Footnotes:

[1] The present work is not occupied with the brutalities of mediaeval life, nor with all the lower grades of ignorance and superstition abounding in the Middle Ages, and still existing, in a less degree, through parts of Spain and southern France and Italy. Consequently I have not such things very actively in mind when speaking of the mediaeval genius. That phrase, and the like, in this book, will signify the more informed and constructive spirit of the mediaeval time.

[2] There will be much to say of all these men in later chapters.

[3] Post, Chapter XI.

[4] See post, Chapter IX., as to the manner of the coming of Augustine to England.

[5] The Icelandic Sagas, for example, were then brought into written form. They have a genius of their own; they are realistic and without a trace of symbolism. They are wonderful expressions of the people among whom they were composed. Post, Chapter VIII. But, products of a remote island, they were unaffected by the moulding forces of mediaeval development, nor did they exert any influence in turn. The native traits of the mediaeval peoples were the great complementary factor in mediaeval progress—complementary, that is to say, to Latin Christianity and antique culture. Mediaeval characteristics sprang from the interaction of these elements; they certainly did not spring from any such independent and severed growth of native Teuton quality as is evinced by the Sagas. One will look far, however, for another instance of such spiritual aloofness. For clear as are the different racial or national traits throughout the mediaeval period, they constantly appear in conjunction with other elements. They are discerned working beneath, possibly reacting against, and always affected by, the genius of the Middle Ages, to wit, the genius of the mutual interaction of the whole. Wolfram’s very German Parzival, the old French Chanson de Roland, and above them all the Divina Commedia, are mediaeval. In these compositions in the vernacular, racial traits manifest themselves distinctly, and yet are affected by the mediaeval spirit.

[6] See post, Chapter V.

[7] The Predestination and Eucharistic controversies are examples; post, Chapter X.

[8] See post, Chapter X.

[9] The lack of originality in the first half of the tenth century is illustrated by the Epitome of Gregory’s Moralia, made by such an energetic person as Odo of Cluny. It occupies four hundred columns in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, 133. See post, Chapter XII.

[10] See post, Chapter XIII.

[11] See post, Chapter XI.

[12] See post, Chapter XVI.

[13] These men will be fully considered later, Chapters XXXIV.-XL.

[14] See post, Chapter XXXI.

[15] See post, Chapter XXXII.

[16] Post, Chapter XXIII.

[17] The term “spiritual” is here intended to signify the activities of the mind which are emotionalized with yearning or aversion, and therefore may be said to belong to the entire nature of man.

[18] The history of the spread of Latin through Italy and the provinces is from the nature of the subject obscure. Budinsky’s Die Ausbreitung der lateinischer Sprache (Berlin, 1881) is somewhat unsatisfactory. See also Meyer-LÜbke, Die lateinische Sprache in den romanischen LÄndern (GrÖber’s Grundriss, 1², 451 sqq.; F. G. Mohl, Introduction À la chronologie du latin vulgaire (1899). The statements in the text are very general, and ignore intentionally the many difficult questions as to what sort of Latin—dialectal, popular, or literary—was spread through the peninsula. See Mohl, o.c. § 33 sqq.

[19] Tradition says from Gaul, but the sifted evidence points to the Danube north of the later province of Noricum. See Bertrand and Reinach, Les Celtes dans les vallÉes du PÔ et du Danube (Paris, 1894).

[20] See Beloch, BevÖlkerung der griechisch-rÖmischen Welt, p. 507 (Leipzig, 1886).

[21] Mommsen says that in Augustus’s time fifty Spanish cities had the full privileges of Roman citizenship and fifty others the rights of Italian towns (Roman Provinces, i. 75, Eng. trans.). But this seems a mistake; as the enumeration of Beloch, BevÖlkerung, etc., p. 330, gives fifty in all, following the account of Pliny.

[22] Cicero, Pro Archia, 10, speaks slightingly of poets born at Cordova, but, later, Latro of Cordova was Ovid’s teacher.

[23] The Roman law was used throughout Provincia. In this respect a line is to be drawn between Provincia and the North. See post, Chapter XXXIII.

[24] Bellum Gallicum, iii. 10.

[25] Bellum Gallicum, v. 6.

[26] Porcius Cato, in his Origines, written a hundred years before Caesar crossed the mountains, says that Gallia was devoted to the art of war and to eloquence (argute loqui). Presumably the Gallia that Cato thus characterized as clever or acute of speech, was Cisalpine Gaul, to wit, the north of Italy; yet Caesar’s transalpine Gauls were both clever of speech and often the fools of their own arguments. Lucian, in his Hercules (No. 55, Dindorf’s edition) has his “Celt” argue that Hercules accomplished his deeds by the power of words.

[27] See, generally, Fustel de Coulanges, Institutions politiques de l’ancienne France, vol. i. (La Gaule romaine).

[28] Bellum Gallicum, vi. 11, 12.

[29] Cf. Julian, Vercingetorix (2nd ed., Paris, 1902).

[30] Bellum Gallicum, iv. 5; vi. 20.

[31] There are a number of texts from the second to the fifth century which bear on the matter. Taken altogether they are unsatisfying, if not blind. They have been frequently discussed. See GrÖber, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, i. 451 sqq. (2nd edition, 1904); Brunot, Origines de la langue franÇaise, which is the Introduction to Petit de Julleville’s Histoire de la langue et de la littÉrature franÇaise (Paris, 1896); Bonnet, Le Latin de GrÉgoire de Tours, pp. 22-30 (Paris, 1890); Mommsen’s Provinces of the Roman Empire, p. 108 sqq. of English translation; Fustel de Coulanges, Institutions politiques, vol. i. (La Gaule romaine), pp. 125-135 (Paris, 1891); Roger, L’Enseignement des lettres classiques d’ Ausone À Alcuin, p. 24 sqq. (Paris, 1905).

[32] Such words are, e.g., wine, street, wall. See Toller, History of the English Language (Macmillan & Co., 1900), pp. 41, 42.

[33] See Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, Band i. pp. 305-315, (Strassburg, 1891).

[34] A prime illustration is afforded by the Latin juristic word persona used in the Creed. The Latins had to render the three ?p?st?se?? of the Greeks; and “three somethings,” tria quaedam, was too loose, as Augustine says (De Trinitate, vii. 7-12). The true and literal translation of ?p?stas?? would have been substantia; but that word had been taken to render ??s?a. So the legal word persona was employed in spite of its recognized unfitness. Cf. Taylor, Classical Heritage, etc., p. 116 sqq.

[35] On these Peripatetics see Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, 3rd ed. vol. ii. pp. 806-946.

[36] See Boissier, Étude sur M. T. Varron (Paris, 1861).

[37] Hist. naturalis, ii. 41.

[38] From the reign of Augustus onward, Astrology flourished as never before. See Habler, Astrologie im Alterthum, p. 23 sqq. (Zwickau, 1879).

[39] De abstinentia, ii. 34.

[40] De abstinentia, iii. 4.

[41] Porphyry before him had spoken of angels and archangels which he had found in Jewish writings.

[42] For authorities cited, see Zeller, Ges. der Phil., iii.² p. 686.

[43] De mysteriis, i. 3.

[44] Ibid. ii. 3, 9.

[45] Cf. DÖllinger, Sektengeschichte.

[46] All my Christian examples are taken from among the representatives of Catholic Christianity, because it was that which triumphed, and set the lines of mediaeval thought. Consequently, I have not referred to the Gnostics, not wishing to complicate an already complex spiritual situation. Gnosticism was a mixture of Hellenic, oriental, and Christian elements. Its votaries represented one (most distorting) way in which the Gospel was taken. But Gnosticism neither triumphed nor deserved to. It flourished somewhat before the time of Plotinus.

[47] See Origen, De principiis, iii. 2.

[48] The Athanasian Vita Antonii is in Migne, Patr. Graec. 26, and trans. in Nicene Fathers, second series, iv. The Vita S. Martini is in Halm’s ed. of Sulp. Severus (Vienna, 1866), and in Migne, Pat. Lat. 20, and trans. in Nicene Fathers, second series, xi.

[49] See Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, ii. 413 sqq., especially 432 sqq. Also Taylor, Classical Heritage, pp. 94-97.

[50] In cap. iii. § 2 of the Celestial Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius says that the goal of his system is the becoming like to God and oneness with Him (? p??? ?e?? ?f????s?? te ?a? ???s??). He classifies his “celestial intelligences” even more systematically than the De mysteriis of Iamblicus’s school. His work is full of Neo-Platonism. Cf. Vacherot, Histoire de l’École d’Alexandrie, iii. 24 sqq.

[51] The cult of the Virgin and the saints was of very early growth. See Lucius, Die AnfÄnge des Heiligen Kults in der christlichen Kirche (ed. by Anrich, TÜbingen, 1904).

[52] See, e.g., Grandgeorge, St. Augustin et le NÉoplatonisme (Paris, 1896).

[53] On Gregory, see post, Chapter V.

[54] Epistola ad Gregorium Thaumaturgum.

[55] Cf. Boissier, Fin du paganisme.

[56] Civ. Dei, xix. caps. 49, 20, 27, 28.

[57] De moribus Ecclesiae, 14, 15; cf. Epist. 155, §§ 12, 13.

[58] Civ. Dei, xix. 25.

[59] See Clement of Rome, Ep. to the Corinthians (A.D. cir. 92), opening passage, and notes in Lightfoot’s edition.

[60] De doc. Chris. i. 4, 5.

[61] De doc. Chris. ii. 16.

[62] De doc. Chris. iii. cap. 10 sqq.

[63] Post, Chapter V.

[64] De moribus Ecclesiae, 21; Confessions, v. 7; x. 54-57.

[65] See Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, iii. 14 sqq.; Taylor, Classical Heritage, p. 117 sqq.

[66] Civ. Dei, ix. 21, 22; cf. Civ. Dei, xvi. 6-9.

[67] Civ. Dei, book xii., affords a discussion of such questions, e.g. why was man created when he was, and not before or afterwards. All these matters entered into the discussions of the mediaeval philosophers, Thomas Aquinas, for example.

Besides these dogmatic treatises, in which Scriptural texts were called upon at least for confirmation, the Fathers, Greek and Latin, composed an enormous mass of Biblical commentary, chiefly allegorical, following the chapter and verse of the canonical writings.

[68] See ante, Chapter III.

[69] See post, Chapter V.

[70] The substance of Capella’s book is framed in an allegorical narrative of the Marriage of Philology and Mercury. For a nuptial gift, the groom presents the bride with seven maid-servants, symbolizing the Seven Liberal Arts—Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music. Cf. Taylor, Classical Heritage, etc., p. 49 sqq.

[71] In Eyssenhardt’s edition.

[72] On the symbolism of Numbers see Cantor, Vorlesungen Über Ges. der Mathematik, 2nd ed. pp. 95, 96, 146, 156, 529, 531.

[73] See an extraordinary example taken from the treatise against Faustus, post, Chapter XXVII. Also De doc. Chris. ii. 16; De Trinitate, iv. 4-6.

[74] Migne, Pat. Lat. 14, col. 123-273. Written cir. 389.

[75] Hex. i. cap. 6.

[76] Hex. ii. caps. 2, 3.

[77] Aug. De Trinitate, iii. 5-9.

[78] Ante, Chapter III.

[79] Civ. Dei, xvi. 9.

[80] For the sources of these accounts see Lauchert, Ges. des Physiologus (Strassburg, 1889), p. 4 sqq. The wide use of this work is well known. It was soon translated into Ethiopian, Armenian, and Syrian; into Latin not later than the beginning of the fifth century; and subsequently, of course with many accretions, into the various languages of western mediaeval Europe. See Lauchert, o.c. p. 79 sqq.

[81] Cf. Boissier, Tacite (Paris, 1903).

[82] For example, what different truths can one speak afterwards of a social dinner of men and women at which he has sat. In the first place, there is the hostess, to whom he may say something pleasant and yet true. Then there is his congenial friend among the ladies present, to whom he will impart some intimate observations, also true. Thirdly, a club friend was at the dinner, and his ear shall be the receptacle of remarks on feminine traits illustrated by what was said and done there. Finally, there is himself, to whom in the watches of the night the dinner will present itself in its permanent values as an incident in human intercourse, which is so fascinating, so transitory, and so suggestive of topics of reflection. Here are four presentations; and if there was a company of twelve, we may multiply four by that number and imagine forty-eight true, although inexhaustive, accounts of that dinner which has now joined the fading circle of events that are no more.

[83] On Gregory of Nyssa, see Taylor, Classical Heritage, p. 125 sqq.

[84] Chiefly in Books III. and XV.-XVIII.

[85] Like the Civitas Dei, the patristic writings devoted exclusively to history were all frankly apologetic, yet following different manners according to the temper and circumstances of the writer. In the East, at the epoch of the formal Christian triumph and the climax of the Arian dispute, lived Eusebius of Caesarea, the most famous of the early Church historians. He was learned, careful, capable of weighing testimony, and possessed the faculty of presenting salient points. He does not dwell overmuch on miracles. His apologetic tendencies appear in his method of seeing and stating facts so as to uphold the truth of Christianity. If just then Christianity seemed no longer to demand an advocate, there was place for a eulogist, and such was Eusebius in his Church History and fulsome Life of Constantine. His Church History is translated by A. C. McGiffert, Library of Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. i. (New York, 1890). It was translated into Latin by Rufinus, friend and then enemy of St. Jerome.

[86] The best edition is Zangemeister’s in the Vienna Corpus scriptorum eccles. (1882). Orosius ignores the classic Greek historians, of whom he knew little or nothing. Cf. Taylor, Classical Heritage, pp. 219-221.

[87] Hist. ii. 3.

[88] Best edition that of Pauly, in Vienna Corpus scrip. eccles. (1883).

[89] An excellent statement of the nature and classes of the mediaeval Vitae sanctorum is “Les LÉgendes hagiographiques,” by Hipp. Delehaye, S.J., in Revue des questions historiques, t. 74 (1903), pp. 56-122. An English translation of this article has appeared as an independent volume.

[90] At Gregory’s statement of the marvellous deeds of Benedict, his interlocutor, the Deacon Peter, answers and exclaims: “Wonderful and astonishing is what you relate. For in the water brought forth from the rock (i.e. by Benedict) I see Moses, in the iron which returned from the bottom of the lake I see Elisha (2 Kings vi. 6), in the running upon the water I see Peter, in the obedience of the raven I see Elijah (1 Kings xvii. 6), and in his grief for his dead enemy I see David (2 Sam. i. 11). That man, as I consider him, was full of the spirit of all the just” (Gregorius Magnus, Dialogi, ii. 8. Quoted and expanded by Odo of Cluny, Migne, Pat. Lat. 133, col. 724). The rest of the second book contains other miracles like those told in the Bible. The Life of a later saint may also follow earlier monastic types. Francis kisses the wounds of lepers, as Martin of Tours had done. See Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini. But often the writer of a vita deliberately inserts miracles to make his story edifying, or enhance the fame of his hero, perhaps in order to benefit the church where he is interred.

[91] Ambrose, Ep. 22, ad Marcellinam.

[92] On Paulinus of Nola, see Taylor, Classical Heritage, pp. 272-276.

[93] As this chapter has been devoted to the intellectual interests of the Fathers, it should be supplemented by a consideration of the emotions and passions approved or rejected by them. But this matter may be considered more conveniently in connection with the development of mediaeval emotion, post, Chapter XIV.

[94] Migne, Pat. Lat. 63, col. 1079-1167. Also edited by Friedlein (Leipsic, 1867).

[95] I know of no earlier employment of the word to designate these four branches of study. But one might infer from BoËthius’s youth at this time that he received it from a teacher.

[96] See Cantor, Vorlesungen Über die Ges. der Mathematik, i. 537-540.

[97] See Cantor, o.c. i. 540-551.

[98] Cassiodorus, Ep. variae, i. 45

[99] Upon the dates of BoËthius’s writings, see S. Brandt, “Entstehungszeit und zeitliche Folge der Werke des BoËtius,” Philologus, Band 62 (N.S. Bd. 16), 1903, pp. 141 sqq. and 234 sqq.

[100] Social position, his own abilities, and the favour of Theodoric, obtained the consulship for BoËthius in 510, when he was twenty-eight or -nine years old.

[101] Migne, Pat. Lat. 64, col. 201.

[102] In librum de interpretatione, editio secunda, beginning of Book II., Migne 64, col. 433.

[103] See De inter. ed. prima, Book I. (Migne 64, col. 193); ed. secunda, beginning of Book III. and of Book IV. (Migne 64, col. 487 and 517). The BoËthian translations are all in the 64th vol. of Migne’s Pat. Lat.

[104] See A. Hildebrand, BoËthius und seine Stellung zum Christentum (Regensburg, 1885), and works therein referred to.

[105] See Prantl, Ges. der Logik, i. 679 sqq.

[106] See his Life in Hodgkin’s Letters of Cassiodorus; also Roger, Enseignement des lettres classiques d’Ausone À Alcuin, pp. 175-187 (Paris, 1905).

[107] Migne 70, col. 1281.

[108] Migne 70, col. 1105-1219.

[109] Gregory’s works are printed in Migne, Patrologia Latina, 75-79. His epistles are also published in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. On Gregory, his life and times, writings and doctrines, see F. H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, etc., 2 vols. (Longmans, 1905).

[110] Migne, Pat. Lat. 75, col. 516.

[111] Ep. xi. 54 (Migne 77, col. 1171).

[112] This is the view expressed in the Commentary on Kings ascribed to Gregory, but perhaps the work of a later hand. Thus, in the allegorical interpretation of 1 Kings (1 Sam.) xiii. 20, “But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe.” Says the commentator (Migne, Pat. Lat. 79, col. 356): We go down to the Philistines when we incline the mind to secular studies; Christian simplicity is upon a height. Secular books are said to be in the plane since they have no celestial truths. God put secular knowledge in a plane before us that we should use it as a step to ascend to the heights of Scripture. So Moses first learned the wisdom of the Egyptians that he might be able to understand and expound the divine precepts; Isaiah, most eloquent of the prophets, was nobiliter instructus et urbanus; and Paul had sat at Gamaliel’s feet before he was lifted to the height of the third heaven. One goes to the Philistines to sharpen his plow, because secular learning is needed as a training for Christian preaching.

[113] See post, Chapter X.

[114] Migne 75, 76.

[115] Migne 77, col. 149-430. The second book is devoted to Benedict of Nursia.

[116] For illustrations see Dudden, o.c. i. 321-366, and ii. 367-68. Gregory’s interest in the miraculous shows also in his letters. The Empress Constantine had written requesting him to send her the head of St. Paul! He replies (Ep. iv. 30, ad Constantinam Augustam) in a wonderful letter on the terrors of such holy relics and their death-striking as well as healing powers, of which he gives instances. He says that sometimes he has sent a bit of St. Peter’s chain or a few filings; and when people come seeking those filings from the priest in attendance, sometimes they readily come off, and again no effort of the file can detach anything.

[117] Moralia xvi. 51 (Migne 75, col. 1151). Cf. Dudden, o.c. ii. 369-373.

[118] Mor. ix. 34, 54 (Migne 75, col. 889). Cf. Dudden, o.c. ii. 419-426.

[119] Dialogi, iv. caps. 39, 55.

[120] A better Augustinianism speaks in Gregory’s letter to Theoctista (Ep. vii. 26), in which he says that there are two kinds of “compunction, the one which fears eternal punishments, the other which sighs for the heavenly rewards, as the soul thirsting after God is stung first by fear and then by love.”

[121] Ep. iv. 21; vi. 32; ix. 6.

[122] See post, Chapter XXXVI., 1.

[123] Migne 83, col. 207-424. No reference need be made, of course, to the False Decretals, pseudonymously connected with Isidore’s name; they are later than his time.

[124] The Etymologiae is to be found in vol. 82 of Migne, col. 73-728; the other works fill vol. 83 of Migne.

[125] Aug. Quaest. in Gen. i. 152. See ante, Chapter IV.

[126] Isidore’s Books of Sentences present a topical arrangement of matters more or less closely pertinent to the Christian Faith, and thus may be regarded as a precursor of the Sentences of Peter Lombard (post, Chapter XXXIV.). But Isidore’s work is the merest compilation, and he does not marshal his extracts to prove or disprove a set proposition, and show the consensus of authority, like the Lombard. His chief source is Gregory’s Moralia. Prosper of Aquitaine, a younger contemporary and disciple of Augustine, compiled from Augustine’s works a book of Sentences, a still slighter affair than Isidore’s (Migne, Pat. Lat. 51, col. 427-496).

[127] For example, Reason begins her reply thus: “Quaeso te, anima, obsecro te, deprecor te, imploro te, ne quid ultra leviter agas, ne quid inconsulte geras, ne temere aliquid facias,” etc. (Migne 83, col. 845).

[128] De rerum natura, Praefatio (Migne 83, col. 963).

[129] See Prolegomena to Becker’s edition.

[130] Migne 82, col. 367.

[131] See KÜbler, “Isidorus-Studien,” Hermes xxv. (1890), 497, 518, and literature there cited.

An analysis of the Etymologies would be out of the question. But the captions of the twenty books into which it is divided will indicate the range of Isidore’s intellectual interests and those of his time:

[132] The exaggerated growth of grammatical and rhetorical studies is curiously shown by the mass of words invented to indicate the various kinds of tropes and figures. See the list in Bede, De schematis (Migne 90, col. 175 sqq.).

[133] Cf. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, 8 vols.; Villari, The Barbarian Invasions of Italy, 2 vols.

[134] This demand was not so extraordinary in view of the common Roman custom in the provinces of billeting soldiers upon the inhabitants, with the right to one-third of the house and appurtenances.

[135] Cf. post, Chapter XXXIII., II.

[136] On the Codes see Hodgkin, o.c. vol. vi.

[137] The Lombard language was still spoken in the time of Paulus Diaconus (eighth century).

[138] Apollinaris Sidonius, Ep. i. 2 (trans. by Hodgkin, o.c. vol. ii. 352-358), gives a sketch of a Visigothic king, Theodoric II., son of him who fell in the battle against the Huns. He ascended the throne in 453, having accomplished the murder of his brother Thorismund. In 466, he was himself slain by his brother Euric. In the meanwhile he appears to have been a good half-barbaric, half-civilized king.

[139] See post, Chapter XXXIII., II. For the Visigothic kingdom of Spain the great reigns were those of Leowigild (568-586) and his son Reccared (586-601). In Justinian’s time the “Roman Empire” had again made good its rule over the south of Spain. Leowigild pushed the Empire back to a narrow strip of southern coast, where there were still important cities. Save for this, he conquered all Spain, finally mastering the Suevi in the north-west. His capital was Toledo. Great as was his power, it hardly sufficed to hold in check the overweening nobles and landowners. Under the declining Empire there had sprung up a system of clientage and protection, in which the Teutons found an obstacle to the establishment of monarchies. In Spain this system hastened the downfall of the Visigothic kingdom. Another source of trouble for Leowigild, who was still an Arian, was the opposition of the powerful Catholic clergy. Reccared, his son, changed to the Catholic or “Roman” creed, and ended the schism between the throne and the bishops.

[140] The Spanish Roman Church, which controlled or thwarted the destinies of the doomed Visigothic kingdom, was foremost among the western churches in ability and learning. It had had its martyrs in the times of pagan persecution; it had its universally venerated Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, and prominent at the Council of Nicaea; it had its fiercely quelled heresies and schisms; and it had an astounding number of councils, usually held at Toledo. Its bishops were princes. Leander, Bishop of Seville, had been a tribulation to the powerful, still Arian, King Leowigild, who was compelled to banish him. That king’s son, Reccared, recalled him from banishment, to preside at the Council of Toledo in 589, when the Visigothic monarchy turned to Roman Catholicism. Leander was succeeded in his more than episcopal see by his younger brother Isidore (Bishop of Seville from 600 to 636). A princely prelate, Isidore was to have still wider and more lasting fame for sanctity and learning. The last encyclopaedic scholar belonging to the antique Christian world, he became one of the great masters of the Middle Ages (see ante, Chapter V.). The forger and compiler of the False Decretals in selecting the name of Isidore rather than another to clothe that collection with authority, acted under the universal veneration felt for this great Spanish Churchman.

[141] Marriages between Romans and Franks were legalized as early as 497.

[142] See Flach, Les Origines de l’ancienne France, vol. i. chap. i. sqq. (Paris, 1886).

[143] See post, Chapter XXXIII., II.

[144] The physiological criterion of a race is consanguinity. But unfortunately racial lineage soon loses itself in obscurity. Moreover, during periods as to which we have some knowledge, no race has continued pure from alien admixture; and every people that has taken part in the world’s advance has been acted upon by foreign influences from its prehistoric beginnings throughout the entire course of its history. Indeed, foreign suggestions and contact with other peoples appear essential to tribal or national progress. For the historian there exists no pure and unmixed race, and even the conception of one becomes self-contradictory. To him a race is a group of people, presumably related in some way by blood, who appear to transmit from generation to generation a common heritage of culture and like physical and spiritual traits. He observes that the transmitted characteristics of such a group may weaken or dissipate before foreign influence, and much more as the group scatters among other people; or again he sees its distinguishing traits becoming clearer as the members draw to a closer national unity under the action of a common physical environment, common institutions, and a common speech. The historian will not accept as conclusive any single kind of evidence regarding race. He may attach weight to complexion, stature, and shape of skull, and yet find their interpretation quite perplexing when compared with other evidence, historical or linguistic. He will consider customs and implements, and yet remember that customs may be borrowed, and implements are often of foreign pattern. Language affords him the most enticing criterion, but one of the most deceptive. It is a matter of observation that when two peoples of different tongues meet together, they may mingle their blood through marriage, combine their customs, and adopt each other’s utensils and ornaments; but the two languages will not structurally unite: one will supplant the other. The language may thus be more single in source than the people speaking it; though, conversely, people of the same race, by reason of special circumstances, may not speak the same tongue. Hence linguistic unity is not conclusive evidence of unity of race.

[145] As to the Celts in Gaul and elsewhere, and the early non-Celtic population of Gaul, see A. Bertrand, La Gaule avant les Gaulois (Paris, 1891); La Religion des Gaulois (Paris, 1897); Les Celtes dans les vallÉes du PÔ et du Danube (in conjunction with S. Reinach); D’Arbois de Jubainville, Les Premiers Habitants de l’Europe (second edition, Paris, 1894); Fustel de Coulanges, Institutions politiques de l’ancienne France (Paris, 1891); Karl MÜllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, Bde. I. and II.; Zupitza, “Kelten und Gallier,” Zeitschrift fÜr keltische Philologie, 1902.

[146] See ante, Chapter II.

[147] The Latin literature produced by their descendants in the fourth century is usually good in form, whatever other qualities it lack. This statement applies to the works of the nominally Christian, but really pagan, rhetorician and poet, Ausonius, born in 310, at Bordeaux, of mingled Aquitanian and Aeduan blood; likewise to the poems of Paulinus of Nola, born at the same town, in 353, and to the prose of Sulpicius Severus, also born in Aquitaine a little after. In the fifth century, Avitus, an Auvernian, Bishop of Vienne, and Apollinaris Sidonius continue the Gallo-Latin strain in literature.

[148] Without hazarding a discussion of the origin of the Irish, of their proportion of Celtic blood, or their exact relation to the Celts of the Continent, it may in a general way be said, that Ireland and Great Britain were inhabited by a prehistoric and pre-Celtic people. The Celts came from the Continent, conquered them, and probably intermarried with them. The Celtic inflow may have begun in the sixth century before Christ, and perhaps continued until shortly before Caesar’s time. Evidences of language point to a dual Celtic stock, Goidelic and Brythonic. It may be surmised that the former was the first to arrive. The Celtic dialect spoken by them is now represented by the Gaelic of Ireland, Man, and Scotland. The Brythonic is still represented by the speech of Wales and the Armoric dialects of Brittany. This was the language of the Britons who fought with Caesar, and were subdued by later Roman generals. After the Roman time they were either pressed back into Wales and Cornwall by Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, or were absorbed among these conquering Teutons. Probably Caesar was correct in asserting the close affinity of the Britons with the Belgic tribes of the Continent. See the opening chapters of Rhys and Brynmor-Jones’s Welsh People; also Rhys’s Early Britain (London, 1882); Zupitza, “Kelten und Gallier,” Zeitschrift fÜr keltische Phil., 1902; T. H. Huxley, “On some Fixed Points in British Ethnology,” Contemporary Review for 1871, reprinted in Essays (Appleton’s, 1894); Ripley, Races of Europe, chap. xii. (New York, 1899).

[149] The Irish art of illumination presents analogies to the literature. The finesse of design and execution in the Book of Kells (seventh century) is astonishing. Equally marvellous was the work of Irish goldsmiths. Both arts doubtless made use of designs common upon the Continent, and may even have drawn suggestions from Byzantine or late Roman patterns. Nevertheless, illumination and the goldsmith’s art in Ireland are characteristically Irish and the very climax of barbaric fashions. Their forms pointed to nothing further. These astounding spirals, meanders, and interlacings, combined with utterly fantastic and impossible drawings of the human form, required essential modification before they were suited to form part of that organic development of mediaeval art which followed its earlier imitative periods.

Irish illumination was carried by Columba to Iona, and spread thence through many monasteries in the northern part of Britain. It was imitated in the Anglo-Saxon monasteries of Northumbria, and from them passed with Alcuin to the Court of Charlemagne. Through these transplantings the Irish art was changed, under the hands of men conversant with Byzantine and later Roman art. The influence of the art also worked outward from Irish monasteries upon the Continent, St. Gall, for example. The Irish goldsmith’s art likewise passed into Saxon England, into Carolingian France, and into Scandinavia. See J. H. Middleton, Illuminated Manuscripts (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1892), and the different view as to the sources of Irish illuminating art in Muntz, Études iconographiques (Paris, 1887); also Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst, i. 607-619; Margaret Stokes, Early Christian Art in Ireland (South Kensington Museum Art Hand-Books, 1894), vol. i. p. 32 sqq., and vol. ii. pp. 73, 78; Sophus MÜller, Nordische Altertumskunde, vol. ii. chap. xiv. (Strassburg, 1898).

[150] The classification of ancient Irish literature is largely the work of O’Curry, Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1861, 2nd ed., 1878). See also D. Hyde, A Literary History of Ireland, chaps. xxi.-xxix. (London, 1899); D’Arbois de Jubainville, Introduction À l’Étude de la littÉrature celtique, chap. prÉliminaire (Paris, 1883). The tales of the Ulster Cycle, in the main, antedate the coming of the Norsemen in the eighth century; but the later redactions seem to reflect Norse customs; see Pflugk-Hartung, in Revue celtique, t. xiii. (1892), p. 170 sqq.

[151] This comparison with Homeric society might be extended so as to include the Celts of Britain and Gaul. Close affinities appear between the Gauls and the personages of the Ulster Cycle. Several of its Sagas have to do with the “hero’s portion” awarded to the bravest warrior at the feast, a source of much pleasant trouble. Posidonius, writing in the time of Cicero, mentions the same custom among the Celts of Gaul (Didot-MÜller, Fragmenta hist. Graec. t. iii. p. 260, col. 1; D’Arbois de Jubainville, Introduction, etc., pp. 297, 298).

[152] Probably first written down in the seventh century. Some of the Cuchulain Sagas are rendered by D’Arbois de Jubainville, ÉpopÉe celtique; they are given popularly in E. Hull’s Cuchulain Saga (D. Nutt, London, 1898). Also to some extent in Hyde’s Lit. Hist., etc.

[153] See the famous Battle of the Ford between Cuchulain and Ferdiad (Hyde, Lit. Hist. of Ireland, pp. 328-334). A more burlesque hyperbole is that of the three caldrons of cold water prepared for Cuchulain to cool his battle-heat: when he was plunged in the first, it boiled; plunged into the second, no one could hold his hand in it; but in the third, the water became tepid (D’Arbois de Jubainville, ÉpopÉe celtique, p. 204).

[154] Certain interpolated Christian chapters at the end tell how MÆldun is led to forgive the murderers—an idea certainly foreign to the original pagan story, which may perhaps have had its own ending. The tale is translated in P. W. Joyce’s Old Celtic Romances (London, 1894), and by F. Lot in D’Arbois de Jubainville’s ÉpopÉe celtique, pp. 449-500.

[155] Perhaps no one of the Ulster Sagas exhibits these qualities more amusingly than The Feast of Bricriu, a tale in which contention for the “hero’s portion” is the leading motive. Its personae are the men and women who constantly appear and reappear throughout this cycle. In this Saga they act and speak admirably in character, and some of the descriptions bring the very man before our eyes. It is translated by George Henderson, Vol. II. Irish Texts Society (London, 1899), and also by D’Arbois de Jubainville in his ÉpopÉe celtique (Paris, 1892).

[156] For example, in a historical Saga the great King Brian speaks, fighting against the Norsemen: “O God ... retreat becomes us not, and I myself know I shall not leave this place alive; and what would it profit me if I did? For Aibhell of Grey Crag came to me last night, and told me that I should be killed this day.”

[157] “Deirdre, or the Fate of the Sons of Usnach,” is rendered in E. Hull’s Cuchulain Saga; Hyde, Lit. Hist., chap, xxv., and D’Arbois de Jubainville, ÉpopÉe celtique, pp. 217-319. The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne was edited by O’Duffy for the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language (Dublin, Gill and Son, 1895), and less completely in Joyce’s Old Celtic Romances (London, 1894).

[158] Cf. Hyde, o.c., chaps. xxi. xxxvi.

[159] The Voyage of Bran, edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, with essays on the Celtic Otherworld, by Alfred Nutt (2 vols., David Nutt, London, 1895). A Saga usually is prose interspersed with lyric verses at critical points of the story.

[160] On Tara, see Index in O’Curry’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish; also Hyde, Literary History, pp. 126-130. For this story, see O’Grady, Silva Gaedelica, pp. 77-88 (London, 1892); Hyde, pp. 226-232.

[161] See D’Arbois de Jubainville, Introduction À la lit. celtique, pp. 259-271 (Paris, 1883).

[162] See D’Arbois de Jubainville, Introduction, etc., p. 129 sqq.; Bertrand, La Religion des Gaulois, chap. xx. (Paris, 1897). Also O’Curry, o.c. passim.

[163] For this whole story see H. Zimmer, “Über die frÜhesten BerÜhrungen der Iren mit den Nordgermanen,” Sitzungsbericht der Preussischen Akad., 1891 (1), pp. 279-317.

[164] For the life of Saint Columba the chief source is the Vita by Adamnan, his eighth successor as abbot of Iona. It contains well-drawn sketches of the saint and much that is marvellous and incredible. It was edited with elaborate notes by Dr. W. Reeves, for the Irish Archaeological Society, in 1857. His work, rearranged and with a translation of the Vita, was republished as Vol. VI. of The Historians of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1874). The Vita may also be found in Migne, Patrologia Latina, 88, col. 725-776. Bede, Ecc. Hist. iii. 4, refers to Columba. The Gaelic life from the Book of Lismore is published, with a translation by M. Stokes, Anecdota Oxoniensia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1890). The Bodleian Eulogy, i.e. the Amra Choluim chille, was published, with translation by M. Stokes, in Revue celtique, t. xx. (1899); as to its date, see Rev. celtique, t. xvii. p. 41. Another (later) Gaelic life has been published by R. Henebry in the Zeitschrift fÜr celtische Philologie, 1901, and later. There is an interesting article on the hymns ascribed to Columba in Blackwood’s Magazine for September 1899. See also Cuissard, Rev. celtique, t. v. p. 207. The hymns themselves are in Dr. Todd’s Liber Hymnorum. Montalembert’s Monks of the West, book ix. (vol. iii. Eng. trans.), gives a long, readable, and uncritical account of “St. Columba, the Apostle of Caledonia.”

[165] The Irish monastery was ordered as an Irish clan, and indeed might be a clan monastically ordered. At the head was an abbot, not elected by the monks, but usually appointed by the preceding abbot from his own family; as an Irish king appointed his successor. The monks ordinarily belonged to the abbot’s clan. They lived in an assemblage of huts. Some devoted themselves to contemplation, prayer, and writing; more to manual labour. There were recluses among them. Besides the monks, other members of the clan living near the “monastery” owed it duties and were entitled to its protection and spiritual ministration. The abbot might be an ordained priest; he rarely was a bishop, though he had bishops under him who at his bidding performed such episcopal functions as that of ordination. But he was the ruler, lay as well as spiritual. Not infrequently he also was a king. Although there was no common ordering of Irish monasteries, a head monastery might bear rule over its daughter foundations, as did Columba’s primal monastery of Iona over those in Ireland or Northern Britain which owed their origin to him. Irish monasteries might march with their clan on military expeditions, or carry on a war of monastery against monastery. “A.D. 763. A battle was fought at Argamoyn, between the fraternities of Clonmacnois and Durrow, where Dermod Duff, son of Donnell, was killed with 200 men of the fraternity of Durrow. Bresal, son of Murchadh, with the fraternity of Clonmacnois, was victor” (Ancient Annals). This entry is not alone, for there is another one of the year 816, in which a “fraternity of Colum-cille” seems to have been worsted in battle, and then to have gone “to Tara to curse” the reigning king. See Reeve’s Adamnan’s Life of Columba, p. 255. Of course Irish armies felt no qualms at sacking the monasteries and slaying the monks of another kingdom. The sanctuaries of Clonmacnois, Kildare, Clonard, Armagh were plundered as readily by “Christian” Irishmen as by heathen Danes. In the ninth century, Phelim, King of Munster, was an abbot and a bishop too; but he sacked the sacred places of Ulster and killed their monks and clergy. See G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church; Killen, Eccl. Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. p. 145 sqq.

[166] The title of saint is regularly given to the higher clergy of this period in Ireland.

[167] “The History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating” in the original Gaelic with an English translation, by Comyn and Dineen (Irish Texts Society. David Nutt, London, 1902-1908).

[168] This means that he copied a manuscript belonging to Finnian.

[169] The Life of Colomb Cille from the Book of Lismore.

[170] Adamnan.

[171] B.G. iv. 1-3; vi. 21-28. For convenience I use the word Teuton as the general term and German as relating to the Teutons of the lands still known as German. But with reference to the times of Caesar and Tacitus the latter word must be taken generally.

[172] These views are set forth brilliantly, but with exaggeration, by Fustel de Coulanges, in L’Invasion germanique, vol. ii. of his Institutions politiques, etc. (revised edition, Paris, 1891).

[173] Apoll. Sid. Epist. viii. 6 (Migne, Pat. Lat. 58, col. 697).

[174] See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law; and Pollock, English Law before the Norman Conquest, Law Quarterly Review.

[175] The ancient Anglo-Saxon version is Anglo-Saxon through and through. The considerable store of Latin (or Greek) words retained by the “authorized” English version (for example, Scripture, Testament, Genesis, Exodus, etc., prophet, evangelist, religion, conversion, adoption, temptation, redemption, salvation, and damnation) were all translated into sheer Anglo-Saxon. See Toller, Outlines of the History of the English Language (Macmillan & Co., 1900), pp. 90-101. Some hundreds of years before, Ulfilas’s fourth century Gothic translation had shown a Teutonic tongue capable of rendering the thought of the Pauline epistles.

[176] See the “Beowulf” translated in Gummere’s Oldest English Epic (Macmillan & Co., 1909).

[177] This is the closing sentence of Alfred’s Blossoms, culled from divers sources. Hereafter (Chapter IX.) when speaking of the introduction of antique and Christian culture there will be occasion to note more specifically what Alfred accomplished in his attempt to increase knowledge throughout his kingdom.

[178] See e.g. in Otfried’s Evangelienbuch, post, Chapter IX.

[179] For example: skidunga (Scheidung), saligheit (Seligkeit), fiantscaft (Feindschaft), heidantuom (Heidentum). By the eighth century the High German of the Bavarians and Alemanni began to separate from the Low German of the lower Rhine, spoken by Saxons and certain of the Franks. The greater part of the Frankish tribes, and the Thuringians, occupied intermediate sections of country and spoke dialects midway between Low German and High.

[180] Text in Piper’s Die Älteste Literatur (Deutsche National Lit.).

[181] On the Waltari poem, see Ebert, Allgemeine Gesch. der Literatur des Mittelalters, Bd. iii. 264-276; also K. Strecker, “Probleme in der Walthariusforschung,” Neue JahrbÜcher fÜr klass. Altertumsgesch. und Deutsche Literatur, 2te Jahrgang (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 573-594, 629-645. The author is called Ekkehart I. (d. 973), being the first of the celebrated monks bearing that name at St. Gall. The poem is edited by Peiper (Berlin, 1873), and by Scheffel and Holder (Stuttgart, 1874); it is translated into German by the latter, by San Marte (Magdeburg, 1853), and by Althof (Leipzig, 1902).

[182] The description of Siegfried’s love for Kriemhild is just touched by the chivalric love, which exists in Wolfram’s Parzival, in Gottfried’s Tristan, and of course in their French models. See post, Chapter XXIII. For example, as he first sees her who was to be to him “beide lieb und leit,” he becomes “bleich unde rÔt”; and at her greeting, his spirit is lifted up: “dÔ wart im von dem gruoze vil wol gehoehÉt der muot.” And the scene is laid in May (Nibelungenlied, Aventiure V., stanzas 284, 285, 292, 295).

[183] A convenient edition of the Kudrun is Pfeiffer’s in Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1880). Under the name of Gudrun it is translated into modern German by Simrock, and into English by M. P. Nichols (Boston, 1899).

[184] Kudrun, viii. 558. Whatever may have been the facts of German life in the Middle Ages, the literature shows respect for marriage and woman’s virtue. This remark applies not only to those works of the Middle High German tongue which are occupied with themes of Teutonic origin, but also to those—Wolfram’s Parzival, for example—whose foreign themes do not force the poet to magnify adulterous love. When, however, that is the theme of the story, the German writer, as in Gottfried’s Tristan, does not fail to do it justice.

Willmans, in his Leben und Dichtung Walthers von der Vogelweide (Bonn, 1882), note 1^a on page 328, cites a number of passages from Middle High German works on the serious regard for marriage held by the Germans. Even the German minnesingers sometimes felt the contradiction between the broken marriage vow and the ennobling nature of chivalric love. See Willmans, ibid. p. 162 and note 7.

[185] Kudrun, xx. 1013.

[186] Kudrun, xxx. 1632 sqq.

[187] As to the Parzival, and Walter’s poems, see post, Chapters XXIV. XXVI.

[188] Ante, Chapter I.

[189] It is not known when Teutons first entered Denmark and the Scandinavian peninsula. Although non-Teutonic populations may have preceded them, the archaeological remains do not point clearly to a succession of races, while they do indicate ages of stone, bronze, and iron (Sophus MÜller, Nordische Altertumskunde). The bronze ages began in the Northlands a thousand years or more before Christ. In course of time, beautiful bronze weapons show what skill the race acquired in working metals not found in Scandinavia, but perhaps brought there in exchange for the amber of the Baltic shores. The use of iron (native to Scandinavia) begins about 500 B.C. A progressive facility in its treatment is evinced down to the Christian Era. Then a foreign influence appears—Rome. For Roman wares entered these countries where the legionaries never set foot, and native handicraft copied Roman models until the fourth century, when northern styles reassert themselves. The Scandinavians themselves were unaffected by Roman wares; but after the fifth century they began to profit from their intercourse with Anglo-Saxons and Irish.

[190] It is said that some twenty-five thousand Arabian coins, mostly of the Viking periods, have been found in Sweden.

[191] See Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus poeticum Boreale, i. 238.

[192] There is much controversy as to the date (the Viking Age?) and place of origin (Norway, the Western Isles, or Iceland?) of the older Eddic poems; also as to the presence of Christian elements. The last are denied by MÜllenhoff (Deutsche Altertumskunde, Bd. v., 1891) and others; while Bugge finds them throughout the whole Viking mythology (Home of the Eddic Poems, London, D. Nutt, 1899), and Chr. Bang has endeavoured to prove that the Voluspa, the chief Eddic mythological poem, was an imitation of the Christian Sibyl’s oracles (Christiania Videnskabsselskabs Forhanlinger, 1879, No. 9; MÜllenhoff, o.c. Bd. v. p. 3 sqq.). Similar views are held in Vigfusson and Powell’s Corpus poeticum Boreale (i. ci.-cvii. and 427). These scholars find Celtic influences in the Eddic poems. The whole controversy is still far from settlement.

As for English translations of the Edda, that by B. Thorpe (Edda Samundar) is difficult to obtain. Those of the Corpus poeticum Boreale are literal; but the phraseology of the renderings of the mythological poems is shaped to the theory of Christian influence. A recent translation (1909) is that of Olive Bray (Viking Club), The Elder or Poetic Edda, Part I. The Mythological Poems.

[193] The best account of the Sagas, in English, is the Prolegomena to Vigfusson’s edition of the Sturlunga Saga (Clarendon Press, 1878). Dasent’s Introduction to his translation of the NjÁls Saga (Edinburgh, 1861) is instructive as to the conditions of life in Iceland in the early times. W. P. Ker’s Epic and Romance (Macmillan & Co., 1897) has elaborate literary criticism upon the Sagas. The following is Vigfusson’s: “The Saga proper is a kind of prose Epic. It has its fixed laws, its set phrases, its regular epithets and terms of expression, and though there is, as in all high literary form, an endless diversity of interest and style, yet there are also bounds which are never over-stepped, confining the Saga as closely as the employment and restrictions of verse could do. It will be best to take as the type the smaller Icelandic Saga, from which indeed all the later forms of composition have sprung. This is, in its original form, the story of the life of an Icelandic gentleman, living some time in the tenth or eleventh centuries. It will tell first of his kin, going back to the settler from whom he sprung, then of his youth and early promise before he left his father’s house to set forth on that foreign career which was the fitting education of the young Northern chief. These wanderjahre passed in trading voyages and pirate cruises, or in the service of one of the Scandinavian kings, as poet or henchman, the hero returns to Iceland a proved man, and the main part of the story thus preluded begins. It recounts in fuller detail and in order of time his friendships and his enmities, his exploits and renown, and finally his death; usually concluding with the revenge taken for him by his kinsmen, which fitly winds up the whole. This tale is told in an earnest, straightforward way, as by a man talking, in short simple sentences, changing when the interest grows into the historic present, with here and there an ‘aside’ of explanation put in.... The whole composition, grouped around a single man and a single place, is so well balanced and so naturally unfolded piece by piece, that the great art shown therein often at first escapes the reader.”

[194] The Story of Burnt Njal (NjÁls Saga or NjÁla), trans. by Dasent (2 vols. Edinburgh, 1861). A prose narrative interspersed with occasional lyric verses is the form which the Icelandic Sagas have in common with the Irish. In view of the mutual intercourse and undoubted mingling of Norse and Celtic blood both in Ireland and Iceland, it is probable that the Norse Saga-form was taken from the Irish. But, except in the LaxdÆla Saga (trans. by Mrs. Press in the Temple Classics, Dent, 1899), one seems to find no Celtic strain. The Sagas are the prose complement of the poetic Edda. Both are Norse absolutely: fruit of one spirit, part of one literature, a possession of one people. As to racial purity of blood in their authors and fashioners, or in the men of whom the tales are told, that is another matter. Who shall say that Celtic blood and inherited Celtic gifts of expression were not the leaven of this Norse literature? But whatever entered into it and helped to create it, became Norse just as vitally as, ages before, every foreign suggestion adopted by a certain gifted Mediterranean race was Hellenized, and became Greek. In Iceland, in the Orkneys and the Faroes, Viking conditions, the Viking spirit, and Norse blood, dominated, assimilating, transforming and doubtless using whatever talents and capacities came within the vortex of Viking life.

It may be added that there is merely an accidental likeness between the Saga and the Cantafable. In the Saga the verses are the utterances of the heroes when specially moved. One may make a verse as a short death-song when his death is imminent, or as a gibe on an enemy, whom he is about to attack. In the Cantafable—Aucassin and Nicolette, for example—the verses are a lyric summary of the parts of the narrative following them, and are not spoken by the dramatis personae. The Cantafable (but not the Sagas) perhaps may be traced back to such a work as BoËthius’s De consolatione, which at least is identical in form, or Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. The De planctu naturae of Alanus de Insulis (post, Chapter XXXII. 1) plainly shows such antecedents.

[195] Story of Gisli the outlaw, trans. by Dasent, chap. ix. (Edinburgh, 1866).

[196] The Story of Burnt Njal, chap. i., trans. by Dasent.

[197] The Story of Grettir the Strong (Grettis Saga), chaps. 32-35, trans. by Magnusson and Morris (London, 1869). See also ibid. chaps. 65, 66. These accounts are analogous to the story of Beowulf’s fights with Grendal and his dam; but are more convincing.

[198] The stories of the Kings of Norway, called the Round World (Heimskringla), by Snorri Sturluson, done into English by Magnusson and Morris (London, 1893). Snorri Sturluson (b. 1178, d. 1241) composed or put together the Heimskringla from earlier writings, chiefly those of Ari the Historian (b. 1067, d. 1148), “a man of truthfulness, wisdom, and good memory,” who wrote largely from oral accounts.

[199] The Story of Egil Skallagrimson, trans. by W. C. Green (London, 1893).

[200] These poems are in the Saga, and will be found translated in Mr. Green’s edition. They are also edited with prose translations in C.P.B., vol. i. pp. 266-280. With Egil one may compare the still more truculent, but very different Grettir, hero of the Grettis Saga. The Story of Grettir the Strong, trans. by Magnusson and Morris (2nd ed., London, 1869).

[201] Bede, Hist. Ecc. i. 13. Moreover, the chief partisan of Pelagius (a Briton) was Coelestinus, an Irishman whose restless activity falls in the thirty years preceding the mission of Palladius.

[202] As for the Irish Church in Ireland, there were many differences in usage between it and the Church of Rome. In the matters of Easter and the tonsure the southern Irish were won over to the Roman customs before the middle of the seventh century, and after that the Roman Easter made its way to acceptance through the island. Yet still the Irish appear to have used their own Liturgy, and to have shown little repugnance to the marriage of priests. The organization of the churches remained monastic rather than diocesan or episcopal, in spite of the fact that “bishops,” apparently with parochial functions, existed in great numbers. Hereditary customs governed the succession of the great abbots, as at Armagh, until the time of St. Malachy, a contemporary of St. Bernard. See St. Bernard’s Life of Malachy, chap. x.; Migne 182, col. 1086, cited by Killen, o.c. vol. i. p. 173. The exertions of Gregory VII. and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, did much to bring the Irish Church into obedience to Rome. Various Irish synods in the twelfth century completed a proper diocesan system; and in 1155 a bull of Adrian IV. delivered the island over to Henry II. Plantagenet. Cf. Killen, Eccl. Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 162-222.

[203] The works of St. Columbanus or Columban, usually called of Luxeuil, are printed in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, 80, col. 209-296. The chief source of knowledge of his life is the Vita by Jonas his disciple: Migne, Pat. Lat. 87, col. 1009-1046. It has been translated by D. C. Munro, in vol. ii. No. 7 (series of 1895) of Translations, etc., published by University of Pennsylvania (Phila. 1897). See also Montalembert, Monks of the West, book vii. (vol. ii. of English translation).

[204] The article of H. Zimmer, “Über die Bedeutung des irischen Elements fÜr die mittelalterliche Cultur,” Preussische JahrbÜcher, Bd. 59, 1887, presents an interesting summary of the Irish influence. His views, and still more those of Ozanam in Civilisation chrÉtienne chez les Francs, chap, v., should be controlled by the detailed discussion in Roger’s L’Enseignement des lettres classiques d’Ausone À Alcuin (Paris, 1905), chaps. vi. vii. and viii. See also G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, Lect. XI. (London, 1892, 3rd ed.); D’Arbois de Jubainville, Introduction À l’Étude de la littÉrature celtique, livre ii. chap. ix.; F. J. H. Jenkinson, The Hisperica Famina (Cambridge and New York, 1909). Obviously it is unjustifiable (though it has been done) to regard the scholarship of gifted Irishmen who lived on the Continent in the ninth century (Sedulius Scotus, Eriugena, etc.) as evidence of scholarship in Ireland in the sixth, seventh, or eighth century. We do not know where these later men obtained their knowledge; there is little reason to suppose that they got it in Ireland.

[205] See the narrative in Green’s History of the English People.

[206] There is no positive evidence that Augustine painted the terrors of the Day of Judgment in his first preaching. But it was a chief part of the mediaeval Gospel, and never absent from the soul of Augustine’s master, Gregory. The latter set it forth vividly in his letter to Ethelbert after his baptism (Bede, Hist. Ecc. i. 32).

[207] Bede, Hist. Ecc. iii. 22, tells how a certain noble gesith slew his king from exasperation with the latter’s practice of forgiving his enemies, instead of requiting them, according to the principles of heathen morality.

[208] Bede, Hist. Ecc. i. 30. Well known are the picturesque scenes surrounding the long controversy as to Easter between the Roman clergy and the British and Irish. The matter bulks hugely in Bede’s book, as it did in his mind.

[209] Bede ii. 13.

[210] E.g. as in Bede iii. 1.

[211] One may bear in mind that practically all active proselytizing Christianity of the period was of a monastic type.

[212] A.D. 709. Hist. Ecc. v. 19, where another instance is also given; and see ibid. v. 7.

[213] See the pieces in Thorpe’s Codex Exoniensis, e.g. the “Supplication,” p. 452.

[214] Ecc. Hist. iv. 22.

[215] Bede, Hist. Ecc. iii. 19; v. 12, 13, 14. Of these the most famous is the vision of Fursa, an Irishman; but others were had by Northumbrians. Plummer, in his edition of Bede, vol. ii. p. 294, gives a list of such visions in the Middle Ages.

[216] On Aldhelm see Ebert, Allegemeine Ges. des Lit. des Mittelalters; and Roger, L’Enseignement des lettres classiques, etc., p. 288 sqq.

[217] This is noticeable in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Migne, Pat. Lat. 92, col. 633 sqq.

[218] Migne, Pat. Lat. 91, col. 9. In another prefatory epistle to the same bishop Acca, Bede intimates that he has abridged the language of the Fathers: he says it is inconvenient always to put their names in the text. Instead he has inscribed the proper initials of each Father in the margin opposite to whatever he may have taken from him (in Lucae Evangelium expositio, Migne 92, col. 304).

[219] Migne 90, col. 258; ibid. col. 422. I have not observed this statement in Isidore.

[220] All of these are in t. 90 of Migne.

[221] His writings fill about five volumes (90-95) in Migne’s Patrol. Latina. A list may be found in the article “Bede” in the Dictionary of National Biography. Beda der EhrwÜrdige, by Karl Werner (Vienna, 1881), is a good monograph.

[222] Ante, Chapter IV.

[223] The Works of King Alfred the Great are translated from Anglo-Saxon in the Jubilee edition of Giles (2 vols., London, 1858). The Pastoral Care and the Orosius are translated by Henry Sweet in the publications of the Early English Text Society. W. J. Sedgefield’s translation of Alfred’s version of the Consolations of BoËthius is very convenient from the italicizing of the portions added by Alfred to BoËthius’s original. The extracts given in the following pages have been taken from these editions.

[224] BoËthius’s words, which Alfred here paraphrases and supplements are as follows: “Tum ego, scis, inquam, ipsa minimum nobis ambitionem mortalium rerum fuisse dominatam; sed materiam gerendis rebus optavimus, quo ne virtus tacita consenesceret” (De consol. phil. ii. prosa 7).

[225] The substance of this bracketed clause is in BoËthius—the last words quoted in the preceding note.

[226] Toward the close of his life Alfred gathered some thoughts from Augustine’s Soliloquies and from other writings, with which he mingled reflections of his own. He called the book Blossoms. He says in his preface: “I gathered me then staves and props, and bars, and helves for each of my tools, and boughs; and for each of the works that I could work, I took the fairest trees, so far as I might carry them away. Nor did I ever bring any burden home without longing to bring home the whole wood, if that might be; for in every tree I saw something of which I had need at home. Wherefore I exhort every one who is strong, and has many wains, that he direct his steps to the same wood where I cut the props. Let him there get him others, and load his wains with fair twigs, that he may weave thereof many a goodly wain, and set up many a noble house, and build many a pleasant town, and dwell therein in mirth and ease, both winter and summer, as I could never do hitherto. But He who taught me to love that wood, He may cause me to dwell more easily, both in this transitory dwelling ... and also in the eternal home which He has promised us” (Translation borrowed from The Life and Time of Alfred the Great, by C. Plummer, Clarendon Press, 1902). These metaphors represent Alfred’s way of putting what Isidore or Bede or Alcuin meant when they spoke in their prefaces of searching through the pantries of the Fathers or culling the sweetest flowers from the patristic meadows. See e.g. ante, Chapter V. and post, Chapter X.

[227] Far into the Frankish period there were many heathen in northern Gaul and along the Rhine: Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, I. Kap. i. (second edition, Leipzig, 1898). Cf. Vacandard, “L’Idolatrie en Gaule au VI^e et au VII^e siÈcles,” Rev. des questions historiques, 65 (1899), 424-454.

[228] Mon. Germ. hist. Auctores antiquissimi, tom. i. Cf. Ebert, Ges. des Lit. des Mittelalters, i. 452 sqq.

[229] Cf. ante, Chapter VI.

[230] In those of its lands which were granted immunity from public burdens, the Church gradually acquired a jurisdiction by reason of its right to exact penalties, which elsewhere fell to the king.

[231] The synod of 549 declared (ineffectually) for the election of bishops, to be followed by royal confirmation.

[232] Hauck, Kirchenges. Deutschlands, Bd. I. Buch ii. Kap. ii.; MÖller, Kirchengeschichte, Bd. II. p. 52 sqq. (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893).

[233] Carloman went at first to Rome, and built a monastery, in which he lived for a while. But here his contemptum regni terreni brought him more renown than his monk’s soul could endure. So, with a single companion, he fled, and came unmarked and in abject guise to Monte Cassino. He announced himself as a murderer seeking to do penance, and was received on probation. At the end of a year he took the vows of a monk. It happened that he was put to help in the kitchen, where he worked humbly but none too dexterously, and was chidden and struck by the cook for his clumsiness. At which he said with placid countenance, “May the Lord forgive thee, brother, and Carloman.” This occurring for the third time, his follower fell on the cook and beat him. When the uproar had subsided, and an investigation was called before the brethren, the follower said in explanation, that he could not hold back, seeing the vilest of the vile strike the noblest of all. The brethren seemed contemptuous, till the follower proclaimed that this monk was Carloman, once King of the Franks, who had relinquished his kingdom for the love of Christ. At this the terrified monks rose from their seats and flung themselves at Carloman’s feet, imploring pardon, and pleading their ignorance. But Carloman, rolling on the ground before them (in terram provolutus) denied it all with tears, and said he was not Carloman, but a common murderer. Nevertheless, thenceforth, recognized by all, he was treated with great reverence (Regino, Chronicon, Migne, Pat. Lat. 132, col. 45).

[234] For example, immunity (from governmental taxation and visitation) might attach to the lands of bishops and abbots, as it might to the lands of a lay potentate. On the other hand, the lands of bishops and abbots owed the Government such temporal aid in war and peace as would have attached to them in the hands of laymen. Such dignitaries had high secular rank. The king did not interfere with the appointment and control of the lower clergy by their lords, the bishops and abbots, any more than he did with the domestic or administrative appointments of great lay functionaries within their households or jurisdictions.

[235] There are numerous editions of the Heliand: by Sievers (1878), by RÜckert (1876). Very complete is Heyne’s third edition (Paderborn, 1883). Portions of it are given, with modern German interlinear translation, in Piper’s Die Älteste Literatur (Deutsche Nat. Lit.), pp. 164-186. Otfrid’s book is elaborately edited by Piper (2nd edition with notes and glossary, Freiburg i. B., 1882). See also Piper’s Die Älteste Literatur, where portions of the work are given with modern German interlinear translation. Compare Ebert, Literatur des Mittelalters, iii. 100-117.

[236] The Heliand uses the epic phrases of popular poetry: they reappear three centuries later in the Nibelungenlied.

[237] Ante, Chapter I.

[238] Ante, Chapter VI.

[239] Ante, Chapter IX.

[240] E.g. Charles Martell and Pippin drove the Saracens from Narbonne—not Charlemagne, to whom these chansons ascribe the deed.

[241] The dates are 801 and 765.

[242] Historical atlases usually devote a double map to the Empire of Charlemagne, and little side-maps to the Merovingian realm, which included vast German territories, and for a time extended into Italy.

[243] A part of the serious historian’s task is to get rid of “epochs” and “renaissances”—Carolingian, Twelfth Century, or Italian. For such there should be substituted a conception of historical continuity, with effect properly growing out of cause. Of course, one must have convenient terms, like “periods,” etc., and they are legitimate; for the Carolingian period did differ in degree from the Merovingian, and the twelfth century from the eleventh. But it would be well to eliminate “renaissance.” It seems to have been applied to the culture of the quattrocento, etc., in Italy sixty or seventy years ago (1845 is the earliest instance in Murray’s Dictionary of this use of the word), and carries more false notions than can be contradicted in a summer’s day.

[244] The architecture, sculpture, and painting of the Carolingian time continued the Christian antique or Byzantine styles. Church interiors were commonly painted, a custom coming from early Christian mosaic and fresco decoration. Charlemagne’s Capitularies provided for the renovation of the churches, including their decorations. No large sculpture has survived; but we see that there was little artistic originality either in the illumination of manuscripts or in ivory carving. The royal chapel at Aix was built on the model of St. Vitale at Ravenna, and its columns appear to have been taken from existing structures and brought to Aix.

[245] Charlemagne’s famous open letters of general admonition, de litteris colendis and de emendatione librorum, and his admonitio generalis for the instruction of his legates (missi), show that the fundamental purpose of his exhortations was to advance the true understanding of Scripture: “ut facilius et rectius divinarum scripturarum mysteria valeatis penetrare.” To this end he seeks to improve the Latin education of monks and clergy; and to this end he would have the texts of Scripture emended and a proper liturgy provided; and, as touching the last, he refers to the efforts of his father Pippin before him. The best edition of these documents is by Boretius in the Monumenta Germaniac historica.

[246] As to the stylistic qualities of Carolingian prose and metre see post, Chapters XXXI., XXXII.

[247] Alcuin’s works are printed conveniently in tomes 100 and 101 of Migne’s Patrologia Latina. Extracts are given, post, Chapter XXXI., to indicate the place of Carolingian prose in the development of mediaeval Latin styles.

[248] Printed in Migne 101, col. 849-902. Alcuin adopted for his Grammar the dialogue form frequent in Anglo-Saxon literature; and from his time the question and answer of Discipulus and Magister will not cease their cicada chime in didactic Latin writings.

[249] Migne 101, col. 857. See Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great, p. 76 (an excellent book), and West’s Alcuin, chap. v. (New York, 1892).

[250] As in his Disputatio Pippini (the son of Charlemagne), Migne 101, col. 975-980, which is just a series of didactic riddles: What is a letter? The guardian of history. What is a word? The betrayer of the mind. What generates language? The tongue. What is the tongue? The whip of the air—and so forth.

[251] De orthographia, Migne 101, col. 902-919.

[252] Migne 101, col. 919-950. Mullinger, o.c. pp. 83-85.

[253] Migne 101, col. 951-976.

[254] Migne 101, col. 956.

[255] Migne 101, col. 11-56.

[256] Migne 101, col. 613-638.

[257] Migne 100, cols. 737, 744.

[258] An important person. He was born at Mainz about 776. Placed as a child in the convent of Fulda, his talents and learning caused him to be sent at the age of twenty-one to Alcuin at Tours for further instruction. After Alcuin’s death in 804, Rabanus returned to Fulda and was made Principal of the monastery school. In 822 he was elected Abbot. His labours gained for him the title of Primus praeceptor Germaniae. Resigning in 842, he withdrew to devote himself to literary labours; but he was soon drawn from his retreat and made Archbishop of Mainz. He died in 856. While archbishop, and also while abbot, Rabanus with spiteful zeal prosecuted that rebellious monk, the high-born Saxon Gottschalk, who, among other faults, held too harsh views upon Predestination. His works are published in Migne, Pat. Lat. 107-112.

Rabanus has left huge Commentaries upon the books of the Old and New Testaments, in which he and his pupils gathered the opinions of the Fathers. He also added such needful comment of his own as his “exiguity” of mind permitted (Praef. to Com. in Lib. Judicum, Migne 108, col. 1110). His Commentaries were superseded by the Glossa ordinaria (Migne 113 and 114) of his own pupil, Walafrid Strabo, which was systematically put together from Rabanus and those upon whom he drew. It was smoothly done, and the writer knew how to eliminate obscurity and prolixity, and in fact make his work such that it naturally became the Commentary in widest use for centuries. The dominant interest of these commentators is in the allegorical significance of Scripture, as we shall see (Chapter XXVII.). On Rabanus and Walafrid, see Ebert, Allge. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters, ii. 120-166.

[259] De cleric. inst. iii. 26 (Migne 107, col. 404).

[260] Ibid. iii. 18.

[261] Ibid. iii. 20 (Migne 107, col. 397).

[262] Migne III, col. 9-614.

[263] Raban’s excruciating De laudibus sanctae crucis shows what he could do as a virtuoso in allegorical mystification (Migne 107, col. 137-294).

[264] De cleric. inst. iii. 16 (Migne 107, col. 392).

[265] De cleric. inst. iii. 25 (Migne 107, col. 403).

[266] Compare his De magicis artibus, Migne 110, col. 1095 sqq.

[267] Migne 107, col. 419 sqq.

[268] Migne 120, col. 1267-1350.

[269] Ratramnus, De corpore, etc. (Migne 121, col. 125-170).

[270] On the Carolingian controversies upon Predestination and the Eucharist, see Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. iii. chap. vi.

[271] Migne 119, col. 102. Florus called his tract “Libellus Flori adversus cuiusdam vanissimi hominis, qui cognominatur Joannes, ineptias et errores de praedestinatione,” etc. Florus was a contemporary of Eriugena.

[272] Migne 106.

[273] Hincmar, Ep. 23 (Migne 126, col. 153).

[274] Migne 122, col. 357.

[275] De div. nat. i. 69 (Migne 122, col. 513).

[276] One may say that the work of Eriugena in presenting Christianity transformed in substance as well as form, stood to the work of such a one as Thomas Aquinas as the work of the Gnostics in the second century had stood toward the dogmatic formulation of Christianity by the Fathers of the Church. With the Church Fathers as with Thomas, there was earnest endeavour to preserve the substance of Christianity, though presenting it in a changed form. This cannot be said of either the Gnostics or Eriugena.

[277] See Prantl, Ges. der Logik, ii. 20-36.

[278] Claudius died about 830. His works are in tome 104 of Migne.

[279] Migne 104, col. 147-158.

[280] Compare Agobard’s Ep. ad Bartholomaeum (Migne 104, col. 179).

[281] Liber contra judicium Dei (Migne 104, col. 250-268). Here the powerful Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, is emphatically on the opposite side, and argues lengthily in support of the judicium aquae frigidae, in Epist. 26, Migne 126, col. 161. Hincmar (cir. 806-882) was a man of imposing eminence. He was a great ecclesiastical statesman. The compass and character of his writings is what might be expected from such an archiepiscopal man of affairs. They include edifying tracts for the use of the king, an authoritative Life of St Remi, and writings theological, political, and controversial. As the writer was not a profound thinker, his works have mainly that originality which was impressed upon them by the nature of whatever exigency called them forth. They are contained in Migne 125, 126.

[282] Liber de imaginibus sanctorum (Migne 104, col. 199-226).

[283] These writings are also in vol. 104 of Migne.

[284] See Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, i. 130-142 (5th ed.). Writings known as Annales drew their origin from the notes made by monks upon the margin of their calendars. These notes were put together the following year, and subsequently might be revised, perhaps by some person of larger view and literary skill. Thus the Annals found in the cloister of Lorsch are supposed to have been rewritten in part by Einhart.

[285] There were two great earlier examples of such histories: one was the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, the author of which was of distinguished Roman descent, born in 540 and dying in 594; the other was Bede’s Church History of the English People, which was completed shortly before its author’s death in 735. In individuality and picturesqueness of narrative, these two works surpass all the historical writings of the Carolingian time.

[286] In Mon. Germ. hist. scrip. ii.; also Migne, vol. 116, col. 45-76; trans, in German in Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit (Leipzig). See also Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, i., and Ebert, Ges. der Lit. ii. 370 sqq.

[287] In both these respects a contrary condition had made possible the endurance of the Roman Empire. Its territories in the main were civilized, and were traversed by the best of roads, while many of them lay about that ancient common highway of peoples, the Mediterranean. Then the whole Empire was leavened, and one part made capable of understanding another, by the Graeco-Roman culture.

[288] Within his hereditary domain, Hugh had the powers of other feudal lords; but this domain, instead of expanding, tended to shrink under the reigns of the Capetians of the eleventh century.

[289] In Conrad’s reign “Burgundy,” comprising most of the eastern and southern regions of France, and with Lyons and Marseilles, as well as Basle and Geneva within its boundaries, was added to the Empire.

[290] Papal elections were freed from lay control, and a great step made toward the emancipation of the entire Church, by the decree of Nicholas II. in 1059, by which the election of the popes was committed to the conclave of cardinals.

[291] For the matter of clerical celibacy, and the part played by monasticism in these reforms, see post, Chapter XV.

[292] Gregory VII., Ep. iv. 2 (Migne 148, col. 455).

[293] Ep. viii. 21 (Migne 148, col. 594).

[294] Migne 148, col. 407, 408. Cf. post, Chapter XXXIII.

[295] As between the Empire and the Papacy the particular struggle over investitures was adjusted by the Concordat of Worms (1122), by which the Church should choose her bishops; but the elections were to be held in the presence of the king, who conferred, by special investiture, the temporal fiefs and privileges. For translations of Gregory’s Letters and other matter, see J. H. Robinson’s Readings in European History, i. 274-293.

[296] See post, Chapter XII. The copying of manuscripts was a lucrative profession in Italy.

[297] Tetralogus, Pertz, Mon. Germ, scriptores, xi. 251.

[298] The clerical schools were no less important than the lay, but less distinctive because their fellows existed north of the Alps. Cathedral schools may be obscurely traced back to the fifth century; and there were schools under the direction of the parish priests. In them aspirants for the priesthood were educated, receiving some Latin and some doctrinal instruction. So the cathedral and parochial schools helped to preserve the elements of antique education; but they present no such open cultivation of letters for their own profane sake as may be found in the schools of lay grammarians. The monastic schools are better known. From the ninth century they usually consisted of an outer school (schola exterior) for the laity and youths who wished to become secular priests, and an inner school (interior) for those desiring to become monks. At different times the monastery schools of Bobbio, Farfa, and other places rose to fame, but Monte Cassino outshone them all.

As to the schools and culture of Italy during the early Middle Ages, see Ozanam, Les Écoles en Italie aux temps barbares (in his Documents inÉdits, etc., and printed elsewhere); Giesebrecht, De literarum studiis apud Italos, etc. (translated into Italian by C. Pascal, Florence, 1895, under the title L’ Istruzione in Italia nei primi secoli del Medio-Evo); G. Salvioli, L’ Istruzione publica in Italia nei secoli VIII., IX., X. (Florence, 1898); Novati, L’ Influsso del pensiero latino sopra la civilitÀ italiana del Medio-Evo (2nd ed., Milan, 1899).

[299] See post, Chapter XXXIII., III.

[300] At Salerno, according to the Constitution of Frederick II., three years’ preliminary study of the scientia logicalis was demanded, because “numquam sciri potest scientia medicinae nisi de scientia logicali aliquid praesciatur” (cited by Novati, L’ Influsso del pensiero latino, etc., p. 220). Just as Law and Medical Schools in the United States may require a college diploma from applicants for admission.

[301] On Constantine see WÜstenfeld, “Übersetzungen arabischer Werke,” etc. Abhand. GÖttingen Gesellschaft, vol. 22 (1877), pp. 10-20, and p. 55 sqq. Also on the Salerno school, Daremberg, Hist. des sciences mÉdicales, vol. i. p. 254 sqq.

[302] Traube, “O Roma nobilis,” Abhand. philos.-philol. Classe Bayer. Akad. Bd. 19, p. 301. This poem probably belongs to the tenth century. “Archos” is mediaeval Greek for “The Lord.”

[303] The Rationes dictandi, a much-used book on the art of composing letters, comes from the hand of one Alberic, who was a monk at Monte Cassino in the middle of the eleventh century. He died a cardinal in 1088. The ars dictaminis related either to drawing legal documents or composing letters. See post, Chapter XXX., II.

[304] See E. Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie mÉridionale, i. 155 sqq. (Paris, 1904).

[305] The poems of Alphanus are in Migne, Pat. Lat. 147, col. 1219-1268.

[306] “Ad Romualdum causidicum,” printed in Ozanam, Doc. inÉdits, p. 259.

[307] Printed in Giesebrecht, De lit. stud. etc.

[308] Printed by Dummler in Anselm der Peripatetiker, pp. 94-102. See also the rhyming colloquy between Helen and Ganymede, of the twelfth century, printed in Ozanam, Documents inÉdits, etc., p. 19.

[309] On Liutprand see Ebert, Ges. der Lit. iii. 414-427; Molinier, Sources de l’histoire de France, i. 274. His works are in the Monumenta Ger., also in 136 of Migne. The Antapodosis and Embassy to Constantinople are translated into German in the Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit.

[310] See Antapod. vi. 1 (Migne 136, col. 893).

[311] Antapod. i. 1 (Migne 136, col. 791).

[312] Migne 136, col. 837.

[313] Legatio Constantinopolitana (Migne 136, col. 909-937).

[314] Migne, Pat. Lat. 136, col. 1283-1302.

[315] See Ebert, Allgem. Ges. iii. 370, etc.; Novati, L’Influsso del pensiero latino, etc., p. 31 sqq.; and Migne, Pat. Lat. 136.

[316] See Novati, L’Influsso, etc., pp. 188-191. The passage is from the vituperative polemic of a certain Ademarus (Migne, Pat. Lat. 141, col. 107-108).

[317] Dummler, “Gedichte aus Abdinghof,” in Neues Archiv, v. 1 (1876), p. 181 (cited by Novati, p. 192).

[318] Dummler, Anselm der Peripatetiker, p. 36 sqq.; cf. HaurÉau, SingularitÉs historiques, p. 179 sqq.

[319] The account is from Radolphus Glaber, Historiarum libri, ii. 12.

[320] On Damiani’s views of classical studies, see Opusc. xi., Liber qui dicitur Dominus vobiscum, cap. i. (Migne 145, col. 232); Opusc. xlv., De sancta simplicitate (ibid. col. 695); Opusc. lviii., De vera felicitate et sapientia (ibid. col. 831). For the life and works of this interesting man see post, p. 262 sqq., and post, Chapter XVI.

[321] Vita Anselmi, 1247 (cited by Ronca, p. 227).

[322] Another great politico-ecclesiastical Italian was Lanfranc (cir. 1005-1089), whose life was almost exactly contemporaneous with that of Hildebrand. He was born in high station at Pavia, and educated in letters and the law. Seized with the desire to be a monk, he left his home and passed through France, sojourning on his way, until he came to the convent of Bec in Normandy, in the year 1042. A man of practical ability and a great teacher, it was he that made the monastery great. Men, lay and clerical, noble and base, came thronging to hear him: Anselm came and Ives of Chartres, both future saints, and one who afterwards as Pope Alexander II. rose before Lanfranc, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and said: “Thus I honour, not the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the master of the school of Bec, at whose feet I sat with other pupils.” William the Conqueror made Lanfranc Primate of England and prince-ruler of the land in the Conqueror’s absence.

[323] Petri Damiani Ep. i. xvi. (Migne 144, col. 236). Damiani’s works are contained in Migne 144 and 145. Alexander II. was pope from 1061 to 1073, when he was succeeded by Hildebrand.

[324] Migne, Pat. Lat. 145, col. 961, 967.

[325] Opusculum, xxxvi. (Migne 145, col. 595). It is also bad to be an abbot, as Damiani shows in plaintive and almost humorous verses:

“Nullus pene abbas modo
Valet esse monachus,
Dum diversum et nocivum
Sustinet negotium:
Et, quod velit sustinere,
Velut iniquus patitur
····
“Spiritaliter abbatem
Volunt fratres vivere,
Et per causas saeculares
Cogunt illum pergere;
Per tam itaque diversa
Quis valet incedere?”
De abbatum miseria rhythmus
(Migne, Pat. Lat. 145, col. 972).