CHAP. I. humiliation, and could assert that, if their universities owed their constitution to Paris, the debt had been more than repaid in the teachers whom Paris had received from England. It is thus that, while the destruction of most of the early records relating to the mental activity of Oxford, and a yet greater blank in relation to Cambridge, present considerable difficulties when we endeavour to trace out the connecting links between these universities and the continent, the comparatively ample data which we possess concerning Paris enable us to some extent to repair the loss, and, in the absence of positive information, to fall back upon reasonable presumptive evidence. It will consequently be needless further to explain why, in the present chapter, we stop to examine the constitution, early fortunes, and intellectual experiences of the university of Paris, before passing on to the universities of our own country. Did the Universities cause the ruin of the Episcopal and Monastic schools? An important question meets us at this stage of our enquiry, which it is not within our province to investigate, but which cannot be passed by altogether unnoticed. If we accept the representations put forward by one particular school of writers, the rise of the universities would appear to have directly involved the downfal of the episcopal and monastic schools; and the period from Charlemagne to Philip Augustus has been indicated with fond regret, as the time when the Church performed her fitting function, fashioning the whole conception of education and watching with maternal care over each detail of instruction: Without entering elle une trop grande opulence, et se trouvent sans force pour lutter contre les nouveaux ordres religieux qui se sont emparés des chaires de l'enseignement. Il n'est pas jusqu'à la transformation qui s'opérait alors dans la société féodale qui n'ait eu son influence sur ce dénouement précipité. Ce n'est pas que le zèle des étudiants se soit refroidi, au contraire, jamais il ne fut plus ardent; mais les fils de ceux qui avaient secoué le joug des seigneurs pour s'ériger en municipalités franches trouvèrent mal à l'aise sous la discipline du cloître, et voulu se INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH UNIVERSITIES. 69 2 tive main Theiner and representa Monnier. into the abstract merits of the question, it is sufficient here CHAP. I. to point out that the facts, as pleaded by Theiner1 and Léon The affirmaMaitre, have met with a distinct and specific denial. If tained by indeed the guidance of other investigators may be trusted, Léon Maitre. the thread that connects the schools of Charlemagne with the university of Paris is to be traced in unbroken continuity. 'Alcuin,' says Monnier, following in the track of the com- Counter pilers of the Histoire Littéraire and of Mabillon, 'numbered tion of among his disciples Rabanus and Haymo of Halberstadt. Rabanus and Haymo of Halberstadt were both the preceptors of Lupus Servatus'; Lupus Servatus had for a pupil Eric of Auxerre'; Eric of Auxerre was the master of Remy of Auxerre, who taught in turn both at Rheims and at Paris; at Rheims Remy of Auxerre numbered among his pupils Hildebald and Blidulphus, founders of the schools of Lorraine, and Sigulphus and Frodoard, who carried on the school at Rheims and prepared the way for Gerbert; while at Paris he united the two branches of the Palatial school,-the one representing the tradition of Alcuin, the other that of Johannes Scotus,-and interpreted to them the logic attributed to Augustine and the treatise of Capella. His pupil was Odo of Cluny, who rekindled the monastic zeal and trained numerous scholars,-Aymer, Baldwin, Gottfried, Landric, Wulfad, Adhegrin, Hildebald, Eliziard, and, most distinguished of all, John, his biographer. These were the men who, in conjunction with the pupils of Gerbert, sustained the tradition of instruction in the tenth century, whilst Hucbald of Liège, proceeding from St. Gall, instructed the canons of St. Geneviève at Paris, and taught in the cathedral school. In the eleventh century Abbo of Fleury and 'his rent respirer l'air libre des grandes villes. Loin de combattre ces tendances, Philippe-Auguste et ses successeurs les encouragèrent en fondant des universités et en comblant ces corporations avec priviléges. Incapables de soutenir une concurrence aussi redoutable, les écoles épiscopales et monastiques furent rapidement dépossédées du sceptre qu'elles tenaient avec honneur depuis quatre siècles et s'effacèrent complètement Maitre, Écoles Episcopales, p. 170. 1 Hist. des Institutions d'Education Ecclésiastique, 1 181-190. 2 Hist. Littéraire de la France,v132. 5 Remy of Auxerre, d. circ. 908. CHAP. I. pupils Gozelin, Haymo the historian, Bernard, Herveus, Odalric, Girard, and Thierry, imparted vigour to the culture of their time. Drogo taught with eminent success at Paris; and all the neighbouring schools, Chartres, Tours, and Le Bec, were attracted by the learning of that city, the habitual residence of the Capetian dynasty. The fame of the controversies there carried on soon drew together a crowd of teachers and scholars. Among the pupils of Drogo was John the Deaf, and John the Deaf had Roscellinus for his pupil. Roscellinus was from the school of Ivo of Chartres, and had for his disciples Peter of Cluny, Odo of Cambray, William of Champeaux, and Abelard. The schools of Paris thus became a real federal corporation; Universitas magistrorum et discipulorum, such was the university: and thus, in the times when books were rare, the precious legacy of learning was transmitted from hand to hand across the fleeting generations'.' Progress versus mere Whatever value we may be disposed to attach to this conservatism. representation, as a statement of the precise mode of transmission, it is certain that unquestionable authority can be quoted to prove that both the monastic and episcopal schools continued to exist long after the rise of the universities2; but it is obvious that if the former represented merely the stationary and conservative element, while the latter attracted to itself whatever lay beneath the ban of unreasoning authority, whatever, feared at first as a heresy, was soon to be 1 Monnier, Alcuin et son Influence, p. 189. 2 Enfin, on s'obstine à ignorer les profonds travaux d'un Benedictin, du vénérable fondateur de notre grande Histoire littéraire, qui attestent, sur les meilleures autorités, que les écoles des évêques et celles des monastères avaient continué de fleurir avec les nouvelles sociétés d'études. Il faut, pour n'accuser ainsi que les autres, se laisser faire illusion par la haine contre toute loi civile, contre toute éducation séculière, et même contre tout ordre religieux qui ne juge point la piété incompatible avec une instruction solide et sincère, ni l'histoire avec la vérité.' V. Le Clerc, État des Lettres au XIVe Siècle, I 302. It is however undeniable that though both the Monastic and Episcopal Schools may have continued to exist, they had suffered woful deterioration: Heppe quotes authority to the effect that, in the year 1291, in the monastery of St Gall neither the abbot nor any of the monks could write; and we have it on the statement of a Benedictine himself that in the 13th century it was rare even in his own order to find any one acquainted with grammar. See chapter entitled Die Kloster und Domschulen des Mittelalters in Dr Heppe's Schulwesen des Mittelalters, pp. 15–25. accepted as sound philosophy,-all that widened the domain CHAP. I. of knowledge or enriched the limits already attained,-the comparative importance of the two agencies could not remain the same. The former must decline in proportion as the latter increased; and it needs but little penetration to discern in this illogical confusion of the secondary effects of the universities with their direct action, a genuine vexation at the results that necessarily followed upon a blind and suicidal adherence to the traditions of a bygone age. Paris, and Original the term At nearly the same era, the latter part of the twelfth Bologna, century, the historian becomes aware of the recognised exist- Salerno. ence of three great schools in Europe,-Bologna, Paris, and Salerno. Of these the first was distinguished as the school of civil law; the second, as that of the arts and theology; the third, as that of medicine. It is a significant proof of the non-relevancy of the term Universitas to the range of meaning of studies pursued in these ancient seats of learning, that while Universitas. Paris had completed the circle of her studies long before the commencement of the thirteenth century, the term university is first found applied to her in the year 1215, in the reign of Philip Augustus1; while Bologna, whose recognition as a university is of at least equal antiquity, possessed no chair of theology before the latter half of the fourteenth century. The term indeed when first employed, had a different meaning from that which it now conveys. 'In the language of the civil law,' observes one writer, 'all corporations' were called universitates, as forming one whole out of many individuals. In the German jurisconsults universitas is the word for a corporate town. In Italy it was applied to the incorporated trades in the cities. In ecclesiastical language the term was sometimes applied to a number of churches united under the superintendence of one archdeacon. In a papal rescript of the year 688, it is used of the body of the canons of the church of Pisa".' If however we agree to define a university as a corporation for the cultivation of learning formed under legal 1 Savigny, Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, c. XXI sec. 127. Prof. Malden, Origin of the Universities, p. 13, Savigny's criticism. CHAP. I. sanction, we shall find ourselves considerably embarrassed, in investigating the comparative antiquity of Paris and Bologna, by the fact that long before either received a formal recognition it possessed a vigorous virtual existence'. With the exception of the university of Naples, the spontaneity of growth in these bodies forms indeed one of the most remarkable features of the age. 'It would,' says Savigny, 'be altogether erroneous to compare the earliest universities of the middle ages with the learned foundations of our own times, established by a monarch or a corporation for the benefit of the native population, the admission of strangers being accorded as a favour. A teacher inspired by a love of learning gathered round him a circle of learners. Other teachers followed, the circle increased, and thus by a purely natural process a school was founded. How great must have been the reputation and influence of such schools at a time when they were but few in number, and when oral instruction was nearly the only path to knowledge! How great the noble pride of the professors and the enthusiasm of the scholars, when, from all the countries of Europe, learners flocked to spend long years in Paris and Bologna that they might share in this instruction!' If we look therefore rather to the spontaneous than to the formal element, Irnerius may be regarded as the founder University of of the university of Bologna, and the movement which he Bologna. initiated is seen acquiring a fresh developement in the lectures on the Decretum of Gratian instituted by Eugenius in the middle of the same century, until the university became officially recognised in the charter of privileges which it received from the emperor Frederic I, in the year 11583. Its charter of In this charter we find provision made for the free admission of foreign students; for their protection from legal proceedings 1158. 1 'In der That nun kann der Anfang der Universität deswegen nicht genau bestimmt werden, weil sie gar nicht von einer willkührlichen Stiftung ausgieng.' Savigny, c. xxi sec. 3. Mr Anstey remarks that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, strange as it may appear to those unacquainted with patent letters of the time, the words Universitas vestra meant the whole of you.' Introd. to Munimenta Academica, 1 xxxiv. 2 Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, c. xxx sec. 60. 3 Bologna is not named in the Charter, but Savigny shows that reference could have been intended only to that city. Ibid. xx1 63. |