The following pages have been written with the view of presenting a general and connected sketch of the history of Christian Education down to the period of the Council of Trent, illustrated from the lives of those who have, in successive ages, taken part in that great work. A subject extending over so wide a field could of necessity be only partially treated, and it seems desirable, therefore, to explain certain omissions which might otherwise cause disappointment. It was believed that the object aimed at would, in most cases, be better accomplished by introducing the reader to the teachers themselves, than by undertaking to give a complete account and critical examination of their writings. Such an examination would properly enter into a history of Christian Literature, a grand desideratum indeed, but one which the present volumes makes no pretensions to supply. Again, for obvious reasons, the philosophical and theological controversies connected with the lives of the great men who form the subjects of the following studies, have been designedly touched on with the greatest possible brevity: the history of such controversies seeming to belong to Ecclesiastical History, and to be unsuitable in a work like the present.

It has been the wish of the writer to treat the subject from a purely historical point of view, and to increase the value of the narrative by, as far as possible, preserving the colouring, and sometimes even the very language, of the original historians.

The notes appended to the text will give a general idea of the authorities whence the matter has been derived. The Ecclesiastical Histories of Fleury and Rohrbacher have furnished the groundwork of the general narrative. In the account of the Irish schools, the chronology and the main facts have been drawn from Lanigan’s Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. The sketch of the restoration of letters under Charlemagne has been chiefly taken from Crevier’s Histoire de l’UniversitÉ de Paris, Launoy’s Treatise De Scholis Celebrioribus, and the various lives, both ancient and modern, of Charlemagne. In the chapters referring to the subsequent history of the Dark Ages, constant use has been made of the Acta Sanctorum Ord. S. Benedicti, by D’Achery and Mabillon, and of the collections of the Lives of the Saints by Surius and the Bollandists; also of the Vetera Analecta of Mabillon, the Spicilegium of D’Achery, the Amplissima Collectio of Martene, and the Histoire Litteraire de la France, by the Benedictines of St. Maur. Much valuable matter has also been derived from the Monumenta GermaniÆ Historica of Pertz, and the collection of ancient German Chronicles by Meibomius; the account of the school and scholars of St. Gall’s being taken from Ekkehard’s History De Casibus S. Galli, printed in the first volume of Goldasti’s collection, and from the Benedictine Life of B. Notker. The notices of the foreign universities are chiefly drawn from Crevier, and from Tiraboschi’s Storia della Letteratura Italiana, which latter work has been almost exclusively used in the chapters on the Renaissance in Italy. The chapter on the Dominicans and the Universities is compiled from a considerable number of authorities; chiefly, Touron’s Vies des Hommes Illustres, the Scriptores Ordinis PrÆdicatorum by Echard and Quetil, the French translation of Dr. Sighart’s Life of Albert the Great, and the Constitutions of the Order.

The sketches of our English schools and universities are mostly derived from Wood’s Antiquities of Oxford, Ayliffe’s Ancient and Present State of the University of Oxford, and Dugdale’s Monasticon; whilst various notices of early English scholars have been gathered from Wright’s Biographia Britannica, Warton’s History of English Poetry, and the original lives of the English Saints, as given in the three collections already named. Hallam’s Literary History of Europe, and Ranke’s History of the Popes, have also been made considerable use of in treating of the period of the Renaissance, while the sketches of Colet and Pole have been drawn from their respective lives by Knight and Philipps. Pallavicini’s History of the Council of Trent, and Touron’s Life of St. Charles Borromeo, have furnished the chief materials for the concluding chapter of the work.

St. Dominic’s Convent, Stone,
May 1867.