Alexandria, and appears to have been brought thither from Rome by
St. Mark. Philo the Jew, a native of Alexandria, who lived in the
time of the Evangelist, describes the Christians passing their days
in psalmody and prayer, and singing in alternate choirs (Euseb. lib.
ii. c. 17). On the martyrdom of the Evangelist we read how certain
just men buried him “singing prayers and psalms.” (_Vita S. Marci_,
Sim. Met.) The nature of the chant established at Alexandria in the
time of St. Athanasius, is very precisely indicated by St. Augustine,
in that passage of his Confessions (lib. x. c. 33) where, speaking
of the _voluptates aurium_, he says that he sometimes desires even
to banish from his ears the sweet tones to which the Psalms of David
were generally sung in church; “and then that method seems to me
more safe which I remember often to have heard of Athanasius, Bishop
of Alexandria, who caused the lector to intone the Psalms with so
slight an inflection of the voice, that it was more like reading than
singing.” Hippolytus, in his Book on Antichrist, declares that one
effect of His coming at the end of the world will be the abolition of
the Psalmody of the Church.
[6] Cassian, Inst. ii. c. 5; Coll. 18. 6.
[7] Euseb. Hist. l. v. c. 20.
[8] Durandus, Rational. lib. viii. c. 1. It is also frequently used
to signify an elementary knowledge of arithmetic.
[9] In spite of the labours of recent critics, the history of St.
Hyppolitus still remains obscure. It appears uncertain whether
there were one or many saints of the name; whether the Hyppolitus
celebrated by Prudentius was ever really Bishop of Porto, and lastly,
whether he was, or was not, the author of the _Philosophumena_. The
former opinion is maintained by Bunsen, Döllinger, and the majority
of German and English critics; the latter is generally supported by
the Catholic writers of France.
[10] Acta S. Feliciani, ed. Boll.
[11] Fleury, l. xviii. 35.
[12] Breviary Lessons: Feb. 13, proper for Rome. Vignoli, Liber
Pontificalis, tom. ii. c. 89.
[13] Cœpit vivere secundum regulam sub sanctis apostolis constitutam.
(Office of St. Augustine.)
[14] Fleury, l. xx. 32.
[15] Fleury, l. xxxii. 22.
[16] Ruinart, Atti Sinceri, vol. ii. 367-381. Ed. Rom. 1777.
[17] S. Greg. Vita S. Benedicti.
[18] S. Aug. Conf. l. viii. c. 5.
[19] S. Basil. De Legendis Gentilium Libris, tom. ii. p. 245. Ed.
Gaume.
[20] S. Joan. Chrys. tom. i. pp. 115-122. Ed. Gaume.
[21] The words of the Christian orator are almost identical with
those of Quinctilian on the same subject. “Si studiis quidem scholas
prodesse, moribus autem nocere constaret, potior mihi ratio vivendi
honeste, quam vel optime dicendi videretur.”--Lib. i. c. 3.
[22] _Regula S. Pachomii_, cap. i. cxl.
[23] Boll., Vit. S. Pach. c. 3, 4.
[24] Mabillon, Acta SS. Ord. Ben. Præf. in sec. iii.
[25] Reg. S. Basil. fus. tract. 15. Tom. 2, p. 498. Ed. Gaume.
[26] Omnes literas discant: omni tempore duabus horis, hoc est, a
mane usque ad horam secundam, lectioni vacent.--S. Cæsarii Reg. ad
Virg. cap. xvii.
[27] S. Leand. De Instit. Virg. cap. vi. et vii.
[28] There are, however, indications that at Alexandria at least
young children took part in some of the exercises of the catechetical
school. St. Clement’s hymn to the Saviour appears to have been
written for his younger disciples. “O Shepherd of the _lambs_!” he
says, “assemble Thine innocent children, and let their stainless lips
sing hymns to Christ, the guide of youth.” And again: “Fed by the
Divine milk of wisdom, that mother of grace has taught our infant
lips, and made them taste the dew of the Spirit. Let us then sing
to Christ our King.... Let us celebrate the praises of the Almighty
Child.”
[29] 2 Tim. i. 5.
[30] Vit. S. Mac., cap. 2.
[31] Vita S. Fulgen., cap. i. ap. Surium.
[32] St. Hier., Ep. 96 (aliter 127, ed. Migne), ad Principiam.
[33] Gladstone, Studies on Homer.
[34] The works of Virgil the grammarian have been edited by Cardinal
Mai (Auctores classici, tom. v.), who considers that the Toulouse
Academy cannot be assigned a later date than the end of the sixth
century.
[35] Mabillon, Acta SS. Ben. Præf. Secul. iii. 39.
[36] These are the words of Trithemius, who says that from the very
beginning of the order the sons of nobles were educated in the
Benedictine monasteries, “non solum in Scripturis Divinis, sed etiam
in secularibus litteris.”
[37] In allusion to the waxen tablets then used for writing.
[38] S. Ælred, Vit. S. Nin.
[39] _A solis ortus cardine_ and _Hostis Herodes_, the latter of
which stands in the Roman Breviary under a somewhat altered form.
This Sedulius is to be distinguished from Sedulius the younger, who
was also of Irish extraction, and was Bishop of Oreta in Spain, in
the eighth century.
[40] Scripsit Abegetoria, ccclxv. Nenn. Camb. MS. c. 57.
[41] Acta SS. Boll. Mart.
[42] Columba had previously studied in the school of St. Finian of
Maghbile and received deacon’s orders, so that he could not have been
a mere boy when he came to Clonard. But Adamnan tells us that he was
still a youth, _adhuc juvenis_.
[43] Now Clonmacnois in King’s County.
[44] I should not have thought it necessary to remind the reader that
St. Columba, the founder of Iona in 563, is to be distinguished from
St. Columbanus the founder of Luxeuil in 585, had not so considerable
a writer as Thierry, in his history of the Norman Conquest, spoken of
them as the same persons.
[45] Act. SS. Boll.
[46] Ara Multiscilus, _Schedæ de Islandia_, cap. 2, quoted by
Haverty, who sums up the number of Irish saints known to have settled
in different parts of Europe as follows: 150 in Germany, of whom 36
were martyrs; 45 in Gaul, 6 martyrs; 30 in Belgium; 44 in England;
13 in Italy; and 8 martyrs in Norway and Iceland. They founded 13
monasteries in Scotland, 12 in England, 40 in Gaul, 9 in Belgium, 16
in Bavaria, 15 in Switzerland, 6 in Italy, and others in different
parts of Germany.
[47] It is first spoken of by John of Salisbury, a writer of the
twelfth century, who quotes no authority for the statement. With
regard to the reproof administered to Bishop Didier, it is not
denied, for the passage is extant in one of St. Gregory’s letters.
But the real and authentic justification is given in the Gloss on
the Canon Law, which explains that Didier’s fault did not lie in his
studying humane literature, but in his giving public lectures in his
church on the profane poets, and substituting the same in the place
of the Gospel lesson. “Recitabat _in ecclesia_ fabulas Jovis, et eas
moraliter exponebat in prædicatione sua.” (_Decret._ pars i. dis.
86.) And again, “Beatus Gregorius quemdam episcopum _non reprehendit_
quia litteras seculares didicerat; sed quia, contra episcopale
officium, _pro lectione Evangelica_, grammaticam populo exponebat.”
(_Decret._ pars i. dis. 37, c. 8. ed. Antwerp., 1573, quoted by
Landriot, _Recherches Historiques_, p. 212.)
[48] St. Ignatius is generally spoken of as a disciple of the Apostle
St. John. But many writers call him a disciple of St. Peter also, and
some even represent that Apostle as placing him in the see of Antioch
(S. Chrys. Hom. in S. Ignat. t. ii. p. 712). Tillemont (t. ii. p. 87,
ed. 1732) quotes St. Athanasius, Origen and Theodoret, to the same
effect. The historian Socrates speaks of St. Ignatius as introducing
into the ancient Church of Antioch the alternate chant of two choirs
(Socrates, lib. vi. c. 8.). Theodoret says that it was used there,
in the time of the Arians, as a powerful instrument to oppose their
blasphemous heresies.
[49] Bede, lib. i. ch. 27.
[50] This expression requires some explanation, being an apparent
contradiction of what has been said before as to the Roman origin of
the Irish schools. It must be borne in mind that the error in the
Irish manner of observing Easter was not that of the Eastern Quarto
Decimans, as they are called, who kept it on the fourteenth day
of the Jewish month Nisan, on whatever day of the week that might
fall. This error was corrected at the Council of Nice, when it was
commanded that the feast should always be celebrated on the Sunday
after the fourteenth day of the moon; and the decree of the council
was obeyed in Britain and Ireland as in Rome. But difficulties
afterwards arose in the method of calculating Easter; the _Cycles_,
or periods of years used for that purpose, were after a time found
to be incorrect, and the philosophers of Alexandria were applied to,
to calculate the day and notify it each year to the Pope, who should
publish it to the rest of the Church. Even this plan failed to secure
uniformity, and in the fifth century Rome and Alexandria were to
be found computing the time of Easter after different cycles, Rome
using one of eighty-four years, and Alexandria one of nineteen, which
caused the feast to be celebrated on different days. The old Roman
cycle was that which had been introduced into Ireland, and the Irish
clergy continued to use it after it had been reformed in the time of
Pope Hilarion, by whose command the Alexandrian cycle was established
as more correct, and the calendar was corrected by Victorinus of
Aquitaine. Such was the disturbed date of the world at this time,
however, that the British and Irish churches heard nothing of this
change, and stuck to their old Roman cycle even after the arrival of
St. Gregory’s missionaries. The notion of the Irish having adopted
the Eastern computation of the Quarto Decimans is very clearly
disproved by reference to Bede, lib. iii. ch. 4. They at last adopted
the Roman calendar at the Synod of Lene, held in 630, wherein it was
agreed that “they should receive what was brought to them from _the
fountain of their baptism and of their wisdom_, even the successors
of the Apostles of Christ.”
[51] By astrology and the calculation of horoscopes must not be here
understood the practice of _judicial_ astrology, which was regarded
by all the Anglo-Saxon prelates as a forbidden art; but, as Lingard
supposes, studies connected with the Zodiac, and the art of dialling,
here called _horoscopii computatio_; an art much in vogue among early
scholars, and which formed one of the scientific recreations of
Boethius.
[52] Surtees, History of Durham.
[53] Bede, lib. iv. c, 18.
[54] Alc. Opera i. p. 282.
[55] Nec linguam Hebraicam ignoravit. (Breviary Lessons.)
[56] Among the authors quoted by Bede are Virgil, Horace, Terence,
Ovid, Lucan, Lucretius, Prudentius, Juvencus, Macer, Varro,
Cornelius, Severus, Fortunatus, Sedulius, and Pacuvius, besides the
Latin Fathers. He also makes frequent references to Homer, which was
not at that time translated into Latin, and which he can, therefore,
only have known in its original Greek.
[57] See De Nat. Rerum, Op. tom. ii. p. 37.
[58] Iren. de Hær. l. iii. 4.
[59] Three, however, were preserved which expressed sounds not
conveyed by the Roman alphabet, corresponding to w, th, and dh.
[60] The instruction of the people was not, however, to be limited to
a knowledge of these prayers. “Let them be taught,” he says, “by what
works they may please God, and from what things they must abstain;
with what sincerity they must believe in Him, and with what devotion
they must pray; how diligently and frequently they must fortify
themselves with the holy sign of the Cross; and how salutary for
every class of Christian is the daily reception of the Lord’s Body
and Blood, which is, you know, the constant practice of the Church of
Christ throughout Italy, Gaul, Africa, Greece, and the whole of the
East.” This is a most important testimony as to the existing practice
of the Church in the eighth century, and Bede goes on to say that to
his knowledge there are innumerable young persons, of both sexes, who
might, beyond all question, be suffered to communicate, at least, on
all Sundays and festivals.
[61] “Caras super omnia gazas.” (De Pont. Ebor. Eccl.)
[62] Jamdiu optata adest dies. (Vita S. Bon. Acta SS. Ben.)
[63] “O felix collegium beatissimi Bonifacii!” exclaims the
biographer of S. Sola.
[64] Dr. Campbell in his “Strictures on the Ecclesiastical History of
Ireland,” observes that “this great man was degraded by Pope Zachary
on conviction of _being a mathematician_.” But perhaps the most
remarkable reproduction of this oft-told tale occurs in Dr. Enfield’s
translation of Brucker’s “History of Philosophy,” which I give
verbatim, as only to be paralleled in the “Art of Pluck.” “Boniface,”
he says, “_the patron of ignorance and barbarism_, summoned _Polydore
Virgil, bishop of Salisbury, to the Court of Inquisition_ for
maintaining the existence of the antipodes.” (Vol. i, p. 363.)
Would it be believed that a writer who is engaged in bewailing the
_ignorance_ of monkish philosophers should commit himself to a
statement which confuses St. Feargil, or Virgil, bishop of Saltzburg,
in the eighth century, with Polydore Vergil, archdeacon of Bath (for
he was never bishop of Salisbury at all), in the fifteenth? And then
the Inquisition! To make it complete he should have identified Virgil
with the Latin poet, and convicted him of the Albigensian heresy.
Yet these are the writers who find no terms contemptuous enough in
which to speak of mediæval ignorance. “Among the scholastics,” writes
Dr. Enfield, in the very next sentence, “we find surprising proofs
of weakness and ignorance.” The scholastics, could they speak, might
find something to retort on their accusers.
[65] The doctrines attributed to Virgil, and their condemnation by
Pope Zachary, have been examined by Decker, a professor of Louvain,
who shows very clearly that the error lay, not in their maintaining
the existence of the antipodes, but in the notion of a race distinct
from that of Adam. Feller, in the account he gives of the matter in
his Historical Dictionary, refers to the teaching of Bede, who, he
declares, denied the spherical figure of the earth. But the work
from which he quotes is not to be found among the writings of our
English saint, whose real opinion on the subject may be seen from
the following explicit passage: “We call the earth a globe, not
that it is absolutely the perfect form of a globe, by reason of the
unevenness of hills and plains, but because its whole compass, if
comprehended within the circumference of lines, would make the figure
of a globe.”--_De Nat. Rer._ c. xlvi. 118.
[66] This question was resolved by Pope Zachary in favour of the
validity of the baptism so administered.
[67] Vita S. Liob. ap. Surium.
[68] Tradition says that they stopped at Antwerp some days, and
a grotto is still shown in the ancient church dedicated to St.
Walburga, where she is said to have prayed.
[69] For the ingenious arguments by which certain writers have
endeavoured to show that the Council of Cloveshoe _rejected_ the
authority of the Roman Pontiff (by whose command it was summoned),
and for their able refutation, the reader is referred to “Lingard’s
Anglo-Saxon Antiquities,” vol. i. Appendix, note G.
[70] Thorpe II. 414.
[71] Sid. Apol. Ep. iv. 3.
[72] Hist. Litt. t. iii. p. 22.
[73] Guizot, Hist. de Civil. vol. ii. lect. 22.
[74] Guizot, Hist. de Civil. vol. ii. lect. 22.
[75] According to Durandus, the circumstances under which Paul the
Deacon wrote this hymn were as follows. Having to sing the blessing
of the Paschal candle on Holy Saturday, he unfortunately lost his
voice from hoarseness, and to recover it, invoked the aid of St.
John Baptist, in whose honour he composed this hymn, in which he
solicits him to restore him the use of his voice, and reminds him how
at his nativity he had procured a like grace for his father Zachary.
This anecdote explains the allusion in the opening lines. To avoid
the tiresome confusion arising from the similarity of names, I will
remind the reader that there were two persons designated as Paul
the Deacon; one the contemporary of St. Gregory, and the other his
historian; and moreover that he had another historian in the person
of _John_ the Deacon, who lived in the ninth century.
[76] The identical copy is still preserved in the Library of Sta.
Maria in Vallicella at Rome, and bears on its fly-leaf the following
inscription, which many suppose to be the autograph of Alcuin:--
Pro me quisque legas versus, orare memento.
Alcuine dicor; tu, sine fine, vale.
A folio Bible now in the British Museum, and formerly the property
of M. de Speyer Passavant, has also its claims to be considered the
original copy of Alcuin, though commonly held to have been written in
the reign of Charles the Bald.
[77] Crevier, Hist. de L’Univ. de Paris, vol. i.
[78] Vita Caroli Mon. Engol. an. 787.
[79] Vita S. Greg. Joan. Diac. lib. ii. 7.
[80] Quatuor Evangelia Christi in ultimo ante obitus sui diem, cum
Græcis et Syris optime correxerat. (Thegani, Vita Ludovici Pii,
printed in Pertz, _Mon. Germ._ t ii.)
[81] Vita Karoli, Eginhard, cap. 22.
[82] See Patrologie Latine, vols. xcvii. and xcviii.
[83] The interior schools were known as _claustral_, and the exterior
for secular students as _canonical_. Ekhehard, in his life of B.
Notker, is the first who accurately distinguishes the two sorts of
schools. “Traduntur post breve tempus Marcello _scholæ claustri_
cum beato Notkero Balbulo et cæteris monachici habitus pueris:
_exteriores_ vero, _id est canonicæ_, Isoni cum Salomone et ejus
comparibus.” It is probable however that the law directing a total
separation of the scholars under different masters, could not in all
cases be carried out as rigidly as at the great abbey of St. Gall’s,
where the studium was, in Notker’s time, the first in Europe; and in
many monasteries both schools continued to be directed by the same
scholasticus.
[84] Præfatio in IV. Sæculum, 184. Trithemius gives the names of
sixteen monasteries containing these major schools; Mabillon adds
eleven more, and the list might undoubtedly be yet further enlarged.
[85] He probably rested his statement on the petition presented by
the Council of Paris in 829 to Louis le Débonnaire, in which they
requested him, by his royal authority, to establish public schools
_in three chief cities of his empire_, to the end that the troubles
of the times might not quite destroy the good work set on foot by
his father. But this was a suggestion and nothing more; the three
cities were never named, and are merely spoken of as _in tribus
congruentissimis imperii vestri locis_; and the deposition of
Louis, and the civil wars that raged between his sons, effectually
prevented the suggestion from being carried out. The academy
founded by Charlemagne at Pavia, which was directed by the Irish
Dungal, was itself attached to a monastery. This is possibly the
school alluded to by Bulæus, but there is certainly nothing in its
history which claims for it the least pre-eminence over the monastic
schools of France and Germany. The university historians have, in
general, greatly misrepresented or misunderstood the character of
the monastic schools. Du Boulay talks of the _public schools_ of
Charlemagne as if they were Etons or Harrows, and in one place
likens them to universities. But, in fact, the term _public school_
meant simply that they were not confined to the use of the monks of
that monastery, but were open to all comers. We find in them rather
the germ of the _collegiate_ system, which was in some sense the
counterpoise of the university idea. But Bulæus and Du Boulay always
write with Paris University in their mind as the normal principle
of education. They seem unable to conceive of any institution for
teaching which was not either its copy or its anticipation.
[86] Mab. Vet. Analecta, i. 357.
[87] See his verses on the destruction of Lindisfarne (Acta SS. Ben.)
[88] At Aix-la-Chapelle his bones have been quite recently discovered
and identified.--See _Die Eröffnung des Karlsschreines_, being No. 61
of the _Aachener Zeitung_, March 2, 1861.
[89] See Ampère, Hist. Lit. avant le xii. Siècle, t. ii.
[90] Matthew of Westminster represents him as taking refuge in
England, where, according to the same authority, he was warmly
received by King Alfred, and becoming scholasticus at Malmsbury
abbey, was there stabbed to death by his scholars. This story was
received as authentic, until Mabillon showed it to have been an
incorrect version of the history of John of Saxony, who, when abbot
of Ethelingay, was killed in a commotion with some of his monks. In
spite of the pains taken by this writer to clear up the mistake, the
narrative still finds its place in most works which treat of our old
English schools, and will probably be as hard to dislodge as other
traditions of the same genus. It appears certain, however, that
Scotus Erigena returned to France and died there in peace, some time
after the death of Charles the Bald.
[91] Many of these towns derive their names from the monks under whom
the cells dependent on the abbey were first founded; thus we have
Abrazell, Aichezell, Kerzell, and Edelcell, from Abraham, Haicho,
Kero, and Edeling, all monks of Fulda.
[92] Nepotem meum et cum eo duo alios nobiles puerulos, quando, si
Deus vult, nostro monasterio profuturos, propter Germanicæ linguæ
nanciscendam scientiam, Vestræ Sanctitati mittere cupio. (Ep. xci.)
[93] He appears to have had some knowledge of Hebrew, and introduces
a quotation from the Hebrew Scriptures in his Treatise _De Partu
Virginis_.
[94] Rabanus, De Instit. Clericorum, lib. iii. c. 24.
[95] Tract. de Corpore Christi, printed in Martène, Vet. Script. t. 9.
[96]
Scandens et descendens inter montium confinia
Silvarum scrutando loca, valliumque concava.
(Hymn for the Procession of Relics. ap. Leibnitz.)
[97] Vita B. Notkeri. ch. ix. Acta SS. Ben.
[98] Archives of the Chapter of Rouen, ann. 1449.
[99] Spicilegium, t. ii. 311.
[100] Consuet. Clun. Spicileg. t. i. 687.
[101] Vita Ratgari. Acta S.S. Boll. t. i.
[102] D’Achery Spicileg. t. ii. p. 139.
[103] Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 330, and note.
[104] Guibert de Nogent refers to his school studies of Ovid
and Virgil’s Eclogues; and Peter de Blois names Suetonius and
Q. Curtius, “besides the other books which are commonly used in
schools.” For a full and careful enumeration of the class-books
used in the monastic schools, see Bahr: _Geschichte der Römischen
Literatur_; and also Prof. Pauly’s _Real Encyclopädie der Classischen
Alterthumswissenschaft_.
[105] Acta SS. Ben. Præf. in Secul. iii.
[106] It is reprinted by Mai, Scrip. Vet. t. iii. p. 251.
[107] Hilduin, abbot of St. Denis in 814, was the chief supporter of
this opinion. The letter addressed to him by the Emperor Louis, and
his reply, are prefixed to the Areopagitica in Surius. t. v.
[108] Deut. vi. 7.
[109] In the preface to the metrical version of the Bible, executed
by command of Louis le Debonnaire, we find the following passage:
“Præcepit namque uni de gente Saxonum qui apud suos non ignobilis
vates habebatur ut Vetus ac Novum Testamentum in Germanicam Linguam
poetice transferre studeret, quatenus _non solum litteratis verum
etiam illiteratis_ sacra divinorum præceptorum lectio panderetur.”
[110] Martene: Thesaurus Anec. i. 489.
[111] Vos lumina; vos mea vita ... vos novella plantatio. (Vita
Sanctæ Cæsariæ.)
[112] Si qua enim soror, reliquis in templo cantantibus, sonoræ
vocis modulatione non congrueret, a pia illa matre objurgata, vel
etiam in facie manibus cæsa, toto reliquæ vitæ spatio clara fuit et
delectabili voce. (Vita S. Adehildæ: ap. Surium.)
[113] The whole document is to be found in D’Achery’s “Spicilegium,”
vol. ii.
[114] Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. p. 332.
[115] This Saxon school became, afterwards, a great object of
interest to Alfred; and Asser tells us, that at his request Pope
Martin II. freed it from all taxes and tribute.
[116] Wise’s Edition, Oxon. 1722.
[117] Asser (Wise’s Ed.), p. 67.
[118] Among these homilies is that for the festival of
Easter, commonly quoted in support of the audacious theory
that the Anglo-Saxon divines knew nothing of the doctrine of
Transubstantiation. The whole question is satisfactorily examined by
Dr. Lingard, in his “History of the Anglo-Saxon Church,” to which the
reader is referred. But it may be observed, that whatever obscurity
is to be found in Ælfric’s language, that of other writers of his
nation is singularly emphatic. The very term, _Transubstantiation_,
is all but anticipated by Alcuin, who, in a letter to Paulinus, bids
him remember his friend “at that time when thou shalt consecrate the
bread and wine _into the substance_ of the body and blood of Christ.”
And of two saints contemporary with Ælfric, viz. St. Odo and St.
Oswald, their biographers record the fact, that while celebrating
mass, the appearance of a bleeding Host in their hands removed the
doubts of certain beholders. Yet, what doubts had to be removed if
the doctrine were not then held?
[119] Hist. of Ramsey, ch. lxvii.
[120] In the first edition of this book allusion was made to the
studies pursued in this century at Croyland abbey. But the chronicle
of Ingulphus from which the narrative was quoted, is now generally
admitted to be spurious, and the passage has therefore been omitted.
[121] Berington, Lit. Hist. book iii. 154.
[122] Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. ix. part 1. _passim_.
[123] Florus, Carmina Varia, Vet. Anal. 413.
[124] The battle of Fontenay was gained by Charles the Bald and Louis
the German over their elder brother Lothaire. The latter was totally
defeated, and the old Frankish or Teutonic nobility who supported
him were all but entirely destroyed. From this time the Gallo-Roman
element began to prevail in France over the German, and the treaty
shortly afterwards renewed between Charles and Louis at Strasburg,
is the first instance on record of the vernacular dialects being
employed on any solemn occasion. Louis as king of the Germans, swore
to the treaty in the Romance language, now formally recognised as the
language of France while the French king took his oath in Tudesque,
or German. On that day, France and Germany may be said to have first
assumed their distinct nationalities. The Romance or Rustic Latin
became the language of France, though this afterwards separated into
two branches, that spoken in the northern provinces, which was more
largely mingled with Germanic idioms, and which was known as the
_Langue d’oyl_, or _d’oui_ and the softer dialect of the south, which
was called the _Langue d’oc_. Later on, the Italian Romance became
distinct from either of these, and is sometimes spoken of as the
_Langue de si_.
[125] Footnote: Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. i. part 1.
[126] Acta SS. Ben. Vita S. Anscharii.
[127] Odericus Vitalis, B. vi. ch. 10.
[128] Analect. tom. i. 426.
[129] Gesta Epis. Leod. cap. 25.
[130] Fleury observes that by the “Dialectics of St. Augustine” is
supposed to be meant the treatise of the ten categories, attributed
to St. Augustine from the time of Alcuin.
[131] D’Achery, Spic. t. i. 372.
[132]
Esuries Te, Christe Deus, sitis atque videndi
Jam modo carnales me vetat esse dapes.
Da mihi Te vesci, Te potum haurire salutis,
Unicus ignotæ Tu cibus esto viæ;
Et quem longa fames errantem ambedit in orbe
Hunc satia vultu, Patris Imago, Tuo.
[133] St. Maieul of Cluny always “refreshed his mind with reading”
as he rode, and one day both horse and man fell into a quagmire. And
Thierry, abbot of St. Hubert’s, lost his way, and very nearly his
life also, owing to his being so intent on the recitation of the
Psalms that he did not see where his horse was going. Many examples
of a similar nature are to be met with.
[134] Quando illi prandentes in angulis scholæ, dulcia obsonia
magistro furantur.--_Vita S. Adalberti_, _Acta SS. Ben._
[135] The following is his version of the “Our Father”:--
Fater unser du in himele bist. Din na’ mo vuerde geheiligot. Din
riche chome. Din wille geskehe in erdo also in himele. Unser ta’
golicha brot kib uns hinto-unde. Unsere sculde belak uns, also ouch
wir bela’ zend unsern sculdigen. Und in chorunga nit leitest du
unsich. Nu belose unsich some ubele.
[136] I wish to be a Greek, lady, who am scarcely yet a Latin.
[137] I am altogether unable to compose worthy verses, for I am so
confused by the caresses of the duchess.
[138] Oderic. Vit. B. vi. c. iv.
[139] Wis. vii. 17. 22-23.
[140] Richer’s history is printed at length in Pertz’s _Monumenta
Germaniæ Historica_, Tom. iii.
[141] Gerbert taught his disciples the use of the monochord; a
single string, which being struck at different intervals, gave out
the different sounds of the gamut. These intervals were marked
on the chord, and the words to be sung had written over them a
cipher, showing to what interval on the monochord it corresponded.
A person therefore could always set himself right by sounding the
note he wanted, as we should use a pitch-key. A description of this
instrument is given by the monk Odoramn, whose works have been
discovered and published by Cardinal Mai, and whose musical treatises
are said to be based on the scientific principles of Boëthius and
Euclid.
[142] The Arabs received the knowledge of the Indian numerals in
the ninth century. “But the profound and important historical
investigations to which a distinguished mathematician, M. Chasles,
was led by his correct interpretation of the so-called Pythagorean
table in the geometry of Boëthius,” says M. Humboldt, “render it more
than probable that the Christians in the West were acquainted even
earlier than the Arabians with the Indian system of numeration; the
use of the nine figures, having their value determined by position,
being known by them under the name of the System of the Abacus.”
(_Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 226, also note 358. See also M. Chasles,
_Aperçu historique des méthodes en géométrie_, 464-472, and his
papers in the _Comptes-rendus de l’Acad. des Sciences_.)
[143] The story has of course been taken up by the usual chorus of
modern writers, but its fallacy is well exposed by Gretser, who shows
that the tenth century knew nothing of the rumour, which entirely
originated in the fertile brain of Benno.
[144] Meibomius, Scrip. Rerum German. t. i. 706.
[145] In the year 1867 a controversy arose in Germany concerning
the authenticity of the works attributed to Hroswitha. Professor
Aschbach, of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, in a paper printed that
year in the Acts of the Academy, endeavoured to prove them audacious
forgeries; and supposed the author of the fraud to have been one
Conrad Celtes, a Humanist of the fifteenth century. The question
was taken up on both sides. Several distinguished writers and their
arguments and investigations appear to have successfully vindicated
the genuine character of the works, and to have established
Hroswitha’s claim to be considered their real authoress. See B.
Tenk, _Neber Roswitha Carmen de Gestis Oddonis_, Leipzig, 1876.
R. Kœpke, _Ottonische Studien zur deutschen geschichte im 10ten
jahrhundert_, II. _Hroswith von Gandersheim_ (xv. s. 314.) _Die
Aelteste deutsche Dichterin_ (III. 127. S), Berlin, 1869. _Hroswitha,
die helltönende Stimme von Gandersheim. In Westermann’s Illustr.
Monatsheften_, 1871, &c.
[146] Rohrbacher, Hist. de l’Eglise, vol. xiii. 540.
[147] Adelmann Rythmi Alphabetici. Vet. Anal. iv. 382.
[148] Analecta, t. iv. 385-387.
[149] Rémusat, St. Anselme de Cantorbéry, liv. ii. chap. iv. The
various opinions in favour of and against this argument are given in
chap. v.
[150] Fleury, lib. lxii. 1.
[151]
O’er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces?
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For, as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven’s starry globe, and there sustains it;--so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of education,--Patience, Love, and Hope.--_Coleridge._
[152] So at least we conjecture from certain stage directions in the
dramas of Hroswitha, which seem to infer a good deal of skill on the
part of the stage manager.
[153] M. Delisle, in his Notice on the Life and Writings of Odericus,
explains this expression to mean the Latin alphabet; Carmenta
Nicostrata, the mother of the Arcadian Evander, being held by some to
have first invented letters. He could not, however, have been five
years learning his alphabet, so we may probably understand him to
mean the ordinary elementary instruction in Latin.
[154] Now known as the _Priorata_, or Priory of St. John of Jerusalem.
[155] Rohrbacher, Hist. Ecc. tom. xiv. 48-60.
[156]
Essa è la luce eterna di Sigieri,
Che, leggendo nel Vico degli Strami,
Sillogizzo invidiosi veri.--_Parad._ x. 136.
[157] Pertz, Monumenta Germanica, tom. iv. 39.
[158] Chron. Clun. ap. Bib. Clun. 1645.
[159] It may be taken as tolerably well proved, however, that he
was really an Irishman, and he is supposed to have been a monk of
Clonard. Contemporary with him was another famous Irish historian,
Tigernach, abbot of Clonmacnoise, who wrote his chronicle partly in
Irish and partly in Latin, and is held to have been well acquainted
with Greek. The Irish scholars highly distinguished themselves in
this century. There was an Irish monastery at Erford, and another at
Cologne, into which Helias, a monk of Monaghan, on returning from a
visit to Rome, introduced the Roman chant (Lanigan, Ecc. Hist. c.
xxiv.)
[160] Histoire Lit. tom. vii. 58, and tom. ix. 149. The same
authority makes mention of other translations in French of the Four
Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, the Psalms, and some books of the
Old Testament, all made in the diocese of Metz in the twelfth century.
[161] Sicut rectus ordo exigit ut profunda Christianæ fidei credamus,
priusquam ea præsumamus ratione discutere; ita negligentia mihi
videtur si postquam confirmati sumus in fide, non studemus quod
credimus intelligere. Opp. S. Anselm, _de Fide Trinitatis et de
Incarn._ Prœf. et _Cur Deus homo?_ c. i. et 2.
[162] Abelard is classed by John of Salisbury as belonging to the
sect of the Nominalists. (_De Nugis Curialium_, 7, 12. _Metalog._
2, 17.) His followers, however, disliked the name, and he is more
commonly described as a _Conceptualist_.
[163] Jo. Saris. Ep. xxiv.
[164] A certain enemy of the poets in the days of Virgil.
[165] Except indeed we reckon St. Anselm as the first of the
schoolmen. But though this would be, strictly speaking, correct,
the formation of Scholastic Theology as a distinct science is not
generally spoken of before the time of Peter Lombard.
[166] In his work entitled _De Nugis Curialium_, he is said to have
quoted upwards of one hundred and twenty writers of antiquity.
[167] Metalogicon, lib. vii. c. 13.
[168] Jos. xv. 15.
[169] Jacob de Vitrag. Hist. Occ. c. 7. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. liv.
66. lix.
[170] Archi-Trenius, or the Chief Lamenter,--a name taken from the
Greek title of the Book of Lamentations.
[171] Du Boulai. Hist. de l’Univ. t. iii. p. 31.
[172] Terra mota est, etenim cœli distillaverunt ... pluviam
voluntariam segregabis Deus, hæreditati tuæ. Ps. lxvii. 10, 11.
“La main de Dieu, lorsqu’elle nous châtie, est comme celle du
chirurgien qui ne blesse que pour guérir, et à la fin _les foudres
se convertissent en pluies_ que Dieu réserve pour l’heritage de ses
élus.” (Esprit de S. François de Sales.)
[173] Grandes Chroniques de France, ann. 1196.
[174] Lebœuf, Hist. du diocèse de Paris, i. 6.
[175] The collection of the Roman Imperial statutes, known as the
_Justinian Code_, was published by order of Justinian in 529. Three
years later appeared fifty books, containing the decisions of famous
jurists, and this digest received the name of the _Pandects_. An
introduction, to facilitate the study of the Pandects, with four
additional books, make up the _Institutes_; and, lastly, certain new
statutes added at the revision of the code made in 534, formed the
_Novellæ_; the whole collection making up the body of the Roman or
civil law.
[176] Cosmos (Sabine’s Translation), vol. ii. note 331.
[177] His story is introduced by Dante into the Inferno, cant. xiii.
[178] The university of Toulouse was established in virtue of certain
articles introduced into the treaty of peace between Count Raymund of
Toulouse and St. Louis of France. The count agreed to pay 4000 marks
for the maintenance of certain masters for ten years; namely, two
doctors of theology, two canonists, six masters of liberal arts, and
two of grammar. This foundation was made for the express purpose of
combating the Albigensian heresy in its headquarters.
[179] The feudal lords in the eleventh century frequently claimed
and exercised the right of appointing the scholasticus to certain
churches where benefices were attached to the office. (See Martene,
Ampl. Coll. t. ii. 974-979.) But even then the approval of the bishop
or his chancellor was required, and he could claim the right of veto,
when objections to the candidate existed on the score of faith or
morals.
[180] Crevier, Hist. de l’Univ. vol. i. p. 256. The custom was
made law by a decree of the Third Council of Lateran in 1179. But
forty years earlier we find the Council of Westminster prohibiting
cathedral scholastics from accepting payment for the licenses granted
by them to schoolmasters in towns and villages.
[181] Thus we read that W. de Champeaux held the office of archdeacon
of Paris, and governed the cathedral schools. “It had been the rule,”
says Crevier, “that all who wished to open a school should obtain
a license from the scholasticus, _that is, the chancellor_, of the
church in whose territory they wished to establish themselves.” See
also the statutes of Lichfield Cathedral. (Monas. Anglic. t. 3. p.
34.) “Officium Cancellarii est, sive residens sive non extiterit,
lectiones legendas in ecclesia per se, vel per suum vicarium,
auscultare, male legentes emendare, _scholas conferre_, &c.” (Quoted
by Du Cange.) The chancellor of St. Paul’s, London, had jurisdiction
over all the schools of the city. He was called the _Magister
Scholarum_, and the master of the cathedral grammar school acted as
his vice-chancellor. (Lib. Stat. Eccl. S. Pauli.) In the reign of
Stephen we find an ordinance from the legate, Henry de Blois, to the
effect that all schoolmasters teaching schools in London, without
license from the cathedral scholasticus, should be excommunicated.
[182] Quoted in Catholic University Gazette, Oct. 26, 1854.
[183] Crevier, Hist. de l’Univ. vol. ii.
[184] For a summary of the errors condemned, see Martene, Thesaur.
Anecdot. t. iv. col. 163, 164.
[185] Jasinski, Sum. Ordin. Cap. Gen. p. 403.
[186] Const. FF. Præd. dis. n. note _a._
[187] Const. FF. Præd. dis. ii. note _b._
[188] _Ibid._ Paris, 1236. De Studiis linguarum. S. (Const. Fontana,
1862.)
[189] Const. Dis. ii. De Student. iv. note _g._
[190] Const. F. F. Præd. De Studentibus. This provision of the
ancient Constitutions is commented on by the statutes of more modern
addition, wherein we see the immense importance attached by the Order
to the study of Church history. After speaking of the study of the
Scriptures, it is said: “Another fount of theological science is
ecclesiastical history, which is, as it were, the complement, and
ever-living interpreter of Holy Scripture; so that these two are
the _duo luminaria magna_, illuminating all the faithful in Christ,
and manifesting without a cloud of error, all those truths revealed
by God; for the history of the Church, rightly speaking, is nothing
else than Christian doctrine in act, nor is there any better or more
easy way of knowing the Catholic dogma; for it is nothing else than
a series of battles and triumphs of our faith against the insurgent
heresies, which the Church, by her doctors, martyrs, and decrees of
Popes and Councils has successively pierced through and overcome;
whence the certain interpretation of Scripture and the clear
explanation of tradition and the authoritative definition of dogma,
are all to be found in the History of the Church.” Const. F. F. Præd.
(Fontana, 1862.) De Studio, p. 458.
[191] Fleury, Histoire Eccl. Discours 5^me.
The order of graduation, as it exists at present, is as follows:
Eight years of study are required before any one can be admitted to
the degree of Lector, and to obtain this a student must undergo an
examination in Philosophy, Modern Controversy, Scripture, and the
Summa of St. Thomas. The active or teaching course, required for
the higher degrees of Bachelor and Doctor, remains nearly the same
as in former days. Various modifications have from time to time
been introduced into the legislation of the Order on this point,
but the principle has always been retained of making a long course
of teaching and repeated examinations the test of qualification.
_Secular_ students in a Dominican College, however, may be admitted
to the degree of Doctor after only a three years’ course of Theology,
provided they stand an examination in the Summa; and by the Bull
of Pope Clement XII., all such secular graduates of the Dominican
schools hold the same position in every respect as though they had
been promoted to the Doctorship in the Roman College of the Sapienza.
(Fontana, p. 206.)
[192] His words are as follows: “When I was at Venice, being still
a youth, they were sawing some stones for the repair of one of the
churches, and it chanced that in one of these blocks there appeared
the figure of a head; as of a king, crowned with a long beard. The
countenance had no other defect, save that the forehead was too high
ascending towards the top of the head. All of us who examined it were
satisfied that it was the work of nature. And I being questioned as
to the cause of the disproportioned forehead, replied that this stone
had been coagulated by the work of vapour, and that by means of a
more powerful heat the vapour had arisen without order or measure.”
(Op. tom. 2 De Mineralibus. lib. 2, tract. 3, c. i.) The expressions
here used are somewhat obscure, but they seem to imply that Albert
knew something of those phenomena which geologists explain as the
result of volcanic heat and the action of vapour. “Transformed, or
metamorphic rocks,” says Humboldt, “are those in which the texture
and mode of stratification have been altered either by the contact or
proximity of an irrupted volcanic rock, or, as is more frequently the
case, by the _action of vapours_ and _sublimations_ which accompany
the issue of certain masses in a state of igneous liquefaction.”
(Cosmos. vol. i. p. 236.)
[193] “Quia totum scibile scisti.”--Jammy, Vita B. Alberti.
[194] The very remarkable passage here referred to by Humboldt is to
be found in the Treatise, “De Cælo et Mundo.”
[195] Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 247.
[196] Among these, besides the celebrated speaking head, the account
of which is too legendary to be depended on, we must reckon the
mode of rendering sensible the phenomena of an earthquake, which he
describes in his book on meteors, and which finds a place in most
modern works on popular science; his automata made to move by means
of mercury according to the method of Chinese toys; and the so-called
magic cup, which is still preserved in the Museum of Cologne.
[197] Rutebœuf, the celebrated crusading minstrel of the thirteenth
century, whose reckless sarcasm spared no one, not even St. Louis
himself, endeavoured to console the defeated seculars by directing
his most cutting satire against their opponents, in a piece entitled
“La descorde de l’université et des Jacobins.” The poem contains
many curious illustrations of the manners and studies of the Paris
students, and it need hardly be said that the Jacobins fare but
badly. When first the friars came into the world, he says, they took
lodgings with humility, but now they are masters of Paris and Rome,
Et par leur grant chape roonde
Ont versé l’université.
[198] Ps. ciii. 13.
[199] Boll. Vita S. Thom. p. 712, n. 77.
[200] Institutions Liturgiques, tom. 1, 348.
[201] Frigerio, Vita di S. Tomaso, lib. ii. c. x.
[202] Sixtus of Sienna and Trithemius both declare that St. Thomas
explained _all_ the works of Aristotle, and that he was the first
Latin Doctor who did so, but the Commentaries that are preserved
treat only of fifty two books. This purgation of the pagan philosophy
is alluded to in the Matins hymn for his office, as forming one of
his chief glories:
Plusquam doctores cæteri
Purgans dogma Gentilium.
[203] Qu. 85, Act. 2, Ad. 3
[204] Qu. 84, 7.
[205] Contra Gen. 1, 7.
[206] Qu. i. Act. 8.
[207] Dalgairns, Introduction to the Life of St. Richard, pp. 36, 37.
[208] At Paris 1286, Bourdeaux 1287, and Lucca 1288.
[209] Vie de S. Thomas, livre v. ch. xi.
[210] Echard, de Script. Ord. t. i. 435.
[211] In c. 5. Matth. quoted by Touron, liv. 4, ch. 3.
[212] Lib. 1, contra Gentil. c. 2, quoted by Touron.
[213] Boll. p. 715, n. 80.
[214] This idea is doubtless little in accordance with our ordinary
way of regarding the mechanical arts, but the reader will remember
the words of Scripture, which tells us how the Lord called Beseleel
the son of Uri, and filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom
and understanding and all learning to work in gold and silver and
carpenter’s work; and how He put wisdom into the heart of every
skilful man to know how to work artificially, and to the women that
they might spin fine linen. (Exod. xxxi. 3; xxxv. 25, 35; xxxvi. 1.)
How sublime is this view, which displays to us every part of human
knowledge, the humblest as well as the most profound, as, alike, but
sparks from the One Fontal Light,--the Illuminating Spirit of God!
[215] S. Bonaventure (quoted in the _Dublin Review_, Dec. 1851), from
his small work called “The Reduction of the Arts to Theology.”
[216] De Studio legendi, iii. 3-6, quoted in the Appendix to Newman’s
University Lectures.
[217] Eccl. Hist. vol. 18, p. 434-444.
[218] _Ibid._ vol. 18, p. 444.
[219] See Touron, _Vies des Hommes Illustres_, tom. i. 489-504; where
are also to be found notices of F. Paul Christiani, and other Hebrew
scholars of the order.
[220] These foundations are thought worthy of being named among
his greatest works in the Breviary lessons for the Octave day of
his feast: “Hebraicæ et Arabicæ linguæ publicas scholas in Ordine
Prædicatorum impensis instituit.”
[221] The letter is printed at length in Martene’s Collection, Tom.
iv. col. 1527.
[222] Crevier, Hist. de l’Univ. de Paris. Vol. ii. p. 227. There
is incidental evidence that the Greek and Oriental tongues were
occasionally studied even by members of the secular colleges of
Paris, during this and the following century. Stephen Pasquier speaks
of a certain youth of twenty, who in the year 1445 spoke very subtle
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic, besides many other
tongues; and winds up his account by saying that if an ordinary man
had lived a hundred years without eating and sleeping he could not
have learnt as much as this young prodigy. His learning, however, was
evidently something rather uncommon, for, says the historian, it put
all his fellow-students in fear lest he knew more than human nature
ought to know, and might possibly be “a young Antichrist.”
[223] Ayliffe; State of the University of Oxford, vol. i. p. 106.
[224] Fontana, Const. _De studio Linguarum_. g. p. 467; also
Jasinsky, _Studium Linguarum_. lit. B.
[225] Annibaldi was a pupil of Albert the Great, and took his
Doctor’s degree in Paris, where he enjoyed a very brilliant
reputation. Innocent IV. created him Master of the Sacred Palace.
But being promoted to the purple in 1263 be solicited Urban IV. to
name as his successor in that office a certain learned English Friar,
F. William Bonderinensis, as he is called in the Catalogue of the
Masters, who belonged to the Convent of London, and was the only one
of our countrymen who ever filled that important post.
[226] Hibernia Dominicana, p. 191.
[227] Speech on the Extension of Academic Education in Ireland,
delivered at Cork, Nov. 13, 1844; quoted in an article on the
_Ancient Dominican Irish Schools_; Dublin Review, Sept. 1845.
[228] Hib. Dominicana, p. 193.
[229] Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol. xi, p. 593.
[230] M. Cartier, in his introduction to the Life of Fra Angelico,
has adduced many passages from St. Thomas, not only elucidating
the philosophy of Christian art, but showing that he had a natural
taste for such pursuits, and drew from them more than one graceful
illustration. Thus he lays down the three conditions of beauty to
consist in entireness, proportion, and clearness of colour. He also
enunciates that broad principle which justifies us in requiring that
one who aims at representing spiritual subjects should himself be
holy in life, when he declares that “all inferior forms flow from
the forms which are in the intellect.” For how then, we may argue,
can a spiritual form flow from a debased intellect? And among the
maxims and sayings preserved by his biographers there occur more than
one, the imagery of which seems to show even a practical acquaintance
with the art of painting.
[231] Histoire Eccl., vol. xviii. p. 686.
[232] The image is taken from St. Gregory, who compares secular
letters to the smiths’ tools which were to be found in the hands, not
of the Israelites, but of the Philistines. Nevertheless, he says,
as the Israelites went down to the Philistines and borrowed their
tools to sharpen their own instruments, so Christians may and ought
to use the liberal arts in order to explain and defend the truths of
religion. And those who seek to prohibit the faithful from the study
of the liberal sciences are like the Philistines who did not suffer
the children of Israel to have smiths among them, “lest they should
make them swords or spears.” (S. Greg. in 1 Reg. lib. v. c. iii. No.
30.)
[233] Greith; _Die Deutsche Mystik im Prediger-Orden_, pp 38, 39.
[234] Quoted by Sighart (French Trans.), p. 378.
[235] Summa, 2, 2, qu. 180, 1, ad 1 et 2.
[236] Ibid. 1. 2, qu. 27, a. 2, and 2.
[237] S. Thom. 2, 2, q. 27, a. 6.
[238] Sup. Psal. xxi.
[239] Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.
[240] S. Antoninus, Vita, § 6.
[241] Preface to his _Meditations from St. Thomas_.
[242] Eccles. xxiv. 43, 44, 47 (Lessons for the Common of Doctors).
[243] Leland.
[244] Nevertheless, oddly enough, the susceptibility to natural
beauty and the power of describing it with the pen is often claimed
as one of the good things restored to us by the Renaissance. The
author of Cosmos, in that beautiful Introduction to his work in which
he traces the history of the love of nature, observes that, “when the
sudden intercourse with Greece caused a general revival of classical
literature, we find as _the first example among prose writers_ a
charming description of nature from the pen of Cardinal Bembo.” Had
the writer opened any of the monastic Chronicles in which his own
country is so rich, he would have found that the monks, whom Bembo
would have regarded as barbarians, had been before him as landscape
painters in words, by at least six centuries.
[245] Fescennia, a town of Etruria, was noted in the days of Horace
for the rude extempore verses, full of coarse raillery, composed by
its inhabitants, and commonly known as _Fescennina carmina_ (Hor. Ep.
ii. 1. 145). The _Theonine tooth_ is likewise an expression derived
from Horace (Ep. i. 18. 82); and seems to have been a proverbial
expression derived from Theon, the name of a certain Roman freedman,
well known for his malignant wit. (See Notes on Horace by Rev. A. J.
Maclean.)
[246] If the suggestion to restore the teaching of the Latin prayers
and the plain song of the Church in our parochial schools be deemed
preposterous on the ground of its _difficulty_, we would simply
beg objectors to try the experiment before passing judgment. A
very short experience will prove that with ordinary perseverance
nothing is easier than to make a class of boys recite fluently and
chant correctly from note the Psalms of Vespers or Compline, or the
_Credo_, _Gloria_, and other portions of the Mass; and we may add,
that nothing seems more acceptable to the scholars themselves. What
was possible in an age when the whole instruction must have been
given orally, cannot have any insuperable difficulties about it in
days when every child may be provided with a printed book. Possibly
in a congregation thus trained there might be fewer complaints than
there now are on the score of children behaving badly in church:
for when children understand and take part in what is going on
around them, they do not behave amiss. More valid objections can be
conceived as arising from the difficulty of sparing the time when so
many other subjects have to be taught. But what is more essential
to teach Catholics than their Catholic prayers? and what branch of
secular learning will prove a substitute for sound, genuine, and
intelligent Catholic Faith?
[247] Many different versions exist of this hymn, which may be thus
rendered into modern English: “Saint Mary, pure Virgin Mother of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, take, shield, help mine Godric, take, bring
him safe with thee into the kingdom of God., Saint Mary, bower of
Christ, purity of virgins, flower of mothers, take away my sins,
reign in my mind, and bring me to dwell with the only God.”
[248] The custom was very general in poor parishes. Thus Reginald of
Durham tells us of a certain scholar, Haldene by name, who was wont
to attend the school which, “according to the known and accustomed
usage,” was held in the Church of St. Cuthbert, at Northam. One day
Haldene, who did not know his lessons and was afraid of the rod,
conceived the bright idea of getting hold of the key and throwing it
into the Tweed, so that when the hour of Vespers came no key was to
be found. The example, in far later times, of “Wonderful Walker,”
keeping school in his village church, was therefore but a surviving
relic of the primitive manners.
[249] Antiquities of the Monastical Church of Durham, pp. 54, 77.
[250] Wood. Antiq. of Oxford, lib. i. p. 135.
[251] Ralph Bocking was a Dominican Friar and a native of Chichester,
and wrote the life of the Saint (whose confessor he was) with great
feeling and devotion.
[252] He adds that this decking of the well was prohibited by the
Parliament, as a popish abomination, after which “the water shranke
up.” On this the rustics set the Parliament at defiance and revived
the ancient custom, whereupon, to their inexpressible consolation the
water recommenced flowing.
[253] For a statement of the arguments by which this opinion is
supported, see Rohrbacher, Histoire Eccl. t. xviii. pp. 478-482.
[254] Fleury, who in his fifth Discourse has spoken with equal
contempt of the theological and literary merits of the scholastics,
winds up by reminding the reader that they wrote at a time when
everything exhibited the same bad taste as was displayed in Gothic
architecture, that absurd assemblage of petty ornaments “_which no
architect would ever dream of imitating_.” Nothing endurable in point
of style or art was, according to him, to be seen in Europe from the
fall of the Roman empire until the fifteenth century, that is, during
the whole essentially Christian period. With what amazement would he
have beheld the Christian Renaissance of our own days, and the reflux
of taste into mediæval channels!
[255] Godwin, and some other writers, claim Kilwarby as a Franciscan.
But the evidence in favour of his being a Dominican is irresistible.
He was present at the general chapter of the Order of Preachers
held at Barcelona in 1261; he attended the Provincial chapter
of Montpelier in 1271, and is named in the acts of that council
among other distinguished men of the Order then present. He was
discharged from his office of Provincial in the General Chapter held
at Florence, 1272, but was re-elected by the Provincial Chapter of
England the same year. He is described as a Friar Preacher in the
Patent Rolls of Edward I., when the temporalities of Canterbury
were restored; and Nicholas Trivet, the historian of the Order, who
lived only fifty years after the archbishop, distinctly names him as
a Dominican. Finally, his name does not occur in the Catalogue of
English Franciscan Provincials.
[256] Collier, Eccl. History; vol. i. Book 5, p. 484.
[257] Nich. Trivet. _Annales regum Angliæ_.
[258] For the beautiful narrative of this event see the Life of St.
Edmund, by the Abbé Massé.
[259] His name appears in the MS. Catalogue of Fellows of Merton
under Edward II., preserved in the College Library.
[260] In his inedited commentary on the _Divina Commedia_, written
whilst attending the Council of Constance, he says, “Anagogice
dilexit theologiam sacrum in qua diu studuit tam in Oxoniis in regno
Angliæ, quam Parisiis.” And again: “Dante se in juventute dedit
omnibus artibus liberalibus, studens eas Paduæ, Bononiæ, demum
Oxoniis et Parisiis, ubi fecit multos actus mirabiles, intantum
quod ab aliquibus dicebatur magnus philosophus, ab aliquibus magnus
theologus, ab aliquibus magnus poëta.” It is possible that his
authority for this statement was drawn from English sources; for his
own Latin translation of the poem was undertaken at the request of
two English bishops present at the Council, Bubwith of Bath and Halam
of Salisbury.
[261] Il _maestro vostro_ ben vi scrive.--Par. canto viii.
[262] Par. xxiv. 130.
[263] It must not be supposed, from the mention of _burning_, that
Dante was the object of religious persecution. A reference to the
annals of Florence, Siena, or any of the other Italian republics,
will show that this punishment was very commonly decreed by the
dominant party against their political opponents. Thus Silvestro de’
Medici, on gaining the upper hand in Florence, burnt several citizens
of note, with their palaces. And these atrocious cruelties were
perpetrated for no imaginable crime, but simply to get rid of hated
rivals. In the Revolution of 1369 we read that Bruno da Renaldini had
his head cut off, _senza cagione niuna_.
[264] Par. vi. 106.
[265] Purg. xx. 85.
[266] The celebrated Dominican, Durandus, Bishop of Mende, wrote
his _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ about the year 1290. He may be
considered almost the last of the great liturgical writers of the
Church, the catalogue of whom includes the names of St. Isidore of
Seville, Alcuin, Amalarius of Metz, Walafrid Strabo, Rabanus Maurus,
Bruno of Asti, the Abbot Rupert, Honorius of Autun, and Pope Innocent
III.
[267] Purgatorio, xxii. 101 (Carey’s translation).
[268] Purg. x. 128.
[269]
_Rafel maì amech zàbi almi_,
Comincio a gridar la fiera bocca
Cui non si convenien più dolci salmi.--_Inferno_, xxxi. 70.
[270] Purg. i. 23.
[271] Par. i. 37; Purg. xxx. 89.
[272] Inferno, xxxiv. 110.
[273] See particularly the description of the falcon (Purg. xix. 63),
the lark (Par. xx. 73), the rooks (Par. xxi. 34), the pigeon (Purg.
ii. 118), the cranes (Purg. xxiv. 63), and of other birds (Par.
xviii. 68, xxiii. 1).
[274] Purg. xxviii. 18, i. 113, and xxvii. 76; Par. xxxiii. 77.
[275] Purg. x. 37; Par. xx. 73, and xxxi. 40.
[276] Par. xv. 124 (Carey’s translation).
[277] Tiraboschi, Istoria della Lit. Ital. v. 43.
[278] Soc. Hist. Eccl., l. 3, c. 16.
[279] “Pendant deux siècles, ni parmi les évêques, ni parmi les
prêtres, ni parmi les moines français, on ne rencontre pas un seul
personnage d’une vertu, d’une saintété, d’une doctrine entièrement
approuvées par l’Église. Cette expérience de deux siècles
accuse dans le clergé français _une diminution de l’esprit de
Dieu_.”--Rohrbacher, xxii. 462.
[280] St. Palaye, _Mémoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie_, part i. 7.
[281] Chaucer, _Romaunt of the Rose_. Eustache Deschamps is equally
emphatic on this point:--
Vous qui voulez l’ordre de chevalier
Il vous convient mener nouvelle vie,
Devotement en oraison veillier,
Péché fuir, _orgueil_ et villenie.
[282] Ordre de Chevalerie, fol. 10, 11.
[283] Godwin, _Life of Chaucer_.
[284] How significant are the words _famulus_ and _famula_, by which
the household servants are designated in the unclassical Latin of the
Middle Ages! The _servus_ of the Romans was, we know, nothing more
than a slave; but the _famulus_, whether bond or free, was a member
of the family, and a servant only in that sense in which his master
owned himself the servant of Christ--_famulus Christi_.
[285] Innumerable decrees of provincial councils are to be found
directed against these wandering clerks. And Edward II. issued a
proclamation setting forth, “that whereas many idle and evil men,
under colour of minstrelsy, get received into the houses of the
rich to meat and drink, henceforth no great lord shall receive more
than three or four minstrels of honour; and that none shall thrust
themselves in unless they be sent for.”
[286] Dibdin in his _Typographical Antiquities_ (p. 142) examines
the question whether Trevisa did or did not translate the Bible into
English. To settle the question whether such a book was preserved at
Berkeley Castle (where Trevisa was chaplain in 1387) Dibdin wrote to
the Rev. J. Hughes, who filled the same office in 1807, and received
the following reply:--
“I have the strongest reason for supposing that such a translation
was made in the English language, and that it existed in the family
so late as the time of James I. The book translated by Trevisa was
given as a very precious gift by the Lord Berkeley of that time
to the Prince of Wales, and I have read his letter thanking Lord
Berkeley for the same. He does not positively say that the book was
the Bible, but he says he hopes to make good use of so valuable a
gift. This letter is still extant among the archives of the castle.
Lord Berkeley has informed me that the book so given by his ancestor
is at present in the Vatican Library. When he was at Rome several
persons mentioned to him having seen there such a book, written by
Trevisa; but as he had no opportunity of examining it, he cannot
ascertain if it were the Bible.”
[287] Lamberde’s _Perambulations in Kent_, 1570.
[288] S. Anselmi Elucidarii, lib. ii. cap. 18.
[289] Chaucer’s expansion of some of the Latin of Boëthius, in his
English version of the “Consolation of Philosophie,” has led some
people to suppose that the poet translated from a French rendering
of Boëthius, and not direct from the Latin. If he did so, the
version he would have used was doubtless that of one of his known
favourite authors, Jean de Méung, the continuator of Guillaume
de Lorris’s “Romance of the Rose.” A magnificent copy of Jean de
Méung’s Boëthius, printed in 1494, is in the British Museum. It is
illuminated with miniatures, bound in velvet, and was presented to
Henry VII. A chapter of this has lately been compared with Chaucer’s
translation and the original Boëthius, by Mr. Edward Bell, for the
Early English Text Society; and the result is, that Chaucer’s version
was certainly not made from the French of Jean de Méung, but direct
from Boëthius; though some phrases of the Latin are paraphrased
rather than translated, in order to bring out their meaning more
fully.
[290] Wilk. Con. iii, 242. Quoted by Lingard, v. ch. i.
[291] It appears that so far from being a friend to the classics,
Wickliffe felt almost a superstitious intolerance for anything that
savoured of ancient Rome. In one of his Prologues he condemns the
ecclesiastics for their study of a _pagan_ jurisprudence, meaning
thereby the Roman law.
[292] See Lingard, iv. ch. 3, where he gives several examples of
Wickliffe’s system of non-natural interpretation of his own words.
[293] William Lyndwood, LL.D., was Bishop of St. David’s, and a
learned canonist. He was the author of a collection of constitutions
of the English Primates, entitled, _Provinciale, seu Constitutiones
Angliæ_, which were printed by Caxton.
[294] Strype’s Cranmer, app. 242. We may compare this admission of
the Protestant archbishop with the statute of his royal master (33
Henry VIII. c. 12), whereby it was enacted that “no women not of
gentle birth, nor journeymen, artificers’ apprentices, should read
the Bible in English, either to themselves or others;” whilst another
Act of the same monarch forbade the public reading of the Scriptures.
[295] A field of battle is perhaps the last place where one would
expect to find a Bible; yet in the British Museum is still preserved
the copy of the Scriptures found in the tent of King John of France
after the battle of Poictiers. It may be remarked, that versions of
the Scriptures seem to have appeared in all languages as soon as the
vernacular idiom of any country assumed a literary form. Thus we
see Queen Anne had her Bohemian Catholic translation; and in 1399
the Polish translation was made by command of the learned queen St.
Hedwiges.
[296] The Lollard heresy had been imported from the University of
Oxford into that of Prague by some Bohemian gentlemen, who had come
over to England in the suite of Queen Anne during the height of the
controversy. Prague University at that time numbered as many as
60,000 scholars, and was divided into several nations, and presided
over by sixty deans. Only twelve of the deans were Bohemians, and
the rest Germans. John Huss, the rector of the university, who
eagerly embraced the new opinions, endeavoured to destroy the German
influence; and putting himself at the head of a national party
obtained that in future the Bohemians should have two votes in all
questions affecting the university and all the other nations united
but one. In consequence of this change, which took place in 1409,
the German students forsook the university, which from that time
fell into decay. This _national_ spirit, which was so largely mixed
up with the origin and progress of the Hussite heresy, must be taken
into account when studying the history of those social revolutions
which followed in the track of the new Apostles.
[297] For an account of these foundations see _The Three
Chancellors_. (Burns, 1860.)
[298] The present revenues amount to something like £4000 a
year, and still afford relief to about 140 poor persons. But the
beautiful collegiate church, the carved and gilded roof of which
is still visible, is now converted to domestic purposes. The choir
is occupied by the women’s wards, and the nave by those of the
men. This, however, is better than the fate which has awaited St.
Paul’s Hospital in the same city, which has been transformed into
a Bridewell. Few English cities can have been richer in these
charitable houses than Norwich, which contained, besides its great
College, _seventeen_ hospitals for the poor and the sick, by means
of which it is probable that very sufficient relief was given to all
in distress. For, in most cases, while only a limited number were
received into the house, outdoor relief was very extensively granted,
and at St. Giles’ Hospital it was customary on the Feast of the
Annunciation to distribute alms to 130 necessitous persons.
[299] _i.e._ bread and milk.
[300] Fadeth.
[301] Pierced.
[302] Warton says 600, but this possibly included the Angervyle
Library, which was united to Gloucester’s in 1480. The 129 volumes
named above were valued at £1000. Possibly his collection included
not a few of the 853 volumes sent over from Paris by his brother the
Duke of Bedford.
[303] Carpenter’s Life has been written by Brewer, and a statue to
his memory, on the pedestal of which are engraved all his munificent
deeds, has been erected by the Corporation of London. A catalogue of
his books is given in the Appendix to his Life.
[304] Stowe.
[305] The Saints Lives printed by Caxton are _The Lyf of St. Katherin
of Senis_, Bradshaw’s _Lyf of St. Wenefryde_, and _The Golden
Legende_, of which last he printed three editions.
[306] These he never lived to publish, but the autograph MS. of his
translation from the French is preserved at Cambridge.
[307] Martene has published in his _Collectanea_ an interesting
letter addressed to Cecilia by Gregorio Corraro, an old schoolfellow
of hers at the Joyous House, who then filled the office of Apostolic
Notary, in which he affectionately encourages her in her vocation.
Of her mother, Paula Gonzaga, we read that “she was a woman of
singular virtue, the mirror of excellence to all Italy. She had a
good knowledge of letters, always dressed with great modesty, and
daily recited the Divine Office. It was enough to see her,” adds her
biographer, Vespasiano Bisticci, “to understand what she was.”
[308] According to Echard, the dangerous tendency of his idolatry
of Plato was pointed out to Ficinus by St. Antoninus, who engaged
him to suspend his studies of the heathen philosopher till he had
read the _Summa_ against the Gentiles, of St. Thomas. And he was
wont afterwards to acknowledge that if he had been saved from actual
heresy, he owed it solely to the care of this good pastor.
[309] Some curious facts in connection with the proceedings of
Pomponius and his associates have recently come to light. Among other
discoveries made by the Cavaliere de Rossi in the Roman Catacombs,
are certain inscriptions left there by the Academicians, who appear
to have made use of these sacred excavations, which were at that
time quite neglected by the literary world, as convenient places in
which to hold their secret assemblies. One of the accusations brought
against them by Paul II. was that they sought to make one of their
own members _Pontifex Maximus_. In the Catacombs appear several
inscriptions conferring this title on Pomponius: _Regnante Pom. Pont.
Max._, _Pomponius Pont. Max._, &c.; and others, from which we gather
that the _unanimes antiquitatis amatores_, as they called themselves,
were lovers not merely of ancient names but of ancient manners; and
that they saw no disgrace in thus perpetuating the dissolute habits
of their members. It is remarkable that in none of their writings
have any of the Academicians said one word about the Catacombs; for
though they boasted of being the lovers of antiquity, it was only
Pagan antiquity which they regarded worthy of their study: and the
Catacombs were simply chosen by them for their convenient privacy.
(See De Rossi, _Roma Sutterranea_, tom. i.)
[310] In his second journey into Greece, Lascaris brought back 200
manuscripts, of which eighty were, he informs us, of authors at
that time unknown in Europe. The Medicean Library, however, was
not destined long to survive its noble collector. On the death of
Lorenzo, his son Pietro having become odious to the Florentines
in consequence of his intrigues with Charles VIII. of France, was
compelled to fly, the Medici Palace was sacked, and the great library
fell a little later into the hands of the French soldiery and the
Florentine mob, by whom its vast treasures were soon dispersed. Such
portions as could be recovered, however, were afterwards deposited in
St. Mark’s library.
[311] Bacon, Essay on Gardens.
[312] Wisd. vii. 13.
[313] St. Bernard, _Serm._ xxxvi. in Cantica Canticorum.
[314] Budæus did not escape the suspicion of heretical tendencies,
but the charge appears to have been chiefly grounded on certain
directions contained in his will for the performance of his funeral
obsequies, which his biographers assure us arose from no indifference
to religious ceremonial, but from a characteristic modesty and
dislike of ostentation.
[315] Perhaps I am wrong in calling Erasmus an apostate canon, for
though he quitted his monastery, he at times resumed his habit,
whenever he found it convenient. He generally wore it in England, for
old-fashioned ideas still held their ground at Oxford; and always
appeared with it in Rome, until having been once mobbed by some
ragamuffin boys, he applied to the Pope for a formal permission to
lay it aside for ever.
[316] This was a hit at the monkish Latin, in which _poetria_
sometimes does duty for _poeta_, and, as Erasmus seems to intimate,
for the _ars poetica_ itself.
[317] Menzel, t. 8, p. 455: t. 6, p. 6-10.
[318] Ibid. t. 6, p. 10-13.
[319] To do Francis I. justice, it must be admitted that he had in
his concordat with Leo X. repealed the Pragmatic Sanction; but the
same concordat abolished the right of election to benefices, on the
plea that such a right was too often abused, and gave the Crown the
nomination to all bishoprics, abbeys, and conventual priories within
his dominions, with a few privileged exceptions.--See Gaillard,
_Hist. de Francois I._ t. 6, p. 37.
[320] Not Peter Martyr Vermigli, the celebrated heretic who
afterwards figured as Professor at Oxford, but Peter of Anghieria,
a relation of the Borromeo family, who had come into Spain at the
invitation of the Spanish Ambassador at Rome, and at the solicitation
of Isabella, chose it for his adopted country.
[321] Prescott, Hist. of Ferd. and Isabella.
[322] See Newman’s Lectures; “Athens, the fit site for a university.”
[323] It was the scene of the martyrdom of the two scholars, Justus
and Pastor. See Prudentius, Hymn 4.
[324] By the middle of the seventeenth century the ten colleges of
the founder had increased to the number of thirty-five.
[325] This is generally spoken of as the first Italian comedy.
The first dramatic composition of the Italian muse, however, was
the Orpheus of Politian. Previous to this time the only scenic
representations known in Italy were sacred mysteries drawn from
Scripture. The questionable _glory_ of introducing profane
performances is due to Pomponius Lætus, who, along with his other
revivals of ancient Roman manners, caused the comedies of Terence and
Plautus to be acted in Rome, in which enterprise, says Maffei, he
was greatly seconded by Cardinal Riario, who opened a theatre in his
own private house. Jovius tells us that Cardinal Bibiena organised a
staff of skilful players, and encouraged the youths of Rome to take
part in his theatricals.
[326] Jovius, the first historian of his time, was accustomed frankly
to avow that “he had two pens, one of gold and the other of iron,
to write of princes according to the favours or slights which they
bestowed.” The Medicean princes were fortunate enough to secure the
services of the golden pen, and Clement VII. rewarded his services
with the bishopric of Nocera.
[327]
Vivere qui sancte vultis, discedite Roma:
Omnia hic esse licet, non licet esse probum.
[328] Pietro Pomponatus is by some writers erroneously confounded
with Pomponius Lætus, the founder of the Roman academy, of whom
mention has been made in a foregoing chapter. They resembled one
another as in their philosophic errors, so also in their sincere
conversion before their death. Pomponius died in 1495; Pomponatus,
thirty years later.
[329] The following are the words of Pope Leo X. in the Bull,
_Apostolici regiminis_:--“As truth cannot contradict truth, we
declare every assertion contrary to the truth of Divine faith to be
absolutely false, and strictly forbid any one to teach differently;
we command that those who adhere to such assertions shall be avoided
and punished, as men who seek to disseminate damnable heresies.”
Moreover, he rigorously prescribes to all and each of those who give
public lessons of philosophy in the universities and elsewhere,
that when they read or explain to their pupils the principles and
conclusions of those philosophers who notoriously wander from the
orthodox faith ... “they employ every effort to set before their eyes
the truth of the Christian religion, and persuade them to it with
all their power, and use every care to refute and expose philosophic
arguments of this kind, since there are none such which cannot be
refuted.”
[330] His critics, however, accuse him of often enough falling into
the like absurdities. In his version of the New Testament he was
accused of continually using pagan expressions, and even of adopting
the word _fable_ when speaking of the plan of Redemption, using it
in the sense in which it is employed by the ancient dramatists to
express the action which they portray.
[331] Also known as Philip of Having, or Philip de Bonne Espérance,
from the name of the abbey which he governed in the twelfth century.
He was the author of many learned works, and the good studies he
established in his abbey continued to flourish down to the eighteenth
century.
[332] A word first created by the Humanists, who made the name of
_Duns_ Scotus to stand for an ignoramus.
[333] Ps. lxx. 15.
[334] For the decrees of the Council on these heads, see Rohrbacher,
vol. xxii. ch. v.
[335] Audin. Hist. de Luth., ch. viii.
[336] Zach. viii. 3.
[337] Knight, in his life of Colet, remarks that “the History
and Antiquities of Oxford sufficiently confess that nothing was
known there but Latin, and that in the most depraved style of the
schoolmen.” Yet two pages back he has quoted from Wood an account
of Colet’s university studies, which show that this statement, like
many of a similar import, is grossly exaggerated. Colet, he says,
was educated in grammaticals in London, and then, after spending
seven years at Oxford in logicals and philosophicals, was licensed
to proceed to arts, “in which he _became so exquisitely learned that
all Tully’s works were as familiar to him as his Epistles_.” He
also read, conferred, and paralleled Plato and Plotinus (in Latin
translations), and attained great eminence in mathematics. Erasmus,
on occasion of his first visit to Oxford, writes thus to his friend
Pisco:--“You ask, does our beloved England please me? Nothing ever
pleased me so much. I have found here _classic erudition, and that
not trite and shallow, but profound and accurate, both Latin and
Greek_, so that I no longer sigh for Italy.” In fact, his own Greek
learning was chiefly acquired at Oxford, for previous to his coming
thither, his knowledge of that language was very superficial.
Elsewhere, he says, “I think, from my very soul, there is no country
where abound so many men skilled in every kind of learning as there
are here.”
[338] “Right studious she was in books,” says Bishop Fisher in his
funeral sermon on this princess, “of which she had great number both
in English, Latin, and French, and did translate divers matters of
devotion out of French into English.”
[339] Mr. Seebohm’s interesting work on the “Oxford Reformers of
1498” has appeared since the publication of our first edition. His
view of Colet’s character is naturally a more favourable one than
that here given; but in representing him as a sort of Broad Churchman
of the sixteenth century, he sufficiently justifies our strictures on
Colet as a Catholic divine.
[340] Knight, quoting from Antiq. Britan., speaks of his preaching
a _second_ sermon after his interview with Henry VIII., wherein, at
the king’s request, he spoke in _favour_ of the French war. Of this
Erasmus says nothing.
[341] To these free views, most Protestant writers, following the
authority of Fox and Knight, have added that Colet was opposed to the
practice of Auricular Confession. This charge is, however, distinctly
disproved in his life. Not only did he bear witness to the comfort
and help he himself found in the practice, but in his “Institution
of a Christian Man,” written for the use of his school, he expressly
enjoins the frequent use of confession. ‘Use oft tymes confessyon,’
is one of his “Precepts of Lyvynge,” besides other directions for the
reception of the Sacraments of Penance and Houslynge, in sickness,
and the hour of death. Colet’s strictures, however free, were in
fact never directed against the doctrines of the Church, but only
against popular practices of devotion. The idea of his having set
himself against the use of one of the sacraments, so very welcome to
those who would fain claim him as a precursor of the Reformation, has
arisen from a gross misconstruction put upon a passage in one of the
Epistles of Erasmus. That writer, speaking of his deceased friend,
says, among other things, “Ut confessionem secretam _vehementer
probabat_, negans se ulla ex re capere tantundem consolationis ac
boni spiritus; ita _anxiam ac subinde repetitam vehementer damnabat_”
(Eras. Jod. Jon. Ep. 577). Knight, in his Life of Colet (p. 68),
paraphrases this sentence in the following extraordinary manner:
“Though he approved of private confession, receiving himself a great
deal of comfort and inward satisfaction from the use of it, yet he
could not but condemn the popular custom of the frequent repetitions
of what they called _auricular confession_.” The uninitiated
Protestant reader is here given to understand that _private
confession_ was something quite distinct from _what they called
auricular confession_, and that whilst Colet approved of the one,
he vehemently condemned the other. The plain fact, of course, being
that he approved, practised, and enjoined the right and proper use
of the Sacrament of Penance, but condemned the indiscreet use which
may be made of it by scrupulous and weak-headed penitents. And it is
probable that most directors would be of the same opinion.
[342] Fox tells us that Colet sat with some others as judge on
certain Lollards, who were burnt for heresy.
[343] In connection with the name of Ammonius, I cannot help noticing
the ridiculous use which has been made of one of his familiar letters
to Erasmus. A native of Lucca, he suffered much from the inclement
English climate, and grumbles about it sadly, saying, moreover, that
the burning of heretics has raised the price of wood. Erasmus replies
in the same vein: “I am angry with the heretics for making wood so
dear for us in this cold season.” The jest was rather a heartless
one, yet it was but a jest; twenty-three heretics had been induced
to recant, but no more than _two_ had suffered in England up to
this date of Henry’s reign: nevertheless, Knight, and some other
writers, have made out from this passage the grave historic fact
that such numbers were put to death at this time that _all the wood
in London was spent in burning them_! The fact is, that Ammonius and
Erasmus ceaselessly exercised their wits upon each other, and all
their letters are couched in the same style of banter. Thus Erasmus
professing to instruct his friend how to get on in England, says in
the same merry strain: “First of all, my dear Ammonius, be impudent,
thrust yourself into everybody’s business, elbow every one who stands
in your way, give nothing to anybody without a prospect of getting
something better, and always consult your own advantage.”
[344] This mystic number bore reference to the miraculous draught of
fishes mentioned in St. John’s Gospel: ch. xxi. 11.
[345] Holte was usher at Magdalen school, and published his grammar
in 1497, under the patronage of Cardinal Morton. Among the grammars
enumerated by Erasmus, was one entitled “Mammotrectus” (or “a boy
taught by his grandmother”), a name which, as we shall see, was sadly
out of place in the academies of the sixteenth century. Before Lily’s
time, says Wood, there were as many grammars as masters, and the
rules of one were contradicted in another.
[346]
From Paul’s I went, to Eton sent,
To learn straightway the Latin phrase,
Where fifty-three stripes given to me
At once I had;
For fault but small, or none at all,
It came to pass thus beat I was,
See, Udall, see, the mercy of thee
To me, poor lad.
The result of the Eton system was, that many boys ran away from
the school to escape a beating, a circumstance which led Ascham to
compose his “Schoolmaster,” wherein, like Sir J. Elyot, he pleads for
a more humane treatment of young scholars.
[347] Erasmus, de Pueris instituendis. Mr. Seebohm questions the fact
of Colet being the “theologian” here referred to.
[348] Exercita Spiritualia. _Regulæ ad sentiendum vere cum Ecclesia._
[349] Hall.
[350] Ep. 871.
[351] Wilkins, Con. iii. 736. Collier, ii. 52, 53.
[352] Pole had explained the motives of his conduct in a letter
addressed to the king, of which Cranmer writes: “It is written with
such eloquence, that if it were set forth and known to the common
people, I suppose it were not possible to persuade them to the
contrary.”
[353] Pollina, lib. i. ch. xxix.
[354] As Flaminius is frequently made much of by Protestant writers
as an adherent to their opinions, it may be as well to add that
the passage touching his conversion by Pole, which appears in the
original Italian life of Beccadelli, is omitted in Dudizio’s Latin
translation. Beccadelli was the personal friend both of Pole and
Flaminius, and his testimony is above suspicion.
[355] This is admitted by Ascham, who after boasting in one letter
that Homer, Thucydides, and Xenophon are now critically studied at
Oxford, is to be found very soon afterwards complaining that these
authors are being neglected for others of an inferior calibre. It was
no better at Cambridge, where, after the departure of Sir John Cheke,
the classical revival died a natural death, the study of divinity
having expired long before. “It would pity a man’s heart,” says
Latimer, “to hear what I hear of the state of Cambridge. There be few
that study divinity, save those who must of necessity furnish the
colleges.”
[356] Erasmus died two years before the publication of this report.
His “Colloquies” were intended as an educational work, and were
written originally for the use of the son of his printer, Froben,
their elegant Latinity having found them a ready admittance into the
schools. He died in the Protestant city of Basle, unfortified by
the sacraments of the Church. His friends erected a monument to his
memory, which they surmounted with a bust of the God Terminus, and
his fellow-citizens of Rotterdam raised his statue in their great
square, the bronze of which was obtained by melting down a large
crucifix which had formerly stood there. The condemnation of his
“Colloquies” by the congregation of cardinals, was confirmed by the
judgment of the Council of Trent, which caused several of his works
to be placed on the index.
[357] _Concilium delectorum cardinalium et aliorum Prælatorum de
emendanda Ecclesia, S. D. N. D. Paulo III. ipso jubente conscriptum,
et exhibitum, anno MDXXXVIII._
[358] It is perhaps only fair to notice the earlier efforts made by
St. Jerome Æmilian to establish religious colleges and seminaries for
the clergy. He appears to have been greatly assisted by the advice
of St. Cajetan, and as he died in 1537, must be reckoned as one of
the first who organised any scheme for the reform of education. The
regular clerks of Somascha continue to this day to carry on the work
of their holy founder.
[359] It is stated by Phillips in his Life of Pole, that the rough
draft of the decree was after his death found among his papers.
Pallavicini tells us that during his absence at Padua, all important
questions were communicated to him by his colleagues, _especially_
the decree on Justification.
[360] Wilkins, Concilia, t. iv. p. 135.
[361] They were the Cardinals Moroni, Hosius, Gonzaga, D’Altemps, and
Navagerio. Cardinals Simonetta and Seripando had also been joined in
the Legation, but both died in the early part of 1563, and Cardinal
Navagerio was appointed in room of Seripando.
[362] _Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Sess. xxiii. ch.
xviii. Pallavicini, lib. xxi. ch. xii. n. 8._ The prelate who most
warmly supported the decree was Balduino Balduini, bishop of Aversa.
See Martene, Coll. Vet. Scrip. tom. viii.
[363] Pallavicini, lib. xxi. ch. viii. n. 3.
[364] Pall., lib. xxiv. c. 7. n. 2.
[365] The words of M. Olier on this subject are worthy of quotation:
“The true and only superior of the seminary is the bishop, who,
containing in himself the plenitude of that grace and spirit which
is to be shed over the diocese, can alone impart to it its spirit
and its life. What the head is to the natural body, the bishop must
be in the mystical body of his clergy, and we should labour in
vain did we try any other means of sanctifying the ecclesiastical
colleges. However excellent may be the sanctity possessed by those
eminent and virtuous personages who are to be found scattered through
the dioceses, not having that peculiar and essential grace, that
spirit of headship (_cet esprit de chef_), which is attached to the
sacred character of the episcopate, they cannot attain the fulness
of spirit and of life which is capable of filling and vivifying the
whole body of the clergy: for, according to St. Paul, this must flow
from the head to the members by means of those joints, veins, and
nerves intended for the distribution and communication of life. And
these channels communicating with the Fountain Head are nothing else
than the priests united to their bishop, according to the primitive
ordinance of Jesus Christ.”--_Vie de M. Olier_, _t._ 2. _p._ 354.
[366] The Catholic university of Thonon was founded exactly with
a similar purpose by Clement VIII., at the request of St. Francis
of Sales, and the German bishops are said at one time to have
contemplated the foundation of a university for the benefit of the
Catholic youth of Germany.
[367] 1 Tim. iv. 15.
[368] Up to the present time, as we are informed by Dr. Döllinger,
in his inaugural discourse to the University of Munich, the Italian
clergy, the most numerous of Europe, make no use of the universities,
but are content with the 217 Episcopal seminaries which they possess
in their various dioceses.
[369] Ab Ecclesiis vero, musicas eas ubi, sive organo sive cantu,
lascivum aut impurum aliquid miscetur, arceant Episcopi. Sess. xx.
ch. ix.
[370] Caveant Episcopi ne strepitu incondito sensus sepeliatur.
[371] Pall., lib. xxiv. ch. ix. n. 6.
[372] Parvum gregem bonus Pastor, sancte quieteque pascebat. (Carol.
Basc. in Vita S. Caroli. l. i. c. 6, p. 9.) It would seem as if this
remarkable man were destined to take part in every good work set on
foot during his lifetime, for in 1574 we find him in Spain, where as
Apostolic Nuncio, he supported St. Theresa in her reforms. His love
of strict discipline earned for him from the wits the nickname of
“The World’s Reformer.”
[373] In the Acts of the Church of Milan (part 5, p. 948) are
given the rules for study, drawn by St. Charles for the use of his
seminarists. There was to be a grammar class, divided into two
sections, which were to be exercised in the grammar of Emanuel
Alvarez, the Jesuit, the Epistles of Cicero, and some of the works of
Ovid and Virgil. The second class was to be that of the Humanities,
also subdivided into two sections, in both of which the students
were to practise an elegant Latin style, and to study Cicero _De
Officiis_, his epistles to Atticus, and corrected editions of Virgil
and Horace. The Greek grammar of Clenard, a celebrated professor of
Louvain, was likewise to be explained three times in the week. In the
Jesuit schools of Milan the Hebrew language was likewise taught.
[374] They did, in fact, after this take an engagement to serve the
diocese for at least three years.
[375] 2 Esdras, iv. 17.
[376] Eccles. l. 8.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious printer and scanning errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation such as
“Boethius/Boëthius” and “Anglo-Saxon/Anglo Saxon” have been
maintained.
All changes noted in the ERRATA at the end of the book have been
applied to the etext.
Page x: “The nuns of Wimbonrne” changed to “The nuns of Wimbourne”.
Page 5: Second Footnote “1” changed to Footnote “2” after as St.
Jerome and Cassian.
Page 25: Added ellipsis after “taught the fables of the poets.”
Page 69: “wherein the ten fingures” changed to “wherein the ten
fingers”.
Page 127: “the other day a man stanning” changed to “the other day
a man standing”.
Page 134: “The whloe was explained in the” changed to “The whole
was explained in the”.
Page 154: “the result was that Ragtar” changed to “the result was
that Ratgar”.
Page 179: “from Jerusalem, came to Mount Albancta” changed to “from
Jerusalem, came to Mount Albaneta”.
Page 186: “the Church was not then exelusively” changed to “the
Church was not then exclusively”.
Page 212: “In there be any spot in England ” changed to “If there
be any spot in England”.
Page 223: “by the monks on their count” changed to “by the monks on
their countrymen”.
Page 319: “neglect the composition of haxameters” changed to
“neglect the composition of hexameters”.
Page 330: “sort of classical renaissanee” changed to “sort of
classical renaissance”.
Page 351: “heaven and earth he did no tknow” changed to “heaven and
earth he did not know”.
Page 379: “ordored that after his death” changed to “ordered that
after his death”.
Page 382: “superncially studied the intellectual era” changed to
“superficially studied the intellectual era”.
Page 382: “logical studies had many tbuses” changed to “logical
studies had many abuses”.
Page 409: “wrought by the ministry of doctom” changed to “wrought
by the ministry of doctors”.
Page 437: “education which in the twelth” changed to “education
which in the twelfth”.
Page 477: Second “his” removed in “met in his walk by a ferocious
boar”.
Page 557: “teputed talents induced the primate” changed to “reputed
talents induced the primate”.
Page 575: “there to sing the divine offoe” changed to “there to
sing the divine office”.
Page 606: “eloquence for his express ocoupation” to “eloquence for
his express occupation”.
Page 613: “extihction of the Greek schism” changed to “extinction
of the Greek schism”.
Page 614: “ready to read to a learned asseinbly” changed to “ready
to read to a learned assembly”.
Page 625: “inflnence of heathenism and sensuality” changed to
“influence of heathenism and sensuality”.
Page 632: “reaby lived, wrote, taught, and prayed” changed to
“really lived, wrote, taught, and prayed”.
Page 687: “Wolsey reprinted this little manuel” changed to “Wolsey
reprinted this little manual”.
Page 701: “whom he took under his plotection” changed to “whom he
took under his protection”.
Page 728: (Index) “Artrology” changed to “Astrology”.
Page 734: (Index) “Madgeburgh” changed to “Magdeburgh”.
Page 736: (Index) “Bishoo” changed to “Bishop”.
Page 736: (Index) “Flotentius” changed to “Florentius”.
Page 738: (Index) “Hieldesheim” changed to “Hildesheim”.
Footnote 5: Double quote added after “more like reading than
singing”.
Footnote 230: “spirivial form flow from a debased” changed to
“spiritual form flow from a debased”.
Footnote 230: “And among the mixims” changed to “And among the
maxims”.
Footnote 298: “boautiful collegiate church” changed to “beautiful
collegiate church”.
Footnote 313: “St. Pernard, Serm” changed to “St. Bernard, Serm”.
Errata: Page 348, line 15 from top, for “science” read “art”.
Errata: Page 348, line 15 from top, for “seven” read “other”.
Errata: Page 392, line 6, for “degrees,” read “decrees”. (Note:
Errata page in printed book listed page 492 instead of 392.)
Errata: Page 406, line 10 from bottom, for “logic” read
“metaphysics”.