Chapter 13

(A. Mw.)

EDMUND I.,king of the English (d. 946), was the son of Eadgifu, third wife of Edward the Elder, and half-brother to his predecessor Æthelstan. He succeeded to the throne in 940, but had already played an active part in the previous reign, especially when he fought by the side of his half-brother in the great battle of Brunanburh.

In the first year of his reign Edmund had trouble with Olaf or Anlaf Sihtricsson, called Cuaran. The latter had just crossed from Ireland and had been chosen king by the Northumbrians, who threw off their allegiance to Edmund. Anlaf took York, besieged Northampton and destroyed Tamworth, but was met by Edmund at Leicester. The enemy escaped, but a peaceful settlement was made by the good offices of Odo of Canterbury and Wulfstan of York. Simeon of Durham states that a division of the kingdom was now made, whereby Edmund took England south of Watling Street and Anlaf the rest. This division seems incredible, especially in face of the poem inserted in the chronicle (sub anno942). There can be little doubt that the story told there of the reconquest of Northern Mercia by Edmund refers to the compact with Anlaf, made as a result of the campaign, and it is probable that Simeon’s statement is a wide exaggeration, due in part at least to a confused reminiscence of the earlier pact between Alfred and Guthrum. All Mercia south of a line from Dore (near Sheffield), through Whitwell to the Humber, was now in Edmund’s hands, and the five Danish boroughs, which had for some time been exposed to raids from the Norwegian kings of Northumbria, were now freed from that fear. The peace was confirmed by the baptism of Kings Anlaf and Rægenald, Edmund standing as sponsor, but in 944 or 945 the peace was broken and Edmund expelled Anlaf and Rægenald from Northumbria.

In 945 Edmund ravaged Strathclyde, and entrusted it all to Malcolm, king of Scotland, “on condition that he should be his fellow-worker by sea and land,” the object of this policy being apparently to detach the king of Scots from any possible confederacy such as had been formed in 937.

On the 26th of May 946 Edmund’s brief but energetic reign came to a tragic conclusion when he was stabbed at the royal villa of Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire, by an exiled robber named Liofa, who had returned to the court unbidden. Edmund, the “deed-doer” as the chronicle calls him, “Edmundus magnificus” as Florence of Worcester describes him, perhaps translating the Saxon epithet, was buried at Glastonbury, an abbey which he had entrusted in 943 to the famous Dunstan.

Edmund was twice married; first to Ælfgifu, the mother of Eadwig and Edgar; second to Æthelflæd “æt Damerhame” (i.e.of Damerham, Co. Wilts). Ælfgifu died in 944, according to Ethelwerd.

Authorities.—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle(ed. Earle and Plummer, Oxford);Simeon of Durham(Rolls Series);A.S. Laws, ed. Liebermann, pp. 184-191; Birch,Cartularium Saxonicum, Nos. 745-817;Dictionary of National Biography, s.v.

(A. Mw.)

EDMUND,orEadmund(c.980-1016), calledIronside, king of the English, was the son of Æthelred II. by his first wife Ælfgifu. When Canute invaded England in 1015, Edmund sought to resist him, but, paralysed by the treachery and desertion of the ealdorman Edric, he could do nothing, and Wessex submitted to the Danish king. Next year Canute and Edric together harried Mercia, while Edmund with infinite difficulty gathered an army. Returning into Northumbria, he in his turn harried the districts which had submitted to the invader, but a march northward by Canute brought about the speedy submission of Northumbria and the return of Edmund to London. The death of Æthelred on the 23rd of April 1016 was followed by a double election to the English crown. The citizens of London and those members of the Witan who were present in the city chose Edmund, the rest of the Witan meeting at Southampton elected Canute. In the warfare which ensued Edmund fought at the severest disadvantage, for his armies dispersed after every engagement, whatever its issue. Canute at once fiercely besieged London, but the citizens successfully resisted all attacks. Edmund meanwhile marched through Wessex and received its submission. At Pen in Somersetshire he engaged the Danes and defeated them. Canute now raised the siege of London and soon afterwards encountered Edmund at Sherston in Wiltshire. The battle was indecisive, but Canute marched back to London and left Edmund in possession of Wessex. Edmund hastened after him and relieved London, which he had again besieged. He defeated the Danes at Brentford and again at Otford, and drove them into Sheppey. He was now joined by Edric, in conjunction with whom he followed the Danes into Essex, overtaking them at Assandun (or Ashington). In the battle which ensued Edric again played the traitor, and the English were routed with terrible slaughter. Edmund retired into Gloucestershire, whither he was followed by Canute. He himself was anxious to continue the struggle, but Edric and the Witan persuaded him to accept a reconciliation. At Olney the two rivals swore friendship, and a division of the kingdom was effected—Canute taking the north, Edmund the south. Soon afterwards Edmund died (30th of November 1016), probably from natural causes, though later historians hint at foul play.

(C. S. P.*)

EDMUND,king of Sicily and earl of Lancaster (1245-1296), was the second son of Henry III. of England by Eleanor of Provence. At ten years of age Edmund was invested by Pope Alexander IV. with the kingdom of Sicily (April 1255); the pecuniary obligations which Henry III. undertook on his son’s behalf were not the least among the causes which led to the Provisions of Oxford and the Barons’ War. Alexander annulled his grant in 1258, but still pressed Henry for the discharge of unpaid arrears of subsidies. In 1265, after Montfort’s fall, Edmund received the earldom of Leicester, and two years later was created earl of Lancaster. He joined the crusade of his elder brother, the Lord Edward (1271-1272); and Edward, on his accession, found in Edmund a loyal supporter. In 1275, two years after the death of his first wife, Aveline de Fortibus, Edmund married Blanche of Artois, the widow of Henry III. of Navarre and Champagne. Although the county of Champagne had descended to his wife’s infant daughter, Joan, Edmund assumed the title “Count Palatine of Champagne and Brie,” and is described in the English patent rolls as earl of Lancasterand Champagne. Until 1284 he held, in his wife’s right, the custody of Champagne. This he was compelled to renounce upon the marriage of Joan to Philip the Fair, the heir to the crown of France. But he retained the possession of his wife’s dowerlands in Champagne, and is described in an official document of Champagne so late as the year 1287, as “the Count Edmund.” He was employed by his brother as a mediator with Philip the Fair in 1293-1294. When Philip’s court pronounced that the king of England had forfeited Gascony, Edmund renounced his homage to Philip and withdrew with his wife to England. He was appointed lieutenant of Gascony in 1296, but died in the same year, leaving a son Thomas to succeed him in his English possessions.

See “Edmund, Earl of Lancaster,” by W.E. Rhodes, in theEnglish Historical Review, vol. x. pp. 19, 209.

EDMUNDS, GEORGE FRANKLIN(1828- ), American lawyer and political leader, was born in Richmond, Vermont, on the 1st of February 1828. He began the practice of law in 1849. He was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives in 1854, 1855, 1857, 1858 and 1859, acting for the last two years as speaker, and was a member and presidentpro tem.of the state Senate in 1861-1862. In 1866 he became a member, as a Republican, of the United States Senate, where he remained until 1891, when he resigned in order to have more time for the practice of his profession. He took an active part in the attempt to impeach President Johnson. He was influential in providing for the electoral commission to decide the disputed presidential election of 1876, and became one of the commissioners. In the national Republican nominating conventions of 1880 and 1884 he was a candidate for the presidential nomination. From 1882 to 1885 he was presidentpro tem.of the Senate. As senator he was conspicuous on account of his legal and parliamentary attainments, his industry and his liberal opinions. He was the author of the so-called Edmunds Act (22nd of March 1882) for the suppression of polygamy in Utah, and of the anti-trust law of 1890, popularly known as the Sherman Act.

EDOM,the district situated to the south of Palestine, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of ‘Akaba (Aelanitic Gulf), the inhabitants of which were regarded by the Israelites as a “brother” people (seeEsau). On the E. it touched Moab, the tribes of the great desert and the northern part of Arabia; on the W. its boundaries were determined by the Sinaitic peninsula, Egypt and Israel. Both Kadesh and Mt. Hor (perhaps Jebel Mādera) are represented as lying on its border (Num. xx. 16, 22), and the modern Wadi el-Fikreh, in which the “Scorpion pass” was probably situated (Judg. i. 36; Num. xxxiv. 4), may have marked its limits from Jebel Mādera north-west towards the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. Kadesh (‘Ain Ḳadis), however, lies about 50 m. south of Beersheba (the southern end of Israel as opposed to Dan in the north), and the precise borders must always have been determined by political conditions: by the relations between Edom and its neighbours, Judah, the Philistine states, Moab, and the restless desert tribes with which Edom was always very closely allied.

The northern part of Edom became known by a separate name as Gebalene (Gebal in Ps. lxxxiii. 7), the modern Jibāl, “mountain country.” Seir or Mt. Seir, a synonym for Edom, not to be confused with the Judaean locality (Josh. xv. 10), has been identified with the moderneš-šarah, the hilly region to the south of Petra; though its use probably varied in ancient times as much as that of Edom certainly did. Mt. Ḥalaḳ, apparently one of its offshoots (Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7), is of uncertain identification, nor can the exact position of Paran (probably desert ofet-Tih) or Zin (Sin) be precisely determined. The chief Edomite cities extended from north to south on or adjoining an important trade-route (see below); they include Bozrah (Buseire), Shōbek, Petra (the capital), and Ma‘ān; farther to the south lay the important seaports Ezion-Geber (mod. ‘Ain el-Ghudyān, now 15 m. north of the head of the Aelanitic Gulf) and Elath (whence the gulf derives its name). Petra (q.v.) is usually identified with the biblical Sela, unless this latter is to be placed at the south end of the Dead Sea (Judg. i. 36). The sites of Teman and Dedan, which also were closely associated with Edom (Jer. xlix. 7 seq.; Ez. xxv. 13), are uncertain. No doubt, as a general rule, the relations between Edomites and the “sons of the east” (Ezek. xxv. 10; Job i. 3) and the “kingdoms of Hazor” (nomad states; Jer. xlix. 28, 30, 33) varied considerably throughout the period of O.T. history.

The land of Edom is unfruitful and forbidding, with the notable exception of fertile districts immediately south of the Dead Sea and along its eastern border. It was traversed by an important trade-route from Elath (the junction for routes to Egypt and Arabia) which ran northwards by Ma’ān and Moab; but cross-routes turned from Ma’ān and Petra to Gaza or up the Ghor (south end of Dead Sea) to Hebron and Jerusalem.1Thus Edom formed a prominent centre for traffic from Arabia and its seats of culture to Egypt, the Philistine towns, Palestine and the Syrian states, and it enjoyed a commercial importance which made it a significant factor in Palestinian history.

The earliest history of Edom is that of the “sand-dwellers,” “archers” orShasu(perhaps “marauders”), whose conflicts with ancient Egypt are not infrequently mentioned. The first clear reference is in the eighth year of Mineptah II. (close of 13th centuryB.C.), when a tribe of Shasu from Aduma received permission to enter Egypt and feed their flocks.2A little more than a century later Rameses III. claims to have overthrown the Saaru among the tribes of the Shasu, and the identification of this name with Seir is usually recognized, although it is naturally uncertain whether the Edomites of Old Testament tradition are meant. According to the latter, the Edomites were a new race who drove out the Horites from Mt. Seir. The designation suggests that these were “cave-dwellers,” but although many caves and hollows have been found about Petra (and also in Palestine), this tradition probably “serves only to express the idea entertained by later generations concerning their predecessors” (Nöldeke).

Not only is Edom as a nation recognized as older than Israel, but a list of eight kings, who reigned before the Israelite monarchy, is preserved in Gen. xxxvi.

The first Bela, son of Beor, is often identified with Balaam, but the traditions of the Exodus are not precise enough to warrant the assumption that the seer was the king of a hostile land in Num. xx. 14 sqq., which in Deut. ii. 1-8 appears to have been peaceful; seeBalaam;Exodus. In Husham, the third king, several scholars (Grätz, Klostermann, Marquart, &c.) have recognized the true adversary of Othniel (q.v.; Judg. iii.). The defeat of Midian in the land of Moab by his successor Hadad has been associated with the Midianite invasion in the time of Gideon (q.v.; Judg. vi. sqq.). The sixth is Shaul, whose name happens to be identical with Saul, king of Israel, whilst the last Hadad (so 1 Chron. i. 50) of Pau (or Peor in Moab, so the Septuagint) should belong to the time of David. The list, whatever its value, together with the other evidence in Gen. xxxvi., implies that the Edomites consisted of a number of local groups with chieftains, with a monarchy which, however, was not hereditary but due to the supremacy of stronger leaders. The tradition thus finds an analogy in the Israelite “judges” before the time of Saul and David.

Saul, the first king of Israel, conquered Edom (1 Sam. xiv. 47).3Of the conquest of Edom by David, the first king of the united Judah and Israel, several details are given (2 Sam. viii. 13 seq.; 1 Kings xi. 14 sqq.; 1 Chron. xviii. 11 seq.; cf. Ps. lx. title and ver. 8 seq.), although the account of the slaughter is certainly exaggerated. The scene was the valley of Salt, probably to the south of the Dead Sea. Of the escape of the Edomite prince Hadad, and of his residence in Egypt, a twofold account ispreserved.4After the death of David he returned to Edom; if, as the narrative implies, he became a troublesome adversary to Solomon, nothing is known of his achievements, and if the royal trading-journeys from Ezion-geber were maintained, Edom could have done little. However, in the first half of the 9th century Edom was under the rule of Jehoshaphat of Judah, and this king together with Israel held Ezion-geber (1 Kings xxii. 47 sqq.; 2 Chron. xx. 35 sqq.). But some catastrophe befell the fleet, and shortly afterwards Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram had to face a revolt in which Edom and the men of Libnah (the Philistines) were concerned. It was about this period that Israel had conquered Moab, thrusting it farther south towards Edom, and the subsequent success of Moab in throwing off the yoke, and the unsuccessful attempt of Jehoram of Israel to regain the position, may show that Edom was also in alliance with Moab.5In the time of Adad-nirari of Assyria (812-783B.C.) Edom is mentioned as an independent tributary with Beth-Omri (Israel) and Palashtu (Philistia); the absence of Judah is perplexing. Amaziah of Judah had gained a signal victory over Edom in the valley of Salt (2 Kings xiv. 7), but after his defeat by Jehoash of Israel there is a gap and the situation is obscure. Consequently it is uncertain whether Edom was the vassal of the next great Israelite king Jeroboam II., or whether the Assyrian evidence for its independent position belongs to this later time. However, Uzziah, a contemporary of Jeroboam II., and one of the most successful of Judaean kings, overcame Edom and its natural allies (2 Chron. xxvi. 6 sqq.), and at this stage Edomite history becomes more prominent. It joined the great coalition in which Philistia and Israel were leagued against Assyria, and drove out the Judaeans who had been in possession of Elath.6On the events that followed seeAhaz;Hezekiah;Philistines. The Assyrian inscriptions name as tributary kings of Edom, Kauš-melek (time of Tiglath-Pileser IV.), Malik (?)-ram (701B.C.), and Kauš-gabri (7th century). In the middle of the 7th century both Edom and Moab suffered from the restlessness of the desert tribes, and after another period of obscurity, they joined in the attempt made by Zedekiah of Judah to revolt against Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. xxvii. 3). In the last years before the fall of Jerusalem many of the Jews found a refuge in Edom (Jer. xl. 11), although other traditions throw another light upon the attitude of Edom during these disasters.

That Edomites burned the temple after the destruction of Jerusalem (1 Esd. iv. 45, cf.v.50) is on a line with the repeated denunciation of their “unbrotherly” conduct in later writings. Certainly the weak state of Palestine invited attacks from the outlying tribes, but the tone of certain late writings implies a preliminary period of, at least, neutrality (cf. Deut. ii. 4 sqq., xxiii. 7 seq.; the omission of Edom in xxiii. 3; Neh. xiii. 1; and in Ezra ix. 1—contrast 1 Esd. viii. 69). Subsequently Edom is execrated for revengeful attacks upon the Jews, and its speedy destruction is foretold; but the passages appear to be much later than the disaster of 587B.C., and may even imply conditions after the restoration (Ob. 10 sqq.; Ezek. xxv. 12-14; Jer. xlix. 7; Ps. cxxxvii. 7; Lam. iv. 21 seq., v. 2 sqq.). But at length the day of reckoning came (cf. Is. xxxiv. 5; lxiii. 1-6), and the fate of Edom is still fresh in the mind of Malachi (i. 1-5).

The problem is complicated by the possibility that during the ages over which the references can range many changes of fortune could have occurred. The pressure of the Nabataeans (q.v.) forced Edom to leave its former seats and advance into the south of Judah with Hebron as the capital. This had been fully accomplished by 312B.C., but the date of the first occupation cannot be ascertained from the literary evidence alone. Thus the district in question is Jewish in the time of Nehemiah (Neh. xi. 25-30), but it is uncertain whether the Edomite occupation was earlier (a fusion being assumed) or later, or whether the passage may be untrustworthy. Henceforth, the new home of the Edomites is consequently known as Idumaea. See, for further history,Herod;Jews.7

Although but little is known of the inhabitants of Edom, their close relationship to Judah and their kinship with the surrounding tribes invest them with particular interest. The ties which united Lot (the “father” of Ammon and Moab), Ishmael, Midian and Edom (Esau) with the southern tribes Judah and Simeon, as manifested in the genealogical lists, are intelligible enough on geographical grounds alone, and the significance of this for the history of Judah and Palestine cannot be ignored. The traditions recording the separation of Lot from Abraham, of Hagar and Ishmael from Isaac, and of Esau from Jacob, although at present arranged in a descending scheme of family relationship, are the result of systematic grouping and cannot express any chronological order of events (seeGenesis). Many motives have worked to bring these legends into their present form, and while they depict the character of Israel’s wilder neighbours, they represent the recurrent alternating periods of hostility and fellowship between it and Edom which mark the history. Esau (Edom) although the older, loses his superiority, and if the oracles declare that the elder shall serve the younger (Jacob,i.e.Israel), the final independence of Esau (Gen. xxv. 23, xxvii. 39 seq.), as foretold, obviously alludes to some successful Edomite revolt. As an enemy, Edom in alliance with the tribes along the trade-routes (Philistines, Moabites, &c.) was responsible for many injuries, and in frequent forays carried away Judaeans as slaves for Gaza and Tyre (Am. i. 6 seq., 9). As an ally or vassal, it was in touch with the wealth of Arabia (Ezek. xxvii. 16, read “Edom” for “Aram”), and Judah and Israel as well as Gaza and Damascus enjoyed the fruits of its commerce. In view of the evidence for the advanced culture of early Arabia, the question of Edom is extremely suggestive, and although speculation at this stage would be premature, it is interesting to observe that Edomite and allied tribes were famed for their wisdom,8and that apart from thepossibilityof Arabian influence upon Israelite culture, the influence of Midian and related tribes iscertainfrom the traditions of Moses and of his work (seeJethro;Kenites;Moses), and the Edomite district was a traditional home of Yahweh himself (Deut. xxxiii. 2; Judg. v. 4; Hab. iii. 3); seeHebrew Religion. It should be added, however, that the Edomite names and other evidence point to the cult of other gods, viz. Baal, Hadad, Malik (cf.Moloch), Kauš, or Kuš, and Kozeh (Jos.Ant.xv. 7, 9), who was probably a sky or lightning deity.

The names Esau and Edom are possibly old divine names; seeEsauandEncy. Bib.s.v.“Obed edom” (the name appears to mean “servant of Edom”). For Kauš, see Baethgen,Beitr. z. semit. Religionsgeschichte, p. 11 seq.; G.A. Cooke,N. Sem. Inscr.p. 234;Ency. Bib.col. 2682, n. 2 and 2688 (s.v.“Kushaiah”); and Zimmern,Keilinschr. u. d. alte Test.3, pp. 472 seq. On the question of early Arabian civilization seeYemen. That the name Mizraim (Miṣraim), “Egypt,” was extended eastwards of the Delta is in itself probable, but it is still uncertain whether the term (also Ass. Muṣri) was applied to Edom. The evidence (which is of mixed value) makes the view a plausible one, but the theory has often been exaggerated (seeMizraim). For Edom see, generally, Buhl,Gesch. d. Edomiter(1893); Nöldeke’s article inEncy. Bib.; W. Libbey and F.E. Hoskins,The Jordan Valley and Petra(1905); the conjectural sketch by I. Levy inRev. d’études juives(Jan. 1906). For the history and culture of the latest period, see J.P. Peters and Thiersch,Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marissa(1905), ch. i.

(S. A. C.)

1See further, E. Robinson,Biblical Researches, vol. ii.; E. Hull,Mt. Seir; E.H. Palmer,Desert of the Exodus; Baedeker’sPalestine and Syria; C.W. Wilson, “Quart. Stat.” (Pal. Explor. Fund), 1899, p. 307, and G.A. Smith,Ency. Bib.col. 5162 seq.2In the old story of Sinuhit (ascribed to the 12th dyn.) the hero visits the land ofKedem, which, it was suggested, lay to the south-east or south of the Dead Sea; see, however, now A.H. Gardiner,Sitz.-Ber.of the Berlin Academy, 1907, pp. 142 sqq. The suggestion that the city Udumu, in the land of Gar, mentioned in the 15th century (Amarna Tablets, ed. Winckler, No. 237), is Edom, Gar being the Eg.Kharu(Palestine) and the O.T. Horites (see above), is extremely hazardous. That the name Aduma (above) refers to Etham (so Naville, &c.) is improbable.3That the Edomites preserved this tradition of Saul’s sovereignty and (from their standpoint) enrolled him among their kings (Gen. xxxvi. 37) cannot of course be proved. The account of the ferocious slaughter of the priests of Nob at Saul’s command by Doeg the Edomite is a secondary tradition and probably of late origin (1 Sam. xxi. 1-9, xxii. 6-23); cf. the hostility of Edom in exilic and post-exilic times (p. 878, col. 1).41 Kings l.c., see the Septuagint and, especially, H. Winckler,Alttest. Untersuch., pp. 1-15; C.F. Burney,Kings, pp. 158 sqq.; J. Skinner,Kings, pp. 443 sqq.; Ed. Meyer,Israeliten, pp. 358 sqq.5On 2 Kings iii. seeJehoram;Jehoshaphat;Moab; and for the biblical traditions relating to this period seeKings(Book) andJews:History. The chronicler’s account of Judaean successes (2 Chron. xvii. 10 seq.; xx.) and reverses (xxi. 16, xxii. 1) may rest originally upon the source from which 1 Kings xxii. 47 seq.; 2 Kings viii. 20, 22, have been abbreviated. It is hardly probable that there was enmity between Edom and Moab as 2 Kings iii. now implies, although hostile relations at other periods are likely (cf. Am. ii. 1); for Edom in Moabite territory see above on Gen. xxxvi. and “Quart. Stat.” (Pal. Explor. Fund), 1902, pp. 10 sqq.62 Kings xvi. 6; on the text see the commentaries.7For the Jewish hatred of Edom in later times see the book of Enoch lxxxix. 11-12; Jubilees, xxxvii. 22 seq., and on the Talmudic custom of applying to the Romans the references to Edom or Esau, seeJewish Ency.vol. v. p. 41.8Ob. 8; Jer. xlix. 7 sqq.; Baruch iii. 22, cf. 1 Kings iv. 30; see alsoJob.

2In the old story of Sinuhit (ascribed to the 12th dyn.) the hero visits the land ofKedem, which, it was suggested, lay to the south-east or south of the Dead Sea; see, however, now A.H. Gardiner,Sitz.-Ber.of the Berlin Academy, 1907, pp. 142 sqq. The suggestion that the city Udumu, in the land of Gar, mentioned in the 15th century (Amarna Tablets, ed. Winckler, No. 237), is Edom, Gar being the Eg.Kharu(Palestine) and the O.T. Horites (see above), is extremely hazardous. That the name Aduma (above) refers to Etham (so Naville, &c.) is improbable.

3That the Edomites preserved this tradition of Saul’s sovereignty and (from their standpoint) enrolled him among their kings (Gen. xxxvi. 37) cannot of course be proved. The account of the ferocious slaughter of the priests of Nob at Saul’s command by Doeg the Edomite is a secondary tradition and probably of late origin (1 Sam. xxi. 1-9, xxii. 6-23); cf. the hostility of Edom in exilic and post-exilic times (p. 878, col. 1).

41 Kings l.c., see the Septuagint and, especially, H. Winckler,Alttest. Untersuch., pp. 1-15; C.F. Burney,Kings, pp. 158 sqq.; J. Skinner,Kings, pp. 443 sqq.; Ed. Meyer,Israeliten, pp. 358 sqq.

5On 2 Kings iii. seeJehoram;Jehoshaphat;Moab; and for the biblical traditions relating to this period seeKings(Book) andJews:History. The chronicler’s account of Judaean successes (2 Chron. xvii. 10 seq.; xx.) and reverses (xxi. 16, xxii. 1) may rest originally upon the source from which 1 Kings xxii. 47 seq.; 2 Kings viii. 20, 22, have been abbreviated. It is hardly probable that there was enmity between Edom and Moab as 2 Kings iii. now implies, although hostile relations at other periods are likely (cf. Am. ii. 1); for Edom in Moabite territory see above on Gen. xxxvi. and “Quart. Stat.” (Pal. Explor. Fund), 1902, pp. 10 sqq.

62 Kings xvi. 6; on the text see the commentaries.

7For the Jewish hatred of Edom in later times see the book of Enoch lxxxix. 11-12; Jubilees, xxxvii. 22 seq., and on the Talmudic custom of applying to the Romans the references to Edom or Esau, seeJewish Ency.vol. v. p. 41.

8Ob. 8; Jer. xlix. 7 sqq.; Baruch iii. 22, cf. 1 Kings iv. 30; see alsoJob.

EDRED(Eadred), king of the English (d. 955), was the youngest son of Edward the Elder and his wife Eadgifu. He succeeded his brother Edmund in the year 946 and at this time received the formal submission both of the Northumbrians and Scots. In the next year Edred himself went to Tanshelf, nearPontefract, in Yorkshire, where he received from Wulfstan, archbishop of York, and the Northumbrian “witan” confirmation of their submission. Shortly after they threw their pledges to the winds and took the Norwegian Eric Bloodaxe, son of Harold Fairhair (Harald Harfagar), as their king. Edred recklessly ravaged all Northumbria in revenge, burning Ripon during his march. On his return home Edred’s rearguard was attacked at Castleford, and the infuriated king once more turned to ravage Northumbria, which was only saved by its abandonment of Eric and by compensation made to Edred. Archbishop Wulfstan seems to have been a centre of disaffection in the north, and in 952 Edred caused him to be imprisoned in the castle of “Judanburh,” while in the same year the king, in revenge for the slaying of Abbot Eadelm, slew many of the citizens of Thetford. After the brief rule of Anlaf Cuaran in Northumbria, Eric was once more restored, probably in 950, only to be expelled again in 953 or 954, when Edred took the Northumbrian kingdom into his own hands. In the same year Wulfstan was liberated and appointed to the Mercian bishopric of Dorchester. Edred died on the 23rd of November 955 at Frome, in Somersetshire, and was buried in the old minster at Winchester. During the whole of his life Edred was troubled by ill-health, a fact which may help to explain some of the more passionate acts of violence attributed to him. The king was throughout his life on terms of personal intimacy with St Dunstan, and his public policy was largely guided by that prelate and by his own mother Eadgifu. So far as we know, Edred was never married.

Authorities.—TheSaxon Chronicle(ed. Earle and Plummer, Oxford),sub ann.;Memorials of St Dunstan(Rolls Series, ed. Stubbs); Florence of Worcester; Birch,Cartularium Saxonicum, vol. iii., Nos. 815-834 and 860-931;D.N.B., art.sub voce.

(A. Mw.)

EDRIC,orEadric,STREONA(d. 1017), ealdorman of the Mercians, was a man of ignoble birth who was advanced to high dignity through the favour of the English king Æthelred II. In 1007 he became ealdorman of the Mercians, and subsequently married Æthelred’s daughter Eadgyth. In the struggle between the English and the Danes he appears in the character of an arch-traitor. When Æthelred in 1009 proposed a great attack on the Danes, Edric dissuaded him from carrying it into effect. Again, on the invasion of England by Canute in 1015 Edric deserted Edmund Ironside and joined him. After the battle of Otford he returned to Edmund, but only by his treachery at the battle of Assandun to secure the utter defeat of the national cause. When peace was at length made, Canute restored to Edric the earldom of Mercia; but at Christmas 1017, fearing further treachery, he had him slain—“very rightly” says theSaxon Chronicle.

EDUCATION.In the following treatment of this subject, the theory and early history of education is first dealt with, and secondly the modern organization of education as a national concern. Many definitions have been given of the word “education,” but underlying them all is the conception that it denotes an attempt on the part of the adult members of a human society to shape the development of the coming generation in accordance with its own ideals of life. It is true that the word has not infrequently been used in wider senses than this. For example, J.S. Mill included under it everything which “helps to shape the human being”; and, with some poetic licence, we speak of the education of a people or even of the whole human race. But all such usages are rhetorical extensions of the commonly accepted sense of the term, which includes, as an essential element, the idea of deliberate direction and training (Lat.educare, to bring up;educere, to draw out, lead forth). No doubt, all education is effected through the experiences of the educated, and much of it is indirect, consisting mainly in the determination of the form of experiences other than those of direct precept, compulsion and instruction. But it does not follow that all experiences are educative. Whether an experience is part of an individual’s education or not is determined by its origin. Whatever be its effect, it is educative in so far as its form has been arranged with greater or less deliberation by those who are concerned with the training of him whose experience it is. It follows that an education may be good or bad, and that its goodness or badness will be relative to the virtue, wisdom and intelligence of the educator. It is good only when it aims at the right kind of product, and when the means it adopts are well adapted to secure the intended result and are applied intelligently, consistently and persistently.

Education is, thus, a definitely personal work, and will vary between wide extremes of effectiveness and worth in any given society. For in all times and places there are wide differences in virtue, wisdom and capacity among those who have in their hands the care and nurture of the young. But the inference that, therefore, no comparative estimate of the education of different times and places can be made would be fallacious. For, despite all differences in conception and efficiency among individual educators, each expresses, more or less perfectly and clearly, the common conception and energy of his age and country. As these rise or fall the general level of the actual educative practice rises or sinks with them. The first essential for successful educative effort is, then, that the community as a whole should have a true estimate of the nature and value of education.

I. Educational Theory

In any comparative estimate of different places and times, as tested by the standard just given, it must be borne in mind that, except in the most general and abstract form, we cannot speak of an ideally best education. Looking at the individual to be educated, we may say with Plato that the aim of education is “to develop in the body and in the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable,” but this leaves quite undecided the nature and form of that beauty and perfection, and on such points there has never been universal agreement at any one time, while successive ages have shown marked differences of estimate. We get nearer to the point when we reflect that individual beauty and perfection are shown, and only shown, in actual life, and that such life has to be lived under definite conditions of time, place, culture, religion, national aspirations and mastery over material conditions. Perfection of life, then, in the Athens of the age of Plato would show a very different form from that which it would take in the London or Paris of to-day. So an individualistic statement of the purpose of education leads on analysis to considerations that are not, in themselves, individualistic. The personal life is throughout a relation between individual promptings to activity and the environment in which alone such promptings can, by being actualized, become part of life. And the perfection of the life is to be sought in the perfection of the relations thus established. So far, then, as any conception of education can give guidance to the actual process it must be relative in every way to the state of development of the society in which it is given. Indeed, looked at in the mass, education may be said to be the efforts made by the community to impose its culture upon the growing generation. Here again is room for difference. The culture in question may be accepted as absolute at least in its essentials, and then the ideal of education will be to secure its stability and perpetuation, or it may be regarded as a stage in a process of development, and then the ideal will be to facilitate the advance of the next generation beyond the point reached by the present. So some ages will show a relatively fixed conception of the educative process, others will be times of unrest and change in this as in other modes of social and intellectual life.

It is in these latter times that the actual work of education is apt to lose touch with the culture of the community. For schools (q.v.) and universities (q.v.), which are the ordinary channels through which adult culture reaches the young, are naturally conservative and bound by tradition. They are slow to leave the old paths which have hitherto led to the desired goal, and to enter on new and untried ways. If the opposition to change is absolute, there must come a time when the instruments of education are out of true relation to the desired end. For change in culture ideals means change in the specific form of the goal of education, and consequently the paths of educative effort need readjustment. When the goal of the past is no longer the goal of the present, to follow the ways which led tothe former is to fail to reach the latter. Continuous readjustment, by small and almost imperceptible degrees, is the ideal at which the educator should aim. When this is not secured, the educational domain is liable to sudden and violent revolutions which are destructive of successful educative effort at the time they occur, however beneficial their results may be in the future.

But the relation of adjustment is not entirely one-sided. The tone of thought and feeling and the direction of will induced by education necessarily affect the common ideals of the next generation, and may make them better or worse than those of the present. Hence, the educator must not blindly accept all current views of life, but rather select the highest. For the average thought of every community is obviously below its best thought; and may, in some points at any rate, be lower than the best thought of a past age. While, then, all true education must be in direct relation with the culture of its age and country, yet, especially on the ethical side, it should aim at transcending the average thought and tone.

Still more does this imply that education strives to transcend the present condition of the educated by making their life more rational, more volitional, and more attracted by goodness and beauty than it would otherwise be. It can never be a passive watching of the child’s development. No more fundamental error can be made than the assumption that education can be determined wholly, or even mainly, by the tendencies and impulses with which a child is endowed. Its real guiding principle must be a conception of the nature to which the child may attain, not a knowledge of that with which it starts. The educator studies the original endowment of the child and the early stages in the development of that innate nature in order that he may, wisely and successfully, employ appropriate means to direct further development and to accelerate its progress towards a more rational, complete and worthy life; not that he may the more skilfully give facilities to the child to drift about on the unregulated currents of caprice.

Such considerations show the importance of an insight into the theory of education on the part of all who are practically concerned with its direction. But the theory required is no system of abstract ideas ignoring the real concrete conditions of the life for which the actual education it is to guide is a preparation. To approach the subject only from the standpoint of the mental sciences which underlie it is to run the risk of setting up such a body of abstractions, whose relation to real life is neither very close nor very direct. The most profitable way of developing an educational theory for the present is to trace how in the past education has consciously adapted itself, more or less truly and fully, to the conditions of culture and social life; and by analysis to discover the reasons for comparative success or failure in the degree of clearness with which the end to be sought was apprehended and the nature of the children to be trained was understood.

In all ages the claims of the individual and those of the community have struggled for the mastery as the ultimate principles of life. As one or the other has prevailed the conception of education has emphasized social service or individual success as the primary end. The true harmony of human life will only be attained when these two impulses, contradictory on their own level, are united in a higher synthesis which sees each as the complement of the other in a life whose purpose is neither simple egoism nor pure altruism. Until that conception of life is attained and held generally there can be no sure and universally accepted conception of the aim and function of education. Much of the interest of the history of education1turns on the relation of these two principles as determinants of its aim.

In ancient Greece the supremacy of the state was generally unquestioned, and, especially in the earlier times, the good man was identified with the good citizen. No doubt, in later days philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle,Old Greek education.saw clearly that the round of the duties of citizenship did not exhaust the life of the individual. With them the highest life was one of cultured leisure in which the energies were mainly concentrated on the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. But this “diagogic” life was only for the select few; for the undistinguished many the fulfilment by each of the duties of his station remained the measure of worthy life, though such duties were regarded as affecting the individual and private relations of the citizens in a much more intimate way than in former and ruder ages. And for those who devoted their lives to the highest culture, the essential preliminary condition was the existence of such a state as would form the most favourable environment for their pursuits and the most stable foundation for their leisured life. Thus Greek thought was saturated with the conception of life as essentially a set of relations between the individual and the city-state of which he formed an integral part. The first aim of education was therefore to train the young as citizens.

This training must, of necessity, be of a specific kind; for, like other small communities, the Greek city-states showed a life fundamentally one in conception, under various specific forms. Each state had its special character, and to this character the education given in it must conform if it were to be an effective instrument for training the citizens. From these fundamental conceptions flowed the demands of Plato and Aristotle that education should be regulated in all its details by the state authority, should be compulsory on all free citizens, and should be uniform—at any rate in its earlier stages—for all. In theRepublicand theLaws, Plato shows to what extreme lengths theory may go when it neglects to take account of some of the most pertinent facts of life. For the guardian-citizens of the ideal state family life and family ties are abolished; no lower community is to be allowed to enter into competition with the state. Aristotle, indeed, did not go to these extreme lengths; he allowed the family to remain, but he seems to have regarded it as likely to affect children more for evil than for good.

In the essential principles laid down by both philosophers as to the relation of the state to education, and in the corollaries they drew from that relation, they were not at variance with the accepted Greek theory on the subject. It is true that the actual practice of Greek states departed, and often widely, from this ideal, for, especially in later centuries, the Greek always tended to live his own life. The nearest approach to the theory was found in Sparta, where the end of the state as a military organization was kept steadily in view, and where, after early childhood, the young citizens were trained directly by the state in a kind of barrack life—the boys to become warriors, the girls the mothers of warriors. It was this feature of Spartan education, together with the rude simplicity of life it enforced, which attracted Plato, and, to a less extent, Aristotle. In Athens there had of old been state laws insisting on the attendance of the children of the free citizens at school, and, in some degree, regulating the schools themselves. But at the time of Plato these had fallen into desuetude, and the state directly concerned itself only with the training of the ephebi, for which, we learn from Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, somewhat elaborate provisions were made by the appointment of officers, and the regulation of both intellectual and physical pursuits. For children and youths under the ephebic age there was no practical regulation of schools or palaestra by the state. Yet there is no doubt that the education really given was in conformity with Athenian ideals of culture and life, and that it was generally received by the children of free citizens, though of course the sons of the wealthy, then as now, could and did continue their attendance at school to a later age than their poorer brethren. The education of girls was essentially a domestic training. What Plato and Aristotle, with the theorist’s love of official systematic regulation, regarded as the greatest defect of Athenian education was in reality its strongest point. In practice, the harmony between individual liberty and social claims was much more nearly attained under a system of free working out of common thoughts and ideals than would have been the case under one of the irresistible imposition from without of a rigid mould.

The instruments of education everywhere found to be inharmony with the Greek conception of life and culture were essentially twofold,—“music” (μουσική), or literary and artistic culture, for the mind, and systematic gymnastic (γυμναστική) for the body. Plato, in theRepublic, shows that the latter, as well as the former, affects the character, and doubtless, though not formulated, this was generally more or less vaguely felt. But Greek gymnastic was really an individual training, and therefore made only indirectly for the aim of cultivating the social bonds of citizenship. Ancient Greece had nothing corresponding in value in this respect to the organized games which form so important a feature in the school life of modern England. The “musical” training was essentially in the national literature and music of Greece, and this could obviously be carried to very different lengths. The elements of mathematical science were also commonly taught. The essential purpose throughout was the development of the character of a loyal citizen of Athens. As Athenian culture advanced, increasing attention was paid to diagogic studies, especially in the ephebic age, with a corresponding decrease of attention to merely physical pursuits; hence the complaints of such satirists as Aristophanes of a growing luxury, effeminacy and corruption of youths: complaints apparently based on a comparison of the worst features of the actual present with an idealized and imaginative picture of the virtues of the past. Such comparison is, indeed, implicit in much of Plato and Aristotle as well as in Aristophanes.

But a disintegrating force was already at work in the educational system of Greece which Plato and Aristotle vainly opposed. This was the rhetorical training of the Sophists, the narrowly practical and individualistic aim of which was entirely out of harmony with the older Greek ideals of life and culture. In a democratic city-state the orator easily became a demagogue, and generally oratory was the readiest path to influence and power. Thus oratory opened the way to personal ambition, and young men who were moved by that passion eagerly attended the Sophist schools where their dominant motive was strengthened.

Further, the closer relations between the Greek states, both in nearer and farther Hellas, led naturally to the diminution of differences between civic ideals, and, as a consequence, to a more cosmopolitan conception of higher education. This process was completed by the loss of political independence of the city-states under the Macedonian domination. Henceforth, higher education became purely intellectual, and its relation to political and social life increasingly remote. This, combined with the growing rhetorical tendency already noticed, accounts for the sterility of Greek thought during the succeeding centuries. The means of higher education were, indeed, more fully organized. The university of Athens was the outcome of a fusion of the private philosophical schools with the state organization for the training of the ephebi, and there were other such centres of higher culture, especially in after years at Alexandria, where the contact of Greek thought with the religions and philosophies of Egypt and the East gave birth in time to the more or less mystical philosophies which culminated in Neo-platonism. But at Athens itself thought became more and more sterile, and education more and more a mere training in unreal rhetoric, till the dissolution of the university by Justinian inA.D.529.

Thus when Rome conquered Greece, Greek education had lost that reality which is drawn from intimate relation to civic life, and the fashionable individualistic schools of philosophy could do nothing to replace the loss. It was, then, anOld Roman education.education which had largely lost its life-springs that was transferred to Rome. In the earlier centuries of the republic, Roman education was given entirely in family and public life. The father had unlimited power over his son’s life, and was open to public censure if he failed to train him in the ordinary moral, civic and religious duties. But it is doubtful if there were any schools (q.v.), and it is certain there was no national literature to furnish an instrument of culture. A Roman boy learnt to reverence the gods, to read, to bear himself well in manly exercises, and to know enough of the laws of his country to regulate his conduct. This last he acquired directly by hearing his father decide the cases of his clients every morning in his hall. The rules of courtesy he learnt similarly by accompanying his father to the social gatherings to which he was invited. Thus early Roman education was essentially practical, civic and moral, but its intellectual outlook was extremely narrow.

When a wider culture was imported from Greece it was, however, the form rather than the spirit of true Hellenic education that was transferred. This was, indeed, to some extent inevitable from the decadent state of GreekHellenized Roman education.education at the time, but it was accentuated by the essentially practical character of the Roman mind. The instrument of education first introduced was Greek literature, much of which was soon translated into Latin. In time the schools of thegrammatici, teaching grammar and literature, were supplemented by schools of rhetoric and philosophy, though the philosophy taught in them was itself little more than rhetorical declamation. These furnished the means of higher culture for those youths who did not study at Alexandria or Athens, and were also preparatory to studies at those universities. Under the Empire the rhetorical schools were gradually organized into a state system, the general principles of administration being laid down by imperial decree, and even such details as the appointment and rate of payment of the professors, at first left to the municipalities, being in time assumed by the central government. There is no evidence of any state regulation or support of the lower schools. This widening of culture affected both boys and girls, the domestic education of the latter being supplemented by a study of literature. But it is the higher training in rhetoric which is especially characteristic of Hellenized Roman education.

The conception of a rhetorical culture is seen at its best in Quintilian’sInstitutio oratoria, the most systematic treatise on education produced by the ancient world. With Quintilian the ideal of an orator was a widely cultured, wise and honourable man. And at first the teaching of rhetoric undoubtedly made for higher and true culture. But with the autocracy, soon passing into tyranny, of the empire, rhetoric ceased to be a preparation for real life. The true function of oratory is to persuade a free people. When it cannot be applied to this purpose it becomes little more than a means of intellectual frivolity, or, at the best, an exhibition of cultured ingenuity. Under the empire a rhetorical training was, indeed, turned in not a few instances to practical but most unworthy uses by the delators; a result made possible by the legal system which rewarded delation with a considerable portion of the estate of the condemned. Even apart from this, the education in rhetoric had an increasingly evil effect both on the culture and on the character of the higher classes in the Roman empire. Out of real connexion with life as it was, it sought its subjects in the realms of the fanciful and the trivial, and with unreality of topic went of necessity deterioration of style. The vivid presentment of living thought gave way to that inflated and bombastic abuse of meretricious ornament and far-fetched metaphor in which human speech is always involved when it sets forth ideas, or shadows of ideas, which grow out of no conviction in the speaker and are expected to carry no conviction to the hearer. Imitation of the form of great models, without the substance of thought which underlay them, led to a general unreality and essential falseness of mental life. Further, the continual gazing with admiration on the productions of the past, and the conception of excellence as consisting in closeness of imitation, induced a servile attitude of mind towards authority in all too close agreement with the political servility which marked the Roman court. Such an attitude was essentially hostile to mental initiative, and thus rhetoric became not merely an art of expression but a type of character.

Nor was there anything in the general conditions of society to counterbalance the ill effects of school and university education. Quintilian lamented that, even in his time, the old Roman family education by example was corrupted; and the moral degradation of later times, though it has doubtless been exaggerated, was certainly real and widespread. Nor does thereligious revival of Paganism which synchronized with the early centuries of Christianity appear to have effected any reform in life. Alexandria, the birthplace of Neo-platonism and the intellectual centre of the later empire, was also a very sink of moral obliquity.

It was into such a decaying civilization, which by its want of vitality sterilized education, oppressing it under the weight of a dead tradition, that Christianity brought new life. Of course, careful instruction in the Faith was givenChristianity and Pagan education.in catechetical schools, of which that at Alexandria was the most famous. But the question as to the attitude of Christians towards the ordinary classical culture was important. On the one hand, literature was saturated with Paganism, and the Pagan festivals formed a regular part of school life. On the other hand, the Pagan education offered the only means of higher culture, and thus furnished the only weapon with which Christians could successfully meet their controversial antagonists. Quite at first, no doubt, when the converts to the new faith were few and obscure, the question scarcely arose; but as men of culture and position were attracted to the Church it became urgent. The answers given by the Christian leaders were various, and largely the outcome of temperament and previous training. The Greek Fathers, especially Clement of Alexandria (150-217) and Origen (185-253), regarded Christianity as essentially the culmination of philosophy, to which the way must be found through liberal culture. Without a liberal education the Christian could live a life of faith and obedience but could not attain an intellectual understanding of the mysteries of the Faith. On the other hand, Tertullian (160-240) was very suspicious of Pagan culture; though he granted the necessity of employing it as a means of education, yet he did so with regret, and would forbid Christians to teach it in the public schools, where some recognition of Paganism would be implied. The general practice of the Christians, however, did not conform to Tertullian’s exhortations. Indeed, many of the cultivated Christians of the 3rd and 4th centuries were little more than nominal adherents to the Faith, and the intercourse between Christian and Pagan was often close and friendly. The general attitude of Christians towards the traditional education is evidenced by the protest raised against the edict of Julian, which forbade them to teach in the public schools. The ultimate outcome seems to be fairly expressed in the writings of St Augustine (354-430) and St Jerome (346-420), who held that literary and rhetorical culture is good so long as it is kept subservient to the Christian life.

In another way Greek philosophy exercised an abiding influence over the culture of future ages. The early centuries of Christianity felt the need of formulating the Faith to preserve it from disintegration into a mass of fluid opinions, and such formulation was of necessity made under the influence of the philosophy in which the early Fathers had been trained—that Neo-platonism which was the last effort of Paganism to attain a conception of life and of God. In the West, this formulation had to be translated into Latin, for Greek was no longer generally understood in Italy, and thus the juristic trend of Roman thought also became a factor in the exposition of Christian doctrine. This formulation of the Faith was one of the chief legacies the transition centuries passed on to the middle ages.

Had classical culture been less formal than it was during the early centuries of Christianity, the innate antagonism of the Pagan and Christian views of life and character must have been so apparent that the education which prepared for the one could not have been accepted by the other. It was only because rhetorical culture was so emphatically intellectual, and so little, if at all, moral in its aims, that its inherent opposition to the Christian conception of character was not obvious. That its antagonistic influence was not inoperative is shown by the not infrequent perversions of cultured Christians to Paganism. But generally the opposition was so obscured that the ethical writings of St Ambrose (340-397) are largely Stoic in conception and reasoning. Yet the Pagan ideal of life, especially as it had been developed in the individualistic ethics which had prevailed for more than six centuries, was antithetical in essence to that of the Christian Church. The former was essentially an ethics of self-reliance and self-control showing itself in moderation and proportion in all expressions of life. An essential feature in such a character was high-mindedness and a self-respect which was of the nature of pride. On the contrary, Christian teaching exalted humility as one of the highest virtues, and regarded pride and self-confidence as the deadliest of sins. It recognized no doctrine of limitation; what was to be condemned could not be abhorred too violently, nor could what was good be too strongly desired or too ardently sought. The highest state attainable by man was absorption in loving ecstasy in the mystic contemplation of God. The practical attempt to realize this gave rise to monasticism, with its minutely regulated life expressing unlimited obedience and the renunciation of private will at every moment. The monastic life was regarded as the nearest approach to the ideal which a Christian could make on earth. Naturally, as this conception gathered strength in generations nurtured in it, the value of classical culture became less and less apparent, and by the time of St Gregory the Great (d. 604) the use of classical literature except as means of an education having quite another end than classical culture was discouraged.

Of course, during these centuries, the gradual subjugation of the western empire by the barbarians had been powerfully operative in the obscuring of culture. Most of the public schools disappeared, and generally the light ofEffect of barbarian inroads.learning was kept burning only in monasteries, and in them more and more faintly as they became more or less isolated units exposed to attack by ruthless foes or living in continual dread of such attack. Though the barbarians absorbed the old culture in various degrees of imperfection, yet the four centuries following the death of St Augustine were plunged in intellectual darkness, relieved by transitory gleams of light in Britain and by a more enduring flame in Ireland. The utmost that could be done was to preserve to some extent the heritage of the past. This, indeed, was essentially the work of men like Boethius, Cassiodorus, Isidore and Bede.

During these same centuries another process had been advancing with accelerating steps. This was the modification of the Latin language. In the early centuries of Christianity literary Latin was already very different from colloquialModification of Latin.Latin, especially in the provinces; and, as has been said, the literary output of the last age of Paganism was marked by sterility of thought and meretricious redundancy of expression. On the other hand, the writings of Christianity show a real living force seeking to find appropriate expression in new forms. Thus, with Christian writers, slavish imitation of the past gradually gave way to the evolution of a new and living Latin, which showed itself more and more regardless of classical models. To express the new ideas to which Christianity gave birth fresh words were coined, or borrowed from colloquial speech or from the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. This Christian Latin was a real living instrument of expression, which conformed itself in its structure much more closely to the mode of thought and expression of actual life than did the artificial imitation of antiquity in which the literary productions of Paganism were clothed. It is the Latin in which St Jerome wrote the Vulgate. But with the obscuring of culture during the barbarian invasions this current Latin became more and more oblivious of even such elements of form as grammatical inflexions and concords.

It was to the reformation of this corrupt Latin by a return to classical models, and to the more general spread of culture, especially among clergy and nobles, that the Carolingian revival addressed itself. The movement was essentiallyThe Carolingian revival.practical and conservative. Alcuin (735-804), who was Charlemagne’s educational adviser and chief executive officer in scholastic matters, was probably the best scholar of his time, and himself loved the classical writings with which he was acquainted; but the text-books he wrote were but imperfect summaries of existing compendia, and the intellectual condition of his pupils forbade a very generous literary diet even had he thought it desirable, of which there is some doubt. The most valuable outcome of the movement was the establishmentof the palace school, and of bishops’ schools and monastic schools throughout the empire. Of these the latter were the most important, and each of the chief monasteries had from the time of Charlemagne an external school for pupils not proposing to enter the order as well as an internal school for novices. Thus, the educational system north of the Alps was pre-eminently ecclesiastical in its organization and profoundly religious in its aims. For two centuries the new intellectual life was obscured by the troubled times which followed the death of Charlemagne, but the learning which the Carolingian revival had restored was preserved here and there in cathedral and monastic schools, and the sequence of well-educated ecclesiastics was never altogether interrupted.

The scope of that learning was comprised within the seven liberal arts and philosophy, on the secular side, together with some dogmatic instruction in the doctrines of the Church, the early fathers, and the Scriptures. TheologyThe medieval curriculum.was as yet not organized into a philosophical system: that was the great work the middle ages had to perform. The seven liberal arts (divided into theTrivium—grammar, dialectic, rhetoric; and the more advancedQuadrivium—geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy) were a legacy from old Roman education through the transition centuries. They appear in theDisciplinarum libri IX.of Varro in the 2nd centuryB.C., where are added to them the more utilitarian arts of medicine and architecture. But they reached the middle ages chiefly through the summaries of writers in the transition centuries, of which the best known were theDe nuptiis Philologiae et Mercuriiof the Neo-platonist Martianus Capella, who wrote probably early in the 5th century; theDe artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarumof the Christian Cassiodorus (468-562); and theEtymologiarum libri XX.of St Isidore of Seville (570-636).

The scope of the arts was wider than their names would suggest in modern times. Under grammar was included the study of the content and form of literature; and in practice the teaching varied from a liberal literary culture to a dry and perfunctory study of just enough grammar to give some facility in the use of Latin. Dialectic was mainly formal logic. Rhetoric covered the study of law, as well as composition in prose and verse. Geometry was rather what is now understood by geography and natural history, together with the medicinal properties of plants. Arithmetic, with the cumbrous Roman notation, included little more than the simplest practical calculations required in ordinary life and the computation of the calendar. Music embraced the rules of the plain-song of the Church, some theory of sound, and the connexion of harmony and numbers. Astronomy dealt with the courses of the heavenly bodies, and was seldom kept free from astrology. In philosophy the current text-books were theDe consolatione philosophiaeof Boethius (470-524), an eclectic summary of pagan ethics from the standpoint of the Christian view of life, and the same writer’s adapted translations of theCategoriesandDe interpretationeof Aristotle and of Porphyry’sIntroduction to the Categories.

It is evident that though such a scheme of studies might in practice, during ages of intellectual stagnation and general ignorance, be arid in the extreme, it was capable in time of revival of giving scope to the widest extension of culture. It was, indeed, at once comprehensive and unified in conception, and well adapted to educate for the perfectly definite and clear view of life which the Church set before men.

In the 11th century Europe had settled down, after centuries of war and invasion, into a condition of comparative political stability, ecclesiastical discipline, and social tranquillity: the barbarians had been converted, and, as inThe scholastic revival.the case of the Normans, had pressed to the forefront of civilization; civic life had developed in the fortified towns of Italy, raised as defences against the pressure of Saracen and Hungarian invasions. Soon, communication with the East by trade and in the Crusades, and with the highly cultivated Moors in Spain, further stimulated the new burst of intellectual life. Arabic renderings of some of the works of Aristotle and commentaries on them were translated into Latin and exercised a profound influence on the trend of culture. A new translation of Aristotle’sMetaphysicsappeared in 1167, and by the beginning of the 13th century all his physical, metaphysical and ethical treatises were available, and during the next half century the translations from Arabic versions were superseded by renderings direct from the original Greek. As expositions of the real doctrines of Aristotle the translations from the Arabic left much to be desired. Renan calls the medieval edition of theCommentariesof Averroës “a Latin translation of a Hebrew translation of a commentary made upon an Arabic translation of a Syriac translation of a Greek text.” The study of such works often led to the enunciation of doctrines held heretical by the theologians, and it was only when the real Aristotle was known that it was found possible to bring the Peripatetic philosophy into the service of theology.

There were thus two broad stages in the educational revival commonly known as scholasticism. In the first the controversies were essentially metaphysical, and centred round the question of the nature of universals; the orthodox theological party generally supporting realism, or the doctrine that the universal is the true reality, of which particulars and individuals are only appearances; while the opposite doctrine of nominalism—that universals are “mere sounds” and particulars the only true existences—showed a continual disposition to lapse into heresies on the most fundamental doctrines of the Church. The second stage was essentially constructive; the opposition of philosophy to theology was negated, and philosophy gave a systematic form to theology itself. The most characteristic figure of the former period was Abelard (1079-1142), of the latter St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). The former knew little of Aristotle beyond the translations and adaptations of Boethius, but he was essentially a dialectician who applied his logic to investigating the fundamental doctrines of the Church and bringing everything to the bar of reason. This innate rationalism appeared to bring theology under the sway of philosophy, and led to frequent condemnations of his doctrines as heretical. With St Thomas, on the other hand, the essential dogmas of Christianity must be unquestioned. In hisSumma theologiaehe presents all the doctrines of the Church systematized in a mould derived from the Aristotelian philosophy.

It is evident, then, that during the period of the scholastic revival, men’s interests were specially occupied with questions concerning the spiritual and the unseen, and that the great instrument of thought was syllogistic logic,Scholastic education.by which consequences were deduced from premises received as unquestionably true. There was a general acceptance of the authority of the Church in matters of belief and conduct, and of that of Aristotle, as approved by the Church, in all that related to knowledge of this world.

Before the rediscovery of Aristotle exerted such a general influence on the form of education, there was a real revival of classical literary culture at Chartres and a few other schools, and John of Salisbury (d. 1182) in hisMetalogicusadvocated literature as an instrument of education and lamented the barrenness of a training confined to the subtleties of formal logic. But the recrudescence of Aristotle accelerated the movement in favour of dialectic, though at the same time it furnished topics on which logic could be exercised which only a bare materialism can esteem unimportant. The weaknesses of the general educational system which grew up within scholasticism were that haste to begin dialectic led to an undue curtailment of previous liberal culture, and that exclusive attention to philosophical and theological questions caused a neglect of the study of the physical world and a disregard of the critical functions of the intellect. Doubtless there were exceptions, of which perhaps the most striking is the work in physical science done at Oxford by Roger Bacon (1214-1294). But Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), the master of St Thomas, was also a student of nature and an authority for his day on both the natural and the physical sciences. And the work of Grosseteste (d. 1253), as chancellor of the university of Oxford, shows that care for a liberal literaryculture was by no means unknown. Always there were such examples. But too often boys hastened to enter upon dialectic and philosophy as soon as they had acquired sufficient smattering of colloquial Latin to engage in the disputes of the schools. A deterioration of Latin was the unavoidable consequence of such premature specialization. The seven liberal arts were often not pursued in their entirety, and students remained satisfied with desiccated compendia of accepted opinions. Thus the encyclopaedias of general information which were in general use during the middle ages show little or no advance in positive knowledge upon the treatment of similar subjects in Isidore of Seville.

The services of scholasticism to the cause of education, however, cannot well be overestimated, and the content of scholastic studies was in fundamental harmony with the intellectual interests of the time. Above all otherThe foundation of universities.benefits owed by future ages to scholasticism is the foundation of the universities of western Europe. The intellectual activity of the 11th century led everywhere to a great increase in the number of scholars attending the monastic and cathedral schools. Round famous teachers, such as Abelard, gathered crowds of students from every country. In the 12th century the need for organizing such bodies of teachers and students was imperative, and thus the earlier universities arose in Italy, France and England, not by deliberate foundation of secular or ecclesiastical ruler, but as spontaneous manifestations of the characteristic medieval impulse to organize into institutions. Afterwards, charters conferring powers and privileges were sought from both Church and state, but these only confirmed the self-governing character the universities had borne from the first. Each of the early universities was a specialized school of higher study: Salerno was a school of medicine; Bologna was the centre of that revival of Roman law which wrought so profound an effect upon the legal systems of France and Germany towards the close of the medieval period. But the greatest of medieval universities was that of Paris, emphatically the home of philosophy and theology, which was the model upon which many other universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, were organized.

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