[119] Hist. of Ramsey, ch. lxvii.
[120] In the first edition of this book allusion was made to the studies pursued in this century at Croyland abbey. But the chronicle of Ingulphus from which the narrative was quoted, is now generally admitted to be spurious, and the passage has therefore been omitted.
[121] Berington, Lit. Hist. book iii. 154.
[122] Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. ix. part 1. passim.
[123] Florus, Carmina Varia, Vet. Anal. 413.
[124] The battle of Fontenay was gained by Charles the Bald and Louis the German over their elder brother Lothaire. The latter was totally defeated, and the old Frankish or Teutonic nobility who supported him were all but entirely destroyed. From this time the Gallo-Roman element began to prevail in France over the German, and the treaty shortly afterwards renewed between Charles and Louis at Strasburg, is the first instance on record of the vernacular dialects being employed on any solemn occasion. Louis as king of the Germans, swore to the treaty in the Romance language, now formally recognised as the language of France while the French king took his oath in Tudesque, or German. On that day, France and Germany may be said to have first assumed their distinct nationalities. The Romance or Rustic Latin became the language of France, though this afterwards separated into two branches, that spoken in the northern provinces, which was more largely mingled with Germanic idioms, and which was known as the Langue d’oyl, or d’oui and the softer dialect of the south, which was called the Langue d’oc. Later on, the Italian Romance became distinct from either of these, and is sometimes spoken of as the Langue de si.
[125] Footnote: Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. i. part 1.
[126] Acta SS. Ben. Vita S. Anscharii.
[127] Odericus Vitalis, B. vi. ch. 10.
[128] Analect. tom. i. 426.
[129] Gesta Epis. Leod. cap. 25.
[130] Fleury observes that by the “Dialectics of St. Augustine” is supposed to be meant the treatise of the ten categories, attributed to St. Augustine from the time of Alcuin.
[131] D’Achery, Spic. t. i. 372.
[133] St. Maieul of Cluny always “refreshed his mind with reading” as he rode, and one day both horse and man fell into a quagmire. And Thierry, abbot of St. Hubert’s, lost his way, and very nearly his life also, owing to his being so intent on the recitation of the Psalms that he did not see where his horse was going. Many examples of a similar nature are to be met with.
[134] Quando illi prandentes in angulis scholæ, dulcia obsonia magistro furantur.—Vita S. Adalberti, Acta SS. Ben.
[135] The following is his version of the “Our Father”:—
Fater unser du in himele bist. Din na’ mo vuerde geheiligot. Din riche chome. Din wille geskehe in erdo also in himele. Unser ta’ golicha brot kib uns hinto-unde. Unsere sculde belak uns, also ouch wir bela’ zend unsern sculdigen. Und in chorunga nit leitest du unsich. Nu belose unsich some ubele.
[136] I wish to be a Greek, lady, who am scarcely yet a Latin.
[137] I am altogether unable to compose worthy verses, for I am so confused by the caresses of the duchess.
[138] Oderic. Vit. B. vi. c. iv.
[139] Wis. vii. 17. 22-23.
[140] Richer’s history is printed at length in Pertz’s Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Tom. iii.
[141] Gerbert taught his disciples the use of the monochord; a single string, which being struck at different intervals, gave out the different sounds of the gamut. These intervals were marked on the chord, and the words to be sung had written over them a cipher, showing to what interval on the monochord it corresponded. A person therefore could always set himself right by sounding the note he wanted, as we should use a pitch-key. A description of this instrument is given by the monk Odoramn, whose works have been discovered and published by Cardinal Mai, and whose musical treatises are said to be based on the scientific principles of Boëthius and Euclid.
[142] The Arabs received the knowledge of the Indian numerals in the ninth century. “But the profound and important historical investigations to which a distinguished mathematician, M. Chasles, was led by his correct interpretation of the so-called Pythagorean table in the geometry of Boëthius,” says M. Humboldt, “render it more than probable that the Christians in the West were acquainted even earlier than the Arabians with the Indian system of numeration; the use of the nine figures, having their value determined by position, being known by them under the name of the System of the Abacus.” (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 226, also note 358. See also M. Chasles, Aperçu historique des méthodes en géométrie, 464-472, and his papers in the Comptes-rendus de l’Acad. des Sciences.)
[143] The story has of course been taken up by the usual chorus of modern writers, but its fallacy is well exposed by Gretser, who shows that the tenth century knew nothing of the rumour, which entirely originated in the fertile brain of Benno.
[144] Meibomius, Scrip. Rerum German. t. i. 706.
[145] In the year 1867 a controversy arose in Germany concerning the authenticity of the works attributed to Hroswitha. Professor Aschbach, of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, in a paper printed that year in the Acts of the Academy, endeavoured to prove them audacious forgeries; and supposed the author of the fraud to have been one Conrad Celtes, a Humanist of the fifteenth century. The question was taken up on both sides. Several distinguished writers and their arguments and investigations appear to have successfully vindicated the genuine character of the works, and to have established Hroswitha’s claim to be considered their real authoress. See B. Tenk, Neber Roswitha Carmen de Gestis Oddonis, Leipzig, 1876. R. Kœpke, Ottonische Studien zur deutschen geschichte im 10ten jahrhundert, II. Hroswith von Gandersheim (xv. s. 314.) Die Aelteste deutsche Dichterin (III. 127. S), Berlin, 1869. Hroswitha, die helltönende Stimme von Gandersheim. In Westermann’s Illustr. Monatsheften, 1871, &c.
[146] Rohrbacher, Hist. de l’Eglise, vol. xiii. 540.
[147] Adelmann Rythmi Alphabetici. Vet. Anal. iv. 382.
[148] Analecta, t. iv. 385-387.
[149] Rémusat, St. Anselme de Cantorbéry, liv. ii. chap. iv. The various opinions in favour of and against this argument are given in chap. v.
[150] Fleury, lib. lxii. 1.
[152] So at least we conjecture from certain stage directions in the dramas of Hroswitha, which seem to infer a good deal of skill on the part of the stage manager.
[153] M. Delisle, in his Notice on the Life and Writings of Odericus, explains this expression to mean the Latin alphabet; Carmenta Nicostrata, the mother of the Arcadian Evander, being held by some to have first invented letters. He could not, however, have been five years learning his alphabet, so we may probably understand him to mean the ordinary elementary instruction in Latin.
[154] Now known as the Priorata, or Priory of St. John of Jerusalem.
[155] Rohrbacher, Hist. Ecc. tom. xiv. 48-60.
[157] Pertz, Monumenta Germanica, tom. iv. 39.
[158] Chron. Clun. ap. Bib. Clun. 1645.
[159] It may be taken as tolerably well proved, however, that he was really an Irishman, and he is supposed to have been a monk of Clonard. Contemporary with him was another famous Irish historian, Tigernach, abbot of Clonmacnoise, who wrote his chronicle partly in Irish and partly in Latin, and is held to have been well acquainted with Greek. The Irish scholars highly distinguished themselves in this century. There was an Irish monastery at Erford, and another at Cologne, into which Helias, a monk of Monaghan, on returning from a visit to Rome, introduced the Roman chant (Lanigan, Ecc. Hist. c. xxiv.)
[160] Histoire Lit. tom. vii. 58, and tom. ix. 149. The same authority makes mention of other translations in French of the Four Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, the Psalms, and some books of the Old Testament, all made in the diocese of Metz in the twelfth century.
[161] Sicut rectus ordo exigit ut profunda Christianæ fidei credamus, priusquam ea præsumamus ratione discutere; ita negligentia mihi videtur si postquam confirmati sumus in fide, non studemus quod credimus intelligere. Opp. S. Anselm, de Fide Trinitatis et de Incarn. Prœf. et Cur Deus homo? c. i. et 2.
[162] Abelard is classed by John of Salisbury as belonging to the sect of the Nominalists. (De Nugis Curialium, 7, 12. Metalog. 2, 17.) His followers, however, disliked the name, and he is more commonly described as a Conceptualist.
[163] Jo. Saris. Ep. xxiv.
[164] A certain enemy of the poets in the days of Virgil.
[165] Except indeed we reckon St. Anselm as the first of the schoolmen. But though this would be, strictly speaking, correct, the formation of Scholastic Theology as a distinct science is not generally spoken of before the time of Peter Lombard.
[166] In his work entitled De Nugis Curialium, he is said to have quoted upwards of one hundred and twenty writers of antiquity.
[167] Metalogicon, lib. vii. c. 13.
[168] Jos. xv. 15.
[169] Jacob de Vitrag. Hist. Occ. c. 7. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. liv. 66. lix.
[170] Archi-Trenius, or the Chief Lamenter,—a name taken from the Greek title of the Book of Lamentations.
[171] Du Boulai. Hist. de l’Univ. t. iii. p. 31.
[172] Terra mota est, etenim cœli distillaverunt ... pluviam voluntariam segregabis Deus, hæreditati tuæ. Ps. lxvii. 10, 11.
“La main de Dieu, lorsqu’elle nous châtie, est comme celle du chirurgien qui ne blesse que pour guérir, et à la fin les foudres se convertissent en pluies que Dieu réserve pour l’heritage de ses élus.” (Esprit de S. François de Sales.)
[173] Grandes Chroniques de France, ann. 1196.
[174] Lebœuf, Hist. du diocèse de Paris, i. 6.
[175] The collection of the Roman Imperial statutes, known as the Justinian Code, was published by order of Justinian in 529. Three years later appeared fifty books, containing the decisions of famous jurists, and this digest received the name of the Pandects. An introduction, to facilitate the study of the Pandects, with four additional books, make up the Institutes; and, lastly, certain new statutes added at the revision of the code made in 534, formed the Novellæ; the whole collection making up the body of the Roman or civil law.
[176] Cosmos (Sabine’s Translation), vol. ii. note 331.
[177] His story is introduced by Dante into the Inferno, cant. xiii.
[178] The university of Toulouse was established in virtue of certain articles introduced into the treaty of peace between Count Raymund of Toulouse and St. Louis of France. The count agreed to pay 4000 marks for the maintenance of certain masters for ten years; namely, two doctors of theology, two canonists, six masters of liberal arts, and two of grammar. This foundation was made for the express purpose of combating the Albigensian heresy in its headquarters.
[179] The feudal lords in the eleventh century frequently claimed and exercised the right of appointing the scholasticus to certain churches where benefices were attached to the office. (See Martene, Ampl. Coll. t. ii. 974-979.) But even then the approval of the bishop or his chancellor was required, and he could claim the right of veto, when objections to the candidate existed on the score of faith or morals.
[180] Crevier, Hist. de l’Univ. vol. i. p. 256. The custom was made law by a decree of the Third Council of Lateran in 1179. But forty years earlier we find the Council of Westminster prohibiting cathedral scholastics from accepting payment for the licenses granted by them to schoolmasters in towns and villages.
[181] Thus we read that W. de Champeaux held the office of archdeacon of Paris, and governed the cathedral schools. “It had been the rule,” says Crevier, “that all who wished to open a school should obtain a license from the scholasticus, that is, the chancellor, of the church in whose territory they wished to establish themselves.” See also the statutes of Lichfield Cathedral. (Monas. Anglic. t. 3. p. 34.) “Officium Cancellarii est, sive residens sive non extiterit, lectiones legendas in ecclesia per se, vel per suum vicarium, auscultare, male legentes emendare, scholas conferre, &c.” (Quoted by Du Cange.) The chancellor of St. Paul’s, London, had jurisdiction over all the schools of the city. He was called the Magister Scholarum, and the master of the cathedral grammar school acted as his vice-chancellor. (Lib. Stat. Eccl. S. Pauli.) In the reign of Stephen we find an ordinance from the legate, Henry de Blois, to the effect that all schoolmasters teaching schools in London, without license from the cathedral scholasticus, should be excommunicated.
[182] Quoted in Catholic University Gazette, Oct. 26, 1854.
[183] Crevier, Hist. de l’Univ. vol. ii.
[184] For a summary of the errors condemned, see Martene, Thesaur. Anecdot. t. iv. col. 163, 164.
[185] Jasinski, Sum. Ordin. Cap. Gen. p. 403.
[186] Const. FF. Præd. dis. n. note a.
[187] Const. FF. Præd. dis. ii. note b.
[188] Ibid. Paris, 1236. De Studiis linguarum. S. (Const. Fontana, 1862.)
[189] Const. Dis. ii. De Student. iv. note g.
[190] Const. F. F. Præd. De Studentibus. This provision of the ancient Constitutions is commented on by the statutes of more modern addition, wherein we see the immense importance attached by the Order to the study of Church history. After speaking of the study of the Scriptures, it is said: “Another fount of theological science is ecclesiastical history, which is, as it were, the complement, and ever-living interpreter of Holy Scripture; so that these two are the duo luminaria magna, illuminating all the faithful in Christ, and manifesting without a cloud of error, all those truths revealed by God; for the history of the Church, rightly speaking, is nothing else than Christian doctrine in act, nor is there any better or more easy way of knowing the Catholic dogma; for it is nothing else than a series of battles and triumphs of our faith against the insurgent heresies, which the Church, by her doctors, martyrs, and decrees of Popes and Councils has successively pierced through and overcome; whence the certain interpretation of Scripture and the clear explanation of tradition and the authoritative definition of dogma, are all to be found in the History of the Church.” Const. F. F. Præd. (Fontana, 1862.) De Studio, p. 458.
[191] Fleury, Histoire Eccl. Discours 5me.
The order of graduation, as it exists at present, is as follows: Eight years of study are required before any one can be admitted to the degree of Lector, and to obtain this a student must undergo an examination in Philosophy, Modern Controversy, Scripture, and the Summa of St. Thomas. The active or teaching course, required for the higher degrees of Bachelor and Doctor, remains nearly the same as in former days. Various modifications have from time to time been introduced into the legislation of the Order on this point, but the principle has always been retained of making a long course of teaching and repeated examinations the test of qualification. Secular students in a Dominican College, however, may be admitted to the degree of Doctor after only a three years’ course of Theology, provided they stand an examination in the Summa; and by the Bull of Pope Clement XII., all such secular graduates of the Dominican schools hold the same position in every respect as though they had been promoted to the Doctorship in the Roman College of the Sapienza. (Fontana, p. 206.)
[192] His words are as follows: “When I was at Venice, being still a youth, they were sawing some stones for the repair of one of the churches, and it chanced that in one of these blocks there appeared the figure of a head; as of a king, crowned with a long beard. The countenance had no other defect, save that the forehead was too high ascending towards the top of the head. All of us who examined it were satisfied that it was the work of nature. And I being questioned as to the cause of the disproportioned forehead, replied that this stone had been coagulated by the work of vapour, and that by means of a more powerful heat the vapour had arisen without order or measure.” (Op. tom. 2 De Mineralibus. lib. 2, tract. 3, c. i.) The expressions here used are somewhat obscure, but they seem to imply that Albert knew something of those phenomena which geologists explain as the result of volcanic heat and the action of vapour. “Transformed, or metamorphic rocks,” says Humboldt, “are those in which the texture and mode of stratification have been altered either by the contact or proximity of an irrupted volcanic rock, or, as is more frequently the case, by the action of vapours and sublimations which accompany the issue of certain masses in a state of igneous liquefaction.” (Cosmos. vol. i. p. 236.)
[193] “Quia totum scibile scisti.”—Jammy, Vita B. Alberti.
[194] The very remarkable passage here referred to by Humboldt is to be found in the Treatise, “De Cælo et Mundo.”
[195] Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 247.
[196] Among these, besides the celebrated speaking head, the account of which is too legendary to be depended on, we must reckon the mode of rendering sensible the phenomena of an earthquake, which he describes in his book on meteors, and which finds a place in most modern works on popular science; his automata made to move by means of mercury according to the method of Chinese toys; and the so-called magic cup, which is still preserved in the Museum of Cologne.
[197] Rutebœuf, the celebrated crusading minstrel of the thirteenth century, whose reckless sarcasm spared no one, not even St. Louis himself, endeavoured to console the defeated seculars by directing his most cutting satire against their opponents, in a piece entitled “La descorde de l’université et des Jacobins.” The poem contains many curious illustrations of the manners and studies of the Paris students, and it need hardly be said that the Jacobins fare but badly. When first the friars came into the world, he says, they took lodgings with humility, but now they are masters of Paris and Rome,
[198] Ps. ciii. 13.
[199] Boll. Vita S. Thom. p. 712, n. 77.
[200] Institutions Liturgiques, tom. 1, 348.
[201] Frigerio, Vita di S. Tomaso, lib. ii. c. x.
[202] Sixtus of Sienna and Trithemius both declare that St. Thomas explained all the works of Aristotle, and that he was the first Latin Doctor who did so, but the Commentaries that are preserved treat only of fifty two books. This purgation of the pagan philosophy is alluded to in the Matins hymn for his office, as forming one of his chief glories:
[203] Qu. 85, Act. 2, Ad. 3
[204] Qu. 84, 7.
[205] Contra Gen. 1, 7.
[206] Qu. i. Act. 8.
[207] Dalgairns, Introduction to the Life of St. Richard, pp. 36, 37.
[208] At Paris 1286, Bourdeaux 1287, and Lucca 1288.
[209] Vie de S. Thomas, livre v. ch. xi.
[210] Echard, de Script. Ord. t. i. 435.
[211] In c. 5. Matth. quoted by Touron, liv. 4, ch. 3.
[212] Lib. 1, contra Gentil. c. 2, quoted by Touron.
[213] Boll. p. 715, n. 80.
[214] This idea is doubtless little in accordance with our ordinary way of regarding the mechanical arts, but the reader will remember the words of Scripture, which tells us how the Lord called Beseleel the son of Uri, and filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding and all learning to work in gold and silver and carpenter’s work; and how He put wisdom into the heart of every skilful man to know how to work artificially, and to the women that they might spin fine linen. (Exod. xxxi. 3; xxxv. 25, 35; xxxvi. 1.) How sublime is this view, which displays to us every part of human knowledge, the humblest as well as the most profound, as, alike, but sparks from the One Fontal Light,—the Illuminating Spirit of God!
[215] S. Bonaventure (quoted in the Dublin Review, Dec. 1851), from his small work called “The Reduction of the Arts to Theology.”
[216] De Studio legendi, iii. 3-6, quoted in the Appendix to Newman’s University Lectures.
[217] Eccl. Hist. vol. 18, p. 434-444.
[218] Ibid. vol. 18, p. 444.
[219] See Touron, Vies des Hommes Illustres, tom. i. 489-504; where are also to be found notices of F. Paul Christiani, and other Hebrew scholars of the order.
[220] These foundations are thought worthy of being named among his greatest works in the Breviary lessons for the Octave day of his feast: “Hebraicæ et Arabicæ linguæ publicas scholas in Ordine Prædicatorum impensis instituit.”
[221] The letter is printed at length in Martene’s Collection, Tom. iv. col. 1527.
[222] Crevier, Hist. de l’Univ. de Paris. Vol. ii. p. 227. There is incidental evidence that the Greek and Oriental tongues were occasionally studied even by members of the secular colleges of Paris, during this and the following century. Stephen Pasquier speaks of a certain youth of twenty, who in the year 1445 spoke very subtle Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic, besides many other tongues; and winds up his account by saying that if an ordinary man had lived a hundred years without eating and sleeping he could not have learnt as much as this young prodigy. His learning, however, was evidently something rather uncommon, for, says the historian, it put all his fellow-students in fear lest he knew more than human nature ought to know, and might possibly be “a young Antichrist.”
[223] Ayliffe; State of the University of Oxford, vol. i. p. 106.
[224] Fontana, Const. De studio Linguarum. g. p. 467; also Jasinsky, Studium Linguarum. lit. B.
[225] Annibaldi was a pupil of Albert the Great, and took his Doctor’s degree in Paris, where he enjoyed a very brilliant reputation. Innocent IV. created him Master of the Sacred Palace. But being promoted to the purple in 1263 be solicited Urban IV. to name as his successor in that office a certain learned English Friar, F. William Bonderinensis, as he is called in the Catalogue of the Masters, who belonged to the Convent of London, and was the only one of our countrymen who ever filled that important post.
[226] Hibernia Dominicana, p. 191.
[227] Speech on the Extension of Academic Education in Ireland, delivered at Cork, Nov. 13, 1844; quoted in an article on the Ancient Dominican Irish Schools; Dublin Review, Sept. 1845.
[228] Hib. Dominicana, p. 193.
[229] Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol. xi, p. 593.
[230] M. Cartier, in his introduction to the Life of Fra Angelico, has adduced many passages from St. Thomas, not only elucidating the philosophy of Christian art, but showing that he had a natural taste for such pursuits, and drew from them more than one graceful illustration. Thus he lays down the three conditions of beauty to consist in entireness, proportion, and clearness of colour. He also enunciates that broad principle which justifies us in requiring that one who aims at representing spiritual subjects should himself be holy in life, when he declares that “all inferior forms flow from the forms which are in the intellect.” For how then, we may argue, can a spiritual form flow from a debased intellect? And among the maxims and sayings preserved by his biographers there occur more than one, the imagery of which seems to show even a practical acquaintance with the art of painting.
[231] Histoire Eccl., vol. xviii. p. 686.
[232] The image is taken from St. Gregory, who compares secular letters to the smiths’ tools which were to be found in the hands, not of the Israelites, but of the Philistines. Nevertheless, he says, as the Israelites went down to the Philistines and borrowed their tools to sharpen their own instruments, so Christians may and ought to use the liberal arts in order to explain and defend the truths of religion. And those who seek to prohibit the faithful from the study of the liberal sciences are like the Philistines who did not suffer the children of Israel to have smiths among them, “lest they should make them swords or spears.” (S. Greg. in 1 Reg. lib. v. c. iii. No. 30.)