[13] The extent of the Benedictine order alone may be seen from the Benedictine statement that "Pope John XXII, who died in 1334, after an exact inquiry, found that, since the first rise of the order, there had been of it 24 popes, near 200 cardinals, 7000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, 15,000 abbots of renown, above 4000 saints, and upwards of 37,000 monasteries. There had been likewise, of this order, 20 emperors, 10 empresses, 47 kings and above 50 queens, 20 sons of emperors and 48 sons of kings, about 100 princesses and daughters of kings and emperors, besides dukes, marquises, earls, countesses, etc., innumerable." From this it may be inferred how fully the Church was the State during the long period of the Middle Ages.
[14] Draper, John W., _Intellectual Development of Europe_, vol. I, p.
437.
CHAPTER VI
[1] From the sixth to the twelfth centuries.
[2] The story which has come down to us of the German warrior who, on being shown into an anteroom, saw some ducks swimming in the floor and dashed his battle-axe at them to see if they were real, thus ruining the beautiful mosaic, is typical of the time.
[3] During the period of Rome"s greatness the publishing business became an important one. Ma.n.u.scripts were copied in numbers by trained writers, and books were officially published. Both public and private libraries became common, men of wealth often having large libraries. These were found in the provincial towns as well as in the large Italian cities, and in country villas as well as in town houses.
By the beginning of the eighth century books had become so scarce that monasteries guarded their treasures with great care (R. 65), and books were borrowed from long distances that copies might be made.
[4] Charlemagne (King of Frankland, 768-814), for example, found it necessary to order that priests and monks must show themselves capable of changing the wording of the ma.s.ses for the living and the dead, as circ.u.mstances required, from singular to plural, or from masculine to feminine.
[5] Longfellow"s poem _Monte Ca.s.sino_ is interesting reading here. Of Benedict he says:
"He founded here his Convent and his Rule Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer; The pen became a clarion, and his school Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air."
[6] Sometimes as early as eleven to twelve years of age. The novitiate course was two years, but as the vows could not be taken before eighteen, the course of instruction often covered six to eight years.
[7] To teach a novice to copy accurately a ma.n.u.script book was quite a different thing from the teaching of writing to-day, It was more nearly comparable to present-day instruction in lettering in a college engineering course, as it called for a degree of workmanship and accuracy not required in ordinary writing.
[8] The Vulgate, a Latin translation of the Bible made by Saint Jerome, at the close of the fourth century. The Old Testament he translated mostly from the Hebrew and Chaldaic, and the New Testament he revised from the older Latin versions. This is the only version of the Scriptures which the Roman Catholic Church admits as authentic.
[9] Letters from one monastery to another, and from one country to another, begging the loan of some ancient book, have been preserved in numbers. Lupus, Abbot of Ferrieres in France, for example, wrote to Rome in 855, and addressing himself to the Pope in person, requested a complete copy of Cicero"s _De Oratore_, which he desired.
[10] The Missal is a book containing the service of the ma.s.s for the entire year. The Psalter the book of Psalms.
[11] From _manu scriptum_, meaning written by hand.
[12] So expensive of time and effort was the production of books by this method that many of the ma.n.u.scripts now extant were written crosswise on sheets from which the previous writing had been largely erased by chemical or mechanical means. How many valuable ancient ma.n.u.scripts were lost in this manner no one knows. Fortunately the practice was not common until after the thirteenth century, when the rise of the universities and the spread of learning made new demands for skins for writing purposes.
[13] That the printing was not always carefully done is shown by the constant need, throughout the Middle Ages, of correct copies for comparison. The following injunction of the Abbot Alcuin to the monks at Tours, given at the beginning of the ninth century, is ill.u.s.trative of the need for care in copying:
"Here let the scribes sit who copy out the words of the Divine Law, and likewise the hallowed sayings of Holy Fathers. Let them beware of interspersing their own frivolities in the words they copy, nor let a trifler"s hand make mistakes through haste. Let them earnestly seek out for themselves correctly written books to transcribe, that the flying pen may speed along the right path. Let them distinguish the proper sense by colons and commas, and set the points, each one in its due place, and let not him who reads the words to them either read falsely or pause suddenly. It is a n.o.ble work to write out holy books, nor shall the scribe fail of his due reward. Writing books is better than planting vines, for he who plants a vine serves his belly, but he who writes a book serves his soul."
[14] West, A. F., _Alcuin_, pp. 72-73.
[15] The largest monastic library on the Continent was Fulda, which specialized in the copying of ma.n.u.scripts. In 1561 it had 774 volumes. In England the largest collections were at Canterbury, which in the fourteenth century possessed 698 volumes, and at Peterborough, which had 344 volumes at about the same time. The library of Croyland, also in England, burned in 1091, at that time contained approximately 700 volumes.
These represented the largest collections in Europe.
[16] The _Hortus Delicarum_ of the Abbess Herrard, of the convent of Hohenburg, in Alsace, was a famous ill.u.s.tration of artistic workmanship.
This was an attempt to embody, in encyclopaedic form, the knowledge of her time. The ma.n.u.script was embellished with hundreds of beautiful pictures, and was long preserved as a wonderful exhibition of mediaeval skill. It was lost to civilization, along with many other treasures, when the Prussians bombarded Stra.s.sburg, in 1870.
[17] He there "enjoyed advantages which could not perhaps have been found anywhere else in Europe at the time--perfect access to all the existing sources of learning in the West. Nowhere else could he acquire at once the Irish, the Roman, the Gallician, and the Canterbury learning; the acc.u.mulated stores of books which Benedict (founder and abbot) had bought at Rome and at Vienne; or the disciplinary instruction drawn from the monasteries on the Continent, as well as from Irish missionaries." (Bishop Stubbs, _Dictionary of Christian Biography_, article on Bede.)
[18] West, A. F., _Alcuin_, pp. 45-47.
[19] _Annals of Xanten_, 846 A.D.
[20] _Ibid._, 851 A.D.
[21] _Annals of Saint Vaast_, 884 A.D.
[22] It is related that ignorant court officials, fearing the king"s displeasure, sought to learn from their children.
[23] Through Alfred"s efforts, the compilation of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ was begun, that the people of England might be able to read the history of their country in their own language.
CHAPTER VII
[1] Anderson tells of a monastic student"s notebook on conduct which has been preserved, and which "prescribes that the young man is to kneel when answering the Abbot, not to take a seat unasked, not to loll against the wall, nor fidget with things within reach. He is not to scratch himself, nor cross his legs like a tailor. He is to wash his hands before meals, keep his knife sharp and clean, not to seize upon vegetables, and not to use his spoon in the common dish."
[2] This expression came into common use in the fifth century, when the Christian writers summarized the ancient learning under these seven headings or studies, following earlier Greek and Roman cla.s.sifications.
(See p. 70).
[3] The _Doctrinale_, by Alexander de Villa Die. This was in rhyme, and became immensely popular. It was the favorite text until the fifteenth century.
[4] Donatus begins as follows:
"How many parts of speech are there?" "Eight."
"What are they?" "Noun, p.r.o.noun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition, and interjection."
"What is a noun?" "A part of speech with case, signifying a body or thing particularly or commonly."
"How many attributes have nouns?" "Six."
"What are they?" "Quality, comparison, gender, number, figure, case."
Etc., etc.
[5] The following from Priscian, reproduced by Graves, ill.u.s.trates the method of instruction as applied to the first book of the Aeneid of Vergil.
"What part of speech is _arma_?" "A noun."
"Of what sort?" "Common."
"Of what cla.s.s?" "Abstract."
"Of what gender?" "Neuter."
"Why neuter?" "Because all nouns whose plurals end in _a_ are neuter."
"Why is not the singular used?" "Because this noun expresses many different things."
Etc., etc.
This form of textbook writing was common, not only during the Middle Ages, but well into modern times. The famous _New England Primer_ was in part in this form, and many early American textbooks in history and geography were written after this plan.
[6] Vergil, due to his beautiful poetic form and to his love of nature and life, was especially guarded against during the early Middle Ages as the most seductive of the ancient Latin writers. It is not at all inappropriate that, in Dante"s _Inferno_, Vergil should have been the person to guide Dante through h.e.l.l and purgatory, but should not have been allowed to accompany him into paradise.