Chapter XXIV (15)

Few particulars of his early life are known, save that he was the son of poor parents, that he was a native of Aurillac in Auvergne, and entered the monastery of that town when still a youth, about the end of the ninth century. He had already commenced his studies in grammar, when Borrel, count of Barcelona, came to the monastery on pilgrimage. The abbot, hearing from him of the excellent schools which then flourished in Spain, begged him to take back with him some of their young monks, and Gerbert accordingly accompanied the count into Spain, and was placed under Hatto, then Bishop of Vich, in Catalonia, where he formed an intimate friendship with Warin, abbot of Cusan, one of the most learned men of his time. From this account, the authenticity of which is beyond question, it appears that the popular notion which represents Gerbert as acquiring his learning among the Arabs is incorrect, and all the romantic stories connected with his acquisition of the mysterious Abacus vanish into thin air. Doubtless, the Christian schools of Spain profited not a little from their proximity to the Arabic universities, and the sciences of mathematics and astronomy were naturally those which were most successfully cultivated. Gerbert made extraordinary progress in both; and when he accompanied Borrel and Hatto on their next pilgrimage to Rome, Pope John XIII. was not long in discovering his talents. The liberty of the subject seems not to have been much understood in the tenth century, for when it became known that the young monk was an adept both in music and mathematics, neither of which sciences were then taught in Italy, the Pope lost no time in communicating the fact to the emperor Otho I., who conjured him not to permit his return to Spain. Gerbert was accordingly most affectionately kidnapped and sent without delay to Otho’s court, where being interrogated as to the extent of his knowledge, he replied that he was tolerably acquainted with mathematics, but was ignorant of logic, which science he greatly desired to study. It happened that at that time Gerard, archdeacon of Rheims, an excellent logician, had been sent as ambassador to Otho from Lothaire, king of France, and Gerbert at last won the emperor’s consent to his returning home with him, that he might teach mathematics and study logic in the schools of that city. Adalberon was then archbishop of Rheims, and he forthwith committed the studies of his cathedral school to the direction of the young professor. Richer gives a very precise account of the method he followed. He began with the “Dialectics of Aristotle,” going through and thoroughly explaining the propositions of each book. He particularly explained the Introduction of Porphyry; and passed on to the “Categories” and the “Topics” of the same author, as translated out of Greek into Latin by Cicero, and commented on in six books by the Consul Manlius. In the same way he lectured on the four books of Topical differences, two of Categorical syllogisms, one book of Divisions, and one of Definitions. And here the reader will not fail to observe that these logical lectures must have been the fruit of studies pursued not in Spain, but in France, for previous to Gerbert’s coming to Rheims, we have his own acknowledgment that he knew nothing of that science. After he had taken his scholars through this course, says Richer, he proceeded to initiate them into the art of rhetoric; and he set out on the principle, that in this branch of study a knowledge of the classical poets was essential. He therefore read and explained Virgil, Statius, and Terence; then the satirists, Juvenal, Persius, and Horace, and last of all, Lucan. After this, his pupils were exercised in disputation, which he taught with such art, that the art was never apparent; a thing, observes his biographer, which is held to be the perfection of oratory. Then he popularised the science of music;[141] and as to arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, he made these difficult studies easy and delightful. Richer devotes several pages to the description of the various instruments which he constructed, and by which he contrived to render the science of astronomy, as it were, sensible to the eyes of his scholars. A round wooden ball, _with its poles oblique to the horizon_, figured the world, the various astronomical and geographical phenomena being represented by other circles. In fact, from the minute description of the writer, we are obliged to conclude that Gerbert exhibited at his lectures two very passable specimens of the terrestrial and celestial globes. But the great boon, which he is commonly represented as bestowing on the European schools, was the introduction of that wonderful table, “in which nine ciphers represented all the numbers, and produced in their infinite combinations all multiplications and divisions.” This was the mystic _Abacus_, the foundation, no doubt, of our present system of numeration. It consisted of a tablet, on which three columns were marked out, sometimes in fixed lines, sometimes in sand sprinkled over its surface; and in these columns figures were arranged in units, tens and hundreds. The method in use for working out calculations, even with the assistance of this decimal system, as explained by Gerbert in several treatises, was, however, extremely intricate, though it was probably a vast improvement on the clumsy contrivances which had been resorted to by former scholars. How far, however, the Abacus is to be regarded as a new invention, appears more than doubtful. Its history has been made the subject of interesting modern researches, and the result seems to be that the system of numeration used and explained by Gerbert, contained nothing in it which had been unknown to Boëthius.[142] Nevertheless, he certainly seems to have elucidated and popularised the science of arithmetic, which from this epoch began to be more seriously studied.

It is not easy to convey any notion of the enthusiasm excited by Gerbert’s lectures, or the tide of scholars that flocked to him not only from every part of France, but from Germany, Italy, and the British Islands. Brucker is careful to repeat the old calumny, which represents the dull heads of his contemporaries as attributing his superior science to the effect of magic. “The knowledge of nature which Gerbert possessed,” he says, “so far surpassed that of his contemporaries, that they thought him possessed of magical powers; _and Benno, a cardinal who owed him a grudge for his opposition to the See of Rome_, invented a tale of his holding converse with the devil.” Alas for the accurate historian! this round assertion must go to keep company with that other from the same pen touching the trial of Polydore Vergil before the Inquisition. It was, doubtless, a temptation to represent the person who charged a man of genius with being a magician as one of the dull orthodox, moved to the malicious act by his zeal on behalf of the See of Rome, but the facts are exactly the contrary. Benno, the zealous cardinal who owed Gerbert a grudge for his opposition to the Pope, happened himself to be a schismatic and a partisan of the anti-pope; and instead of being a contemporary of Gerbert’s, he lived a century later, in the time of St. Gregory VII., and introduced this precious story in a writing, the express purpose of which was to defame the character of the Roman pontiffs.[143] In justice to Gerbert it must be added, that not only was he innocent of sorcery, but that he was altogether above all petty jealousy and self-seeking, and desired nothing so ardently as to communicate his discoveries to as many as wished to receive them. Not content with instructing his own scholars, he corresponded with the scholastics of Tours, Sens, Fleury, and Aurillac, and spared no pains or expense in the collection of his library. In this work he was generously assisted by his friends, scattered over the length and breadth of Europe. It is in his “Epistles” that we catch a glimpse of that prodigious activity of mind which took cognisance of all subjects, and never rested till it had sounded all to the depth. In one letter, we find him begging the loan of a Cæsar from his archbishop, and offering in exchange eight volumes of Boëthius and some excellent geometrical figures. In another, he solicits the monks of Aurillac to furnish him with a Spanish treatise on the arts of multiplication and division, and directs them in the work of correcting a manuscript of Pliny. Then, again, we find him writing on the medical science, to which he and his disciples directed a good deal of attention, and in which they followed the Greek masters. In fact, it was the diversified character of his acquirements that made Gerbert the wonder of the world in the eyes of his contemporaries. He knew all things, they said, and all things equally well. If this were an exaggeration, it is certain that he possessed the rare power of being able to direct his attention to a very wide range of studies, though natural philosophy was certainly his special attraction.

Whilst still presiding over his school, Gerbert produced several treatises on astronomy, mathematics, and geometry; on the formation of the astrolabe, the quadrant, and the sphere, as well as on rhetoric and logic. The monk Ditmar tells us that when at Magdeburg with his old pupil, Otho III., he made a clock, regulating it according to the movement of the polar star, which he observed through a kind of tube. Another writer speaks of certain hydraulic organs which he constructed, in which the wind and necessary movements were introduced by means of boiling water: and these obscure notices seem to indicate that wheeled clocks, the telescope, and the power of steam, were known by Gerbert fully three centuries before what has been considered their earliest discovery by our own Roger Bacon. Gerbert did not teach at Rheims alone. Crossing the Alps, he passed through most of the towns of Northern Italy, then subject to his great patron, Otho I. In 970 he also visited Rome in company with the bishop Adalberon, and at Pavia met the emperor, together with the celebrated Saxon, Otheric, whom we have seen filling the office of scholasticus in the episcopal school of Magdeburg. Otheric had up to that time enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest scholar of his age, and perhaps regarded himself somewhat in the light of a literary dictator. In the course of the previous year he had felt no little uneasiness at the daily increasing renown of the French professor, and had despatched one of his own Saxon pupils to Rheims to bring him an exact account of Gerbert’s method of dividing the sciences. The Saxon made an unsatisfactory report. It was Gerbert’s custom to represent physics and mathematics as equal and independent sciences. But Otheric’s disciple, whose head was none of the clearest, made him teach that physics were subordinate to mathematics, as the species to the genus. On this, Otheric decided that he knew nothing of philosophy, and proceeding to the court of the emperor, Otho I., he spoke to that effect before an assembly of learned men. Otho, who was himself passionately fond of these studies, was not satisfied, and resolved to sift the matter to the bottom. He therefore seized the occasion of Gerbert’s presence at Pavia to inaugurate a grand scientific tournament, and invited all the _savants_ of his empire to witness the dispute between the first scholar of France and the first scholar of Germany. He himself presided at the conference, and opened it with a brief allocution of his own, in which he very clearly explained the question in dispute. Then Otheric began his attack, first in words, and then in writing. The conference lasted the whole day, and Gerbert, who cited the authorities of Plato, Porphyry, and Boëthius, was still speaking in reply when the emperor gave the signal for the conclusion of the debate. Gerbert’s fame never appeared more illustrious, and he returned to France loaded with magnificent presents.

His after career was full of troubles; but in 990 the influence of his imperial pupil, Otho III., obtained his election to the see of Ravenna, and nine years later to the Apostolic chair. It was a great day in the annals of learning when the philosopher Gerbert became Pope Sylvester II., and one which brought no small satisfaction to the hearts of his pupils. Half the prelates and princes of Europe gloried in having called him master, and most of them did him credit. Among them were our own St. Ethelwold; Fulbert of Chartres, the oracle of his own time; and Robert, king of France, the son of Hugh Capet, and the most religious and learned sovereign of the age. King Robert was well skilled in all the humane sciences; but the love of music, which he had imbibed from his master, amounted to a passion. Even after his accession to the throne, he devoted no small part of his time to composing anthems, and motetts, to the indignation of his queen, Constance, who asked him once, if he must compose, to compose something upon _her_. Robert sat down and produced the hymn _O Constantia martyrum!_ and the queen, who fortunately understood nothing of Latin, was quite satisfied, imagining that her own perfections formed the subject of the poem. He often assisted in the choir of St. Denis, dressed in his royal robes, singing with the monks and directing the chant. Robert is said by his biographer always to have had a book in his hand, and to have carried the Psalter in his bosom. He once visited Rome, and during the Pope’s mass laid on the altar, as his offering, a folded packet, which from its great size and weight the attendants concluded to be gold. On opening it, however, they found it to be only a fair copy of his antiphon, _Cornelius Centurio_. Admiring the writing and the musical notes, as well as the genius and piety of the author, the Pope desired that thenceforward this antiphon should always be sung on the festival of St. Peter, of whose Office it still continues to form a part.

Not less learned was Gerbert’s other royal pupil, Otho of Germany, surnamed “the Wonder of the World,” whose early death prevented his making as much use of his advantages of education as was confidently expected by all who knew the singular excellence to which he had attained. Besides these illustrious disciples, Gerbert had others of every rank and calling. The great St. Ethelwold is said by many writers to have studied under him for a time, and the rapid development in England and elsewhere of mathematical studies at this period must certainly be assigned to the impulse given them by the teaching of the master of Rheims. His genius was emphatically _scientific_, and this is the character which we find impressed on the learning of most of his followers. Thus Richer, the monk from whose history most of the above particulars have been taken, was more particularly skilled in the science of medicine. As an instance of the solicitude which monks of the tenth century displayed in the pursuit of knowledge, I may refer to the very curious account which he gives us of the perilous journey he once undertook, for the purpose of perusing a single book on his favourite science. “It was in the year 951,” says Richer, “when my mind, being much and deeply engaged in the study of literature, I had long entertained an ardent desire of having the opportunity of learning the logic of Hippocrates of Cos. One day I chanced to meet in the city of Rheims a horseman coming from Chartres. Asking him who he was, and wherefore he had come hither, he replied that he was a messenger from Heribrand, a clerk of Chartres, and that he wished to speak to one Richer, a monk of St. Rémi. As soon as I heard my friend’s name, and the subject of his message, I told the stranger that I was the person he was in quest of; whereupon, having embraced one another, he gave me a letter, which I found was an invitation to come to Chartres and peruse the ‘Aphorisms.’ I was much rejoiced at this; wherefore, taking a servant with me, I determined on accompanying the horseman back to Chartres. The only assistance I received from my abbot was a loan of one of the draft horses. Without money, or even a change of clothes, and destitute of every necessary for the journey, I set out and reached Orbais, where I was not only delighted with the conversation of the abbot, but greatly assisted by his noble gifts, so that next day I was able to get on as far as Meaux. On entering the woods, however, with my two companions, we were involved in several disasters; for, deceived by its wild and broken openings, on coming to a place where two ways met, we took the wrong turning, and were led six leagues out of our road.

“By the time we passed Château Thierry my cart-horse, which had at first seemed a sort of Bucephalus, began to lag on the road as lazily as if he had been a donkey. The sun had been sinking for some time, and the rain was falling fast. At this moment the horse, worn out with fatigue, sank under the lad who was riding him, and the poor beast expired, as though struck by lightning. This happened when we were about six miles from the city of Meaux. My agitation and anxiety at this disaster may be well conceived; the boy, quite inexperienced in such emergencies, lay helpless on the road, by the side of the dead horse. There lay the luggage also, with no one to carry it; the rain was pouring down from a dark and cloudy sky, and the sun was just on the horizon. By God’s goodness a prudent thought, however, suggested itself to my mind. I left the boy on the road with the baggage, telling him what he ought to say if questioned by travellers, urging him not to yield to any inclination to sleep. Then, accompanied by the horseman from Chartres, I set out for Meaux. There was scarcely light to see the bridge; and on examining it, a new misfortune presented itself. It was so broken, and had such enormous holes in it, that even by day it could hardly have been crossed in safety. The Chartres horseman, however, here showed himself a ready man. After vainly searching for a boat, he returned to the bridge, and, with the help of God, succeeded in getting the horses over it. In some places he covered the huge holes with his shield, so as to support the feet of the animals; in others he put the separated planks close together, and what with stooping, and what with holding himself erect, and now keeping the beasts together, and now separating from them, he contrived to get over in safety. It was a dreadful night, and all around was buried in darkness when I reached the church of St. Faro, where I was hospitably received by the monks, and refreshed with kind words and abundance of food. The horseman was at once sent back with other steeds, again passed the dangerous bridge, and proceeded to search for the poor boy, whom we had left on the road. It was the second watch of the night when he came up with him. He at once brought him to the city, but fearful of attempting a third time to cross the bridge they determined on passing the night in a poor cabin, and at break of day appeared at the gates of the monastery, half dead with hunger. Food was immediately given them, and corn and straw supplied to the horses.

“Leaving the dismounted boy with Abbot Augustin (of St. Faro), I hastened on to Chartres with the horseman, whence I sent back horses, who brought the lad back from Meaux. When he was come, and my mind was thus set at rest, I sat down at once to the earnest study of the ‘Aphorisms’ of Hippocrates, together with Master Heribrand, a man as much distinguished for his politeness as for his great learning. But as in these ‘Aphorisms’ I only learnt the premonitory symptoms of diseases, and as this knowledge did not satisfy me, I desired also to study another book showing the concordance between Hippocrates, Galen, and Suranus. This also I obtained from Heribrand, who was perfectly well skilled in the science to which he devoted his time. Indeed, there was nothing in medicine, pharmacy, botany, or surgery unknown to him.” Richer’s appreciation of his friend’s learning may possibly have been exaggerated; but who can fail to admire his perseverance in overcoming such difficulties as a journey then presented, with the simple view of increasing his stock of scientific knowledge by the perusal of one precious book?

Allusion has been made to the improvements introduced by Gerbert in the study of music. A little later a more important addition was made to the same science by Guy, a monk of Pomposa, commonly called Guy of Arezzo, from the city which gave him birth. He had been educated from the age of eight years in the monastery of Pomposa; and being well skilled in music, was employed in teaching the ecclesiastical chant to the children brought up in the house. But the immense difficulties of his task induced him to consider whether some method of facilitating the notation of music might not be devised. As yet, the sounds of the musical scale were only represented by the first seven letters of the alphabet, or by notes, as was the custom in the abbeys of Corby and St. Gall, which showed indeed the relative length and value of each tone, but did not render their succession sensible to the eye. After seeking for a long time for some easy and precise system, Guy one day recognised in the chant to which the hymn of St. John Baptist was ordinarily sung, an ascending diatonic scale, in which the first syllable of each line occupied one note: _Ut queant laxis_--_Resonare fibris_--_Mira gestorum_--_Famuli tuorum_,--_Solve polluti_--_Labii reatum_,--_Sancte Ioannes_. He applied himself to teach this chant to his pupils, and to render them familiar with the diatonic succession of the syllables, _ut_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_, _sol_, and _la_. Next, he arranged the notes on lines and intervals, and thus produced the musical staff with its proper clefs. By means of these improvements he found himself able, in a few months, to teach a child as much as a man, under the ancient system, would have had difficulty in learning in the course of many years. However, such a storm of jealousy arose against him on the score of his discovery, that he found himself obliged to leave the monastery; and accordingly, in 1024, he travelled to Rome, where Pope John XIX. warmly received both him and his newly-invented gamut.

“The Pope,” he says, “having received me kindly, conversed with me for a long time, asking many questions, and turning over the leaves of my antiphonarium, seemed to think it a sort of prodigy. He conned its rules, and would not rise from his seat till he had tried to learn a verse which he had never yet heard sung, and to his great astonishment found himself able to do it.” Guy was not allowed to leave Rome till he had promised to return the next winter, and give a regular course of musical instructions to the Pope and his clergy. The sunshine of Papal favour soon dissipated the storm, but the humble religious was no way puffed up by his triumph. He only rejoiced at being able to spread the knowledge of a discovery which would be useful to others. “The designs of Providence,” he writes, “are obscure, and falsehood is sometimes suffered to oppress the truth; God so ordering it lest, puffed up with self-confidence, we should suffer loss. For then only is what we do good and useful when we refer all we do to Him who made us. God inspiring me with the knowledge, I have made it known to as many as I could, to the end that if I, and those who have gone before me, have learnt the _Cantus_ with extreme difficulty, those who come after me, doing so with greater facility, may pray for me and my fellow-labourers, that we may obtain eternal life and the remission of our sins.”

At the very time when Gerbert was astonishing the world by the marvels of his genius, a simple nun of Gandersheim had attained a degree of literary excellence, which is the more remarkable as it was exclusively acquired within the enclosure of her own convent. The foundation of this convent had taken place at the same time with that of New Corby, and its object had been specially to provide for the education of the Saxon ladies. Peculiar attention was therefore directed to maintaining its school in a due state of efficiency, and learned traditions were always kept up among the nuns. Having fallen into decay in the ninth century, it was restored by Count Lindolph, whose daughter, Hathmuda, became abbess in 856. Her life has been left, written by her brother Agius, or Egbert. Hathmuda was a great lover of letters. “From a child,” says her brother, “she cared nothing at all for fine clothes, head-dresses, ribbons, combs, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, handkerchiefs, girdles, and scents, the possession and wearing of which stirs up the ambition of so many women.” She preferred to pray and to study, and “the lessons to which others had to be forced by stripes she willingly applied herself to, giving herself up to them with indefatigable ardour.” When she became abbess she was most desirous to keep up those sacred studies for which the monastery had ever been so famous. “She insisted on the study of the Scriptures, and those who applied themselves to reading she greatly loved, but did not admit to equal familiarity such as herein showed themselves to be slothful.” Her cares were amply rewarded, and the school of Gandersheim produced a succession of excellent teachers, among whom was Hroswitha, the fourth abbess, who died in 906, and was the authoress of a treatise on logic, much esteemed among the learned of her own time.[144]

It is of a namesake of this fair logician that we are now about to speak, Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, as she is called. She was born in the year 940, and was brought up in the convent school, where she studied Greek and Latin, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the other liberal arts. We are often told that expressions like these, however magnificent they look on paper, would dwindle into insignificance could we test their value by the real amount of learning which they represent. With regard to Hroswitha, however, the true nature of her erudition is not left to conjecture. She has left behind her writings which have attracted the favourable notice even of modern critics, who agree in declaring that the Latin poems of this obscure nun of the tenth century are marvels of classical taste and poetic genius. Besides a panegyric on the three Othos, she wrote eight poems on various religious subjects, some of them being taken from the life of our Lord, and some from the legends of the saints; and seven prose dramas in the style of Terence, being tales of holy women, and having for their subject the praise of chastity. While praising the delicacy of the sentiments and the correctness of the style, her critics observe that these dramas afford incidental evidence of her perfect familiarity with the sciences of music, astronomy, and dialectics, as then taught in the schools. In one of them she introduces a sort of apology for her own learning, which has a certain feminine grace about it, more charming than all her logic. It occurs in the drama of “Paphnutius,” where, after a philosophic discussion on the art of music, one of the disciples of the saint is made to ask him:

“Whence do you derive all this knowledge?” and he replies, “It is but a little drop that I have gathered from the ever-flowing sources of science; and now I desire to share it with you.”

_Dis._ “Thanks to your goodness; nevertheless that admonition of the apostle terrifies me: ‘God hath chosen the foolish of this world to confound the wise.’”

_Paph._ “Foolish and wise will alike be confounded before God, if they do what is evil.”

_Dis._ “That cannot be denied.”

_Paph._ “How, I pray you, can the arts and sciences be better employed than in the praise of Him who has created all things that we can know, and who furnishes us at once both with the matter and the instruments of our knowledge?”

_Dis._ “Certainly, that is the best way to use science.”

_Paph._ “It is; for the more we know of the admirable laws by which God regulates the weight, number, and proportion of all things, the more our hearts will burn with love of Him.”

Where shall we find more admirable teaching than this on the vexed question of the danger of intellectual pursuits? Dangerous only, as Hroswitha justly argues, when we cease to refer them to Him, who, as she so beautifully expresses it, “furnishes us at once with the matter and the instruments of our knowledge;” but good, holy, and greatly to be desired, when, by supplying us with a more perfect knowledge of Him, they fill our hearts with His love. That this was her own case, we may gather from the modest preface which heads her first collection of poems.

“Here,” she says, “is a little book, simple in style, though it has cost the writer no small trouble and application. I offer it to the criticism of those kind judges who are disposed rather to put an author right than to find fault with him. For I willingly acknowledge that it contains many errors as well against the rules of composition as those of prosody; but methinks one who frankly confesses her defects, merits to meet with a ready pardon and a friendly correction. If it be thought amiss that I have taken some of my subjects from books, considered by some to be apocryphal, I must explain that this is not the result of presumption but of ignorance, for when I began my work I was not aware that they were held as of doubtful authority. As soon as I learned that this was the case, I ceased to use them. For the rest I claim indulgence, in proportion as I feel a want of confidence in myself. Deprived of most resources of study, and still young, I have been forced to work in my rustic solitude far from the help of the learned. It has been alone and unaided that I have produced my little work, by dint of repeated compositions and corrections. The main substance I have gathered from the Holy Scriptures, which were taught me in this convent of Gandersheim, first by the wise and blessed mistress, Richardis, and the religious who succeeded her in her office: and then by the excellent Gerberga, of royal birth, under whose government I am now living. Younger than me in years, but older in knowledge, she deigned to form my mind by the reading of good authors, in which she had also been instructed by learned mistresses. Although the art of making verses is difficult, specially for a woman, I have ventured, trusting in the Divine aid, to treat the subjects of this book in heroic verse. My only object in this labour has been to prevent the feeble talent committed to my keeping from growing rusty. And I desired by the hammer of devotion to compel it to give forth some sweet sounds to the praise of God. Wherefore, dear reader, if thou thinkest according to God, thou wilt know how to supply what is wanting in this book; and if thou findest anything good in it, refer it to God only, and attribute nothing to me but the faults; without, however, reproaching me for them too severely, but excusing them with that indulgence which a frank avowal deserves.”

Hroswitha’s humility had to stand the test of flattery from the literary world, and it stood it well. There are phrases scattered through her writings which evince how accurately she had gauged the shallowness of intellectual vanity, and how little hold it had upon her heart. “Often enough when curiosity is satisfied,” she writes, “we find nothing but sadness.” In the epistle prefixed to her prose dramas, she acknowledges the approbation which she has received from the learned with an unaffected simplicity. “I cannot sufficiently wonder,” she says, “that you who are so well versed in philosophy should judge the humble work of a simple woman worthy of your commendation. But when in your charity you congratulate me, it is the Dispenser of that grace which works in me that you praise, believing as you do that the little knowledge I possess is superior to the weakness of my sex. Hitherto, I have hardly ventured to show my rustic little productions to any one, but reassured by your opinion, I shall now feel more confidence in writing, if God give me the power. Yet I feel myself drawn by the two opposite sentiments of joy and fear. I rejoice from my heart to see God and His grace praised in me, but I fear lest men should think me greater than I am. I do not mean to deny that, aided by Divine grace, I have attained to a certain knowledge of the arts, for I am a creature capable of instruction as others are; but I confess that left to my own strength I should know nothing.”

These extracts require no comment. They prove something more than the solid nature of the studies pursued in the convent school of Gandersheim. How skilfully had the teachers of Hroswitha contrived, whilst directing her intellectual labours, to preserve her womanly modesty, her almost childish naïveté, and her deep religious humility! Better things were included in their scheme of education than a mere knowledge of the liberal arts; the wisdom “whose beginning is the desire of discipline,” and into which “no defiled thing cometh.” Under their training the genius of the young poetess was guarded by the cloak of humility from the cunning moth of pride; and whilst we are amazed at her learned attainments, her modesty and candour at the same time conquer our hearts.

And with this agreeable picture we will close our present chapter, trusting that the nun of Gandersheim may be allowed to have shed something of beauty and fragrance over the rugged annals of the Iron Age.[145]

_CHAPTER XI._

THE SCHOOLS OF BEC.

A.D. 1000 TO 1135.

With the close of the tenth century we may be said to have taken our last farewell of the Dark Ages. Already on the horizon we have seen the dawn of a period of greater intellectual light, which ere long is to usher in the blaze of a splendid era. And yet it must be owned, it is with something of regret that we take our leave of those remote centuries, and with the wish of the poet in our hearts that “their good darkness were our light.” The approaching sunrise puts out the quiet stars; and in the bustle of intellectual life into which we are about to enter, our heart misgives us lest something of the charm which has hitherto hung round the history of the Christian Schools may perchance be lost. Already a new element has appeared in our studies, more easily felt than described. The career of Gerbert, however brilliant, does not leave on the mind the same impression as that of Bede; we feel a predominance of the scholastic, over the religious character; and we think of him less as a monk than as a mathematician. This element will now be far more frequently met with, and what is worse, it will in many cases be found accompanied by the ugly shapes of pride, love of novelty, and self-interest, too often finding their final result in heresy and open unbelief. The design of these pages is not to paint a series of fancy pictures, but to study past ages so as to establish in our mind a true standard of Christian Scholarship; to distinguish the precious from the vile, the false lights of the intellect from those kindled at the altar fire; and it will therefore be necessary to put forth some of these unhappy examples in a broad and honest daylight, that we may better see what those principles are, the forgetfulness of which renders intellectual culture dangerous to faith.

Hitherto we have heard but little of the perils of the intellect. Learning, in the eyes of the old monastics, was the twin sister of prayer. They would almost as soon have thought of apprehending danger in their Psalter as in their grammar, and indeed the end for which they used them both was substantially the same. Among the characters named in the foregoing pages, how few appear disfigured with the stains of vanity or self-interest! Scotus Erigena indeed, is a notable example of the self-sufficient rationalist, and Otheric of Magdeburg is said to have died of disappointment at not obtaining a bishopric; but such instances are rare exceptions; and though others doubtless existed, they do not appear on the surface of history, and give no character to the scholastic profession. As a class, the pedagogues of the Dark Ages were the most disinterested of men. Poverty was recognised, not as the accident of a student’s life, but as one of its most honourable features, and it was reckoned as something monstrous and disgraceful for a man to sell his learning for gold. This, of course, arose from the religious light in which learned pursuits were regarded; they were spiritual wares, the sale of which was held almost as simoniacal as the sale of a benefice. If instances occasionally occur of any such sordid practices, they are named by historians with a kind of horror; and Launoy quotes the reproof addressed by the abbot Baldric to a certain scholar of Angers, who had gone over to England to teach grammar for the sake of “cursed gold,” and whose sudden death was believed by his acquaintances to have been sent in just punishment of his sin. This tradition survived, in theory at least, for many centuries, and in 1362 the Professors of Paris University are found pleading their inability to pay the expenses of a lawsuit then pending, “it being their profession as scholars to have no wealth.” In Spain there was a proverb which described a scholar as rich in letters, and ragged in everything else, and Chaucer only produced the current type of a student when he represented his Clerk of Oxenford as “full hollow and threadbare.”

Now, however, a change passes over the picture; scholasticism is about to appear less as a vocation than as a profession, and a profession sought with the view of earning for him who embraces it, honour at least, and perhaps also the more solid advantages of worldly fortune and rich preferment. Some writers have supposed that the promotion of Gerbert to the Papal dignity was one cause of this change, leading others to hope that a brilliant scholastic career might chance to prove the high road to wealth and dignities. Rohrbacher recognises in the rising spirit of the age distinct traces of an infernal agency. “Hitherto,” he says, “heresy had made no great progress in the West. But in the eleventh century the Spirit of Darkness, seeing its empire confirmed in the East by the great apostacy of Mahomet and the formal schism of the Greeks, seems to have transferred the war from the East to the West. From that epoch down to our own time, the great revolt against God and His Church has never ceased to appear in one form or another. Its two principal sources have been Pride and Luxury, the corruption of the intellect, and the corruption of the heart. Hence, in princes, the attempt to usurp authority over the Church: hence, among men of learning, the mania for innovation, together with that superficial vanity which urged Berengarius to his fall; which Luther and Calvin erected into a principle under the name of Reform, and to which Voltaire and Rousseau put the key-stone under the title of Philosophy.”[146] Fleury also supports this view, and speaking of the swarm of heresies that sprang up suddenly in the eleventh century, sees in the fact a fulfilment of the prophecy in the Apocalypse that Satan should be loosed after being bound for a thousand years. The whole of Christendom was possessed at the time with a vague foreboding that an era had opened big with melancholy change, and this presentiment of evil naturally enough took the shape among the vulgar, of the belief that the world was about to come to an end.

It is at this precise epoch that we first begin to meet with teachers who were neither monks nor clerics. Free from the restraints of cloisteral discipline, these new scholastics were professors of grammar and rhetoric, and they were nothing more. The saintly rule of a Benedict or a Columbanus had not moulded them to habits of humility and obedience; they taught, and they made profit by their teaching; and he who taught the most attractive novelty drew most pupils, and made his teaching answer the best. It was a question in which worldly lucre, rather than the interests of souls, was at stake, and to be successful it became necessary for the teacher to adapt himself to the tastes and humours of his audience. Hence arose a race of pedants who had nothing in common with the elder scholastics, and who bore a peculiar stamp of self-sufficiency and arrogance, which impresses them all with a sort of family likeness, and carries back one’s thoughts to the sophists of the pagan schools.

The first notice which we find of a scholastic who was neither monk nor canon, occurs about the year 1024, when Rodolphus Glaber, a monk of Cluny, mentions in his chronicle a certain Witgard, a grammarian by profession, who was so bewitched by the study of the Latin poets, that he fancied he beheld in a vision Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal, who thanked him for the affection he bore them, and promised him immortality. The poor man’s head was so turned with this idea, that he immediately began to teach that whatever was contained in the poets, was to be believed _de fide_, and strange to say, not a few were found to listen to him. He was cited before the archbishop of Ravenna, and put to silence, after creating a good deal of disturbance. I merely name him here as an indication of the new class of men into whose hands the work of teaching was beginning to fall; a far more important illustration of the subject is to be found in the history of Berengarius. Before speaking of him, however, something must be said of his master, Fulbert, the pupil of Gerbert, and the restorer of the cathedral school of Chartres. Though reckoned among French worthies, he seems to have been a Roman by birth, and received his early education in a very humble school. However, he afterwards studied under Gerbert, and under his direction the school of Chartres rose to such an eminence, that it rivalled that of Rheims, and Fulbert may be said to have become preceptor to almost every man of letters who distinguished himself in France during the eleventh century.

We gather from the catalogue of the Chartres library, that Fulbert had inherited no inconsiderable portion of his master Gerbert’s scientific tastes. We find in it treatises on the properties of the sphere and the globe, on the astrolabe, on the measurement of superficies, and on land measurement, together with a Greek and Arabic alphabet. Fulbert himself had the rare accomplishment of Hebrew learning, as may be seen by his “Treatise against the Jews.” His disciples went forth from his school to restore sacred studies all over France, and the honour of being a pupil of him whom they lovingly termed “Father Fulbert,” was claimed by a long list of excellent masters, every one of whom might be described in the terms with which Adelman has sketched the character of Rainald of Tours; as “ready with the tongue, fluent with the pen, and mighty in grammar.” “As to thee, Father Fulbert,” he exclaims, “when I attempt to speak of thee, my words fail, my heart melts, my eyes break forth into weeping.”[147] Fulbert was, in fact, worthy of any praise that could be bestowed on him, and so thoroughly convinced of the sacredness of the office of teaching, that even after he became Bishop of Chartres in 1016, he continued to direct the studies of his episcopal school. He was regarded as the prelate of his time most thoroughly versed in ecclesiastical discipline, which he caused to be exactly practised. As a writer, he is best known by his letters, which display a wonderful delicacy of thought. He was knit in bonds of close friendship with St. Odilon of Cluny, to whom he confided his fears, lest he might not have been truly called to fill an office, the solemn responsibilities of which almost overwhelmed him. “Yet,” he adds, “remembering my own nothingness, and that without birth or fortune I have been raised to this chair like a beggar from the dunghill, I am forced to believe it is the will of God.”

A teacher of this temper was sure to have it at heart to impress on the souls of his disciples a love of humility. It was the favourite virtue of this truly great man, who was perfectly aware that the elevation of Gerbert to the pontifical dignity had given rise to a sentiment of ambition among men of letters, from which he boded evil. He was therefore earnest in warning his pupils to avoid novelties and to walk in the old footpaths; and his keen sagacious eye rested with uneasiness on one young face among the scholars who were accustomed to gather round him in his little garden and listen to his affectionate exhortations, as children hang on the words of a venerated parent. Berengarius, for it was he, had begun his studies in the school of St. Martin of Tours, whence he passed to Chartres, in company with his friend Adelman. He had a brilliant rather than a solid genius, a ready tongue which made the most of what he knew, but withal a certain affectation in speech and manner which betrayed a fund of secret vanity. Fulbert knew him well, and often spoke to him even with tears, conjuring him never to forsake the beaten track, but to hold fast to the traditions of the fathers. In 1028 the good bishop, then lying on his death-bed, called all his disciples around him to bid them farewell, but seeing Berengarius among the rest, he motioned for him to withdraw, for, he said, “I see a dragon by his side.”

His prognostics were too soon fulfilled. Berengarius returned to Tours, where his reputation for scholarship induced the canons to commit their school to his management; and even after he was appointed archdeacon of Angers, he continued to lecture at Tours, earning the reputation of immense learning, eloquence, and skill in grammar and philosophy. All, however, were not equally pleased with the character of his teaching, and some hesitated not bluntly to avow their belief that the brilliant archdeacon was somewhat shallow, and that his philosophy verged on sophistry. He had a way of mystifying the simplest subjects by a display of learned words; affected new and startling definitions, and had some tricks for practising on the minds of his audience, which gave offence to many. He chose that his chair should be raised higher than the others, had a pompous way of walking, spoke in a slow and particularly plaintive tone of voice, and would sit with his head wrapped up in his mantle, like an ancient philosopher, absorbed, as it seemed, in some very profound meditation. In short, he was one of those who aim at what Bacon calls “being wise by signs;” did trifles in a solemn way, and so imposed on the simpler sort who thought him a prodigy; a sentiment in which, it is needless to say, he himself fully concurred.

Let us leave this pompous personage for a while to enjoy the admiration of his numerous disciples, whilst we cast our eyes on the schools of law which were just then springing up at Bologna, where a young student of Pavia, Lanfranc by name, was distinguishing himself by his skill as a writer and an advocate. On leaving Bologna, he is thought to have taught jurisprudence for some time in his native city, and then crossing the Alps, he came into France, bringing with him no other riches than his learned reputation. Arriving at Tours, his name reached the ears of Berengarius, who at once sought him out and challenged him to a public disputation. The end aimed at was evidently the glorification of the archdeacon, who counted on an easy victory over the young stranger, which might help to swell his reputation. Never were expectations more completely disappointed. Berengarius was worsted in his arguments, and obliged to retire with ruffled feathers; far from increasing his renown, he had suffered a severe defeat, and in the eyes of wounded vanity, defeat is the bitterest of mortifications. His followers were astonished to find their master was not infallible, and began to transfer their admiration to his successful rival. Lanfranc, meanwhile, proceeded to Avranches, where he opened a school which was soon thronged by deserters from that of Berengarius. It was a crisis in his life, for his character was one which was as likely as not to have yielded to the perils that surrounded him. If free from the vanity which devoured his rival, his proud and impetuous temper was at that time quite as little under the restraint of religious principle; his devotion to science was perhaps more thoroughly the genuine enthusiasm of a scholar who loved learning for its own sake, rather than for the meed of human applause, but it was as yet wholly unsanctified by a higher and diviner intention. Nevertheless, there was a candour and uprightness of soul about him which the other did not possess, and when the call of grace sounded in his ear, he responded to it with noble generosity.

One day as he was journeying from Avranches to Rouen, he had to pass through a forest, where he was attacked by robbers, who having stripped him of all he possessed, tied him to a tree, wrapped his hood about his head so as to muffle his cries for help, and then abandoned him. Left thus during the entire night exposed to danger of death from the wolves, or the more lingering tortures of starvation, Lanfranc in his extremity bethought him of his prayers, but the learned advocate and philosopher found himself unable to call to his remembrance the simplest form of devotion. That one fact spoke volumes to his conscience; during the long hours of that terrible night he had time bitterly to mourn over the years lost in pursuits, the vanity of which he had never known till now; and ere morning dawned he solemnly vowed, if God should deliver him from his danger, to dedicate the remainder of his life to the task of reparation.

At break of day some passing travellers discovered and unbound him, and Lanfranc’s first request was to be led to the nearest monastery. There was by this time no want of religious houses in the duchy of Normandy. The century that had elapsed since the conversion of Duke Rollo, had witnessed a very general restoration of the monastic institute in that province, and many of the great abbeys, such as Jumièges, St. Wandrille, Fécamp, and Bernai, had risen from their ashes, with even greater splendour than they had exhibited before their destruction. But it was to none of these that the good Providence of God guided the steps of Lanfranc. In the year 1039 the little house of Bec had been founded by a pious Norman knight named Herluin, who himself became the first abbot. Nothing could be ruder or simpler than the commencements of this famous abbey. Herluin was poor and unlettered, he and his monks had to live hardly by the labour of their hands, their ordinary food was bread made with bran, and vegetables, with muddy water brought from a well two miles off. At the very moment when Lanfranc presented himself, the abbot was superintending the construction of an oven, and was kneading the bread with somewhat dirty hands, for he had come fresh from the labour of the field. At another time the sight would have disgusted the refined and fastidious Lombard, but at that moment his heart felt an appetite for abasement, and he promptly offered himself, and was received as one of the little community.