Chapter 30

[u]St. Palaye, part iii. passim.[x]The word bachelor has been sometimes derived from bas chevalier; in opposition to banneret. But this cannot be right. We do not find any authority for the expression bas chevalier, nor any equivalent in Latin, baccalaureus certainly not suggesting that sense; and it is strange that the corruption should obliterate every trace of the original term. Bachelor is a very old word, and is used in early French poetry for a young man, as bachelette is for a girl. So also in Chaucer:"A yonge Squire,A lover, and a lustybachelor."[y]Du Cange, Dissertation 9mesur Joinville. The number of men at arms, whom a banneret ought to command, was properly fifty. But Olivier de la Marche speaks of twenty-five as sufficient; and it appears that, in fact, knights-banneret often did not bring so many.[z]Ibid. Olivier de la Marche (Collection des Mémoires, t. viii. p. 337) gives a particular example of this; and makes a distinction between the bachelor, created a banneret on account of his estate, and the hereditary banneret, who took a public opportunity of requesting the sovereign to unfold his family banner which he had before borne wound round his lance. The first was said relever banniere; the second, entrer en banniere. This difference is more fully explained by Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, p. 116. Chandos's banner was unfolded, not cut, at Navarette. We read sometimes of esquire-bannerets, that is, of bannerets by descent, not yet knighted.[a]Froissart, part i. c. 241.[b]Mém. sur la Chevalerie, part v.[c]The prerogative exercised by the kings of England of compelling men sufficiently qualified in point of estate to take on them the honour of knighthood was inconsistent with the true spirit of chivalry. This began, according to Lord Lyttelton, under Henry III. Hist. of Henry II. vol. ii. p. 238. Independently of this, several causes tended to render England less under the influence of chivalrous principles than France or Germany; such as, her comparatively peaceful state, the smaller share she took in the crusades, her inferiority in romances of knight-errantry, but above all, the democratical character of her laws and government. Still this is only to be understood relatively to the two other countries above named; for chivalry was always in high repute among us, nor did any nation produce more admirable specimens of its excellences.I am not minutely acquainted with the state of chivalry in Spain, where it seems to have flourished considerably. Italy, except in Naples, and perhaps Piedmont, displayed little of its spirit; which neither suited the free republics of the twelfth and thirteenth, nor the jealous tyrannies of the following centuries. Yet even here we find enough to furnish Muratori with materials for his 53rd Dissertation.[d]The well-known Memoirs of St. Palaye are the best repository of interesting and illustrative facts respecting chivalry. Possibly he may have relied a little too much on romances, whose pictures will naturally be overcharged. Froissart himself has somewhat of this partial tendency, and the manners of chivalrous times do not make so fair an appearance in Monstrelet. In the Memoirs of la Tremouille (Collect. des Mém. t. xiv. p. 169), we have perhaps the earliest delineation from the life of those severe and stately virtues in high-born ladies, of which our own country furnished so many examples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which were derived from the influence of chivalrous principles. And those of Bayard in the same collection (t. xiv. and xv.) are a beautiful exhibition of the best effects of that discipline.It appears to me that M. Guizot, to whose judgment I owe all deference, has dwelt rather too much on the feudal character of chivalry. Hist. de la Civilisation en France, Leçon 36. Hence he treats the institution as in its decline during the fourteenth century, when, if we can trust either Froissart or the romancers, it was at its height. Certainly, if mere knighthood was of right both in England and the north of France, a territorial dignity, which bore with it no actual presumption of merit, it was sometimes also conferred on a more honourable principle. It was not every knight who possessed a fief, nor in practice did every possessor of a fief receive knighthood.Guizot justly remarks, as Sismondi has done, the disparity between the lives of most knights and the theory of chivalrous rectitude. But the same has been seen in religion, and can be no reproach to either principle. Partout la pensée morale des hommes s'élève et aspire fort au dessus de leur vie. Et gardez vous de croire que parce qu'elle ne gouvernait pas immédiatement les actions, parceque la pratique démontait sans cesse et étrangement la théorie, l'influence de la théorie fut nulle et sans valeur. C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace.It may be thought by many severe judges, that I have over-valued the efficacy of chivalrous sentiments in elevating the moral character of the middle ages. But I do not see ground for withdrawing or modifying any sentence. The comparison is never to be made with an ideal standard, or even with one which a purer religion and a more liberal organization of society may have rendered effectual, but with the condition of a country where neither the sentiments of honour nor those of right prevail. And it seems to me that I have not veiled the deficiencies and the vices of chivalry any more than its beneficial tendencies.A very fascinating picture of chivalrous manners has been drawn by a writer of considerable reading, and still more considerable ability, Mr. Kenelm Digby, in his Broad Stone of Honour. The bravery, the courteousness, the munificence, above all, the deeply religious character of knighthood and its reverence for the church, naturally took hold of a heart so susceptible of these emotions, and a fancy so quick to embody them. St. Palaye himself is a less enthusiastic eulogist of chivalry, because he has seen it more on the side of mere romance, and been less penetrated with the conviction of its moral excellence. But the progress of still deeper impression seems to have moderated the ardour of Mr. Digby's admiration for the historical character of knighthood; he has discovered enough of human alloy to render unqualified praise hardly fitting, in his judgment, for a Christian writer; and in the Mores Catholici, the second work of this amiable and gifted man, the colours in which chivalry appears are by no means so brilliant [1848.][e]Four very recent publications (not to mention that of Buhle on modern philosophy) enter much at large into the middle literature; those of M. Ginguené and M. Sismondi, the history of England by Mr. Sharon Turner, and the Literary History of the Middle Ages by Mr. Berington. All of these contain more or less useful information and judicious remarks; but that of Ginguené is among the most learned and important works of this century. I have no hesitation to prefer it, as far as its subjects extend, to Tiraboschi.[A subsequent work of my own, Introduction to the History of Literature in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, contains, in the first and second chapters, some additional illustrations of the antecedent period, to which the reader may be referred, as complementary to these pages. 1848.][f]Heineccius, Hist. Juris German. c. 1. p. 15.[g]Giannone, 1. iv. c. 6. Selden, ad Fletam, p. 1071.[h]Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 359. Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 155.[i]Irnerius is sometimes called Guarnerius, sometimes Warnerius: the German W is changed into Gu by the Italians, and occasionally omitted, especially in latinizing, for the sake of euphony or purity.[k]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 38; t. v. p. 55.[m]Tiraboschi, t. v. Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 517; t. iii. p. 527; t. iv. p. 504.[n]Duck, de Usu Juris Civilis, 1. ii. c. 6.[o]Idem, 1. ii. 2.[p]Duck, 1. ii. c. 5, s. 30, 31. Fleury, Hist. du Droit François, p. 74 (prefixed to Argou, Institutions au Droit François, edit. 1787), says that it was a great question among lawyers, and still undecided (i.e. in 1674), whether the Roman law was the common law in the pays coutumiers, as to those points wherein their local customs were silent. And, if I understand Denisart, (Dictionnaire des Décisions, art. Droit-écrit,) the affirmative prevailed. It is plain at least by the Causes Célèbres, that appeal was continually made to the principles of the civil law in the argument of Parisian advocates.[q]Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. i. p. 316; t. ii. p. 275.[r]Johan. Salisburiensis, apud Selden ad Fletam, p. 1082.[s]Selden, ubi supra, p. 1095-1104. This passage is worthy of attention. Yet, notwithstanding Selden's authority, I am not satisfied that he has not extenuated the effect of Bracton's predilection for the maxims of Roman jurisprudence. No early lawyer has contributed so much to form our own system as Bracton; and if his definitions and rules are sometimes borrowed from the civilians, as all admit, our common law may have indirectly received greater modification from that influence, than its professors were ready to acknowledge, or even than they knew. A full view of this subject is still, I think, a desideratum in the history of English law, which it would illustrate in a very interesting manner.[t]Duck, De Usu Juris Civilis, 1. i. c. 87.[u]Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 196.[x]Those who feel some curiosity about the civilians of the middle ages will find a concise and elegant account in Gravina, De Origine Juris Civilis, p. 166-206. (Lips. 1708.) Tiraboschi contains perhaps more information; but his prolixity is very wearisome. Besides this fault, it is evident that Tiraboschi knew very little of law, and had not read the civilians of whom he treats; whereas Gravina discusses their merits not only with legal knowledge, but with an acuteness of criticism which, to say the truth, Tiraboschi never shows except on a date or a name.[The civil lawyers of the mediæval period are not at all forgotten on the continent, as the great work of Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, sufficiently proves. It is certain that the civil law must always be studied in Europe, nor ought the new codes to supersede it, seeing they are in great measure derived from its fountain; though I have heard that it is less regarded in France than formerly. In my earlier editions I depreciated the study of the civil law too much, and with too exclusive an attention to English notions.][y]Ante ipsum dominum Carolum regem in Galliâ nullum fuit studium liberalium artium. Monachus Engolismensis, apud Launoy, De Scholis per occidentem instauratis, p. 5. See too Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 1. "Studia liberalium artium" in this passage, must be understood to exclude literature, commonly so called, but not a certain measure of very ordinary instruction. For there were episcopal and conventual schools in the seventh and eighth centuries, even in France, especially Aquitaine; we need hardly repeat that in England, the former of these ages produced Bede and Theodore, and the men trained under them; the Lives of the Saints also lead us to take with some limitation the absolute denial of liberal studies before Charlemagne. See Guizot, Hist. de la Civilis. en France, Leçon 16; and Ampère, Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. p. 4. But, perhaps, philology, logic, philosophy, and even theology were not taught, as sciences, in any of the French schools for these two centuries; and consequently those established by Charlemagne justly make an epoch.[z]Id. Ibid. There was a sort of literary club among them, where the members assumed ancient names. Charlemagne was called David; Alcuin, Horace; another, Dametas, &c.[a]Hist. Littéraire, p. 217, &c.[b]This division of the sciences is ascribed to St. Augustin; and we certainly find it established early in the sixth century. Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, t. iii. p. 597.[c]Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 126.[d]Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. i. p. 28.[e]Brucker, t. iii. p. 612. Raban Maurus was chief of the cathedral school at Fulda, in the ninth century.[f]Crevier, p. 66.[g]Crevier, p. 171; Brucker, p. 677; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 275.[h]Brucker, p. 750.[i]A great interest has been revived in France for the philosophy, as well as the personal history of Abelard, by the publication of his philosophical writings, in 1836, under so eminent an editor as M. Cousin, and by the excellent work of M. de Rémusat, in 1845, with the title Abélard, containing a copious account both of the life and writings of that most remarkable man, the father, perhaps, of the theory as to the nature of universal ideas, now so generally known by the name ofconceptualism.[k]The faculty of arts in the university of Paris was divided into four nations; those of France, Picardy, Normandy, and England. These had distinct suffrages in the affairs of the university, and consequently, when united, outnumbered the three higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine. In 1169, Henry II. of England offers to refer his dispute with Becket to the provinces of the school of Paris.[m]Crevier, t. i. p. 279. The first statute regulating the discipline of the university was given by Robert de Courçon, legate of Honorius III., in 1215, id. p. 296.[n]No one probably would choose to rely on a passage found in one manuscript of Asserius, which has all appearance of an interpolation. It is evident from an anecdote in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 23 (Gutch's edition), that Camden did not believe in the authenticity of this passage, though he thought proper to insert it in the Britannia.[o]1 Gale, p. 75. The mention of Aristotle at so early a period might seem to throw some suspicion on this passage. But it is impossible to detach it from the context; and the works of Aristotle intended by Ingulfus were translations of parts of his Logic by Boethius and Victorin. Brucker, p. 678. A passage indeed in Peter of Blois's continuation of Ingulfus, where the study of Averroes is said to have taken place atCambridgesome years before he was born, is of a different complexion, and must of course be rejected as spurious. In the Gesta Comitum Andegavensium, Fulk, count of Anjou, who lived about 920, is said to have been skilled Aristotelicis et Ciceronianis ratiocinationibus.[The authenticity of Ingulfus has been called in question, not only by Sir Francis Palgrave, but by Mr. Wright. Biogr. Liter., Anglo-Norman Period, p. 29. And this implies, apparently, the spuriousness of the continuation ascribed to Peter of Blois, in which the passage about Averroes throws doubt upon the whole. I have, in the Introduction to the History of Literature, retracted the degree of credence here given to the foundation of the university of Oxford by Alfred. If Ingulfus is not genuine, we have no proof of its existence as a school of learning before the middle of the twelfth century.][p]It may be remarked, that John of Salisbury, who wrote in the first years of Henry II.'s reign, since his Polycraticon is dedicated to Becket, before he became archbishop, makes no mention of Oxford, which he would probably have done if it had been an eminent seat of learning at that time.[q]Wood's Hist. and Antiquities of Oxford, p. 177. The Benedictines of St. Maur say, that there was an eminent school of canon law at Oxford about the end of the twelfth century, to which many students repaired from Paris. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 216.[r]Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 259, et alibi; Muratori, Dissert. 43.[s]"But among these," says Anthony Wood, "a company of varlets, who pretended to be scholars, shuffled themselves in, and did act much villany in the university by thieving, whoring, quarrelling, &c. They lived under no discipline, neither had they tutors; but only for fashion's sake would sometimes thrust themselves into the schools at ordinary lectures, and when they went to perform any mischief, then would they be accounted scholars, that so they might free themselves from the jurisdiction of the burghers." p. 206. If we allow three varlets to one scholar, the university will still have been very fully frequented by the latter.[t]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 47. Azarius, about the middle of the fourteenth century, says the number was about 13,000 in his time. Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 325.[u]Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xvi. p. 341. This may perhaps require to be taken with allowance. But Paris owes a great part of its buildings on the southern bank of the Seine to the university. The students are said to have been about 12,000 before 1480. Crevier, t. iv. p. 410.[x]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 43 and 46.[y]The earliest authentic mention of Cambridge as a place of learning, if I mistake not, is in Matthew Paris, who informs us, that in 1209, John having caused three clerks of Oxford to be hanged on suspicion of murder, the whole body of scholars left that city, and emigrated, some to Cambridge, some to Reading, in order to carry on their studies (p. 191, edit. 1684). But it may be conjectured with some probability, that they were led to a town so distant as Cambridge by the previous establishment of academical instruction in that place. The incorporation of Cambridge is in 1231 (15 Hen. III.), so that there is no great difference in the legal antiquity of our two universities.[z]Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. ii. p. 216; t. iii. p. 140.[a]Pfeffel, Abrégé Chronologique de l'Hist. de l'Allemagne, p. 550, 607.[b]Rymer, t. vi. p. 292.[c]Crevier, t. ii. p. 398.[d]Crevier and Villaret, passim.[e]Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosophiæ, t. iii. p. 678.[f]Id. Ibid. Tiraboschi conceives that the translations of Aristotle made by command of Frederic II. were directly from the Greek, t. iv. p. 145; and censures Brucker for the contrary opinion. Buhle, however (Hist. de la Philosophie Moderne, t. i. p. 696), appears to agree with Brucker. It is almost certain that versions were made from the Arabic Aristotle: which itself was not immediately taken from the Greek, but from a Syriac medium. Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 212 (on the authority of M. Langlés).It was not only a knowledge of Aristotle that the scholastics of Europe derived from the Arabic language. His writings had produced in the flourishing Mohammedan kingdoms a vast number of commentators, and of metaphysicians trained in the same school. Of these Averroes, a native of Cordova, who died early in the thirteenth century, was the most eminent. It would be curious to examine more minutely than has hitherto been done the original writings of these famous men, which no doubt have suffered in translation. A passage from Al Gazel, which Mr. Turner has rendered from the Latin, with all the disadvantage of a double remove from the author's words, appears to state the argument in favour of that class of Nominalists, called Conceptualists, with more clearness and precision than any thing I have seen from the schoolmen. Al Gazel died in 1126, and consequently might have suggested this theory to Abelard, which however is not probable. Turner's Hist. of Engl. vol. i. p. 513.[g]Brucker, Hist. Crit Philosophiæ, t. iii. I have found no better guide than Brucker. But he confesses himself not to have read the original writings of the scholastics; an admission which every reader will perceive to be quite necessary. Consequently, he gives us rather a verbose declamation against their philosophy than any clear view of its character. Of the valuable works lately published in Germany on the history of philosophy, I have only seen that of Buhle, which did not fall into my hands till I had nearly written these pages. Tiedemann and Tennemann are I believe, still untranslated.[h]Buhle, Hist. de la Philos. Moderne, t. i. p. 723. This author raises upon the whole a favourable notion of Anselm and Aquinas; but he hardly notices any other.[i]Mr. Turner has with his characteristic spirit of enterprise examined some of the writings of our chief English schoolmen, Duns Scotus and Ockham (Hist of Eng. vol. i.), and even given us some extracts from them. They seem to me very frivolous, so far as I can collect their meaning. Ockham in particular falls very short of what I had expected; and his nominalism is strangely different from that of Berkeley. We can hardly reckon a man in the right, who is so by accident, and through sophistical reasoning. However, a well-known article in the Edinburgh Review, No. liii. p. 204, gives, from Tennemann, a more favourable account of Ockham.Perhaps I may have imagined the scholastics to be more forgotten than they really are. Within a short time I have met with four living English writers who have read parts of Thomas Aquinas; Mr. Turner, Mr. Berington, Mr. Coleridge, and the Edinburgh Reviewer. Still I cannot bring myself to think that there are four more in this country who can say the same. Certain portions, however, of his writings are still read in the course of instruction of some Catholic universities.[I leave this passage as it was written about 1814. But it must be owned with regard to the schoolmen, as well as the jurists, that I at that time underrated, or at least did not anticipate, the attention which their works have attracted in modern Europe, and that the passage in the text is more applicable to the philosophy of the eighteenth century than of the present. For several years past the metaphysicians of Germany and France have brushed the dust from the scholastic volumes; Tennemann and Buhle, Degerando, but more than all Cousin and Rémusat, in their excellent labours on Abelard, have restored the mediæval philosophy to a place in transcendental metaphysics, which, during the prevalence of the Cartesian school, and those derived from it, had been refused. 1848.][k]Roger Bacon, by far the truest philosopher of the middle ages, complains of the ignorance of Aristotle's translators. Every translator, he observes, ought to understand his author's subject, and the two languages from which and into which he is to render the work. But none hitherto, except Boethius, have sufficiently known the languages; nor has one, except Robert Grostete (the famous bishop of Lincoln), had a competent acquaintance with science. The rest make egregious errors in both respects. And there is so much misapprehension and obscurity in the Aristotelian writings as thus translated, that no one understands them. Opus Majus, p. 45.[m]Brucker, p. 733, 912. Mr. Turner has fallen into some confusion as to this point, and supposes the nominalist system to have had a pantheistical tendency, not clearly apprehending its characteristics, p. 512.[n]Petrarch gives a curious account of the irreligion that prevailed among the learned at Venice and Padua, in consequence of their unbounded admiration for Aristotle and Averroes. One of this school, conversing with him, after expressing much contempt for the Apostles and Fathers, exclaimed: Utinam tu Averroim pati posses, ut videres quanto ille tuis his nugatoribus major sit! Mém. de Pétrarque, t. iii. p. 759. Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 162.[o]Brucker, p. 898.[p]This mystical philosophy appears to have been introduced into Europe by John Scotus, whom Buhle treats as the founder of the scholastic philosophy; though, as it made no sensible progress for two centuries after his time, it seems more natural to give that credit to Roscelin and Anselm. Scotus, or Erigena, as he is perhaps more frequently called, took up, through the medium of a spurious work, ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, that remarkable system, which has from time immemorial prevailed in some schools of the East, wherein all external phenomena, as well as all subordinate intellects, are considered asemanatingfrom the Supreme Being, into whose essence they are hereafter to be absorbed. This system, reproduced under various modifications, and combined with various theories of philosophy and religion, is perhaps the most congenial to the spirit of solitary speculation, and consequently the most extensively diffused of any which those high themes have engendered. It originated no doubt in sublime conceptions of divine omnipotence and ubiquity. But clearness of expression, or indeed of ideas, being not easily connected with mysticism, the language of philosophers adopting the theory of emanation is often hardly distinguishable from that of the pantheists. Brucker, very unjustly, as I imagine from the passages he quotes, accuses John Erigena of pantheism. Hist. Crit. Philos. p. 620. The charge would, however, be better grounded against some whose style might deceive an unaccustomed reader. In fact, the philosophy of emanation leads very nearly to the doctrine of an universal substance, which, begot the atheistic system of Spinoza, and which appears to have revived with similar consequences among the metaphysicians of Germany. How very closely the language of this oriental philosophy, or even that which regards the Deity as the soul of the world, may verge upon pantheism, will be perceived (without the trouble of reading the first book of Cudworth) from two famous passages of Virgil and Lucan. Georg. I. iv. v. 219; and Pharsalia, I. viii. v. 578.[q]This subject, as well as some others in this part of the present chapter, has been touched in my Introduction to the Literature of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries.[r]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 150.[s]There is a very copious and sensible account of Roger Bacon in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 332 (Gutch's edition). I am a little surprised that Antony should have found out Bacon's merit.The resemblance between Roger Bacon and his greater namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the Opus Majus, I know not; but it is singular, that his favourite quaint expression,prærogativæscientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the Opus Majus, upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype, in spirit, of the Novum Organum. The same sanguine and sometimes rash confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning, pervade both works. Roger Bacon's philosophical spirit may be illustrated by the following passage: Duo sunt modi cognoscendi; scilicet per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et facit nos concludere quæstionem; sed non certificat neque removet dubitationem, ut quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi eam inveniat viâ experientiæ; quia multi habent argumenta ad scibilia, sed quia non habent experientiam, negligunt ea, neque vitant nociva nec persequuntur bona. Si enim aliquis homo, qui nunquam vidit ignem, probavit per argumenta sufficientia quod ignis comburit et lædit res et destruit, nunquam propter hoc quiesceret animus audientis, nec ignem vitaret antequam poneret manum vel rem combustibilem ad ignem, ut per experientiam probaret quod argumentum edocebat; sed assumtâ experientiâ combustionis certificatur animus et quiescit in fulgore veritatis, quo argumentum non sufficit, sed experientia. p. 446.[t]See the fate of Cecco d'Ascoli in Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 174.[u]Le Bœuf, Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xvii. p. 711.[x]Gregorius, cognomento Bechada, de Castro de Turribus, professione miles, subtilissimi ingenii vir, aliquantulum imbutus literis, horum gesta præliorum maternâ linguâ rhythmo vulgari, ut populus pleniter intelligeret, ingens volumen decenter composuit, et ut vera et faceta verba proferret, duodecim annorum spatium super hoc opus operam dedit. Ne verò vilesceret propter verbum vulgare, non sine præcepto episcopi Eustorgii, et consilio Gauberti Normanni, hoc opus aggressus est. I transcribe this from Heeren's Essai sur les Croisades, p. 447; whose reference is to Labbé, Bibliotheca nova MSS. t. ii. p. 296.[y]De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 155. Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, t. i. p. 228.[z]For the Courts of Love, see De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. ii. note 19. Le Grand. Fabliaux, t. i. p. 270. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Françoise. p. 94. I have never had patience to look at the older writers who have treated this tiresome subject.[a]Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours Paris, 1774.[b]Two very modern French writers, M. Ginguené (Histoire Littéraire d'Italie, Paris, 1811) and M. Sismondi (Littérature du Midi de l'Europe, Paris, 1813), have revived the poetical history of the troubadours. To them, still more than to Millot and Tiraboschi, I would acknowledge my obligations for the little I have learned in respect of this forgotten school of poetry. Notwithstanding, however, the heaviness of Millot's work, a fault not imputable to himself, though Ritson as I remember, calls him, in his own polite style, "a blockhead," it will always be useful to the inquirer into the manners and opinions of the middle ages, from the numerous illustrations it contains of two general facts; the extreme dissoluteness of morals among the higher ranks, and the prevailing animosity of all classes against the clergy.[c]Hist. Litt. de la France, t. vii. p. 58. Le Bœuf, according to these Benedictines, has published some poetical fragments of the tenth century; and they quote part of a charter as old as 940 in Romance. p. 59. But that antiquary, in a memoir printed in the seventeenth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, which throws more light on the infancy of the French language than anything within my knowledge, says only that the earliest specimens of verse in the royal library are of the eleventh centuryau plus tard. p. 717. M. de la Rue is said to have found some poems of the eleventh century in the British Museum. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Françoise, p. 206. Le Bœuf's fragment may be found in this work, p. 379; it seems nearer to the Provençal than the French dialect.[d]Gale, XV Script. t. i. p. 88.[e]Ritson's Dissertation on Romance, p. 66. [The laws of William the Conqueror, published in Ingulfus, are translated from a Latin original; the French is of the thirteenth century. It is now doubted whether any French, except a fragment of a translation of Boethius, in verse, is extant of an earlier age than the twelfth. Introduction to Hist. of Literat. 3rd edit. p. 28.][f]Hist. Litt. t. ix. p. 149; Fabliaux par Barbasan, vol. i. p. 9, edit. 1808; Mém. de l'Académie des Inscr. t. xv. and xvii, p. 714, &c.[g]Mabillon speaks of this as the oldest French instrument he had seen. But the Benedictines quote some of the eleventh century. Hist. Litt. t. vii. p. 59. This charter is supposed by the authors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique to be translated from the Latin, t. iv. p. 519. French charters, they say, are not common before the age of Louis IX.; and this is confirmed by those published in Martenne's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, which are very commonly in French from his reign, but hardly ever before.[h]Ravalière, Révol. de la Langue Françoise, p. 116, doubts the age of this translation.[i]Archæologia, vols. xii. and xiii.[k]Millot says that Richard's sirventes (satirical songs) have appeared in French as well as Provençal, but that the former is probably a translation. Hist. des Troubadours, vol. i. p. 54. Yet I have met with no writer who quotes them in the latter language, and M. Ginguené, as well as Le Grand d'Aussy, considers Richard as a trouveur.[Raynouard has since published, in Provençal, the song of Richard on his captivity, which had several times appeared in French. It is not improbable that he wrote it in both dialects. Leroux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français, vol. i. p. 55. Richard also composed verses in the Poitevin dialect, spoken at that time in Maine and Anjou, which resembles the Langue d'Oc more than that of northern France, though, especially in the latter countries, it gave way not long afterwards. Id. p. 77.]

[u]St. Palaye, part iii. passim.

[x]The word bachelor has been sometimes derived from bas chevalier; in opposition to banneret. But this cannot be right. We do not find any authority for the expression bas chevalier, nor any equivalent in Latin, baccalaureus certainly not suggesting that sense; and it is strange that the corruption should obliterate every trace of the original term. Bachelor is a very old word, and is used in early French poetry for a young man, as bachelette is for a girl. So also in Chaucer:"A yonge Squire,A lover, and a lustybachelor."

"A yonge Squire,A lover, and a lustybachelor."

[y]Du Cange, Dissertation 9mesur Joinville. The number of men at arms, whom a banneret ought to command, was properly fifty. But Olivier de la Marche speaks of twenty-five as sufficient; and it appears that, in fact, knights-banneret often did not bring so many.

[z]Ibid. Olivier de la Marche (Collection des Mémoires, t. viii. p. 337) gives a particular example of this; and makes a distinction between the bachelor, created a banneret on account of his estate, and the hereditary banneret, who took a public opportunity of requesting the sovereign to unfold his family banner which he had before borne wound round his lance. The first was said relever banniere; the second, entrer en banniere. This difference is more fully explained by Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, p. 116. Chandos's banner was unfolded, not cut, at Navarette. We read sometimes of esquire-bannerets, that is, of bannerets by descent, not yet knighted.

[a]Froissart, part i. c. 241.

[b]Mém. sur la Chevalerie, part v.

[c]The prerogative exercised by the kings of England of compelling men sufficiently qualified in point of estate to take on them the honour of knighthood was inconsistent with the true spirit of chivalry. This began, according to Lord Lyttelton, under Henry III. Hist. of Henry II. vol. ii. p. 238. Independently of this, several causes tended to render England less under the influence of chivalrous principles than France or Germany; such as, her comparatively peaceful state, the smaller share she took in the crusades, her inferiority in romances of knight-errantry, but above all, the democratical character of her laws and government. Still this is only to be understood relatively to the two other countries above named; for chivalry was always in high repute among us, nor did any nation produce more admirable specimens of its excellences.I am not minutely acquainted with the state of chivalry in Spain, where it seems to have flourished considerably. Italy, except in Naples, and perhaps Piedmont, displayed little of its spirit; which neither suited the free republics of the twelfth and thirteenth, nor the jealous tyrannies of the following centuries. Yet even here we find enough to furnish Muratori with materials for his 53rd Dissertation.

I am not minutely acquainted with the state of chivalry in Spain, where it seems to have flourished considerably. Italy, except in Naples, and perhaps Piedmont, displayed little of its spirit; which neither suited the free republics of the twelfth and thirteenth, nor the jealous tyrannies of the following centuries. Yet even here we find enough to furnish Muratori with materials for his 53rd Dissertation.

[d]The well-known Memoirs of St. Palaye are the best repository of interesting and illustrative facts respecting chivalry. Possibly he may have relied a little too much on romances, whose pictures will naturally be overcharged. Froissart himself has somewhat of this partial tendency, and the manners of chivalrous times do not make so fair an appearance in Monstrelet. In the Memoirs of la Tremouille (Collect. des Mém. t. xiv. p. 169), we have perhaps the earliest delineation from the life of those severe and stately virtues in high-born ladies, of which our own country furnished so many examples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which were derived from the influence of chivalrous principles. And those of Bayard in the same collection (t. xiv. and xv.) are a beautiful exhibition of the best effects of that discipline.It appears to me that M. Guizot, to whose judgment I owe all deference, has dwelt rather too much on the feudal character of chivalry. Hist. de la Civilisation en France, Leçon 36. Hence he treats the institution as in its decline during the fourteenth century, when, if we can trust either Froissart or the romancers, it was at its height. Certainly, if mere knighthood was of right both in England and the north of France, a territorial dignity, which bore with it no actual presumption of merit, it was sometimes also conferred on a more honourable principle. It was not every knight who possessed a fief, nor in practice did every possessor of a fief receive knighthood.Guizot justly remarks, as Sismondi has done, the disparity between the lives of most knights and the theory of chivalrous rectitude. But the same has been seen in religion, and can be no reproach to either principle. Partout la pensée morale des hommes s'élève et aspire fort au dessus de leur vie. Et gardez vous de croire que parce qu'elle ne gouvernait pas immédiatement les actions, parceque la pratique démontait sans cesse et étrangement la théorie, l'influence de la théorie fut nulle et sans valeur. C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace.It may be thought by many severe judges, that I have over-valued the efficacy of chivalrous sentiments in elevating the moral character of the middle ages. But I do not see ground for withdrawing or modifying any sentence. The comparison is never to be made with an ideal standard, or even with one which a purer religion and a more liberal organization of society may have rendered effectual, but with the condition of a country where neither the sentiments of honour nor those of right prevail. And it seems to me that I have not veiled the deficiencies and the vices of chivalry any more than its beneficial tendencies.A very fascinating picture of chivalrous manners has been drawn by a writer of considerable reading, and still more considerable ability, Mr. Kenelm Digby, in his Broad Stone of Honour. The bravery, the courteousness, the munificence, above all, the deeply religious character of knighthood and its reverence for the church, naturally took hold of a heart so susceptible of these emotions, and a fancy so quick to embody them. St. Palaye himself is a less enthusiastic eulogist of chivalry, because he has seen it more on the side of mere romance, and been less penetrated with the conviction of its moral excellence. But the progress of still deeper impression seems to have moderated the ardour of Mr. Digby's admiration for the historical character of knighthood; he has discovered enough of human alloy to render unqualified praise hardly fitting, in his judgment, for a Christian writer; and in the Mores Catholici, the second work of this amiable and gifted man, the colours in which chivalry appears are by no means so brilliant [1848.]

It appears to me that M. Guizot, to whose judgment I owe all deference, has dwelt rather too much on the feudal character of chivalry. Hist. de la Civilisation en France, Leçon 36. Hence he treats the institution as in its decline during the fourteenth century, when, if we can trust either Froissart or the romancers, it was at its height. Certainly, if mere knighthood was of right both in England and the north of France, a territorial dignity, which bore with it no actual presumption of merit, it was sometimes also conferred on a more honourable principle. It was not every knight who possessed a fief, nor in practice did every possessor of a fief receive knighthood.

Guizot justly remarks, as Sismondi has done, the disparity between the lives of most knights and the theory of chivalrous rectitude. But the same has been seen in religion, and can be no reproach to either principle. Partout la pensée morale des hommes s'élève et aspire fort au dessus de leur vie. Et gardez vous de croire que parce qu'elle ne gouvernait pas immédiatement les actions, parceque la pratique démontait sans cesse et étrangement la théorie, l'influence de la théorie fut nulle et sans valeur. C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace.

It may be thought by many severe judges, that I have over-valued the efficacy of chivalrous sentiments in elevating the moral character of the middle ages. But I do not see ground for withdrawing or modifying any sentence. The comparison is never to be made with an ideal standard, or even with one which a purer religion and a more liberal organization of society may have rendered effectual, but with the condition of a country where neither the sentiments of honour nor those of right prevail. And it seems to me that I have not veiled the deficiencies and the vices of chivalry any more than its beneficial tendencies.

A very fascinating picture of chivalrous manners has been drawn by a writer of considerable reading, and still more considerable ability, Mr. Kenelm Digby, in his Broad Stone of Honour. The bravery, the courteousness, the munificence, above all, the deeply religious character of knighthood and its reverence for the church, naturally took hold of a heart so susceptible of these emotions, and a fancy so quick to embody them. St. Palaye himself is a less enthusiastic eulogist of chivalry, because he has seen it more on the side of mere romance, and been less penetrated with the conviction of its moral excellence. But the progress of still deeper impression seems to have moderated the ardour of Mr. Digby's admiration for the historical character of knighthood; he has discovered enough of human alloy to render unqualified praise hardly fitting, in his judgment, for a Christian writer; and in the Mores Catholici, the second work of this amiable and gifted man, the colours in which chivalry appears are by no means so brilliant [1848.]

[e]Four very recent publications (not to mention that of Buhle on modern philosophy) enter much at large into the middle literature; those of M. Ginguené and M. Sismondi, the history of England by Mr. Sharon Turner, and the Literary History of the Middle Ages by Mr. Berington. All of these contain more or less useful information and judicious remarks; but that of Ginguené is among the most learned and important works of this century. I have no hesitation to prefer it, as far as its subjects extend, to Tiraboschi.[A subsequent work of my own, Introduction to the History of Literature in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, contains, in the first and second chapters, some additional illustrations of the antecedent period, to which the reader may be referred, as complementary to these pages. 1848.]

[A subsequent work of my own, Introduction to the History of Literature in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, contains, in the first and second chapters, some additional illustrations of the antecedent period, to which the reader may be referred, as complementary to these pages. 1848.]

[f]Heineccius, Hist. Juris German. c. 1. p. 15.

[g]Giannone, 1. iv. c. 6. Selden, ad Fletam, p. 1071.

[h]Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 359. Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 155.

[i]Irnerius is sometimes called Guarnerius, sometimes Warnerius: the German W is changed into Gu by the Italians, and occasionally omitted, especially in latinizing, for the sake of euphony or purity.

[k]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 38; t. v. p. 55.

[m]Tiraboschi, t. v. Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 517; t. iii. p. 527; t. iv. p. 504.

[n]Duck, de Usu Juris Civilis, 1. ii. c. 6.

[o]Idem, 1. ii. 2.

[p]Duck, 1. ii. c. 5, s. 30, 31. Fleury, Hist. du Droit François, p. 74 (prefixed to Argou, Institutions au Droit François, edit. 1787), says that it was a great question among lawyers, and still undecided (i.e. in 1674), whether the Roman law was the common law in the pays coutumiers, as to those points wherein their local customs were silent. And, if I understand Denisart, (Dictionnaire des Décisions, art. Droit-écrit,) the affirmative prevailed. It is plain at least by the Causes Célèbres, that appeal was continually made to the principles of the civil law in the argument of Parisian advocates.

[q]Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. i. p. 316; t. ii. p. 275.

[r]Johan. Salisburiensis, apud Selden ad Fletam, p. 1082.

[s]Selden, ubi supra, p. 1095-1104. This passage is worthy of attention. Yet, notwithstanding Selden's authority, I am not satisfied that he has not extenuated the effect of Bracton's predilection for the maxims of Roman jurisprudence. No early lawyer has contributed so much to form our own system as Bracton; and if his definitions and rules are sometimes borrowed from the civilians, as all admit, our common law may have indirectly received greater modification from that influence, than its professors were ready to acknowledge, or even than they knew. A full view of this subject is still, I think, a desideratum in the history of English law, which it would illustrate in a very interesting manner.

[t]Duck, De Usu Juris Civilis, 1. i. c. 87.

[u]Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 196.

[x]Those who feel some curiosity about the civilians of the middle ages will find a concise and elegant account in Gravina, De Origine Juris Civilis, p. 166-206. (Lips. 1708.) Tiraboschi contains perhaps more information; but his prolixity is very wearisome. Besides this fault, it is evident that Tiraboschi knew very little of law, and had not read the civilians of whom he treats; whereas Gravina discusses their merits not only with legal knowledge, but with an acuteness of criticism which, to say the truth, Tiraboschi never shows except on a date or a name.[The civil lawyers of the mediæval period are not at all forgotten on the continent, as the great work of Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, sufficiently proves. It is certain that the civil law must always be studied in Europe, nor ought the new codes to supersede it, seeing they are in great measure derived from its fountain; though I have heard that it is less regarded in France than formerly. In my earlier editions I depreciated the study of the civil law too much, and with too exclusive an attention to English notions.]

[The civil lawyers of the mediæval period are not at all forgotten on the continent, as the great work of Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, sufficiently proves. It is certain that the civil law must always be studied in Europe, nor ought the new codes to supersede it, seeing they are in great measure derived from its fountain; though I have heard that it is less regarded in France than formerly. In my earlier editions I depreciated the study of the civil law too much, and with too exclusive an attention to English notions.]

[y]Ante ipsum dominum Carolum regem in Galliâ nullum fuit studium liberalium artium. Monachus Engolismensis, apud Launoy, De Scholis per occidentem instauratis, p. 5. See too Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 1. "Studia liberalium artium" in this passage, must be understood to exclude literature, commonly so called, but not a certain measure of very ordinary instruction. For there were episcopal and conventual schools in the seventh and eighth centuries, even in France, especially Aquitaine; we need hardly repeat that in England, the former of these ages produced Bede and Theodore, and the men trained under them; the Lives of the Saints also lead us to take with some limitation the absolute denial of liberal studies before Charlemagne. See Guizot, Hist. de la Civilis. en France, Leçon 16; and Ampère, Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. p. 4. But, perhaps, philology, logic, philosophy, and even theology were not taught, as sciences, in any of the French schools for these two centuries; and consequently those established by Charlemagne justly make an epoch.

[z]Id. Ibid. There was a sort of literary club among them, where the members assumed ancient names. Charlemagne was called David; Alcuin, Horace; another, Dametas, &c.

[a]Hist. Littéraire, p. 217, &c.

[b]This division of the sciences is ascribed to St. Augustin; and we certainly find it established early in the sixth century. Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, t. iii. p. 597.

[c]Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 126.

[d]Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. i. p. 28.

[e]Brucker, t. iii. p. 612. Raban Maurus was chief of the cathedral school at Fulda, in the ninth century.

[f]Crevier, p. 66.

[g]Crevier, p. 171; Brucker, p. 677; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 275.

[h]Brucker, p. 750.

[i]A great interest has been revived in France for the philosophy, as well as the personal history of Abelard, by the publication of his philosophical writings, in 1836, under so eminent an editor as M. Cousin, and by the excellent work of M. de Rémusat, in 1845, with the title Abélard, containing a copious account both of the life and writings of that most remarkable man, the father, perhaps, of the theory as to the nature of universal ideas, now so generally known by the name ofconceptualism.

[k]The faculty of arts in the university of Paris was divided into four nations; those of France, Picardy, Normandy, and England. These had distinct suffrages in the affairs of the university, and consequently, when united, outnumbered the three higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine. In 1169, Henry II. of England offers to refer his dispute with Becket to the provinces of the school of Paris.

[m]Crevier, t. i. p. 279. The first statute regulating the discipline of the university was given by Robert de Courçon, legate of Honorius III., in 1215, id. p. 296.

[n]No one probably would choose to rely on a passage found in one manuscript of Asserius, which has all appearance of an interpolation. It is evident from an anecdote in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 23 (Gutch's edition), that Camden did not believe in the authenticity of this passage, though he thought proper to insert it in the Britannia.

[o]1 Gale, p. 75. The mention of Aristotle at so early a period might seem to throw some suspicion on this passage. But it is impossible to detach it from the context; and the works of Aristotle intended by Ingulfus were translations of parts of his Logic by Boethius and Victorin. Brucker, p. 678. A passage indeed in Peter of Blois's continuation of Ingulfus, where the study of Averroes is said to have taken place atCambridgesome years before he was born, is of a different complexion, and must of course be rejected as spurious. In the Gesta Comitum Andegavensium, Fulk, count of Anjou, who lived about 920, is said to have been skilled Aristotelicis et Ciceronianis ratiocinationibus.[The authenticity of Ingulfus has been called in question, not only by Sir Francis Palgrave, but by Mr. Wright. Biogr. Liter., Anglo-Norman Period, p. 29. And this implies, apparently, the spuriousness of the continuation ascribed to Peter of Blois, in which the passage about Averroes throws doubt upon the whole. I have, in the Introduction to the History of Literature, retracted the degree of credence here given to the foundation of the university of Oxford by Alfred. If Ingulfus is not genuine, we have no proof of its existence as a school of learning before the middle of the twelfth century.]

[The authenticity of Ingulfus has been called in question, not only by Sir Francis Palgrave, but by Mr. Wright. Biogr. Liter., Anglo-Norman Period, p. 29. And this implies, apparently, the spuriousness of the continuation ascribed to Peter of Blois, in which the passage about Averroes throws doubt upon the whole. I have, in the Introduction to the History of Literature, retracted the degree of credence here given to the foundation of the university of Oxford by Alfred. If Ingulfus is not genuine, we have no proof of its existence as a school of learning before the middle of the twelfth century.]

[p]It may be remarked, that John of Salisbury, who wrote in the first years of Henry II.'s reign, since his Polycraticon is dedicated to Becket, before he became archbishop, makes no mention of Oxford, which he would probably have done if it had been an eminent seat of learning at that time.

[q]Wood's Hist. and Antiquities of Oxford, p. 177. The Benedictines of St. Maur say, that there was an eminent school of canon law at Oxford about the end of the twelfth century, to which many students repaired from Paris. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 216.

[r]Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 259, et alibi; Muratori, Dissert. 43.

[s]"But among these," says Anthony Wood, "a company of varlets, who pretended to be scholars, shuffled themselves in, and did act much villany in the university by thieving, whoring, quarrelling, &c. They lived under no discipline, neither had they tutors; but only for fashion's sake would sometimes thrust themselves into the schools at ordinary lectures, and when they went to perform any mischief, then would they be accounted scholars, that so they might free themselves from the jurisdiction of the burghers." p. 206. If we allow three varlets to one scholar, the university will still have been very fully frequented by the latter.

[t]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 47. Azarius, about the middle of the fourteenth century, says the number was about 13,000 in his time. Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 325.

[u]Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xvi. p. 341. This may perhaps require to be taken with allowance. But Paris owes a great part of its buildings on the southern bank of the Seine to the university. The students are said to have been about 12,000 before 1480. Crevier, t. iv. p. 410.

[x]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 43 and 46.

[y]The earliest authentic mention of Cambridge as a place of learning, if I mistake not, is in Matthew Paris, who informs us, that in 1209, John having caused three clerks of Oxford to be hanged on suspicion of murder, the whole body of scholars left that city, and emigrated, some to Cambridge, some to Reading, in order to carry on their studies (p. 191, edit. 1684). But it may be conjectured with some probability, that they were led to a town so distant as Cambridge by the previous establishment of academical instruction in that place. The incorporation of Cambridge is in 1231 (15 Hen. III.), so that there is no great difference in the legal antiquity of our two universities.

[z]Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. ii. p. 216; t. iii. p. 140.

[a]Pfeffel, Abrégé Chronologique de l'Hist. de l'Allemagne, p. 550, 607.

[b]Rymer, t. vi. p. 292.

[c]Crevier, t. ii. p. 398.

[d]Crevier and Villaret, passim.

[e]Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosophiæ, t. iii. p. 678.

[f]Id. Ibid. Tiraboschi conceives that the translations of Aristotle made by command of Frederic II. were directly from the Greek, t. iv. p. 145; and censures Brucker for the contrary opinion. Buhle, however (Hist. de la Philosophie Moderne, t. i. p. 696), appears to agree with Brucker. It is almost certain that versions were made from the Arabic Aristotle: which itself was not immediately taken from the Greek, but from a Syriac medium. Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 212 (on the authority of M. Langlés).It was not only a knowledge of Aristotle that the scholastics of Europe derived from the Arabic language. His writings had produced in the flourishing Mohammedan kingdoms a vast number of commentators, and of metaphysicians trained in the same school. Of these Averroes, a native of Cordova, who died early in the thirteenth century, was the most eminent. It would be curious to examine more minutely than has hitherto been done the original writings of these famous men, which no doubt have suffered in translation. A passage from Al Gazel, which Mr. Turner has rendered from the Latin, with all the disadvantage of a double remove from the author's words, appears to state the argument in favour of that class of Nominalists, called Conceptualists, with more clearness and precision than any thing I have seen from the schoolmen. Al Gazel died in 1126, and consequently might have suggested this theory to Abelard, which however is not probable. Turner's Hist. of Engl. vol. i. p. 513.

It was not only a knowledge of Aristotle that the scholastics of Europe derived from the Arabic language. His writings had produced in the flourishing Mohammedan kingdoms a vast number of commentators, and of metaphysicians trained in the same school. Of these Averroes, a native of Cordova, who died early in the thirteenth century, was the most eminent. It would be curious to examine more minutely than has hitherto been done the original writings of these famous men, which no doubt have suffered in translation. A passage from Al Gazel, which Mr. Turner has rendered from the Latin, with all the disadvantage of a double remove from the author's words, appears to state the argument in favour of that class of Nominalists, called Conceptualists, with more clearness and precision than any thing I have seen from the schoolmen. Al Gazel died in 1126, and consequently might have suggested this theory to Abelard, which however is not probable. Turner's Hist. of Engl. vol. i. p. 513.

[g]Brucker, Hist. Crit Philosophiæ, t. iii. I have found no better guide than Brucker. But he confesses himself not to have read the original writings of the scholastics; an admission which every reader will perceive to be quite necessary. Consequently, he gives us rather a verbose declamation against their philosophy than any clear view of its character. Of the valuable works lately published in Germany on the history of philosophy, I have only seen that of Buhle, which did not fall into my hands till I had nearly written these pages. Tiedemann and Tennemann are I believe, still untranslated.

[h]Buhle, Hist. de la Philos. Moderne, t. i. p. 723. This author raises upon the whole a favourable notion of Anselm and Aquinas; but he hardly notices any other.

[i]Mr. Turner has with his characteristic spirit of enterprise examined some of the writings of our chief English schoolmen, Duns Scotus and Ockham (Hist of Eng. vol. i.), and even given us some extracts from them. They seem to me very frivolous, so far as I can collect their meaning. Ockham in particular falls very short of what I had expected; and his nominalism is strangely different from that of Berkeley. We can hardly reckon a man in the right, who is so by accident, and through sophistical reasoning. However, a well-known article in the Edinburgh Review, No. liii. p. 204, gives, from Tennemann, a more favourable account of Ockham.Perhaps I may have imagined the scholastics to be more forgotten than they really are. Within a short time I have met with four living English writers who have read parts of Thomas Aquinas; Mr. Turner, Mr. Berington, Mr. Coleridge, and the Edinburgh Reviewer. Still I cannot bring myself to think that there are four more in this country who can say the same. Certain portions, however, of his writings are still read in the course of instruction of some Catholic universities.[I leave this passage as it was written about 1814. But it must be owned with regard to the schoolmen, as well as the jurists, that I at that time underrated, or at least did not anticipate, the attention which their works have attracted in modern Europe, and that the passage in the text is more applicable to the philosophy of the eighteenth century than of the present. For several years past the metaphysicians of Germany and France have brushed the dust from the scholastic volumes; Tennemann and Buhle, Degerando, but more than all Cousin and Rémusat, in their excellent labours on Abelard, have restored the mediæval philosophy to a place in transcendental metaphysics, which, during the prevalence of the Cartesian school, and those derived from it, had been refused. 1848.]

Perhaps I may have imagined the scholastics to be more forgotten than they really are. Within a short time I have met with four living English writers who have read parts of Thomas Aquinas; Mr. Turner, Mr. Berington, Mr. Coleridge, and the Edinburgh Reviewer. Still I cannot bring myself to think that there are four more in this country who can say the same. Certain portions, however, of his writings are still read in the course of instruction of some Catholic universities.

[I leave this passage as it was written about 1814. But it must be owned with regard to the schoolmen, as well as the jurists, that I at that time underrated, or at least did not anticipate, the attention which their works have attracted in modern Europe, and that the passage in the text is more applicable to the philosophy of the eighteenth century than of the present. For several years past the metaphysicians of Germany and France have brushed the dust from the scholastic volumes; Tennemann and Buhle, Degerando, but more than all Cousin and Rémusat, in their excellent labours on Abelard, have restored the mediæval philosophy to a place in transcendental metaphysics, which, during the prevalence of the Cartesian school, and those derived from it, had been refused. 1848.]

[k]Roger Bacon, by far the truest philosopher of the middle ages, complains of the ignorance of Aristotle's translators. Every translator, he observes, ought to understand his author's subject, and the two languages from which and into which he is to render the work. But none hitherto, except Boethius, have sufficiently known the languages; nor has one, except Robert Grostete (the famous bishop of Lincoln), had a competent acquaintance with science. The rest make egregious errors in both respects. And there is so much misapprehension and obscurity in the Aristotelian writings as thus translated, that no one understands them. Opus Majus, p. 45.

[m]Brucker, p. 733, 912. Mr. Turner has fallen into some confusion as to this point, and supposes the nominalist system to have had a pantheistical tendency, not clearly apprehending its characteristics, p. 512.

[n]Petrarch gives a curious account of the irreligion that prevailed among the learned at Venice and Padua, in consequence of their unbounded admiration for Aristotle and Averroes. One of this school, conversing with him, after expressing much contempt for the Apostles and Fathers, exclaimed: Utinam tu Averroim pati posses, ut videres quanto ille tuis his nugatoribus major sit! Mém. de Pétrarque, t. iii. p. 759. Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 162.

[o]Brucker, p. 898.

[p]This mystical philosophy appears to have been introduced into Europe by John Scotus, whom Buhle treats as the founder of the scholastic philosophy; though, as it made no sensible progress for two centuries after his time, it seems more natural to give that credit to Roscelin and Anselm. Scotus, or Erigena, as he is perhaps more frequently called, took up, through the medium of a spurious work, ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, that remarkable system, which has from time immemorial prevailed in some schools of the East, wherein all external phenomena, as well as all subordinate intellects, are considered asemanatingfrom the Supreme Being, into whose essence they are hereafter to be absorbed. This system, reproduced under various modifications, and combined with various theories of philosophy and religion, is perhaps the most congenial to the spirit of solitary speculation, and consequently the most extensively diffused of any which those high themes have engendered. It originated no doubt in sublime conceptions of divine omnipotence and ubiquity. But clearness of expression, or indeed of ideas, being not easily connected with mysticism, the language of philosophers adopting the theory of emanation is often hardly distinguishable from that of the pantheists. Brucker, very unjustly, as I imagine from the passages he quotes, accuses John Erigena of pantheism. Hist. Crit. Philos. p. 620. The charge would, however, be better grounded against some whose style might deceive an unaccustomed reader. In fact, the philosophy of emanation leads very nearly to the doctrine of an universal substance, which, begot the atheistic system of Spinoza, and which appears to have revived with similar consequences among the metaphysicians of Germany. How very closely the language of this oriental philosophy, or even that which regards the Deity as the soul of the world, may verge upon pantheism, will be perceived (without the trouble of reading the first book of Cudworth) from two famous passages of Virgil and Lucan. Georg. I. iv. v. 219; and Pharsalia, I. viii. v. 578.

[q]This subject, as well as some others in this part of the present chapter, has been touched in my Introduction to the Literature of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries.

[r]Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 150.

[s]There is a very copious and sensible account of Roger Bacon in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 332 (Gutch's edition). I am a little surprised that Antony should have found out Bacon's merit.The resemblance between Roger Bacon and his greater namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the Opus Majus, I know not; but it is singular, that his favourite quaint expression,prærogativæscientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the Opus Majus, upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype, in spirit, of the Novum Organum. The same sanguine and sometimes rash confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning, pervade both works. Roger Bacon's philosophical spirit may be illustrated by the following passage: Duo sunt modi cognoscendi; scilicet per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et facit nos concludere quæstionem; sed non certificat neque removet dubitationem, ut quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi eam inveniat viâ experientiæ; quia multi habent argumenta ad scibilia, sed quia non habent experientiam, negligunt ea, neque vitant nociva nec persequuntur bona. Si enim aliquis homo, qui nunquam vidit ignem, probavit per argumenta sufficientia quod ignis comburit et lædit res et destruit, nunquam propter hoc quiesceret animus audientis, nec ignem vitaret antequam poneret manum vel rem combustibilem ad ignem, ut per experientiam probaret quod argumentum edocebat; sed assumtâ experientiâ combustionis certificatur animus et quiescit in fulgore veritatis, quo argumentum non sufficit, sed experientia. p. 446.

[s]There is a very copious and sensible account of Roger Bacon in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 332 (Gutch's edition). I am a little surprised that Antony should have found out Bacon's merit.

The resemblance between Roger Bacon and his greater namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the Opus Majus, I know not; but it is singular, that his favourite quaint expression,prærogativæscientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the Opus Majus, upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype, in spirit, of the Novum Organum. The same sanguine and sometimes rash confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning, pervade both works. Roger Bacon's philosophical spirit may be illustrated by the following passage: Duo sunt modi cognoscendi; scilicet per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et facit nos concludere quæstionem; sed non certificat neque removet dubitationem, ut quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi eam inveniat viâ experientiæ; quia multi habent argumenta ad scibilia, sed quia non habent experientiam, negligunt ea, neque vitant nociva nec persequuntur bona. Si enim aliquis homo, qui nunquam vidit ignem, probavit per argumenta sufficientia quod ignis comburit et lædit res et destruit, nunquam propter hoc quiesceret animus audientis, nec ignem vitaret antequam poneret manum vel rem combustibilem ad ignem, ut per experientiam probaret quod argumentum edocebat; sed assumtâ experientiâ combustionis certificatur animus et quiescit in fulgore veritatis, quo argumentum non sufficit, sed experientia. p. 446.

[t]See the fate of Cecco d'Ascoli in Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 174.

[u]Le Bœuf, Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xvii. p. 711.

[x]Gregorius, cognomento Bechada, de Castro de Turribus, professione miles, subtilissimi ingenii vir, aliquantulum imbutus literis, horum gesta præliorum maternâ linguâ rhythmo vulgari, ut populus pleniter intelligeret, ingens volumen decenter composuit, et ut vera et faceta verba proferret, duodecim annorum spatium super hoc opus operam dedit. Ne verò vilesceret propter verbum vulgare, non sine præcepto episcopi Eustorgii, et consilio Gauberti Normanni, hoc opus aggressus est. I transcribe this from Heeren's Essai sur les Croisades, p. 447; whose reference is to Labbé, Bibliotheca nova MSS. t. ii. p. 296.

[y]De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 155. Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, t. i. p. 228.

[z]For the Courts of Love, see De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. ii. note 19. Le Grand. Fabliaux, t. i. p. 270. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Françoise. p. 94. I have never had patience to look at the older writers who have treated this tiresome subject.

[a]Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours Paris, 1774.

[b]Two very modern French writers, M. Ginguené (Histoire Littéraire d'Italie, Paris, 1811) and M. Sismondi (Littérature du Midi de l'Europe, Paris, 1813), have revived the poetical history of the troubadours. To them, still more than to Millot and Tiraboschi, I would acknowledge my obligations for the little I have learned in respect of this forgotten school of poetry. Notwithstanding, however, the heaviness of Millot's work, a fault not imputable to himself, though Ritson as I remember, calls him, in his own polite style, "a blockhead," it will always be useful to the inquirer into the manners and opinions of the middle ages, from the numerous illustrations it contains of two general facts; the extreme dissoluteness of morals among the higher ranks, and the prevailing animosity of all classes against the clergy.

[c]Hist. Litt. de la France, t. vii. p. 58. Le Bœuf, according to these Benedictines, has published some poetical fragments of the tenth century; and they quote part of a charter as old as 940 in Romance. p. 59. But that antiquary, in a memoir printed in the seventeenth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, which throws more light on the infancy of the French language than anything within my knowledge, says only that the earliest specimens of verse in the royal library are of the eleventh centuryau plus tard. p. 717. M. de la Rue is said to have found some poems of the eleventh century in the British Museum. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Françoise, p. 206. Le Bœuf's fragment may be found in this work, p. 379; it seems nearer to the Provençal than the French dialect.

[d]Gale, XV Script. t. i. p. 88.

[e]Ritson's Dissertation on Romance, p. 66. [The laws of William the Conqueror, published in Ingulfus, are translated from a Latin original; the French is of the thirteenth century. It is now doubted whether any French, except a fragment of a translation of Boethius, in verse, is extant of an earlier age than the twelfth. Introduction to Hist. of Literat. 3rd edit. p. 28.]

[f]Hist. Litt. t. ix. p. 149; Fabliaux par Barbasan, vol. i. p. 9, edit. 1808; Mém. de l'Académie des Inscr. t. xv. and xvii, p. 714, &c.

[g]Mabillon speaks of this as the oldest French instrument he had seen. But the Benedictines quote some of the eleventh century. Hist. Litt. t. vii. p. 59. This charter is supposed by the authors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique to be translated from the Latin, t. iv. p. 519. French charters, they say, are not common before the age of Louis IX.; and this is confirmed by those published in Martenne's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, which are very commonly in French from his reign, but hardly ever before.

[h]Ravalière, Révol. de la Langue Françoise, p. 116, doubts the age of this translation.

[i]Archæologia, vols. xii. and xiii.

[k]Millot says that Richard's sirventes (satirical songs) have appeared in French as well as Provençal, but that the former is probably a translation. Hist. des Troubadours, vol. i. p. 54. Yet I have met with no writer who quotes them in the latter language, and M. Ginguené, as well as Le Grand d'Aussy, considers Richard as a trouveur.[Raynouard has since published, in Provençal, the song of Richard on his captivity, which had several times appeared in French. It is not improbable that he wrote it in both dialects. Leroux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français, vol. i. p. 55. Richard also composed verses in the Poitevin dialect, spoken at that time in Maine and Anjou, which resembles the Langue d'Oc more than that of northern France, though, especially in the latter countries, it gave way not long afterwards. Id. p. 77.]

[Raynouard has since published, in Provençal, the song of Richard on his captivity, which had several times appeared in French. It is not improbable that he wrote it in both dialects. Leroux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français, vol. i. p. 55. Richard also composed verses in the Poitevin dialect, spoken at that time in Maine and Anjou, which resembles the Langue d'Oc more than that of northern France, though, especially in the latter countries, it gave way not long afterwards. Id. p. 77.]

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