At Einsidlen, as at Treves, he devoted himself to the office of

teaching, and with the same success. It was as hopeless for him to

attempt to conceal his talent, as to hide a light under a bushel.

The world soon resounded with the fame of his school, and bishops

travelled to Einsidlen to bargain for his possession. This time the

friendly persecution was revived by St. Udalric of Augsburgh, who

was himself sufficiently learned to understand the merits of the

poor monk, who asked nothing of the world but a quiet hiding-place,

and was never suffered to enjoy it for any length of time. Udalric

was a scholar of St. Gall’s, and had given marks of sanctity even

during his school days. A minute account of his manner of life when

archbishop is given in the beautiful life written by his friend

Gerard. Let it suffice to say, that besides singing the Divine

Office in the cathedral with his canons, and daily celebrating two

or three masses (a privilege then permitted to priests, as we learn

from Walafrid Strabo), he every day recited the entire Psalter, the

Office of Our Lady, together with that of the Holy Cross, and of All

Saints; that he entertained a number of poor persons at his table,

exercised hospitality on a right royal scale, administered strict

justice to his people, and courageously defended them against the

oppression of their feudal lords; finally, that he took particular

care of the education of his clergy, and directed the studies of his

cathedral school in person, none being better fitted to do so than

himself. When he made the visitation of his diocese, he travelled

in a wagon drawn by oxen, which he preferred to riding on horseback

as it enabled him to recite the Psalms with his chaplains with less

interruption. In this arrangement he certainly displayed a sound

discretion, for in the ancient chronicles of these times, more than

one story is preserved of the disasters which befell travelling monks

and bishops, owing to their habit of reading on horseback.[133]

His cathedral city of Augsburgh was repeatedly attacked by the

Huns; and during one of their sieges, the holy bishop, sending the

able-bodied men to the walls collected a number of infants in arms,

and laying them on the floor of the cathedral, before the altar,

prostrated himself in prayer, hoping that their tender cries might

ascend as prayer before the Throne of God. His prayers were heard,

and Augsburgh was delivered. Such was the prelate who at last

succeeded in drawing Wolfgang out of his retirement, and compelling

him to receive priestly ordination. And in 972 the emperor Otho

II., at the united entreaties of his bishops, appointed him Bishop

of Ratisbon, which see he governed for twenty-two years, never,

however, laying aside his monastic habit. Henry, duke of Bavaria,

thoroughly understood his merits, and knowing his love of the office

of teaching, entreated him to take charge of his four children,

St. Henry, afterwards emperor of Germany, St. Bruno, who succeeded

Udalric in the diocese of Augsburgh, and the two princesses, Gisela

and Brigit, who both died in the odour of sanctity. The singular

blessing which attended his labours with these and other noble

children committed to his care, gave rise to a proverb which deserves

remembrance: “Find saints for masters, and we shall have saints for

emperors.”

The emperors of the tenth century were certainly fortunate in this

respect, and as I have just named Otho II., it will not be amiss

to say a few words about him, and about the tutor to whom was

committed the education of his son and successor. Otho II. had been

brought up among the canons of Hildesheim, and had acquired from

them a taste for letters, which was still further increased by his

marriage with the Greek princess Theophania. At this time the court

of Constantinople was the centre of all that survived of the old

imperial civilisation and literature. Theophania was a woman of

beauty and talent, and remarkable for her wit and eloquence, she

soon infused into the Germans a rage for Greek literature, and gave

such a brilliant character to the literary coteries of the imperial

court, that Gerbert, who was then residing there, speaks in one of

his letters of the “Socratic conversation” which he found among the

learned men who thronged the company of the empress, which, he says,

sufficed to console him amid all his troubles. In more peaceful

times it is probable that a sovereign of Otho’s character would

have effected a great restoration of letters, but the ten years of

his reign were occupied with continual wars, which affixed to his

name the appellation of “the Sanguinary,” and gave no scope for the

exercise of his really great abilities. Before his death, which took

place in 983, he obtained the election of his infant son, Otho III.

as emperor, and left him to the guardianship of Theophania, who,

during the minority of her son, governed the empire as regent.

The empress showed herself fully qualified for both offices. She

had it greatly at heart to provide the young emperor with a learned

education, and not unmindful of the proverb we have quoted above, was

equally solicitous to secure for his tutor one who should merit the

title of a saint. The priest whom she chose was a noble Saxon named

Bernward; he was nephew to Folcmar, Bishop of Utrecht, who sent

him when a child of seven years old to be educated in the episcopal

school of Hildesheim, by the grave and holy master Tangmar. This

good old man, who afterwards wrote his life, received him kindly,

and to test his capacities, set him to learn by heart some of the

select passages from Holy Scripture which were usually given to

beginners. Little Bernward set himself to learn and meditate on them

with wonderful ardour, and associating himself to the most studious

of his companions, tried with their help thoroughly to master, not

only the words, but the hidden sense of his lessons. As he was not

yet judged old enough to join any of the classes, he sat apart by

himself, but listened attentively to the lectures of the master, and

the explanations which he gave, and was afterwards found reproducing

the same in a grave and sententious manner for the edification of

his younger schoolfellows. Surprised and delighted at these marks of

precocious genius, Tangmar spared no pains in the cultivation of so

promising a scholar, and had him constantly by his side. “Whenever

I went abroad on the business of the monastery,” he says, “I used

to take him with me, and I was always more and more struck by his

excellent qualities. We often studied the whole day as we rode along

on horseback, only more briefly than we were used to do in school;

at one time exercising ourselves in poetry, and amusing ourselves

by making verses, at another, arguing on philosophic questions. He

excelled no less in the mechanical than in the liberal arts. He wrote

a beautiful hand, was a good painter, and an equally good sculptor

and worker in metals, and had a peculiar aptitude for all things

appertaining to household and domestic affairs.” Under the care of so

devoted a master, the boy Bernward, as the old man always called him,

grew up to be a wise and learned man. He had that singular ardour

for acquiring knowledge which seems one of the gifts poured out over

ages in which its pursuit is hedged about with difficulties that

must necessarily discourage a more ordinary amount of zeal. Bernward

always read during meal times, and when unable to read himself, he

got some one to read to him. His reputation determined Theophania

to choose him as tutor to her son, who made great progress under

his care, and was then sent to finish his education in the school

of the famous Gerbert. Bernward meanwhile was appointed Bishop of

Hildesheim, and in the midst of his episcopal functions, continued

to cultivate literature and the fine arts. He made time by employing

the day in business and the night in prayer. He founded _scriptoria_

in many monasteries, and collected a valuable library of sacred and

profane authors. He tried to bring to greater perfection the arts of

painting, mosaic work, and metal work, and made a valuable collection

of all those curiosities of fine art which were brought to Otho’s

court as presents from foreign princes. This collection Bernward used

as a studio, for the benefit of a number of youths whom he brought up

and instructed in these pursuits. It is not to be said what he did

for his own cathedral, supplying it with jewelled missals, thuribles,

and chalices, a huge golden corona which hung from the centre of

the roof, and other like ornaments. The walls he painted with his

own hands. The visitor to Hildesheim may still admire the rich

bronze gates, sixteen feet in height, placed in the cathedral by its

artist-bishop, the crucifix adorned with filagree-work and jewels,

made by his own hands, and the old rose-tree growing on the cloister,

which tradition affirms him to have planted.

His manner of life is minutely described by his old tutor Tangmar.

After high mass every morning he gave audience to any who desired

to speak to him, heard causes, and administered justice with great

readiness and promptitude. Then his almoner waited on him, and

accompanied him to the distribution of his daily alms, for every day

a hundred poor persons were fed and relieved at his palace. After

this he went the round of his workshops, overlooking each one’s work

and directing its progress. At the hour of nine he dined with his

clerks. There was no worldly pomp observable at his table, but a

religious silence, all being required to listen to the reading, which

was made aloud. The barbarians gave him plenty of trouble, for they

had seized possession of both shores of the Elbe, and were therefore

able to enter Saxony whenever they liked, and often appeared at the

gates of Hildesheim. But Bernward raised troops for the defence of

his diocese, and repeatedly forced them to retire; and at last built

and garrisoned two strong fortresses which kept the pirates in check.

Bernward had many illustrious disciples, and among them was one

destined to be known in history as the Apostle of the Sclaves. The

title may puzzle those readers who have met with other and earlier

narratives of the conversion of these people, but the fact is that

the Sclaves absorbed almost as much Apostolic labour as China has

done in later times. Twice converted they had twice apostatised, and

were finally brought within the fold of the Church by the labours

of Bennon, Bishop of Misnia. This remarkable man belonged to the

family of the counts of Saxony, and was placed under the care of

St. Bernward at the age of five years. The restored monastery of

Hildesheim, dedicated to St. Michael, of course possessed its school,

which was presided over by Wigger, a very skilful master, under

whose careful tuition Bennon thrived apace. “_Now as the age was

learned_,” writes the good canon, Jerome Enser--who little thought

in what light that same age would come to be regarded--“as the age

was learned, and cultivated humane letters, as may be seen by the

lives and writings of so many eminent men, Wigger would not allow the

child committed to his care to neglect polite letters;” so he set him

to work at once to learn to write, being careful to transcribe his

copies himself. And how well Bennon profited from these early lessons

might yet be seen by any who chose to examine the fine specimens

which were preserved in the Church of Misnia when Jerome Enser

wrote his biography. After this Wigger exercised his pupil in the

art of reading and that of composing verses, taking care to remove

from his way everything offensive to piety or modesty. Bennon had a

natural gift of versification, and soon learnt to write little hymns

and poems by way of amusement. His progress and his boyish verses

endeared him to his masters, and indeed, adds Jerome, “he was beloved

by God and man.” None showed him more affection than St. Bernward,

who was now overwhelmed with the infirmities of old age, though his

mind was as bright and active as ever. During the last five years

of his life he was entirely confined to his bed, and all this time

little Bennon proved his chief solace. Sometimes he read aloud to

his beloved father. Sometimes he made verses, or held disputations

to entertain him; never would he leave his side, discharging for him

all the offices of which his youth was capable. When at last death

drew near, Bernward called the child to him together with his master

Wigger, and addressed to him a touching exhortation. “If by reason of

thy tender age,” he said, “thou canst not thyself be wise, promise me

never to depart from the side of thy preceptor that he may be wise

for thee, and that so thou mayest be preserved from the corruptions

of the world whilst thy heart is yet soft and tender. Yea, if thou

lovest me, love and obey him in all things, as holding the place of

thy father.” Then he kissed the child’s little hand, and placed it

in that of Wigger, and soon after departed this life, rich in good

works, and secure of a heavenly reward.

The sorrow of Bennon was too great for words. He wept without

ceasing, and pined away in his grief, till at last Wigger had to

mingle his consolations with timely reprehension. His words in some

degree restored his pupil to peace, but so deep an impression had

been made on his heart of the nothingness of a world which sooner

or later deprives us of all we most love, that he resolved to have

nothing more to do with it, and to devote his life to God in the

monastery. He never forgot his good father Bernward, and the first

composition which he wrote after the death of the bishop was a

poetical epitaph which his biographer inserts, and which is not a

favourable specimen of his genius. Jerome probably felt that it was

open to criticism, which he judiciously forestalls. “The verses,”

he says, “show that if not ignorant of the metrical art, he did

not affect a flowery style, but was content with plain and simple

language. But if some, having delicate ears, should be disposed to

turn up their noses at the line,”

“Quem Deus Emmanuel diligat, et Michael.”

“I would remind them of the singular devotion which the Blessed

Bernward bore to St. Michael whence it will appear that this line did

not escape our Bennon unwarily. They who are moved by the Spirit of

God care not much for the outside shell of words, and prefer a good

life to a good style of writing.” He adds, “the scholastic discipline

of Hildesheim was at this time extremely severe. It was reckoned a

great fault not merely to be absent from choir or refectory, but even

to come late. The scholars each day had to bring their Scripture to

the dean, and rehearse their Psalms. And the rod was freely used.”

Bennon being kept under this strict discipline, passed safely through

the slippery time of youth, and in his after-life proved himself not

unworthy the extraordinary care bestowed on his education.

Many other great prelates of this period might be enumerated,

distinguished either as the founders or the masters of schools.

Of Notger of Liege we have already spoken. The school of Verdun

was founded by one of his disciples, and boasted of possessing

that wonder of the eleventh century, Master Herminfrid, who spoke

and wrote with equal facility Latin, Greek, French, German, and

Italian. Then there was St. Meinwerc, who like Bennon was a pupil

of Hildesheim, where he studied along with his cousin St. Henry of

Bavaria, and the prince, even after he became Emperor, remembered

their schoolboy days together, and was fond of putting him in mind

of them by sundry tricks that savoured of the grown-up schoolboy.

Meinwerc was not much of a scholar himself, but when he became

Bishop of Paderborn, he showed a laudable zeal in promoting good

scholarship among his clergy. In fact, he was the founder of those

famous schools of Paderborn which are described as flourishing in

divine and human science, and which were perfected by his nephew

and successor, Imadeus. The boys were all under strict cloistral

discipline; there were professors of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and

music; both the trivium and quadrivium were there taught, together

with mathematics, physics, and astronomy. Horace, Virgil, and Statius

were read by the students, whose ordinary recreation it was to make

verses, while great attention was paid to the arts of writing and

painting. Brucker treats this account as apocryphal, on the ground

that Meinwerc was an _ignoramus_ himself, and sometimes made blunders

in reading Latin. The story of Bishop Meinwerc and his mules, the

only one, be it remembered, on which this charge of ignorance is

founded, together with the explanation of the same so amusingly given

by Mr. Maitland in his “Dark Ages,” need not here be repeated. When

emperors take to playing tricks, even the wisest of bishops may be

snared into a blunder. But granting the fact that Meinwerc himself

possessed no more scholarship than our own Wykeham, there seems no

reason for supposing it therefore impossible that he should desire to

rear a race of students more learned than himself. We know that he

was a strict disciplinarian in all that regarded the right discharge

of the sacred offices, and that he was wont to examine and burn all

incorrect copies of books used at the altar, administering very

sharp correction, in the shape of stripes, to careless and negligent

priests.

However, the object of the present chapter being chiefly to show

something of the interior of schools in the Dark Ages, we will pass

over a great many names of founders and learned bishops, and take

our way to Magdeburg, where Otho I. had erected a cathedral, and

Archbishop Adalbert had founded a school. Here, in 973, the yet more

famous St. Adalbert of Prague was sent by his parents for education.

They were of the Bohemian nation, and had vowed to offer their son

to God should he recover of a dangerous sickness. Before he left his

father’s house he had learnt the Psalter, and under Otheric, the

famous master then presiding over the school of Magdeburg, he made as

much progress in sanctity as in learning. He had a habit of stealing

away from the schoolroom in the midst of his studies to refresh his

soul with a brief prayer in the church, after which he hastened back

and was safe in his place again before the coming of the master.

To conceal his acts of charity from the eyes of others, he chose

the night hours for visiting the poor and dispensing his abundant

alms. It often happened that when Otheric was out of the school, the

boys would divert themselves with games more or less mischievous to

relieve the weary hours of study. Adalbert seldom took part in these

pastimes, neither would he share in those stealthy little feasts

which they sometimes held in obscure corners, where they contrived to

hide from Otheric’s quick eye the sweets and other dainties furnished

them, as we must suppose, by some medieval tart-woman.[134] However,

if Adalbert was proof against this last-named temptation, it appears

he was not altogether superior to the love of play, and that when his

master’s back was turned, he did occasionally throw aside his books

and indulge in a game of ball. When such delinquencies came to the

ears of Otheric, he did not spare the rod, and on these occasions,

observes his biographer with cruel pleasantry, Adalbert was often

known to speak in three languages. For it was a strict rule that the

boys were always to talk Latin in the schoolroom, and never allow

the ears of their master to catch the sound of a more barbarous

dialect. When the rod was produced, therefore, Adalbert would begin

by entreating indulgence in classic phraseology, but so soon as it

was applied, he would call out for mercy in German, and finally in

Sclavonic. After nine years’ study at Magdeburg, Adalbert returned

to Bohemia, with the reputation of being specially well read in

philosophy, and taking with him a useful library of books, which he

had collected during his college career. After his consecration as

Bishop of Prague, at the early age of twenty-seven, he is said never

again to have been seen to smile. Twice the hard-heartedness of his

people compelled him to abandon his diocese, and after his departure

the second time, he travelled as missioner into the then heathen and

barbarous provinces of Prussia, where he met with his martyrdom in

the year 997. A Sclavonic hymn to the Blessed Virgin, formerly wont

to be sung by the Poles when going to battle, is attributed to this

saint.

Hitherto we have spoken only of the episcopal seminaries of

Germany; those attached to the monasteries were, if possible, more

celebrated. The great school of St. Gall’s attained its highest

degree of splendour in this century. Something has already been

said of the general character of the studies pursued there, but

its succession of great masters deserves a more particular notice.

Originally founded by Irish monks, the monastery owed no little of

its renown to the teaching of Irish professors. In the year 840,

Marx, an Irish bishop, travelling home from Rome in company with his

nephew Moengall, stopped at St. Gall’s, and after a few days’ visit,

both of them entreated the abbot to admit them into his community.

Permission being granted, they dismissed their servants and horses,

threw their money out of the window, and, keeping only their books

and sacred vessels, vowed to spend the rest of their lives in the

seclusion of the cloister. Moengall, to whom the monks gave the less

barbarous name of Marcellus, was soon after appointed master of the

interior or cloistral school, the exterior one being governed by

the famous master, Iso. This last-named personage, whom Ekkehard

styles a _doctor magnificus_, enjoyed such a reputation that all the

monasteries of Gaul and Burgundy were eager to obtain his disciples,

and it was commonly said that he possessed ways of his own for

sharpening the dullest wits. At the precise time of which we speak,

he had among his pupils Solomon, afterwards Bishop of Constance, and

the three friends, Notker Balbulus, or the stammerer, Ratpert, and

Tutilo, all of whom afterwards chose the monastic state, and passed,

therefore, to the interior school, presided over by Marcellus.

The Irish scholar greatly improved the system of studies; he

extended, if he did not first introduce, the study of Greek, and it

is evident that his influence, and that of many of his countrymen,

who filled subordinate professorships, may be traced in the character

which distinguished the education of St. Gall’s from that of most

of its contemporaries. It was larger and freer, and made more of

the arts and sciences; indeed, so far as regards its studies, it

had a better claim to the title of a _university_ than any single

institution which can be named as existing before the time of Philip

Augustus. Marcellus was fortunate in his pupils, but the character

of the three who were most prominent among them must be given in

the words of Ekkehard. Though united in one heart, he says, they

were of very different dispositions. Notker was weak, not in mind

but in body; in speech, but not in spirit, a stammerer. Firm in

spiritual things, patient in adversity, mild to all, yet a strict

disciplinarian, and timorous at any sudden alarm, except of demons,

whom he combated valiantly. He was very assiduous in reading, writing

and composing, and was, in short, a vessel of the Holy Ghost.

Very different was Tutilo; he was a good and useful man; as to his

arms and all his limbs, such as Fabius teaches us to choose for a

wrestler. He was eloquent, with a fine voice, skilful in carving, and

an excellent painter. He was a musician, too, like his companions,

and excelled everybody in all kinds of stringed and wind instruments,

and taught their use to the sons of the nobility educated in the

exterior school. He was, moreover, a very wise builder, powerful in

reading and singing, cheerful whether in jest or earnest, and what

is more, ever diligent in choir; in secret, given to devout tears,

and skilful in the composition of songs and melodies. Ratpert was

something between the two: from his youth he had been schoolmaster

of the external school, where he succeeded Master Iso, and a kind,

straightforward teacher he was, very strict in discipline, and so

seldom given to go abroad that, he made one pair of shoes last

a twelvemonth. He was very famous as a poet, and so fond of the

ancients that he was known, even in chapter, to quote a verse from

Virgil. He died some years before either of his friends; and forty of

his former pupils, all of them priests or canons, stood around his

deathbed, and promised each one to say thirty masses for the repose

of his soul, a thing which gave him infinite joy and satisfaction.

Tutilo was a good classical scholar, and could preach both in Greek

and Latin; but he was chiefly esteemed as an artist and a musician.

He sang his own melodies to the harp, an instrument which the Irish

monks had rendered very popular at St. Gall’s. His magnificent

statuary in bronze and stone continued to decorate the abbey church

till the time of its pillage by the _soi-disant_ reformers, and all

the French and German prelates were eager to obtain his works. With

the permission of his abbot, therefore, he travelled far and wide,

executing devout carvings and paintings, much to the dissatisfaction

of Ratpert, who was wont to say that this gadding about the world was

the destruction of a monk. It did not, however, prove so with Tutilo,

who, to all his brilliant genius and gigantic muscular strength,

united in a singular degree the grace of humility. Whenever he found

that his artistic skill drew on him any notable amount of admiration,

he generally found some excuse for departing from the place where he

was at work, and his long journeys never lessened his devotion, or

deprived him of his gift of holy tears. It was his custom to adorn

his sculptures and pictures with pious verses, in order to draw the

thoughts of those who beheld them from the work of the artist to

the divine mystery which it represented. One of his most celebrated

pieces of sculpture was an image of the Blessed Virgin, which he

carved for the cathedral at Metz. Whilst engaged on this masterpiece,

two pilgrims came up and begged an alms of him, and having received

it, asked of a clerk who was standing by, who that beautiful lady

was whom they saw at his side, holding his compasses, and directing

him in his work. The clerk looked, and saw the same wondrous vision,

and believed it to be Our Lady herself who had come in person to

assist her client. But when the rumour of the thing spread abroad,

Tutilo fled away, nor could he ever be persuaded to return to the

city. His verses were highly esteemed, and some of his elegies are

still preserved. Besides all this, he was great in mathematics and

astronomy, and constructed an astrolabe which showed the course of

the stars. For it must be remembered that scientific studies were

highly prized at St. Gall’s, and that even geographers were to be

found among the monks, such as Abbot Hartmot, who constructed a large

map of the world, in those days a very rare and valuable curiosity.

Among these three famous scholars, we may select Notker as the most

perfect specimen of the monastic type. Like his two friends, he was

a poet and musician, and his brethren considered him a second Horace

for the beauty of his songs and sequences. It was the reputation

of learning enjoyed by St. Gall’s which had first attracted him

thither, for indeed, says Ekkehard, “he was devoured with a love of

grammar.” Like a true poet, he was keenly susceptible to the sights

and sounds of nature, and loved to “study her beautifulness” in

that enchanted region of lakes and mountains. The gentle melancholy

inseparable from exalted genius, which in him was increased by his

exceeding delicacy of organisation, found its expression in the

wild and mystic melodies which he composed. The monotonous sound

of a mill-wheel near the abbey suggested to him the music of the

“Media Vita,” the words being written whilst looking into a deep

gulf over which some labourers were constructing a bridge. This

antiphon became very popular in Germany, and was every year sung

at St. Gall’s during the Rogation Processions. But it was not as a

poet or man of science that the Blessed Notker was best known to

posterity; profoundly learned in human literature, he yet, says

Ekkehard, applied more to the Psalter than to any other book. Even

in his own lifetime he was revered as a saint. He was master of the

interior and claustral school at the same time as Ratpert governed

the exterior school, and kept up the same strict discipline, “stripes

only excepted.” The gentleness of his disposition peeps out in the

fact that one of the faults he was hardest on in his pupils was the

habit of bird’s-nesting. He was always accessible; no hour of day or

night was ever deemed unseasonable for a visit from any who brought a

book in their hands. For the sake of maintaining regular observance,

he once forbade his disciples to whisper to him in time of silence,

but the abbot enjoined him under obedience to let them speak to him

whenever they would. Ratpert relates a story of him, which shows the

opinion of learning and sanctity in which he was held. The emperor

Charles, having on one occasion come to the monastery on a visit, he

brought in his suite a certain chaplain, whose pride appears to have

taken offence at the consideration with which his master treated the

Blessed Notker. When they were about to depart, therefore, seeing the

man of God sitting, as was his custom, with his Psalter in his hand,

and recognising him to be the same man who, on the previous day, had

solved many hard questions proposed to him by Charles, he said to his

companions, “There is he who is said to be the most learned man in

the whole empire; but if you like, I will make this most excellent

wiseacre a laughing-stock for you, for I will ask him a question

which, with all his learning, he will not be able to answer.” Curious

to see what he would do, and how Notker would deal with him, they

agreed to his proposal, and all went together to salute the master,

who courteously rose, and asked them what they desired. Then said

the unhappy man of whom we spoke, “O most learned master, we are

very well aware that there is nothing you do not know. We therefore

desire you to tell us, if you can, what God is now doing in heaven?”

“Yes,” replied Notker, “I can answer that question very well. He is

doing what He always has done, and what He is shortly about to do to

thee, He is exalting the humble, and humbling the proud.” The scoffer

moved away, while the laugh was turned against him. Nevertheless, he

made light of Notker’s words and the prediction of evil which they

seemed to contain regarding himself. Presently the bell rang for the

king’s departure, and the chaplain, mounting his horse, rode off with

a great air in front of his master. But before he came to the gate

of the city the steed fell, and the rider being thrown on his face,

broke his leg. Abbot Hartmot hearing of this accident, desired Notker

to visit the sick man, and pardon him, giving him his blessing. But

the foolish chaplain protested that the misfortune had nothing to

do with Notker’s prediction, and continued to speak of him with the

greatest contempt. His leg, however, remained in a miserable state,

until one night his friends besought Notker to come to him and aid

him with his prayers. He complied willingly enough, and touching the

leg, it was immediately restored; and by this lesson the chaplain

learned to be more humble for the future.

Notker was the author of various works, amongst others of a German

translation of the Psalter, which Vadianus speaks of in his treatise

on the “Ancient Colleges of Germany,” and which he says is scarcely

intelligible by reason of the excessive harshness of the old Tudesque

dialect. He gives a translation of the “Creed,” and the “Our Father,”

from Notker’s version, in which it is not difficult to trace the

German idiom.[135] Notker’s German studies were yet more extensively

carried on by his namesake, Notker Labeo, or the Thick-Lipped, who

wrote many learned works in the vernacular, and was also a great

classical scholar. He translated into German the works of Aristotle,

Boëthius, and Marcian Capella, and some musical treatises, all which

are still preserved. His translation of St. Gregory’s “Morals” is

lost. He is commemorated in the chronicles of his House as “the

kind and learned master,” and whilst he presided over the claustral

school, he educated a great many profound scholars, among whom was

Ekkehard junior, the author of the chronicle “De Casibus S. Galli,”

and of the celebrated “Liber Benedictionum.” This Ekkehard, at the

request of the empress, transcribed Notker’s “Paraphrase of the

Psalms” for her use with his own hand, and corrected a certain poem

which his predecessor Ekkehard I. had written when a schoolboy,

and which was full of Tudesque barbarisms, such as the delicate

ear of Ekkehard junior might not abide. He held that the barbarous

idioms could not be translated into Latin without a great deal of

painstaking. “_Think_ in German,” he would say to his scholars, “and

then be careful to render your thought into correct Latin.” There

was yet a third Ekkehard whose memory is preserved in the annals of

St. Gall under the surname of _Palatinus_. He was nephew to Ekkehard

I., and presided over both the exterior and interior schools, and

that with great success. He made no distinction between noble

and plebeian scholars, but employed those who had less talent for

learning in writing, painting, and other like arts. He was able

to take down in shorthand the substance of anything he heard, and

two discourses are still preserved thus noted by his hand. He was

afterwards most unwillingly summoned to the Court of Otho I., who

appointed him his chaplain and secretary, and tutor to his son Otho

II. So venerated was this great man throughout Germany, that when he

attended the council of Mentz in 976, six bishops rose up to salute

their old master, all of them having been educated in the school of

St. Gall. To this list of masters I must add the name of another

Notker, who, from his strict observance of discipline, received the

surname of “Piperis-granum,” or the Peppercorn, though his pungency

of temper did not prevent his brethren from commemorating him in

their obituary as the “Doctor benignissimus.” He was renowned as a

physician, a painter, and a poet, and was also well skilled in music.

Most of these great men find a place in a narrative which I will give

here for the sake of its connection with the classical studies of St.

Gall, and which is related by Ekkehard junior in his chronicle of the

abbey.

Hedwiga, daughter to Duke Henry of Bavaria, was at that time the

reigning Duchess of Swabia, having been left a widow by the death of

her husband Duke Burkhard. She was a woman of wonderful beauty, but

of so severe and imperious a temper as to be held in terror through

all the surrounding provinces. In her youth she had been promised

in marriage to the Greek prince, Constantine, who sent a cunning

artist to take the portrait of his future bride, and at the same

time to instruct her in Greek literature. But Hedwiga, not admiring

the Greek alliance, made such terrible contortions of her fair nose

and eyebrows whenever the painter applied himself to his task, that

his efforts at a likeness proved fruitless, and the marriage was

broken off in consequence. From the Greek painter, however, Hedwiga

had acquired a very fair proportion of Greek scholarship, and on her

marriage with Burkhard, she likewise applied herself to the study of

Latin. She was a frequent visitor to the abbey of St. Gall, where

her nephew, Burkhard, was then abbot, and in return for her splendid

gifts, insisted on nothing less than that the abbot should make over

to her, as tutor, the hapless Ekkehard Palatinus, who then filled the

office of porter, and was known to be an excellent scholar in both

languages. The abbot very unwillingly consented to her demand, and

poor Ekkehard had to pay frequent visits to the castle of Dwellia,

where, in spite of the beauty and talents of his fair disciple, her

sharp temper and exasperating ways often made his office a hard

one. Once, when out of humility he had begged that a certain canopy

erected over his bed might be taken down, the wrathful duchess

ordered the servant who had executed the order to be flogged, and

would have cut off his head had it not been for the entreaties of

the master. However, she had an open hand, though a somewhat heavy

one, and bestowed liberal gifts on the monks of St. Gall, in the

shape of embroidered copes and chasubles. But even in her bounty she

showed the same wilful disposition, for having once given them a very

rich dalmatic, cunningly worked in fine gold, and representing the

espousals of Mercury and Philology, she took it away again in dudgeon

at the refusal of Abbot Immo to let her have the antiphonary on which

she had set her heart.

The favours which St. Gall’s received at her hands, however, and the

frequent visits exchanged between the abbey and Dwellia roused the

jealousy of Ruodman, abbot of the neighbouring monastery of Reichnau.

He was a prying, gossiping sort of a personage, and set afloat so

many mischievous and ill-natured tales as greatly to distress the

monks. But this was not the worst. Not content with whispering his

calumnies, Ruodman conceived the plan of stealing into the convent

in the absence of Abbot Burkhard, to see if he could not spy out

some matter which he might turn to the disadvantage of the inmates.

On a certain day, therefore, mounting his horse he set out for St.

Gall, and arriving at the monastery about nightfall, stole into

the cloister and cautiously crept about spying this way and that

to see what he could discover. Having satisfied his curiosity by

an inspection of the cloister, he proceeded on tiptoe upstairs to

the dormitory, but not so softly but that the watchful ear of Dean

Ekkehard, the senior, caught the sound. Quietly providing himself

with the abbot’s lantern, he followed the footsteps, and presently

discovered the intruder. Ere long the whole community was down upon

him, and I leave the reader to guess what were their sentiments when

the abbot’s lantern displayed the features of the trembling Ruodman.

The younger part of the monks were earnest in their entreaties that

he might be chastised as his impertinence merited, and some of them

ran forwith to provide themselves with rods. The unhappy Ruodman,

in great anguish of soul, implored their mercy: “Spare me, good

youths!” he exclaimed; “I am in your hands, deal with me gently, or

at least wait to hear the judgment of your dean:” for at that moment

Ekkehard senior was consulting with the elder fathers what was to be

done in so strange an emergency. Meanwhile Notker, the Peppercorn,

appeared on the scene, and his voice was for summary measures. “O

wicked man!” he exclaimed, “dost thou go about as a lion, seeking

whom thou mayest devour, and like another Satan, desiring to accuse

thy brethren?” But he, cunningly taking advantage of the known

mildness of the good dean, threw himself entirely on his mercy. “Most

prudent father,” he exclaimed, “I have indeed done very wickedly; but

lo! I repent, I ask pardon of everybody, and from henceforward I will

utterly abstain from molesting any of you.” The kind-hearted monks

were touched by his speedy repentance; some indeed regretted that he

should be let off without receiving a severe lesson, but the voices

of the seniors prevailed, and Ruodman was conducted by Ekkehard

himself to the spot where his horse awaited him, and dismissed in

peace and forgiveness.

My readers will probably be of opinion that he got off very easily.

So was Abbot Burkhard when he heard of the affair, though he was far

from being of a pugnacious temper; and so too was the mighty duchess.

The next time that Ekkehard Palatinus appeared to give his lesson,

she vented her wrath in very strong language; to be candid, she

swore, “by the life of Hedwiga,” to have her revenge. But her anger

for that day, at least, was dissipated by a pleasant incident which

sets her character in a more amiable light. Ekkehard had brought with

him one of his junior scholars, whose infantine beauty attracted the

admiration of the duchess. “Wherefore have you brought this child?”

she inquired of her tutor; who replied with his customary courtesy,

“For the sake of the Greek, gracious lady, which I hope he will

gather from your lips.” Then the boy, who was well trained in the

versifying habits of the St. Gall’s scholars, spoke for himself in an

extempore line of Latin:--

“Esse velim Græcus, cum sim vix, Dom’na, Latinus.”[136]

Charmed with his ready wit, she drew him to her, and kissing him

kindly on the forehead made him sit on the footstool at her feet,

requiring him to make her some more verses immediately. The child,

confused with these unwonted caresses, looked first at one and then

at the other of his teachers, and then stammered out,

“Non possum prorsus dignos componere versus,

Nam nimis expavi Duce me libante suavi.”[137]

The severe heart of the duchess was fairly conquered, and making

the little poet stand up before her, she then and there taught him

to sing the antiphon, _Maria et flumina_, which she had herself

translated out of Latin into Greek, and frequently afterwards had him

at her castle and taught him how to make Greek verses. Moreover, she

treated him with a tenderness that went nigh to spoiling, and gave

him a Horace, and some other books which one wishes Ekkehard junior

had named, and which were long preserved in the library. I will

not pursue the story of Ruodman, which has been chiefly introduced

for the sake of this graceful ending. He had great difficulty in

making his peace with the abbot and the duchess, though he tried the

mollifying gift to the former of a very handsome horse, which threw

its rider the very first time he mounted it, so that in spite of all

the skill displayed by Notker Piperis-granum, poor Abbot Burkhard

went for some time after on crutches.

The school anecdotes of these times attest the familiar and paternal

relations which existed between the scholars and their masters.

The sports and enjoyments of the boys were amply provided for, and

we find mention of running, wrestling, swimming, country walks,

and fishing parties. Sometimes, as at Eton or Harrow, a visit from

royalty procured an extra play-day, and on certain high festival

days it is recorded that they were regaled with wine and a choicer

fare at dinner. Hartmann, one of the learned disciples of Marcellus,

retained such a liking for the school that even when he became abbot

he spent half his time among the boys. And Solomon, the schoolfellow

of Ratpert and Tutilo, who from abbot became Bishop of Constance,

in like manner never forgot his old pupils, for he, too, had in his

day held the ferule, being assistant to Iso in the external school.

On one occasion, paying a visit to the abbey during the Christmas

festival, on the day after Holy Innocents, before going away he

peeped into the school, and finding the master absent walked into the

midst of the boys to bid them all good-bye. They were about him in

a minute; and the knowing ones among them lost no time in demanding

their rights. There was a custom of long standing in the school that

when any stranger entered the schoolroom, he might be captured

as a prisoner, and not released till he had ransomed himself by a

gift or favour. Undismayed by the rank of their present visitor,

they surrounded him with daring familiarity, and declared him their

captive. Good-naturedly entering into their sport, he suffered

them to do what they liked with him; whereupon they led him to the

master’s chair, and made him understand that he should not come out

thence till he had promised them something handsome. “Very well,” he

said, “as you have put me in the master’s chair, I shall exercise

the master’s authority; prepare all of you to be flogged.” This was

turning the tables on them with a vengeance, but the boys were quick

enough to find a way of escape. “Be it so,” they replied, “only we

claim to be suffered to redeem ourselves as we do with our master.”

“And pray, how is that?” said the bishop. “By making verses, to be

sure,” they replied; and he agreeing to their terms, they proceeded

to spout little metrical compositions of their own, improvised for

the occasion, two of which are even yet preserved. Charmed with their

readiness, the bishop rose and kissed them all, one after the other.

“Yea, as I live,” he said, “I will surely ransom myself nobly.” And

so he did; for, calling the masters, he commanded that from that day

forward and for ever, the boys should every year have three whole

play-days after the Feast of Holy Innocents, and that on each of

these days they should have meat dishes for dinner from the abbot’s

kitchen, which custom continued uninterruptedly till the troubles

occasioned by the Hungarian invasions.

This Abbot Solomon was a learned as well as a kind-hearted man. He

kept up a literary correspondence with two brother bishops, Dado,

of Verdun, and Waldram, of Strasburg, and most of the letters that

passed between them were in verse. He was, moreover, well skilled

in the arts, and no one succeeded so well as he in designing the

capitals for illuminated manuscripts; nay, even after he became

bishop, he did not think this occupation unworthy his episcopal

hand. He always kept up the same affectionate intercourse with

St. Gall’s and its scholars, and loved to encourage their studies

and amuse himself with their innocent freedoms. Nor was it only

by ecclesiastics drawn from the ranks of the community that these

marks of favour and interest were bestowed. All the great German

sovereigns understood the value of St. Gall’s, and frequently

visited it in person. Otho the Great was accustomed to say that he

would willingly break his imperial crown into fragments to preserve

regular observance in that abbey. His sagacious mind discerned the

vast benefits which must flow to his empire from the preservation in

the midst of it of such a centre of civilisation. So very solicitous

was he for the well-being of the monastery, that reports having

reached him in 968 of a rumoured decay of discipline, he used his

imperial authority after the fashion of Charlemagne, and appointed

a commission of abbots and bishops to investigate the case. They

gave a good report of the state of the monastery; but the emperor,

not yet satisfied, dispatched Kebon, abbot of Lauresheim, and some

others, to enforce the observance of the Rule to the very letter. The

only irregularity which the commissioners could discover was, that

the Sunday chant was in too high a key, and that the Friday fast was

too rigorous. Otho did not fail to do justice to the monks, and paid

them a visit in person to console them for the trouble he had given

them by his royal commissioners. It is said that assisting with them

in choir, he let his stick fall as if by accident, and was edified

to see that not one head was turned to observe the cause of the

disturbance.

Ekkehard relates another royal visit from King Conrad I., which

took place in 912. The king being at Constance on Christmas-day,

the bishop happened after dinner to speak of the processions which

were celebrated at that season at St. Gall’s. “Why should we not

go there to-morrow?” said the king; and his courtiers eagerly

assenting, the next day very early they set out in boats across the

lake, and so reached the abbey, where they spent three days. They

specially admired the procession of the children; and to test their

discipline, the king threw an apple among them, which none of them

so much as looked at, whereat he greatly wondered. He dined with

them in the refectory, and took pleasure in hearing the boys read in

succession. As they came down from the desk, he sent some gold to be

put into their mouths, which one of them spitting out again, Conrad

declared he would make an excellent monk. His visit ended pleasantly

to the children, for after causing himself to be enrolled as a

conscript brother, he granted the scholars three extra play-days,

and discharged the expenses of a great feast, furnishing the pepper,

as he said, to season their beans. When Conrad II. and his empress

paid a similar visit in 1033, they contrived to coax Abbot Dietbald

to give them the German Psalter and the book of Job, which had been

written out by Notker Labeo, a treasure worth more to the community

than many such instalments of royal pepper.

I have lingered so long on the history of St. Gall’s as to leave

little space for noticing the other monastic schools of the period.

Most of those in Germany were remarkable for their cultivation of the

arts, in which they far outstripped their Italian contemporaries.

Godeschard, the successor of St. Bernward of Hildesheim, thoroughly

shared his tastes, and carried on his designs. He even founded a

school of painting in his episcopal palace which propagated the art

through all the German dioceses. The subjects chosen were mostly

scenes from the Old and New Testaments, being professedly intended

for the instruction of the unlearned. Rio fixes the latter part of

the tenth century as the date of the invention of glass painting, and

the first fabrication of carpets and hangings. These new branches of

industry were at once taken up by the monks, and at St. Florent de

Saumur, in 985, a manufactory was established for weaving tapestries

adorned with flowers and figures of animals. Sometimes the love of

nature, so inherent in the monkish soul, induced them to decorate

their cloisters with woodland scenes, in which the figures of men,

dogs, horses, and deer, appear taking part in the chase. This was, of

course, a departure from the principles on which the art of religious

painting rested; and in the twelfth century these artistic caprices

drew down severe reproofs from St. Bernard, who particularly disliked

the representation of monsters, such as centaurs, and quadrupeds

with a fish’s tail. He thought that they savoured of heathenism,

and were unsuitable to the gravity of a religious house. Hugo, of

St. Victor, objected even to the natural designs of sheep and oxen;

“It may be well,” he said, “that monasteries should have paintings

for the edification of those who are not delighted with Scriptural

subtleties, but for monks themselves a horse or an ox is more useful

in the fields than in a picture.” These landscape subjects were,

however, exceptional; far more frequently the monastic paintings were

of a character described in their annals as “solemn pictures.” They

were pathetic representations of the Sacred Passion, accompanied with

pious verses, not without a reference to the part of the convent

where they were fixed. Thus, in the lavatory, the monks were bid not

to wash their hands only, but their hearts also; in the refectory,

to remember the gall and vinegar which Our Lord received on the

Cross; and in the cloister, to think how the fashion of this world

flees past us with noiseless step. The great abbey of St. Denis,

in France, was covered all over with carvings and paintings, its

very doors being sculptured with the mysteries of the Passion and

Resurrection; while within the cloister was a whole series of

paintings, historical and mystical, some of the latter exceedingly

quaint, such as that which represented St. Paul turning a mill, and

all the prophets of the Old Testament bringing a sack of corn to be

ground in it; figuring thereby his gift in the interpretation of the

Sacred Scriptures of the Old Law.

One thing cannot be overlooked whilst studying the annals of these

early monastic schools; it is the peculiar charm attaching to the

character of the masters. Everywhere we see the same features of

cheerful labour, and a certain tranquil activity. Turn to the newly

converted land of Normandy, and hear how Oderic Vitalis describes

the abbots and masters of his own monastery of St. Evroult. In one

page he paints the good abbot Theodoric, a very skilful scribe, who

managed to collect a fine library, partly by the diligent exercise

of his own pen and the labours of his youths, and partly by “gentle

solicitations.” Then there was Osbern, eloquent in speech, with a

lively genius for sculpture, architecture, and painting. How we seem

to behold him with “his stately stature, and his head, profusely

covered with black hair sprinkled with grey!” He was always urging

the novices to make progress in reading, singing, and writing; and

loved with his own hands to make the writing implements and waxen

tablets for the use of the boys. Or shall he tell us of that most

promising scholar, William, who was placed in the abbey when nine

years old, and was so diligent at his books, that the monks called

him Gregory the Second? Not only did he make an excellent reader and

chanter, and an exceedingly skilful copyist, but he was so devoted a

student of the Scriptures, that he committed to his tenacious memory

the Epistles of St. Paul, the Proverbs of Solomon, and many other

books of either Testament.

Of another youth, who began his education at five, and who afterwards

became schoolmaster, the same historian remarks, that his special

gift lay in his powers of conversation. He had a knack of making

everything interesting, and told the commonest things in a way that

was quite delightful; and the monks were never weary of hearing him

recite the narratives of Scripture, or the histories of learned men.

It is not merely as men of learning that the character of these

monastic students claims our admiration. It is the union of strength

with tenderness, of scholarship with humility, which renders them

so dear and venerable in our eyes. How seldom in these records are

we disgusted with any of those traits of pedantry and self-seeking,

the offsprings of a pride which had been pruned away by the knife

of religious discipline? The monks were not mere scholars, and the

tendency to literary conceit was effectually corrected by the daily

exercises of community life. In the best days of monasticism, labour

was cultivated hand in hand with letters. The same man who at one

hour was engaged in writing a commentary on the Scriptures, producing

Christian imitations of Horace or Virgil, or elaborating some of the

exquisite master-pieces of cloistral art, found himself at another,

employed on the meanest and humblest offices for the service of his

brethren. The finest glass-painter of one medieval convent had to

leave his paintings to take their chance in the furnace, while he was

sent on the quest; and the Pope’s messengers who brought a cardinal’s

hat to another learned friar, found him busy in the kitchen. This was

the invariable _régime_ which existed wherever the monastic institute

preserved its discipline uncorrupted. Thus Odericus says of Roger de

Warrene, son of the famous earl of Surrey, that entering the abbey

of St. Evroult at the age of forty-six, he never plumed himself on

his noble birth or varied accomplishments, but chose rather base

employments, “cleaning the shoes of the brethren, washing their

stockings, and cheerfully doing other services which appear mean to

stupid or conceited persons.” Yet he was a very skilful artist; and

when he had finished with the shoes and stockings, he gave the rest

of his time to the labours of the scriptorium, where he ornamented

a book of the Gospels with gold, silver, and precious stones. And

the historian knows not how to say enough of his pleasant and

musical voice, his constant attendance in choir, and his courteous

manner with the other monks, “always abstemious towards himself,

always generous to others, always alive for vigils, and incredibly

modest.”[138] What a fragrant sweetness hangs about such notices

as these, coming as they do in the midst of records of bloodshed

and violence! Truly, we may say of the monastic schools, that they

were “as beds of flowers by the dens of lions encompassed!” Huns

and Saracens raged around them, but these gentle scholars fled to

the mountains and the wilderness, and building their nests amid the

rocks, while the world was flooded by new forms of barbarism, they

wrote, they studied, they taught, and they prayed, and perpetuated

that beautiful character which even Michelet has owned to have been

in all ages the appanage of monks; sweetness, goodness of heart, and

innocence. It remained wholly unaffected by the stormy turbulence of

the world around them. They had a world of their own apart from and

above it. All Europe might be in arms, whilst at St. Gall’s Tutilo

was constructing his wonderful table, which showed all the courses of

the stars, or Notker was composing those hymns and sequences which

for centuries afterwards were to be incorporated into the Office of

the Church. Whilst the barbarians were laying all things in ruins,

they, heedless alike of fame or profit, were patiently laying the

foundations of European civilisation. They were forming the languages

of Schiller, of Bacon, and of Bossuet; they were creating arts which

modern skill in vain endeavours to imitate; they were preserving

the codices of ancient learning, and embalming the world, “lying in

wickedness,” with the sweet odour of their manifold virtues. Surely,

it was of such as these that the Wise Man spoke when he described

that wisdom which God has given to His chosen ones. For they had

received “the true knowledge of the things that are: the revolutions

of the year, and the dispositions of the stars; the natures of living

creatures, the reasonings of men, the diversities of plants, and the

virtues of roots,”--and in them was “the spirit of understanding,

holy, one, manifold, eloquent, active, undefiled, sweet, loving that

which is good, beneficent, gentle, and kind.”[139]

But before closing our sketch of the tenth century, we have yet to

speak of its greatest scholastic glory: one whose attainments have

elicited not only the admiration of his contemporaries, but the

respectful notice even of those writers least disposed to believe

that anything good can come out of the Dark Ages. The scholars of

whom we have hitherto spoken, if regarded as great men by their

contemporaries, are spoken of by later critics with very general

contempt. They do not even allow them to have been useful in their

own poor way, as transcribers of volumes that they scarce knew how

to read, for Mr. Berington considers that even as copyists, the

monks were sadly idle. Two names, however, escape the otherwise

universal oblivion to which such writers would willingly consign

the scholars of the Dark Ages, they are Erigena Scotus and Gerbert.

There is, I hope, no malice in supposing that the intellectual

superiority of these men does not form their only claim to exemption

from the obloquy so plentifully heaped on their fellow-students. The

independent views of Erigena were well fitted to win him favour with

all disciples of the Rationalistic school; whilst the _supposed_

circumstance of Gerbert having acquired his knowledge of science in

an Arabic, and not in a Christian, academy, to say nothing of his

having been at one time involved in a dispute with the Holy See, may

have had some share in procuring him a larger meed of indulgence. To

admit his merit did not entail the necessity of giving any credit to

the Christian teachers, for if Gerbert ended his days on the chair of

St. Peter, it is at least a comforting reflection to our historians,

that he began life in the Moorish schools of Granada.

This consolation, alas! they enjoy no longer. Modern researches,

which have upset so many time-honoured traditions, have proved

beyond the possibility of dispute that Gerbert owed nothing either

to Moors or Pagans, that his education was exclusively Christian,

and that whatever be his value as a man of science, the Christian

schools of the Iron century must bear the credit of it. It is hard

to dissipate fables so romantic as those which represent the young

scholar Gerbert enabled, through the favour of a fair Moorish damsel,

to gain possession of her wizard father’s conjuring-book, the mystic

Abacus--and return to Europe with the unholy treasure, which was

to infuse a gleam of Saracenic light into the dull intellects of

Christendom. But the recent discovery of an authentic memoir of this

famous monk, whose name casts so broad a splendour over his age,

written by his own disciple, Richer, of Rheims, has cleared away

every obscurity which hitherto hung over his history.[140]

Few particulars of his early life are known, save that he was the

son of poor parents, that he was a native of Aurillac in Auvergne,

and entered the monastery of that town when still a youth, about

the end of the ninth century. He had already commenced his studies

in grammar, when Borrel, count of Barcelona, came to the monastery

on pilgrimage. The abbot, hearing from him of the excellent schools

which then flourished in Spain, begged him to take back with him

some of their young monks, and Gerbert accordingly accompanied the

count into Spain, and was placed under Hatto, then Bishop of Vich, in

Catalonia, where he formed an intimate friendship with Warin, abbot

of Cusan, one of the most learned men of his time. From this account,

the authenticity of which is beyond question, it appears that the

popular notion which represents Gerbert as acquiring his learning

among the Arabs is incorrect, and all the romantic stories connected

with his acquisition of the mysterious Abacus vanish into thin air.

Doubtless, the Christian schools of Spain profited not a little

from their proximity to the Arabic universities, and the sciences

of mathematics and astronomy were naturally those which were most

successfully cultivated. Gerbert made extraordinary progress in both;

and when he accompanied Borrel and Hatto on their next pilgrimage to

Rome, Pope John XIII. was not long in discovering his talents. The

liberty of the subject seems not to have been much understood in the

tenth century, for when it became known that the young monk was an

adept both in music and mathematics, neither of which sciences were

then taught in Italy, the Pope lost no time in communicating the fact

to the emperor Otho I., who conjured him not to permit his return

to Spain. Gerbert was accordingly most affectionately kidnapped and

sent without delay to Otho’s court, where being interrogated as

to the extent of his knowledge, he replied that he was tolerably

acquainted with mathematics, but was ignorant of logic, which

science he greatly desired to study. It happened that at that time

Gerard, archdeacon of Rheims, an excellent logician, had been sent

as ambassador to Otho from Lothaire, king of France, and Gerbert

at last won the emperor’s consent to his returning home with him,

that he might teach mathematics and study logic in the schools of

that city. Adalberon was then archbishop of Rheims, and he forthwith

committed the studies of his cathedral school to the direction of

the young professor. Richer gives a very precise account of the

method he followed. He began with the “Dialectics of Aristotle,”

going through and thoroughly explaining the propositions of each

book. He particularly explained the Introduction of Porphyry; and

passed on to the “Categories” and the “Topics” of the same author,

as translated out of Greek into Latin by Cicero, and commented on in

six books by the Consul Manlius. In the same way he lectured on the

four books of Topical differences, two of Categorical syllogisms, one

book of Divisions, and one of Definitions. And here the reader will

not fail to observe that these logical lectures must have been the

fruit of studies pursued not in Spain, but in France, for previous

to Gerbert’s coming to Rheims, we have his own acknowledgment that

he knew nothing of that science. After he had taken his scholars

through this course, says Richer, he proceeded to initiate them

into the art of rhetoric; and he set out on the principle, that

in this branch of study a knowledge of the classical poets was

essential. He therefore read and explained Virgil, Statius, and

Terence; then the satirists, Juvenal, Persius, and Horace, and last

of all, Lucan. After this, his pupils were exercised in disputation,

which he taught with such art, that the art was never apparent; a

thing, observes his biographer, which is held to be the perfection

of oratory. Then he popularised the science of music;[141] and as

to arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, he made these difficult

studies easy and delightful. Richer devotes several pages to the

description of the various instruments which he constructed, and by

which he contrived to render the science of astronomy, as it were,

sensible to the eyes of his scholars. A round wooden ball, _with

its poles oblique to the horizon_, figured the world, the various

astronomical and geographical phenomena being represented by other

circles. In fact, from the minute description of the writer, we are

obliged to conclude that Gerbert exhibited at his lectures two very

passable specimens of the terrestrial and celestial globes. But the

great boon, which he is commonly represented as bestowing on the

European schools, was the introduction of that wonderful table,

“in which nine ciphers represented all the numbers, and produced

in their infinite combinations all multiplications and divisions.”

This was the mystic _Abacus_, the foundation, no doubt, of our

present system of numeration. It consisted of a tablet, on which

three columns were marked out, sometimes in fixed lines, sometimes

in sand sprinkled over its surface; and in these columns figures

were arranged in units, tens and hundreds. The method in use for

working out calculations, even with the assistance of this decimal

system, as explained by Gerbert in several treatises, was, however,

extremely intricate, though it was probably a vast improvement on the

clumsy contrivances which had been resorted to by former scholars.

How far, however, the Abacus is to be regarded as a new invention,

appears more than doubtful. Its history has been made the subject

of interesting modern researches, and the result seems to be that

the system of numeration used and explained by Gerbert, contained

nothing in it which had been unknown to Boëthius.[142] Nevertheless,

he certainly seems to have elucidated and popularised the science of

arithmetic, which from this epoch began to be more seriously studied.

It is not easy to convey any notion of the enthusiasm excited by

Gerbert’s lectures, or the tide of scholars that flocked to him not

only from every part of France, but from Germany, Italy, and the

British Islands. Brucker is careful to repeat the old calumny, which

represents the dull heads of his contemporaries as attributing his

superior science to the effect of magic. “The knowledge of nature

which Gerbert possessed,” he says, “so far surpassed that of his

contemporaries, that they thought him possessed of magical powers;

_and Benno, a cardinal who owed him a grudge for his opposition to

the See of Rome_, invented a tale of his holding converse with the

devil.” Alas for the accurate historian! this round assertion must

go to keep company with that other from the same pen touching the

trial of Polydore Vergil before the Inquisition. It was, doubtless, a

temptation to represent the person who charged a man of genius with

being a magician as one of the dull orthodox, moved to the malicious

act by his zeal on behalf of the See of Rome, but the facts are

exactly the contrary. Benno, the zealous cardinal who owed Gerbert

a grudge for his opposition to the Pope, happened himself to be a

schismatic and a partisan of the anti-pope; and instead of being a

contemporary of Gerbert’s, he lived a century later, in the time of

St. Gregory VII., and introduced this precious story in a writing,

the express purpose of which was to defame the character of the Roman

pontiffs.[143] In justice to Gerbert it must be added, that not only

was he innocent of sorcery, but that he was altogether above all

petty jealousy and self-seeking, and desired nothing so ardently as

to communicate his discoveries to as many as wished to receive them.

Not content with instructing his own scholars, he corresponded with

the scholastics of Tours, Sens, Fleury, and Aurillac, and spared no

pains or expense in the collection of his library. In this work he

was generously assisted by his friends, scattered over the length

and breadth of Europe. It is in his “Epistles” that we catch a

glimpse of that prodigious activity of mind which took cognisance

of all subjects, and never rested till it had sounded all to the

depth. In one letter, we find him begging the loan of a Cæsar from

his archbishop, and offering in exchange eight volumes of Boëthius

and some excellent geometrical figures. In another, he solicits the

monks of Aurillac to furnish him with a Spanish treatise on the arts

of multiplication and division, and directs them in the work of

correcting a manuscript of Pliny. Then, again, we find him writing on

the medical science, to which he and his disciples directed a good

deal of attention, and in which they followed the Greek masters. In

fact, it was the diversified character of his acquirements that made

Gerbert the wonder of the world in the eyes of his contemporaries. He

knew all things, they said, and all things equally well. If this were

an exaggeration, it is certain that he possessed the rare power of

being able to direct his attention to a very wide range of studies,

though natural philosophy was certainly his special attraction.

Whilst still presiding over his school, Gerbert produced several

treatises on astronomy, mathematics, and geometry; on the formation

of the astrolabe, the quadrant, and the sphere, as well as on

rhetoric and logic. The monk Ditmar tells us that when at Magdeburg

with his old pupil, Otho III., he made a clock, regulating it

according to the movement of the polar star, which he observed

through a kind of tube. Another writer speaks of certain hydraulic

organs which he constructed, in which the wind and necessary

movements were introduced by means of boiling water: and these

obscure notices seem to indicate that wheeled clocks, the telescope,

and the power of steam, were known by Gerbert fully three centuries

before what has been considered their earliest discovery by our

own Roger Bacon. Gerbert did not teach at Rheims alone. Crossing

the Alps, he passed through most of the towns of Northern Italy,

then subject to his great patron, Otho I. In 970 he also visited

Rome in company with the bishop Adalberon, and at Pavia met the

emperor, together with the celebrated Saxon, Otheric, whom we have

seen filling the office of scholasticus in the episcopal school of

Magdeburg. Otheric had up to that time enjoyed the reputation of

being the greatest scholar of his age, and perhaps regarded himself

somewhat in the light of a literary dictator. In the course of

the previous year he had felt no little uneasiness at the daily

increasing renown of the French professor, and had despatched one

of his own Saxon pupils to Rheims to bring him an exact account

of Gerbert’s method of dividing the sciences. The Saxon made an

unsatisfactory report. It was Gerbert’s custom to represent physics

and mathematics as equal and independent sciences. But Otheric’s

disciple, whose head was none of the clearest, made him teach that

physics were subordinate to mathematics, as the species to the genus.

On this, Otheric decided that he knew nothing of philosophy, and

proceeding to the court of the emperor, Otho I., he spoke to that

effect before an assembly of learned men. Otho, who was himself

passionately fond of these studies, was not satisfied, and resolved

to sift the matter to the bottom. He therefore seized the occasion

of Gerbert’s presence at Pavia to inaugurate a grand scientific

tournament, and invited all the _savants_ of his empire to witness

the dispute between the first scholar of France and the first scholar

of Germany. He himself presided at the conference, and opened it with

a brief allocution of his own, in which he very clearly explained

the question in dispute. Then Otheric began his attack, first in

words, and then in writing. The conference lasted the whole day, and

Gerbert, who cited the authorities of Plato, Porphyry, and Boëthius,

was still speaking in reply when the emperor gave the signal for

the conclusion of the debate. Gerbert’s fame never appeared more

illustrious, and he returned to France loaded with magnificent

presents.

His after career was full of troubles; but in 990 the influence of

his imperial pupil, Otho III., obtained his election to the see of

Ravenna, and nine years later to the Apostolic chair. It was a great

day in the annals of learning when the philosopher Gerbert became

Pope Sylvester II., and one which brought no small satisfaction to

the hearts of his pupils. Half the prelates and princes of Europe

gloried in having called him master, and most of them did him credit.

Among them were our own St. Ethelwold; Fulbert of Chartres, the

oracle of his own time; and Robert, king of France, the son of Hugh

Capet, and the most religious and learned sovereign of the age. King

Robert was well skilled in all the humane sciences; but the love of

music, which he had imbibed from his master, amounted to a passion.

Even after his accession to the throne, he devoted no small part of

his time to composing anthems, and motetts, to the indignation of

his queen, Constance, who asked him once, if he must compose, to

compose something upon _her_. Robert sat down and produced the hymn

_O Constantia martyrum!_ and the queen, who fortunately understood

nothing of Latin, was quite satisfied, imagining that her own

perfections formed the subject of the poem. He often assisted in

the choir of St. Denis, dressed in his royal robes, singing with

the monks and directing the chant. Robert is said by his biographer

always to have had a book in his hand, and to have carried the

Psalter in his bosom. He once visited Rome, and during the Pope’s

mass laid on the altar, as his offering, a folded packet, which from

its great size and weight the attendants concluded to be gold. On

opening it, however, they found it to be only a fair copy of his

antiphon, _Cornelius Centurio_. Admiring the writing and the musical

notes, as well as the genius and piety of the author, the Pope

desired that thenceforward this antiphon should always be sung on the

festival of St. Peter, of whose Office it still continues to form a

part.

Not less learned was Gerbert’s other royal pupil, Otho of Germany,

surnamed “the Wonder of the World,” whose early death prevented his

making as much use of his advantages of education as was confidently

expected by all who knew the singular excellence to which he had

attained. Besides these illustrious disciples, Gerbert had others

of every rank and calling. The great St. Ethelwold is said by

many writers to have studied under him for a time, and the rapid

development in England and elsewhere of mathematical studies at

this period must certainly be assigned to the impulse given them by

the teaching of the master of Rheims. His genius was emphatically

_scientific_, and this is the character which we find impressed on

the learning of most of his followers. Thus Richer, the monk from

whose history most of the above particulars have been taken, was

more particularly skilled in the science of medicine. As an instance

of the solicitude which monks of the tenth century displayed in

the pursuit of knowledge, I may refer to the very curious account

which he gives us of the perilous journey he once undertook, for the

purpose of perusing a single book on his favourite science. “It was

in the year 951,” says Richer, “when my mind, being much and deeply

engaged in the study of literature, I had long entertained an ardent

desire of having the opportunity of learning the logic of Hippocrates

of Cos. One day I chanced to meet in the city of Rheims a horseman

coming from Chartres. Asking him who he was, and wherefore he had

come hither, he replied that he was a messenger from Heribrand, a

clerk of Chartres, and that he wished to speak to one Richer, a

monk of St. Rémi. As soon as I heard my friend’s name, and the

subject of his message, I told the stranger that I was the person

he was in quest of; whereupon, having embraced one another, he gave

me a letter, which I found was an invitation to come to Chartres

and peruse the ‘Aphorisms.’ I was much rejoiced at this; wherefore,

taking a servant with me, I determined on accompanying the horseman

back to Chartres. The only assistance I received from my abbot was

a loan of one of the draft horses. Without money, or even a change

of clothes, and destitute of every necessary for the journey, I set

out and reached Orbais, where I was not only delighted with the

conversation of the abbot, but greatly assisted by his noble gifts,

so that next day I was able to get on as far as Meaux. On entering

the woods, however, with my two companions, we were involved in

several disasters; for, deceived by its wild and broken openings, on

coming to a place where two ways met, we took the wrong turning, and

were led six leagues out of our road.

“By the time we passed Château Thierry my cart-horse, which had

at first seemed a sort of Bucephalus, began to lag on the road as

lazily as if he had been a donkey. The sun had been sinking for some

time, and the rain was falling fast. At this moment the horse, worn

out with fatigue, sank under the lad who was riding him, and the

poor beast expired, as though struck by lightning. This happened

when we were about six miles from the city of Meaux. My agitation

and anxiety at this disaster may be well conceived; the boy, quite

inexperienced in such emergencies, lay helpless on the road, by the

side of the dead horse. There lay the luggage also, with no one to

carry it; the rain was pouring down from a dark and cloudy sky, and

the sun was just on the horizon. By God’s goodness a prudent thought,

however, suggested itself to my mind. I left the boy on the road

with the baggage, telling him what he ought to say if questioned by

travellers, urging him not to yield to any inclination to sleep.

Then, accompanied by the horseman from Chartres, I set out for

Meaux. There was scarcely light to see the bridge; and on examining

it, a new misfortune presented itself. It was so broken, and had

such enormous holes in it, that even by day it could hardly have

been crossed in safety. The Chartres horseman, however, here showed

himself a ready man. After vainly searching for a boat, he returned

to the bridge, and, with the help of God, succeeded in getting the

horses over it. In some places he covered the huge holes with his

shield, so as to support the feet of the animals; in others he put

the separated planks close together, and what with stooping, and what

with holding himself erect, and now keeping the beasts together, and

now separating from them, he contrived to get over in safety. It

was a dreadful night, and all around was buried in darkness when I

reached the church of St. Faro, where I was hospitably received by

the monks, and refreshed with kind words and abundance of food. The

horseman was at once sent back with other steeds, again passed the

dangerous bridge, and proceeded to search for the poor boy, whom we

had left on the road. It was the second watch of the night when he

came up with him. He at once brought him to the city, but fearful

of attempting a third time to cross the bridge they determined on

passing the night in a poor cabin, and at break of day appeared

at the gates of the monastery, half dead with hunger. Food was

immediately given them, and corn and straw supplied to the horses.

“Leaving the dismounted boy with Abbot Augustin (of St. Faro), I

hastened on to Chartres with the horseman, whence I sent back horses,

who brought the lad back from Meaux. When he was come, and my mind

was thus set at rest, I sat down at once to the earnest study of the

‘Aphorisms’ of Hippocrates, together with Master Heribrand, a man as

much distinguished for his politeness as for his great learning. But

as in these ‘Aphorisms’ I only learnt the premonitory symptoms of

diseases, and as this knowledge did not satisfy me, I desired also

to study another book showing the concordance between Hippocrates,

Galen, and Suranus. This also I obtained from Heribrand, who was

perfectly well skilled in the science to which he devoted his time.

Indeed, there was nothing in medicine, pharmacy, botany, or surgery

unknown to him.” Richer’s appreciation of his friend’s learning

may possibly have been exaggerated; but who can fail to admire his

perseverance in overcoming such difficulties as a journey then

presented, with the simple view of increasing his stock of scientific

knowledge by the perusal of one precious book?

Allusion has been made to the improvements introduced by Gerbert in

the study of music. A little later a more important addition was made

to the same science by Guy, a monk of Pomposa, commonly called Guy

of Arezzo, from the city which gave him birth. He had been educated

from the age of eight years in the monastery of Pomposa; and being

well skilled in music, was employed in teaching the ecclesiastical

chant to the children brought up in the house. But the immense

difficulties of his task induced him to consider whether some method

of facilitating the notation of music might not be devised. As yet,

the sounds of the musical scale were only represented by the first

seven letters of the alphabet, or by notes, as was the custom in

the abbeys of Corby and St. Gall, which showed indeed the relative

length and value of each tone, but did not render their succession

sensible to the eye. After seeking for a long time for some easy and

precise system, Guy one day recognised in the chant to which the

hymn of St. John Baptist was ordinarily sung, an ascending diatonic

scale, in which the first syllable of each line occupied one note:

_Ut queant laxis_--_Resonare fibris_--_Mira gestorum_--_Famuli

tuorum_,--_Solve polluti_--_Labii reatum_,--_Sancte Ioannes_. He

applied himself to teach this chant to his pupils, and to render them

familiar with the diatonic succession of the syllables, _ut_, _re_,

_mi_, _fa_, _sol_, and _la_. Next, he arranged the notes on lines

and intervals, and thus produced the musical staff with its proper

clefs. By means of these improvements he found himself able, in a few

months, to teach a child as much as a man, under the ancient system,

would have had difficulty in learning in the course of many years.

However, such a storm of jealousy arose against him on the score of

his discovery, that he found himself obliged to leave the monastery;

and accordingly, in 1024, he travelled to Rome, where Pope John XIX.

warmly received both him and his newly-invented gamut.

“The Pope,” he says, “having received me kindly, conversed with me

for a long time, asking many questions, and turning over the leaves

of my antiphonarium, seemed to think it a sort of prodigy. He conned

its rules, and would not rise from his seat till he had tried to

learn a verse which he had never yet heard sung, and to his great

astonishment found himself able to do it.” Guy was not allowed to

leave Rome till he had promised to return the next winter, and

give a regular course of musical instructions to the Pope and his

clergy. The sunshine of Papal favour soon dissipated the storm, but

the humble religious was no way puffed up by his triumph. He only

rejoiced at being able to spread the knowledge of a discovery which

would be useful to others. “The designs of Providence,” he writes,

“are obscure, and falsehood is sometimes suffered to oppress the

truth; God so ordering it lest, puffed up with self-confidence, we

should suffer loss. For then only is what we do good and useful

when we refer all we do to Him who made us. God inspiring me with

the knowledge, I have made it known to as many as I could, to the

end that if I, and those who have gone before me, have learnt the

_Cantus_ with extreme difficulty, those who come after me, doing so

with greater facility, may pray for me and my fellow-labourers, that

we may obtain eternal life and the remission of our sins.”

At the very time when Gerbert was astonishing the world by the

marvels of his genius, a simple nun of Gandersheim had attained a

degree of literary excellence, which is the more remarkable as it

was exclusively acquired within the enclosure of her own convent.

The foundation of this convent had taken place at the same time with

that of New Corby, and its object had been specially to provide for

the education of the Saxon ladies. Peculiar attention was therefore

directed to maintaining its school in a due state of efficiency,

and learned traditions were always kept up among the nuns. Having

fallen into decay in the ninth century, it was restored by Count

Lindolph, whose daughter, Hathmuda, became abbess in 856. Her life

has been left, written by her brother Agius, or Egbert. Hathmuda was

a great lover of letters. “From a child,” says her brother, “she

cared nothing at all for fine clothes, head-dresses, ribbons, combs,

earrings, necklaces, bracelets, handkerchiefs, girdles, and scents,

the possession and wearing of which stirs up the ambition of so many

women.” She preferred to pray and to study, and “the lessons to which

others had to be forced by stripes she willingly applied herself

to, giving herself up to them with indefatigable ardour.” When she

became abbess she was most desirous to keep up those sacred studies

for which the monastery had ever been so famous. “She insisted on

the study of the Scriptures, and those who applied themselves to

reading she greatly loved, but did not admit to equal familiarity

such as herein showed themselves to be slothful.” Her cares were

amply rewarded, and the school of Gandersheim produced a succession

of excellent teachers, among whom was Hroswitha, the fourth abbess,

who died in 906, and was the authoress of a treatise on logic, much

esteemed among the learned of her own time.[144]

It is of a namesake of this fair logician that we are now about to

speak, Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, as she is called. She was

born in the year 940, and was brought up in the convent school,

where she studied Greek and Latin, the philosophy of Aristotle, and

the other liberal arts. We are often told that expressions like

these, however magnificent they look on paper, would dwindle into

insignificance could we test their value by the real amount of

learning which they represent. With regard to Hroswitha, however,

the true nature of her erudition is not left to conjecture. She has

left behind her writings which have attracted the favourable notice

even of modern critics, who agree in declaring that the Latin poems

of this obscure nun of the tenth century are marvels of classical

taste and poetic genius. Besides a panegyric on the three Othos, she

wrote eight poems on various religious subjects, some of them being

taken from the life of our Lord, and some from the legends of the

saints; and seven prose dramas in the style of Terence, being tales

of holy women, and having for their subject the praise of chastity.

While praising the delicacy of the sentiments and the correctness of

the style, her critics observe that these dramas afford incidental

evidence of her perfect familiarity with the sciences of music,

astronomy, and dialectics, as then taught in the schools. In one of

them she introduces a sort of apology for her own learning, which has

a certain feminine grace about it, more charming than all her logic.

It occurs in the drama of “Paphnutius,” where, after a philosophic

discussion on the art of music, one of the disciples of the saint is

made to ask him:

“Whence do you derive all this knowledge?” and he replies, “It is but

a little drop that I have gathered from the ever-flowing sources of

science; and now I desire to share it with you.”

_Dis._ “Thanks to your goodness; nevertheless that admonition of the

apostle terrifies me: ‘God hath chosen the foolish of this world to

confound the wise.’”

_Paph._ “Foolish and wise will alike be confounded before God, if

they do what is evil.”

_Dis._ “That cannot be denied.”

_Paph._ “How, I pray you, can the arts and sciences be better

employed than in the praise of Him who has created all things that we

can know, and who furnishes us at once both with the matter and the

instruments of our knowledge?”

_Dis._ “Certainly, that is the best way to use science.”

_Paph._ “It is; for the more we know of the admirable laws by which

God regulates the weight, number, and proportion of all things, the

more our hearts will burn with love of Him.”

Where shall we find more admirable teaching than this on the vexed

question of the danger of intellectual pursuits? Dangerous only, as

Hroswitha justly argues, when we cease to refer them to Him, who,

as she so beautifully expresses it, “furnishes us at once with the

matter and the instruments of our knowledge;” but good, holy, and

greatly to be desired, when, by supplying us with a more perfect

knowledge of Him, they fill our hearts with His love. That this was

her own case, we may gather from the modest preface which heads her

first collection of poems.

“Here,” she says, “is a little book, simple in style, though it

has cost the writer no small trouble and application. I offer it

to the criticism of those kind judges who are disposed rather to

put an author right than to find fault with him. For I willingly

acknowledge that it contains many errors as well against the rules

of composition as those of prosody; but methinks one who frankly

confesses her defects, merits to meet with a ready pardon and a

friendly correction. If it be thought amiss that I have taken some of

my subjects from books, considered by some to be apocryphal, I must

explain that this is not the result of presumption but of ignorance,

for when I began my work I was not aware that they were held as of

doubtful authority. As soon as I learned that this was the case, I

ceased to use them. For the rest I claim indulgence, in proportion

as I feel a want of confidence in myself. Deprived of most resources

of study, and still young, I have been forced to work in my rustic

solitude far from the help of the learned. It has been alone and

unaided that I have produced my little work, by dint of repeated

compositions and corrections. The main substance I have gathered

from the Holy Scriptures, which were taught me in this convent of

Gandersheim, first by the wise and blessed mistress, Richardis,

and the religious who succeeded her in her office: and then by the

excellent Gerberga, of royal birth, under whose government I am now

living. Younger than me in years, but older in knowledge, she deigned

to form my mind by the reading of good authors, in which she had also

been instructed by learned mistresses. Although the art of making

verses is difficult, specially for a woman, I have ventured, trusting

in the Divine aid, to treat the subjects of this book in heroic

verse. My only object in this labour has been to prevent the feeble

talent committed to my keeping from growing rusty. And I desired by

the hammer of devotion to compel it to give forth some sweet sounds

to the praise of God. Wherefore, dear reader, if thou thinkest

according to God, thou wilt know how to supply what is wanting in

this book; and if thou findest anything good in it, refer it to God

only, and attribute nothing to me but the faults; without, however,

reproaching me for them too severely, but excusing them with that

indulgence which a frank avowal deserves.”

Hroswitha’s humility had to stand the test of flattery from the

literary world, and it stood it well. There are phrases scattered

through her writings which evince how accurately she had gauged

the shallowness of intellectual vanity, and how little hold it had

upon her heart. “Often enough when curiosity is satisfied,” she

writes, “we find nothing but sadness.” In the epistle prefixed to

her prose dramas, she acknowledges the approbation which she has

received from the learned with an unaffected simplicity. “I cannot

sufficiently wonder,” she says, “that you who are so well versed in

philosophy should judge the humble work of a simple woman worthy of

your commendation. But when in your charity you congratulate me, it

is the Dispenser of that grace which works in me that you praise,

believing as you do that the little knowledge I possess is superior

to the weakness of my sex. Hitherto, I have hardly ventured to show

my rustic little productions to any one, but reassured by your

opinion, I shall now feel more confidence in writing, if God give me

the power. Yet I feel myself drawn by the two opposite sentiments

of joy and fear. I rejoice from my heart to see God and His grace

praised in me, but I fear lest men should think me greater than I am.

I do not mean to deny that, aided by Divine grace, I have attained

to a certain knowledge of the arts, for I am a creature capable of

instruction as others are; but I confess that left to my own strength

I should know nothing.”

These extracts require no comment. They prove something more than

the solid nature of the studies pursued in the convent school of

Gandersheim. How skilfully had the teachers of Hroswitha contrived,

whilst directing her intellectual labours, to preserve her womanly

modesty, her almost childish naïveté, and her deep religious

humility! Better things were included in their scheme of education

than a mere knowledge of the liberal arts; the wisdom “whose

beginning is the desire of discipline,” and into which “no defiled

thing cometh.” Under their training the genius of the young poetess

was guarded by the cloak of humility from the cunning moth of pride;

and whilst we are amazed at her learned attainments, her modesty and

candour at the same time conquer our hearts.

And with this agreeable picture we will close our present chapter,

trusting that the nun of Gandersheim may be allowed to have shed

something of beauty and fragrance over the rugged annals of the Iron

Age.[145]

_CHAPTER XI._

THE SCHOOLS OF BEC.

A.D. 1000 TO 1135.

With the close of the tenth century we may be said to have taken

our last farewell of the Dark Ages. Already on the horizon we have

seen the dawn of a period of greater intellectual light, which ere

long is to usher in the blaze of a splendid era. And yet it must be

owned, it is with something of regret that we take our leave of those

remote centuries, and with the wish of the poet in our hearts that

“their good darkness were our light.” The approaching sunrise puts

out the quiet stars; and in the bustle of intellectual life into

which we are about to enter, our heart misgives us lest something of

the charm which has hitherto hung round the history of the Christian

Schools may perchance be lost. Already a new element has appeared in

our studies, more easily felt than described. The career of Gerbert,

however brilliant, does not leave on the mind the same impression

as that of Bede; we feel a predominance of the scholastic, over the

religious character; and we think of him less as a monk than as a

mathematician. This element will now be far more frequently met with,

and what is worse, it will in many cases be found accompanied by the

ugly shapes of pride, love of novelty, and self-interest, too often

finding their final result in heresy and open unbelief. The design

of these pages is not to paint a series of fancy pictures, but to

study past ages so as to establish in our mind a true standard of

Christian Scholarship; to distinguish the precious from the vile, the

false lights of the intellect from those kindled at the altar fire;

and it will therefore be necessary to put forth some of these unhappy

examples in a broad and honest daylight, that we may better see what

those principles are, the forgetfulness of which renders intellectual

culture dangerous to faith.

Hitherto we have heard but little of the perils of the intellect.

Learning, in the eyes of the old monastics, was the twin sister of

prayer. They would almost as soon have thought of apprehending danger

in their Psalter as in their grammar, and indeed the end for which

they used them both was substantially the same. Among the characters

named in the foregoing pages, how few appear disfigured with the

stains of vanity or self-interest! Scotus Erigena indeed, is a

notable example of the self-sufficient rationalist, and Otheric of

Magdeburg is said to have died of disappointment at not obtaining a

bishopric; but such instances are rare exceptions; and though others

doubtless existed, they do not appear on the surface of history,

and give no character to the scholastic profession. As a class, the

pedagogues of the Dark Ages were the most disinterested of men.

Poverty was recognised, not as the accident of a student’s life,

but as one of its most honourable features, and it was reckoned as

something monstrous and disgraceful for a man to sell his learning

for gold. This, of course, arose from the religious light in which

learned pursuits were regarded; they were spiritual wares, the sale

of which was held almost as simoniacal as the sale of a benefice.

If instances occasionally occur of any such sordid practices, they

are named by historians with a kind of horror; and Launoy quotes

the reproof addressed by the abbot Baldric to a certain scholar

of Angers, who had gone over to England to teach grammar for the

sake of “cursed gold,” and whose sudden death was believed by his

acquaintances to have been sent in just punishment of his sin. This

tradition survived, in theory at least, for many centuries, and in

1362 the Professors of Paris University are found pleading their

inability to pay the expenses of a lawsuit then pending, “it being

their profession as scholars to have no wealth.” In Spain there was

a proverb which described a scholar as rich in letters, and ragged

in everything else, and Chaucer only produced the current type of a

student when he represented his Clerk of Oxenford as “full hollow and

threadbare.”

Now, however, a change passes over the picture; scholasticism is

about to appear less as a vocation than as a profession, and a

profession sought with the view of earning for him who embraces

it, honour at least, and perhaps also the more solid advantages of

worldly fortune and rich preferment. Some writers have supposed

that the promotion of Gerbert to the Papal dignity was one cause

of this change, leading others to hope that a brilliant scholastic

career might chance to prove the high road to wealth and dignities.

Rohrbacher recognises in the rising spirit of the age distinct traces

of an infernal agency. “Hitherto,” he says, “heresy had made no

great progress in the West. But in the eleventh century the Spirit

of Darkness, seeing its empire confirmed in the East by the great

apostacy of Mahomet and the formal schism of the Greeks, seems to

have transferred the war from the East to the West. From that epoch

down to our own time, the great revolt against God and His Church

has never ceased to appear in one form or another. Its two principal

sources have been Pride and Luxury, the corruption of the intellect,

and the corruption of the heart. Hence, in princes, the attempt to

usurp authority over the Church: hence, among men of learning, the

mania for innovation, together with that superficial vanity which

urged Berengarius to his fall; which Luther and Calvin erected into

a principle under the name of Reform, and to which Voltaire and

Rousseau put the key-stone under the title of Philosophy.”[146]

Fleury also supports this view, and speaking of the swarm of heresies

that sprang up suddenly in the eleventh century, sees in the fact

a fulfilment of the prophecy in the Apocalypse that Satan should

be loosed after being bound for a thousand years. The whole of

Christendom was possessed at the time with a vague foreboding that an

era had opened big with melancholy change, and this presentiment of

evil naturally enough took the shape among the vulgar, of the belief

that the world was about to come to an end.

It is at this precise epoch that we first begin to meet with teachers

who were neither monks nor clerics. Free from the restraints of

cloisteral discipline, these new scholastics were professors of

grammar and rhetoric, and they were nothing more. The saintly rule of

a Benedict or a Columbanus had not moulded them to habits of humility

and obedience; they taught, and they made profit by their teaching;

and he who taught the most attractive novelty drew most pupils, and

made his teaching answer the best. It was a question in which worldly

lucre, rather than the interests of souls, was at stake, and to be

successful it became necessary for the teacher to adapt himself to

the tastes and humours of his audience. Hence arose a race of pedants

who had nothing in common with the elder scholastics, and who bore

a peculiar stamp of self-sufficiency and arrogance, which impresses

them all with a sort of family likeness, and carries back one’s

thoughts to the sophists of the pagan schools.

The first notice which we find of a scholastic who was neither monk

nor canon, occurs about the year 1024, when Rodolphus Glaber, a monk

of Cluny, mentions in his chronicle a certain Witgard, a grammarian

by profession, who was so bewitched by the study of the Latin poets,

that he fancied he beheld in a vision Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal,

who thanked him for the affection he bore them, and promised him

immortality. The poor man’s head was so turned with this idea, that

he immediately began to teach that whatever was contained in the

poets, was to be believed _de fide_, and strange to say, not a few

were found to listen to him. He was cited before the archbishop

of Ravenna, and put to silence, after creating a good deal of

disturbance. I merely name him here as an indication of the new class

of men into whose hands the work of teaching was beginning to fall; a

far more important illustration of the subject is to be found in the

history of Berengarius. Before speaking of him, however, something

must be said of his master, Fulbert, the pupil of Gerbert, and the

restorer of the cathedral school of Chartres. Though reckoned among

French worthies, he seems to have been a Roman by birth, and received

his early education in a very humble school. However, he afterwards

studied under Gerbert, and under his direction the school of Chartres

rose to such an eminence, that it rivalled that of Rheims, and

Fulbert may be said to have become preceptor to almost every man

of letters who distinguished himself in France during the eleventh

century.

We gather from the catalogue of the Chartres library, that Fulbert

had inherited no inconsiderable portion of his master Gerbert’s

scientific tastes. We find in it treatises on the properties of

the sphere and the globe, on the astrolabe, on the measurement of

superficies, and on land measurement, together with a Greek and

Arabic alphabet. Fulbert himself had the rare accomplishment of

Hebrew learning, as may be seen by his “Treatise against the Jews.”

His disciples went forth from his school to restore sacred studies

all over France, and the honour of being a pupil of him whom they

lovingly termed “Father Fulbert,” was claimed by a long list of

excellent masters, every one of whom might be described in the

terms with which Adelman has sketched the character of Rainald of

Tours; as “ready with the tongue, fluent with the pen, and mighty

in grammar.” “As to thee, Father Fulbert,” he exclaims, “when I

attempt to speak of thee, my words fail, my heart melts, my eyes

break forth into weeping.”[147] Fulbert was, in fact, worthy of any

praise that could be bestowed on him, and so thoroughly convinced of

the sacredness of the office of teaching, that even after he became

Bishop of Chartres in 1016, he continued to direct the studies of his

episcopal school. He was regarded as the prelate of his time most

thoroughly versed in ecclesiastical discipline, which he caused to

be exactly practised. As a writer, he is best known by his letters,

which display a wonderful delicacy of thought. He was knit in bonds

of close friendship with St. Odilon of Cluny, to whom he confided his

fears, lest he might not have been truly called to fill an office,

the solemn responsibilities of which almost overwhelmed him. “Yet,”

he adds, “remembering my own nothingness, and that without birth

or fortune I have been raised to this chair like a beggar from the

dunghill, I am forced to believe it is the will of God.”

A teacher of this temper was sure to have it at heart to impress on

the souls of his disciples a love of humility. It was the favourite

virtue of this truly great man, who was perfectly aware that the

elevation of Gerbert to the pontifical dignity had given rise to

a sentiment of ambition among men of letters, from which he boded

evil. He was therefore earnest in warning his pupils to avoid

novelties and to walk in the old footpaths; and his keen sagacious

eye rested with uneasiness on one young face among the scholars who

were accustomed to gather round him in his little garden and listen

to his affectionate exhortations, as children hang on the words of a

venerated parent. Berengarius, for it was he, had begun his studies

in the school of St. Martin of Tours, whence he passed to Chartres,

in company with his friend Adelman. He had a brilliant rather than

a solid genius, a ready tongue which made the most of what he knew,

but withal a certain affectation in speech and manner which betrayed

a fund of secret vanity. Fulbert knew him well, and often spoke to

him even with tears, conjuring him never to forsake the beaten track,

but to hold fast to the traditions of the fathers. In 1028 the good

bishop, then lying on his death-bed, called all his disciples around

him to bid them farewell, but seeing Berengarius among the rest, he

motioned for him to withdraw, for, he said, “I see a dragon by his

side.”

His prognostics were too soon fulfilled. Berengarius returned to

Tours, where his reputation for scholarship induced the canons

to commit their school to his management; and even after he was

appointed archdeacon of Angers, he continued to lecture at Tours,

earning the reputation of immense learning, eloquence, and skill in

grammar and philosophy. All, however, were not equally pleased with

the character of his teaching, and some hesitated not bluntly to avow

their belief that the brilliant archdeacon was somewhat shallow, and

that his philosophy verged on sophistry. He had a way of mystifying

the simplest subjects by a display of learned words; affected new

and startling definitions, and had some tricks for practising on the

minds of his audience, which gave offence to many. He chose that

his chair should be raised higher than the others, had a pompous

way of walking, spoke in a slow and particularly plaintive tone of

voice, and would sit with his head wrapped up in his mantle, like an

ancient philosopher, absorbed, as it seemed, in some very profound

meditation. In short, he was one of those who aim at what Bacon calls

“being wise by signs;” did trifles in a solemn way, and so imposed on

the simpler sort who thought him a prodigy; a sentiment in which, it

is needless to say, he himself fully concurred.

Let us leave this pompous personage for a while to enjoy the

admiration of his numerous disciples, whilst we cast our eyes on the

schools of law which were just then springing up at Bologna, where a

young student of Pavia, Lanfranc by name, was distinguishing himself

by his skill as a writer and an advocate. On leaving Bologna, he is

thought to have taught jurisprudence for some time in his native

city, and then crossing the Alps, he came into France, bringing with

him no other riches than his learned reputation. Arriving at Tours,

his name reached the ears of Berengarius, who at once sought him out

and challenged him to a public disputation. The end aimed at was

evidently the glorification of the archdeacon, who counted on an

easy victory over the young stranger, which might help to swell his

reputation. Never were expectations more completely disappointed.

Berengarius was worsted in his arguments, and obliged to retire with

ruffled feathers; far from increasing his renown, he had suffered

a severe defeat, and in the eyes of wounded vanity, defeat is the

bitterest of mortifications. His followers were astonished to

find their master was not infallible, and began to transfer their

admiration to his successful rival. Lanfranc, meanwhile, proceeded

to Avranches, where he opened a school which was soon thronged by

deserters from that of Berengarius. It was a crisis in his life, for

his character was one which was as likely as not to have yielded

to the perils that surrounded him. If free from the vanity which

devoured his rival, his proud and impetuous temper was at that

time quite as little under the restraint of religious principle;

his devotion to science was perhaps more thoroughly the genuine

enthusiasm of a scholar who loved learning for its own sake, rather

than for the meed of human applause, but it was as yet wholly

unsanctified by a higher and diviner intention. Nevertheless, there

was a candour and uprightness of soul about him which the other

did not possess, and when the call of grace sounded in his ear, he

responded to it with noble generosity.

One day as he was journeying from Avranches to Rouen, he had to

pass through a forest, where he was attacked by robbers, who having

stripped him of all he possessed, tied him to a tree, wrapped his

hood about his head so as to muffle his cries for help, and then

abandoned him. Left thus during the entire night exposed to danger of

death from the wolves, or the more lingering tortures of starvation,

Lanfranc in his extremity bethought him of his prayers, but the

learned advocate and philosopher found himself unable to call to

his remembrance the simplest form of devotion. That one fact spoke

volumes to his conscience; during the long hours of that terrible

night he had time bitterly to mourn over the years lost in pursuits,

the vanity of which he had never known till now; and ere morning

dawned he solemnly vowed, if God should deliver him from his danger,

to dedicate the remainder of his life to the task of reparation.

At break of day some passing travellers discovered and unbound him,

and Lanfranc’s first request was to be led to the nearest monastery.

There was by this time no want of religious houses in the duchy of

Normandy. The century that had elapsed since the conversion of Duke

Rollo, had witnessed a very general restoration of the monastic

institute in that province, and many of the great abbeys, such

as Jumièges, St. Wandrille, Fécamp, and Bernai, had risen from

their ashes, with even greater splendour than they had exhibited

before their destruction. But it was to none of these that the good

Providence of God guided the steps of Lanfranc. In the year 1039 the

little house of Bec had been founded by a pious Norman knight named

Herluin, who himself became the first abbot. Nothing could be ruder

or simpler than the commencements of this famous abbey. Herluin was

poor and unlettered, he and his monks had to live hardly by the

labour of their hands, their ordinary food was bread made with bran,

and vegetables, with muddy water brought from a well two miles

off. At the very moment when Lanfranc presented himself, the abbot

was superintending the construction of an oven, and was kneading

the bread with somewhat dirty hands, for he had come fresh from the

labour of the field. At another time the sight would have disgusted

the refined and fastidious Lombard, but at that moment his heart felt

an appetite for abasement, and he promptly offered himself, and was

received as one of the little community.

He was subjected to a severe noviciate. For three years, it is

said, he kept a rigorous silence, and was tested by every kind of

humiliation. Once, when reading aloud in the refectory, the prior

corrected his Latin accent, and desired him to pronounce the _e_ in

_docere_ short. This was probably a hard trial to the humility of the

Bolognese professor, who must have regarded his Norman companions

as little better than barbarians; but Lanfranc complied without

hesitation, judging, says his biographer, that an act of disobedience

was a greater evil than a false quantity in Latin. After he had

passed through his probation, the abbot, who had learnt to value

both his learning and his sincere humility, finding him unfit for

manual labour, desired him to begin to teach, and thus were founded

the famous schools of Bec. Their renown soon eclipsed that of every

other existing academy. “Before that time,” says Odericus, “in the

reigns of six dukes of Normandy, scarce any Norman applied himself to

regular studies, nor had any doctor arisen among them till, by the

Providence of God, Lanfranc appeared in their province.” But now a

new era was inaugurated. Priests and monks came to Bec in multitudes,

in order to place themselves under a master who was pronounced the

best Latinist, the best theologian, and the best dialectician of

his time; there were never fewer than a hundred pupils; the Norman

nobles, and even the Dukes themselves, sent their sons thither for

education, and made enormous grants of land to the favoured abbey.

It is not to be supposed that the fame of this new academy was long

in reaching the ears of Berengarius, whose chagrin at finding his own

renown eclipsed by his former rival was hard to endure. Up to that

time he had addicted himself exclusively to dialectics, and had given

very little study to the Scriptures, a circumstance sufficiently

illustrative of the wide chasm which separated the rising school

of teachers from that which immediately preceded them. But now,

to support his failing credit, Berengarius began to lecture on a

subject he had never studied, and to explain the Scriptures, not

according to the traditions of the Fathers, but after the whims of

his own imagination. His first errors were on questions connected

with marriage and infant baptism, but it was not long before he

broached his grand heresy, and attacked the Catholic doctrine of the

Real Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist, reviving all the arguments

and sophistries of Scotus Erigena. The scandal spread from Tours

through France and Germany. His old friend Adelman, at that time

scholasticus of Liège, heard the news and wrote to him in moving

terms, conjuring him to retract his fatal errors. “I have been wont

to call you my foster brother,” he says, “calling to mind the happy

days we passed together at the school of Chartres (though you were

younger than I), under that venerable Socrates, Fulbert. Remember the

conversation he used to hold with us in his garden near the chapel,

how tenderly he used to speak to us, his voice sometimes choked with

tears, conjuring us not to depart from the old paths, but to keep

firm to the traditions of the Fathers. And now they tell me that

you have separated from the unity of the Church, teaching that what

we daily offer on the altar is not the true body and blood of Jesus

Christ, but only a figure! God help you, my brother! let me implore

you by the mercy of God, and the memory of the Blessed Fulbert,

not thus to trouble the peace of our Holy Mother the Church, for

whose faith so many millions of doctors and martyrs have constantly

contended.”

Adelman’s entreaties produced no effect on him to whom they were

addressed, and a controversy began in which Lanfranc took a

distinguished part, assisting at the councils of Rheims, Rome and

Vercelli. In all these Berengarius was successively condemned, and

required to abjure his errors. But he obeyed with the lips only.

As he continued to propagate his heresies in spite of repeated

abjurations, Pope Victor II., in 1054, summoned two other Councils,

at Florence and Tours, at the last of which Berengarius signed

a solemn retractation with his own hand. But so soon as he left

the presence of the assembled fathers, he set himself secretly to

disseminate his former doctrines. At a second Council held at Tours,

attended by 113 bishops, he again appeared, signed a profession of

Catholic doctrine, and threw all his own writings into the fire, and

the same farce was repeated at three other Councils, followed by the

same result. It was not until 1079 that Lanfranc, then Archbishop

of Canterbury, published his famous treatise “On the Body of Our

Lord,” and about the same time his scholar Guitmond, afterwards

Bishop of Aversa, wrote an equally celebrated treatise, bearing the

same title, in which he traces the errors of Berengarius to the fatal

root of vanity. “Even when a youth at school,” he says, “according

to the account of those who then knew him, he made little account

of the teaching of his master, held as nothing the opinions of his

companions, and despised the books on liberal arts. He could not

himself attain to the profounder parts of philosophy, for he was not

of a very penetrating mind, and therefore tried to gain a learned

reputation by new and unheard-of verbal definitions.” There is

something mournfully significant in this account, and the grievous

termination of a career, the very dawn of which was marked by such

prognostics, makes the character and history of Berengarius one which

scholars of all ages would do well to set before them as a warning

beacon. The writings of Lanfranc and Guitmond seem at last to have

opened his eyes to the truth; at any rate from that time he kept

silence, and is said to have spent the remaining eight years of his

life in retirement and sincere penitence. William of Malmsbury says

that his dying words betrayed his consciousness of the irreparable

evils he had inflicted on the Church, and the terror with which he

was filled at the thought of the souls whom he might have ruined.

“This day will my Lord Jesus Christ appear to call me, either to

glory, by His mercy, on my repentance, or, as I fear, on account

of the loss of other souls, to my punishment.” Yet his followers

were neither numerous nor of any weight or character. We find in

the letter written by Gozechinus of Liège to a brother scholastic,

that every one of the great masters of the time, such as those who

presided over the schools of Rheims, Paris, Spires, and Bamberg

joined heart and soul with Lanfranc in condemning his doctrines.[148]

Malmsbury says he had in all but three hundred disciples, while on

the other hand the united voice of Christendom, and especially of the

monastic order, was raised against him, and never was any heresy more

universally condemned.

Meanwhile the schools of Bec grew and prospered, and the convent was

soon found too small to contain its scholars. There were gathered

together students of all ranks and conditions, “profound sophists,”

as Oderic Vitalis calls them, and a long list of ecclesiastics

destined to become the shining lights of the Church. Among these

were Ivo of Chartres, Fulk of Beauvais, Gundulph, afterwards bishop

of Rochester, Anselm de Bagio, afterwards Pope Alexander II., and

a great number of the Anglo-Norman abbots. Alexander II., in after

years, gave a memorable sign of the respect with which he regarded

his old preceptor. When Lanfranc visited Rome as Archbishop of

Canterbury, and was introduced into the presence of the Pontiff, the

latter, contrary to the usual custom, rose, and advanced to meet him.

“I show this mark of respect,” he said, turning to the surrounding

prelates, “not to the archbishop, but to the man at whose feet I

sat as a disciple in the schools of Bec.” Besides these there was

Guitmond, already named, the courageous monk, who, entreated by

the Conqueror to accept high ecclesiastical promotion in England,

not only refused the offer, but accompanied his refusal with a

letter of reproof which probably spoke plainer truths to William

of Normandy than he had ever before had an opportunity of hearing.

Oderic calls him devout and deeply learned, and in his book on the

Sacrament of the Altar, the good monk recalls with affection the

teaching he had received at Bec, which he styles “that great and

famous school of literature.” But by far the greatest disciple of

this school was a countryman of Lanfranc’s, destined to surpass him

in renown both as a saint and a doctor. Anselm, a native of Aosta,

in Lombardy, abandoning his native land, had after three years of

study in Burgundy, established himself at Avranches, where he seems

to have taught for some time in the school formerly directed by

Lanfranc. But in 1059, being then but twenty-five years of age, he

found his way to Bec, and soon distinguished himself as the first

of all the noble crowd of scholars. For a while he continued there,

studying and teaching by turns, but erelong the desire of religious

perfection mastered that of intellectual progress. He resolved to

take the monastic habit, but was unable to determine whether it

should be at Cluny or at Bec. At Cluny indeed his vast acquirements

would be of small profit; at Bec the superiority of Lanfranc would,

he believed, almost equally eclipse him. But what of that? it was

eclipse and nothingness that he was in search of, rather than fame

and distinction. He opened his heart to his master, who, reluctant

to decide a point in which his own feelings would naturally colour

his advice, referred him to Maurillus, Archbishop of Rouen, and the

result was that Anselm remained at Bec. His profession took place in

1060, and three years later Lanfranc, being appointed by Duke William

abbot of his newly-founded monastery of St. Stephen at Caen, Anselm

succeeded him in the office of prior. Some of the monks murmured at

this appointment, but he overcame their ill-will by the sweetness of

his charity. One young monk, named Osbern, who had shown the greatest

opposition to the new prior, became at last his favourite disciple,

won over by the patient long-suffering of a master who showed him

a mother’s tenderness, mingled with a father’s care. At first he

gained his good-will by encouraging his talents, overlooking his

childish sallies of temper, and granting him many favours; but when

his confidence was secured he accustomed him to severer discipline,

and showed his satisfaction at his pupil’s progress by requiring him

to accept very humiliating penances. He trusted to have found in this

youth one destined to achieve great things for God, but Osbern was

carried off by a sudden sickness, and left none to replace him in the

affections of the prior.

Anselm’s life at Bec was one of continual labour. Whilst directing

the studies of his pupils he did not neglect his own. His deeply

philosophic mind was one of those which is incapable of desisting

from a course of reasoning on any subject which it has once

grasped, till the final solution is reached. His genius possessed

a certain metaphysical subtlety, which engaged him in speculative

questions, to resolve which he gave up, not merely whole days,

but whole nights also. His studies were accompanied with rigorous

austerities, which were, however, very far from diminishing that

sweetness of disposition which rendered him dear to God and man. To

his other labours were added those entailed on him as librarian to

the monastery. Lanfranc had commenced the formation of the library,

and his work was carried on by his successor with unwearied zeal.

The Bec library was afterwards enlarged by the donations of Philip

of Harcourt, Bishop of Bayeux, and besides a rich collection of

the Fathers and the Latin classics, contained the Institutes of

Quinctilian and the Hortensius of Cicero, of which latter work no

copy is now known to exist. The great destruction of books which had

taken place during the barbaric invasions rendered them now both

rare and costly. Superiors of the different religious houses were

therefore glad to establish friendly relations one with another, and

to make agreements by which each supplied what they possessed, and

what was wanting to the others. “We are ready to give you a pledge

of our affection,” writes Durandus, abbot of La Chaise Dieu, to St.

Anselm, “and in return we will ask one of you. Choose what you will

that we possess; as to us, our choice is the Epistles of St. Paul.”

Anselm was not content with collecting books; he spared no pains to

correct them, and spent a good part of his nights in this employment.

The multifarious duties which fell on him devoured so large a portion

of his day that he could only supply the requisite time for his

literary labours by defrauding himself of sleep; and he would have

resigned his office in order more exclusively to give himself up to

meditation and study had he not been withheld by the prohibition of

Maurillus.

The subject which most frequently engaged his thoughts was the

Being and Attributes of God. The first work which he wrote was his

_Monologion_, in which he endeavoured to state the metaphysical

arguments by which the existence of God might be proved even

according to mere natural reason. The work was written at the

request of some of the monks, but before publishing it he sent

it to Lanfranc, desiring him to correct, and even to suppress,

whatever he judged proper. After producing some other philosophical

treatises, the thought occurred to him to try and discover whether

it were possible, by following any single course of reasoning, to

prove that which in his _Monologion_ he had supported by a variety

of arguments. The idea took possession of his mind: sometimes he

thought he had found what he was seeking for, and then again it

escaped him. So utterly was he absorbed by the subject that he lost

sleep and appetite, and even his attention at the Divine Office

became distracted. Dreading lest it should be some dark temptation,

he tried to banish the whole matter from his mind, but it was in

vain; the more he fled from his own thoughts the more constantly did

they pursue him. At last one night every link in the chain being

complete, he seized some waxen tablets and wrote the argument as it

stood clear and distinct in his mind. A copy was made on parchment

by his monks, and this new work formed his _Proslogion_, which, at

the desire of the legate Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, was published

with his name attached. The argument of this celebrated book is thus

analysed by M. Rémusat, in his life of the saint. “He who believes in

God believes that there is Something so great that a greater cannot

be conceived. Does such a nature really exist? The infidel who denies

it nevertheless understands what is meant by the idea, and this idea

exists in his understanding, if it exist nowhere else. The mere idea

of an object does not necessarily imply the belief in its existence.

A painter has an _idea_ of a picture which he knows does not as yet

exist. But this Something which is better and greater than anything

of which we can conceive cannot exist merely in our minds; for if

it did exist only in our minds, we should be able to imagine it as

existing in reality, that is to say, we should be able to conceive

of it as being yet greater, a thing which according to our original

supposition was not to be allowed as possible. Therefore, that which

is so great that nothing can be greater must exist, not only in the

mind, but in fact. Were the Being which is supposed to be above all

that can be imagined, to be regarded as having no real existence, He

would no longer be greater than we could conceive. To make Him so,

He must have existence. The contradiction is evident. There is then

really and truly a Being above Whom nothing can be conceived, and

Who therefore cannot be thought of as though it were possible that

He should not exist. And this Being, it is Thou, O my God! _Et hoc

es tu, Domine Deus noster!_”[149] Many were found both in his own

and later times who took alarm at reasoning so bold and original,

but Anselm defended his arguments in an Apology, which established

his fame as the greatest metaphysician who had appeared in the Latin

Church since the days of St. Augustine.[150]

As we are here engaged rather with the history of schools than with

that of literature, this passing glance at St. Anselm’s studies will

suffice to indicate the new direction which the awakening intellect

of Europe was about to follow. Hitherto ecclesiastical writers

had for the most part been content to gather up and reproduce the

traditionary wisdom of the Fathers; but now, when those traditions

had become firmly established, a scientific superstructure was to

be raised on that broad foundation, and the theology of the Church

was to be built up into a compact and well-ordered system. This was

the work of the scholastic theologians, of whom St. Anselm may be

considered as the first.