Chapter XXIV (10)

We have yet to speak, however, of a far more important subject connected with the early monastic schools, the religious training of their pupils, and the sacred studies which they pursued. In nothing, probably, did the ancient system of education differ more widely from our own, than in the amount of vocal prayer in which children were expected to take a part. Of course we must bear in mind when reading of children assisting at all the Canonical Hours of the monastery in which they were educated, that in most cases the children spoken of were those “offered” by their parents and intended for the monastic state. They were the pupils of the interior or claustral schools; and it is probable that those belonging to the exterior school were subject to a less rigorous discipline. Still, in either case, they were children, with the propensities common to all children, whether of the ninth or nineteenth centuries; yet we find nothing to indicate that the choral attendance described by the Anglo-Saxon schoolboy in the dialogues of Ælfric, was found by experience to be excessive. “To-day,” says the boy, “I have done many things; this night, when I heard the knell, I arose from my bed and went to the church and sang Night-song with the brethren; after that we sang the service of All Saints and the morning Lauds; then followed Prime and the Seven Psalms, and the Litanies, and the first Mass; then Tierce, and the Mass of the day; then Sext; and then we ate and drank and went to sleep, and rose again and sang None; and now we are here before thee ready to hear what thou hast to say to us.” “Who awakens you for Night-song?” asks the interlocutor. “Sometimes,” answers the scholar, “I hear the knell, and rise of myself; but ofttimes the master arouseth me with his rod.”

If this attendance in choir surprise us as being daily required from young children, we must remember that the habits of the grown-up laity in early ages would be equally at variance with our own. The Divine Office of the Church was not then exclusively recited by priests and religious; the faithful assisted even at the Night-hours, and were constantly urged to do so. In the days of Charlemagne, as in those of St. John Chrysostom, rich and poor, men and women, took part in that sublime worship, and so eager were they in their desire to join in the chant, that it became necessary for abbots to issue injunctions, forbidding their monks to cut up their Psalters in order to distribute the leaves to seculars who solicited the precious fragments, certain devout women being foremost among the beggars. Without some knowledge of the habits of the time, we can form no tolerably fair judgment on the education which was of course fitted and adapted to those habits. The spirit of these early ages was pre-eminently _Liturgical_. The world was as yet too little civilised to furnish her children with those countless elegant methods of killing time which later ages have so marvellously multiplied; theatres had no existence, and even the superabundant games and pastimes so popular in the Middle Ages, were as yet unthought of. The people sought not merely their instruction, but their recreation also in the Church, and their education thoroughly fitted them to join in her ceremonies and ritual, which it is to be feared, by more cultivated intellects of a later generation, are too often but very imperfectly understood. The education of children partook, of course, of the character of the age; it was more or less ecclesiastical, even for those not intended for the religious or clerical state; and this has given rise to the very hasty conclusion that in the centuries of which we speak, education was given to none save those who aspired to the priesthood. But in point of fact the whole atmosphere of society was then so permeated with the Christian, and what we have ventured to denominate the _Liturgical_ spirit, that children of seculars then received a training which, to modern eyes, appears exclusively suited to ecclesiastics.

The one branch of learning, therefore, which, in the judgment of the monastic teachers, exceeded in importance all the rest, was undoubtedly the study of the Scriptures. “In the study of the Scriptures,” says Mabillon, “consisted the whole science of the monks.” Scholastic theology was as yet unknown, and the Holy Scriptures and the commentaries of the Fathers formed the exclusive study of theologians. That alliance between faith and reason, wherein reason, exercising itself on revealed truth under the control and guidance of faith, built up the dogmas of the Church into a compact and well-ordered system, was the work of later centuries; the monastic scholars of the age of Charlemagne knew nothing about it. They had the Scriptures, interpreted by the Fathers, and the decrees of the Church, for their guides in dogma; and for discipline, the sacred Canons. With these they were abundantly satisfied. Placed in green pastures and by the side of running waters, they enjoyed the inheritance that had fallen to them, and sought for nothing more. Their divines, therefore, hardly aimed at the merit of original composition, and were content to study, to copy, and to compile the teaching, and often the very phraseology of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, or St. Gregory. Hence the complaint not unjustly brought against them, is that, though tolerably acquainted with books, they were for the most part deficient in original argument. In fact, they sought to hand on the traditions of the Church pure and uncorrupted, rather than to earn for themselves a fame as original thinkers; and one of the marks of the age is an absence of the disputatious spirit which, if it diminishes their rank in the world of letters, forms the charm of their characters as men. There was nothing of the sophist or logician in those sweet and venerable countenances, the unruffled beauty of which is so often dwelt on by their biographers. True, indeed, controversies did arise, as we have seen in the beginning of this chapter, but they were out of harmony with the time. The character of Scotus Erigena, like his learning, was that of a man born out of due time; he belonged to the twelfth rather than to the ninth century, and his wrangling must have sounded strangely discordant in the ears of his contemporaries. The real spirit of the age was one of reverence for Tradition; and the large and active intellects of a Bede, a Boniface and a Paschasius, found all they sought and all they desired in the Positive Theology of the Church.

So much has been done in our time to dispel the vulgar illusion that the Scriptures were unknown and uncared for in the Dark Ages, that I need not here enter into any proof of what is now, or at least ought to be, an uncontroverted fact. Mr. Maitland’s “Essays” have convincingly proved that if the monks read nothing else they at least read the Bible. But what he has not shown with equal power, is the love, the enthusiasm with which, to use the expression of the biographer of Rabanus, they “fed themselves on the Divine Scriptures.” Like the Jews of old, they meditated on them, “sitting in the house or walking on a journey;” they were written “on the entry and on the doorposts.”[108] At the tables of bishops and abbots, of nobles and of kings, the Scriptures were daily read aloud: the little child learnt from them his first lesson, and the old man died with their accent on his lips. What need had they of the fables of the poets, when the beauties of the inspired writers were graven on their memories, familiar as household words? How could they care to listen to what Ovid had to tell them of the Golden Age, they to whom the glowing imagery of the Prophet had painted the kingdom of the Son of Jesse, where the wolf was to dwell with the lamb, and the kid with the leopard, and a little child should lead them? And what great wonder was it if the degrading tales of heathen deities, even when sung by the Muse of Virgil, should fall somewhat flat and profitless on their ears, accustomed as they were to the sublime marvels of God’s dealings with His ancient people, and the history of the Incarnate Word?

It was not merely as the inspired Word of God that the Holy Scriptures were thus valued; but in the schools of which we are speaking they held the place of the great Christian classic. They were not a mere dry repertory of texts illustrative of doctrine, but they formed at once the favourite book of prayer, of meditation, of spiritual reading, and of recreative delight. Pondered on day and night, with all their hidden meaning laid open by the comments of the Fathers, what a treasury of wisdom, what a fountain of poesy was there! The very language of Scripture wonderfully harmonised with the daily monastic life, so patriarchal in its simplicity, its noble toils, and its humble duties of the shepherd, the husbandman, and the vinedresser. It harmonised with the scenes in the midst of which they lived, the mountains, and the wooded valleys, the fields standing thick with corn, the wilderness in its untrampled beauty, where rose up “the verdure of the reed and the bulrush,” and where the myrtle and the olive-tree grew by the running waters. It harmonised with their deep sympathy with the Beautiful, their intimate acquaintance with Nature in all her aspects, by day or by night, so familiar to the eyes of those who sanctified all hours by prayer, and to whom “the outgoings of the morning and of the evening were made joyful,” by the Matins and Vesper psalmody. But chiefly and above all, it harmonised with that thirst that devoured their souls for the true and living God; a thirst which made them weary of all things in which He was not to be found, which made all things sweet in which He had His part; which led them by a strange inspired ingenuity to turn all things to Him, to Christianise every study, to divinise every act; which taught them to create new arts to deck His sanctuary, new sciences to minister to His praise--a thirst which, unslaked by the choicest fountains of Gentile antiquity, drank deep and refreshing draughts at those streams of sacred poetry, out of which they framed the language of their daily Office, and which moulded the very fashion of their daily speech.

The Scriptures, then, were the Christian classics of the monks and their pupils. Their study was not confined to ecclesiastical students, but formed one of the chief branches of every Christian man’s education.[109] And by their study we must understand, of course, not a mere familiarity with the dead letter, but an intimate knowledge of their spiritual sense. We may gather some idea of what was implied in the monastic study of the Scriptures, from a letter written by a certain monk of Citeaux to one of his friends, in which he draws out a compendious method for his guidance. Together with the different divisions of his subject, he advises him to read appropriate commentaries. Thus Josephus and Hegesippus are to be read with the Pentateuch and the Historical Books, and if any words occur of doubtful signification, the student is to consult the “Etymologies” of St. Isidore, and St. Jerome on the “Explanation of Hebrew Names;” and that other book on “Derivations,” “which is to be found in most large libraries,” and finally the “Gloss.” Certain passages of more importance, and summaries of the principal facts, are to be written out and committed to memory; and the writer proceeds to give directions on this point, adding, that on all the subjects he names it will be useful to consult St. Augustine “_De Quæstionibus_.” When the Historical Books have been carefully studied, the Prophetical Books may be begun. We are to note which prophecies are fulfilled, and which unfulfilled, and the exact time and circumstances under which each was written. After these the Books of instruction, and then the Gospels. In reading the Gospels, it will be necessary to have St. Jerome’s description of the “Holy Places of Palestine,” and the “Harmony of the Gospels.” And we must carefully observe where, when, and before whom our Lord’s Sermons were delivered, and His miracles worked. The rest of the New Testament is afterwards to be read. The student is then directed to read certain works on the Sacraments, on the reason for assigning different portions of Scripture to different seasons, and some of the works of St. Augustine. And when the literal sense of the Holy Books has been thus carefully studied, and not before, he may pass on to their allegorical and mystic interpretation, and read both Testaments through in the same order a second time, special authors being recommended to assist his comprehension of their spiritual sense.[110]

This double method of study, in which the literal meaning of the Scriptures was made the basis of interpreting their spiritual signification, was begun very early, and even young children were considered capable of being introduced by degrees to the spiritual comprehension of the Sacred Books. So far from these being a treasure sealed up to all save the clergy, they formed the foundation stone of all education. Thus Thegan writes of the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire, that he had been perfectly instructed in the allegorical and mystical interpretation of the Scriptures, and we learn from St. Aldhelm’s treatise, “_De Laudibus Virginitatis_,” that the nuns for whom he intended it were not only accustomed to read the Old and New Testaments, together with the Commentaries of the Fathers, but that they also studied the historical, allegorical, and analogical senses of different passages. Nor is this by any means an exceptional case, for in the religious houses of women sacred studies were pursued with hardly less eagerness than in those of men.

And here the temptation presents itself to say something of the schools provided in the Dark Ages for the education of women, such as the royal house of Chelles, where the wise Bertilla presided over scores of English scholars sent by their parents to France, as we must needs suppose, for fashion’s sake, for there were certainly plenty of good schools to be found in England. Fashion, however, has much to do with the selection of a school, and Chelles was naturally popular with the English, having been founded in the seventh century by a princess of Anglo-Saxon blood.

Queen Bathildis, indeed, was not of royal birth; she was a poor maiden who had been sold as a slave into France, and attracting the attention of Clovis II., was raised by him to share his throne. Her first thought in her new position was to procure the abolition of slavery, or at least the amelioration of the condition of slaves. “She was,” says her biographer, “of a beautiful and cheerful countenance, to her husband an obedient wife, to the princes a mother, to boys and youths the best of counsellors; to all an amiable and gracious friend,” and he adds that among her other good deeds, “she was always exhorting and encouraging the youth around her to religious studies.” So soon as her son Clothaire was old enough to govern, Bathildis, who during his minority had acted as regent, retired to Chelles and spent the remainder of her days in the humble office of infirmarian. But her foundation had meanwhile acquired a great reputation for learning, which was yet further increased when Gisella, the sister of Charlemagne, and the pupil of Alcuin, assumed its government in the ninth century.

Nor must it be supposed that these examples of learning in the cloisters of nuns were confined to those communities which had caught their tone from the little knot of literary women educated by St. Boniface. It was the natural and universal development of religious life. We have but to glance back a century or two, and we shall find foundations of purely French origin, those of St. Cesarius of Arles, in which the nuns were to be seen reading even over their work, and busy at the transcription of the Sacred Books. And we might quote the account of St. Cesaria’s death, written by one of her devout children, which M. Guizot hesitates not to rank among the gems of literature. Or we might turn to the Latin poems of St. Radegundes, the Queen of Clothaire I., and the friend of Venantius Fortunatus, who composed his celebrated hymn “Vexilla regis” on occasion of the translation to her monastery at Poitiers of a relic of the true Cross. This royal nun of the sixth century was accustomed to read the Greek and Latin Fathers, and as her biographer tells us, was not only _vultu elegans_, but _litteris erudita_. She liked her disciples to be as learned as herself, insisted that all should be able to read, and should learn the Psalter by heart, and gathered together more than two hundred daughters of noble families, in whose company and instruction she took such passing great delight, that, says Baudoniva, one of them whom she had educated from a child and who afterwards wrote her life, she would address them in the tenderest terms, calling them her light, her life, and her chosen little plants.[111]

The picture of St. Cesaria in the sixth century, and of St. Lioba in the eighth, is reproduced in that of St. Adelaide of Gueldres, abbess of Cologne in the tenth. She had enjoyed a learned education, and took great delight in collecting around her young virgins to whom she communicated her lessons with a truly maternal care. Every day she showed herself in the school, and propounded grammatical subtleties to her disciples; rewarding the diligent with caresses, and punishing the slothful with a severity for which her tender heart was wont afterwards often to reproach her. In fact, were I to repeat all that her biographer relates of her zeal in the matter of correction, I might convey the impression that the pupils of the abbess Adelaide lived under a rather terrible taskmistress. She sometimes visited the offenders with rods, and sometimes with a good box on the ear. The latter chastisement was even inflicted in choir when her pupils sang out of tune; but her biographer adds, it was never found necessary to administer it a second time, for the touch of her saintly hand had such power in it, as to cure all defects of voice and ear for the future.[112] But yet she was a tender and a loving mother, and when she had punished any one, would conjure some of her sisters to go and console the poor victim whom she immediately began to compassionate. Nay, her love went so far, that besides the incessant thought she bestowed on providing her children with good food and raiment, she would steal into their dormitory in the winter nights, to find out if any were suffering from cold feet, and would warm them by rubbing them with her hands.

These examples are all of religious women; but we have direct evidence that even those who embraced a secular life were expected to receive a certain amount of education. Amalarius, of Metz, whose great work on the “Ecclesiastical Offices” appeared in the year 820, requires that young girls should learn the Psalter, the Books of Job and Proverbs, the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps there is no more interesting and decisive testimony as to the amount of learning to be found among the laity in the Dark Ages, than the curious will of Count Eberhard, of Terouanne, who died in 860, and left behind him a precious library, equalling in extent many of those possessed by religious houses. He directed that this library should, after his death, be divided among his children in the manner prescribed by his will. The four sons and four daughters each received their share, though the boys, naturally enough, obtained the lion’s share. Among the books named in the catalogue are treatises on law, military affairs, history, and natural philosophy, besides religious works.[113] One of the books bequeathed to Gisla, is the “Enchiridion” of St. Augustine. We have besides incidental notices occurring in the biographies of the time, which represent mothers writing to their sons and conveying to them sound practical advice, and noble ladies keeping up a correspondence with learned ecclesiastics, who seem to have directed their studies. There was certainly no difficulty in the way of ladies obtaining an education if they chose, for the convents of Chelles, Farmoutier, Brie, and Andelys, all had excellent schools, and often enough English mistresses, whose teaching was held in special esteem. And Theodulph, of Orleans, does not seem to have been giving the princess Gisella a piece of advice at all out of harmony with the manners and ideas of the age, when he counselled her to divide her time equally between reading and the homely cares of the household, concluding his admonitions with the two following lines:

Assidue si ores, tibi si sit lectio crebra,
Ipsa Deo loqueris, et Deus ipse tibi.

An attentive study of the history of the following centuries will convince us that if the dames and spinsters of the Middle Ages were not exactly blue-stockings, they perfectly understood the value of Theodulph’s counsels, and that they were often not only learned themselves, but the cause of learning in others. For not a few of the learned foundations in England owe their existence to the munificence of noble ladies, who, in this country at least, have ever shown themselves the nursing mothers of polite letters. But of this there will be more to say in its proper place.

_CHAPTER VII._

KING ALFRED.

A.D. 873 TO 900.

The history of King Alfred, and his noble efforts in the cause of learning, are so familiar to all readers that it may seem unnecessary to say much of the restoration of letters which took place in England during his reign. From our childhood, the stories of his life have been as familiar to us as those of Scripture, and it is probable that the illuminated manuscript which first tempted him to learn his alphabet has encouraged not a few of us in our childish love of picture-books. Every one knows that at the time of his accession England was plunged in her darkest night of ignorance; and every one who has studied Hume, Hallam, and other standard writers, knows that the illiteracy of the English clergy at that precise period is commonly cited as a sample of the state of things which prevailed throughout Europe during the Dark Ages. Hallam, indeed, in a note appended to his remarks on the subject, admits that before the Danish Invasion, the churches were well furnished with books, but adds that “the priests got little good from them, being written in a foreign language they could not understand.”[114] The fact that the state of things complained of was not normal, but accidental, is uniformly ignored by these writers; they beheld the waters of an inundation, and would have their readers believe them to be the ocean in its natural bed. However, far from wishing to deny the ignorance which existed in England at the time of Alfred’s accession, I will add to the colouring of the picture by quoting Dr. Lingard’s brief but emphatic summary of the grievances under which the kingdom then groaned. “At the close of this calamitous period,” he says, after a graphic sketch of the devastations perpetrated by the Danes, “the Anglo-Saxon church presented a melancholy spectacle; the laity had resumed the ferocious manners of their pagan forefathers; the clergy had grown indolent, dissolute, and illiterate; the monastic order was apparently annihilated, and it devolved on Alfred, now victorious over his enemies, to apply remedies to all these evils.”

The Whitsuntide of the year 873 had been signalised by the great battle of Ethandun, gained by Alfred over the Danes; and this was followed by a short but brilliant campaign, at the close of which the “heathen men” retired into East Anglia and made their submission to the crown of Wessex. This final success was succeeded by fifteen years of comparative tranquillity, which were employed by Alfred in those multifarious acts of wise legislation which restored order to his distracted kingdom, and gained for himself the well-merited title of “the Great.” No work, however, lay closer to his heart than the restoration of learning, for though at this time quite as illiterate as the rest of his people, Alfred’s desire to become learned had very early evinced itself. He had learned to read and write at twelve years old, in spite of many obstacles, no good masters being then to be obtained in all Wessex. His reading, however, was not extensive; it seems to have been confined to a little book in which were collected the day hours of the church, and a few psalms and collects, and which he always carried about him. The manuscript which by its brilliant illuminations had first excited his curiosity was a collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and there is no reason for supposing that Alfred was at this time possessed of any other books.

But an intellect like his finds other food than that which can merely be extracted from books. In company with his father, Ethelwulf, Alfred had made the pilgrimage to Rome, where Ethelwulf rebuilt the Saxon school which had been founded by King Ina.[115] On their homeward journey he had visited the court of Charles the Bald, and seen and talked with learned men; he had assisted at his father’s second marriage with the Princess Judith, which was celebrated by Hincmar of Rheims; and at St. Omer’s he had made acquaintance with the Provost Grimbald, whose conversation left a lasting impression on his mind. All this had been a kind of education to him, and by showing him the superior enlightenment of other countries, made him more bitterly regret the rudeness of his own. The first step he took in order to begin a reform was to search out the few learned men still to be found among the Anglo-Saxon clergy. How few they were he lets us know in that oft-quoted passage from the Preface to his translation of St. Gregory, and which, after speaking of the “blessed times” formerly existing in England, when there were holy kings and a zealous clergy, and people came hither from foreign countries in quest of instruction, he laments over the change that has fallen on the land, and declares that knowledge has now so escaped from the English people, that few priests south of the Humber can be found who understand the divine service, or can explain a Latin epistle in English. “They are so few,” he adds, “that I cannot remember one, south of the Thames, when I began to reign.”

And yet, says Hallam, the district south of the Thames was “the best part of England.” This, however, is clearly a mistake, for every one of the surviving Saxon scholars whom Alfred succeeded in hunting out and drawing to his court were Mercians. They were Werefrith, Bishop of Worcester; Plegmund, who when the Danes were ravaging the country had fled into Cheshire and there became a hermit; and two other Mercian priests, named Ethelstan and Werwulf. Plegmund was drawn out of the solitude called from him Plegmundesham, and in 890 was chosen by God and the people to be Archbishop of Canterbury, says the Saxon Chronicle, of great part of which he is supposed to have been the compiler. Werefrith, whom Asser calls most erudite in the divine Scriptures, was sufficiently a Latin scholar to undertake the translation of St. Gregory’s dialogues. Ethelstan and Werwulf were appointed royal chaplains, and had no light office, for they were required by the king to read to him at every leisure moment, “both by day and by night,” that so he might become acquainted with books which he could not read for himself. In Wessex Alfred found no one fitted to take part in the proposed reform, with the exception of a poor swineherd named Denewulf, whom he fell in with whilst hunting in the forest of Selwood; and, charmed with the native genius he betrayed in his conversation, had him educated, and eventually raised him to the see of Winchester. These, however, were not sufficient for the work which the king contemplated, and his thoughts turned to the foreign monks whose acquaintance he had formed on his journey from Rome. He specially desired to obtain possession of Grimbald, who was renowned for his knowledge of the Scriptures and his proficiency in the musical science, and for this purpose despatched an embassy to Fulk, Archbishop of Rheims, begging that the learned provost might be sent to him without delay. Mr. Turner, in his interesting account of the literary labours of Alfred, informs us that Fulk addressed the king a very singular letter in reply, wherein he calls both Grimbald and the English prelates who formed the embassy by the name of _dogs_. “You have sent me some noble generous dogs to drive away the irreligious wolves, and they came desiring other dogs, not dumb dogs like those spoken of by the prophet, but good noisy dogs that can bark and make themselves heard.” Reference to the original letter of Fulk however, which is printed at the end of Asser’s Life of Alfred,[116] will show that this is a very free translation of a passage capable of simple explanation. The neighbourhood of Rheims was, it seems, infested with wolves, no uncommon thing even in the suburbs of great cities in those wild times; and Alfred, among the costly presents which he sent to the archbishop, had included a pack of English wolf-hounds. Fulk in his letter thanks him for the welcome gift. “You have sent us,” he says, “noble and generous, although mortal and corporal dogs, to drive away the visible wolves with which, among other scourges of God’s justice, our country abounds; and you have asked of us, other dogs, not corporal, but spiritual ones; not such as those of whom the Psalmist speaks, saying, ‘Dumb dogs not able to bark,’ but such as may guard their master’s house by their barking, and wisely keep his flock from the wolves of the unclean spirit, which are the devourers of souls, of which number one is Grimbald the priest and monk,” whose learning and sanctity he then proceeds to extol. Grimbald arrived in England in 884, and, after being honourably received by Alfred and Archbishop Ethelred, is said to have made an excellent oration to the clergy and nobility in a Synod held at London, calling on them, one and all, to embrace a devout life, and to lend their aid in remedying the disorders which had followed on the Danish invasions. According to most writers, he began to teach sacred letters in the schools opened by Alfred at Oxford, and afterwards became abbot of the monastery which the king had founded at Winchester. Another of Alfred’s foreign scholars was John of Old Saxony, a monk of Corby, who has been erroneously confused with John Scotus Erigena. He appears to have brought with him a small community of French monks who were placed by Alfred in the monastery newly erected in the Isle of Athelney.

But none of these rendered Alfred such effectual help in his literary labours as the British scholar Asser, a monk of St. David’s monastery, whose fame having reached the King’s ears, he was invited to the royal “vill” of Dene, in Sussex, and travelled thither “through many wide intervening ways,” under the conduct of some Saxon guides, in the same year that witnessed the arrival of Grimbald. Asser, who has told us much concerning his royal patron, and has traced his genealogy through Woden up to Bedwig, the grandson of Noe, has been provokingly concise in his account of himself, and the history of his first introduction to the Saxon court. We only know that Alfred vainly endeavoured to induce him to give up his own country, and devote himself entirely to his service; and that Asser steadily refused to do so, thinking, as he says, that it was not right to forsake the holy place where he had been nurtured and consecrated for the prospect of earthly gain and honour. A compromise was, therefore, agreed to, by which Alfred secured his services for six months in every year; and the direction of the court school was delivered into his hands. The plan of this school was the same as that of Charlemagne’s Palatine academy; and in it not only the princes and sons of the nobility, but many also of humbler rank, received their education. They read both Saxon and Latin books, and wrote in both languages, so that before they were strong enough to take part in the chase and other manly sports, they were fully instructed in what Asser calls the liberal arts. Ethelward, Alfred’s youngest son, is specially commended for his diligence and love of learning; and his elder brother, Edward, and their sister, Ethelswitha, continued their studies even after they were grown up. We have not the same accurate information with regard to the nature of their acquirements as we have of those of Alcuin’s scholars; but Asser says they pursued all the liberal sciences, learnt the Psalter, and read Saxon books very frequently, especially Saxon poems. Another school was opened at Athelney, which seems to have been exclusively intended to educate future monks and clergy, and among its scholars the greater number were foreigners. Asser speaks of having seen one of the pagan youths studying there, by which expression he probably means a Dane. He himself had no reason to complain of not being well paid for his services, for Alfred had the merit, so highly prized among his nation, of possessing an open hand. He conferred on his favourite scholar the monasteries of Congresbury and Banwell in one day; and another time gave him Exeter and all the parishes annexed to it in Wessex and Cornwall, as well as a silk pallium and a man’s load of incense, with promises of more at a future time. These liberal grants of land and possessions were possibly made with the covert design of eventually fixing Asser altogether on the Saxon side of the Severn, and not without success, if, as seems probable, he afterwards became Bishop of Sherborne.

It was Alfred’s own desire to extend the blessing of education to all his free-born subjects; and he even made it a law that every freeman possessed of two hides of land should keep his sons at school till they were fifteen, “because a man born free, who is unlettered, is to be regarded no otherwise than as a beast, having, like them, no understanding.” If they had no sons of their own, he encouraged them to choose among the sons of their vassals those of most promise, who might at their expense be trained in good learning, and fitted to fill offices in church and state. He was literally dismayed at the amount of ignorance which he found among his judges, and by his reproofs shamed some of them into seeking in their old age for the instruction they had neglected in their youth. “I marvel,” he would say, “that you who have been intrusted with the office of the Wise (Witan) should have neglected the studies of the wise. Therefore, either at once resign your offices, or apply yourselves to gain wisdom.” Many, urged by words like these, placed themselves under the court teachers, and those who considered the labour of learning to read too gigantic to be undertaken at their age, had their sons and freed men educated, and employed them to read to them, lamenting their own ignorance, and extolling the superior advantages enjoyed by the youth of the present times.

But though the good work was begun, Alfred knew well enough that the only way to perpetuate it was the foundation of monastic schools; and here lay his great difficulty, for not only were all the old monasteries destroyed by the Danes, but the religious spirit that had formerly peopled the cloisters of Malmsbury, and Jarrow, and Croyland, and Lindisfarne with communities numbering their hundreds, were now entirely extinct. Asser informs us that the monastic institute was held in such contempt at that time, that no freeman was to be found in all Wessex willing to embrace it, and those from other provinces who had embraced it neglected all its rules. A gross sensuality had taken possession of the English people, and resulted in a wide-spread neglect on the part of the secular clergy of the sacred canons which bound them to a single life. Their example was ruinous to the morals of the laity, and the practice of divorce was becoming common among all ranks; and to complete the moral degradation of the English, drunkenness was frightfully on the increase among them, that vice the progress of which St. Boniface had so often lamented in his letters to the English prelates, saying that he blushed to find England alone disfigured by a brutal habit to which the very pagans were strangers. In such a state of society we are not surprised to find that the monastic profession was generally regarded with dislike. Athelney had to be peopled with foreign monks, and the murderous attempts they made on the life of their abbot seems to show that the community was made up of worthless members. The only other religious house of any importance which owed its foundation to Alfred was that at Winchester, and in consequence of the support it received from the king it seems to have enjoyed a larger share of prosperity. Still, it must be admitted that Alfred’s efforts to restore monasticism in England were a failure; and in this respect his restoration of learning differed from that of Charlemagne. The Frankish monarch found himself surrounded by institutions which only needed encouragement to become the fit instruments for his work. The monastic spirit was vigorous in France in the eighth century, and he had but to speak the word to see schools and libraries starting up in connection with the cathedrals and monasteries. But in England the case was far different, and hence the real good achieved by Alfred was effected less by the schools that he founded than by the books that he wrote.

It is truly astonishing to think that we should number among our authors a king who, when he came to the throne, could barely read and write, and who during the whole of his reign was overwhelmed with business of all kinds, and worn down by constant bodily sickness. If Charlemagne’s greatness had a more brilliant character, that of Alfred is perhaps more admirable when we remember how very few he had to assist him in his toils. He had to regenerate every branch of government, and to see to each department with his own eye. If Asser’s statement is to be received as literally correct, the king found himself called on to teach his officers even their most homely duties. In the midst of Danish incursions and daily infirmities, he had not only to guide the rudder of the State, but to instruct his goldsmiths and other artificers, his huntsmen, falconers, fowlers, and dog-keepers. Many useful arts he himself taught his people; they were so barbarised and discouraged by their long continued sufferings that agriculture was becoming neglected in many parts, and the king was forced to offer premiums to those who would apply themselves to it, and to distribute seed from the royal storehouses. He was likewise a great builder, and introduced the fashion of building brick and stone houses instead of wooden hovels, himself furnishing the necessary directions and designs. I need not speak of what he did as a lawgiver, or of the numberless social and political institutions which he created. He was at once head, eye, and hand to the kingdom, and found so few among his nobles capable of seconding him in his efforts for the good of his people, that we are told he had to hang forty-five of his judges for gross crimes in the execution of their duty. How in the midst of all these multifarious cares he contrived to find time for the liberal arts, is only to be explained when we remember that he was pre-eminently a good manager and an economist of time; not an economist in that sense of the word in which we understand one who sacrifices everything to business, for according to this practical view Alfred might certainly have made more of his time than he did; and his method of disposing of the eight hours a day which he devoted to prayer and study, would probably by some be regarded as anything but economical. A man who was in the habit of hearing mass and reciting the divine office daily, and of satisfying his devotion by frequent and stealthy visits to the church, at such times as he judged himself least likely to be observed by his attendants, seemed to be expending his few and precious leisure moments on duties not of obligation. But this holy prodigality of the time given to God is a speciality in our early Christian scholars on which it is profitable to dwell. It formed a part of their system, and was as remarkable in Alfred as it was in Bede. And however familiar the reader may be with the anecdotes of his life, some, perhaps, will not be equally familiar with them as they stand in their original garb, from which the religious element has been carefully pared away by each successive story-teller. I shall, therefore, make no apology for introducing so threadbare a subject as King Alfred and his horn lanthorns, persuaded that comparatively few of those who have heard of him as their inventor, have ever dreamt that they had any sort of connection with the spiritual side of our great king’s character. Here, then, is the story as it appears in the pages of Asser. After telling us of the many undertakings happily brought to completion by the king, and his incessant activity in the government of the realm, he continues: “Having set all these things in order, mindful of that saying of Holy Writ, ‘Let him who would give an alms begin with himself,’ he reflected on what he could offer to God of the service of his own mind and body, wishing to consecrate these to God as well as his exterior riches. So he promised, as far as infirmity, possibility, and means would permit, willingly and with all his might to give to God one-half of the service of his mind and body, both by day and night. However, as he could not any way reckon the night hours, by reason of the darkness, nor equally divide those of the day, because of the frequent rain and clouds, he began to think how he might, with God’s help, observe the tenor of his vow even until death. At last he hit on a useful and clever device. He ordered his chaplains to provide a sufficient quantity of wax, which when brought he caused to be weighed out in pennyweights. When seventy-two pennyweights of it had been measured out, he ordered his chaplains to make thereof six candles, all of equal dimensions, each candle being marked out into twelve inches of length. This being done the six candles were burnt day and night without intermission through the twenty-four hours before the holy relics of many saints, which he took with him wherever he went. But as sometimes the candle would not burn through a whole night and day up to the same hour at which they had been lighted the preceding evening (doubtless because of the violence of the winds, which often blew through the doors and windows of the church, or through the many chinks in the walls and roofs, and their hangings), and as thus they burnt out more quickly than they should have done, Alfred began to consider how he might prevent this effect of the wind, and caused a lanthorn to be beautifully constructed of wood and cow’s horn (for white cows’ horns carefully scraped are no less transparent than glass), and the candle, being placed in this lanthorn, shone as brightly without as it did within, unimpeded by the blasts of wind.”[117]

So, then, it was in fulfilment of a religious vow that King Alfred cast about to discover how he might accurately measure out his time, and his horn lanthorns were but the means he hit on to help him how to give the half of his service of mind and body, day and night, to God. Truly a vow worthy of a Christian hero, and right faithfully and heroically kept. Of course, in the time thus consecrated to God, he included those hours he devoted to study, for this with him was a religious exercise. How, indeed, he contrived to secure his eight hours a day of prayer and reading, is a mystery of the same nature with those marvellous facts which we meet with in the lives of the saints, whose days and nights seem to have had forty-eight hours in them, if we measure them by the amount of prayer and work they accomplished during their course. Alfred, whilst thus disposing of his time by vow, had, as it might seem, no time to himself. However, he made the most of what with most men are idle moments, and when not actually engaged in business was always reading or hearing others read. In his chamber he always had a book open before him, and never travelled without carrying his books with him. The attainment of wisdom, both human and Divine, was his absorbing desire; and Asser, after speaking of his incomparable affability and cheerfulness with others, and the great love and honour he showed to all those whom he drew around him, as well foreigners as natives, and his exceeding tenderness for his own children, and for the other youths whom he caused to be bred up in his palace, as though they were all members of his own family, goes on to say that he had no real consolation in any of these things, but that day and night he was devoured with one thought, and with what he calls an anxious sadness, which he poured out to his familiar friends; and this was his ceaseless desire that Almighty God would make him skilled in divine wisdom and in the liberal arts; so that he sought for wisdom even as did King Solomon, esteeming it to be preferable to glory and riches, and, like him, found them also together with her; according as it is written, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all other things shall be added to you.” This coupling together of divine wisdom and the liberal arts, as equal objects of solicitude, is easily understood when we remember the plan according to which human knowledge was then pursued, always in subordination to that which is divine, and mainly in connection with it. Intellectual pursuits not having yet been set free from their holy servitude to the faith, were not recognised as possessing any peculiar dangers; nay, rather, they seem invariably to have been regarded as something meritorious; and knowledge, far from being preached against as perilous to the soul, was ranked among those better gifts which a good man might earnestly covet.

Asser has related to us the circumstances which led to the king’s first applying himself to earnest study. Hitherto, as we have seen, he had been content with making his chaplains read to him, and when Asser first took up his residence at the Court of Leonaford, he also was employed to read to his royal master all the books he desired to become acquainted with, or that could be at that time procured. “One day, as we were sitting together,” he says, “conversing as was our wont, I chanced to recite to him a passage out of a certain book. He listened with great delight, and showing me the little book containing his prayers, which he always carried about with him, asked me to transcribe in it the passage I had quoted.” But every corner was found to be filled up, and Asser suggested writing out the quotation on a separate leaf. “We cannot tell,” he said, “whether we may not meet with other passages which you may like, and if so we should be glad to collect them.” Some fresh sheets were accordingly procured, and the same day three more quotations were entered, and so it went on till at last the new book was filled as completely as the old one; and this very day, being the feast of St. Martin, 885, Alfred, then thirty-six years of age, resolved without delay to commence the study of Latin, that he might himself be able to read and translate books into English for the benefit of his people.