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DUCTION

INTRO the unskilfulness of the teachers, the paucity of books, the want of leisure'? In a letter to Eginhard, he complains that those who cultivate learning are regarded as useless drones, and seem raised to unenviable eminence, only to be marked out for the dislike of the crowd, who impute all their failings, not to the common infirmity of human nature, but to their I letters literary acquirements. The letters of this prelate are, indeed, among the most interesting and valuable records of the period. We prefer them greatly to the intensely edifying correspondence of Rabanus, or even to that of Alcuin himself; and it must be owned, that the literary activity they reveal is in singular contrast to the representations of those writers who would have us regard the period that followed on the reign of Charlemagne, as one wherein learning suffered a well nigh total eclipse. At Ferrières, at least, its lamp His literary shone with no uncertain light. In a letter to one corre

pursuits.

spondent, we find the good bishop begging for the loan of a copy of Cicero's treatise on Rhetoric, his own manuscript being faulty (mendosum), and another, which he had compared with it, still more so3. In a second letter he mentions that he intended to have forwarded a copy of Aulus Gellius, but his friend, the abbot, has detained it. Writing to another correspondent, he thanks him for the pains he has taken in correcting a copy of Macrobius'; to a third he promises to send a copy of Casar's Commentaries, and enters into a lengthened explanation to show that a portion of that work must be regarded as written by Hirtius. In another letter we find him begging that a copy of the Institutes of Quintilian may be sent to Lantramnus to be copied under his auspices. When we consider that pursuits like these have been held to add lustre to the reputation of not a few of the most distinguished prelates of our English Church, it seems hard to withhold the meed of praise from a poor French bishop of the ninth century; unless indeed such labours are to be regarded as creditable enough when associated with

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the dignity and luxury of a modern bishopric, but quite another thing when carried on amid the alarms of war and a constant struggle with poverty, and where the writer has every now and then to pause to tell of the cruelty of the soldiery, the scanty provision for his household, and the tattered apparel of his servants.

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In the fierce antagonism of races amid which the Carlo- Dets vingian empire broke up, we find little to illustrate the progress of education. The light which illumined the court of Charlemagne, and lingered round that of Charles the Bild, died out in the tenth century, or took refuge with the alien race that ruled in Andalusia Learning still revolved round the monastery and maintained its exclusively theo logical associations. How little it thus prospered in England se o is sufficiently attested by the evidence of our king Aelfrid, a *monarch with strong points of resemblance to Charlemagne, who declared that he knew not a single monk south of the Thames capable of translating the Latın service.

Having now however examined, sutleiently for our presint purpose, what may be termed the external history of the ofication of those centuries, we shall proceed to endeavour to ascertain, in turn, the real value and amount of the scanty ring thus transmitted to more Lop ful times,

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The fact that here at once arrests our attention is, that le education was warped and curtaald by the views of theologian, the substance and the fashion of what wh lly taught were to a great extent derived from pazan sures, and thus preserved in a very remarkable nanner" tralitions of Roman culture. The ordinary instruction part in the Middle Ages, prior to the two lith entury, mus a'most entirely form led on the works of five authors,— hs, Martianus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Torus-of #se Martianus in 1 Bathaus were pizan, the others Chris n writers but all for the most part slava-l complers from ('y superior Girock and Roman try to s Let us be finetly understood. We do not avert that no other authors to real', but with ply that these authors were the school

P1⁄4 1 M A2 Jourlan, who w

DUCTION

INTRO books of those times. A far wider range of reading was undoubtedly accessible. Here and there a mind of superior energy aspired to overcome the difficulties of the Greek! tongue and gained an acquaintance with some of its masterpieces, as well as with those of the Latin language. The Latin Fathers were not unfrequently studied; the Vulgate of Jerome was extensively in use; Aristotle, as a logician, survived both in Augustine and Boethius; Priscian and Donatus are oft-quoted authorities in questions of grammar; i but the limits within which such studies are to be regarded as having directly influenced the individual are so narrow, as to render it especially necessary to be cautious how we regard them as forming any appreciable element in the education then imparted.

Orosius

1 crc A.D. 416

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The first of the five treatises above enumerated represents the school history then in use. Orosius, the compiler, Ozanam remarks, was the first to condense the annals of the world into the formula, divina providentia agitur mundus et His Histo- homo1. It was in the fifth century that Orosius wrote; a time when paganism was loudly reiterating its accusations LVI against Christianity, in order to fasten upon the upholders of the new faith the responsibility of the calamities that were then falling so thickly on the empire. Augustine's elaborate vindication was but half completed, and he called upon Orosius, who was his pupil, to prepare a briefer and less

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few will call in question, claims for
these times a somewhat larger litera-
ture than is usually admitted :-'A
toutes les époques du moyen âge on
a lu les Questions Naturelles de
Séneque, le poëme de Lucrèce, les
ouvrages philosophiques de Cicéron,
les livres d'Apulée, ceux de Cassiodore,
de Boëce, etc.' Recherches Critiques
sur L'Age et L'Origine des Traduc-
tions Latines D'Aristote, edit. 1843,
p. 21. Mr Lewes (Hist. of Philoso-
phy, 11 65) doubts whether Lucretins
could possibly have been tolerated
in so exclusively theological an age;
but both Rabanus Maurus and Wil-
liam of Conches appear to have been
familiar with portions, at least, of
his great poeni. See Charles Jour

dain's Dissertation sur l'État de la Philosophie Naturelle au Douzième Siècle, p. 26. Among the most recent estimates of the learning of these ages that of M. Victor Le Clerc's is noticeable for its highly favorable character:-'Quant à la littérature latine, peu s'en fallait qu'on ne l'eût déjà telle que nous l'avons aujour d'hui. Ce mot trop légèrement em ployé de renaissance des lettres ne saurait s'appliquer aux lettres latines: elles n'ont point ressuscité, parce qu'el les n'étaient point mortes. Histoire Littéraire de la France au Quator. zième Siècle, 1 355.

1 Ozanam, History of Civilization in the Fifth Century, 1 57.

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DUCTION

INTRO venes a meeting of the gods and demands the rights of naturalization for one hitherto but a mortal virgin; and Mercury assigns to his bride seven virgins as her attendants, each of whom is in turn introduced at the marriage banquet and descants on that particular branch of knowledge represented by her name. Such is the fantastic allegory wherein was transmitted to the universities of Europe the ancient division of the trivium and quadrivium'. To modern readers neither the instruction nor the amusement thus conveyed will appear of a very high order. The elaborateness of the machinery seems out of all proportion to the end in view, the allegorical portion of the treatise occupying more than a fourth part of the entire work. The humour, if not altogether spiritless, is often coarse, and when we recollect not only that such allurements to learning were deemed admissible, but that the popularity of this treatise in the Middle Ages is probably mainly attributable to these imaginative accessories, we need seek for no further evidence respecting the standard of literary taste then prevalent.

The Curri

culum

Grammar.

A course of study embracing Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy, would appear a far from contemptible curriculum; it is only when we examine what was really represented under each of these branches, that we become aware how inadequately they corresponded to modern conceptions of such studies. The definition, indeed, given by Martianus of grammar, would lead us to anticipate a comprehensive treatment of the subject, it is not only docte scribere legereque, but also

1 See Hauréan, De la Philosophie Scholastique, 1 21. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. m 957. This division of the several liberal arts is to be found in Augustine, De Ordine, c. 13. Hauren would therefore seem to be in error when he attributes its first Conception to Capella. See Dean Mansel's Introd, to Artis Logica Ru dimenta, p. 28.

As specimens the following may suffice:The plaudits that follow upon the discourse delivered by Arithmetics are supposed to be interrupted by laughter, occasioned by

the loud snores of Silenus asleep under the influence of his deep potations. The kiss wherewith Rhetorica salutes Philologia is beard throughout the assembly, nihil enim silens, ac si cuperet, facicbat. John of Salisbury (see Metalogicus, Lib. tv) frequently illustrates his discourses by a reference to this allegory as especially familiar to his age. Les imaginations rives, remarks Léon Maitre, donnaient leur préférence à Martianus C. pella. Ecoles Epise.

P. 211.

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