no real consolation

in any of these things, but that day and night he was devoured

with one thought, and with what he calls an anxious sadness, which

he poured out to his familiar friends; and this was his ceaseless

desire that Almighty God would make him skilled in divine wisdom

and in the liberal arts; so that he sought for wisdom even as did

King Solomon, esteeming it to be preferable to glory and riches,

and, like him, found them also together with her; according as it is

written, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all

other things shall be added to you.” This coupling together of divine

wisdom and the liberal arts, as equal objects of solicitude, is

easily understood when we remember the plan according to which human

knowledge was then pursued, always in subordination to that which is

divine, and mainly in connection with it. Intellectual pursuits not

having yet been set free from their holy servitude to the faith, were

not recognised as possessing any peculiar dangers; nay, rather, they

seem invariably to have been regarded as something meritorious; and

knowledge, far from being preached against as perilous to the soul,

was ranked among those better gifts which a good man might earnestly

covet.

Asser has related to us the circumstances which led to the king’s

first applying himself to earnest study. Hitherto, as we have seen,

he had been content with making his chaplains read to him, and when

Asser first took up his residence at the Court of Leonaford, he also

was employed to read to his royal master all the books he desired

to become acquainted with, or that could be at that time procured.

“One day, as we were sitting together,” he says, “conversing as was

our wont, I chanced to recite to him a passage out of a certain

book. He listened with great delight, and showing me the little book

containing his prayers, which he always carried about with him,

asked me to transcribe in it the passage I had quoted.” But every

corner was found to be filled up, and Asser suggested writing out the

quotation on a separate leaf. “We cannot tell,” he said, “whether we

may not meet with other passages which you may like, and if so we

should be glad to collect them.” Some fresh sheets were accordingly

procured, and the same day three more quotations were entered, and

so it went on till at last the new book was filled as completely

as the old one; and this very day, being the feast of St. Martin,

885, Alfred, then thirty-six years of age, resolved without delay to

commence the study of Latin, that he might himself be able to read

and translate books into English for the benefit of his people.

His first work, of which unhappily nothing has been preserved but a

few fragments, was the very collection alluded to above, and which

Asser and William of Malmsbury speak of as his “Enchiridion” or

manual. But there yet remain his more important translations from St.

Gregory, Orosius, Boethius, and Bede, the first of which contains

that admirable preface which explains so modestly and simply the

intention of the writer, and the way in which he executed his work.

In the mere verbal translation he was assisted by the learning of

others, for he tells us with regard to his version of the “Regula

Pastoris” of St. Gregory, that it was done by him into English,

sometimes word for word, and sometimes sense for sense, “as I learnt

it from Plegmund, my archbishop, and Asser, my bishop, and John and

Grimbald, my mass-priests.” But both in this and his other works, he

was far more than a translator, and continually expands the ideas of

his authors, introducing new matter of his own; sometimes even he

substitutes whole chapters for those which he omits, so as to make

his translation almost an original work. In the passages which are

from his own pen, we admire at once the philosophic lucidity of his

thoughts and the noble simplicity with which he expresses them. A

brief sentence of Boethius is thus expanded. “Then, said Reason,

Dost thou like fair lands? and Mind answered to Reason, and said,

Why should I not like fair lands? How? Is not that the fairest part

of God’s creation? Full oft we rejoice at the mild sea, and admire

also the beauty of sun, moon, and stars. Then answered Wisdom and

Reason to the Mind, and said, How belongeth Heaven’s fairness to

thee? Desirest thou to glory as though its beauty were thine? It

is not, it is not. Knowest thou not that thou madest none of these

things? If thou wilt glory, glory in God.... Wherefore now dost

thou rejoice in the fair blossoms of Easter, as if thou hadst made

them; canst thou make any of such things? Not so, not so. Or is it

now in thy power that the harvest is so rich in fruits? I know that

this also is not in thy power.” Boethius says, “Survey the space,

the firmness, and the rapidity of the heavens, and cease to admire

vile things.” This is enlarged by Alfred as follows: “Behold now the

spaciousness, the firmness, and the swiftness of the heavens. Yet all

this is not to be compared to its Creator and Governor. Why do ye

not let yourselves be weary of admiring and praising, that which is

unprofitable? That is, worldly riches. For as heaven is better, and

fairer, and more precious than all within it, excepting only man, so

is man’s body better and more precious than all his possessions. But

much more bethink thee that his soul is better and more precious than

his body. Every being is to be honoured in fit proportion, and always

the highest, most. And therefore the Divine Power is to be honoured,

adored, and worshipped above all other things.” The following

remarkable passage on free-will is entirely his own. “I said, I am

sometimes very much disturbed. Quoth he, at what? I answered, It is

at this, that thou sayest, that God gives to every one freedom to

do evil as well as good, whichsoever he will. Now I wonder much at

this. Then, quoth he, I may very easily answer thee this remark. How

now would it look to thee if there were any very powerful king, and

he had no freemen in all his kingdom, but only slaves? Then, said

I, it would not be thought by me right or reasonable if servile men

only were to wait on him. Then said he, _It would be more unnatural

if God, in all His kingdom, had no free creatures under His power_;

therefore he made two kinds of rational creatures free, angels and

men, and he gave them thus this great gift of freedom.” Mr. Turner,

in quoting this passage, remarks that Alfred’s solution of the

difficulty shows him to have been a true king of the English people.

He felt from his own great heart that the Divine Sovereign must

prefer to govern freemen rather than slaves, because this was his

own sentiment as a king. If it were derogatory to the dignity of an

earthly ruler to have none but slaves for his subjects, far more so

would it be for the King of Heaven to have no creatures endowed with

free-will.

But perhaps the most interesting of all these interpolated passages

is that which occurs in his paraphrase of Boethius, where, treating

of the duties of a king, he speaks thus in his own person: “I never

well liked or strongly desired this earthly kingdom; yet when I was

in possession of it I desired materials for the work I was commanded

to do, that I might fitly steer the vessel, and rule the realm

committed to my keeping. There are tools for every craft, without

which a man cannot work at his craft; and a king also must have his

materials and his tools. And what are these? First, he must have

his land well peopled, and he must have prayer-men, and army-men,

and work-men. Without these tools no king can show his skill. His

materials are provision for these three brotherhoods; land to dwell

in, gifts, and weapons, and meat, and ale, and clothes, and whatever

else they need. Without these he cannot keep his tools, and without

his tools he cannot work. Therefore I desired materials that my craft

and power might not be given up and lost. But all craft and power

will soon be worn out and put to silence if they be without wisdom.

Therefore I desired wisdom. This is now what I can truly say. I have

desired while I lived to live worthily, and after my death to leave

to men that should be after me a remembrance in good deeds.”

In his version of the Chronicle of the World, by Orosius, he followed

the same plan, and took occasion to insert a great many corrections

and additions, specially in those parts relating to geography, a

study for which, like most Anglo-Saxon scholars, Alfred evinced

a special liking. His most important additions are a description

of Germany, and an account of the voyages of Wulfstan and Othere,

the latter of whom was a Norwegian whale-fisher, who sailed round

the North Cape into the White Sea, and also entered the mouth of

the river Dwina. The narrative was taken down from the lips of

the adventurers by the king himself, and is given with the brief

biblical simplicity which marks all the compositions of the writer. A

considerable portion of the coasts of Prussia and the Baltic are here

described for the first time; neither Wulfstan nor Othere removed

the impression then prevalent that the Scandinavian peninsula was an

island, nevertheless, their discoveries added considerably to the

existing geographical knowledge, and the industry shown by the king

in collecting and publishing these important facts is well deserving

of praise.

The treatise of St. Gregory on the pastoral office was translated

by Alfred with peculiar care, and his object in selecting such a

work is sufficiently obvious. It contained the instructions of that

great Pope whose name was venerated in England as that of her first

apostle, on the duties of the pastoral office, and the good king

doubtless trusted that its study would revive a better spirit among

his clergy. It had in fact a very special degree of authority, and

in all the Synods held under Charlemagne was commonly referred to as

the standard of ecclesiastical discipline, and would naturally have

a special claim on the interest of English readers, as being one of

the books bestowed on St. Augustine by the author, and laid up in

the Canterbury Library. So highly did Alfred value the translation

of the “Hirde-boc,” as he calls it, that he caused a copy to be sent

to every cathedral church in his dominions, with strict injunctions

that they should never be removed thence except for the purpose of

transcription, or for the bishop’s own reading. Three of these copies

are still preserved, with the names of the bishops inserted in the

prefatory letters; they are those belonging to Wulfsige of Sherborne,

Werferth of Worcester, and Plegmund of Canterbury.

Many other writings and translations are attributed to Alfred by

Malmsbury and other historians, and we are assured by the former

that he was engaged on an Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter when

attacked with his last sickness. An Anglo-Saxon translation of the

New Testament also exists bearing his name, and was printed at London

in 1571. Indeed the literary reputation of their “darling,” as the

Anglo-Saxons popularly termed him, induced them to ascribe to his

pen any English writing of uncertain authorship. The real part to

be assigned to him in the history of learning is, in fact, that of

the founder of Anglo-Saxon literature. Up to this time few books had

appeared in the native idiom, with the exception of the national

ballads. But it was his wish to substitute that noble tongue, which

none knew better how to write than himself, in place of the incorrect

Latin which had been used by earlier scholars; his own translations

and paraphrases were the first attempts at anything like extensive

prose works in the vernacular, but from that time the number of

Anglo-Saxon writers rapidly increased.

I have said that the good achieved by Alfred was accomplished

rather by his writings than his schools. Mr. Craik, in his history

of English literature, speaks of it indeed as “probable” that Alfred

restored many of the old episcopal and monastic schools, though he

admits there is no satisfactory evidence of his having done so. We

may safely affirm, from the absence of all historic evidence, that no

such restorations took place, and the reason is obvious; to effect

them he must first have restored the monastic institute, and however

ardently he desired to do so, it is quite clear that his efforts were

crowned with very imperfect success. But his claim to be regarded as

the founder of Oxford University rests on more respectable tradition,

which, to use the words of Hallam, “if it cannot be maintained as a

certain truth, at least bears no intrinsic marks of error.” It is

assumed by most historians that the schools to the support of which

Alfred devoted one-fourth part of the moiety of his revenues, were

those which he founded or restored at Oxford, by the advice, as it

is said, of St. Neot, and where it is further stated that Grimbald

taught theology on first coming to England. Hardyng, the historian,

tells us that these schools were founded in virtue of a brief from

Pope Martin II.

In the yere Eight hundred four score and tweyne

The Pope Marteyne graunte to Kynge Alwerede

To founde and mak a studye then ageyne,

And an universitie for clerkes in to rede,

The whiche he mad in Oxenforde, in dede,

To that intent that clerkes by sapience

Agayn heretiks suld mak resistence.

The passage, indeed, which occurs in one manuscript of Asser’s

history, giving an account of certain dissensions between Grimbald

and the old scholastics whom he found already established at Oxford,

is now very generally held to be an interpolation of later writers,

who were anxious by this means to stretch back the antiquity of their

university to a date of indefinite remoteness.