Letters never perished. In the sanguinary tumult, the royal offspring of intelligence was saved by a pious hand, and protected that it might be restored some day to the world— great, powerful, and fit to reign. [Footnote 195]
[Footnote 195: In the tenth century, we include the end of the ninth and the beginning of the eleventh, as men who lived at the end of the seventeenth century and the commencement of the nineteenth are considered as belonging to the eighteenth; Fontenelle and Delille, for example.]
Charlemagne was hardly laid in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, when his lords, barons, counts, dukes, and the inferior leaders dispersed and established in a thousand places their divided rule; furious and devastating wars overwhelmed the people and spread terror in every heart through the country; there was no longer peace, security, or leisure. Were intellectual pursuits suspended during that time? No. Throughout Europe, then a field of battle, sheltered in the valleys and intrenched on the summits of the mountains, were fortresses, which became the asylum of knowledge, with an army resolved to defend it—monks in their convents. Italy was like a camp with a reserve corps of instruction: there soldiers were formed and organized and drilled in the use of all kinds of arms; the Benedictines of Monte Casino, "where ancient literature was constantly studied," [Footnote 196] the ecclesiastical schools of Modena, the episcopal schools of Milan, the school of jurisprudence at Lucca, of rhetoric at Ravenna, of literature at Verona, of the seven arts at Parma, of grammar at Pavia, and, in the midst, Rome, guardian of the heritage of ancient traditions and the seat of the papacy, "which has always surpassed all other nations in learning." [Footnote 197]
[Footnote 196: And a great number of other religious houses; as late as the seventeenth century there were more than three hundred.]
[Footnote 197: Villemain,Histoire de la. Littérature au Moyen Age, lesson xx.]
Beyond the Alps, traverse Provence, almost Italian, Languedoc, also half Roman in learning and in language, on the banks of the Loire you will find these abbeys, famous as seats of learning: Fleury, St. Benoit, and Ligugé, (near Poitiers;) and proceeding to the north, Ferrière, Saint Wandrille, Luxeuil, Corbie, and Le Bec, (in the eleventh century.) From Lyons you could see, far away on the mountain-heights of Switzerland, Reichnau, whose garrison was re-enforced by foreigners who crossed the water, (Irish monks,) and St. Gall, whose monks quote theIliad. In Spain, Christians did not strive in valor alone with the Moors; they vied in learning with the Arabs, and studied and translated their works. Theméléewas universal. Luitprand, an Englishman, who took part in it, as well as Gerbert, a Frenchman, heard ten languages spoken there; among others, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. [Footnote 198]
[Footnote 198: Greek by merchants, Hebrew by the Jews, Arabic everywhere, while Latin is the foundation of the national tongue.]
Cross the Channel: in England at every step are colleges and seminaries: that far-off murmur comes from the seven thousand students of Armagh, in Ireland. And if you penetrate the wilds of Germany, among the Saxons but just converted, you will discover the advanced posts—the school of Fulden, founded by St. Boniface; New Corbie on the Weser, where, at a later day, were found the five books of theAnnalsof Tacitus; and what is more, a convent of learned nuns—the Monastery of Roswitha.
This is the main army, and it is not without support. The leaders of the people and the directors of souls do not abandon these valiant troops. Kings, when they have the power and the leisure, send them reenforcements: there are the schools of Eugene II. for the study of the liberal arts; of grammar under Lothaire in France of jurisprudence at Angers; of Edward the Confessor in England. It is not till the time of Henry of Germany that princes are unmindful of them. He would not listen to the petition of a poet for schools ofbelles-lettresand law. These are the scattered forts that support and bind together the main army.
But perhaps they are destitute of arms and have no arsenals and ammunition? What, then, are all these books of medicine dating from the seventh to the tenth century, "accumulated in all the convents"? [Footnote 199]—the celebrated libraries of Ferrière and Bobbio, which owned Aristotle and Demosthenes; of Reichnau, which in 850 possessed four hundred volumes catalogued; the Greek manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries discovered at Rome, Verona, Monte Casino, [Footnote 200] and at Tournay:[Footnote 201] the copies of ancient authors, made in the ninth and tenth centuries by the monks of St. Gall? [Footnote 202] Do you not hear resounding the most illustrious names—of poets, historians, philosophers, and orators—Homer, Seneca, Ovid, Sallust, and Pliny? [Footnote 203] This one, like a watchman who calls for help from the mountain-heights, (Lupus, abbot of Ferrière to Pope Benedict III.,) requests the loan of theOratorof Cicero, theInstitutionsof Quintilian, and a commentary of Terence; another (seeLife of St. Columba) quotes Titus Livius; others (seeActs of the Saints) quote Horace; treaties are fortified with passages from Cicero; [Footnote 204] and there is not a barbarous chronicle in which there are not lightning-like flashes from the inspired lines of Virgil. [Footnote 205]
[Footnote 199: Dander,Missions scientifiques.]
[Footnote 200: Renan,Missions scientifiques.]
[Footnote 201: Dom Pitra,ibid.]
[Footnote 202: Dander,ibid.]
[Footnote 203: There are proofs, says Daremberg, that the Franks of the age of Charlemagne read Pliny. These books were not lost, but preserved in the convents.]
[Footnote 204: Dom Pitra,Missions scientifiques.]
[Footnote 205: See Villemain,Histoire de la Littérature du Moyen Age, lesson x.]
They do not lack arms, and they make use of them. They have captains—leaders who are capable, learned, and indefatigable. They are well known: Abbo, abbot of Fleury-sur-Loire, who is called the "Alcuin of the tenth century," who wrote a history of the popes, on philosophy, physics, and astronomy, and the commander of a numerous corps of more than five thousand students, among whom is one who translated Euclid; [Footnote 206] Flodoard, author ofLa Chronique de France; the thirty-two professors ofbelles-lettresat Salernum; St. Fulbert and Henry of Auxerre, in France; Elphege at Monte Casino; in Spain, Petrus Alphonsus, who compares the literature of France with that of his own country; [Footnote 207] in England, Odo and St. Dunstan, a geometrician, musician, painter, and sculptor;[Footnote 208] and finally, that wonderful man, who made the tour of the world of learning and was familiar with every part of it—mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, literature, and philosophy—at once a prince of the church and of science— Gerbert. [Footnote 209]
[Footnote 206: There is a second Abbo in the tenth century— a monk also, and a poet.]
[Footnote 207: In his bookDe Disciplina Cleri. See Dom Pitria,Histoire de St. Léger.]
[Footnote 208: Berrington,History of Literature in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.]
[Footnote 209: Gaillard, in hisHistoire de Charlemagne, gives a list of masters who succeeded each other without interruption from Alcuin till the twelfth century.]
But, blockaded in their fortresses by barbarism, brigandage, and tyranny, what important deeds could they achieve, what feats of arms, what expeditions? In the first place, they held their position by keeping the ramparts in constant repair.In the scriptorium of every abbey, a numerous detachment of patient copyists, bending all day over manuscripts, transcribed the holy books and the masterpieces of antiquity, and rendered eminent service to the arts, to letters, and to history by preserving and keeping in order the store of munitions which otherwise would have been squandered and for ever lost. At the same time, watchful sentinels on the walls observed all that was passing in the world without, and made an exact report of it; that is to say, they drew up those chronicles, charters, and cartularies in which were recorded facts, names, contracts, donations, and the changes in the countries in which they lived, among the people they directed, in the lands they cultivated, the sovereigns who ruled over them, and the conquerors who despoiled them. [Footnote 210]
[Footnote 210: It is sufficient to mention thePolyptiqueof the abbot Irminon, (tenth century,) and the numerous cartularies that have been published within half a century.]
And that the descriptions might be complete, painters illuminated the margins of the vellum manuscripts, supplying by delicate and faithful miniatures in the brightest colors what was wanting in the text, general details respecting the splendor of the vestments, the sculptures on the walls and the ornaments of the houses, thus bequeathing to posterity a lively and true portrayal of their time. And the whole makes up the immense and inexhaustible treasure where we find depicted the manners, customs, classes of society, the nature of the soil, and facts respecting the tillers of the earth, their lords, and the church, forming the moral, industrial, and agricultural history of all Christendom. These transcripts, chronicles, and paintings are the magazines, casemates, and bastions without which the citadel of letters and science would have been dismantled and rendered uninhabitable for generations to come!
They did not confine themselves to this; nothing was neglected that should occupy a well-organized army; first, regular exercise, which makes the soldier active, robust, and ready for any duty; the study of the liberal arts, divided into two classes for the recruits and the veterans: thequadrivium, (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy,) and thetrivium(grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics. [Footnote 211] ) These labors were carried on in the interior of the fortress. They also made expeditions and sallies to keep the ways of access clear—commentaries upon authors, variations of texts, (as the commentaries on theFastiof Ovid, [Footnote 212] the treatiseDe Senectute, with different readings of the same text, [Footnote 213] and numerous manuscripts with Greek annotations.[Footnote 214]) They undertook sieges, for a translation may be called a siege; everywhere you could find real workshops for translating Greek authors into Latin, such as books of medicine, (Galen, Hippocrates, and Oribasus,) the fathers, (theHomiliesof St. John Chrysostom,) and the principal ancient authors, [Footnote 215] (theLogicof Aristotle.) Under the guidance of the leaders already named, they went forth to daily combat and even to fight great battles; in the schools, colleges, monasteries, and public lectures, professors, doctors, and students [Footnote 216] stimulated the public mind; they touched on every science, and treated, under the names of nominalism and realism, of all those questions about which man is continually agitated—his nature, his origin, his relations with God, and his destiny;
[Footnote 211: Mentioned by Roswitha in the tenth century.]
[Footnote 212: Found at Reichnau by M. Dantier.]
[Footnote 213: At Mr. Philipps's in England, by Dom Pitra.]
[Footnote 214: At Monte Casino, by M. Renan.]
[Footnote 215: See Daremberg,ibid. A proof, says M. Littré, inLes Barbares et le Moyen Age, that during the Merovingian and Carlovingian periods the Greek filiation of the sciences was preserved. As to medical science, he adds, it is evidently not a simple question of medicine.]
[Footnote 216: Béranger, Lanfranc, Roscelin, etc.]
struggles constantly renewed, in which they fought furiously and displayed all their strength by quotations from authors, allusions to celebrated events and to sayings of antiquity, (for example, the sarcasm of Julian to the Christians, mentioned by Roswitha; [Footnote 217] the veil given by a king of England to the Abbey of Croyland, on which was embroidered the Ruin of Troy; [Footnote 218] the Latin war hymn chanted at Modena, which alludes to the devotedness of Codrus; [Footnote 219]) brilliant tournaments in which, like knights of prowess, some endeavored to distinguish themselves by a display of erudition better suited, it might seem, to the refined age of the sixteenth century than to the tenth. They signed acts written in Greek; [Footnote 220] in Latin verse; [Footnote 221] they wrote the lives of the saints in French verse; [Footnote 222] the kings of England prided themselves on the name of[Greek text]; they spoke Greek in ordinary intercourse. [Footnote 223] These knights of science, like the paladins in the combats with giants, displayed wondrous feats. "I am over shoes in Cicero'sRhetoric," writes Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland. [Footnote 224]
[Footnote 217: Christians should congratulate themselves on being deprived of their riches, for Christ said: "Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple." See theGallicanus.]
[Footnote 218: See Darboy,Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury.]
[Footnote 219: A Latin hymn was also chanted at Pisa, in the eleventh century, to celebrate a victory over the Saracens.]
[Footnote 220: At Poitiers, at the end of the ninth century.]
[Footnote 221: At Sienna.]
[Footnote 222: In 1050, Thibaud de Vernon, canon at Rouen.]
[Footnote 223: The monks of England and Ireland.]
[Footnote 224: Tenth century.]
They did not confine themselves to the defensive. In studying the ancient writers they were inspired to imitate them, and they went forth into the open field and vied in a thousand works of the imagination—fiction, poetry—(hymns, poems of the eleventh century, and history.) What is more, they undertook fatiguing and dangerous expeditions into far-off and almost unknown countries— archaeology, which had not then a name, (see "the valuable manuscripts of the tenth century, discovered by Mabillon at Einsiedeln, which treat of Roman inscriptions;") cosmography, in which they divined truths of the highest importance. The Irish monk Virgilius taught in Bohemia the antipodes, and consequently that the earth is round. He was not comprehended: they supposed him to believe there were other lands under our earth, with another sun, another moon, and inhabitants for whom Christ did not die, and he was excommunicated. He went to Rome, where he was permitted to explain his theory; the pope withdrew his anathema and elevated him to the episcopacy. [Footnote 225] Finally, the drama, into which was infused a new and original character. Whilst the monk Virgilius taught the true form of the earth, the nun Roswitha composed her tragedies, the first specimens of the Christian drama, at once full of the reminiscences of antiquity and the spirit of the gospel.
[Footnote 225: Quatrefages,Peuplement de l'Amérique, which proves:1. The geographical knowledge of the times.2. The perpetuity of tradition.3. The intercourse of different nations.4. The tolerance of the church.Bouillet, in hisDictionnaire universelle d'Histoire et de Géographie, is deceived on this point.]
You will see by all this activity, this animation, and these names, "that the tenth century has been unjustly accused of barbarism" (Magnin)—that age in which there was such a taste for classical studies that "many Christians," says Roswitha, "preferred the vanity of pagan books to the utility of the Holy Scriptures, on account of the elegance of their style," and that, far from meriting the appellation of the Iron Age, it should rather be called "a great centre of light." [Footnote 226]
[Footnote 226: Dom Pitra,Rapport sur une Mission scientifique.To all these works add the memoir of Ozanam,Des Ecoles et de l'Instruction publique en Italie au Temps barbares, in which he clearly demonstrates that letters never ceased to be cultivated.]
When we look down from the lofty elevation of the nineteenth century, which is called the age of progress, into this deep gulf of the middle ages—the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries—we are not astonished at its darkness, but by the brilliant rays that issue from it. It is not an abyss. At the first glance there seem to be only a few points of light; but the eye is soon attracted by a multitude of peaks everywhere rising up with brilliant summits and resplendent glaciers sparkling with radiant light. We are astonished and give ourselves up to admiration, in the words of the poet who, perceiving the Alps afar off, thinks that
"Ces monts glacésNe sont qu'affreux déserts, rochers, torrents, abîmes,"
"Ces monts glacésNe sont qu'affreux déserts, rochers, torrents, abîmes,"
but who, when he reaches them,
"Y trouve, ravi,De l'ombre, des rayons, des solitudes vertes,Des vergers pleins de dons, des chaumières ouvertesA l'hospitalité. …Des coteaux aux flancs d'or, de limpides vallées,Et des lacs étoilés des feux du firmament" [Footnote 227]
"Y trouve, ravi,De l'ombre, des rayons, des solitudes vertes,Des vergers pleins de dons, des chaumières ouvertesA l'hospitalité. …Des coteaux aux flancs d'or, de limpides vallées,Et des lacs étoilés des feux du firmament" [Footnote 227]
—finds the hospitality of the church, the solitude of monasteries, and the firmament of Christianity!
[Footnote 227: Lamartine.]
Doubt is still displayed. There are other objections. Noblemen did not know how to read, women lived in ignorance; how could knowledge be diffused when people within fortified walls and the narrow limits of their territories could with so much difficulty hold communication with each other?
There is a false idea of the middle ages. It is imagined that men, so independent and so wilful, remained stationary and shut up in their fortresses without endeavoring to see and know each other. It is precisely the contrary. There was a constant and ardent desire for intercourse which caused nations to mingle and exchange languages, ideas, and customs. What was the consequence of the incessant wars, if not to lead men of the North to the South, those of the East to the West, the people of Normandy to Naples and to England, the Britons of Armorica into Great Britain, andvice versa, (from the fifth to the eleventh century;) [Footnote 228] the Burgundians into Lusitania, where they founded the kingdom of Portugal, (Henry of Burgundy, in the eleventh century, accompanied by knights and troubadours)? And then the varied and extensive commerce of the great cities of France and of the rich and industrious Flemish cities, whose ports, filled with vessels from every land, resounded, as we are told by the chroniclers, with the sounds of all languages? And the celebrated fairs, Beaucaire, Novgorod, and the Landit, (at St. Denis,) rallying-points for the merchants of Europe, Egypt, Asia, and the islands of the Levant—and which were the universal expositions of the productions of the middle ages? The bold enterprises of the Italian republics, powerful through commerce, which owned vessels enough to transport the entire army of the crusaders, and which owned a part of the East—the Genoese, the faubourgs of Constantinople; the Pisans, several ports in Syria; the Venetians, the Morea and Crete, the Archipelago; which trafficked not only with the rest of Europe, but with the coast of Barbary, Tunis, and Morocco, [Footnote 229] in fact, with the interior of Asia, into which its adventurous citizens penetrated, (as in the case of Marco Polo and several others,) and with the extreme East, which the nineteenth century has only just discovered, if we may dare say so, and allied with the rest of the world. [Footnote 230]
[Footnote 228: La Villemarqué,Discours au Congrès celtigue de Saint-Brieuc, 1867.]
[Footnote 229: Malastrie,Missions scientifiques.]
[Footnote 230: The Venetian Sanuto penetrated as far as Cambodia; a goldsmith of Paris settled in China; merchants from Breslau and Poland met Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian merchants in the interior of Tartary, etc. See Le Bas,Précis de l'Histoire du Moyen Age.]
The love of knowledge also drew nations together. Learned men did not hesitate to undertake long journeys, to cross the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the sea, that they might pursue their studies in Italy, (as Fortunatus at Ravenna in the sixth century,) obtain books on medicine, (Richer in the eleventh century,) [Footnote 231] meet English students in Spain, (Peter the Venerable in the twelfth century,) hold converse with some doctor at Bologna, or some monk in a monastery of the Apennines. How could there be no intercourse between the universities of Salamanca, of Pavia, of Oxford, and of Paris, when the same questions were discussed at them all; when the metaphysical heresies which sprang from one were refuted in another five hundred leagues distant; [Footnote 232] when the masters and pupils of Germany, England, Spain, France, and Italy flocked to these schools; from France to Padua, from England to Valencia, and from all countries to Paris, where, almost at the same time, disputations were carried on by Englishmen, Italians, Irishmen, and Germans, who were to be known as Dante, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, Brunetto Latini, Albertus Magnus, Alexander of Hales, and St. Thomas Aquinas?
[Footnote 231: Daremberg,ibid.]
[Footnote 232: And there were such close relations between the factions in France and those of England, that, in the fourteenth century, the revolutionary movements in Paris coincided with those in London. See Naudet,Conjuration d Etienne Marcel.]
It has been said that for literature to flourish, a nation must be invigorated by powerful and varied deeds: [Footnote 233] at what epoch was there a more stirring and varied life than in the middle ages?
[Footnote 233: Madame de Staël.]
Follow the continued journeys of the poet-historian Froissart to and fro in every direction, in France and without, now at the foot of the Pyrenees at the Chateau de Foix, and now in Italy, where, at Milan, he meets another poet, Chaucer of England, who had come to visit Genoa, Padua, etc. From Brittany he goes to Flanders, and even to Zealand, where he forms a friendship with a Portuguese lord. He thinks nothing of crossing the water; he goes to England repeatedly, dwells there, and penetrates even to Scotland, then "an unknown land." He traverses France from one end to the other; is in Spain to-day and to-morrow in Germany. Would you not think you were reading the life of a modern individual? He is called a chronicler: a chronicler indeed, and after the manner of the men of our own time; like them, chronicler and tourist, traversing earth and sea to participate in festivities, witness battles, and mingle in courts. [Footnote 234]
[Footnote 234: But with this difference: he did not travel in a cushioned car going at the rate of forty miles an hour, but on horseback, at a good round trot, with spurs on his heels and his luggage behind.]
Yes, kings, conquerors, and those in pursuit of adventures took long journeys with their armed followers, their vehicles, machines, and engines of war; princes, nobles, and warriors traversed Europe, escorted by brilliant cavalcades, upon their steeds and palfreys; merchants landed on foreign shores, the winds swelling the sails of their vessels; even learned men crossed the water and the mountains to add to their knowledge; conquerors to found empires, princes to strengthen their power by alliances, and merchants to gain wealth. But there were men who surpassed all these who were borne by chariots, vessels, and noble horses—the pilgrims who went on foot.
Crowds, in constant succession, of men, women, and children, from all countries, undertook these pilgrimages to hundreds of holy places in Flanders, Spain, Rome, (where, says Villani, the jubilee of 1300 led more than two hundred thousand pilgrims,) and, above all, to the Holy Land, which led to the wonderful outpouring of all Europe into Asia and Africa for three centuries—the crusades, during which the West was brought into contact with Egypt, and through Egypt with India; through Constantinople, where the Latins founded an empire that lasted more than fifty years, with the Greeks, and through them with thechefs-d'oeuvreof pagan and Christian antiquity, and from whom they obtained books, manuscripts, agricultural implements, and a knowledge of industrial pursuits literature, and the arts. [Footnote 235]
[Footnote 235: They brought back, among other books, Aristotle's works on metaphysics, and cane, millet, camel's-hair stuffs, etc.]
And the monks, what long journeys they made in the world! Carried away by zeal for religion, they dispersed in every direction to preach the gospel; some to Prussia, Poland, and the extremities of Europe—to Norway; others from Greece, Egypt, and Syria to Ireland; others still (in the time of St. Louis) into Tartary, and even into China, where they found traces of Christianity left there by other monks who had preceded them. They went still farther beyond Ireland and Norway into Iceland, and from Iceland (St. Brandan in the eighth century) into an unknown land, peopled by strange men, clad with the skins of marine animals, where they built monasteries and churches, whence they penetrated still farther into the interior, even as far as Mexico perhaps, leaving behind them an ineffaceable remembrance, thus being the first to discover [Footnote 236] and inhabit the country to which they did not give its present name, but which was really the southern extremity of the New World which, four centuries after, Columbus discovered, and which is called America.
[Footnote 236: "When, in the eleventh century, the Scandinavians landed in Greenland, the Esquimaux told them that at the south there were white men clad in long black robes, who walked chanting and carrying banners before them; they were the monks who, in the eighth century, had set sail for Iceland, and had been thrown by the wind on the American coast." (Ozanam,Le Christianisme chez les Barbares.) Dom Pitra (Histoire de St. Léger) mentions a book of the sixteenth century on the voyages of the Benedictines into America—doubtless these monks lost among the savages, who left those signs of Christianity, crosses, a kind of baptism, etc., which were afterward found, and which otherwise would be inexplicable.]
It was neither thirst for riches, nor love of conquest, nor longing for power, nor even enthusiasm for knowledge, that induced them to undertake these extensive, dangerous, and fruitful enterprises; they were inspired by a more sublime sentiment—the love of God and of souls—the desire of devoting themselves to God, and of leading to him new followers out of strange nations.
There is no mark more distinctive of the character of individuals or nations than the treatment of woman. Christianity emancipated woman; it brought her forth from the obscurity to which she had been banished, and taking her by the hand, introduced her into the social world, and gave her a place beside man, that she might receive the spiritual aliment which would develop her mind, as well as elevate her soul. Taught by the example of Christ, the most eloquent and learned of the fathers—those philosophers of no sect—Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzen, Augustine, Paulinus, and Basil, address numerous letters to women—to women, so disdained by paganism that not a single letter to a woman is to be found in all the correspondence of Cicero. [Footnote 237]
[Footnote 237: And of Pliny. If Seneca composed two treatises,De Consolatione, for Marcia and Helvia it was because his ideas were modified by contact with Christianity. And I see herein a proof, which has not been sufficiently noticed, of his knowledge of the Christian doctrine or of his acquaintance with St. Paul.]
But it may be said that these women who showed themselves worthy of holding converse with such great men read and wrote Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and belonged to the highest Roman society. There are no women who are not noble. The church opened schools for women where they received the same instructions as men. [Footnote 238]
[Footnote 238: Dom Pitra,Histoire de St. Léger, vi.]
There is, from the time of the illustrious patrician ladies who followed St. Jerome into the desert, St. Paula, St. Eustochium, etc., [Footnote 239:] an uninterrupted list of nuns, of abbesses, whom the church reveres as saints, and who might be claimed by the literary world on account of their attainments. For example, St. Radegonde, (in the sixth century,) who introduced into the monastery of St. Croix, at Poitiers, the rule of St. Caesarius, which obliged all the nuns to the study of letters, that is to say, Latin, the fathers, canonical law, history, cosmography, etc., to devote two hours a day to reading besides that which they listened to during labor and their meals, and to the transcribing of books, etc. etc.; Lioba, at Bischofsheim, in Germany, the mistress of a school in a barbarous country who only left her books to pray; [Footnote 240]
[Footnote 239: And Marcella, Blezilla, Paulina. Fabiola, (of the family of Fabii,) Furia, (of the family of Camillus, Melania, Marcellina, etc.)]
[Footnote 240: See Dom Pitra,ib. He mentions St. Aldegondes, St. Anstrude, etc. The monastery of Lioba, he says, was like a normal school with respect to the other schools springing up in Germany.]
St. Bertille, at Chelles; St. Gertrude, in Belgium, (seventh century,) who sent to Ireland and to Italy for books; and those poor women who studied theology under St. Boniface, (eighth century;) and Roswitha, whose dramatic works display not only the inventive imagination of the poet, but a learning rare among women of any age, shown by her quotations from the ancient poets, the historical facts she mentions, her knowledge of foreign languages, etc. [Footnote 241] A Gerbert and a Roswitha are sufficient to redeem a whole century from the charge of ignorance and barbarism; and if nuns in the heart of Germany made such attainments in literature, what must have been the women of the age of Charlemagne, of St. Bernard, and of St. Louis? Then the daughters and nieces of the emperor took lessons of Alcuin: a queen sang the sweet serenity of the cloister in graceful Latin verse; [Footnote 242] a young girl of Paris had for her teacher one of the most celebrated professors of her time; [Footnote 243] and then was drawn up a course of studies in which were prescribed, such as these: [Footnote 244]
[Footnote 241: Spanish particularly, proved by theHispanismesin her style, pointed out by her learned editor, Magnin.]
[Footnote 242: Richarde, wife of Charles le Gros.]
[Footnote 243: Heloïse, and doubtless she was not the only one among the bourgeoisie of Paris. Recall also the learned nun mentioned in the beginning of Du Guesclin's life, who, in predicting his success, removed, as it were, the obstacles to his glorious career.]
[Footnote 244: Boutaric,Vie et OEuvres de Pierre du Bois, in the memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, 1864.]
"Children of both sexes, from five to twelve years of age:reading, (in the Psalter,)singing, grammar, moral distichs, (of Cato,) and, a little later, Latin, which they will learn to speak. Young girls:natural history, surgery, medicine, logic, Latin, and the oriental languages"—a plan drawn up in the dark and ignorant middle ages, which could not be easily pursued even in this age, distinguished and enlightened by the romances of so many women of genius!
We need not wait till the time of Clemence Isaure (fourteenth century) to find a woman whom Christianity had imbued with taste and a delicate poetical nature. History, chronicles, and ballads have opened to us the chateaux where, whilst the mail-clad baron and his armed followers fought without, his wife, seated in some deep embrasure, would cast a glance from time to time through the narrow window upon the varied landscape, and then resume, in the large, open volume before her, the fabulous and heroic exploits of knights and brave men among the paynim and giants; where, at nightfall, in the midst of her servants and followers, she listened smilingly and thoughtfully to some wandering troubadour singing of war, of love, and of tournaments, and relating his adventures—a charming picture which allies the romantic chatelaine—passing by the elegant and trifling ladies of the court of the Restoration—with the strong-minded women of the seventeenth century, so captivating and so learned, who read philosophical treatises, spoke several languages, studied the doctors and fathers of the church, and who are considered by the world as models of wit, taste, elegance, and grace: Longueville, Montausier, Lafayette, Rambouillet, Jacqueline Pascal, Maintenon, and Sévigné!
But it is necessary to make a painful avowal. In the midst of the general diffusion of knowledge in monasteries, schools, universities, towns, boroughs, and villages, and even among the poor and lowly, there is one class of society which remained during all the middle ages in shameful ignorance—the nobility.
The kings, however, who issued from its ranks, and who in all ages prided themselves on the name of gentleman, were an exception. The sons of Clovis were the first pupils of the school established in his palace and directed by his chaplain. This example was perpetuated. The princes of the Merovingian dynasty pursued their studies in the monasteries, and literary habits became so congenial to them that, in some instances, they were carried to excess and became a kind of mania, as in the case of the prince called theClerc couronné. (Chilperic.) As to Charlemagne, who spoke the Latin language, understood Greek, made astronomical calculations, brought professors from Italy, (Peter of Pisa and Paul the Hellenist deacon,) and founded the first academy and the first university, it is useless to insist on him, for he is universally acknowledged to be at once a hero, a learned man, and a saint. Nor are the literary tastes of the most eminent sovereigns denied, as Alfred the Great, the translator of AEsop and commentator of Bede; Charles le Chauve, who had Aristotle and Plato explained to him by masters from Constantinople; Alfonso the Wise, astronomer, legislator, and historian; Robert the Pious; Otto II., who appointed Gerbert, the wisest man of the age, tutor to his son; Frederick II., who spoke German, French, Arabic, Latin, and Greek; and Philip Augustus, the patron of literature and the arts, "who, for that age, was as magnificent as Louis XIV." [Footnote 245]
[Footnote 245: Villemain,ibid.]
And later than the twelfth century, is it astonishing that St. Louis admitted St. Thomas of Aquin to his table, where, in his presence, were discussed the highest questions of philosophy? That the rule of study drawn up for John, son of Philip of Valois, included Latin and several languages? [Footnote 246] That Charles V. collected at the Louvre a library of considerable size, and that his brothers, the dukes of Burgundy and Berri, carried away by love for the arts, ordered miniatures, which are admirable paintings, from the celebrated painters, Memling, Van Eyck, and Jean Fouquet? But we are approaching the time of the Restoration, and consequently all these facts prove nothing.
[Footnote 246: In a memoir addressed to the queen in 1334 and composed of one hundred and six articles, the unknown author gives the king's daily rule of life as follows: "Rise at six all the year round—Mass at seven—business till ten—supper at six—to bed at ten—to have his son taught several languages, even Latin, to fit him to travel."]
But were these enlightened, well-informed, and even learned monarchs satisfied with their own attainments, and did they live in their courts among brutal, ignorant, and coarse warriors who could only talk of combats and gallantry? No; it is well known that their principal vassals, the minor sovereigns, especially those of Southern France, where the learning of Rome was diffused, were not wholly unlettered. In the ninth century, there was the son of a Count (Maguelonne) St. Benedict of Amiane, who was at the head of all the monasteries in France, and who compared, modified, and wrote commentaries on the rules of the various religious orders—Greek as well as Latin; Foulques, Count of Anjou, in the tenth century—yes, in the tenth century, that darkest period of the middle ages—understood Aristotle and Cicero, as has been proved, and in the following century, when the leaders of the crusades assembled at Jerusalem to draw up a code of laws—a civil and political code—charter of citizenship, etc., they evidently understood not only the general customs, but Roman law; and several of them (Iselin, etc.) were no less proficients in the law than valiant knights; [Footnote 247] finally, if the muse of France would trace its ancestry back to former times, it would find two princes, William of Poitiers and Thibaut of Champagne. It is right, then, to leave out the testimony of sovereigns.
[Footnote 247: Robertson, in his introduction to theHistory of Charles V., is mistaken when he says the middle ages were ignorant of Roman law until the twelfth century. Roman law was not revived by the discovery of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi: it was always known and practised: it was cited at the tribunals, and generally known during all the middle ages, as demonstrated by Savigny,Histoire du Droit romain au Moyen Age.See also Fauriel,Histoire des Populations méridionales.]
History also certifies a very singular fact: the leaders, theleudes, under the Merovingians, sent their children to the school at the palace "to be initiated in palatial learning." There they underwent examinations, studied the fathers, history, law, religious dogmas, received degrees, etc. This fact is thus explained: these young men were hostages that the king kept at court to insure the fealty of their fathers, no doubt; and the consequence of this truly barbarous idea was to convert a prison into a school and an academy! There was another custom almost as singular: these young men are represented as travelling, even in the earliest ages, in the various countries of Europe—France, Spain, and Italy—and in the East. Yes, notwithstanding the insecurity of the routes, it was the fashion in the seventh century to send young Englishmen to France to be reared, and even in many cases across the Alps to Rome, Padua, etc. Some went to complete their education in Greece, and, after the establishment of the Latin Empire, at Constantinople. These young men apparently belonged to wealthy and noble families.And we would recall the fact that in the schools directed by Clement, a Scotchman, Charlemagne assembled—strange idea!—"a great number of children of all classes from the highest to the lowest rank;" [Footnote 248] that among the pupils of Lanfranc, at the abbey of Bec, were a great number of the children of lords and barons, and, among others, William, Duke of Normandy, and that son of an Italian nobleman who, later, was known as Pope Alexander II. It would appear that these young men did not allow the faculties they had developed to remain unproductive and useless, from the fact that the earliest poets were princes and nobles. But then, poetry is the offspring of the imagination and of genius, and the French race, particularly in the South, are so richly gifted therewith!
[Footnote 248: The monk of St. Gall, mentioned by Phil. le Bas,ibid.]
What is more surprising, the first French historians were two lords: Villehardoin in the twelfth century, and Joinville in the thirteenth—historians not without culture. There are in their language elegance, distinction, and Attic wit. They mention,en passant, and without affectation, names and facts that attest varied knowledge, and their style is so perfect that competent writers have concluded that the nobility moulded the French language to history and poetry—the ideal and the practical! [Footnote 249] It is probably to these studious habits and this inclination for intellectual pursuits, perpetuated for ages like a tradition, is due the delicate and correct taste peculiar to the French nobility of the last two centuries, and the noble ambition of the great lords who have not been satisfied with protecting the arts, but have deemed it an honor to have their historical names inscribed on the list of the academies, have striven to acquire a knowledge of letters, to excel in it, and to add to the lustre of their descent brilliancy of talent and the glory reserved for intellectual labors.
[Footnote 249: Villemain,ibid., Léop. Delisle, A. de la Borderie, Marchegay. See also Audé, Mémoires de la Société d'Emulation de la Vendée, and the works already mentioned of Boutaric, Littré, Pierre Clémnent, etc.]
Finally—for we must collect testimony for the acquittal of the accused—since the judgment has been so severe, the most conscientious and erudite men of modern times, having traversed the middle ages and returned laden with documents, declare that, among the numberless titles that passed through their hands, they never met this formula, so often mentioned: this one, being a nobleman, attests his inability to sign his name.
Yet in spite of these proofs, these attestations, and the authority of the witnesses, there is one fact beyond doubt,the absolute ignorance of the nobility of the middle ages, and we are forced, to our great regret, to conclude that this opinion must be accepted as a historical fact of the same class, and as clearly proved, as the so well authenticated facts of Sixtus V. throwing away his crutches as soon as he was elected Pope, Gilles de Raiz slaughtering his wives like Bluebeard, Charles V. participating in his own funeral rites at St. Just, Marie de Medicis dying of hunger in a garret at Cologne, and Galileo imprisoned in a dungeon of the Inquisition!