It is pleasant to trace in the system of education followed by so

profound a thinker, the same paternal sweetness which characterised

the older monastic teachers. Intellectual depth is often enough

deficient in tenderness, and it would scarcely have been matter of

surprise had we found the metaphysical mind of Anselm incapable of

adapting itself to the simplicity and waywardness of childhood. But

the problems, which intellect alone is powerless to resolve, are

quickly unlocked by the key of charity. Anselm would have been no

saint had not his heart been far larger than his intellect; and his

heart it was that communicated to him those three graces which one of

our own poets has so beautifully described as bearing up the little

world of education--Love, Hope, and Patience.[151] One day he was

visited by the abbot of a neighbouring monastery, who came to consult

him on the proper manner of bringing up the children committed to

his care. Those whom he had hitherto trained were, he said, most

perverse and incorrigible. “We do our best to correct them,” he

added; “we beat them from morning till night, but I own I can see no

improvement.” “And how do they grow up?” inquired Anselm. “Just as

dull and stupid as so many beasts,” was the reply. “A famous system

of education truly,” observed the abbot of Bec, “which changes men

into beasts. Now tell me, what would be the result, if, after having

planted a tree in your garden you were to compress it so tightly that

it should have no room to extend its branches? These poor children

were given to you that you might help them to grow, and be fruitful

in good thoughts; but if you allow them no liberty their minds will

grow crooked. Finding no kindness on your part, they will give you no

confidence, and never having been brought up to know the meaning of

love and charity, they will see everything around them in a distorted

aspect. You beat them, you tell me? But is a beautiful statue of

gold or silver formed only by blows? The weak must be treated with

gentleness, and won with love; you must invite a soul to virtue

with cheerfulness, and charitably bear with its defects.” He then

explained his own method of education, till at last the other cast

himself at his feet, owning his imprudence, and promising in future

to abandon his excessive severity.

The names of Lanfranc and St. Anselm have, of course, a special

interest to English readers, although it is rather as abbots of Bec

than as Archbishops of Canterbury that they find a place in these

pages. The Norman Conquest, which placed Lanfranc on the episcopal

throne of St. Augustine, must, however, be regarded as an important

era in the scholastic history of England, from the total revolution

which it effected in the ecclesiastical administration of that

country. Whatever may be thought of the manner in which the change

was carried out, there can be little doubt that the substitution

of an Anglo-Norman for an Anglo-Saxon hierarchy was on the whole

beneficial to the cause both of religion and learning. Most of the

ecclesiastics promoted by William were men of high character, and

this was indeed one of the few consolatory thoughts which presented

themselves to his mind when he lay upon his bed of death. His choice

of Lanfranc for the primacy filled that prelate with dismay, nor was

it until Cardinal Hubert laid on him the commands of the Apostolic

See, that he could be induced to accept a charge so begirt with

difficulty. His letter to his old pupil Pope Alexander II., shortly

after his arrival in England, expresses the distress of his mind,

at the hard heartedness, cupidity, and corruption which everywhere

met his eye, and which, together with the barbarism, as he deemed

it, of the inhabitants, and his total ignorance of their language,

moved him to implore that he might resign the onerous dignity. As,

however, this could not be permitted, he applied himself to the

reform of the church of Canterbury, and the restoration in it of the

monastic rule, which, since the martyrdom of St. Elphege, had fallen

into utter decay. In spite of the pressing difficulties of the times,

he contrived also to do something for the encouragement of letters,

though far less than he would have effected under more favourable

circumstances.

The schools of Peterborough and Evesham are likewise noticed as

famous during the reign of the Confessor, who was himself a lover of

learning, and, among his other laws, decreed that the person of a

schoolmaster should be regarded as equally inviolable with that of a

clerk. Winchcombe, always devoted to letters, whose scholars had been

famous since the days of St. Kenelm, was still known as a place of

study, and kept up its reputation so late as the fifteenth century.

Old Ramsey, too, retained its celebrity, and scholars still wandered

under the trees planted by St. Ethelwold, and kept up the arts which

he had introduced into its scriptorium. In 1047 a certain monk of St.

Edmundsbury became abbot there, whose skill in all gold and silver

work was a sort of marvel. One of his monks, named Oswald, refused

a bishopric on the simple ground that he could not tear himself

from his books. “He chose rather,” says the chronicler, “to cherish

the placid cultivation of letters in the bosom of his mother, the

church of Ramsey. We have still in our archives a certain versified

book of his, bearing evidence of his multifarious knowledge and

perspicacious wit.” Nor must we forget the holy Wulstan, the last of

our Anglo-Saxon saints. He had been educated in the minster school of

Peterborough by the monk Ervene, who coaxed him to learn his letters

by choosing for his lesson-book a fine Psalter, illuminated by his

own hands. After he became prior and scholasticus of Worcester,

Wulstan devoted himself to study with such ardour as often to spend

two or three days in reading without so much as breaking his fast.

His long night-watches seriously injured his health, and in the

morning he was often found in the church fast asleep, with his

worn-out head resting on the book he had been studying.

It will be seen, therefore, that the love of letters was not quite

extinct in the cloisters of Saxon England; and the coming of Lanfranc

blew the embers into a flame. He set himself to restore a great

number of cathedral and monastic schools that had fallen into decay,

and during his leisure hours liked to hear some poor scholars hold

disputations in his presence on learned subjects, rewarding them with

liberal gifts.

But besides his encouragement of learned men, Lanfranc did good

service to the cause of letters in other ways. He often interposed

his kind offices to save the ancient English foundations from the

vengeance of the Conqueror. Thus, having succeeded in averting the

threatened destruction of St. Alban’s Abbey, which William had

doomed in consequence of the brave resistance he had met with from

its abbot, Frithric, Lanfranc conferred it on a relative and pupil

of his own named Paulinus, who has fallen under the lash of Matthew

Paris, but who nevertheless proved an excellent abbot. He introduced

the “Constitutions,” published by Lanfranc for the government of

the English Benedictines, reformed a host of irregularities, and,

with the help of subsidies liberally granted by the archbishop,

built several useful offices, and established the first scriptorium

attached to the abbey.

I know not what my readers will say when they hear that the mill, the

bakehouse, and the scriptorium erected by Paulinus were all built

out of the tiles and stones of the ancient Verulam, collected by his

Saxon predecessors Ealdred and Eadmer, who had made some very curious

excavations among the ruins of the Roman city, and had laid open a

palace with its baths and its atrium. Moreover, they had dug up a

number of books in good preservation, one of which was in a tongue

unknown to all, and proved at last to be a British history of the

“Acts of St. Alban.” The other books were in Latin, and, relating to

heathen worship, were committed to the flames. This sounds barbarous

to antiquarian ears, but there is worse to tell. Eadmer ordered that

all the altars, urns, coins, and glass vessels discovered by the

workmen should be destroyed. The day had not yet come when relics

of paganism were deemed safe or fit objects for good Christians to

collect in their museums, and the Vatican collection itself would

probably have fared but badly in the hands of Alcuin or St. Boniface.

However, the monks of St. Alban’s, though destroyers of the Verulam

antiquities, were very active in setting up their scriptorium.

Paulinus furnished it with twenty-eight “notable volumes,” and many

others were presented by Lanfranc. There is, moreover, a distinct

notice of the existence of the abbey school. Abbot Richard, who

succeeded Paulinus (after the Red King had contrived to keep the

abbacy vacant for five years), showed a great interest in the success

of this school, and invited over from Maine a certain master named

Geoffrey de Gorham, to take on him its direction. Gorham however, was

rather dilatory, and by the time he arrived in England the office

had been given to another. So he removed to Dunstable, and there

read lectures for some time, and whilst so occupied, invented a

miracle-play, said to be the first that is noticed in history, the

subject being the martyrdom of St. Katherine. These sacred dramas

were used as means of popular instruction, and often contained a fine

vein of poetry. As time went on, and they fell out of the hands of

the ecclesiastics into those of a class of writers and actors whose

object it was to please, rather than to instruct the multitude, they

became debased by the introduction of coarse jests and buffoonery,

which abound in the specimens best known to English readers, but

of which there is not the slightest trace in the earlier religious

dramas. The dress and getting up of the pieces, in which there

was a wonderful amount of ingenuity displayed, and even of stage

trickery,[152] of course enhanced their success; and Gorham borrowed

from the sacristan of St. Alban’s the choral copes of the abbey,

to be used in the first representation of his play. Unfortunately,

the very next night his house caught fire, and the borrowed copes,

together with his own books, were all destroyed. It was a great

disaster; and in atonement for his carelessness he assumed the

monastic habit at St. Alban’s; and this was the reason, says Matthew

Paris, that when he became abbot he was so careful to provide the

choir with new rich copes.

In the midst of his many cares and anxieties, Lanfranc found time to

devote to literary toils. They were useful ones, well worthy of a

monk and a bishop. He corrected the text of the entire Bible, and of

several of the Fathers. He never forgot Bec, and sent several youths,

and among others his own nephew and namesake, there for education;

and much of his correspondence with St. Anselm turns on the progress

of these young men in their studies. Anselm, on his part, frankly

confesses that he gets very weary of continually teaching the younger

boys their declensions; and lets us know that he required his pupils

to compose often in Latin, and rather in prose than in verse; that

he recommended them to read Virgil and the other classics, and to be

diligent in copying manuscripts. At other times his letters, treating

of literary subjects, and accompanying presents of precious books to

the Canterbury scriptorium, introduce allusions to the health of his

scholars, evincing that paternal tenderness which was so remarkable a

feature in his character.

Anselm, who had been elected abbot of Bec on the death of Herluin,

during his visits to England became personally known to the

Conqueror, whose furious passions were restrained in presence of the

gentle saint, who won both his love and his reverence. It was whilst

at Canterbury, on a visit to his friend Lanfranc, that the abbot

of Bec made his first acquaintance with his future biographer, the

young Saxon Eadmer. This was the time when he so sweetly defended

the memory of the Anglo-Saxon saints from the contempt with which

Lanfranc was disposed to regard them; and possibly this circumstance

may have had some share in securing him the confidence and affection

of Eadmer, who then held the office of precentor in the cathedral of

Canterbury.

Lanfranc died in 1089, having survived the great Conqueror nearly two

years. The events which, four years later, placed St. Anselm on the

archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury, and his heroic struggles against

the usurpations of the temporal power in the reigns of William Rufus

and Henry I., scarcely fall within our present subject, though they

form not the least important chapter in our national Church history.

But the succession to the primacy of another great scholar was an

event which made itself felt in the world of letters, and kindled

extraordinary ardour for learned pursuits among the English clergy.

This spirit was certainly encouraged by the Norman kings, who,

ferocious tyrants as they were, all more or less exhibited a taste

for letters. The Conqueror took special care of the education of

his children. Henry Beauclerk was educated at Abingdon Abbey, under

the care of Faricius, an Italian monk of Malmsbury. The proficiency

of the young prince as displayed by his version of Æsop’s fables,

is commonly said to have earned him his learned sobriquet; but Mr.

Wright, in his “Biographia Britannica,” calls his authorship in

question. Both his sisters, and his two queens, Matilda of Scotland

and Adeliza of Louvaine, were patrons of letters. Some epistles from

Matilda to St. Anselm are preserved, which display no mean degree

of scholarship, if they were really the production of her own pen.

The encouragement of these two princesses quickened the imagination

of a host of versifiers, who began to neglect the composition of

hexameters in limping Latin, and to substitute in their room songs

and romances in Norman-French. The Anglo-Saxon tongue was, of course,

never heard at court; and some writers, like William of Malmsbury,

went so far as to omit the Saxon names of men and places, through an

over-delicate fear of distressing refined organs by such barbarous

sounds. A new literature meanwhile sprang up, bearing the impress

of an age of knight-errantry. Alexander, Arthur, and Charlemagne

found themselves transformed from historic personages into heroes of

quaint and extravagant fictions, full of hippogrifs, dragons, and

enchanted castles, where distressed damsels were held captive by

wicked magicians, in order to be delivered by the prowess of doughty

knights--a style of composition to which we give a name borrowed from

the language used by the narrators, that, namely, of the _Romance_

dialect of France. Among the accumulation of rubbish written in this

dialect, which was about this time poured forth into the world, one

book of a higher character appears, the production of Prior Guichard

of Beaulieu. It is a sermon in verse on the vices of the age, and

appears to have been written to be actually recited, for he begins by

telling his hearers that he is going to talk to them, not in Latin,

but in the vernacular, that every one may understand what he says. De

la Rue, who notices this curious poem, observes that the mention of

a sermon in verse need not cause surprise, as at that epoch it was a

common thing for the Anglo-Norman clergy to read to the people on

Sundays and holy-days the lives of the saints in French verse. Nine

such versified lives are still preserved, the production of Boson,

nephew to Pope Alexander II. The mediæval preachers had sometimes

recourse to strange expedients in order to rouse the slumbering

attention of their hearers. Vincent of Beauvais tells us that in his

time it was a common thing to lighten a dull subject by introducing

one of Æsop’s fables, a practice which he does not absolutely

condemn, but recommends to be used sparingly.

Besides the disciples reared in our native schools, a large number

of English scholars were to be found, who mingled with the graver

pursuits of learning something of that spirit of knight-errantry and

wild adventure which characterised the times. Arabic Spain was just

then regarded as the fountain-head of science. The Moorish sovereigns

of Cordova had collected an immense library in their capital, and

are reported to have had seventy others in different parts of

their dominions. Thither, then, wandered many an English student,

attracted rather than repelled by the tales of glamour associated

with a Moslem land. One of these scholar adventurers was Athelhard

of Bath, the greatest man of science who appeared in England before

the time of Roger Bacon. In the reign of the Red King he had left

his own country to study at Tours and Laon, in which latter place he

opened a school. Thence he proceeded to Salerno, Greece, Asia Minor,

and Spain, increasing his stock of learning, and returned at last,

after a long absence, in the reign of Henry I. After this he opened

a school in Normandy, where he taught the Arabic sciences, in spite

of the prejudices which many felt against learning acquired from so

suspicious a source. Among those who so objected was Athelhard’s own

nephew; and in defence of his favourite studies the English master

wrote a book, in which he reminds his nephew of an agreement formerly

made between them, that one should gather all the learning taught by

the Arabs, while the other should, in like manner, study the wisdom

of the Franks. This book is written in the form of a colloquy, in

which the nephew is made to appear as the champion of the old system

of education, and the uncle of the new.

I do not know whether we should conclude that Athelhard gained very

much from his Arabic masters; for if he studied at Cordova the causes

of earthquakes, eclipses, and tides, we find from his _Quæstiones_

that he had also devoted a considerable portion of his time to

investigating the reason why plants cannot be produced in fire, why

the nose is made to hang over the mouth, why the human forehead is

not furnished with horns, whether the stars are animals, whether on

that hypothesis they have any appetite, with other equally singular

and puerile questions. In spite of these eccentricities, however,

Athelhard was a really learned man. He translated Euclid and other

mathematical works out of the Arabic, and is styled by Vincent of

Beauvais, “the Philosopher of England.” A few years later we find

another Englishman, named Robert de Retines, studying at Evora

in company with a certain Hermann of Dalmatia, who is called a

most acute and erudite scholar. Robert had travelled in search of

learning through France, Italy, Dalmatia, Greece, and Asia Minor,

and finally made his way into Spain, where Peter of Cluny found the

two friends studying astrology at Evora. Peter’s journey into Spain

was undertaken with the view of obtaining more exact information as

to the Mohammedan doctrines and writings, and he induced the two

scholars to give up their unprofitable pursuits, and employ their

knowledge of Arabic in translating the Koran. This they did in

1143. Robert afterwards became archdeacon of Pampeluna; he did not,

however, entirely forsake his own country, but returning thither,

wrote a translation of the Saxon Chronicle, which is preserved in

the Bodleian library, and which is dedicated to Peter of Cluny. His

friend Hermann, who is styled “a most acute and profound scholastic,”

produced a translation of Ptolemy’s “Planisphere,” which he addressed

to his old Spanish preceptor Theodoricus, and from the preface to

this book we find that the school at which they studied was not

Arabic, but Christian, a fact of some importance, as it is very

generally stated that the Spanish academies resorted to at this

time by European students were those of the Arabic masters, who are

represented as alone possessing any knowledge of the mathematical

sciences. It is clear however that now, as in the time of Gerbert,

there existed Christian schools in Spain, no less efficient than

those of the Moors, and that it was to these that many of the French

and English scholars resorted for the purposes of study.

To the names of these learned Englishmen I must add that of Odericus

Vitalis, the course of whose education is best given in his own

words in that short summary of his life with which he concludes

his history. “I was baptized,” he says, “at Attingham, a village

in England, which stands on the bank of the great river Severn.

There, by the ministry of Odericus the priest, Thou didst regenerate

me with water and the Holy Ghost. When I was five years old I was

sent to school at Shrewsbury, and offered Thee my services in the

lowest order of the clergy in the Church of SS. Peter and Paul.

While there, Siward, a priest of great eminence, instructed me for

five years in the letters of Carmenta Nicostrata,[153] and taught me

psalms and hymns, with other necessary learning. I was ten years old

when I crossed the British sea, and arrived in Normandy, an exile,

unknown to all, and knowing no one. But supported by Thy goodness, I

found the utmost kindness and attention from these foreigners. I was

professed a monk in the monastery of St. Evroult, by the venerable

abbot Mainier, in the eleventh year of my age, and he gave me the

name of Vitalis, in place of that which I received in England,

and which seemed barbarous to the ears of the Normans. In this

monastery, through Thy goodness, I have lived fifty-six years, loved

and honoured by my brethren far more than I have deserved. Bearing

the heat and burden of the day in a strange land, I have laboured

among Thy servants, and as Thou art faithful, I fear not but I shall

receive the penny which Thou hast promised.”

He elsewhere tells us that his master in this abbey was John of

Rheims, a disciple of the famous school of that city, who was an

author of no mean fame, and composed a great number of works both in

prose and verse. It does not appear that he ever studied in any other

academy, but whatever learning he afterwards attained must have been

acquired within the walls of his own monastery, and he could scarcely

have found his way to a better school. In the eleventh century there

was no branch of learning which was not cultivated among the monks of

St. Evroult; music, medicine, poetry, painting, and the mechanical

arts, all found there able professors. The history of Odericus leaves

us in no doubt as to the extent of his literary attainments. He

quotes most of the ancient classical writers, and many of the Fathers

of the Church, and the intelligence of his mind is displayed by the

way in which he collected the materials of his work. Nothing escaped

his notice, and from the lips of some wandering Crusader or passing

pilgrim he gathered up the tales and episodes with which he enlivened

his pages, giving them in many parts the lively colouring of a

romance. One day a monk of Winchester who stopped at the abbey for a

few hours chanced to show him a life of St. William, copies of which

were then rare in Normandy. Odericus, in raptures at the sight of the

treasure, longed to copy it, but the traveller was in haste, and the

fingers of Odericus were benumbed with cold, for it was the depth of

winter. However, the opportunity was not to be lost, and seizing his

tablets he with great difficulty took such notes from the manuscript

as enabled him afterwards, at his leisure, to compose a life of the

founder of St. Gellone. His “Ecclesiastical History of England and

Normandy,” which occupied twenty years in its compilation, is the

only work he has left to posterity.

Thus much may suffice as to the state of letters in England and

Normandy in the time of Lanfranc and Anselm; the scholars who arose

after them were not unworthy to be the disciples of a school founded

by these two illustrious archbishops; and it will be seen that the

University of Paris, which was soon to efface by the splendour of its

fame that of every other lesser academy, owed its renown in no small

degree to the learning of its English professors.

_CHAPTER XII._

THE RISE OF SCHOLASTICISM.

A.D. 1049 TO 1200.

We are sometimes disposed to think and speak of the Middle Ages, as

though by that term was to be understood a period including several

centuries, during the whole of which society was governed by the

same laws, and made but little progress. In point of fact, however,

men seldom lived faster, if such an expression be admissible,

than during the five centuries to which the term mediæval is most

strictly applied. There was then, as now, a continual expansion and

development going on, and then, as now, the development was partly

good, and partly evil. During the hundred years that elapsed from

the accession of Hugh Capet in 996, to the conquest of Jerusalem in

1099, Christendom assumed an entirely new aspect. The institutions

of feudalism and chivalry were becoming firmly established; the

barbaric invasions had ceased, and the Crusades directed the arms of

the Christians against a common enemy, and so put an end to the civil

wars which had raged under the Carlovingian dynasty. If these changes

cannot be said to have ushered in a period of absolute peace, they

at least tended to consolidate civil government; and the comparative

state of security and order which ensued, naturally encouraged

greater intellectual activity. On the other hand, the Saxon emperors

of Germany had been replaced by the house of Franconia, and that

grievous contest had begun between the temporal and spiritual powers

which, for centuries, formed the great political question of Europe;

while the convulsions of the last century had let loose on the Church

a flood of corruption which probably makes this period one of the

saddest in her history.

The chronicles of a semi-barbarous age, however, possess one charm

which does not attach in an equal degree to those of more civilised

periods. Full as they are of crimes and scandals, they depict a state

of society more keenly susceptible than our own to the influence of

master-minds. Hence they are often enough the records of heroes,

whereas our tamer annals deal less in the acts and words of great

men, than in changes of ministry. The eleventh century groaned under

the threefold scourge of simony, sensuality, and temporal usurpation.

It had the peculiar infelicity of being an age of transition, when

the children of the Church were growing weary of submitting to the

canonical discipline of ancient times, whilst nothing had yet been

established as its substitute. It was, therefore, a time of wild

license and feeble restraint. Three men, however, arose to rule and

reform their age. The first was of royal blood, a descendant of

Charlemagne and Witikind, whom we first find studying at Toul about

the year 1018, along with other princely and ducal cousins, for Toul

was always celebrated for its noble students. Bruno of Dachsburg was

the handsomest man of his time, the idol of his family, graceful,

eloquent, and learned, and a skilled musician. The world was already

predicting his success at the court of his imperial cousin Conrad,

when a trifling accident changed his whole career. One day, the young

student, after a hard morning’s work, threw himself on the grass

at his father’s castle in Alsace, and fell asleep. An insect stung

his face, and the result was a malignant fever which brought him to

the gates of death. He rose from his sick bed to renounce all that

the world had to offer, and to embrace the monastic state. In 1026

he became Bishop of Toul, and for two-and-twenty years devoted his

energies to the reformation of manners and the revival of discipline.

At the end of that time he was elected Pope, and, as St. Leo IX.,

struggled for five years more against simony, the Berengarian heresy,

and the Greek schism. But, in the midst of his other labours, he did

not neglect letters and the arts. He caused good studies to flourish

at Rome, reformed her school of chant, and employed as his legates

learned men, such as his old schoolfellow, Cardinal Humbert, who had

acquired at Toul that Greek erudition which he used so ably against

the Photians.

On the day when Pope Leo entered Rome barefoot to take possession

of the Apostolic throne, he was accompanied by a Cluniac monk, whom

he had met on his journey into Italy, and well-nigh compelled to

join his train. Rome was no new scene to the monk Hildebrand; it was

there, in St. Mary’s Abbey on the Aventine Mount,[154] that the

poor carpenter’s son had received his education. But he returned

thither now to fill a very different station, for Leo created him

cardinal, and abbot of St. Paul’s; and from that time up to the day

of his death, thirty-six years later, the life of Hildebrand forms

the history of his times. The name of him whom the Church reveres

as St. Gregory VII. must suffice in this place, there remains to be

noticed a third Christian hero, a friend of both those illustrious

pontiffs, who struggled with them in the same cause, and against the

same enemies. Born at Ravenna towards the close of the tenth century,

the youngest of a large family, who only saw in him another to divide

their slender inheritance, Peter Damian was all but abandoned in

his infancy, and on the death of his parents was maintained by a

brother, who treated him as a slave, and employed him to keep swine.

The poor farm-drudge grew up without friends and without education;

but the soul that was within him had instincts and aspirations which

no ill-usage could stifle. One day he chanced to find a piece of

money lying on the ground; it was the first time his hands had ever

touched silver, and for a moment the thoughts which might occur to

other boys flashed through his brain. He would purchase food, or

clothes, or give himself an hour’s brief enjoyment. But then came

another thought: “When the food is eaten, and the enjoyment past,

what will remain to me of my money? Better give it to the parish

priest and have a mass said for my father’s soul.” The second thought

was followed; and soon afterwards his elder brother Damian, the

arch-priest of Ravenna, took pity on the boy, and sent him to school,

first at Faenza, and then at Parma, which at that time possessed

excellent masters. Peter, who in gratitude assumed his brother’s name

in addition to his own, became not only a good scholar, but in time

a professor, and his singular capacity in this office obtained him

both scholars and wealth, for, as we have seen in the last chapter,

the profession of scholasticus was beginning to be one of profit.

But he had never forgotten his early experience, and the money that

flowed in went to feed the poor, whilst he himself persevered in

the practice of rigid poverty. One day he made the acquaintance

of two poor hermits belonging to a community that had established

itself at a spot called Fonte-Avellano, at the foot of the Umbrian

Apennines. His biographer calls it a desert, but it was a desert

only in the Italian sense of he word, a solitary valley, that is,

shut in between mountains clothed with evergreen oaks, and chest

nuts, and the silvery olive, its thickets bright with the blossoms

of the Judas-tree and the oleander, and its grass, with the starry

cyclamen. To this desert, then, Peter’s new friends conducted him,

on a visit to their hermitage, which had been founded a few years

previously by the Blessed Ludolf. He found there a community who took

the same view of human life as himself. They regarded man as a being

made up of two noble and immortal parts, that were to be served and

cherished--the soul and the intellect; and of one base and perishable

part, that was good only to be mortified--the body. Simple men as

they were, they had conceived the idea of doing penance for the huge

evil world that lay outside their wilderness. So they lived four days

a week on bread and water, allowing themselves on the other three the

indulgence of herbs, afflicted their flesh in many ways, and divided

their time between psalmody and study. Peter embraced this life with

hearty earnestness, and outstripped his companions alike in his

austerities and in his application to sacred learning. But his light

could not be hid; abbots entreated that he might be sent to instruct

their religious; his own brethren elected him their superior; seven

successive popes employed him in the service of the Church; and, in

1057, Stephen IX. created him cardinal bishop of Ostia. His life was

spent in struggles to stem the corruption of his age and to reform

the clergy. Fleury observes that we must not look in his writings for

acuteness of reasoning; but he had to do with men sunk in rude gross

vices, which were hardly to be remedied by metaphysics. The medicine

which St. Peter Damian prescribed for the sick world was penance;

and he preached it in a plain homely sort of way, which might

possibly offend fastidious tastes, but which had this merit about

it, that it was practical, and had results. He entered the profaned

sanctuary, scourge in hand, to drive out the unclean animals, and to

overthrow the tables of the money-changers. In the intervals between

his incessant legations to reform churches and rebuke princes, he

retired to his cell at Fonte-Avellano, and might be found there

living on pulse and water, employed in making wooden spoons, or other

coarse manual labour, and submitting, even to his eightieth year,

to the same rule of life as the youngest novice. Yet this was the

most elegant scholar of his time; nay, more, he was a poet. And we

do not use the term as classing him among the crowd of versifiers

who wrote their chronicles, and even their theological treatises in

lines which, often enough as Hallam remarks, can only be rendered

into hexameters “by careful nursing.” He imitated neither Virgil

nor Horace, but wrote in those rhymed trochaics which many classical

purists would brand as barbarisms. Yet where shall we see richness of

imagery wedded to greater harmony of numbers than in those wonderful

stanzas, _De Paradisi Gloriâ_, wherein Paradise is depicted under

the form of all that is fairest and brightest to the poet’s eye? The

sparkling of precious gems, the blossoming of early flowers, the

glory of the autumn cornfields, and the long shining of a summer’s

day, lit by a sun that knows no setting, are painted in words that

sound like the echoes of a harpsichord. And from these sensible

images of earthly beauty he rises to that which is above sense,

and sets before us the ineffable joys of those who see the Divine

Beauty face to face, and are filled from the fountains of Eternal

charity. The joys of heaven formed, in fact, the constant subject

of his meditation, and in one of his prose treatises, speaking on

this exhaustless theme, he gives utterance to the sentiment felt by

every poet, of the insufficiency of words to express the emotions of

the heart. “There is always more in the thing itself than the mind

conceives, and more in what the mind conceives than the tongue can

utter.”

The reform of manners so vigorously set on foot by these saints and

their many disciples was friendly to the growth of letters. Parma

attained such celebrity as to be called _Chrysopolis_, or the golden

city, in the days of the great Countess Matilda, who was herself,

says Donizzo, her chaplain, more learned than many bishops, and was

never without an abundance of books. At her instance Irnerius, the

_Lucerna Juris_, as he was called, began to lecture at Bologna on

Roman law about the year 1128. The cathedral schools were everywhere

revived by St. Gregory VII., who required the bishops to found

seminaries where such did not already exist, where boys should be

educated for the priesthood free of cost, certain prebends being

set apart for the support of the masters. This injunction was very

generally obeyed, and many ancient schools were revived which had

fallen into decay. Landulph tells us that at Milan, where things had

been in a very bad state, but where the mingled zeal and gentleness

of St. Peter Damian, and of St. Ariald, had effected a reform,[155]

the schools of philosophy were held in the porch of the cathedral,

where the clerics attended, the archbishop presiding in person.

In fact, the Italians who, in the tenth century, are represented

as having none to teach them the first rudimentary elements, had

somehow contrived in the eleventh to possess themselves of academies

which they considered the first in the whole world.

A document given by Mabillon illustrates in an amusing manner the

jealousy existing at this time between the schools of Italy and

France. A certain prior of Chiusi, named Benedict, coming to the

abbey of St. Martial at Limoges, was imprudent enough to call in

question the commonly-received opinion that St. Martial was an

immediate disciple of our Lord. Of course a storm arose, its fury

bursting over the head of the luckless and too enlightened critic.

The quarrel was taken up by all the monasteries of southern Gaul;

and Ademar, a monk of Angoulême, thought it his duty to address a

circular to the French monasteries, warning them not to listen to the

horrible scandals promulgated by Benedict, whose conceit, he says,

was at the bottom of the whole affair. He attempts to pillory his

antagonist, by putting in his mouth a ridiculous speech. “I am the

nephew,” he is made to say, “of the abbot of Chiusi. He has taken

me to many cities of France and Lombardy to study grammar, and my

various masters have cost him the round sum of 2000 soldi. I studied

grammar nine years, and am studying it still. I am a most learned

man. I have two great boxes full of books, and I have not yet read

one-half of them. In fact there is not a book in all the world that

I have not got. When I leave the schools there will not be such a

doctor as myself under heaven.... I am prior of Chiusi, and know

how to write sermons.... I am so wise I could arrange and manage

an entire council. In Aquitaine there is no learning of any kind,

every one there is a dunce; if a man knows a sprinkling of grammar,

he is thought at once to be a second Virgil. In France (that is,

the province, not the kingdom of France), there is a little more

erudition, but not much. The real seat of wisdom is in Lombardy,

where I have carried on my studies.” In spite of the sarcastic

exaggeration running through this passage, we may gather from it that

Benedict had probably assumed a tone of superiority over his Gallican

neighbours, and that studies must have greatly revived in Lombardy

since the days of the Othos, to furnish the text for a _jeu d’esprit_

of this description.

An age of such increased intellectual activity could hardly fail to

be attended with many changes, bad as well as good. We have seen

in the last chapter that the new class of teachers who were now

springing up taught for gain or reputation, rather than with an eye

to the higher ends of education, and that thus learning in their

hands lost much of its Christian dress. The intellectual curiosity

of students induced many to seek for knowledge in distant lands, with

the same perseverance and spirit of enterprise which young knights

displayed in quest of military adventure. We can hardly in our day

appreciate the difficulties which had to be overcome by men like

Athelhard and Robert of Retines, whose student life was the very

romance of scholarship. If the stock of knowledge thus collected,

surpassed in breadth and variety that which could have been gained

in any single monastic school, it is evident, on the other hand,

that the education of these itinerant scholars must have been sadly

deficient both in mental and moral discipline, failings which were

abundantly evident in the character of the new scholastics. They had

picked up, it may be, a knowledge of medicine at Salerno, and of

mathematics at Cordova, but the claustral rule, the strict subjection

to authority, the holy atmosphere or devotion and obedience, had not

entered into their intellectual life. They had gained their learning

from the lips of professors, in order to become professors in their

turn; but a wandering life through half the cities of Europe was but

a poor exchange for the claustral discipline; and not a few were

found to embrace this kind of life for the very sake of its greater

license and freedom from restraint.

But though this new element was making itself perceptibly felt in

the learned world, it must not be supposed that in the eleventh

century the old system of education was at all superseded for the

cathedral and monastic schools still continued the chief seats of

learning. They even witnessed a sort of classical renaissance,

which sprung up under the encouragement of a crowd of masters

who directed the labours of their scholars to the imitation of

ancient models, without, however, in any way abandoning the line of

Christian studies traced out by Alcuin and his disciples. At Mans,

the office of scholasticus was held by the Blessed Hildebert a pupil

of Berengarius, and a poet and philosopher, who afterwards became

bishop of the same see, and had the distinguished honour of being

imprisoned by the Red King, for refusing, at his bidding, to pull

down the towers of his cathedral. At Autun, the cathedral schools

were directed for twenty years by Honorius, who in his treatise

_De Exilio Animæ_, reprinted in the _Thesaurus Anecdotorum_ of

Pez, has described the course of studies followed by his pupils.

To the ordinary branches of the trivium and quadrivium, he added

instructions in physical science, and gave a distinct course of Holy

Scripture. His lectures on rhetoric included the explanation of the

best Latin classics, and the same was done in most monastic schools

of the period. The notices become more frequent of scholars learned

in Greek and Hebrew, and the fact of their being named as engaged

in the correction of manuscripts in those languages, compels us to

believe that their learning was something more real and solid than

that which has been before noticed as rather foolishly displayed

on the pages of certain writers of the preceding centuries. Thus,

Sigebert of Gemblours, and Marbœuf of Angers, are both spoken of

as Greek and Hebrew scholars. Sigebert is said by his biographer

to have been learned in the Hebrew Scriptures, which he used in

his controversies with the Jews. He was also a good Latin classic,

and much addicted to the composition of verses in imitation of his

favourite author Horace. He gave lectures on poetry and logic in

Paris, but his vanity was not proof against temptation, and led him

to take part with Henry IV. against the Holy See. He is the author of

a chronicle and other historical works, which he made the vehicle for

conveying grave calumnies against the Roman pontiffs. Dante to whom

his character as a Ghibelline partisan was itself a recommendation,

has placed him in Paradise and notices him as lecturing on logic in

the streets of Paris, to students seated, after the custom of the

time, on bundles of straw.[156]

It is difficult to determine how much the scholars of this period

were really in advance of their predecessors. Hallam, who is

generally so sparing of his praise when speaking of any period

earlier than that of the Cinque Cento, admits that at the close of

the eleventh century a good, and even elegant school of Latin writers

was springing up; and notices the Latin vocabulary of Papias as

evincing an amount of profane learning far superior to anything that

had hitherto been known. Du Cange, however, shows that Papias drew

his materials from a dictionary which had been compiled in the Dark

Ages, namely, that published in the tenth century, by Solomon, abbot

of St. Gall’s. Still, it may be concluded that classical studies were

more universally followed than they had hitherto been, and at the

same time extraordinary activity was displayed in the multiplication

of books and the collection of libraries. Useful results sometimes

flow from human infirmities, and there is said to have mingled with

the honest love of learning which encouraged this activity, a certain

spirit of rivalry and emulation among the different monasteries and

religious orders. The Black Monks did not like to be cut out by the

new Cistercians; and Bec, as a matter of course, was not going to

yield to Cluny. Mabillon says that it was the peculiar pride of the

Benedictine abbots of this time, to collect large libraries, and

to have their manuscripts handsomely written and adorned. Never,

therefore, was there a busier time in the scriptorium; a finer

character of writing, and a more convenient system of abbreviation

was introduced, and many abbots are mentioned as remarkable for

their skill as miniaturists. It is said, however, I know not with

what truth, that the copyists, if they got through a greater amount

of work, were often less accurate than their brethren of the eighth

and ninth centuries, and that in this, as in other things, the

proverb held good of “more haste and worse speed.” Hallam, whilst

complaining of the multiplication of blunders, does full justice to

the prodigious industry exhibited by the monastic copyists of this

particular period. As an illustration of the subject, we may quote

the account which Othlonus, the scholasticus of St. Emmeran’s, gives

of his labours. He seems to have been a Bavarian by birth, and his

first school was that of Tegernsee, in Bavaria, a monastery which

had been founded in 994, and was famous for its teachers _in utrâque

linguâ_, and even for its Hebrew scholars. Here, in the twelfth

century, lived the good monk Metellus, whose eclogues, written in

imitation of those of Virgil, describe the monastic pastures and

cattle, and the labours of the monks in the fields. The library of

Tegernsee was rich in classic works, and possessed a fair illuminated

copy of Pliny’s “Natural History,” adorned with pictures of the

different animals, from the cunning hand of brother Ellinger.

Medicine was likewise studied here, to facilitate which, the monks

had a good botanical garden. In such a school Othlonus had every

opportunity of cultivating his natural taste for study, which grew

by degrees to be a perfect passion. As a child he had intended to

embrace the monastic state, but the persuasions of his father, and

his own desire to give himself up exclusively to learned pursuits,

induced him to abandon this design, and after leaving school he

devoted himself for several years to classical studies, with an

ardour which his biographer finds no words strong enough to express.

His only earthly desire at this time, as he himself tells us in

one of his later spiritual treatises, was to have time to study,

and abundance of books. It would seem, however, that this excessive

devotion to human learning had its usual results in the decay of

devotion. It is thus he describes himself at this period of his

life, in his versified treatise _De doctrina Spirituali_. “Desiring

to search into certain subtle matters, in the knowledge of which

I saw that many delighted, to the end that I might be held in

greater esteem by the world, I made all my profit to consist in

keeping company with the Gentiles. In those days what were not to me

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and Tully the rhetorician?... that

threefold work of Maro, and Lucan, whom then I loved best of all, and

on whom I was so intent, that I hardly did anything else but read

him.... Yet what profit did they give me, when I could not even sign

my forehead with the cross?”

However, two severe illnesses wrought a great change in his way of

looking at life, and in 1032, remembering his early dedication of

himself to God, he resolved to forsake the world and take the habit

of religion in the monastery of St. Emmeran’s, at Ratisbon, where

he gave up all thoughts of secular ambition, in order to devote

himself heart and soul to the duties of his state. St. Emmeran’s was,

like Tegernsee, possessed of an excellent school and library. In

the former many good scholars were reared, such as abbot William of

Hirschau, who became as learned in the liberal arts as in the study

of the Scriptures, and who afterwards made his own school at Hirschau

one of the most celebrated in Germany. Othlonus tells us that in this

monastery he found “several men in different classes, some reading

pagan authors, others the Holy Scriptures,” and that he began to

imitate the latter, and soon learnt to relish the Sacred Books, which

he had hitherto neglected, far above the writings of Aristotle,

Plato, or even Boëthius.[157]

It will be seen from this little sketch that Othlonus was not a mere

transcriber, and indeed he afterwards produced several treatises on

mystic theology, besides his “Life of St. Wolfgang,” and was regarded

by his brother monks as “a pious and austere man, possessed of an

immense love of books.” This love he showed not only by reading

them, but by multiplying them; and his achievements in this kind are

related by himself with a certain prolix eloquence which, in mercy to

the reader, I will somewhat abridge.

“I think it right,” he says, “to add some account of the great

capacity of writing which was given me by the Lord from my childhood.

When as yet a little child I was sent to school, and quickly learnt

my letters; and began long before the usual time of learning, and

without any order from the master, to learn the art of writing; but

in a furtive and unusual way, and without any teacher, so that I got

a bad habit of holding my pen in a wrong manner, nor were any of

my teachers afterwards able to correct me in that point. Many who

saw this, decided that I should never write well, but by the grace

of God it turned out otherwise. For, even in my childhood, when,

together with the other boys, the tablet was put into my hands, it

appeared that I had some notion of writing. Then, after a time, I

began to write so well and was so fond of it, that in the monastery

of Tegernsee, where I learned, I wrote many books, and being sent

into Franconia, I worked so hard as nearly to lose my sight....

Then, after I became a monk of St. Emmeran’s, I was induced again

to occupy myself so much in writing, that I seldom got an interval

of rest except on festivals. Meantime there came more work on me,

for as they saw I was generally reading, writing, or composing,

they made me schoolmaster; by all which things I was, through God’s

grace, so fully occupied that I frequently could not allow my body

the necessary rest. When I had a mind to compose anything, I could

not find time for it, except on holidays or at night, being tied

down to the business of teaching the boys, and transcribing what I

had undertaken. Besides the books which I composed myself I wrote

nineteen missals, three books of the Gospels, and two lectionaries;

besides which I wrote four service books for matins. Afterwards,

old age and infirmity hindered me, and the grief caused by the

destruction of our monastery; but to Him who is author of all good,

and who has vouchsafed to give many things to me unworthy, be praise

eternal!” He then adds an account of a vast number of other books

written out by him and sent as presents to the monasteries of Fulda,

Hirschfeld, Lorsch, Tegernsee, and others, amounting in all to thirty

volumes. His labours, so cheerfully undertaken for the improvement

of his convent, were perhaps surpassed by those of the monk Jerome,

who wrote out so great a number of volumes, that it is said a wagon

with six horses would not have sufficed to draw them. But neither

one nor the other are to be compared to Diemudis, a devout nun of

the monastery of Wessobrun, who, besides writing out in clear and

beautiful characters five missals, with graduals and sequences

attached, and four other office books, for the use of the church,

adorned the library of her convent with two entire Bibles, eight

volumes of St. Gregory, seven of St. Augustine, the ecclesiastical

histories of Eusebius and Cassiodorus, and a vast number of sermons,

homilies, and other treatises, a list of which she left, as having

all been written by her own hand, to the praise of God and of the

holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul. This Diemudis was a contemporary

of Othlonus, and found time in the midst of her gigantic labours to

carry on a correspondence with Herluca, a nun of Eppach, to whom she

is said to have indited “many very sweet letters,” which were long

preserved.

I have mentioned as one of the scholars of St. Emmeran’s the holy

William of Hirschau, who was chosen abbot of his monastery in 1070,

and applied himself to make his monks as learned and as indefatigable

in all useful labours as he was himself. He had about 250 monks at

Hirschau, and founded no fewer than fifteen other religious houses,

for the government of which he drew up a body of excellent statutes.

These new foundations he carefully supplied with books, which

necessitated constant work in the scriptorium. And a most stately

and noble place was the scriptorium of Hirschau, wherein each one

was employed according to his talent, binding, painting, gilding,

writing, or correcting. The twelve best writers were reserved for

transcribing the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, and one of the

twelve, most learned in the sciences, presided over the tasks of the

others, chose the books to be copied, and corrected the faults of

the younger scribes. The art of painting was studied in a separate

school, and here, among others, was trained the good monk Thiemon,

who, after decorating half the monasteries of Germany with the

productions of his pencil, became archbishop of Saltzburg, and died

in odour of sanctity. The statutes with which abbot William provided

his monasteries, were chiefly drawn up from those in use at St.

Emmeran’s, but he was desirous of yet further improving them, and in

particular of assimilating them to those of Cluny, which was then

at the height of its renown. It was at his request that St. Ulric

of Cluny wrote out his “Customary,” in which, among other things,

he gives a description of the manner in which the Holy Scriptures

were read through in the refectory in the course of the year. This

“Customary” is one of the most valuable monuments of monastic times

which remains to us; it shows us the interior of the monastery,

painted by the hand of one of its inmates, taking us through each

office, the library, the infirmary, the sacristy, the bakehouse,

the kitchen, and the school. How beautiful is the order which it

displays, as observed in choir, where, on solemn days, all the

singers stood vested in copes, the very seats being covered with

embroidered tapestry! Three days in the week the right side of the

choir communicated, and the other three the left; during Holy Week

they washed the feet of as many poor as there were brethren in the

house, and the abbot added others also to represent absent friends.

When the Passion was sung, they had a custom of tearing a piece of

stuff at the words “they parted my garments;” and the new fire of

Holy Saturday was struck, not from a flint, but a precious beryl.

There were numberless beautiful rites of benediction observed, as

that of the ripe grapes, which were blessed on the altar during mass,

on the 6th of August, and afterwards distributed in the refectory,

of new beans, and of the freshly-pressed juice of the grape. The

ceremonies observed in making the altar breads were also most worthy

of note. The grains of wheat were chosen one by one, were carefully

washed and put aside in a sack, which was carried by one known to be

pure in life and conversation to the mill. There they were ground and

sifted, he who performed this duty being clothed in alb and amice.

Two priests and two deacons clothed in like manner prepared the

breads, and a lay brother, having gloves on his hands, held the irons

in which they were baked. The very wood of the fire was chosen of the

best and driest. And whilst these processes were being gone through,

the brethren engaged ceased not to sing psalms, or sometimes recited

Our Lady’s office. A separate chapter in the “Customary” is devoted

to the children and their master, and the discipline under which

they were trained is minutely described. We seem to see them seated

in their cloister with the vigilant eye of the master presiding over

their work. An open space is left between the two rows of scholars,

but there is no one in the monastery who dare pass through their

ranks. They go to confession twice a week, and always to the abbot

or the prior. And such is the scrupulous care bestowed on their

education, and the vigilance to which they are subjected, both by

day and night, that, says Ulric, “I think it would be difficult for

a king’s son to be brought up in a palace with greater care than the

humblest boy enjoys at Cluny.”

This “Customary” was drawn up during the government of St. Hugh of

Cluny, whose letter to William the Conqueror displays something of

the independence of mind with which abbots of those days treated the

great ones of the earth. William had written to him requesting him

to send some of his monks to England, and offering him a hundred

pounds for every monk he would send. This method of buying up his

monks at so much a head offended the good abbot, who wrote back to

the king declining to part with any of his community at such a price,

and adding that he would himself give an equal sum for every good

monk whom he could draw to Cluny. During the sixty-two years that he

governed his abbey, he is said to have professed more than 10,000

subjects. Enough has been said to show that the monastic institute

was still strong and vigorous in the eleventh century. Cluny, indeed,

represented monasticism rather in its magnificence than in the more

evangelic aspect of poverty and abasement, yet in the midst of all

her lordly splendour, she continued fruitful in saints. Even the

austere St. Peter Damian, whilst he disapproved of the wealth of

the monks, was edified at their sanctity, and left them, marvelling

how men so rich could live so holily. Their revenues were not spent

on luxury; they went to feed 17,000 poor people, and to collect a

library of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew authors, such as had not its

equal in Europe. It contained among other treasures a certain Bible,

called in the chronicle, “great, wonderful, and precious for its

writing, correctness, and rich binding, adorned with beryl stones,”

which had been written by the single hand of the monk Albert. The

following inscription inserted in the volume attests the piety as

well as the industry of the writer. “This book was written by a

certain monk of Cluny, named Albert, formerly of Treves. It was done

by the order and at the expense of the venerable abbot Pontius, Peter

being at that time the librarian, and providing all things necessary

with joy and diligence. And the aforesaid monk, in company with a

certain brother named Opizo, diligently read through the whole book,

that he might be able to improve it according to the authority of

other books; and he twice corrected it. Therefore Brother Albert a

sinner, prostrating himself at the feet of the brethren of Cluny,

humbly begs of them to pray to God for himself and for his father,

that they may obtain the forgiveness of their sins.”[158]

Elsewhere also the monastic schools continued to produce a number

of excellent masters who thoroughly entered into the revival of

classical studies, which we have noticed as having at this time

sprung up. At Fleury the monk Raoul taught the art of versification

to a crowded audience, and in his own poems advocated the study of

the ancient models, especially of Horace. Quotations from the same

poet, as well as from Virgil and Statius, not unfrequently appear

in the lives of the saints, and even the sermons of this period,

a fact not adduced as an instance of the good taste, but simply

of the erudition, of the authors. In the school of Stavelot, even

Greek poetry was studied. Here was trained the celebrated Wibald,

successively abbot of Stavelot, Monte Cassino, and Corby.

The letters and other remains of this remarkable man have been

inserted by Martene in his collection, and throw much light on the

history of the times. He filled several important offices under the

Emperor Conrad, who confided to him the education of his son and

successor Henry; but whilst constantly immersed in public business

he failed not to labour for the good cause which lay at the heart of

every true monk, the multiplication of books, and the encouragement

of learning. Thus among his letters we find one addressed in 1149

to the scholasticus of Corby, in which he enumerates among the

writers to be studied in the school, Pythagoras, Plato, Sophocles,

and Simonides, a sufficient proof that Greek literature was then

cultivated in certain seminaries, and that the knowledge of that

language was not confined, as Hallam suggests, to the occasional

singing of a Greek _Kyrie_ or _Sanctus_. There are other letters

addressed to the superiors of monasteries whom he engaged to

assist him in the collection of books. Among these was the abbot

of Hildesheim, from whom he hoped to obtain a complete copy of the

Offices of Cicero. His petition for these is in a certain sense

apologetic, for, from the days of St. Jerome, religious men were wont

to be a little sensitive, lest too great a love of the Latin orator

should expose them to the charge of being a _Ciceronian_ rather than

a _Christian_ student. Something of this sort had been playfully

hinted at by the abbot of Hildesheim, and Wibald replies: “We do not

serve the dishes of Cicero at the first or principal table; but when

replenished with better food we partake of them as of sweetmeats

that are served for dessert.” Sometimes his letters are addressed to

friends who have visited his library, and who shared in his literary

tastes. “I wish,” he writes to the Archbishop of Bremen, “that you

would come again and remain longer with us, and, as you promised,

turn over the volumes on our shelves. I wish we might have this

pleasure together in peace and quiet; there is surely no greater

happiness to be enjoyed in life.”

It is, perhaps, superfluous to multiply illustrations of this kind,

but I cannot resist adding to the names already cited that of

Marianus Scotus, whom some call an Irishman, and some a Scot, while

others affirm him to have been an honest Northumbrian, and a member

of the family of Bede.[159] He died towards the end of the eleventh

century, having been successively monk in the abbeys of Cologne,

Fulda, and Mayence, and professor of theology some years in that of

Ratisbon. He was a poet, and the author of a Chronicle frequently

quoted as one of the best mediæval histories, and continued by

later writers. His biographers say of him that his countenance

was so beautiful, and his manners so simple, that no one doubted

he was inspired in all he said and did by the Holy Ghost. A most

indefatigable writer, he transcribed the whole Bible with sundry

commentaries, and that not once but repeatedly. Moreover he drew out

of the deep sea of the holy Fathers, certain sweet waters for the

profit of his soul, which he collected in prolix volumes. With all

this he found spare moments which he devoted to charitable labours

on behalf of poor widows, clerks, and scholars, for whose benefit he

multiplied psalters, manuals, and other pious little books, which

he distributed to them free of cost for the remedy of his soul. Who

will refuse to believe that such loving toils as these were found

worthy to receive the miraculous token of favour related in the old

legend? “One night,” says the annalist, “the brother whose duty it

was, having forgotten to give him candles, Marianus nevertheless

continued his work without them; and when the brother, recollecting

his omission, came late at night to his cell, he beheld a brilliant

light streaming through the chinks of the door, and going in softly,

found that it proceeded from the fingers of the monk’s left hand, and

he saw and believed.”

In some writers of this time there are indications of increased

attention being paid to natural phenomena, and the geographical

notices introduced into the chronicle of Otto of Frisingia are

praised by the authors of the _Histoire Littéraire_ for their

exactness and intelligence. A very singular and interesting fact

is recorded in the chronicle of Marianus (or rather in its later

continuation), which, though of a supernatural character, may perhaps

be admitted among the scientific notices of the time. I allude to

the vision seen and described by the Blessed Alpais of Cudot, who

saw in rapture the earth hanging suspended in space shaped like a

globe, or rather a spheroid, for she calls it not perfectly round,

but egg-shaped. It was surrounded by water, and the sun appeared

of a vastly greater size. Equally remarkable in another branch of

science are the speculations of Ithier, a monk of Limoges, on the

faculties of the mind corresponding to different parts of the brain,

in which we catch a first glimpse of the modern theory of phrenology.

Nor must it be supposed that the classical and scientific studies,

which excited so much interest, caused the cultivation of the vulgar

dialects to be forgotten. Abbots and bishops often preached in

Romance, like St. Vital of Savigny and Hildebert of Mans, though

the latter is said to have succeeded better in Latin. St. Bernard

delivered his exhortations to his brethren not in Latin but Romance,

for the benefit of the lay-brothers who were ignorant of the learned

tongues, as Mabillon labours to prove. A vast number of translations

were likewise made into the popular dialects, and about the end of

the eleventh century the monk Grimoald published a version in Romance

of the entire Bible; this translation being made nearly a century

before that of the Waldenses, though the latter is very generally

represented to be the earliest known version of the Scriptures in any

vulgar tongue.[160]

It is evident, then, that all the learning of the eleventh

and twelfth centuries was not swallowed up by the new race of

scholastics, nor was every scholastic a Berengarius. Yet there is a

certain change perceptible in many of those who at this time attained

to literary eminence, and a greater predominance of the philosophic

element, consequent in some degree from the nature of the studies

rendered popular in the school of Bec. We begin more frequently

to meet with tales of scholars who, in the midst of their learned

pursuits, were overtaken with a dread of the perils which beset their

course, and sought to escape them by flying into the desert. The

cloisters were peopled with such refugees from the schools, who, like

Lanfranc, often reappeared after a while to resume the weapons of

human science, which they had thought to fling aside for ever, and

use them in the service of their Master.

Of these converts were St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusians,

and Odo of Tournai. Bruno is said to have studied at Tours under

Berengarius, though this appears doubtful. In 1056 the scholasticus

of Rheims having resigned his charge, that he might devote himself

exclusively to the affairs of his own salvation, Gervase, Archbishop

of Rheims, promoted Bruno to the office, which by this time had

become associated to that of Chancellor of the diocese, and gave its

holder a certain superiority over the other diocesan schools. Bruno

continued to fill this responsible post for twenty years, during

which time he numbered among his pupils Odo, afterwards Pope Urban

II., and many of the greatest prelates of the time. He was reckoned

the first philosopher, theologian, and poet of France, and by writers

of his own day is extolled as “the doctor of doctors, the glory

of the Church, the model of good men, and the mirror of the whole

world.” The romantic story which ascribes his conversion to religion

to the horror caused by the voice which came from the dead body of a

certain eminent doctor, proclaiming his damnation, is now universally

rejected as the production of a later age. In fact, St. Bruno has

himself related the manner in which his resolution was first formed

in a letter addressed to Raoul, provost of Rheims, wherein he reminds

him of a certain day when they were walking with another canon named

Fulcius, in the garden adjoining his house, conversing together of

the vanities of the world. “Then it was,” he says, “that the Holy

Spirit moved us to renounce all perishable things, and embrace the

monastic life that we might merit life eternal.” It would also appear

that a grievous case of simony, which had scandalised the diocese,

powerfully wrought on Bruno’s mind, and moved him to fly from a world

so hedged about with temptations. He was followed into his retreat

by a number of his former scholars; but it was not until 1084 that

they at last determined on the way of life they should choose, and,

receiving the monastic habit from the hands of St. Hugh of Grenoble,

laid the foundation of the Carthusian Order, which took its name

from the desert they had chosen for their abode. In after years the

order continued to be largely recruited from the same class whence

their first founder had been drawn. Many a fine scholar came to the

wild rocks of the Chartreuse to seek in obscurity for a peace which

he found by experience the world of intellect could never give;

and Bulæus informs us that no order of monks received among their

ranks so many members of Paris University as did these austere and

penitential recluses.

Odo, or Oudart, the other convert to whom allusion has been made,

first attracted notice as a teacher at Toul, a city which had always

been rich in schools and schoolmasters, and which had felt a special

pride in keeping up its learned reputation, since 1048, when it had

sent its bishop to fill the chair of St. Peter in the person of

St. Leo IX. Odo’s fame reached the ears of the canons of Tournai,

who entreated him to take charge of their cathedral school, which

he accordingly governed for five years. A skilful teacher, and a

devourer of books, Odo possessed extraordinary powers of labour,

and when any literary work was in hand, he rested neither day nor

night till it was accomplished. He was also a great friend of method

and good moral discipline, but as yet he had been too exclusively

taken up with the cares and pleasures of his profession to give much

thought to spiritual things. Or perhaps we might rather say that he

hardly knew of their existence. Like other busy, hard-working men,

he was swept along in the tide of daily life, and thought it much

to preserve a character of stainless honour and respectability. His

success as a teacher was so great, that disciples came to him from

all parts of France, as well as from Flanders, Italy, and Saxony. The

city of Tournai became literally filled with students, who might be

seen disputing together in the public streets: and as you drew near

the school you would see them walking with the master, or seated

around him; or, in the evening, standing with him at the church door,

while he taught them the various constellations, and explained to

them the course of the stars.

Odo was as remarkable for his virtue as his learning. He took all his

disciples to the church with him daily. They never numbered fewer

than two hundred; but he made them walk two-and-two through the

streets, he himself bringing up the rear, and enforcing a discipline

as strict as would have been observed in the most regular monastery.

No one ventured to speak to his companion, or to look right or left,

and in choir they might have been taken for monks of Cluny. He did

not allow them to frequent the company of women, or to wear any kind

of finery; and if they transgressed his orders in these respects,

he turned them out of his school. At the hours when he gave his

lectures no layman was allowed to enter the cloisters, which were at

other times the resort of the public. So strict was he in this, that

he did not hesitate to exclude Everard, the Castellan of Tournai, a

nobleman of power and influence; for it was Odo’s principle that a

man must not deviate a hair’s-breadth from his duty from the motive

of human respect. By these means he won the love and esteem of

every one: canons and people alike spoke well of him, though some

were found to say that his regularity of life sprang rather from

philosophy than religion.

He had directed his school for about five years, when one day,

a certain clerk having brought him St. Augustine’s “Treatise on

Free-will,” he purchased it, merely with the view of increasing his

library, and threw it into a coffer among some other books without

looking at it, for his taste inclined him rather to the study of

Plato than of the Fathers. About two months afterwards, however, as

he was explaining Boëthius to his disciples, he came to the fourth

book of the “Consolations of Philosophy,” in which the author treats

of Free-will. Remembering the book he had lately purchased on the

same subject, he sent for it, and having read two or three pages, was

struck with the beauty of the style; and calling his pupils, said to

them, “I own that until now I was ignorant how agreeable and eloquent

are the writings of St. Augustine;” and that day and the following

he read to them from this work, explaining its difficulties as he

proceeded.

In this way he came to that passage in the third book, wherein St.

Augustine compares the soul of the sinner to a slave condemned to

some vile and disgusting labour. Odo sighed as he read the powerful

words of the writer, exclaiming, “How striking is this comparison!

it seems as if written expressly for us men of science. We adorn the

corrupt world with the little stock of learning which we possess,

and after death, perhaps, are not found worthy of eternal happiness,

because we have done God no service; but have used our intellects

for vanity and worldly glory!” With these words he rose from his

chair, and going into the church, remained there in floods of tears,

his scholars meanwhile remaining astonished and perplexed. From that

day he gradually discontinued his lectures, and began to frequent

the church more diligently, and to distribute in alms all the money

he received from his pupils. He also fasted so rigorously that

his appearance soon completely changed, and he became so thin and

attenuated as scarcely to be recognised.

The rumour soon ran through the town that Odo, the famous doctor,

was about to abandon the world. Four of his disciples resolved never

to quit him, and made him promise to do nothing except in concert

with them. Monks and abbots from every religious house in the

neighbourhood of Tournai, wanted Odo to join their communities, but

his disciples preferred the rule of the canons as being easier than

that of the monks. Rabod, the Bishop of Tournai, accordingly made

over to them an old church, part of an abbey which had been destroyed

by the Normans, and they took possession of it in 1092. Two years

later they resolved on embracing the monastic rule, and the bishop

giving his consent, Odo was elected first abbot of the restored abbey

of Tournai. Though he had fled to the cloister to escape from the

pride of the schools, he did not neglect the cause of learning. Like

most of the religious superiors of his day, he gave much time and

trouble to the formation of a good library and scriptorium, and used

to make an innocent boast of the many good writers whom the Lord had

given him. Had you gone into his scriptorium, says his successor, you

would have seen twelve youths, sitting in silence, most diligently

engaged in copying manuscripts, at tables made for the purpose. And

he enumerates among the books so transcribed the works of St. Jerome

and St. Gregory, and all that he could collect of Bede, Isidore,

Ambrose, Austin, and the Lord Anselm of Bec.

About this time the rival philosophical sects known as the

Realists and Nominalists began to attract attention. The questions

in dispute between them regarded the validity and existence of

_universal ideas_. The expression requires explanation. An idea

is the representation in the mind of some impression made on the

senses by an external object. These ideas may be either _particular_

or _universal_. They are particular when they correspond to some

individual object, as _John Smith_, or _that tree_. They are

universal when we separate them from any individual object, and

conceive them as corresponding to something which is to be found in

many individuals, whereby these may be classified together, as when

we speak of _men_ or _trees_. According to the scholastics, there

are five kinds of such universal ideas, namely, _species_, _genus_,

_difference_, _property_ and _accident_. The species includes many

individuals, as _sheep_, _oak_. The genus includes many species, as

_animal_, _tree_. Difference is something which distinguishes one

species from another belonging to the same genus. _Property_, or

essential attribute, is what necessarily belongs to the essence of

a thing; as when we say of a globe that it is _round_. Accident is

some attribute to be found in a thing which is not necessary to its

existence, as if we were to say of the same globe that it is _green_.

We are able to hold these ideas in our mind, abstracted from any

object, and so we come to have the abstract ideas of men, animals,

trees, roundness, or whiteness, without connecting them with any

particular individual. But the Nominalists denied the existence of

such ideas, and declared the above distinctions to be mere sounds

of the voice, corresponding to no external reality. They knew what

was meant by a wise man, or a white horse, but professed themselves

unable to comprehend what was meant by _wisdom_ or _whiteness_. The

Realists, on the other hand, appealing to the authority of Boëthius,

contended that these ideas were real and existent.

Both parties numbered great names in their ranks. Odo of Tournai

was a partisan of the Realists, as was also the Blessed Robert

of Arbrisselles. At the head of the Nominalists appeared his

fellow-student and professor in the Paris schools, Roscelin, a canon

of Compeigne, and a man whose character too closely resembled that of

Berengarius. He seems to have adopted novel and startling opinions

as a means of drawing the eyes of men on himself, and the manner in

which he applied his philosophical method of reasoning to revealed

doctrines, specially that of the Holy Trinity, resulted in actual

heresy, and brought on him in 1092 the condemnation of the Council

of Soissons. Taking refuge in England, he there met with a vigorous

opponent in the person of St. Anselm, who, whilst freely admitting,

and even advocating the exercise of the intellectual powers on the

mysteries of faith, marked out the limits between faith and reason,

and severely condemned the presumption of those who would attempt

to make reason the test of faith. He declares that we must seek the

intelligence of those things that we already believe; that reason is

not the means by which we attain to faith, but rather that by which

we enjoy the evidence and contemplation of the mysteries which we

already believe: and that right order demands that we should first

receive the profound truths of faith before we dare to exercise

our reason upon them.[161] As time went on, and both sects pushed

their philosophical views to extremes, grave errors were charged

against both, and the foundations were laid of many forms of modern

Rationalism.

Paris was now rapidly becoming the centre of scholastic activity. The

fame of her masters spread over Europe, and among them were Lambert,

a disciple of Fulbert of Chartres; Manegold, whose very daughters

were learned, and opened a school for the education of their own sex,

Anselm of Laon and Bernard of Chartres. John of Salisbury, whose

favourite master, William de Conches, had himself been a pupil of

Bernard’s, has left us an interesting account of the method of this

last-named teacher. He explained all the best authors, not confining

himself to grammar strictly so called, but making his pupils observe

all the refinements of rhetoric. He pointed out the propriety of

certain terms and metaphors, and the best order and arrangement of a

subject; and showed the variety of styles to be used according to the

different matters treated of by a writer. If any passage occurred in

their reading referring to other sciences, he took pains to explain

it, according to the capacity of his hearers. He was careful to

cultivate their memory, making them learn and recite choice passages

from the classic historians, poets, and philosophers; requiring them

one day to give an exact account of what they had heard or read the

day previous. He was always exhorting them to read much in private,

but not indiscriminately, directing them to avoid what was only

fit to feed curiosity, and to content themselves with the works of

standard authors. For, he used to say, quoting Quinctilian, “it is

a great weakness to read all that every miserable writer has to say

on every subject, and only loads the memory with superfluous and

worthless things.”

As he knew that it is to very little purpose to hear or study

examples unless we accustom ourselves to reproduce the treasures thus

stored up in the memory, he was anxious that his pupils should every

day compose something both in prose and verse, and he established

conferences among them wherein they mutually questioned and answered

one another, the utility of which exercise John of Salisbury speaks

of very highly; “provided,” as he observes, “that charity govern

the emulation displayed in such encounters, so that while we make

progress in letters we still preserve humility. For a man should not

serve two masters so opposed one to the other as learning and vice.”

This was also the rule observed by Bernard, who maintained that

the first and principal key to knowledge was Humility, to which he

assigned Poverty as a companion. The subjects on which he exercised

his scholars were always fitted to cherish both faith and good

morals. And the work of each day was finished with the recitation of

the “Our Father,” and a brief prayer for the dead.

Anselm of Laon was a teacher of much the same character, and, if

possible, of greater renown. He and his brother Radulph were called

by Guibert de Nogent the two eyes of the Latin Church, and by their

knowledge of the Scriptures converted many heretics. Some of their

pupils were as famous as themselves, such as Hugh Metellus, a great

lover of the classics, whose flow of language was so great that he

dictated to two secretaries at once, and could improvise a thousand

verses, standing on one leg, and who was induced by the teaching of

his pious masters to exchange a life of worldly vanity, the love of

dress and delicate diet, for the austere regimen of a canon regular

of Toul. Another of Anselm’s scholars was William de Champeaux,

under whom the Paris schools first attained that pre-eminence which

they maintained in the world of letters down to the period of the

Revolution. After studying successively under Manegold and Anselm, he

was appointed archdeacon of the Church of Paris, and master of the

Cathedral school, where he taught logic, rhetoric, and theology, with

great success. And about the year 1100 his reputation attracted one

disciple whose name is indelibly associated with the literary history

of the period,--the celebrated Peter Abelard.

Abelard’s choice of a scholar’s life is said to have been influenced

in the first instance by his dislike of the profession of arms.

Nature, while it had given him an insatiable desire for fame and

worldly glory, had denied him the gift of personal courage, and he

himself made no secret of the feeling which, as he said, had moved

him to enrol himself under the banners of Minerva, rather than those

of Mars. His subtle mind was very early devoted to the study of

logic, but not satisfied with the teaching to be found in his own

diocese of Nantes, he led a wandering life for some time, passing

from school to school; and at last found his way to Paris, where

William de Champeaux was then at the height of his reputation as a

teacher of dialectics. The brilliant qualities of his new pupil at

first won the heart of his master, but erelong Abelard began to show

signs of that presumption and contempt of every one’s attainments

except his own, which kept him at war with all his contemporaries.

He came to the lecture rooms less with the view of learning than with

the secret hope of outshining his fellow-students and perplexing

his master. He was perpetually proposing vexatious questions, for

the purpose of entrapping the latter in some logical subtlety; and

affecting to consider that William had shown himself unable to answer

these difficulties, he disdained any longer to be the scholar of

one whom he considered his inferior, and determined on setting up a

school for himself.

Unable to do this in Paris, where the influence of William de

Champeaux was at that time all-powerful, he established himself first

at Mélun, and then at Corbeil, which was nearer to the capital.

He was but twenty-two when he first appeared before the world as

an independent professor, and soon made himself talked of for his

brilliancy, his fluency, and the vehemence with which he attempted

to make the art of logic supersede all the other liberal arts,

which he was accustomed to treat with contempt. His passion for

glory soon brought him back to Paris, where William de Champeaux was

now archdeacon, and head of the cathedral school. Abelard renewed

his attacks on his old master, and that with such success, that the

cloisteral schools became deserted, and the fickle audience flocked

to the lectures of the new professor. The circumstance seems to

have touched the heart of William with a contempt for intellectual

renown which was so easily won and lost, and resigning his school,

he retired among the canons regular of St. Victor, a religious

house destined to play a great part in the history of the future

university. This was in 1109, and, by the advice of Hildebert, Bishop

of Mans, who wrote to the new canon, congratulating him on “the step

by which he had at last become a true philosopher,” William opened

a school within his monastery, which afterwards produced several

illustrious theologians, who are all distinguished by the surname of

St. Victor.

It is unnecessary to pursue the rivalries of the two professors

through all their windings; in 1113 William was raised to the see of

Châlons, a circumstance which seems to have first induced Abelard

to study theology, with the hope of attaining similar honours.

Accordingly, we next find him at Laon, attending the school of

Anselm, now dean of that church, whom, however, he very soon declared

to be altogether unworthy of his great renown. “His learning was,”

he said, “nothing but foliage without fruit; long custom, rather

than any real merit, had acquired him a name. If you consulted him

on any difficulty, you came away just as wise as you went. There was

nothing but abundance of fine words, without a grain of sense or

reason.” So, in despair of finding a master wise enough to teach one

of his genius, he resolved to do without one, and, with the help of a

commentary, began to give lectures on the prophet Ezechiel. His wit,

his fluency, and his singular charms of voice and manner, veiled the

real shallowness of his theological attainments, and, on returning to

Paris, he succeeded in gaining what had been for so many years the

great object of his ambition, the direction of the cathedral school.

Then began the period of his extraordinary popularity; disciples

flocked to him from all parts of France and Germany, as well as

from Rome and England. His vanity easily persuaded him that he was

not merely the greatest, but the only philosopher of his time; all

the world hung on his eloquence, but amid the long catologue of his

admirers, none was to be found so bewitched with his merits as he was

himself.

Abelard’s teaching bore the character of his own restless and

impatient genius. Disdainful of anything which did not promise quick

results, he aimed at presenting his disciples with a philosophy which

professed to lead them to the possession of wisdom by a royal road.

The trivium and quadrivium were to be consigned to oblivion; the

classics and the Fathers might alike grow dusty on the shelves, logic

was to be all in all, and the philosopher and the theologian might

abandon every other study, provided they perfected themselves in the

art which St. Bernard characterised with caustic wit, as “that of

ever studying, and never reaching the truth.” Abelard’s condemnation

of the classics is worth noticing, as showing the similarity of mind

which existed between him and Berengarius, whom Guitmond describes as

“making no account of the opinions of his masters, and despising the

liberal arts.” In neither of them did this condemnation arise from a

preponderance of the Christian sense; but from their repugnance to

objective realities.[162] Their philosophy was in short that of which

the apostle speaks, when he condemns the “vain babblings” of those

who “desire to be teachers of the law,” which differed little from

the “foolish questionings” of the sophists. The effect of these new

doctrines was to inaugurate a scholastic revolution. One by one the

fair branches of the tree of science were severed from the trunk,

till at last nothing remained but the exercise of subtle and captious

argumentation, wherein logic came to be used not as a means but an

end, and the scholar was no longer led to seek for truth as his

object, but to rest content with the search after it.

Thus passed several years, during which Abelard had earned a fame,

brilliant indeed beyond that of any of his contemporaries, but

unhappily one which left his moral reputation far from stainless. In

1117 we find him in the abbey of St. Denis, where he had taken refuge

from the disgrace entailed on him by his connection with Heloïsa.

Even here his insupportable vanity was not long before it betrayed

itself in the criticisms he passed on his abbot and his brother

monks, among whom he seems to have aspired to act as the reformer.

The abbot longed to get rid of so troublesome a subject, and the

opportunity of doing so soon presented itself. Crowds of students

began to clamour at the gates of St. Denis for their old master,

and to implore him to reopen his school. He therefore resumed his

lectures, but unable to rest contented with teaching only what had

been taught before him, he began to introduce logical subtleties into

his theological views, and put forth certain explanations on the

doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which raised a storm of opposition.

His chief opponents were Alberic and Lotulf, two former disciples

of Anselm of Laon, and William of Champeaux. They not only attacked

his opinions as heterodox, but complained that he had no right to

teach at all. His position as a professor was, they said, altogether

irregular, for, contrary to the established usages of the Paris

schools, he taught _sine magistro_.

This term requires a little explanation; and shows us the germ

of what soon afterwards developed into the system of university

graduation. According to established custom, no scholar could be

licensed to _teach_ publicly who had not previously gone through a

regular course of study under some approved doctor. But Abelard had

had no master in theology, except himself; for, as we have seen,

he gave up his attendance in Anselm’s school through contempt for

his inferiority, and had at once begun to teach a science which in

reality he had never studied. At a Council assembled at Soissons, his

Treatise on the Holy Trinity was condemned, and he himself required

to cast it into the fire, and to make public profession of the faith

by reciting the creed of St. Athanasius, which he did with many

tears and sighs, after which he was sent back to the monastery of

St. Denys. He had not been there long, however, when a controversy

which he thought fit to raise on the question of the identity of St.

Denys, the Areopagite, with the patron of the abbey, got him into

fresh trouble, and he fled from the monastery to the territory of

the Count of Champagne, where he fixed his residence in a beautiful

solitude near Nogent, which was soon found out by his disciples.

“They came crowding to me,” he writes, “from all parts, and leaving

the towns and cities, were content to dwell in the wilderness.

Instead of spacious houses, they set up for themselves little tents,

and put up gladly with wild herbs instead of delicate viands. People

said one to another, ‘Behold the world is gone after him.’ At last,

as my little oratory would not hold them, they enlarged it, building

it of wood and stone.” To this new building he gave the name of the

_Paraclete_, and it might truly have been his consolation could he

have learnt wisdom from the past, and bowed his erratic genius under

the yoke of faith. But the school of the Paraclete soon resounded

with new errors; to the former opinions put forth regarding the Holy

Trinity, were now added equally heterodox views on the subject of

grace and original sin, which were at once discerned and denounced by

two saints who then illuminated the church with their doctrine and

their virtue--St. Norbert, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Abelard,

whose natural cowardice shrank from the prospect of new dangers,

endeavoured to escape the consequences of his own imprudence by

abandoning the Paraclete, and accepting the government of St. Gildas’

abbey; but the uncouth manners and language of the monks filled him

with repugnance, or perhaps it would be truer to say, the monastic

routine proved insufferable to one who had nothing of the real monk

about him. In 1126, therefore, we find him once more teaching in the

schools of St. Geneviève. He was never really at home save in the

Professor’s chair, but unhappily he never filled it without betraying

himself into some of the audacities of unorthodox philosophy. Soon

his old errors were reproduced, and called forth the zeal of St.

Bernard, who protested with all the force of his nervous eloquence

against the strange assemblage of heresies to be found united in the

teaching of a single man. “When he speaks of the Holy Trinity,” he

says, “it is in the style of Arius; he is a Pelagian when he treats

of grace, and a second Nestorius when he speaks of the Person of

Jesus Christ. His vanity,” continues the saint, “is such that he

brags as if there were nothing in heaven and earth he did not know;

and in truth he knows a little of everything except himself.” In

his 190th Epistle, addressed to Pope Innocent II., St. Bernard sums

up all the errors of Abelard, who had ventured to deny, and even

to ridicule, the doctrine of Redemption, which he presumptuously

declared illogical, declaring that our Lord came only to instruct us

by His Word and Example. His final condemnation took place at the

Council of Sens, which imposed silence on him for ever, a sentence

confirmed by the authority of Pope Innocent II. This condemnation

might possibly have had no better result than that of Soissons,

had it not been for the charity of the Venerable Peter of Cluny,

at whose monastery Abelard stopped on his way to Rome, where he

purposed to appeal against his sentence. The holy abbot succeeded

in drawing from him a recantation of his errors; he induced him to

renounce the scholastic career, which had been the source of so many

temptations, and frankly to submit to the judgment of the Council and

the Pope. More than this, he exerted himself to effect a personal

reconciliation between Abelard and St. Bernard, and lastly, he

offered to the wounded spirit of the unhappy scholar a secure and

sheltered retreat in his own community, where, under the habit of

religion, the Professor of St. Geneviève spent the last years of his

life in the exercise of piety and penance.

There then, let us leave him, in his poor cell with its wooden

candlestick and its crucifix, with the Holy Scriptures and a few

treatises of the Fathers for his only library; defeated, as some

might say, put to silence, and extinguished--but with his heart,

at last, at peace. Well might he have exclaimed with the Psalmist,

“It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me!” A change was wrought

in him so great, that, as we read the words in which his good

abbot describes it, we can scarcely recognise the old Abelard of

former years. “Never did I see a man more humble,” writes Peter

the Venerable, “whether in gesture, habit, or countenance. He read

continually, prayed often, and kept silence at all times, unless when

forced to speak; and after his reconciliation with the Holy See,

offered the Holy Sacrifice almost daily, and occupied himself only

with meditating or teaching me truths of religion or philosophy.” A

marvellous change indeed; and happy were it if all who incurred the

same censures could follow in the same course.

We have seen that the rationalistic errors of Abelard found their

ablest opponent in St. Bernard, who had conceived a distrust of the

new philosophy when studying as a mere boy in the canon’s school

at Chatillon, where the fashionable scholasticism was just then

beginning to be introduced. He seems to have felt an instinctive

dread of its ultimate tendencies, and to have preserved during his

whole life the sentiments resulting from his early experience of

what his biographer Geoffery of Igny designates as the “wisdom of

the world.” Closely united to him in their theological views, were

the great scholars of St. Victor’s, Hugh, Richard, and Adam. Hugh of

St. Victor, the third prior in succession from William de Champeaux,

was styled the second Augustine, from his devoted admiration of that

Father. Brought up in a house of canons regular in Saxony, he bore

testimony in after life to the care they bestowed on his education.

“I do not fear to certify,” he says, “that they neglected no means of

perfecting me in the sciences, and even instructed me in many things

which might be thought trifling and extraordinary.” These words occur

in his _Didascalion_, or Treatise on Studies, which he drew up with

the view of remedying the disorderly and unmethodical manner in which

most scholars then pursued their academic labours. In it he gives

an interesting account of his own early life as a scholar. “I never

despised anything that belonged to erudition,” he says; “when I was

a scholar I studied the names of everything I saw. I committed to

memory all the sentences, questions, replies, and solutions I had

heard and learnt during the day; and I used to describe the figures

of geometry on the floor with charcoal. I do not say this to boast of

my knowledge, which is nothing, but to show that he proceeds best who

proceeds with order. You will find many things in histories and other

books, which taken in themselves seem of little profit, but which

nevertheless are useful and necessary when taken in connection with

other things.” Hugh, like all the disciples of this school, advocated

the old system, according to which all the parts of knowledge stood

in mutual relation to one another, and theology dominated over the

whole. In his Treatise _De Vanitate Mundi_, he describes an imaginary

school, in which is no doubt depicted that of his own monastery.

The students are described divided into groups, according to the

different subjects on which they are engaged. All the liberal arts

are cultivated in turn, and while the fingers of some are employed

in designing or colouring an illuminated page, others are studying

the nature of herbs, or the constitution of the human frame. As a

spiritual writer, Hugh of St. Victor is considered to be surpassed by

his disciple Richard of St. Victor, a Scotchman by birth, and one of

the greatest mystic theologians of the Church. The special doctrines

insisted on by this school were those which put forth faith, and

not reason, as the ground of certainty, and maintained that reason

was to be exercised only to demonstrate the truths that were held

by faith. Abelard, in his extravagant exaltation of the claims of

reason, had gone so far in his “Introduction to Theology,” as to

define faith as an opinion, and to depreciate a too ready belief,

praising that cautious philosophy which does not yield its faith

till it has subjected all things to the test of reason. To believe

without doubting, according to this view of things, was the religion

of women and children; to doubt all things before we believe them was

alone worthy of the dignity of man. The scholars of St. Victor not

only vindicated the true claims of faith, but they sought to prove

that faith itself must rest on the foundation stone of charity. They

loved to remind their disciples of those words of Our Lord, “If any

man will do the will of God he shall know of the doctrine.” Charity,

they said, is then the foundation, and Humility the key, to all true

science, and we can understand the Truth of God only in proportion

as we obey it. They did not seek to set aside the just use of the

reason, but to assign it limits, and to prohibit the search after

things confessedly above the grasp of human intellect. “What is it

to be wise,” asks Hugo of St. Victor, “but to love God? for love is

wisdom.” He complains of the cavilling spirit of the dialecticians

who would fain turn the simplest precepts of the Gospel into

matter of dispute. If they read that we are to love our neighbour

as ourselves, they begin to argue, saying, “If I love one man as

myself, then I must love three or four men more than myself;” and

this they style seeking truth. Again, he blames the conceit of those

who, ignorant of the very first elements, will condescend to study

nothing but the sublimest matters, forgetting that the beginning of

all discipline is humility. Neither would he endure that presumptuous

spirit which gloried in the subtlety of its own powers, but, like a

true disciple of St. Augustine, desired that reliance on Divine Grace

should be the foundation of the whole spiritual and intellectual

edifice.

Perfectly in accordance with this teaching was that of John of

Salisbury, who exposed the vain pretensions of those who ought to

make philosophy consist in a barren exercise of the reasoning powers.

“Philosophy,” he says, “is nothing else but the love of God, and

if that love be extinguished philosophy vanishes away. All studies

worthy of that end must tend to the increase of charity, and he

who acquires or increases charity has gained the highest object of

philosophy. This, therefore, is the true rule of philosophy, that

all learning and all reading should be made conducive to truth and

charity, and then the choir of virtues will enter into the soul

as into a temple of God. They most impudently err who think that

philosophy consists in mere words, who multiply phrases and propose

a thousand ridiculous little questions, endeavouring to perplex

their hearers that they may seem more learned than Dædalus. But

though eloquence is a useful and noble study, this loquacity of vain

disputation is a most hateful thing.” Truth, as all agreed, was the

only object of science; but whilst Abelard and his followers sought

this truth in the subjective reasonings of their own minds, the

mystics of St. Victor’s school declared that it was not to be sought

by the understanding alone, but by the heart and will. For what is

Truth, they asked, but God Himself? Who is to be sought by love

rather than by science. He therefore who seeks God, seeks the highest

truth, and embraces it when it finds Him. It knows all things in

proportion as it knows more of God, Whom not to know is darkness. And

it knows all things in Him, for, in the words of St. Gregory, “what

does not he see, who sees Him Who sees all things?”

Such was the sublime teaching which St. Bernard and the

contemplatives of his time opposed to the growing spirit of

philosophic rationalism. The Cistercian cloisters and the disciples

of the school of St. Victor everywhere propagated the same spiritual

maxims, and thus provided a wholesome antidote to the baneful spirit

of the age. But the very existence of the antidote bears witness how

wide-spread was the poison which it sought to nullify, how greatly

the mind of Christendom had broken away from the old landmarks of

thought, and how rapidly it was sweeping onward to what threatened to

cause the wreck of faith and philosophy together.

The actual state of the schools at the middle of the twelfth century

may best be gathered from the description given by our own country

man, John of Salisbury, of his own course of studies. He appears to

have come to Paris for the first time in 1136, being then a youth of

sixteen, and, like thousands of the same age, was launched into the

world of the great capital, to complete his education under the many

wise professors who were contending for popular favour. Here we catch

a glimpse of the new system which was gradually establishing itself.

Education was no longer given exclusively in cloistered schools, but

in great cities, where the young aspirant after science, instead

of being sheltered under law and discipline, was cast abroad to

shift for himself, and only required to attend the lectures of some

licensed master. No doubt it was an excellent way of teaching him a

knowledge of the world, but this had not hitherto been included in

the branches of a noble youth’s early education. However, at sixteen

John had to take care of himself in the great world of Paris, which

exercised over him the fascination of which all were conscious who

passed from the semi-barbarous isle of Britain to the brilliant

capital, and beheld the gay vivacity of its citizens, the gravity

of its religious ceremonials, the splendour and majesty of its many

churches, and the busy life of its schools.[163] “Happy banishment,”

wrote the young scholar, “that is permitted here to find a home!”

His first care was to choose what Professor he would attend. It was

just the time when Abelard’s fame was at its greatest height, and

the English youth was naturally enough led to join the crowds that

thronged the school of St. Geneviève. His first impression was one of

delight, but soon his English good sense revolted at the shallowness

which he detected under the showy outside, while the contemptuous

neglect with which Abelard was wont to treat the ancient learning,

was unendurable in the eyes of one who, young as he was, already

had a thoroughly-formed taste for the classics. So bidding adieu

to St. Geneviève, he placed himself under the two English masters,

Robert de Mélun and William de Conches; by the first of whom he was

initiated into the art of logic. He praises the disinterestedness

shown by Robert, who, in his conduct as Professor, despised worldly

gain and sought only the benefit of his scholars. Robert afterwards

became Bishop of Hereford, and in that capacity acquired a very

unenviable notoriety as one of the chief opponents of St. Thomas of

Canterbury. Under William de Conches, John next passed three years

with very great profit, studying grammar, which was then understood

to include the explanation of good authors. He never regretted the

time he devoted to this study. William was a disciple of the old

school, a stout champion of the liberal arts, and warmly opposed

to the new system introduced by Abelard. He liked to exercise his

pupils in prose and verse, and required not only good prosody, but

also good sense from his scholars. It was doubtless a fine thing to

hear the warm-hearted, testy Englishman speak of the schools in which

he had been brought up half a century ago, when boys were taught to

behave like boys, and to listen to their masters in silence. Things

were much altered now; and it was no longer the custom to follow

the wholesome rule which Pythagoras taught his disciples, namely, to

listen in silence for seven years, and only begin to ask questions

in the eighth. On the contrary, these new scholars would come into

your school with a supercilious air, and propose you their doubts and

quibbles before they were well seated. They seemed to fancy that they

knew everything when they had followed the schools for a year, and as

if their business was to instruct their masters by their amazingly

clever questions. On all these abuses Master William was wont to

expend his honest indignation, but he certainly could not complain

that John of Salisbury exhibited any of these marks of reprobation.

Far from seeming to think he knew everything after a year’s study,

John, after spending twelve years in the schools, regarded himself

as still a learner. After his three years of grammar, he spent

seven years more in successive courses of rhetoric, mathematics,

and theology. Among the masters whose lectures he attended were

Robert Pullus, or Pulleyne, and Gilbert de la Poiree. The latter

afterwards became Bishop of Poitiers, in which dignity he was accused

of teaching certain heterodox opinions on the Holy Trinity, which

were condemned at the Council of Rheims, in 1148. His errors, like

those of Abelard, appear to have arisen out of an abuse of that

scholastic method of argumentation so popular among the professors

of the time, and which too often proved dangerous weapons in the

hands of men whose theological studies by no means kept pace with

the cultivation of dialectics. Robert Pullus, the English master of

theology, and restorer of sacred studies at Oxford, was a man of far

more solid learning. “He knew,” says his great disciple, “how to be

wise with sobriety.” The soundness of his doctrine was evinced by

his “Sum of Theology,” and his disinterestedness, by his refusal of

a bishopric offered him by Henry I. Robert declined abandoning a

life of study for the precarious honours of a dignity which exposed

its owner to the almost certain contingency of a struggle with the

crown. He desired nothing more honourable than the life of a master;

nevertheless, he was unable to avoid the dignities thrust on him by

Celestine II., who created him cardinal and chancellor of the Roman

Church.

During the whole time of his residence at Paris, John of Salisbury

enjoyed a scholar’s honourable state of poverty, and supported

himself by giving lessons to younger students, much after the

fashion of a modern college tutor. His tutorship was, however, by no

means a very profitable post, and supplied him with little beyond

the bare necessaries of life. Happily, however, the threadbare

gown of the poor scholar was still regarded with respect, and his

humble circumstances did not prevent him from forming many valuable

friendships. Among his friends he numbered the two great masters Adam

du Petit Pont, and Richard l’Évêque, the former of whom he describes

as a man of undoubted learning, but so vain that he wrapped up his

knowledge in a cloud of obscurity, and made himself unintelligible

for the sake of appearing profound, saying to those who reproached

him with this weakness, that were he only to teach in the common

way, he should get no one to attend his lectures. Richard was a

man of a very different temper; his pride lay rather in concealing

what he knew, than in displaying it; he cared nothing at all for

worldly applause, and was deemed as holy in life as he was erudite.

At first he followed the excellent method of Bernard of Chartres,

but by degrees he yielded to the fashion of the times, and giving up

the teaching of grammar and rhetoric, confined himself entirely to

lecturing on dialectics.

To these friends of John of Salisbury we must add the name of a

third, an Englishman like himself, and one of Anglo-Saxon blood. He

was a young law-student, who, if inferior to many of his companions

in scholastic acquirements, made up for the deficiency by the

brilliancy of his native gifts, and those personal graces which add

so largely to the power of wit or eloquence. The large grey eyes,

thin aquiline nose, and beautiful countenance, so calm, yet with a

glance so full of fire, are all known to us; for if the features of

St. Thomas à Becket have not been preserved chiselled in marble,

they have yet been made familiar to us by the description of those

who laid up in their hearts the memory of that beloved countenance.

It bore the unmistakable impress of genius, and of that sensitive

organisation with which genius is so frequently accompanied. But

his great natural gifts had received very imperfect culture in

the schools of Merton and those of the English metropolis. At

Paris his studies were almost exclusively confined to law, and he

afterwards regretted that he had not devoted more time during his

academic career to sacred learning. The intimacy which sprang up

between him and John of Salisbury was not, therefore, based on any

similarity in their literary tastes. The letters of both evince a

striking difference in their intellectual training; those of St.

Thomas, powerful in matter, are yet abrupt, harsh, and technical

in style--those of his friend, on the other hand, are conveyed in

classic phraseology, and betray the careful polish, not always

free from affectation, of one who has laboriously formed himself

on ancient models. In fact, John of Salisbury was, beyond dispute,

the first scholar of his day, and naturally enough bewailed the

revolution which he witnessed taking place in the schools. The

science of reasoning was now affirmed by its advocates to contain the

pith of all philosophy. Rhetoric was regarded by them as altogether

unnecessary, because eloquence being a gift of nature, could not

be acquired by art. Those who possessed the gift needed no study

of ancient authors to infuse it into them; and those who did not

possess it, would study them to no purpose. The art of logic to

such men was all in all, and such was the eagerness with which they

indulged their taste for disputation, that some spent their whole

days in argument, and carried on their tiresome wrangling in the very

streets. And what arguments they were! They examined seriously and

at alarming length the weighty question, whether a pig who is driven

by a man to be sold at the market, is held by the man, or by the

cord fastened round his leg; and whether one who buys a cloak can be

held to have purchased also the hood fastened to the cloak. As two

negatives are equal to one affirmative, professors were accustomed

to introduce into their arguments such a number of negatives, that

in order to reckon them up, and see in what sense their propositions

were to be understood, the hearers had recourse to the device of

dropping a bean at each negative, and reckoning up the sum total at

the end of the lecture. John, in his writings, complains of all these

extravagancies, and of the tiresome way in which these choppers of

logic would dispute over a tuft of wool, and instantly contradict

any man who opened his lips in their presence. Nor did he cease

lamenting over the neglect of good literature, which was resulting

from the predominance given in the schools to logical disputation.

He specially attacks one of the leading scholastics whom he does not

name, but speaks of him under the sobriquet of “_Cornificius_;”[164]

and those who showed themselves hostile to the claims of grammar and

rhetoric are denominated by him “_Cornificians_.” In spite of all his

wit and eloquence, the Cornificians won the day. The study of polite

literature fell into neglect, and the intellectual power of the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries was turned into another channel--a

channel which no doubt gave rise to a good deal of barbarous

Latinity, but whence was to issue, in process of time, something more

precious than mere literary elegance, the scholastic philosophy of

the Church.

The caustic strictures of John of Salisbury were not directed against

that system of philosophy, which as yet had no existence,[165]

but against the error which put forth the exercise of sophistical

argumentation as itself the sum of all philosophy, and the danger

which he saw too well must arise from the deification of human

reason. For the scholastic method, to which the theology of the

Church stands so deeply indebted, is not to be confounded with the

scholasticism which was rampant in the days of Abelard. The errors

and sophistries of the professors of his day, arising as they did out

of an extravagant adherence to the uncorrected teaching of Aristotle,

were from the first discerned and condemned by the ecclesiastical

authorities; and by none were they more firmly opposed than by St.

Bernard, who saw to what fatal results the unrestrained culture of

human reason, under the guidance of a pagan master, must necessarily

lead. We shall see further on how jealously the Church continued to

regard the study of Aristotle, and in what way she sought to check

the evils flowing from it to the schools, up to the time when his

philosophy was finally adapted to the service of the faith by the

labours of St. Thomas.

In the midst of his studies, his tutorships, and his passages of

arms with the Cornificians, twelve years slipped away, at the end

of which time John of Salisbury found himself possessed of a vast

fund of erudition[166] and an empty purse. The latter circumstance

was not one which greatly disquieted him, for his theory was that

the keys which opened the door of philosophy were not of gold, but

consisted of poverty, humility, silence, and a quiet life, together

with that detachment from family and worldly ties which is best found

in a foreign land.[167] So little had he of the spirit of worldly

ambition, that when in 1148 Peter des Celles, abbot of Moutier des

Celles, offered him a chaplaincy in his monastery, he gladly accepted

a post, which, however humble, gave him at least the leisure and

the means to study. He remained in this retreat for the space of

three years. Peter des Celles was one of the most remarkable men

of his time, and has made himself best known by his epistles;

for, like most of the literary personages of the twelfth century,

he was a great letter writer. He had received his education in the

monastic school of St. Martin des Champs, and does not seem to have

been one whit behind the more fashionable students of Paris. “I

had,” he writes, “an insatiable appetite for learning; my eyes were

never tired of beholding books, or my ears of listening to them;

yet with all my ardour, God was always the beginning, centre, and

end of all my studies. They had but Him for their object, though

indeed I studied everything, even law, without prejudice, however,

to the duties of my state, attendance on the Divine Office, and my

accustomed prayers.” This worthy inheritor of the genuine monastic

spirit acted the part of a true father to our English scholar, who

at last, through the favour of St. Bernard, obtained the post of

secretary to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose household

he renewed his acquaintance with two of his former fellow-students,

Peter de Blois, and Thomas à Becket. Peter de Blois had been one

of his pupils; a man of versatile talent, who had studied first

at Tours, then at Paris, and lastly at Bologna, and had seen

something of half the courts of Europe. He was equally skilled in

law, medicine, and theology, but it is by his epistles that he is

chiefly known, and his ready and somewhat gossiping pen has left

us graphic sketches of the manners and customs of his time. He

was, in fact, the Horace Walpole of the twelfth century, curious,

fluent, and volatile. Henry II. made him archdeacon, first of Bath,

and then of London, and often employed him as secretary, so that

he had excellent opportunities for studying the court of our first

Plantagenet sovereign, which he describes in a sufficiently amusing

manner. He assures us that Henry’s court, from the conversation of

learned men and the discussion of questions, was a daily school. The

king, he says, is deeply versed in literature, and has more gifts

of mind and body than he can so much as enumerate; nevertheless, he

lets out the ugly fact that it is best not to go too near him when

he is out of humour, as he is then more of a lion than a lamb, and

is quite as likely as not to tear out your eyes. How any man of

letters can ever attach himself to a court life is more than he can

understand; and how any man, lettered or unlettered, could be brought

to endure the daily miseries he describes, such as the eating of

“mouldy bread and stale fish, wine that can only be drunk with the

eyes shut, lodgings for which pigs would be ashamed to quarrel,” and

days spent “without order, plan, or moderation of any kind,” must

seem equally incomprehensible to his readers. But he has something

more cheering to say of the household of Archbishop Theobald. It is

crowded with learned men, who spend their time between prayers and

dinner in lecturing, disputing, and examining causes. All the knotty

questions of the kingdom are referred to them, and discussed in the

common hall; and there is no sort of jealousy or contention, but

the youngest present is listened to with courtesy and attention. In

these letters Peter de Blois has a good deal to say On the subject

of education. He tells us that in his youth he was trained, not in

idle fables, but solid literature, and names Livy, Quintius Curtius,

Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus among the books then most commonly

used in schools. He regards the new scholasticism with undisguised

contempt: it is good, he says, neither at home nor abroad, neither in

the church, the cloister, the camp, the court, or the bar. In fact,

in his literary tastes he showed himself a worthy disciple of John of

Salisbury.

Meanwhile the latter attached himself to the rising fortunes of St.

Thomas, and dedicated to him, when chancellor, his two great works,

the _Polycraticon_ and the _Metalogicon_, the last of which is a

formal apology for humane letters, and is considered to display an

amount of learning and literary elegance far exceeding anything

which had been produced since the days of Boëthius. When St. Thomas

became primate, his friend continued to retain the office he had held

under his predecessor, and never spared the archbishop the benefit

of his frank and fearless advice. Among other things, he took on him

to give him some directions with regard to his studies which are

worth quoting, as showing the view taken at that time by spiritual

men, of the danger resulting from an excessive application to law

and logic. “My counsel is,” he says, “that you put off some of your

other occupations, in order to give your whole mind to prayer. Laws

and canons are all very well, but believe me, they nourish curiosity

more than devotion.... Who ever rose from the study of law with a

sentiment of compunction in his heart? Nay, I will say more, the

exercises of the schools often increase knowledge till a man is

puffed up with it, but they rarely inflame devotion. I would far

rather that you meditated on the Psalms or read the ‘Morals of St.

Gregory,’ than that you were learned in philosophy, after the fashion

of the scholastics.” St. Thomas was not slow in taking his friend’s

advice, and both at Canterbury and Pontigny often spent whole nights

in the study of the Scriptures, and was wont always to carry a few

pages in the loose sleeve of his tunic, that he might have them at

hand whenever he found a leisure moment for reading.

We need not pursue further the history of John of Salisbury. The

fidelity with which he adhered to the cause of St. Thomas exposed

him to no small loss and personal danger, and after the martyrdom of

the saint he had to fly from England, and taking refuge in France,

became Bishop of Chartres in 1176, his election being entirely due

to his personal merits, and the honour with which the French clergy

regarded one who had been the companion of the Blessed Martyr. But

before concluding our notice of the Parisian masters, it remains for

us to name the three Peters, as they are called, who all illustrated

the schools about the same period. The first was Peter Comestor, or

the Eater--so called from his habit of devouring books--a very famous

personage in his day, who became chancellor of Paris in 1164, but

resigned all his dignities to put on the habit of the canons of St.

Victor’s. His _Historia Scholastica_, or Epitome of Sacred History,

was so much esteemed in the twelfth century, that portions of it were

read in the churches. A namesake of his, called Peter the Chanter,

was almost of equal fame. He too, after filling the eye of the public

for several years, withdrew from their applause, and became a simple

religious in the Abbey of Long-Pont, where he died in 1197.

Both were men of tried virtue, and showed themselves hostile to the

sophists of the day, whose wranglings they declared to be opposed to

the simplicity of the Gospel. But more renowned than either was the

Italian scholar, Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, as he

was called, and the real Father and founder of scholastic theology.

He commenced his study of civil law at Bologna, and thence passed on

to Paris, where he was admitted among the canons of St. Victor’s,

and afterwards taught for some years in the cathedral school. In

1159 he became bishop of Paris, through the influence of his royal

pupil, prince Philip, brother to the reigning king, Louis the Young.

The king offered the bishopric to his brother, who was educated

for the ecclesiastical state, but he nobly refused it in favour of

his master. Peter Lombard’s great work was the celebrated Book of

Sentences, consisting of a number of passages selected from the works

of the fathers, and commented on in such a manner as to present the

student with a body of theological doctrines systematically arranged.

The convenience of finding every point of theology treated of in

a precise and methodical order, and within the compass of a single

volume, was speedily recognised, and the Book of the Sentences soon

became the favourite text-book used in the schools, both for the

lectures of the masters and the private study of their disciples.

Hence the title of _Sententiarus_, which came to be applied to those

who taught or studied the Sentences. Notwithstanding the immense

popularity obtained by this work, it is said to contain several

important omissions, and even some theological errors, one of which

was formerly condemned by Pope Alexander III. Its importance is

derived from the circumstance of its being the first attempt to

reduce theology to a compact and orderly scientific system; and

from this period we date the real rise of the science of scholastic

theology.

It will have been observed that in what has been said up to this time

of the schools of Paris, they have not been designated by the title

of a university. For, in fact, as yet these schools had no claim to

be regarded as a corporate body; they were accidents rather than an

institution, and it was only gradually that they acquired a corporate

character, and became possessed of a government, a head, and a body

of laws and privileges. This change was effected by no sudden act of

royal or ecclesiastical legislation; it developed itself insensibly

but of the very necessity of the case. The immense number of masters

and pupils who flocked to the capital, gave rise to disorders, which

obliged the superiors of the different schools to unite together and

agree to certain rules of common discipline.

Thus in 1195 we find a certain John, abbot of St. Albans, associated

to the “body of elect masters.” Some years before, in the very thick

of the quarrel between Henry II. and St. Thomas, occurs the first

notice of that division of the scholars into _nations_ or provinces,

which formed one of the peculiarities of the university. Henry

offered to choose as arbiters either the peers of France, the French

clergy, or the heads of the different _provinces_ in the school of

Paris. We find also certain laws, or at least established customs

having the force of laws, respecting the method to be observed in

granting licenses for the opening of a school. It was the rule in

all dioceses that no one could open a school without permission from

the cathedral scholasticus, or chancellor of the diocese, who was

bound to grant such licenses to all who were capable. Pope Alexander

III., who showed a lively interest in everything that concerned the

encouragement of education, ordered that such licenses should be

granted gratuitously, but he afterwards permitted the Chancellor of

Paris, who was at that time Peter Comestor, to exact a certain fine.

It appears, also, that in Paris the chancellor or scholasticus of

St. Geneviève shared this right with the chancellor of Notre Dame.

There were also other laws, such as those which prohibited religious

from teaching or studying in the schools of law or medicine. The

two faculties, as they were called, of arts and theology, which

formed the basis of the university, appear to have been already

distinguished. Certain privileges, too, were already enjoyed by the

students. They were beginning to claim the right of being tried

only by the ecclesiastical tribunals, and this right was granted to

them in 1194 by a decree of Celestine III. Alexander III. permitted

clerics to retain their benefices whilst teaching or studying at

Paris. Finally, in the year 1200, we find the existence of the

university as a corporate body, governed by a head, acknowledged

in the diploma of Philip Augustus, wherein, having confirmed the

exemption of the scholars from the secular courts, he decreed that

the head of the studies should, in particular, be incapable of arrest

or punishment from the secular judge, and obliged every provost of

the city on his entrance into office to swear to the observance of

this decree.

From this time, therefore, we may properly date the formal

recognition of the university of Paris, and passing over the

obscurities in which its earlier commencements are involved, shall

proceed to present our readers with a sketch of that institution as

it existed in the palmy days of the thirteenth century.