sapientia'. Such were the alleged motives of the emperor,- INTRODUCTION. of Charle The emperor had already made the acquaintance of Alcuin The Schools at Parma; he now invited him over from England and placed magne. him at the head of the Palace school attached to his own court. Under Alcuin's directions a scheme of education was drawn up which became the model for the other great schools established at Tours, Fontenelle, Lyons, Osnaburg, and Metz;-institutions which ably sustained the tradition of education on the continent, until superseded by the new methods and the new learning which belong to the commencement of the university era2. the changes by the education. The work of Charlemagne may be characterised as one of Character of both renovation and innovation:-renovation as regarded the introduced already existing schools, innovation in the reconstruction of einperor in their methods and the extension of their teaching to other classes. Hitherto the privileges of the monastic schools had been jealously confined by the Benedictines to their own order. By the efforts of Charlemagne they were now thrown open to the secular clergy. The monasteries, in the new movement, made common cause in the work of instruction with the cathedral or episcopal schools3, and a new impulse was thus communicated to education. If we add to these centres of activity the slight element of lay education that DUCTION. INTRO developed itself in the Palace school, where the emperor himself participated in the instruction given, we shall perceive that a very general reform was initiated. The learned Benedictine, Dom Bouquet, dwells with enthusiasm on the benefits thus extended to the whole student class of the period1. Retirement of Alcuin from the work. It seems certain that, for a time at least, the English ecclesiastic heartily seconded the plans of his royal employer; but his zeal evidently declined with advancing age, and after fourteen years of service he was glad to seek refuge from the splendour of the court in the retirement of the monastery at Tours. Guizot has inferred that the demands made upon his energies, and the continual tension at which his mind was kept, by the mental activity and insatiable curiosity of the emperor, urged him to this step, but there would appear to be sufficient reason for surmising that the cause lay someHis apparent what deeper. Those familiar with the history of these Pagan centuries, will remember the frequent feuds between the mistrust of learning. Benedictines and the secular clergy, and it would seem doubtful whether Alcuin ever cordially sympathized with the extension of instruction which Charlemagne brought about; his heart appears far more warmly given to the task of refuting the Adoptionists and denouncing image-worship; it is certain that he viewed with dislike the increased attention to pagan literature, which necessarily resulted from the mental activity thus aroused. The large designs and wide 1 Tot enim gentes e Germania cis Rhenum, et ex Italia cis Alpes eruperunt, ut publicæ penitus evanuerint Scholæ, et curam privatarum ad eruditionem Clericorum in Episcopiis gesserint Episcopi, ut Abbates in Coenobiis ad Monachorum instructionem. Unde studia delitescebant in solis Episcopiorum Monasteriorumque claustris. Sed quia tunc quoque ese languebant, eas pristino splendori restituere Carolus etiam sategit, directis Epistolis, de quibus supra. Verum cum privatarum hujuscemodi Scholarum aditus Laicis liber non esset, Carolus publicas instituit, et in ipso regio Palatio alias erexit. Regis exemplum statim secuti sunt Abbates et Episcopi. Publicæ per Episcopia, per Monasteria mox strepuerunt Scholæ, aliæ Cœnobitis, aliæ Sæcularibus edocendis destinatæ.' Bouquet, Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum Scriptores, v 621. 2 A full account of the controversy with the Adoptionists will be found in the very able Life of Alcuin by Lorenz, Professor of History at the University of Halle, 1829. The Roman Catholic writers have generally sought to show that the paper found among the Carlovingian Documents against image-worship is spu rious, and have attributed it to DUCTION. Divergent of the em views of the emperor ranged beyond the conceptions of the INTROsomewhat cold and decorous ecclesiastic. Though an ardent admirer of the De Civitate Dei, Charlemagne had other sentiments sympathies, sympathies which strongly inclined him to that peror. secular learning so strongly condemned by Gregory. By his directions steps were taken for the collection and revision of manuscripts, a care especially necessary now that Egypt under Saracen occupation no longer furnished the papyrus for the use of Europe. One of the numerous letters of Alcuin consists of a reply to two grammatical questions propounded by the emperor, the proper gender of rubus, and whether despexeris or dispexeris be the preferable form. The letter attests no contemptible scholarship, supported as its decisions are by references to Priscian and Donatus; it is moreover an important piece of evidence with respect to Alcuin's knowledge of Greek, for it contains seven quotations in that language, and illustrates the force of di, in such Latin compounds as divido, diruo, discurro, by the Greek διά'. excuse for pagan literature objections its im Such enquiries on the part of the emperor, together with The special those interesting dialogues wherein Alcuin unfolded to the the neglect of courtly circle at Aix-la-Chapelle the mysteries of logic and succeeded by grammar, unmistakeably evidence the presence of a spirit very founded on different from that of Gregory and altogether in advance of morality. the ecclesiastical ideas of the time. It might seem indeed not unreasonable to suppose that when the dark forebodings that derived their strength from calamity and invasion drew off at the approach of a more hopeful age, and that as the horizon that bounded human life regained the charms that belong to the illimitable and the unknown, men might well again find leisure to draw delight and inspiration from the page of Grecian and Roman genius. Such happiness how Karlstadt, who heralded the crusade against image-worship that preceded the Reformation. 1 Epist. 27. The tone of this letter, wherein Alcuin mildly expresses his surprise that the emperor should have summoned him from his retire ment to act as arbiter in a literary INTRODUCTION. ever the scholar was not yet destined to enjoy. The course of events, it is true, had tended to weaken the belief which Gregory had held', but there had at the same time been growing up in the Church a subsidiary theory with respect to pagan literature, which equally served to discredit and discourage the study. From considerations which led to an estimate of pagan learning as a thing wherein the Christian had no longer part or lot, objectors now turned to considerations derived from the morality of the literature. The spirit of Tertullian and Arnobius long survived in the Latin Church; and the most learned ecclesiastics of these centuries are to be found ignoring that very culture which in a later age has proved the road to ecclesiastical preferment, on grounds precisely similar to those assumed by the most illiterate and bigoted zealots of more modern times. Thus Alcuin himself, who had been wont as a boy to conceal in his bed his Virgil from the observation of the brother who came to rouse the 1 It is remarkable how the antici- no monastery at Montier-en-Der, and written more than a century later, we find the following remarkable passage Quicumque enim, sive laicus, sive canonicus, sive monachus contra justitiam vivit, et ordinis sui regulam impugnat, et quod bonum est blasphemat, Antichristus et minister Satanæ est.' This brief tract, successively attributed to Augustine, Alcuin, and Rabanus Maurus (see edition of the last named, published at Col. Agripp. vi 178, also Migne, CI 1291), while it specifies a definite period of persecution, assigns the East as the quarter from whence Antichrist would appear, and ranges against him the Western Powers. The whole has a marked resemblance to Lactantius, Institutiones, Bk. vII. 2 Herwerden, in his Commentatio De Caroli Magni, etc., one of his earliest productions, has very happily characterised this prejudice of the time: Veteribus Latinis Græcisque litteris pestifera præsertim erat superstitiosissimi ejus ævi opinio, studium earum et exercitationem Christiano contumeliosa esse, eique notam impietatis inurere, quæ æternæ ejus saluti ac beatitudini nociva sit.' DUCTION. THE CHURCH STILL HOSTILE TO PAGAN LITERATURE. 17 sleepers to nocturns, lived to set a bann upon the 'impure INTROeloquence' of the poet, and forbade him to his pupils'. The guardian of the library at York, who had once so enthusiastically described its treasures, employed his later years in testifying to the vanity of all pagan learning. The difference we have noted in the spirit of the emperor and the ecclesiastic is apparent to the close. The former withdrew, as far as he was able, from the anxieties of political life, to devote himself with yet greater ardour to his literary labours; the latter put aside his secular learning to cultivate more closely the asceticism of the monastery. The one died while occupied in restoring the text of the Gospels; the other, worn out by the austerities of the cloisters. If we pursue our enquiry beyond the time of Alcuin it is long before we find this tradition materially impaired. 1 'Sufficiunt divini poetæ vobis, nec egetis luxuriosa sermonis Virgilii vos pollui facundia.' Alcuini Vita, Migne, c 90. Illic invenies veterum vestigia Quidquid habet pro se Latio Romanus in orbe, Græcia vel quidquid transmisit Hebraicus vel quod populus bi- 3 "La pensée de la mort était devenue pour lui une véritable consolation. En lui s'était réalisé, apres bien des transformations, l'idéal du spiritualiste: il vivait par l'âme. Au sein des grandeurs, le corps ne lui avait semblé qu'une prison, la vie qu'un exil. Ce qui n'était alors |